Tarzan the Magnificent t-20

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  There were a dozen pairs of them, and their owners formed a motley crew of unkempt, savage warriors. Of them, seven were bearded white men and five were blacks. All were similarly garbed in well worn loin-cloths of the skins of wild beasts. They carried bows and arrows and short, heavy spears; and all the blacks and some of the whites wore barbaric ornaments-necklaces of the teeth of animals and armlets and anklets. Upon their backs were small shields of the hide of the buffalo.

  They watched Tarzan as he descended into the gorge of the Mafa and slaked his thirst. They saw him take a piece of meat from his quiver and eat, and every move that he made they watched. Sometimes they spoke together in low whispers that could not carry against the wind to the ears of the apeman.

  One, who seemed to be the leader, spoke most often. He was a white man whose brown hair had greyed at the temples and whose beard was streaked with grey. He was well built, with the hard leanness of the athlete. His forehead and his eyes denoted intelligence. His companions called him Lord.

  Tarzan was tired. For three days he had scaled cliffs and crags, descended into abysses, and clambered to lofty summits; and the previous night his rest had been broken by hunting leopards that had caught his scent and stalked him. He had killed one that had attacked him; but others had kept him constantly on the alert, precluding the possibility of continued rest.

  The sun was still an hour high when he lay down to sleep behind a bush on the slope above the Mafa. That he was dog-tired must account for that which followed, for ordinarily nothing could have approached without arousing him.

  When he did awaken, it was still daylight; and a dozen warriors formed a close circle about him, the points of their spears directed at his unprotected body. He looked up into the savage, unfriendly eyes of a black man; then he glanced quickly around the circle and noted the composition of the group. He did not speak. He saw that he was outnumbered and a captive. Under the circumstances there was nothing that he could say that would serve him any purpose.

  His silence and his composure set his captors aback. They had expected him to show fear and excitement. He did neither. He just lay there and appraised them through steady, grey eyes.

  "Well, Kaji," said Lord at last, "we've got you."

  The truth of the statement was too obvious to require comment; so Tarzan remained silent. He was interested less in what the man said than in the language in which he said it. The fellow appeared definitely Anglo-Saxon, yet he spoke a bastard tongue the base of which was Galla but so intermixed with other tongues that it would have been unintelligible to one less versed in African dialect and European languages than Tarzan. In his brief speech, that could be translated into six English words, he had used as many tongues.

  Lord shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Well, Kaji," he said after a brief silence, "what have you got to say?"

  "Nothing," replied the ape-man.

  "Get up!" directed Lord.

  Tarzan arose and stretched with the easy indifference of a lion in its own lair.

  "Take his weapons," snapped Lord; and then, half to himself and in English: "By Jove, but he's a rum 'un."

  Then, indeed, was Tarzan interested. Here was an Englishman. There might be some reason to speak now-to ask questions.

  "Who are you?" he demanded. "What makes you think that I'm a Kaji?"

  "For the same reason that you know that we are Zuli," replied Lord. "Because there are no other people in these mountains." Then he turned to one of his fellows. "Tie his hands behind his back."

  They led him then across the ridge and down the other side of the divide; but it was dark now, and Tarzan saw nothing of the country through which they passed. He knew that they followed a well worn trail that often dropped precipitously down the side of a rocky gorge until it reached a gentler descent and wound tortuously as though following the meanderings of the stream that splashed or purled or gurgled at their right.

  It was very dark in the gorge; but at length they came out into open, level country; and there it was lighter; though still no landmarks were visible to give the ape-man a suggestion of the terrain of this unfamiliar land.

  A dim, flickering light showed far ahead. For half an hour they approached it before its closer aspect explained it. Then Tarzan saw that it was from an open fire burning behind the stockade of a village.

  As they approached the gates, Lord halloed; and when he had identified himself they were admitted, and Tarzan found himself in a village of stone huts thatched with grass. The light from the fire burning in the center of the main street revealed only a portion of the village, which evidently was of considerable size; the rest was lost in the shadows beyond the limit of the firelight.

