20
Silently in the Night
In A-lur the fortunes of the city had been tossed from hand to hand.
The party of Ko-tan's loyal warriors that Tarzan had led to the
rendezvous at the entrance to the secret passage below the palace
gates had met with disaster. Their first rush had been met with
soft words from the priests. They had been exhorted to defend the
faith of their fathers from blasphemers. Ja-don was painted to
them as a defiler of temples, and the wrath of Jad-ben-Otho was
prophesied for those who embraced his cause. The priests insisted
that Lu-don's only wish was to prevent the seizure of the throne
by Ja-don until a new king could be chosen according to the laws
of the Ho-don.
The result was that many of the palace warriors joined their fellows
of the city, and when the priests saw that those whom they could
influence outnumbered those who remained loyal to the palace, they
caused the former to fall upon the latter with the result that many
were killed and only a handful succeeded in reaching the safety of
the palace gates, which they quickly barred.
The priests led their own forces through the secret passageway
into the temple, while some of the loyal ones sought out Ja-don
and told him all that had happened. The fight in the banquet hall
had spread over a considerable portion of the palace grounds and had
at last resulted in the temporary defeat of those who had opposed
Ja-don. This force, counseled by under priests sent for the purpose
by Lu-don, had withdrawn within the temple grounds so that now
the issue was plainly marked as between Ja-don on the one side and
Lu-don on the other.
The former had been told of all that had occurred in the apartments
of O-lo-a to whose safety he had attended at the first opportunity
and he had also learned of Tarzan's part in leading his men to the
gathering of Lu-don's warriors.
These things had naturally increased the old warrior's former
inclinations of friendliness toward the ape-man, and now he regretted
that the other had departed from the city.
The testimony of O-lo-a and Pan-at-lee was such as to strengthen
whatever belief in the godliness of the stranger Ja-don and others
of the warriors had previously entertained, until presently there
appeared a strong tendency upon the part of this palace faction
to make the Dor-ul-otho an issue of their original quarrel with
Lu-don. Whether this occurred as the natural sequence to repeated
narrations of the ape-man's exploits, which lost nothing by repetition,
in conjunction with Lu-don's enmity toward him, or whether it was
the shrewd design of some wily old warrior such as Ja-don, who
realized the value of adding a religious cause to their temporal
one, it were difficult to determine; but the fact remained that
Ja-don's followers developed bitter hatred for the followers of
Lu-don because of the high priest's antagonism to Tarzan.
Unfortunately however Tarzan was not there to inspire the followers
of Ja-don with the holy zeal that might have quickly settled the
dispute in the old chieftain's favor. Instead, he was miles away
and because their repeated prayers for his presence were unanswered,
the weaker spirits among them commenced to suspect that their cause
did not have divine favor. There was also another and a potent cause
for defection from the ranks of Ja-don. It emanated from the city
where the friends and relatives of the palace warriors, who were
largely also the friends and relatives of Lu-don's forces, found
the means, urged on by the priesthood, to circulate throughout the
palace pernicious propaganda aimed at Ja-don's cause.
The result was that Lu-don's power increased while that of Ja-don
waned. Then followed a sortie from the temple which resulted in the
defeat of the palace forces, and though they were able to withdraw
in decent order withdraw they did, leaving the palace to Lu-don,
who was now virtually ruler of Pal-ul-don.
Ja-don, taking with him the princess, her women, and their slaves,
including Pan-at-lee, as well as the women and children of his
faithful followers, retreated not only from the palace but from the
city of A-lur as well and fell back upon his own city of Ja-lur. Here
he remained, recruiting his forces from the surrounding villages
of the north which, being far removed from the influence of the
priesthood of A-lur, were enthusiastic partisans in any cause that
the old chieftain espoused, since for years he had been revered as
their friend and protector.
And while these events were transpiring in the north, Tarzan-jad-guru
lay in the lion pit at Tu-lur while messengers passed back and
forth between Mo-sar and Lu-don as the two dickered for the throne
of Pal-ul-don. Mo-sar was cunning enough to guess that should an
open breach occur between himself and the high priest he might use
his prisoner to his own advantage, for he had heard whisperings
among even his own people that suggested that there were those who
were more than a trifle inclined to belief in the divinity of the
stranger and that he might indeed be the Dor-ul-Otho. Lu-don wanted
Tarzan himself. He wanted to sacrifice him upon the eastern altar
with his own hands before a multitude of people, since he was
not without evidence that his own standing and authority had been
lessened by the claims of the bold and heroic figure of the stranger.
The method that the high priest of Tu-lur had employed to trap
Tarzan had left the ape-man in possession of his weapons though
there seemed little likelihood of their being of any service to
him. He also had his pouch, in which were the various odds and ends
which are the natural accumulation of all receptacles from a gold
meshbag to an attic. There were bits of obsidian and choice feathers
for arrows, some pieces of flint and a couple of steel, an old
knife, a heavy bone needle, and strips of dried gut. Nothing very
useful to you or me, perhaps; but nothing useless to the savage
life of the ape-man.
