8
The Escape from Opar
Werper was astounded. Could this creature be the same dignifiedEnglishman who had entertained him so graciously in his luxuriousAfrican home? Could this wild beast, with blazing eyes, and bloodycountenance, be at the same time a man? Could the horrid, victory cryhe had but just heard have been formed in human throat?
Tarzan was eyeing the man and the woman, a puzzled expression in hiseyes, but there was no faintest tinge of recognition. It was as thoughhe had discovered some new species of living creature and was marvelingat his find.
La was studying the ape-man's features. Slowly her large eyes openedvery wide.
"Tarzan!" she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular of the great apeswhich constant association with the anthropoids had rendered the commonlanguage of the Oparians: "You have come back to me! La has ignoredthe mandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting for Tarzan--forher Tarzan. She has taken no mate, for in all the world there was butone with whom La would mate. And now you have come back! Tell me, OTarzan, that it is for me you have returned."
Werper listened to the unintelligible jargon. He looked from La toTarzan. Would the latter understand this strange tongue? To theBelgian's surprise, the Englishman answered in a language evidentlyidentical to hers.
"Tarzan," he repeated, musingly. "Tarzan. The name sounds familiar."
"It is your name--you are Tarzan," cried La.
"I am Tarzan?" The ape-man shrugged. "Well, it is a good name--I knowno other, so I will keep it; but I do not know you. I did not comehither for you. Why I came, I do not know at all; neither do I knowfrom whence I came. Can you tell me?"
La shook her head. "I never knew," she replied.
Tarzan turned toward Werper and put the same question to him; but inthe language of the great apes. The Belgian shook his head.
"I do not understand that language," he said in French.
Without effort, and apparently without realizing that he made thechange, Tarzan repeated his question in French. Werper suddenly cameto a full realization of the magnitude of the injury of which Tarzanwas a victim. The man had lost his memory--no longer could herecollect past events. The Belgian was upon the point of enlighteninghim, when it suddenly occurred to him that by keeping Tarzan inignorance, for a time at least, of his true identity, it might bepossible to turn the ape-man's misfortune to his own advantage.
"I cannot tell you from whence you came," he said; "but this I can tellyou--if we do not get out of this horrible place we shall both be slainupon this bloody altar. The woman was about to plunge her knife intomy heart when the lion interrupted the fiendish ritual. Come! Beforethey recover from their fright and reassemble, let us find a way out oftheir damnable temple."
Tarzan turned again toward La.
"Why," he asked, "would you have killed this man? Are you hungry?"
The High Priestess cried out in disgust.
"Did he attempt to kill you?" continued Tarzan.
The woman shook her head.
"Then why should you have wished to kill him?" Tarzan was determined toget to the bottom of the thing.
La raised her slender arm and pointed toward the sun.
"We were offering up his soul as a gift to the Flaming God," she said.
Tarzan looked puzzled. He was again an ape, and apes do not understandsuch matters as souls and Flaming Gods.
"Do you wish to die?" he asked Werper.
The Belgian assured him, with tears in his eyes, that he did not wishto die.
"Very well then, you shall not," said Tarzan. "Come! We will go.This SHE would kill you and keep me for herself. It is no place anywayfor a Mangani. I should soon die, shut up behind these stone walls."
He turned toward La. "We are going now," he said.
The woman rushed forward and seized the ape-man's hands in hers.
"Do not leave me!" she cried. "Stay, and you shall be High Priest. Laloves you. All Opar shall be yours. Slaves shall wait upon you.Stay, Tarzan of the Apes, and let love reward you."
The ape-man pushed the kneeling woman aside. "Tarzan does not desireyou," he said, simply, and stepping to Werper's side he cut theBelgian's bonds and motioned him to follow.
Panting--her face convulsed with rage, La sprang to her feet.
"Stay, you shall!" she screamed. "La will have you--if she cannot haveyou alive, she will have you dead," and raising her face to the sun shegave voice to the same hideous shriek that Werper had heard once beforeand Tarzan many times.
In answer to her cry a babel of voices broke from the surroundingchambers and corridors.
"Come, Guardian Priests!" she cried. "The infidels have profaned theholiest of the holies. Come! Strike terror to their hearts; defend Laand her altar; wash clean the temple with the blood of the polluters."
Tarzan understood, though Werper did not. The former glanced at theBelgian and saw that he was unarmed. Stepping quickly to La's side theape-man seized her in his strong arms and though she fought with allthe mad savagery of a demon, he soon disarmed her, handing her long,sacrificial knife to Werper.
"You will need this," he said, and then from each doorway a horde ofthe monstrous, little men of Opar streamed into the temple.