  Before him, built directly across the principal avenue, loomed a large two-storied stone building. At the village gate were several women garbed and armed similarly to his captors. In the none-too-brilliant light of the fire they appeared to be white women; and there were others, like them, lounging in the doorways of huts or about the fire. Among them were a number of white men; and all of them, but especially the women, evinced considerable interest in Tarzan as Lord led him through the village.

  "Ai, Kaji!" they yelled at him. "You will soon be dead, Kaji."

  "It is too bad he is a Kaji," shouted one woman. "He would make a fine husband."

  "Perhaps Woora will give him to you," bantered another, "when he gets through with him."

  "He will be no good for a husband then. I do not want lion meat for a husband."

  "I hope Woora feeds him to the lions alive. We have had no good sport since before the last rains."

  "He will not turn this one to the lions. The fellow has too good a head. He looks as though he might have brains, and Woora never wastes good brains on the lions."

  Through this barrage of comment, Lord led his captive to the entrance to the big building that dominated the village. At its portals were a dozen warrior-women, barring entrance. One of them advanced to meet Lord, the point of her spear dropped to the level of the man's abdomen.

  Lord halted. "Tell Woora that we bring a Kaji prisoner," he said.

  The woman turned to one of her warriors. "Tell Woora that Lord brings a Kaji prisoner," she directed; then her eyes travelled over the ape-man appraisingly.

  "A good specimen, eh?" said Lord. "What a fine mate he'd make for you, Lorro."

  The woman spat reflectively. "M-m-m, yes," she agreed; "he has good conformation, but he is a little too dark. Now, if one were sure he had nothing but white blood, he'd be well worth fighting for. Do you suppose he's all white? But what's the difference? He's a Kaji, and that's the end of him."

  Since his capture Tarzan had spoken only a few words, and these in the Gallic dialect. He had not denied that he was a Kaji for the same reason that he had made no effort to escape: curiosity prompted him to learn more of the Zuli-curiosity and the hope that he might learn something of advantage from these enemies of the Kaji that would aid him in freeing the two Americans and their companions from captivity and releasing them permanently from the malign power of Mafka.

  As he waited before the entrance to the palace of Woora he decided that he was rather enjoying the adventure. The frank appraisal of Lorro amused him. The idea of a woman fighting for possession of him appealed to his sense of humor. At the time he did not know exactly what the woman's words connoted, but he made a shrewd guess based on what Wood had told him of the customs of the Kaji.

  Indifferently he appraised the woman. She might have been an octoroon, or she might have been a white woman with a coat of tan. Her features were not Negroid. Except for her dark hair she might have passed easily for a Scandinavian. She was a well-formed woman of about thirty, clean limbed and with the muscular contours of an athlete rendered graceful by femininity. Her features were good, and by any civilized standards she would have been accounted a handsome woman.

  The ape-man's reflections upon the subject were interrupted by the return of the warrior Lorro had sent to advise Woo
ra of Lord's return with a prisoner.

  "Lord is to take the Kaji to Woora," she announced. "See that the prisoner bears no weapons, that his hands are tied behind him, and that a strong guard accompanies him and Lord-a guard of women."

  With six of her warriors, Lorro escorted Lord and his prisoner into the palace, a palace only by virtue of its being occupied by a ruler-a palace by courtesy, one might say.

  They entered a gloomy hall lighted dimly by a burning wick in a shallow pottery dish, a primitive cresset that gave forth more soot than light. Upon either side of the corridor were doorways, across most of which were drawn hangings fashioned from the pelts of animals, mostly buffaloes.

  One uncovered doorway revealed a chamber in which a number of warrior-women were congregated. Some lay on low, skin-covered cots; others squatted in a circle upon the floor intent upon some game they were playing. The walls of the room were hung with spears and shields and bows and arrows. It was evidently a guard-room. Just beyond it, the corridor ended before a massive door guarded by two warriors.