When Tarzan realized the trick that had been so neatly played upon
him he had awaited expectantly the coming of the lion, for though
the scent of ja was old he was sure that sooner or later they would
let one of the beasts in upon him. His first consideration was a
thorough exploration of his prison. He had noticed the hide-covered
windows and these he immediately uncovered, letting in the light,
and revealing the fact that though the chamber was far below the
level of the temple courts it was yet many feet above the base of
the hill from which the temple was hewn. The windows were so closely
barred that he could not see over the edge of the thick wall in
which they were cut to determine what lay close in below him. At
a little distance were the blue waters of Jad-in-lul and beyond,
the verdure-clad farther shore, and beyond that the mountains. It
was a beautiful picture upon which he looked--a picture of peace
and harmony and quiet. Nor anywhere a slightest suggestion of the
savage men and beasts that claimed this lovely landscape as their
own. What a paradise! And some day civilized man would come
and--spoil it! Ruthless axes would raze that age-old wood; black,
sticky smoke would rise from ugly chimneys against that azure sky;
grimy little boats with wheels behind or upon either side would
churn the mud from the bottom of Jad-in-lul, turning its blue waters
to a dirty brown; hideous piers would project into the lake from
squalid buildings of corrugated iron, doubtless, for of such are
the pioneer cities of the world.
But would civilized man come? Tarzan hoped not. For countless
generations civilization had ramped about the globe; it had dispatched
its emissaries to the North Pole and the South; it had circled
Pal-ul-don once, perhaps many times, but it had never touched her.
God grant that it never would. Perhaps He was saving this little
spot to be always just as He had made it, for the scratching of
the Ho-don and the Waz-don upon His rocks had not altered the fair
face of Nature.
Through the windows came sufficient light to reveal the whole
interior to Tarzan. The room was fairly large and there was a door
at each end--a large door for men and a smaller one for lions.
Both were closed with heavy masses of stone that had been lowered
in grooves running to the floor. The two windows were small and closely
barred with the first iron that Tarzan had seen in Pal-ul-don. The
bars were let into holes in the casing, and the whole so strongly
and neatly contrived that escape seemed impossible. Yet within a
few minutes of his incarceration Tarzan had commenced to undertake
his escape. The old knife in his pouch was brought into requisition
and slowly the ape-man began to scrape and chip away the stone from
about the bars of one of the windows. It was slow work but Tarzan
had the patience of absolute health.
Each day food and water were brought him and slipped quickly beneath
the smaller door which was raised just sufficiently to allow the
stone receptacles to pass in. The prisoner began to believe that
he was being preserved for something beside lions. However that
was immaterial. If they would but hold off for a few more days they
might select what fate they would--he would not be there when they
arrived to announce it.
And then one day came Pan-sat, Lu-don's chief tool, to the city
of Tu-lur. He came ostensibly with a fair message for Mo-sar from
the high priest at A-lur. Lu-don had decided that Mo-sar should
be king and he invited Mo-sar to come at once to A-lur and then
Pan-sat, having delivered the message, asked that he might go to
the temple of Tu-lur and pray, and there he sought the high priest
of Tu-lur to whom was the true message that Lu-don had sent. The
two were closeted alone in a little chamber and Pan-sat whispered
into the ear of the high priest.
"Mo-sar wishes to be king," he said, "and Lu-don wishes to be
king. Mo-sar wishes to retain the stranger who claims to be the
Dor-ul-Otho and Lu-don wishes to kill him, and now," he leaned even
closer to the ear of the high priest of Tu-lur, "if you would be
high priest at A-lur it is within your power."
Pan-sat ceased speaking and waited for the other's reply. The high
priest was visibly affected. To be high priest at A-lur! That was
almost as good as being king of all Pal-ul-don, for great were the
powers of him who conducted the sacrifices upon the altars of A-lur.
"How?" whispered the high priest. "How may I become high priest at
A-lur?"
Again Pan-sat leaned close: "By killing the one and bringing the
other to A-lur," replied he. Then he rose and departed knowing chat
the other had swallowed the bait and could be depended upon to do
whatever was required to win him the great prize.
Nor was Pan-sat mistaken other than in one trivial consideration.
This high priest would indeed commit murder and treason to attain
the high office at A-lur; but he had misunderstood which of
his victims was to be killed and which to be delivered to Lu-don.
