Текст книги "Tarzan. Complete Collection"

Автор книги: Edgar Burroughs

CHAPTER 14

The trail of Atan Thome's safari was not difficult to follow, and the Gregory party made good time along it without encountering any obstacles to delay them. The general mistrust of Wolff, the doubts concerning Magra's position among them, and the moody jealousy of Lavac added to the nervous strain of their dangerous existence; and the hardships they had undergone had told upon their nerves; so that it was not always a happy company that trudged the day's trails. Only Tarzan remained serene and unruffled.

It was midday, and they had halted for a brief rest, when Tarzan suddenly became alert. "Natives are coming," he said. "There are a number of them, and they are very close. The wind just changed and brought their scent to me."

"There they are now," said Gregory. "Why, it's another safari. There are porters with packs, but I see no white men."

"It is your safari, bwana," said Ogabi. "It is the safari that was to have met you at Bonga."

"Then is must be the one that Thorne stole," said d'Arnot, "but I don't see Thorne."

"Another mystery of darkest Africa, perhaps," suggested Helen.

Mbuli, leading his people back toward Bonga, halted in surprise as he saw the little party of whites, then, seeing that his men greatly outnumbered them, he came forward, swaggering a little.

"Who are you?" demanded Tarzan.

"I am Mbuli," replied the chief.

"Where are your bwanas? You have deserted them."

"Who are you, white man, to question Mbuli?" demanded the native, arrogantly, the advantage of numbers giving him courage.

"I am Tarzan," replied the ape-man.

Mbuli wilted. All the arrogance went out of him. "Forgive, bwana," he begged. "I did not know you, for I have never seen you before."

"You know the law of the safari," said Tarzan. "Those who desert their white masters are punished."

"But my people would not go on," explained Mbuli. "When we came to Tuen-Baka, they would go no farther. They were afraid, for Tuen– Baka is taboo."

"You took all their equipment," continued the ape-man, glancing over the loads that the porters had thrown to the ground. "Why, you even took their food."

"Yes, bwana; but they needed no food—they were about to die —Tuen-Baka is taboo. Also, Bwana Thorne lied to us. We had agreed to serve Bwana Gregory, but he told us Bwana Gregory wished us to accompany him instead."

"Nevertheless, you did wrong to abandon him. To escape punishment, you will accompany us to Tuen-Baka—we need porters and askaris."

"But my people are afraid," remonstrated Mbuli.

"Where Tarzan goes, your people may go," replied the ape-man. "I shall not lead them into danger needlessly."

"But, bwana—"

"But nothing," snapped Tarzan; then he turned to the porters. "Up packs! You are going back to Tuen-Baka."

The porters grumbled; but they picked up their packs and turned back along the trail they had just traveled, for the will of the white man was supreme; and, too, the word had spread among them that this was the fabulous Tarzan who was half man and half demon.

For three days they trekked back along the trail toward Ashair, and at noon on the seventh day the safari broke from the forest beside a quiet river. The terrain ahead was rocky and barren. Above low hills rose the truncated cone of an extinct volcano, a black, forbidding mass.

"So that is Tuen-Baka," said d'Arnot. "It is just an old volcano, after all."

"Nevertheless, the boys are afraid," said Tarzan. "We shall have to watch them at night or they'll desert again. I'm going on now to see what lies ahead."

"Be careful," cautioned d'Arnot. "The place has a bad reputation, you know."

"I am always careful," replied Tarzan.

D'Arnot grinned. "Sometimes you are about as careful of yourself as a Paris taxi driver is of pedestrians."

Tarzan followed a dim trail that roughly paralleled the river, the same trail that Lal Taask and Atan Thome had followed. As was his custom, he moved silently with every sense alert. He saw signs of strange animals and realized that he was in a country that might hold dangers beyond his experience. In a small patch of earth among the boulders and rough lava rocks, he saw the imprint of a great foot and caught faintly the odor of a reptile that had passed that way recently. He knew, from the size of the footprint, that the creature was large; and when he heard ahead of him an ominous hissing and roaring, he guessed that the maker of the footprint was not far off. Increasing his speed, but not lessening his caution, he moved forward in the direction of the sound; and coming to the edge of a gully, looked down to see a strangely garbed white warrior facing such a creature as Tarzan had never seen on earth. Perhaps he did not know it, but he was looking at a small edition of the terrible Tyrannosaurus Rex, that mighty king of carnivorous reptiles which ruled the earth eons ago. Perhaps the one below him was tiny compared with his gigantic progenitor; but he was still a formidable creature, as large as a full grown bull.

