Part 4 (2/2)

Opar was doomed, that much was certain. Pouring around the Cliffs that led into the city were the jungle denizens, vast hordes of them, savage, looking for the kill, driven by a frenzy of blood-l.u.s.t, thirst and frustration. Meanwhile, the unspeakable beasts from the Silver Globe, aliens all, were having their way. Squealing priests died under strange fangs, claws, las.h.i.+ng tails and tentacles. Surely, this was the end, the finish of Opar! There was no other exit from the mysterious city except the forbidden tunnel, and already this was chokingly filled with the nauseous Followers who were trailing Tarzan and his mate.

The mighty white hairless ape swung along with striding sweeps of his sinewy legs, gulping mighty gasps of dank air into his lungs, hoping only to find the pit, and then whatever might be behind it. Sounds of pursuit died off, but there might be silent beasts behind, still in pursuit. He paced on, restlessly, never-endingly, until it seemed as though even his mighty lungs might burst.

N'Gogo advanced at a slow walk, prodding each foot of the air before him with his a.s.segai, seeking what might be before him. He knew nothing of the almost-dead Follower that sensed his coming, the Follower that lay just this side of the bottomless pit which mighty Tarzan had leaped to evade the monster, to its futile and savage fury. N'Gogo was a forced hero, in a manner of speaking. It wasn't that he was innately a coward; he was not. He was a brave man, with a brave man's fears. Fear of the dark, fear of the unknown. A fetid stench a.s.sailed the Waziri's nostrils, and he stopped short. Something dead was close, and he wisely paused before venturing onward. What was this stench? Where had he smelled it before? N'Gogo wondered how much time had pa.s.sed, how closely upon his heels followed Basuli and the rest of the Waziri?

Thinking thus, he still prodded into the darkness with his a.s.segai, and stopped short when the spear met a yielding substance that felt very much like fles.h.!.+ Whatever it was he touched recoiled sharply, as did N'Gogo, who stood trembling. Nothing alive should be here, in this cavern of darkness! The smell of rot grew sharper as the savage paused, immobile. Some animate form lashed at ,him in the blackness, and he recoiled by instinct, holding his spear at the ready, waiting for the next attack. Now, behind him, he heard the welcome pad of bare feet, knowing it was the rest of his band, the band of which he was a subchief. Knowing that Basuli would be in the forefront was a warming and comforting thought, and he jabbed again, fearlessly, with his a.s.segai. Something seized it, jerked it forward, and the native hung on desperately. This was N'Gogo's undoing, because it brought him into the clutches of the almost-dormant Follower. Quickly, instantaneously, three or four sucker-faced tentacles clasped their way about his body, and a mighty form threw itself upon him, drawing the life from his body, stifling and m.u.f.fling his screams of mortal agony as the Follower drew much-needed sustenance from his quivering carca.s.s.

So died N'Gogo, perhaps not a hero but certainly not a coward. The Follower, still pulsating in its hideous ma.s.s from the life-force it had drawn from the African, drew back cannily into a sort of creva.s.se in the rocky walls of the dungeon, awaiting another victim. Only its stench gave it away, but of course it had no way of knowing this, and as a safety measure it waved an eye- tipped tentacle across the chasm which it could not cross and which, it sensed, Tarzan was again approaching.

The mighty beasts reached Opar, by way of the cliffs, and maddened by thirst as well as the command to ”kill,” made of that once proud citadel a shambles. Walls fell beneath the mighty bodies, and small Oparians were crushed to an unrecognizable melange of twisted, mashed shapes.

”La” lay dead, heart torn from her smooth breast, while all about her rec.u.mbent form strange creatures from other worlds scuttled and crawled. It was a nightmare, a fantasy from deepest h.e.l.l, yet there it was!

In the courtyard, where only a few of the other-world- lings smacked what pa.s.sed for lips in satisfaction over the feast of Oparians, the giant Silver Globe, awry on its axis, still hummed ominously. Glamo was not dead, but near to it. So weak, in fact, he could not reach the telereceiver that would have connected his mental impulses with Venus.

The drama was being played in the one, long tunnel, as Opar lay dying. As Glamo died.

Chapter XIV.

”The End of Opar”

BEHIND Tarzan as he frantically raced for safety- was the stench of death, the stench of the Followers. Jane's body was a dead weight, but one which he carried gladly as he raced for the pit, the bottomless pit in the tunnel which he knew lay only seconds ahead. Now his formerly failing memory came back in a flasha on the other side of the pit, even if he could leap it with the delightful burden on his back laya another Follower!

