2
On the Road To Opar
It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, riding
in from a tour of inspection of his vast African estate, glimpsed
the head of a column of men crossing the plain that lay between
his bungalow and the forest to the north and west.
He reined in his horse and watched the little party as it emerged
from a concealing swale. His keen eyes caught the reflection of the
sun upon the white helmet of a mounted man, and with the conviction
that a wandering European hunter was seeking his hospitality, he
wheeled his mount and rode slowly forward to meet the newcomer.
A half hour later he was mounting the steps leading to the veranda
of his bungalow, and introducing M. Jules Frecoult to Lady Greystoke.
"I was completely lost," M. Frecoult was explaining. "My head man
had never before been in this part of the country and the guides
who were to have accompanied me from the last village we passed
knew even less of the country than we. They finally deserted us
two days since. I am very fortunate indeed to have stumbled so
providentially upon succor. I do not know what I should have done,
had I not found you."
It was decided that Frecoult and his party should remain several
days, or until they were thoroughly rested, when Lord Greystoke
would furnish guides to lead them safely back into country with
which Frecoult's head man was supposedly familiar.
In his guise of a French gentleman of leisure, Werper found little
difficulty in deceiving his host and in ingratiating himself with
both Tarzan and Jane Clayton; but the longer he remained the less
hopeful he became of an easy accomplishment of his designs.
Lady Greystoke never rode alone at any great distance from the
bungalow, and the savage loyalty of the ferocious Waziri warriors
who formed a great part of Tarzan's followers seemed to preclude
the possibility of a successful attempt at forcible abduction, or
of the bribery of the Waziri themselves.
A week passed, and Werper was no nearer the fulfillment of his plan,
in so far as he could judge, than upon the day of his arrival, but
at that very moment something occurred which gave him renewed hope
and set his mind upon an even greater reward than a woman's ransom.
A runner had arrived at the bungalow with the weekly mail, and
Lord Greystoke had spent the afternoon in his study reading and
answering letters. At dinner he seemed distraught, and early in the
evening he excused himself and retired, Lady Greystoke following
him very soon after. Werper, sitting upon the veranda, could
hear their voices in earnest discussion, and having realized that
something of unusual moment was afoot, he quietly rose from his
chair, and keeping well in the shadow of the shrubbery growing
profusely about the bungalow, made his silent way to a point beneath
the window of the room in which his host and hostess slept.
Here he listened, and not without result, for almost the first
words he overheard filled him with excitement. Lady Greystoke was
speaking as Werper came within hearing.
"I always feared for the stability of the company," she was
saying; "but it seems incredible that they should have failed for
so enormous a sum--unless there has been some dishonest manipulation."
"That is what I suspect," replied Tarzan; "but whatever the cause,
the fact remains that I have lost everything, and there is nothing
for it but to return to Opar and get more."
"Oh, John," cried Lady Greystoke, and Werper could feel the shudder
through her voice, "is there no other way? I cannot bear to think
of you returning to that frightful city. I would rather live in
poverty always than to have you risk the hideous dangers of Opar."
"You need have no fear," replied Tarzan, laughing. "I am pretty
well able to take care of myself, and were I not, the Waziri who
will accompany me will see that no harm befalls me."
"They ran away from Opar once, and left you to your fate," she
reminded him.
"They will not do it again," he answered. "They were very much
ashamed of themselves, and were coming back when I met them."
"But there must be some other way," insisted the woman.
"There is no other way half so easy to obtain another fortune, as to
go to the treasure vaults of Opar and bring it away," he replied.
"I shall be very careful, Jane, and the chances are that the
inhabitants of Opar will never know that I have been there again
and despoiled them of another portion of the treasure, the very
existence of which they are as ignorant of as they would be of its
value."
The finality in his tone seemed to assure Lady Greystoke that
further argument was futile, and so she abandoned the subject.
Werper remained, listening, for a short time, and then, confident
that he had overheard all that was necessary and fearing discovery,
returned to the veranda, where he smoked numerous cigarets in rapid
succession before retiring.
The following morning at breakfast, Werper announced his intention
of making an early departure, and asked Tarzan's permission to hunt
big game in the Waziri country on his way out--permission which
Lord Greystoke readily granted.
The Belgian consumed two days in completing his preparations, but
finally got away with his safari, accompanied by a single Waziri
guide whom Lord Greystoke had loaned him. The party made but
a single short march when Werper simulated illness, and announced
his intention of remaining where he was until he had fully recovered.
As they had gone but a short distance from the Greystoke bungalow,
Werper dismissed the Waziri guide, telling the warrior that he
would send for him when he was able to proceed. The Waziri gone,
the Belgian summoned one of Achmet Zek's trusted blacks to his tent,
and dispatched him to watch for the departure of Tarzan, returning
immediately to advise Werper of the event and the direction taken
by the Englishman.
The Belgian did not have long to wait, for the following day his
emissary returned with word that Tarzan and a party of fifty Waziri
warriors had set out toward the southeast early in the morning.
Werper called his head man to him, after writing a long letter to
Achmet Zek. This letter he handed to the head man.
"Send a runner at once to Achmet Zek with this," he instructed the
head man. "Remain here in camp awaiting further instructions from
him or from me. If any come from the bungalow of the Englishman,
tell them that I am very ill within my tent and can see no one.
Now, give me six porters and six askaris--the strongest and bravest
of the safari--and I will march after the Englishman and discover
where his gold is hidden."
And so it was that as Tarzan, stripped to the loin cloth and armed
after the primitive fashion he best loved, led his loyal Waziri
toward the dead city of Opar, Werper, the renegade, haunted his
trail through the long, hot days, and camped close behind him by
night.
And as they marched, Achmet Zek rode with his entire following
southward toward the Greystoke farm.
To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature of a holiday
outing. His civilization was at best but an outward veneer which
he gladly peeled off with his uncomfortable European clothes whenever
any reasonable pretext presented itself. It was a woman's love
which kept Tarzan even to the semblance of civilization--a condition
for which familiarity had bred contempt. He hated the shams and
the hypocrisies of it and with the clear vision of an unspoiled mind
he had penetrated to the rotten core of the heart of the thing--the
cowardly greed for peace and ease and the safe-guarding of property
rights. That the fine things of life--art, music and literature--had
thriven upon such enervating ideals he strenuously denied, insisting,
rather, that they had endured in spite of civilization.
"Show me the fat, opulent coward," he was wont to say, "who ever
originated a beautiful ideal. In the clash of arms, in the battle
for survival, amid hunger and death and danger, in the face of God
as manifested in the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is
born all that is finest and best in the human heart and mind."
And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the spirit of a lover
keeping a long deferred tryst after a period behind prison walls.
His Waziri, at marrow, were more civilized than he. They cooked
their meat before they ate it and they shunned many articles of food
as unclean that Tarzan had eaten with gusto all his life and so
insidious is the virus of hypocrisy that even the stalwart ape-man
hesitated to give rein to his natural longings before them. He
ate burnt flesh when he would have preferred it raw and unspoiled,
and he brought down game with arrow or spear when he would far
rather have leaped upon it from ambush and sunk his strong teeth in
its jugular; but at last the call of the milk of the savage mother
that had suckled him in infancy rose to an insistent demand--he
craved the hot blood of a fresh kill and his muscles yearned to pit
themselves against the savage jungle in the battle for existence
that had been his sole birthright for the first twenty years of
his life.
