Part 32 (2/2)
”Man,” he murmured ”And there were fifty ent forth to track me down Can it be they?”
Swiftly he descended the face of the cliff, and, dropping into a narrow ravine which led down to the far forest, he hastened onward in the direction of the se about a quarter of a mile from the point at which the slender column arose into the still air, he took to the trees Cautiously he approached until there suddenly burst upon his view a rude BOMA, in the center of which, squatted about their tiny fires, sat his fifty black Waziri He called to thereet thy king!”
With exclamations of surprise and fear the warriors leaped to their feet, scarcely knohether to flee or not Then Tarzan dropped lightly fro branch into their midst When they realized that it was indeed their chief in the flesh, and no materialized spirit, they went mad with joy
”We were cowards, oh, Waziri,” cried Busuli ”We ran away and left you to your fate; but when our panic was over ore to return and save you, or at least take revenge upon your hts once more and cross the desolate valley to the terrible city”
”Have you seen fifty frightful men pass down from the cliffs into this forest, my children?” asked Tarzan
”Yes, Waziri,” replied Busuli ”They passed us late yesterday, as ere about to turn back after you They had no woodcraft We heard the for a mile beforethem, and as we had other business in hand ithdrew into the forest and let thes, and now and then one would go upon all fours like Bolgani, the gorilla They were indeed fifty frightful men, Waziri”
When Tarzan had related his adventures and told them of the yellow metal he had found, not one de ahat they could carry of the vast treasure; and so it was that as dusk fell across the desolate valley of Opar fifty ebon warriors trailed at a siant bowlder that loomed before the city
If it had seemed a difficult task to descend the face of the bowlder, Tarzan soon found that it would be next to iet his fifty warriors to the summit Finally the feat was accomplished by dint of herculean efforts upon the part of the ape-man Ten spears were fastened end to end, and with one end of this remarkable chain attached to his waist, Tarzan at last succeeded in reaching the summit
Once there, he drew up one of his blacks, and in this way the entire party was finally landed in safety upon the bowlder's top Immediately Tarzan led them to the treasure chaots, for each about eighty pounds
By ht the entire party stood once more at the foot of the bowlder, but with their heavy loads it was mid-forenoon ere they reached the summit of the cliffs Frohting men were unaccustomed to the duties of porters But they bore their burdens uncoly, and at the end of thirty days entered their own country
Here, instead of continuing on toward the northwest and their village, Tarzan guided the of the thirty-third day he bade theold where they had stacked it the previous night
”And you, Waziri?” they asked
”I shall remain here for a few days, my children,” he replied ”Now hasten back to thy wives and children”
When they had gone Tarzan gathered up two of the ingots and, springing into a tree, ran lightly above the tangled and irowth for a couple of hundred yards, to eiants of the jungle forest towered like a guardian host In the center of this natural amphitheater, was a little flat-topped mound of hard earth
Hundreds of times before had Tarzan been to this secluded spot, which was so densely surrounded by thorn bushes and tangled vines and creepers of huge girth that not even Sheeta, the leopard, could worth, force the barriers which protected the council chareat apes frole
Fifty trips Tarzan ots within the precincts of the a-blasted tree he produced the very spade hich he had uncovered the chest of Professor Archimedes Q Porter which he had once, apelike, buried in this selfsa trench, into which he laid the fortune that his blacks had carried frootten treasure vaults of the city of Opar
That night he slept within the a set out to revisit his cabin before returning to his Waziri Finding things as he had left the his prey to the cabin where he ht upon a comfortable couch
For five miles toward the south he roamed, toward the banks of a fair-sized river that flowed into the sea about six one inland about half a mile when there came suddenly to his trained nostrils the one scent that sets the whole savage jungle aquiver--Tarzan s off the ocean, so Tarzan knew that the authors of the scent est of him Mixed with the man scent was the scent of Nuht the ape-nized the scent of whites ”Nuh the trees to the edge of the jungle he sao in prayer, and before her stood a wild, pri white y lion was advancing slowly toward this easy prey The man's face was averted; the woman's bowed in prayer He could not see the features of either
Already Nu There was not a second to spare
Tarzan could not even unsling his bow and fit an arrow in time to send one of his deadly poisoned shafts into the yellow hide He was too far away to reach the beast in tile hope--a lone alternative And with the quickness of thought the ape-man acted
A brawny are spear poised above the giant's shoulder--and then the h the intervening leaves to bury itself in the heart of the leaping lion Without a sound he rolled over at the very feet of his intended victims--dead
For a moment neither the man nor the woman moved Then the latter opened her eyes to look onder upon the dead beast behind her coave a gasp of incredulous astonishment Was he mad? It could not be the woman he loved! But, indeed, it was none other
And the woman rose, and the man took her in his arh a bloody mist of ainst his brown hide