2
On the Road To Opar
It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, riding infrom a tour of inspection of his vast African estate, glimpsed the headof a column of men crossing the plain that lay between his bungalow andthe forest to the north and west.
He reined in his horse and watched the little party as it emerged froma concealing swale. His keen eyes caught the reflection of the sunupon the white helmet of a mounted man, and with the conviction that awandering European hunter was seeking his hospitality, he wheeled hismount and rode slowly forward to meet the newcomer.
A half hour later he was mounting the steps leading to the veranda ofhis bungalow, and introducing M. Jules Frecoult to Lady Greystoke.
"I was completely lost," M. Frecoult was explaining. "My head man hadnever before been in this part of the country and the guides who wereto have accompanied me from the last village we passed knew even lessof the country than we. They finally deserted us two days since. I amvery 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 furnishguides to lead them safely back into country with which Frecoult's headman was supposedly familiar.
In his guise of a French gentleman of leisure, Werper found littledifficulty in deceiving his host and in ingratiating himself with bothTarzan and Jane Clayton; but the longer he remained the less hopeful hebecame of an easy accomplishment of his designs.
Lady Greystoke never rode alone at any great distance from thebungalow, and the savage loyalty of the ferocious Waziri warriors whoformed a great part of Tarzan's followers seemed to preclude thepossibility of a successful attempt at forcible abduction, or of thebribery of the Waziri themselves.
A week passed, and Werper was no nearer the fulfillment of his plan, inso far as he could judge, than upon the day of his arrival, but at thatvery moment something occurred which gave him renewed hope and set hismind upon an even greater reward than a woman's ransom.
A runner had arrived at the bungalow with the weekly mail, and LordGreystoke had spent the afternoon in his study reading and answeringletters. At dinner he seemed distraught, and early in the evening heexcused himself and retired, Lady Greystoke following him very soonafter. Werper, sitting upon the veranda, could hear their voices inearnest discussion, and having realized that something of unusualmoment was afoot, he quietly rose from his chair, and keeping well inthe shadow of the shrubbery growing profusely about the bungalow, madehis silent way to a point beneath the window of the room in which hishost and hostess slept.
Here he listened, and not without result, for almost the first words heoverheard filled him with excitement. Lady Greystoke was speaking asWerper 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 asum--unless there has been some dishonest manipulation."
"That is what I suspect," replied Tarzan; "but whatever the cause, thefact remains that I have lost everything, and there is nothing for itbut to return to Opar and get more."
"Oh, John," cried Lady Greystoke, and Werper could feel the shudderthrough her voice, "is there no other way? I cannot bear to think ofyou returning to that frightful city. I would rather live in povertyalways than to have you risk the hideous dangers of Opar."
"You need have no fear," replied Tarzan, laughing. "I am pretty wellable to take care of myself, and were I not, the Waziri who willaccompany me will see that no harm befalls me."
"They ran away from Opar once, and left you to your fate," she remindedhim.
"They will not do it again," he answered. "They were very much ashamedof 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 goto the treasure vaults of Opar and bring it away," he replied. "Ishall be very careful, Jane, and the chances are that the inhabitantsof Opar will never know that I have been there again and despoiled themof another portion of the treasure, the very existence of which theyare as ignorant of as they would be of its value."
The finality in his tone seemed to assure Lady Greystoke that furtherargument was futile, and so she abandoned the subject.
Werper remained, listening, for a short time, and then, confident thathe had overheard all that was necessary and fearing discovery, returnedto the veranda, where he smoked numerous cigarets in rapid successionbefore retiring.
The following morning at breakfast, Werper announced his intention ofmaking an early departure, and asked Tarzan's permission to hunt biggame in the Waziri country on his way out--permission which LordGreystoke readily granted.
The Belgian consumed two days in completing his preparations, butfinally got away with his safari, accompanied by a single Waziri guidewhom Lord Greystoke had loaned him. The party made but a single shortmarch when Werper simulated illness, and announced his intention ofremaining where he was until he had fully recovered. As they had gonebut a short distance from the Greystoke bungalow, Werper dismissed theWaziri guide, telling the warrior that he would send for him when hewas able to proceed. The Waziri gone, the Belgian summoned one ofAchmet Zek's trusted blacks to his tent, and dispatched him to watchfor the departure of Tarzan, returning immediately to advise Werper ofthe event and the direction taken by the Englishman.
The Belgian did not have long to wait, for the following day hisemissary returned with word that Tarzan and a party of fifty Waziriwarriors had set out toward the southeast early in the morning.
Werper called his head man to him, after writing a long letter toAchmet Zek. This letter he handed to the head man.
"Send a runner at once to Achmet Zek with this," he instructed the headman. "Remain here in camp awaiting further instructions from him orfrom me. If any come from the bungalow of the Englishman, tell themthat I am very ill within my tent and can see no one. Now, give me sixporters and six askaris--the strongest and bravest of the safari--and Iwill march after the Englishman and discover where his gold is hidden."
And so it was that as Tarzan, stripped to the loin cloth and armedafter the primitive fashion he best loved, led his loyal Waziri towardthe dead city of Opar, Werper, the renegade, haunted his trail throughthe long, hot days, and camped close behind him by night.
And as they marched, Achmet Zek rode with his entire followingsouthward toward the Greystoke farm.
To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature of a holidayouting. His civilization was at best but an outward veneer which hegladly peeled off with his uncomfortable European clothes whenever anyreasonable pretext presented itself. It was a woman's love which keptTarzan even to the semblance of civilization--a condition for whichfamiliarity had bred contempt. He hated the shams and the hypocrisiesof it and with the clear vision of an unspoiled mind he had penetratedto the rotten core of the heart of the thing--the cowardly greed forpeace and ease and the safe-guarding of property rights. That the finethings of life--art, music and literature--had thriven upon suchenervating ideals he strenuously denied, insisting, rather, that theyhad endured in spite of civilization.
"Show me the fat, opulent coward," he was wont to say, "who everoriginated a beautiful ideal. In the clash of arms, in the battle forsurvival, amid hunger and death and danger, in the face of God asmanifested in the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is born allthat is finest and best in the human heart and mind."
And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the spirit of a loverkeeping a long deferred tryst after a period behind prison walls. HisWaziri, at marrow, were more civilized than he. They cooked their meatbefore they ate it and they shunned many articles of food as uncleanthat Tarzan had eaten with gusto all his life and so insidious is thevirus of hypocrisy that even the stalwart ape-m
an hesitated to giverein to his natural longings before them. He ate burnt flesh when hewould have preferred it raw and unspoiled, and he brought down gamewith arrow or spear when he would far rather have leaped upon it fromambush and sunk his strong teeth in its jugular; but at last the callof the milk of the savage mother that had suckled him in infancy roseto an insistent demand--he craved the hot blood of a fresh kill and hismuscles yearned to pit themselves against the savage jungle in thebattle for existence that had been his sole birthright for the firsttwenty years of his life.