Part 2 (1/2)

One by one, the other great apes in his camp returned, each boasting of his fearless exploits, and the stories, although wildly exaggerated, were uniformly favorable. Yes, the others of the forest would cooperate, Yes, they would help seek Tarzan and his mate; yes, they would walk warily, seeking but avoiding the new ”G.o.d= whatever he or it might be, the beast that smelled of death and decay. Finally, Pintat, youngest of all the great apes - and possibly the most fearless, having known little danger - rode up to the very edge of the clearing high on the neck of mighty Tantor, the elephant. There was a general scramble to get out from underfoot as Tantor trumpeted his greetings, and it was some moments before Nendat could bring order out of the chaos.

Finally, he had his tribe a.s.sembled, a grinning, chattering Pintat clinging closely to Tantor's mighty brow.

”We go as a group,” he instructed. There is no other way. If we meet the new, strange creature, we attack as a group.” He beat upon his chest, emanating a confidence he did not really feel. ”No one, nothing, can stand against our might. We go. Now. This minute.” He strutted about in the dust, much to the admiration of his mate and the young of the tribe.

With a fine last cry of open-mouthed defiance to both the new and old G.o.ds of the forest, capering awkwardly, Nendat, king of the great apes, led his small but formidable band off into the trackless paths of the jungle. They headed in the general direction of Opar - and the Silver Globe.

Mighty Tantor, the elephant, carrying the youngest and most fearless of the apes upon his back, lifted his trunk in a salute and trumpeted mightily. Who is to say whether the cry of Tantor was of admiration or derision? Nendat looked back over his shoulder with a certain amount of speculation along these very lines, but chose to believe that Tantor was impressed and awed. There were many miles to go to reach their rather indefinite destination, and Nendat found that he had his work cut out for him, trying to keep the tribe in some semblance of a disciplined advance.

Some stopped here and there to sample a tropical fruit. Others sought under mouldering bark for a succulent grub, still others wearied of the trip or, indeed, forgot what was afoot and had to be prodded along the trail, complaining. Still, it was a triumphal march, joined, here and there, under a cloud of mutual distrust, brother savage denizens of the jungle. A white hunter could have bagged his limit of the larger game within minutes of coming upon the increasing mainstream of this unlikely exodus - although he'd never have lived to get away!

Never before had the forest seen such strange comrades-at-arms, and it was unlikely that the sight would ever be witnessed again!

Chapter VII.

”The Death of an Immortal”

GLAMO gave little or no thought to Tarzan. The tail-less white man presented no particular problem; he could not escape. Either the Atlanteans would discover him and bring him down by sheer force of numbers, or else he might stumble upon a Follower, and that would be that. However it happened, Tarzan had no future to speak of, Glamo thought with a small, contemptuous Smile. The cold Laws of Probability, governing every action of the true Venusian, counted Tarzan as a negative factor and a minor annoyance, scarcely worth noting, and Glamo logically closed his mind to any thoughts of the savage figure.

Meanwhile, the ape-man had regained consciousness. Weakened by his head wound, he nevertheless, with animal cunning, sought sanctuary out of the sacrificial chamber, and entered a corridor leading off the scene of his near death. Had it not been for his condition, he would have known at once where the pa.s.sage led. Instead, he followed it cautiously and slowly, encouraged, finally, by the glow of daylight ahead. He emerged carefully, into the ruined city of Opar. Ruined minarets still shone of gold, but the city itself was obviously dead. Puzzled, Tarzan tried to sort out his thoughts. Had he been here before? It seemed certain that he had, yet he was unable to identify any of the buildings. The absence of any population puzzled him, as well.

He roamed through what could only be called the rubble of the city streets, ever aware, increasingly, of a strange glow that drew him closer to he knew not what. It was the Silver Globe. When he finally saw it, he didn't I believe his eyes. How tall was it? What he could see, and he suspected he was only seeing a small part, loomed above him enormously. It was mammoth, majestic, awe-inspiring. Certainly the jungle had never seen anything like it before. It sat on a sort of plain, just behind the I city, but it didn't just sit there, it dominated the landscape.

The ape-man crouched behind a concealing rock, watching with hawk-like eyes. Was there something moving over there, on the side of the Silver Globe? Yes. Yes! A door was opening. He tensed, crouching, ready for he knew not what.

Tarzan stared in wonderment as a creature emerged from what was obviously an air-tight compartment. Seconds before, there'd been no apparent crevice; yet, suddenly, a door had opened where no door had a right to be!

From it emerged a horrible, slimy, eight-legged creature, carrying a she of the tribe of Tarzan. The Lord of the Jungle took only a second to compare his white skin with hers, then charged, giving a horrible challenge of the bull apes! In his dazed state, Tarzan did not recognize his mate, he looked only at the creature. It was something he'd never seen before. Octopoid, with eyes in the tip of each limb, and what seemed to be poisonous fangs embedded just below the eyes in each tentacle!