Pan-sat, knowing himself all the details of the plannings of
Lu-don, had made the quite natural error of assuming that the ocher
was perfectly aware that only by publicly sacrificing the false
Dor-ul-Otho could the high priest at A-lur bolster his waning power
and that the assassination of Mo-sar, the pretender, would remove
from Lu-don's camp the only obstacle to his combining the offices
of high priest and king. The high priest at Tu-lur thought that he
had been commissioned to kill Tarzan and bring Mo-sar to A-lur. He
also thought that when he had done these things he would be made
high priest at A-lur; but he did not know that already the priest
had been selected who was to murder him within the hour that
he arrived at A-lur, nor did he know that a secret grave had been
prepared for him in the floor of a subterranean chamber in the very
temple he dreamed of controlling.
And so when he should have been arranging the assassination of
his chief he was leading a dozen heavily bribed warriors through
the dark corridors beneath the temple to slay Tarzan in the lion
pit. Night had fallen. A single torch guided the footsteps of the
murderers as they crept stealthily upon their evil way, for they
knew that they were doing the thing that their chief did not want
done and their guilty consciences warned them to stealth.
In the dark of his cell the ape-man worked at his seemingly endless
chipping and scraping. His keen ears detected the coming of footsteps
along the corridor without--footsteps that approached the larger
door. Always before had they come to the smaller door--the footsteps
of a single slave who brought his food. This time there were many
more than one and their coming at this time of night carried a
sinister suggestion. Tarzan continued to work at his scraping and
chipping. He heard them stop beyond the door. All was silence broken
only by the scrape, scrape, scrape of the ape-man's tireless blade.
Those without heard it and listening sought to explain it. They
whispered in low tones making their plans. Two would raise the door
quickly and the others would rush in and hurl their clubs at the
prisoner. They would take no chances, for the stories that had
circulated in A-lur had been brought to Tu-lur--stories of the great
strength and wonderful prowess of Tarzan-jad-guru that caused the
sweat to stand upon the brows of the warriors, though it was cool
in the damp corridor and they were twelve to one.
And then the high priest gave the signal--the door shot upward
and ten warriors leaped into the chamber with poised clubs. Three
of the heavy weapons flew across the room toward a darker shadow
that lay in the shadow of the opposite wall, then the flare of the
torch in the priest's hand lighted the interior and they saw that
the thing at which they had flung their clubs was a pile of skins
torn from the windows and that except for themselves the chamber
was vacant.
One of them hastened to a window. All but a single bar was gone and
to this was tied one end of a braided rope fashioned from strips
cut from the leather window hangings.
To the ordinary dangers of Jane Clayton's existence was now added
the menace of Obergatz' knowledge of her whereabouts. The lion
and the panther had given her less cause for anxiety than did the
return of the unscrupulous Hun, whom she had always distrusted
and feared, and whose repulsiveness was now immeasurably augmented
by his unkempt and filthy appearance, his strange and mirthless
laughter, and his unnatural demeanor. She feared him now with a new
fear as though he had suddenly become the personification of some
nameless horror. The wholesome, outdoor life that she had been
leading had strengthened and rebuilt her nervous system yet it
seemed to her as she thought of him that if this man should ever
touch her she should scream, and, possibly, even faint. Again and
again during the day following their unexpected meeting the woman
reproached herself for not having killed him as she would ja or
jato or any other predatory beast that menaced her existence or
her safety. There was no attempt at self-justification for these
sinister reflections--they needed no justification. The standards
by which the acts of such as you or I may be judged could not
apply to hers. We have recourse to the protection of friends and
relatives and the civil soldiery that upholds the majesty of the
law and which may be invoked to protect the righteous weak against
the unrighteous strong; but Jane Clayton comprised within herself
not only the righteous weak but all the various agencies for the
protection of the weak. To her, then, Lieutenant Erich Obergatz
presented no different problem than did ja, the lion, other than
that she considered the former the more dangerous animal. And so
she determined that should he ignore her warning there would be
no temporizing upon the occasion of their next meeting--the same
swift spear that would meet ja's advances would meet his.
That night her snug little nest perched high in the great tree
seemed less the sanctuary that it had before. What might resist the
sanguinary intentions of a prowling panther would prove no great
barrier to man, and influenced by this thought she slept less well
than before. The slightest noise that broke the monotonous hum of the
nocturnal jungle startled her into alert wakefulness to lie with
straining ears in an attempt to classify the origin of the disturbance,
and once she was awakened thus by a sound that seemed to come from
something moving in her own tree. She listened intently--scarce
breathing. Yes, there it was again. A scuffing of something soft
against the hard bark of the tree. The woman reached out in the
darkness and grasped her spear. Now she felt a slight sagging of
one of the limbs that supported her shelter as though the thing,
whatever it was, was slowly raising its weight to the branch. It
came nearer. Now she thought that she could detect its breathing.
