The Theft of the Jewels
For two days Werper sought for the party that had accompanied him from the camp to the barrier cliffs;
but not until late in the afternoon of the second day did he find clew to its whereabouts, and then in such gruesome form that he was totally unnerved by the sight.
In an open glade he came upon the bodies of three of the blacks, terribly mutilated, nor did it require considerable deductive power to explain their murder.
Of the little party only these three had not been slaves.The others, evidently tempted to hope for freedom from their cruel Arab master, had taken advantage of their separation from the main camp, to slay the three representatives of the hated power which held them in slavery, and vanish into the jungle.
Cold sweat exuded from Werper's forehead as he contemplated the fate which chance had permitted him to escape, for had he been present when the conspiracy bore fruit, he, too, must have been of the garnered.
Tarzan showed not the slightest surprise or interest in the discovery.Inherent in him was a calloused familiarity with violent death.The refinements of his recent civilization expunged by the force of the sad calamity which had befallen him, left only the primitive sensibilities which his childhood's training had imprinted indelibly upon the fabric of his mind.
The training of Kala, the examples and precepts of Kerchak, of Tublat, and of Terkoz now formed the basis of his every thought and action.He retained a mechanical knowledge of French and English speech.
Werper had spoken to him in French, and Tarzan had replied in the same tongue without conscious realization that he had departed from the anthropoidal speech in which he had addressed La.Had Werper used English, the result would have been the same.
Again, that night, as the two sat before their camp fire, Tarzan played with his shining baubles.Werper asked him what they were and where he had found them.
The ape-man replied that they were gay-colored stones, with which he purposed fashioning a necklace, and that he had found them far beneath the sacrificial court of the temple of the Flaming God.
Werper was relieved to find that Tarzan had no conception of the value of the gems.This would make it easier for the Belgian to obtain possession of them.
Possibly the man would give them to him for the asking.
Werper reached out his hand toward the little pile that Tarzan had arranged upon a piece of flat wood before him.
"Let me see them," said the Belgian.
Tarzan placed a large palm over his treasure.He bared his fighting fangs, and growled.Werper withdrew his hand more quickly than he had advanced it.Tarzan resumed his playing with the gems, and his conversation with Werper as though nothing unusual had occurred.
He had but exhibited the beast's jealous protective instinct for a possession.When he killed he shared the meat with Werper; but had Werper ever, by accident, laid a hand upon Tarzan's share, he would have aroused the same savage, and resentful warning.
From that occurrence dated the beginning of a great fear in the breast of the Belgian for his savage companion.He had never understood the transformation that had been wrought in Tarzan by the blow upon his head, other than to attribute it to a form of amnesia.
That Tarzan had once been, in truth, a savage, jungle beast, Werper had not known, and so, of course, he could not guess that the man had reverted to the state in which his childhood and young manhood had been spent.
Now Werper saw in the Englishman a dangerous maniac, whom the slightest untoward accident might turn upon him with rending fangs.Not for a moment did Werper attempt to delude himself into the belief that he could defend himself successfully against an attack by the ape-man.His one hope lay in eluding him, and making for the far distant camp of Achmet Zek as rapidly as he could; but armed only with the sacrificial knife, Werper shrank from attempting the journey through the jungle.Tarzan constituted a protection that was by no means despicable, even in the face of the larger carnivora, as Werper had reason to acknowledge from the evidence he had witnessed in the Oparian temple.
Too, Werper had his covetous soul set upon the pouch of gems, and so he was torn between the various emotions of avarice and fear.But avarice it was that burned most strongly in his breast, to the end that he dared the dangers and suffered the terrors of constant association with him he thought a mad man, rather than give up the hope of obtaining possession of the fortune which the contents of the little pouch represented.
Achmet Zek should know nothing of these--these would be for Werper alone, and so soon as he could encompass his design he would reach the coast and take passage for America, where he could conceal himself beneath the veil of a new identity and enjoy to some measure the fruits of his theft.He had it all planned out, did Lieutenant Albert Werper, living in anticipation the luxurious life of the idle rich.He even found himself regretting that America was so provincial, and that nowhere in the new world was a city that might compare with his beloved Brussels.
It was upon the third day of their progress from Opar that the keen ears of Tarzan caught the sound of men behind them.Werper heard nothing above the humming of the jungle insects, and the chattering life of the lesser monkeys and the birds.
For a time Tarzan stood in statuesque silence, listening, his sensitive nostrils dilating as he assayed each passing breeze.Then he withdrew Werper into the concealment of thick brush, and waited.
Presently, along the game trail that Werper and Tarzan had been following, there came in sight a sleek, black warrior, alert and watchful.