  It was evident that the guards were expecting the party and had received their instructions, for as they approached the doors were swung open for them to enter.

  Tarzan saw before him a large room at the far end of which a figure was seated upon a dais. Two score or more of smoking cressets lighted the interior, revealing walls hung with a strange array of skins, weapons, rugs, silks, calicoes –a veritable museum, Tarzan conjectured, of the loot of many a safari; but by far the most outstanding and impressive feature of the decorations was the frieze of human heads that encircled the chamber-the mummified heads of women, hanging by their long hair, while from the smoke-darkened beams of the ceiling depended a hundred more.

  These things the eyes of the ape-man took in in a sweeping glance; then they returned to the dais and the figure upon it. A score of women warriors flanked the dais where the lone figure sat upon a huge throne chair.

  At first glance Tarzan saw only an enormous head thatched with scraggly grey hair; and then, below the head, a shrivelled body that was mostly abdomen-a hideously repulsive figure, naked but for a loin cloth. The skin of the face and head were drawn like yellow parchment over the bones of the skull-a living death's head in which were set two deep, glowing eyes that smouldered and burned as twin pits of Hell. And Tarzan knew that he was in the presence of Woora.

  On a table directly in front of the magician rested an enormous emerald that reflected the lights from the nearer cressets and shot them back in scintillant rays that filled the apartment with their uncanny light.

  But it was the man rather than the emerald that interested Tarzan. Woora was no black man, yet it was difficult to determine to what race he might belong. His skin was yellow, yet his features were not those of a Chinese. He might have been almost anything.

  For several minutes he sat staring at Tarzan after the latter was halted before the dais. Gradually an expression of puzzlement and frustration overspread his face; then he spoke.

  "How is my brother?" he demanded, the words squeaking like a rusty hinge.

  The expression on Tarzan's face revealed no emotion, though inwardly he was greatly puzzled by the question.

  "I do not know your brother," he replied.

  "What?" demanded Woora. "You mean to tell me, Kaji, that you do not know that prince of liars, that thief, that murderer, that ingrate, my brother?"

  The ape-man shook his head. "I do not know him," he repeated, "and I am no Kaji."

  "What!" screamed Woora, glaring at Lord. "This is no Kaji? Didn't you tell me you were bringing a Kaji?"

  "We captured him near the headwaters of the Mafa, O Woora; and what other kind of man would be there but a Kaji?"

  "He is no Kaji, fool," said Woora. "I guessed as much the moment I looked into his eyes. He is not as other men. My putrid brother could have no power over this one. You are a fool, Lord; and I have no wish to breed more fools among the Zuli-there are enough already. You will be destroyed. Take his weapons from him, Lorro. He is a prisoner."

  Then he turned to the ape-man. "What were you doing in the country of the Zuli?" he demanded.

  "Searching for one of my people who is lost."

  "You expected to find him here?"

  "No, I was not coming here. I was going into the country of the Kaji."

  "You are lying," snapped Woora. "You could not come to the headwaters of the Mafa without coming through the country of the Kaji; there is no other way."

  "I came another way," replied Tarzan.

  "No man could cross the mountains and gorges that surround Kaji and Zuli; there is no trail except that up the Mafa River ," insisted Woora.

  "I crossed the mountains and the gorges," said Tarzan.

  "I see it all!" exclaimed Woora. "You are no Kaji; but you are in the service of my loathsome brother, Mafka. He has sent you here to murder me."

  "Well," he laughed mockingly, "we shall see who is more powerful, Mafka or I. We shall see if he can save his servant from the wrath of Woora. And we'll give him time." He turned to Lorro. "Take him away with the other prisoner," he directed, "and see that neither of them escapes-especially this one; he is a dangerous man. But he will die even as Lord will."