Tarzan saw in the warrior either a hostage or a means of securing information concerning this strange country and its inhabitants. If the dinosaur killed the man, he would be quite valueless; so, acting as quickly as he thought, he leaped from the cliff just as the brute charged. Only a man who did not know the meaning of fear would have taken such a risk.

The warrior facing the great reptile with his puny spear was stunned to momentary inaction when he saw an almost naked bronzed giant drop, apparently from the blue, onto the back of the monster he had been facing without hope. He saw the stranger's knife striking futilely at the armored back, as the man clung with one arm about the creature's neck. He could have escaped; but he did not, and as Tarzan found a vulnerable spot in the dinosaur's throat and drove his knife home again and again, he rushed in to the ape-man's aid.

The huge reptile, seriously hurt, screamed and hissed as it threw itself about in vain effort to dislodge the man-thing from its back; but, hurt though it was, like all the reptilia it was tenacious of life and far from overcome.

As Tarzan's knife found and severed the creature's jugular vein, the warrior drove his spear through the savage heart, and with a last convulsive shudder it crashed to the ground, dead; then the two men faced one another across the great carcass.

Neither knew the temper or intentions of the other; and both were on guard as they sought to find a medium of communication more satisfactory than an improvised sign language. At last the warrior hit upon a tongue that both could speak and understand, a language he and his people had learned from the Negroes they had captured and forced into slavery—Swahili.

"I am Thetan of Thobos," he said. "I owe you my life, but why did you come to my aid? Are we to be friends or foes?"

"I am Tarzan," said the ape-man. "Let us be friends."

"Let us be friends," agreed Thetan. "Now tell me how I may repay you for what you have done for me."

"I wish to go to Ashair," said Tarzan.

The warrior shook his head. "You have asked me one thing that I cannot do for you," he said. "The Asharians are our enemies. If I took you there, we'd both be imprisoned and destroyed; but perhaps I can persuade my king to let you come to Thobos; then, when the day comes that we conquer Ashair, you may enter the city with us. But why do you wish to go to Ashair?"

"I am not alone," said Tarzan, "and in my party are the father and sister of a man we believe to be a prisoner in Ashair. It is to obtain his release that we are here."

"Perhaps my King will let you all come to Thobos," said Thetan, rather dubiously. "Such a thing would be without precedent; but because you have saved the life of his nephew and because you are enemies of Ashair, he may grant permission. At least it will do no harm to ask him."

"How may I know his answer?" asked Tarzan.

"I can bring it to you, but it will be some time before I can do so," replied Thetan. "I am down here on a mission for the King. I came by way of the only land trail out of Tuen-Baka, a trail known only to my people. I shall sleep tonight in a cave I know of, and tomorrow start back for Thobos. In three days I shall return if Herat will permit you to enter Thobos. If I do not come back, you will know that he has refused. Wait then no more than one day; then leave the country as quickly as you can. It is death for strangers to remain in the vicinity of Tuen-Baka."

"Come back to my camp," said Tarzan, "and spend the night there. We can discuss the matter with my companions."

Thetan hesitated. "They are all strangers to me," he said, "and all strangers are enemies."

"My friends will not be," the ape-man assured him. "I give you my word that they will have no desire to harm you. In the world from which they come no strangers are considered enemies until they prove themselves to be such."

"What a strange world that must be," remarked Thetan. "But I'll accept your word and go with you."

As the two men started back toward the Gregory camp, a party of warriors embarked in a galley at the quay of Ashair, dispatched by Queen Atka to intercept and harass the Gregory expedition, against which Atan Thome had warned her in order that he might win the favor of the Queen and prevent Tarzan and Gregory from reaching Ashair. The wily Eurasian had hopes of so ingratiating himself with the Queen that he might remain in Ashair until he could formulate a plan for stealing The Father of Diamonds and making his escape. So obsessed was he by his desire to possess the diamond, that he was totally unable to appreciate the futility of his scheme.

