Part 4 (1/2)

An instant later she was surrounded and disariant Negro lifted her to the poalow and outhouses for plunder he rode with her beyond the gates and waited the co of his master

Jane Clayton saw the raiders lead the horses from the corral, and drive the herds in from the fields She saw her home plundered of all that represented intrinsic worth in the eyes of the Arabs, and then she saw the torch applied, and the flames lick up what remained

And at last, when the raiders asse their fury and their avarice, and rode aith her toward the north, she saw the s far into the heavens until the winding of the trail into the thick forests hid the sad view fro-rooues to lick up the bodies of the dead, one of that grueso since been stilled, e black who rolled over upon his side and opened blood-shot, suffering eyes Mugambi, whom the Arabs had left for dead, still lived The hot flames were almost upon him as he raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and crawled slowly toward the doorway

Again and again he sank weakly to the floor; but each tiain and continued his pitiful way toward safety After what see which the flames had become a veritable fiery furnace at the far side of the rooed to reach the veranda, roll down the steps, and crawl off into the cool safety of soht he lay there, alternately unconscious and painfully sentient; and in the latter state watching with savage hatred the lurid fla crib and hay cock A prowling lion roared close at hand; but the giant black was unafraid There was place for but a single thought in his savage e!

7

The Jewel-Room of Opar

For some time Tarzan lay where he had fallen upon the floor of the treasure chamber beneath the ruined walls of Opar He lay as one dead; but he was not dead At length he stirred His eyes opened upon the utter darkness of the rooht it away sticky with clotted blood He sniffed at his fingers, as a wild beast ht sniff at the life-blood upon a wounded paw

Slowly he rose to a sitting posture-listening No sound reached to the buried depths of his sepulcher He staggered to his feet, and groped his way about aots What was he? Where was he? His head ached; but otherwise he felt no ill effects from the blow that had felled hiht of what had led up to it

He let his hands grope unfamiliarly over his limbs, his torso, and his head He felt of the quiver at his back, the knife in his loin cloth Sonition within his brain Ah! he had it There was so with his hands for the thing that instinct warned hione At last he found it-the heavy war spear that in past years had formed so important a feature of his daily life, almost of his very existence, so inseparably had it been connected with his every action since the long-gone day that he had wrested his first spear fro

Tarzan was sure that there was another and more lovely world than that which was confined to the darkness of the four stone walls surrounding him He continued his search and at last found the doorway leading inward beneath the city and the temple This he followed,upward to the higher level He ascended the spurred his hurt memory to a recollection of past fah the darkness as though he were traversing an open plain under the brilliance of a noonday sun, and suddenly there happened that which had to happen under the circumstances of his rash advance

He reached the brink of the well, stepped outward into space, lunged forward, and shot doard into the inky depths below Still clutching his spear, he struck the water, and sank beneath its surface, plu the depths

The fall had not injured him, and when he rose to the surface, he shook the water froht was filtering into the well from the orifice far above his head It illuazed about hie opening in the dark and slimy wall He swam to it, and drew hi this he passed; but noarily, for Tarzan of the Apes was learning The unexpected pit had taught hieways-he needed no second lesson

For a long distance the passage went straight as an arrow The floor was slippery, as though at ti waters of the well overflowed and flooded it This, in itself, retarded Tarzan's pace, for it ith difficulty that he kept his footing

The foot of a stairway ended the passage Up this he , at last, into a slooress through a tubular shaft several feet in dia, upward to a distance of a hundred feet or h which Tarzan could see a blue and sun-lit sky

Curiosity pros Several metal-bound, copper-studded chests constituted the sole furniture of the round room Tarzan let his hands run over these He felt of the copper studs, he pulled upon the hinges, and at last, by chance, he raised the cover of one

An exclaht of the pretty contents Gleaht of the chareat tray full of brilliant stones Tarzan, reverted to the primitive by his accident, had no conception of the fabulous value of his find To hied his hands into theers He went to others of the chests, only to find still further stores of precious stones Nearly all were cut, and froled at his side-the uncut stones he tossed back into the chests

Unwittingly, the ape-es it had lain buried beneath the te God, es which the superstitious descendants of the ancient Sun Worshi+pers had either dared not or cared not to explore

Tiring at last of this diversion, Tarzan took up his way along the corridor which led upward fro, but always tending upward, the tunnel led hi finally in a low-ceiled roohter than any that he had as yet discovered

Above hiht of concrete steps revealed a brilliant sunlit scene Tarzan viewed the vine-covered columns in mild wonderment He puckered his brows in an attes He was not sure of hiestion always present in hishis which he did not know