Drawing his knife, the ape-man charged the horrendous creature, striving to chop off the ends of the mighty tentacles. The Follower held Jane high above its humped, carapaced body as Tarzan darted in for the kill Glamo saw none of this. Indeed, he'd have probably convulsed with laughter had he seen Tarzan charging the immortal, the unkillable, for in more than two thousand years of Venusian history, no Follower had been slain. How to slay such a creature, with no central brain? Each tentacle a segment of intelligence! Each tentacle held vision and a fang that could' render the victim either unconscious or dead, depending upon the amount of venom released into the bloodstream!

Nevertheless, Tarzan charged, knife out. Swiftly he I severed a poised tentacle, which writhed after its severance. Jane still was held in the air. Tarzan struck again and again, and then two of the mighty arms grasped him, and he felt the agony of the sucking arms as they closed about him tightly.

Roaring his rage, the ape-man sliced and severed again, ridding himself of first one, then the other mighty, seeking arm. Blisters rose upon his body, but he paid them no heed, lost in a jungle savagery that would brook no obstacles. It was kill or be killed, and Tarzan was killing!

The tentacle holding Jane on high wavered, then sank to the earth. Tarzan continued to slice with his knife. He had finally worked out the rather peculiar physical limitations of this creature.

He was struck, not once, but several times, by the poisonous fangs of the Follower, but so great was his rage that he could scarcely feel instead, he fought to the death, and finally left the eight-limbed monster a quivering ma.s.s of muscle and poison. He placed his foot upon the still-moving carca.s.s, and gave the victory cry of the bull-ape. It echoed through the silver-lined pa.s.sageways.

Glamo, half-hearing, frowned. All was not going well. He thought shrewdly, called Marda, also known as ”La.” She answered at once, fearful of his wrath.

”Yes?”

”The White Savage has escaped my clutches, as well as yours. He has just destroyed a Follower, which is impossible. Can you bring him here, to me?”

It was more of an order than a question.

”Yes. He lacks memory. His mate?”

Glamo laughed, curtly. ”Unconscious, and she will remain so for a trip of the sun about this shriveled glow. You will bring him to me?”

”Yes. When do we leave? For home? ”

”Soon.”

”Only-soon.”

Glamo idly regarded a fingernail. ”You don't really expect me to leave such a mess behind, do you? It's part of your doing. Help clean it up. I'll expect the white ape soon. As soon as you can deliver him. It shouldn't be much of a problem, with your seductive body.”

”I'll bring him.”

Glamo sighed. ”Of course you will. There's a choice?” He turned to admit the scurrying little green creatures who called themselves the survivors of Atlantis. They brought Jane Clayton to his chambers. He nodded his approval to them as they deposited her tender body before him, waiting impa.s.sively until they had fled, then turned his fierce, cold eyes upon her, feasting on her, loveliness. A shame that such creatures had tiny lifespans, but there it ,was. With interest but no pity, he noted the sucker-marks on her smooth thighs, her back, her bosom. He allowed his brow to furrow in disapproval, Perhaps the Follower was better off dead. Certainly the creature had overdone what was needful.

Tarzan, exhausted from his head wound, and from his triumphant battle with the Follower, fell almost weary unto death upon the flagstones of the Oparian street, still smelling the awful stench and effluvium given off by the mortally wounded Follower He was aware of chattering little gnarled men picking him up and carrying him somewhere, but just where he didn't know, nor did he care, so great was his weariness.

How long he was unconscious, he did not know, nor greatly care. When he opened his eyes with an effort, he was in some sort of room, comfortably lying on a pile of soft furs. Leaning over him was a beautiful woman whom he did not recognize in his weakness and confusion.

”Tarzan! she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular of the great apes which constant a.s.sociation with the anthropoids had rendered the common language of the Oparians: ”You have come back to me! La has ignored the mandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting for Tarzan - for her Tarzan. She has taken no mate, for in all the world there was but one with whom La would mate. And now you have come back! Tell me, O Tarzan, that it is for me you have returned!”

The Englishman answered in a language identical with 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 know no other so I will keep it; but I do not know you. I did not come hither for you. Why I came, I do not know at all; neither do I know from whence I came. Can you tell me?”

La shook her head. ”I never knew,” she replied.

Tarzan, without apparently realizing it, spoke the same question, but this time not in the language of the great apes. This time, in French, seemingly without realizing the transition.

”I don't understand,” La replied.

Tarzan grunted. ”Why,” he said, again in the language of the great apes, ”why would you have killed me there on the altar? Are you hungry?”

La cried out in disgust.

”Then why should you have desired to kill me!”

La raised a slender arm, pointing toward the sun.

Tarzan looked puzzled. After all, he was again an ape, and apes do not understand such things as souls, sacrifices, flaming G.o.ds. He gathered himself to his feet. ”I go now.” He reflected a moment. ”This is no place for a Mangani. Yes, I leave.”

The woman rushed forward and seized the ape-man's hands in hers.