23
A Night of Terror
To Jane Clayton, waiting in the tree where Werper had placed her,
it seemed that the long night would never end, yet end it did at
last, and within an hour of the coming of dawn her spirits leaped
with renewed hope at sight of a solitary horseman approaching along
the trail.
The flowing burnoose, with its loose hood, hid both the face and
the figure of the rider; but that it was M. Frecoult the girl well
knew, since he had been garbed as an Arab, and he alone might be
expected to seek her hiding place.
That which she saw relieved the strain of the long night vigil;
but there was much that she did not see. She did not see the black
face beneath the white hood, nor the file of ebon horsemen beyond
the trail's bend riding slowly in the wake of their leader. These
things she did not see at first, and so she leaned downward toward
the approaching rider, a cry of welcome forming in her throat.
At the first word the man looked up, reining in in surprise, and as
she saw the black face of Abdul Mourak, the Abyssinian, she shrank
back in terror among the branches; but it was too late. The man
had seen her, and now he called to her to descend. At first she
refused; but when a dozen black cavalrymen drew up behind their
leader, and at Abdul Mourak's command one of them started to climb
the tree after her she realized that resistance was futile, and
came slowly down to stand upon the ground before this new captor
and plead her cause in the name of justice and humanity.
Angered by recent defeat, and by the loss of the gold, the jewels,
and his prisoners, Abdul Mourak was in no mood to be influenced by
any appeal to those softer sentiments to which, as a matter of fact,
he was almost a stranger even under the most favourable conditions.
He looked for degradation and possible death in punishment for his
failures and his misfortunes when he should have returned to his
native land and made his report to Menelek; but an acceptable gift
might temper the wrath of the emperor, and surely this fair flower
of another race should be gratefully received by the black ruler!
When Jane Clayton had concluded her appeal, Abdul Mourak replied
briefly that he would promise her protection; but that he must take
her to his emperor. The girl did not need ask him why, and once
again hope died within her breast. Resignedly she permitted herself
to be lifted to a seat behind one of the troopers, and again, under
new masters, her journey was resumed toward what she now began to
believe was her inevitable fate.
Abdul Mourak, bereft of his guides by the battle he had waged
against the raiders, and himself unfamiliar with the country, had
wandered far from the trail he should have followed, and as a result
had made but little progress toward the north since the beginning
of his flight. Today he was beating toward the west in the hope
of coming upon a village where he might obtain guides; but night
found him still as far from a realization of his hopes as had the
rising sun.
It was a dispirited company which went into camp, waterless and
hungry, in the dense jungle. Attracted by the horses, lions roared
about the boma, and to their hideous din was added the shrill neighs
of the terror-stricken beasts they hunted. There was little sleep
for man or beast, and the sentries were doubled that there might
be enough on duty both to guard against the sudden charge of an
overbold, or overhungry lion, and to keep the fire blazing which
was an even more effectual barrier against them than the thorny
boma.
It was well past midnight, and as yet Jane Clayton, notwithstanding
that she had passed a sleepless night the night before, had scarcely
more than dozed. A sense of impending danger seemed to hang like
a black pall over the camp. The veteran troopers of the black emperor
were nervous and ill at ease. Abdul Mourak left his blankets a
dozen times to pace restlessly back and forth between the tethered
horses and the crackling fire. The girl could see his great frame
silhouetted against the lurid glare of the flames, and she guessed
from the quick, nervous movements of the man that he was afraid.
The roaring of the lions rose in sudden fury until the earth
trembled to the hideous chorus. The horses shrilled their neighs
of terror as they lay back upon their halter ropes in their mad
endeavors to break loose. A trooper, braver than his fellows,
leaped among the kicking, plunging, fear-maddened beasts in a futile
attempt to quiet them. A lion, large, and fierce, and courageous,
leaped almost to the boma, full in the bright light from the fire.
A sentry raised his piece and fired, and the little leaden pellet
unstoppered the vials of hell upon the terror-stricken camp.
The shot ploughed a deep and painful furrow in the lion's side,
arousing all the bestial fury of the little brain; but abating not
a whit the power and vigor of the great body.
Unwounded, the boma and the flames might have turned him back; but
now the pain and the rage wiped caution from his mind, and with a
loud, and angry roar he topped the barrier with an easy leap and
was among the horses.
What had been pandemonium before became now an indescribable tumult
of hideous sound. The stricken horse upon which the lion leaped
shrieked out its terror and its agony. Several about it broke
their tethers and plunged madly about the camp. Men leaped from
their blankets and with guns ready ran toward the picket line, and
then from the jungle beyond the boma a dozen lions, emboldened by
the example of their fellow charged fearlessly upon the camp.