His rapid pace slowed as he thought about this. This was not the element of the mighty Tarzan; here were no trees, no vines, no branches, no natural enemies. The ape-man roared his displeasure, all civilization stripped from him, and the walls echoed his dislike of his surroundings without giving back a comforting answer. Baffled, he continued to trot forward because there was no other way to go, but a low growl from his lips indicated his displeasure, his reluctance to accept defeat.

And then, there it was! The edge of the mighty chasm, across which he had, unburdened, leaped and so foiled the Follower which still lay in wait on the other side. A Follower, moreover, which had recently been fed and hence was twice as dangerous, twice as alert!

Suddenly, as if by the hand of the mighty G.o.ds, came a rumble followed by a sharp blast, arid a shock wave which almost threw the Lord of the Jungle into the bottomless pit! The Silver Globe had exploded, utterly destroying Opar and many of the beasts still prowling its deserted, blood-reeking streets. The Followers, which were on the trail of Tarzan and Jane felt an almost mortal blow as Glamo died, sharply cutting off their sensory contacts with the world, and even the mighty ape-man knew that something out of the ordinary was amiss.

Wild creatures sense the trap, and so did Tarzan sense his entrapment. Opar gone, that entrance to the tunnel sealed, and the dreaded Followers between him and what would almost certainly be a sealed exit; before him, a chasm which, at the height of his powers, he had been barely able to leap; on his back his mate, Jane; across the abyss, another Follower, already waving its tentacles hungrily!

There was no way for him to know that the other end of the tunnel had been opened; indeed, he could only measure the peril of one Follower against that of a dozen, which were hot on his trail. For a moment, and a moment only, he felt the golden belt about his waist, hoping it would be enough to fend off one Follower long enough for the kill, knowing it couldn't help him in the pack that pursued.

Patiently, yet with animal cunning, he retraced his steps from the edge of the pit, counting. Just so! He s.h.i.+fted his wife's form more comfortably upon his shoulders, and then, with giant, leaping strides, raced for the edge of the abyss and leaped into darkest s.p.a.ce, right hand holding the steel blade willed to him by his father!

To Jane Clayton, it seemed that she was in the midst of a nightmare, a nightmare that would never end, yet end it did at last, and as she regained consciousness, safe in the arms of her mighty mate, her spirits leaped with renewed hope.

That which she saw was the merest flicker of a shadow upon the walls of the tunnel down which Tarzan was racing to save her, yet it might have been the sun, so brightly did her spirits soar. Had the lifted blade of La deprived her of all reason? No mattera her mate held her firmly, and his way led only to safety, to the blessed seclusion of their cottage, where, enfolded tenderly in Tarzan's arms, she might be rea.s.sured that all this was only a dream, a very bad dream.

Basuli and his warriors advanced slowly along the newly-opened tunnel, treading cautiously in the path of N'Gogo. Ahead came noises, foreign to the ears of the black hunter. He stopped, and his tribe of Waziri stopped behind him. He listened closely. It was a horrible, sucking sound, a sound with which he was not at all familiar, and he paused, considering. A fetid stench reached his nostrils, as of decaying meat, yet not quite of decaying meat. Basuli inched forward, considering. Basuli barked once, the bark of a baboon, then listened for a response which should have been returned forthwith.

Nothing.

So.

Basuli, intuitively, knew that N'Gogo was dead, that the sounds he'd heard were those of N'Gogo's body being devoured by some beast heretofore unencountered by the Waziri, although the odor of decay was dismaying and strangely familiar. The unknown that his warriors had encountered in the jungle many days to the west of this strangely reprehensible territory.

Basuli and his warriors pressed on, a.s.segais at the ready, zebra-skin s.h.i.+elds raised before them. Somewhere ahead, not too far, was a monster which none of them had ever before encountered, unless one counted N'Gogo, and that worthy was not going to be available for a detailed report.

Just as Tarzan prepared to leap the gap, he felt a stealthy tentacle caress his leg, and stopped, his stride broken. There was no chance of even his mighty muscles throwing him across the gap with Jane upon his shoulders unless the take-off was perfect. Snarling, the ape-man turned upon his pursuers, those deadly Followers who were all but invulnerable, and his keen steel blade flashed in the demi-gloom as he slashed again and again at what he now knew to be their most sensitive parts, the eyes on the tips of their tentacles.