It was at the door. She could hear it fumbling with the frail
barrier. What could it be? It made no sound by which she might
identify it. She raised herself upon her hands and knees and crept
stealthily the little distance to the doorway, her spear clutched
tightly in her hand. Whatever the thing was, it was evidently
attempting to gain entrance without awakening her. It was just
beyond the pitiful little contraption of slender boughs that she
had bound together with grasses and called a door--only a few inches
lay between the thing and her. Rising to her knees she reached out
with her left hand and felt until she found a place where a crooked
branch had left an opening a couple of inches wide near the center
of the barrier. Into this she inserted the point of her spear. The
thing must have heard her move within for suddenly it abandoned its
efforts for stealth and tore angrily at the obstacle. At the same
moment Jane thrust her spear forward with all her strength. She
felt it enter flesh. There was a scream and a curse from without,
followed by the crashing of a body through limbs and foliage. Her
spear was almost dragged from her grasp, but she held to it until
it broke free from the thing it had pierced.
It was Obergatz; the curse had told her that. From below came
no further sound. Had she, then, killed him? She prayed so--with
all her heart she prayed it. To be freed from the menace of this
loathsome creature were relief indeed. During all the balance of
the night she lay there awake, listening. Below her, she imagined,
she could see the dead man with his hideous face bathed in the cold
light of the moon--lying there upon his back staring up at her.
She prayed that ja might come and drag it away, but all during
the remainder of the night she heard never another sound above the
drowsy hum of the jungle. She was glad that he was dead, but she
dreaded the gruesome ordeal that awaited her on the morrow, for
she must bury the thing that had been Erich Obergatz and live on
there above the shallow grave of the man she had slain.
She reproached herself for her weakness, repeating over and over
that she had killed in self-defense, that her act was justified;
but she was still a woman of today, and strong upon her were the
iron mandates of the social order from which she had sprung, its
interdictions and its superstitions.
At last came the tardy dawn. Slowly the sun topped the distant
mountains beyond Jad-in-lul. And yet she hesitated to loosen the
fastenings of her door and look out upon the thing below. But it
must be done. She steeled herself and untied the rawhide thong that
secured the barrier. She looked down and only the grass and the
flowers looked up at her. She came from her shelter and examined
the ground upon the opposite side of the tree--there was no dead man
there, nor anywhere as far as she could see. Slowly she descended,
keeping a wary eye and an alert ear ready for the first intimation
of danger.
At the foot of the tree was a pool of blood and a little trail of
crimson drops upon the grass, leading away parallel with the shore
of Jad-ben-lul. Then she had not slain him! She was vaguely aware
of a peculiar, double sensation of relief and regret. Now she
would be always in doubt. He might return; but at least she would
not have to live above his grave.
She thought some of following the bloody spoor on the chance that
he might have crawled away to die later, but she gave up the idea
for fear that she might find him dead nearby, or, worse yet badly
wounded. What then could she do? She could not finish him with
her spear--no, she knew that she could not do that, nor could she
bring him back and nurse him, nor could she leave him there to
die of hunger or of thirst, or to become the prey of some prowling
beast. It were better then not to search for him for fear that she
might find him.
That day was one of nervous starting to every sudden sound. The
day before she would have said that her nerves were of iron; but
not today. She knew now the shock that she had suffered and that
this was the reaction. Tomorrow it might be different, but something
told her that never again would her little shelter and the patch
of forest and jungle that she called her own be the same. There
would hang over them always the menace of this man. No longer would
she pass restful nights of deep slumber. The peace of her little
world was shattered forever.
That night she made her door doubly secure with additional thongs
of rawhide cut from the pelt of the buck she had slain the day that
she met Obergatz. She was very tired for she had lost much sleep
the night before; but for a long time she lay with wide-open eyes
staring into the darkness. What saw she there? Visions that brought
tears to those brave and beautiful eyes--visions of a rambling
bungalow that had been home to her and that was no more, destroyed
by the same cruel force that haunted her even now in this remote,
uncharted corner of the earth; visions of a strong man whose protecting
arm would never press her close again; visions of a tall, straight
son who looked at her adoringly out of brave, smiling eyes that were
like his father's. Always the vision of the crude simple bungalow
rather than of the stately halls that had been as much a part of
her life as the other. But he had loved the bungalow and the broad,
free acres best and so she had come to love them best, too.
At last she slept, the sleep of utter exhaustion. How long it
lasted she did not know; but suddenly she was wide awake and once
again she heard the scuffing of a body against the bark of her
tree and again the limb bent to a heavy weight. He had returned!
She went cold, trembling as with ague. Was it he, or, O God! had
she killed him then and was this--? She tried to drive the horrid
thought from her mind, for this way, she knew, lay madness.
And once again she crept to the door, for the thing was outside
just as it had been last night. Her hands trembled as she placed
the point of her weapon to the opening. She wondered if it would
scream as it fell.
