4
Prophecy and Fulfillment
Then Tarzan turned his attention to the man. He had not slain
Numa to save the Negro--he had merely done it in revenge upon the
lion; but now that he saw the old man lying helpless and dying
before him something akin to pity touched his savage heart. In his
youth he would have slain the witch-doctor without the slightest
compunction; but civilization had had its softening effect upon
him even as it does upon the nations and races which it touches,
though it had not yet gone far enough with Tarzan to render him
either cowardly or effeminate. He saw an old man suffering and
dying, and he stooped and felt of his wounds and stanched the flow
of blood.
"Who are you?" asked the old man in a trembling voice.
"I am Tarzan--Tarzan of the Apes," replied the ape-man and not
without a greater touch of pride than he would have said, "I am
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke."
The witch-doctor shook convulsively and closed his eyes. When
he opened them again there was in them a resignation to whatever
horrible fate awaited him at the hands of this feared demon of the
woods. "Why do you not kill me?" he asked.
"Why should I kill you?" inquired Tarzan. "You have not harmed
me, and anyway you are already dying. Numa, the lion, has killed
you."
"You would not kill me?" Surprise and incredulity were in the tones
of the quavering old voice.
"I would save you if I could," replied Tarzan, "but that cannot be
done. Why did you think I would kill you?"
For a moment the old man was silent. When he spoke it was evidently
after some little effort to muster his courage. "I knew you of
old," he said, "when you ranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga,
the chief. I was already a witch-doctor when you slew Kulonga and
the others, and when you robbed our huts and our poison pot. At
first I did not remember you; but at last I did--the white-skinned
ape that lived with the hairy apes and made life miserable in the
village of Mbonga, the chief--the forest god--the Munango-Keewati
for whom we set food outside our gates and who came and ate it.
Tell me before I die--are you man or devil?"
Tarzan laughed. "I am a man," he said.
The old fellow sighed and shook his head. "You have tried to save
me from Simba," he said. "For that I shall reward you. I am a great
witch-doctor. Listen to me, white man! I see bad days ahead of
you. It is writ in my own blood which I have smeared upon my palm.
A god greater even than you will rise up and strike you down. Turn
back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back before it is too late. Danger
lies ahead of you and danger lurks behind; but greater is the danger
before. I see--" He paused and drew a long, gasping breath. Then
he crumpled into a little, wrinkled heap and died. Tarzan wondered
what else he had seen.
It was very late when the ape-man re-entered the boma and lay down
among his black warriors. None had seen him go and none saw him
return. He thought about the warning of the old witch-doctor before
he fell asleep and he thought of it again after he awoke; but he
did not turn back for he was unafraid, though had he known what
lay in store for one he loved most in all the world he would have
flown through the trees to her side and allowed the gold of Opar
to remain forever hidden in its forgotten storehouse.
Behind him that morning another white man pondered something he had
heard during the night and very nearly did he give up his project
and turn back upon his trail. It was Werper, the murderer, who in
the still of the night had heard far away upon the trail ahead of
him a sound that had filled his cowardly soul with terror--a sound
such as he never before had heard in all his life, nor dreamed that
such a frightful thing could emanate from the lungs of a God-created
creature. He had heard the victory cry of the bull ape as Tarzan
had screamed it forth into the face of Goro, the moon, and he had
trembled then and hidden his face; and now in the broad light of a
new day he trembled again as he recalled it, and would have turned
back from the nameless danger the echo of that frightful sound
seemed to portend, had he not stood in even greater fear of Achmet
Zek, his master.
And so Tarzan of the Apes forged steadily ahead toward Opar's
ruined ramparts and behind him slunk Werper, jackal-like, and only
God knew what lay in store for each.
At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking the golden domes
and minarets of Opar, Tarzan halted. By night he would go alone
to the treasure vault, reconnoitering, for he had determined that
caution should mark his every move upon this expedition.
With the coming of night he set forth, and Werper, who had scaled
the cliffs alone behind the ape-man's party, and hidden through the
day among the rough boulders of the mountain top, slunk stealthily
after him. The boulder-strewn plain between the valley's edge and
the mighty granite kopje, outside the city's walls, where lay the
entrance to the passage-way leading to the treasure vault, gave
the Belgian ample cover as he followed Tarzan toward Opar.
He saw the giant ape-man swing himself nimbly up the face of the
great rock. Werper, clawing fearfully during the perilous ascent,
sweating in terror, almost palsied by fear, but spurred on by
avarice, following upward, until at last he stood upon the summit
of the rocky hill.
Tarzan was nowhere in sight. For a time Werper hid behind one of
the lesser boulders that were scattered over the top of the hill,
but, seeing or hearing nothing of the Englishman, he crept from
his place of concealment to undertake a systematic search of his
surroundings, in the hope that he might discover the location of the
treasure in ample time to make his escape before Tarzan returned,
for it was the Belgian's desire merely to locate the gold, that,
after Tarzan had departed, he might come in safety with his followers
and carry away as much as he could transport.
