Part 10 (1/2)
”Cadj, the High Priest,” he announced, ”would sacrifice you both to the Flaladly return to Opar with our queen”
”You are ainst one,” spoke up Tarzan ”Why should you not have your will? Go your ith La to Opar and if Cadj interferes slay hiestion with loud cries of approval To the short of divine inspiration The influence of ages of unquestioning obedience to high priests had made it seem impossible to them to question his authority; but when they realized that they could force him to their will they were as happy as children with new toys
They rushed forward and seized Cadj They talked in loud eon and knife until at last he acquiesced in their deh sullenly, and then Tarzan stepped close before Cadj
”Priest,” he said, ”La goes back to her temple under the protection of her priests and the threat of Tarzan of the Apes that whoever harain to Opar before the next rains and if harh Priest”
Sullenly Cadj promised not to harm his queen
”Protect her,” cried Tarzan to the other Oparians ”Protect her so that when Tarzan coreet hih Priestess, ”and La ait, longing, always longing, until you coain Oh, tell me that you will co quickly into the trees and raced off toward the east
For aafter hih escaped her lips and like an old woh the trees raced Tarzan of the Apes until the darkness of night had settled upon the jungle, then he lay down and slept, with no thought beyond the morrow and with even La but the shadow of a memory within his consciousness
But a few marches to the north Lady Greystoke looked forward to the day when her hty lord and master should discover the crie, and even as she pictured the cohts squatted al, beneath which he was searching with grirub
Two days elapsed following the theft of the jewels before Tarzan gave theht Then, as they chanced to enter his ain, and, having nothing better to do than satisfy the first hich possessed him, he rose and started across the plain fro day
Though no h the spot reseth, where the reeds tere of theprecision directly to the place where he had hid his treasure
With his hunting knife he upturned the loose earth, beneath which the pouch should be; but, though he excavated to a greater distance than the depth of the original hole there was no sign of pouch or jewels Tarzan's brow clouded as he discovered that he had been despoiled Little or no reasoning was required to convince hiuilty party, and with the same celerity that had marked his decision to unearth the jewels, he set out upon the trail of the thief
Though the spoor o days old, and practically obliterated in many places, Tarzan followed it with comparative ease A white man could not have followed it twenty paces twelve hours after it had been made, a black man would have lost it within the first mile; but Tarzan of the Apes had been forced in childhood to develop senses that an ordinary arlic and whisky on the breath of a fellow strap hanger, or the cheap perfu in front of us, and deplore the fact of our sensitive noses; but, as a ans are practically atrophied, by co the beasts of the wild
Where a foot is placed an effluviue of our sensibilities; but to a creature of the lower orders, especially to the hunters and the hunted, as interesting and ofttie to us
Nor was Tarzan dependent alone upon his sense of sht to a marvelous state of development by the necessities of his early life, where survival itself depended alilance and the constant use of all his faculties
And so he followed the old trail of the Belgian through the forest and toward the north; but because of the age of the trail he was constrained to a far froress The man he folloo days ahead of hiained upon the ape-htest doubt as to the outcome Some day he would overhaul his quarry-he could bide his tiedly he followed the faint spoor, pausing by day only to kill and eat, and at night only to sleep and refresh hie warriors; but these he gave a wide berth, for he was hunting with a purpose that was not to be distracted by the minor accidents of the trail
These parties were of the collecting hordes of the Waziri and their allies which Basuli had scattered histo a comhold of Achmet Zek; but to Tarzan they were enemies-he retained no conscious meht when he halted outside the palisaded village of the Arab raider Perched in the branches of a great tree he gazed down upon the life within the enclosure To this place had the spoor led hi so hty powers, realized also his lireat numbers in open battle He must resort to the stealth and trickery of the wild beast, if he were to succeed
Sitting in the safety of his tree,bone of Horta, the boar, Tarzan waited a favorable opportunity to enter the village For awhile he gnawed at the bulging, round ends of the large bone, splintering off s at the delicious lances into the village He sahite-robed figures, and half-naked blacks; but not once did he see one who reseems
Patiently he waited until the streets were deserted by all save the sentries at the gates, then he dropped lightly to the ground, circled to the opposite side of the village and approached the palisade
At his side hung a long, rawhide rope-a natural and rass rope of his childhood Loosening this, he spread the noose upon the ground behind him, and with a quick movement of his wrist tossed the coils over one of the sharpened projections of the su the noose taut, he tested the solidity of its hold Satisfied, the ape-man ran nimbly up the vertical wall, aided by the rope which he clutched in both hands Once at the top it required but arope once ain at his waist, take a quick glance doithin the palisade, and, assured that no one lurked directly beneath hiround