He thrust savagely, and the coiling tips withdrew, to strike again. Only by a miracle did the ape-man evade the poisonous fangs of the many-legged monster and then slash an extension of the evil body with his keen-edged knife. A foul odor, stronger than the odor now in the close air of the pa.s.sageway, filled his nostrils as slime oozed from the severed member.

Tarzan thought rapidly, unbuckled the golden belt about his waist, lashed behind him with it. The response was both immediate and satisfying as the huge creature cringed away from the acid touch of the gold. Heartened, he laid Jane upon the path of the tunnel, drove the Followers back up the pa.s.sageway. When he had cleared a path sufficient for a take-off and leap, to the best of his judgment, he picked up his mate, retreated the few steps necessary, and jumped off into utter black-ness!

This had to be it! Over the pit his lithe body sailed, every muscle strained to the breaking point as his steel-tipped fingers grasped for the edge, scrabbling on the hard rock. The leap seemed like an eternity to both the ape-man and his mate, although it lasted only a split second. On the far side of the pit, the Follower struck and struck again, its tentacles drawing back as they touched or came close to the golden belt. Behind it, Basuli's warriors engaged other tentacles, each with its own brain, its own poisonous fang, its own eye. Their spears struck, even in the darkness, true and strong.

”Kill!” cried Basuli, standing astride the shrunken, dry form that had once been N'Gogo. AKill, for the Waziri, for the Tarmangani, for our fellow, N'Gogo!” As the Waziri stabbed, slashed, fighting an unknown but dreaded enemy in almost total darkness, so did Tarzan inflict deep and mortal wounds on the Follower and its eight evil brains, each contained in a tentacle. Behind him, back across the pit, he could hear the others, thwarted in their aimless hunger, thrash the floor of the chamber with futility. The battle on this side was not going as well as could be desired, and Tarzan thought- fully removed his golden belt, the belt he'd taken from the limp form of Glamo, the Venusian. With it, he started to lash out at the tentacles of the Follower, and drove it back upon the all-consuming spears of the Waziri.

Finally, all eight tentacles pulsating, but lifeless, the Follower lay dead, exuding an odorous affluvium that all but sent the Waziri into a panic.

The ape-man shouldered his mate, stepped over the oozing stumps of the Venusian monster, and commanded Basuli to lead the party to daylight.

”N'Gogo?” asked the Lord of the Jungle.

”Ah,” answered Basuli. AI fear he has walked down the trail for the last time. May his hunting be good, his women fat and warm!”

Tarzan, in the dark, patted a firm thigh, the leg of Lady Jane Greystoke, appreciatively. ”Aye,” he said to Basuli. ”May his hunting be good. And his women fat.”

The party left the chamber rapidly. The stench became less. One Follower was dead, behind them. Several were alive, but barely so, on the other side of the pit, with no means of egress into the desert. There, where they were, would they perish, although perhaps not for many years, perhaps centuries. La, high priestess of Opar, also known as Marda, the Venusian, was dead, her heart torn from her breast and held aloft to unknown Atlantean G.o.ds. Dead, also, was Glamo, the Venusian Lord, along with the Silver Globe, his s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p, the vehicle which had so terrified the natives of the Congo.

As Tarzan, Jane and the Waziri emerged upon the plain, all was silent and it was becoming the purple dusk which can only be found in a few remote spots of the world; the dusk that is not quite dusk, yet neither dark nor daylight. When all shadows are luminous and mysterious, when the air cools, the flowers freshen and the beasts come to life. When the water runs cold and clear, and the shy ones, the hartebeest, the eland, the gnu, the dikdik, the topi and the barking zebra come down the game trails to drink.

This night there was a strange silence as Tarzan's party set off across the plains.

There were no carnivores, or at least very few.

Most had been wiped out without a trace or a sound when the Silver Globe had gone up in atoms.

Opar was no more, nor were its former inhabitants.

Finally, ultimately, many-centuries after the fact, all traces of the proud continent that had once called itself Atlantis had been wiped from the memory of man. Nothing remained, except the skeletal remains of a few strange beasts, which puzzled paleontologists of the thirtieth century would try, without result, to reconcile with what was known of the twentieth century, and of the fossils of Africa.

So have ended many dynasties.

Chapter XV.

”Home”

<script>