  Chapter 5. The Black Panther

  TARZAN AND LORD were confined in a room on the second floor of the palace of Woora . It was a small room with a single window heavily barred with wooden bars. The door was thick and solid, and secured upon the outside with heavy bars.

  When the guard had closed and bolted the door and departed, Tarzan walked to the window and looked out. The moon had risen and the light clouds that had overcast the sky earlier in the night had disappeared.

  In the soft glow of the night light, the ape-man saw a walled compound directly beneath the window; and in the shadow of the wall something that was unrecognizable by sight, yet Tarzan knew what it was from the scent that rose to his nostrils. He took hold of the bars and tested them; then he turned back and faced Lord.

  "If you had asked me," he said, "I should have told you that I was not a Kaji; then you wouldn't have been in this mess."

  Lord shook his head. "It was only an excuse to kill me," he said. "Woora has been waiting for one. He is afraid of me. The men are more important here than they are in the Kaji country. We are allowed to bear arms and be warriors. That is because Woora knows that we cannot escape, as the only route to the outer world lies through the country of the Kaji. They would make slaves of us or kill us.

  "Woora has heard that some of the men have banded together for the purpose of escaping. The plan included assassinating Woora and stealing the great emerald, which is supposed to be the source of his magic power. With this emerald, which Mafka craves more than anything in the world, we hoped to bribe our way through and out of the Kaji country.

  "Woora believes that I am the instigator of the plot, and so he wants to destroy me. Of course, he could do that at any time he wishes, but he is a wily old devil and is trying to hide the fact that he has any suspicions. In this way he hopes to trap all of the plotters eventually, killing them one by one on one pretext or another."

  "How can you know so much of his plans?" demanded the ape-man.

  "Even in this land of horror and iniquity there is sometimes love," replied Lord, "and there is always lust. A woman close to Woora is honestly in love with one of us. Woora has talked too much to her-that is all. He is supposed to be above temptations of the flesh, but he is not.

  "But now everything is spoiled. The others will be afraid. They will stay on until they die."

  "You are an Englishman, aren't you?" asked Tarzan.

  Lord nodded. "Yes," he said; "I was an Englishman, but God only knows what I am now. I've been here twenty years –here and in Kaji. The Kaji caught me originally; then the Zuli got me in one of their raids."

  "I thought Woora killed the Kaji he caught," said the apeman. "He was going to have me killed because he thought I was a Kaji, or at least I assumed he was from
what I heard after we reached the city."

  "Yes, he kills them all now because we have all the men we need; but in those days there were not enough men. We can only support a limited number of people. There's plenty of meat, for game is plentiful; but fruits and vegetables are scarce. As it is, we breed more than enough to keep up the population-in fact, too many. Most of the babies are killed. Then, too, the women are pretty white. That is what they have been breeding for for God knows how many generations; so there isn't much need for new white blood. It's very rare now that a baby is born with Negroid characteristics, but of course occasionally there is a throwback."

  "Why do they want to be white?" asked Tarzan.

  "The Lord only knows. They never see anyone but themselves and never will. The original reason is lost in the past –dead with those who conceived it. Unless, perhaps, Woora and Mafka know. It is said they have been here forever-that they are deathless; but of course that is not true.

  "I have a theory about them that is based upon various snatches of information that I have picked up during the past twenty years. They are identical twins who came from Columbia many years ago bringing with them the great emerald, which they probably stole. How they came into possession of the Gonfal of the Kaji, I don't know. Doubtless they murdered someone who was trying to get out of the country with it.

  "That they have uncanny occult powers there is no doubt, and the very fact that they believe these dependent upon the great diamond of the Kaji and the emerald of the Zuli may very probably have caused this to be true; so if either Mafka or Woora were deprived of his stone his power would be lost. But killing them would make it surer. We were taking no chances; we were going to kill Woora. But now, as far as I am concerned, the dream is over. I'll go to the lions; you'll be tortured to death."