The members of the Gregory party were astonished to see Tarzan walk into camp with this strangely appareled warrior. Thetan wore the black plumes of Thobos, and upon the breast and back of his tunic there was embroidered the figure of a bull. Their friendly greetings put him at his ease, and though the Swahili of Gregory, Helen and Lavac was a little lame, they all managed fairly well in the conversation that ensued. He told them much of Tuen-Baka, of Thobos and Ashair; but when the subject of The Father of Diamonds was broached, he was evasive; and, out of courtesy, they did not press him. But his reticence only served to whet their curiosity, as they sensed the mystery that surrounded the fabulous stone.

Late that night the silence of the sleeping camp was broken by sepulchral voices keening out of the mystery of the surrounding darkness. Instantly the camp was awake and in confusion, as the terrified natives milled in panic. So terrified were they that they might have bolted for the forest had it not been that glowing death's– heads suddenly appeared floating in the air around the camp, as the voices warned, "Turn back! Turn back! Death awaits you in forbidden Ashair."

"The Asharians!" cried Thetan.

Tarzan, seeking to solve the mystery of the weird apparitions, sprang into the night in the direction of the nearest death's-head. D'Arnot sought to rally the askaris; but they were as terrified as the porters, many of whom crouched with their foreheads pressed to the ground, while others covered their ears or their eyes with trembling hands.

Into the midst of this confusion burst half a dozen Asharian warriors. The whites met them with drawn pistols. Wolff fired and missed; then the intruders were gone as suddenly as they had come. Above the turmoil of the camp rose a woman's terrified scream.

Pursuing the grinning skull into the darkness, the ape-man seized a flesh-and-blood man, as he had expected. The fellow put up a fight; but he was no match for the steel thewed man of the jungles, who quickly disarmed him and dragged him back into camp.

"Look!" said Tarzan to the natives, pointing to the phosphorescent mask of his prisoner. "It is only a trick; you need be afraid no more. He is a man, even as you and I." Then he turned to his prisoner. "You may go," he said. "Tell your people that we do not come as enemies, and that if they will send Brian Gregory out to us, we will go away."

"I will tell them," said the warrior; but when he was safely out of the camp, he called back, "You will never see Brian Gregory, for no stranger who enters The Forbidden City ever comes out alive."

"We are well out of that," said Gregory, with a sigh. "I don't take much stock in what that fellow just said. He was just trying to frighten us. That was what the voices and the death's-heads and the raid were for, but for a while I thought that we were in for a lot of trouble."

"Who screamed?" asked Tarzan.

"It sounded like one of the girls," said Lavac, "but it may have been a porter. They were scared nearly to death."

It was then that Magra came running toward them. "Helen is gone!" she cried. "I think they got her," and at that very moment Asharian warriors were dragging Helen into a galley at the edge of the river only a short distance from the camp. During the confusion they had deliberately caused in the Gregory camp, a warrior had seized Helen; and then they had all made off for the river where the galley lay. A palm over her mouth had silenced the girl; and she was helpless against their strength, as they hurried her aboard the craft.

"Come!" cried Thetan. "Their galley must be close by in the river. We may be able to overtake them before they can put off," and, followed by the others, he ran from the camp; but when they reached the river, they saw the galley already out of their reach and moving steadily up stream beneath the steady strokes of its long oars.

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed d'Arnot. "We must do something. We cannot let them take her away without doing something."

"What can we do?" asked Gregory in a broken voice.

"I am afraid you will never see her again," said Thetan. "She is beautiful; so they will probably take her to the temple of The Father of Diamonds to be hand-maiden to the priests. No alien who enters there ever comes out alive. Tomorrow, she will be as dead to the outer world as though she had never existed."

"Is there no way to overtake them?" asked Tarzan.

"Wait!" exclaimed Thetan. "There is a bare possibility. If they camp tonight this side of the tunnel that leads into Lake Horus we might be able to do so; but it is a hard trail, and only strong men could travel it."

"Will you guide me?" asked Tarzan.

"Yes," replied Thetan, "but what can we two alone expect against a galley load of Asharian warriors?"

For answer, Tarzan raised his face toward the heavens and voiced a weird cry; then he turned to d'Arnot. "Come," he said, "you will go with us."

"I'll go, too," said Lavac. "You'll need all the men you can get."

"You'll stay here," said Tarzan. "We must have protection for the camp."

Lavac grumbled; but he knew that when Tarzan gave an order it was to be obeyed; and, scowling at d'Arnot, he watched the three men disappear into the darkness.