Singly and in twos and threes they leaped the boma, until the
little enclosure was filled with cursing men and screaming horses
battling for their lives with the green-eyed devils of the jungle.
With the charge of the first lion, Jane Clayton had scrambled to
her feet, and now she stood horror-struck at the scene of savage
slaughter that swirled and eddied about her. Once a bolting horse
knocked her down, and a moment later a lion, leaping in pursuit
of another terror-stricken animal, brushed her so closely that she
was again thrown from her feet.
Amidst the cracking of the rifles and the growls of the carnivora
rose the death screams of stricken men and horses as they were
dragged down by the blood-mad cats. The leaping carnivora and the
plunging horses, prevented any concerted action by the Abyssinians--it
was every man for himself--and in the melee, the defenseless woman
was either forgotten or ignored by her black captors. A score of
times was her life menaced by charging lions, by plunging horses,
or by the wildly fired bullets of the frightened troopers, yet
there was no chance of escape, for now with the fiendish cunning
of their kind, the tawny hunters commenced to circle about their
prey, hemming them within a ring of mighty, yellow fangs, and
sharp, long talons. Again and again an individual lion would dash
suddenly among the frightened men and horses, and occasionally
a horse, goaded to frenzy by pain or terror, succeeded in racing
safely through the circling lions, leaping the boma, and escaping
into the jungle; but for the men and the woman no such escape was
possible.
A horse, struck by a stray bullet, fell beside Jane Clayton, a lion
leaped across the expiring beast full upon the breast of a black
trooper just beyond. The man clubbed his rifle and struck futilely
at the broad head, and then he was down and the carnivore was
standing above him.
Shrieking out his terror, the soldier clawed with puny fingers at
the shaggy breast in vain endeavor to push away the grinning jaws.
The lion lowered his head, the gaping fangs closed with a single
sickening crunch upon the fear-distorted face, and turning strode
back across the body of the dead horse dragging his limp and bloody
burden with him.
Wide-eyed the girl stood watching. She saw the carnivore step
upon the corpse, stumblingly, as the grisly thing swung between
its forepaws, and her eyes remained fixed in fascination while the
beast passed within a few paces of her.
The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion. He shook
the inanimate clay venomously. He growled and roared hideously at
the dead, insensate thing, and then he dropped it and raised his
head to look about in search of some living victim upon which to
wreak his ill temper. His yellow eyes fastened themselves balefully
upon the figure of the girl, the bristling lips raised, disclosing
the grinning fangs. A terrific roar broke from the savage throat,
and the great beast crouched to spring upon this new and helpless
victim.
Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan and Werper lay
securely bound. Two nervous sentries paced their beats, their
eyes rolling often toward the impenetrable shadows of the gloomy
jungle. The others slept or tried to sleep--all but the ape-man.
Silently and powerfully he strained at the bonds which fettered
his wrists.
The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin of his arms and
shoulders, the veins stood out upon his temples from the force of
his exertions--a strand parted, another and another, and one hand
was free. Then from the jungle came a low guttural, and the ape-man
became suddenly a silent, rigid statue, with ears and nostrils
straining to span the black void where his eyesight could not reach.
Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdure beyond the camp.
A sentry halted abruptly, straining his eyes into the gloom. The
kinky wool upon his head stiffened and raised. He called to his
comrade in a hoarse whisper.
"Did you hear it?" he asked.
The other came closer, trembling.
"Hear what?"
Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almost immediately
by a similar and answering sound from the camp. The sentries drew
close together, watching the black spot from which the voice seemed
to come.
Trees overhung the boma at this point which was upon the opposite
side of the camp from them. They dared not approach. Their terror
even prevented them from arousing their fellows--they could only
stand in frozen fear and watch for the fearsome apparition they
momentarily expected to see leap from the jungle.
Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form dropped lightly from
the branches of a tree into the camp. At sight of it one of the
sentries recovered command of his muscles and his voice. Screaming
loudly to awaken the sleeping camp, he leaped toward the flickering
watch fire and threw a mass of brush upon it.
The white officer and the black soldiers sprang from their blankets.
The flames leaped high upon the rejuvenated fire, lighting the entire
camp, and the awakened men shrank back in superstitious terror from
the sight that met their frightened and astonished vision.
A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath the trees at the
far side of the enclosure. The white giant, one hand freed, had
struggled to his knees and was calling to the frightful, nocturnal
visitors in a hideous medley of bestial gutturals, barkings and
growlings.
Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savage faces of the
approaching anthropoids and scarcely knew whether to be relieved
or terror-stricken.
Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzan and Werper.