They were armed with bludgeons and knives, and fortified in theircourage by fanatical hate and frenzy. Werper was terrified. Tarzanstood eyeing the foe in proud disdain. Slowly he advanced toward theexit he had chosen to utilize in making his way from the temple. Aburly priest barred his way. Behind the first was a score of others.Tarzan swung his heavy spear, clublike, down upon the skull of thepriest. The fellow collapsed, his head crushed.
Again and again the weapon fell as Tarzan made his way slowly towardthe doorway. Werper pressed close behind, casting backward glancestoward the shrieking, dancing mob menacing their rear. He held thesacrificial knife ready to strike whoever might come within its reach;but none came. For a time he wondered that they should so bravelybattle with the giant ape-man, yet hesitate to rush upon him, who wasrelatively so weak. Had they done so he knew that he must have fallenat the first charge. Tarzan had reached the doorway over the corpsesof all that had stood to dispute his way, before Werper guessed at thereason for his immunity. The priests feared the sacrificial knife!Willingly would they face death and welcome it if it came while theydefended their High Priestess and her altar; but evidently there weredeaths, and deaths. Some strange superstition must surround thatpolished blade, that no Oparian cared to chance a death thrust from it,yet gladly rushed to the slaughter of the ape-man's flaying spear.
Once outside the temple court, Werper communicated his discovery toTarzan. The ape-man grinned, and let Werper go before him, brandishingthe jeweled and holy weapon. Like leaves before a gale, the Opariansscattered in all directions and Tarzan and the Belgian found a clearpassage through the corridors and chambers of the ancient temple.
The Belgian's eyes went wide as they passed through the room of theseven pillars of solid gold. With ill-concealed avarice he looked uponthe age-old, golden tablets set in the walls of nearly every room anddown the sides of many of the corridors. To the ape-man all thiswealth appeared to mean nothing.
On the two went, chance leading them toward the broad avenue which laybetween the stately piles of the half-ruined edifices and the innerwall of the city. Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; butTarzan answered them after their own kind, giving back taunt for taunt,insult for insult, challenge for challenge.
Werper saw a hairy bull swing down from a broken column and advance,stiff-legged and bristling, toward the naked giant. The yellow fangswere bared, angry snarls and barkings rumbled threateningly through thethick and hanging lips.
The Belgian watched his companion. To his horror, he saw the man stoopuntil his closed knuckles rested upon the ground as did those of theanthropoid. He saw him circle, stiff-legged about the circling ape.He heard the same bestial barkings and growlings issue from the humanthr
oat that were coming from the mouth of the brute. Had his eyes beenclosed he could not have known but that two giant apes were bridlingfor combat.
But there was no battle. It ended as the majority of such jungleencounters end--one of the boasters loses his nerve, and becomessuddenly interested in a blowing leaf, a beetle, or the lice upon hishairy stomach.
In this instance it was the anthropoid that retired in stiff dignity toinspect an unhappy caterpillar, which he presently devoured. For amoment Tarzan seemed inclined to pursue the argument. He swaggeredtruculently, stuck out his chest, roared and advanced closer to thebull. It was with difficulty that Werper finally persuaded him toleave well enough alone and continue his way from the ancient city ofthe Sun Worshipers.
The two searched for nearly an hour before they found the narrow exitthrough the inner wall. From there the well-worn trail led them beyondthe outer fortification to the desolate valley of Opar.
Tarzan had no idea, in so far as Werper could discover, as to where hewas or whence he came. He wandered aimlessly about, searching forfood, which he discovered beneath small rocks, or hiding in the shadeof the scant brush which dotted the ground.
The Belgian was horrified by the hideous menu of his companion.Beetles, rodents and caterpillars were devoured with seeming relish.Tarzan was indeed an ape again.
At last Werper succeeded in leading his companion toward the distanthills which mark the northwestern boundary of the valley, and togetherthe two set out in the direction of the Greystoke bungalow.
What purpose prompted the Belgian in leading the victim of histreachery and greed back toward his former home it is difficult toguess, unless it was that without Tarzan there could be no ransom forTarzan's wife.
That night they camped in the valley beyond the hills, and as they satbefore a little fire where cooked a wild pig that had fallen to one ofTarzan's arrows, the latter sat lost in speculation. He seemedcontinually to be trying to grasp some mental image which as constantlyeluded him.
At last he opened the leathern pouch which hung at his side. From ithe poured into the palm of his hand a quantity of glittering gems. Thefirelight playing upon them conjured a multitude of scintillating rays,and as the wide eyes of the Belgian looked on in rapt fascination, theman's expression at last acknowledged a tangible purpose in courtingthe society of the ape-man.