As Thetan led them by the way he knew, his mind was occupied by thoughts of this strange, white giant who had come into his life. His great strength and his fearlessness impressed the Thobotian, but the man seemed eccentric. That strange cry he had given just as they were leaving camp! Now, what could have been his reason for that? He was still pondering this, when he heard grumblings and growlings coming out of the night behind them and growing louder. Something was following them. He glanced back and saw a blur of great black forms on the trail behind the two men who followed them.

"Something is behind you!" he warned them.

"Yes," replied Tarzan. "My apes are coming with us. I called them before we left camp."

"Your apes!" exclaimed Thetan.

"Yes; they will make good allies, and they can go where even strong men cannot. The Asharians will be surprised to see them."

"Yes," agreed Thetan, who was very much surprised himself; and his awe increased, not for the apes, but for the man who could control them.

The way grew steeper, as Thetan led them up into the hills to reach the head of the ravine where the Asharians would camp if they camped at all.

"How much farther is it?" asked Tarzan.

"We should get there just about dawn," replied Thetan.

"If they are camped there, we should take them by surprise, for they could not imagine that any one could reach them; and consequently they may not have any one on watch."

"Poor Helen!" said d'Arnot. "What will become of her if they went on to Ashair without stopping?"

"You will never see her again," replied Thetan. "For generations my people have been trying to conquer Ashair and reach the temple and The Father of Diamonds, yet we have never succeeded. How can you hope to accomplish what we have never been able to?"

"She must be there," said d'Arnot. "She must!"

"There is a possibility," explained Thetan, "but it is only a possibility."

CHAPTER 15

Wolff was genuinely terrified. The weird occurrences, the raid on the camp, the show of force by the Asharians had all contributed to impress him with the grave dangers and the futility of the venture. His desire to live outweighed his avarice, and The Father of Diamonds was forgotten in his anxiety to escape what he believed to be the certain fate of the party if it sought to enter The Forbidden City of Ashair.

When, at last, the camp slept, he awoke Mbuli. "Are you and your people going to stay here and be killed or forced into slavery?" he demanded.

"My people are afraid," replied the headman, "but what are we to do? We are afraid to stay here, and we are afraid to run away from the great Bwana Tarzan."

"You will never see that monkey-man again," Wolff assured the black. "He and the frog eater will be killed by the Asharians, who will then come back and either kill all of us or take us with them as slaves. How would you like to be chained to a galley all the rest of your life?"

"I would not like it, bwana," replied Mbuli.

"Then listen to me. The girl here is in danger. I got to save her; so I orders you and your boys to take us back to Bonga. How many do you think will come with you?"

"All, bwana."

"Good! Now get busy. Have 'em get their packs together, but see that they don't make no noise. When everything's ready, you take a couple of boys and get the girl. Don't let her make no noise."

After a night of sleeplessness and terrified apprehension for the future, Helen's attention was attracted by a slight noise in the forest behind the camp where her captors had halted for the night. Dawn was breaking, its ghastly light relieving the darkness that had enveloped the little ravine and revealing to the girl's astonished eyes the figures of great apes and men stealing stealthily upon the camp.

At first she was terrified by this new menace; then she recognized Tarzan and almost simultaneously saw d'Arnot behind him; and hope, that she had thought dead, welled strong within her, so that she could scarcely restrain a cry of relief as she realized that rescue was at hand; then an Asharian awoke and saw the danger. With a shout that aroused the others, he leaped to his feet; and, guessing that an attempt was being made to rescue the captive, he seized her and dragged her, struggling, toward the galley.

With a shout of encouragement to her, d'Arnot sprang forward in pursuit while two warriors engaged Tarzan, and Thetan and the apes fell upon the others. The warrior who was carrying Helen off was almost at the galley. He shouted to the slaves to make ready to put off the moment he was aboard, but d'Arnot was pressing him so closely he was compelled to turn and defend himself. D'Arnot faced him with drawn pistol as the man raised his spear. Behind d'Arnot, another warrior, who had escaped the apes, was running to the aid of his fellow.

The Frenchman could not fire at the warrior facing him without endangering Helen, and he did not know that another was approaching from behind.

What takes so long to tell occupied but a few seconds of time, for as the warrior was about to cast his spear, Helen, realizing d'Arnot's predicament, threw herself to one side, exposing her captor; and d'Arnot fired.