Chulk led them. The Belgian officer called to his men to fire upon
the intruders; but the Negroes held back, filled as they were with
superstitious terror of the hairy treemen, and with the conviction
that the white giant who could thus summon the beasts of the jungle
to his aid was more than human.
Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzan fearing the
effect of the noise upon his really timid friends called to them
to hasten and fulfill his commands.
A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound of the firearm;
but Chulk and a half dozen others waddled rapidly forward, and,
following the ape-man's directions, seized both him and Werper and
bore them off toward the jungle.
By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity the Belgian officer
succeeded in persuading his trembling command to fire a volley after
the retreating apes. A ragged, straggling volley it was, but at
least one of its bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closed
about the hairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werper across one broad
shoulder, staggered and fell.
In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessed from
his unsteady gait that he was hard hit. He lagged far behind the
others, and it was several minutes after they had halted at Tarzan's
command before he came slowly up to them, reeling from side to
side, and at last falling again beneath the weight of his burden
and the shock of his wound.
As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that the latter fell face
downward with the body of the ape lying half across him. In this
position the Belgian felt something resting against his hands,
which were still bound at his back--something that was not a part
of the hairy body of the ape.
Mechanically the man's fingers felt of the object resting almost in
their grasp--it was a soft pouch, filled with small, hard particles.
Werper gasped in wonderment as recognition filtered through the
incredulity of his mind. It was impossible, and yet--it was true!
Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the ape and transfer
it to his own possession; but the restricted radius to which
his bonds held his hands prevented this, though he did succeed in
tucking the pouch with its precious contents inside the waist band
of his trousers.
Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with the remaining
knots of the cords which bound him. Presently he flung aside the
last of them and rose to his feet. Approaching Werper he knelt
beside him. For a moment he examined the ape.
"Quite dead," he announced. "It is too bad--he was a splendid
creature," and then he turned to the work of liberating the Belgian.
He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the knots at his
ankles.
"I can do the rest," said the Belgian. "I have a small pocketknife
which they overlooked when they searched me," and in this way
he succeeded in ridding himself of the ape-man's attentions that
he might find and open his little knife and cut the thong which
fastened the pouch about Chulk's shoulder, and transfer it from his
waist band to the breast of his shirt. Then he rose and approached
Tarzan.
Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the good
intentions which the confidence of Jane Clayton in his honor had
awakened. What she had done, the little pouch had undone. How it
had come upon the person of the great ape, Werper could not imagine,
unless it had been that the anthropoid had witnessed his fight with
Achmet Zek, seen the Arab with the pouch and taken it away from
him; but that this pouch contained the jewels of Opar, Werper was
positive, and that was all that interested him greatly.
"Now," said the ape-man, "keep your promise to me. Lead me to the
spot where you last saw my wife."
It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead of night
behind the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man chafed at the delay,
but the European could not swing through the trees as could his
more agile and muscular companions, and so the speed of all was
limited to that of the slowest.
The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a matter of a few
miles; but presently their interest lagged, the foremost of them
halted in a little glade and the others stopped at his side. There
they sat peering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figures of
the two men forging steadily ahead, until the latter disappeared
in the leafy trail beyond the clearing. Then an ape sought a
comfortable couch beneath a tree, and one by one the others followed
his example, so that Werper and Tarzan continued their journey
alone; nor was the latter either surprised or concerned.
The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade where the
apes had deserted them, when the roaring of distant lions fell upon
their ears. The ape-man paid no attention to the familiar sounds
until the crack of a rifle came faintly from the same direction,
and when this was followed by the shrill neighing of horses, and
an almost continuous fusillade of shots intermingled with increased
and savage roaring of a large troop of lions, he became immediately
concerned.
"Someone is having trouble over there," he said, turning toward
Werper. "I'll have to go to them--they may be friends."
"Your wife might be among them," suggested the Belgian, for since
he had again come into possession of the pouch he had become fearful
and suspicious of the ape-man, and in his mind had constantly
revolved many plans for eluding this giant Englishman, who was at
once his savior and his captor.
At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with a whip.
"God!" he cried, "she might be, and the lions are attacking them--they
are in the camp. I can tell from the screams of the horses--and
there! that was the cry of a man in his death agonies. Stay
here man--I will come back for you. I must go first to them," and
swinging into a tree the lithe figure swung rapidly off into the
night with the speed and silence of a disembodied spirit.
For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left him. Then
a cunning smile crossed his lips. "Stay here?" he asked himself.
"Stay here and wait until you return to find and take these jewels
from me? Not I, my friend, not I," and turning abruptly eastward
Albert Werper passed through the foliage of a hanging vine and out
of the sight of his fellow-man--forever.