He found the narrow cleft leading downward into the heart of the
kopje along well-worn, granite steps. He advanced quite to the
dark mouth of the tunnel into which the runway disappeared; but
here he halted, fearing to enter, lest he meet Tarzan returning.
The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along the rocky
passage, until he came to the ancient wooden door. A moment later
he stood within the treasure chamber, where, ages since, long-dead
hands had ranged the lofty rows of precious ingots for the rulers
of that great continent which now lies submerged beneath the waters
of the Atlantic.
No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault. There was
no evidence that another had discovered the forgotten wealth since
last the ape-man had visited its hiding place.
Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps toward the summit
of the kopje. Werper, from the concealment of a jutting, granite
shoulder, watched him pass up from the shadows of the stairway
and advance toward the edge of the hill which faced the rim of the
valley where the Waziri awaited the signal of their master. Then
Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place, dropped into
the somber darkness of the entrance and disappeared.
Tarzan, halting upon the kopje's edge, raised his voice in the
thunderous roar of a lion. Twice, at regular intervals, he repeated
the call, standing in attentive silence for several minutes after
the echoes of the third call had died away. And then, from far
across the valley, faintly, came an answering roar--once, twice,
thrice. Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heard and replied.
Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault, knowing that
in a few hours his blacks would be with him, ready to bear away
another fortune in the strangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar. In
the meantime he would carry as much of the precious metal to the
summit of the kopje as he could.
Six trips he made in the five hours before Basuli reached the kopje,
and at the end of that time he had transported forty-eight ingots
to the edge of the great boulder, carrying upon each trip a load
which might well have staggered two ordinary men, yet his giant
frame showed no evidence of fatigue, as he helped to raise his
ebon warriors to the hill top with the rope that had been brought
for the purpose.
Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, and six times
Werper, the Belgian, had cowered in the black shadows at the far
end of the long vault. Once again came the ape-man, and this time
there came with him fifty fighting men, turning porters for love
of the only creature in the world who might command of their fierce
and haughty natures such menial service. Fifty-two more ingots
passed out of the vaults, making the total of one hundred which
Tarzan intended taking away with him.
As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber, Tarzan turned
back for a last glimpse of the fabulous wealth upon which his two
inroads had made no appreciable impression. Before he extinguished
the single candle he had brought with him for the purpose, and the
flickering light of which had cast the first alleviating rays into
the impenetrable darkness of the buried chamber, that it had known
for the countless ages since it had lain forgotten of man, Tarzan's
mind reverted to that first occasion upon which he had entered
the treasure vault, coming upon it by chance as he fled from the
pits beneath the temple, where he had been hidden by La, the High
Priestess of the Sun Worshipers.
He recalled the scene within the temple when he had lain stretched
upon the sacrificial altar, while La, with high-raised dagger,
stood above him, and the rows of priests and priestesses awaited,
in the ecstatic hysteria of fanaticism, the first gush of their
victim's warm blood, that they might fill their golden goblets and
drink to the glory of their Flaming God.
The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the mad priest, passed
vividly before the ape-man's recollective eyes, the flight of the
votaries before the insane blood lust of the hideous creature, the
brutal attack upon La, and his own part of the grim tragedy when
he had battled with the infuriated Oparian and left him dead at
the feet of the priestess he would have profaned.
This and much more passed through Tarzan's memory as he stood
gazing at the long tiers of dull-yellow metal. He wondered if La
still ruled the temples of the ruined city whose crumbling walls
rose upon the very foundations about him. Had she finally been
forced into a union with one of her grotesque priests? It seemed
a hideous fate, indeed, for one so beautiful. With a shake of his
head, Tarzan stepped to the flickering candle, extinguished its
feeble rays and turned toward the exit.
Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone. He had learned
the secret for which he had come, and now he could return at his
leisure to his waiting followers, bring them to the treasure vault
and carry away all the gold that they could stagger under.
The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel, and were
winding upward toward the fresh air and the welcome starlight of
the kopje's summit, before Tarzan shook off the detaining hand of
reverie and started slowly after them.
Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he closed the massive
door of the treasure room. In the darkness behind him Werper rose
and stretched his cramped muscles. He stretched forth a hand and
lovingly caressed a golden ingot on the nearest tier. He raised
it from its immemorial resting place and weighed it in his hands.
He clutched it to his bosom in an ecstasy of avarice.
Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay before him,
of dear arms about his neck, and a soft cheek pressed to his; but
there rose to dispel that dream the memory of the old witch-doctor
and his warning.
And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes of both
these men were shattered. The one forgot even his greed in the
panic of terror--the other was plunged into total forgetfulness of
the past by a jagged fragment of rock which gashed a deep cut upon
his head.