Tarzan, Thetan, and the apes had disposed of the remainder of the Asharians, with the exception of the one who was threatening d'Arnot from behind. The ape-man saw his friend's danger, but he was too far away to reach the warrior who was threatening him, before the man should drive his spear into d'Arnot's back. Helen realized the danger, and cried a warning to the Frenchman. D'Arnot swung about, his pistol ready; and pressed the trigger, but the hammer fell futilely upon an imperfect cap; then Tarzan launched his spear. His target was far beyond the range of any spear but that of the Lord of the Jungle. With all of his great strength, backed by the weight of his body, he cast the weapon; and, as the Asharian was lunging at d'Arnot, it passed through his body, piercing his heart. As the man fell dead at d'Arnot's feet, Helen went suddenly weak. She would have fallen had not d'Arnot taken her in his arms.

"Whew!" exclaimed Thetan. "That was a close call, but what a cast! In all my life I have never seen one that could compare with it."

"In all your life," said d'Arnot, "you have never seen such a man as Tarzan of the Apes."

Tarzan had passed them and reached the galley, where the slaves sat bewildered, not knowing what to do; then he called the apes and ordered them into the galley among the terrified slaves.

"They won't harm you," Tarzan assured them, and when Helen, d'Arnot and Thetan were aboard, he directed the slaves to row them down river to the Gregory camp.

D'Arnot sat in the stern with his arm around Helen, who evinced no inclination to resent the familiarity. On the contrary, she seemed quite content.

"I thought I had lost you, darling," he whispered.

She made no reply, other than to snuggle closer and sigh happily, which, to d'Arnot, was at least an acceptance of his love, if not an avowal of her own. He was content to leave the matter as it stood.

Gregory, Lavac, and Ogabi were standing by the river when the galley rounded a bend and came within sight.

"The Asharians are returning!" cried Gregory. "We'd better get into the forest and hide. We three haven't a chance against them."

"Wait!" said Lavac. "That boat's full of apes."

"By George! So it is," exclaimed Gregory.

"And there is Bwana Tarzan," exclaimed Ogabi.

A few moments later the boat touched shore; and as the apes poured out, Gregory took his daughter in his arms. "Thank God, you've found her," he said to Tarzan; "but now we have some bad news for you."

"What now?" demanded d'Arnot.

"Magra and Wolff deserted with all the men and equipment last night," said Gregory.

"Oh, I can't believe that Magra would have done a thing like that," exclaimed Helen.

Gregory shook his head. "Don't forget," he reminded her, "that she was in cahoots with Thorne."

"Any way," said Lavac, "she's gone."

"What are we to do now?" demanded Gregory. "It looks like the end of the trail to me."

"On the way down," said Tarzan, "I questioned some of the galley slaves. They tell me that a white man is held prisoner in the temple of The Father of Diamonds at Ashair. It may be your son. I have talked with Thetan; and he believes it may be possible that the King of Thobos will receive us kindly and even help in the rescue of your son, if there is any possibility that it may be accomplished. Under the circumstances, it may be well to go to Thobos. We have a galley, and by entering the lake after dark we should be able to pass Ashair safely."

"I should like to do that," said Gregory, "but I can't ask the rest of you to risk your lives further for me. Had I had any idea that we were to encounter such dangers, I should never have started out without a strong force of white men."

"I'll go with you," said d'Arnot.

"And I," said Lavac.

"Where Bwana Tarzan goes, I go," said Ogabi.

"Then we all go," said the ape-man.

An exhausted warrior stumbled into the presence of Atka, Queen of Ashair. "We were camped for the night in the ravine below the tunnel," he reported. "We had with us a girl whom we had captured in the camp of the strangers. At dawn we were attacked by three men and a band of apes. One of the men was a Thobotian. The leader was a naked white warrior. In the beginning of the fight, I was knocked senseless. I knew nothing more until I regained consciousness and found myself alone with the dead. The galley was gone. I think they must have thought me dead."

"Which way did they go?" demanded Atka.

"That I do not know," replied the warrior, "but it is probable that they went back down stream to their camp."

The Queen turned to a noble standing near the throne. "Man six galleys," she ordered, "and bring me those people, dead or alive! They shall taste the anger of Brulor!"