She was glad that she had found this quiet spot and was congratulating herself, and planning that she would come to it often, when a great tiger walked out of the underbrush and faced her. The tip of his tail was twiching nervously, and his snarling muscles had drawn his lips back from his great yellow fangs.
Patricia Leigh-Burden breathed a silent prayer as she threw her rifle to her shoulder and fired twice in rapid succession.
Chapter XXI
"I certainly do not like the idea of having those men around here all the time," said Janette; "I am afraid of them, especially Krause."
"I'll look after him," said de Groote. "Let me know if he ever makes any advances."
"And now look!" exclaimed Janette, pointing along the beach. "Here come all those Lascars back, too. Those fellows give me the creeps."
As she ceased speaking, the report of two rifle shots came faintly but distinctly to their ears. "That must be Patricia!" exclaimed the Colonel. "She must be in trouble."
"She has probably had to shoot that creature," said Penelope hopefully.
The Colonel had run to his hut and gotten his rifle; and when he started in the direction from which the sound of the shot had come, he was followed by de Groote, Algy, Crouch, and Bolton .
As the foliage of the jungle closed about Bolton 's back, Schmidt turned to Krause and grinned. "What's funny?" demanded the latter.
"Let's see what we can find in the way of rifles and ammunition," said Schmidt to the other three men. "This looks like our day."
"What are you men doing?" demanded Penelope Leigh. "Don't you dare go into those huts."
Janette started to run toward her hut to get her rifle, but Schmidt overtook her and hurled her aside. "No funny business," he warned.
The four men collected all the remaining firearms in the camp and then, at pistol points forced the Lascars to load up with such stores as Schmidt desired.
"Pretty good haul," he said to Krause. "I think we've got about everything we want now."
"Maybe you have, but I haven't," replied the animal collector; then he walked over to Janette. "Come along, sweetheart," he said; "we're going to start all over again right where we left off."
"Not I," said Janette, backing away.
Krause seized one of her arms. "Yes, you; and if you know what's good for you, you'd better not make any trouble."
The girl tried to pull away, and Krause struck her. "For heaven's sake, go along with him," cried Penelope Leigh. "Don't make a scene; I hate scenes. Anyway, you belong with him; you certainly have never belonged in my camp."
Half-stunned by the blow, Janette was dragged away; and the Colonel's wife watched them start back along the beach in the direction from which they had come.
"The Colonel shall hear about your stealing our stores, you scoundrels," she called after them.
Xatl Din and his hundred warriors came through the forest spread out in open order, that they might leave no well-marked trail; and as they came, they heard two sharp, loud sounds which seemed to come from but a short distance ahead of them. None of these men had ever heard the report of a firearm before, and so they had no idea of what it was. They crept cautiously forward, their eyes and ears constantly alert. Xatl Din was in the lead, and as he came to a more open place in the forest, he stopped suddenly, for a strange and unaccustomed sight met his eye. On the ground lay a huge, striped beast, such as he had never seen before. It was evidently dead, and above it stood a figure strangely garbed, who held a long black shiny thing that was neither bow, arrow, nor spear.
Presently Xatl Din realized that the creature was a woman; and, being an intelligent man, he surmised that the noise he had heard had come from that strange thing she held, and that with it, she had doubtless killed the huge beast which lay at her feet. Xatl Din further reasoned that if she could have killed so large and evidently ferocious an animal, she could even more easily kill men; and, therefore, he did not come out into the open, but withdrew and gave whispered instructions to his men.
Now the Mayans slipped silently around through the jungle until they had encircled Patricia, and then while Xatl Din beat on a tree with his sword to make a noise that would attract the girl's attention in his direction, two of his men slipped out of the jungle behind her, and crept noiselessly toward her.
As Patricia stood looking in the direction from which the sound had come, listening intently, arms were thrown around her from behind and her rifle was snatched from her hands; then a hundred strangely garbed warriors, resplendent in feathered headdresses and embroidered loin-cloths came running from the jungle to surround her.
Patricia recognized these men immediately, not only from the descriptions she had had from Itzl Cha and Tarzan, but also because she had read a great deal concerning the civilization of the ancient Mayans. She was as familiar with their civilization, their religion, and their culture as the extensive research of many archaeological expeditions had been able to bring to light. It seemed to her that she had been suddenly carried back centuries to a long dead past, to which these little brown men belonged. She knew what her capture meant to her, for she knew the fate of Mayan prisoners. Her only hope lay in the possibility that the men of her party might be able to rescue her, and that hope was strong because of her faith in Tarzan.
"What are you going to do with me?" she said in the broken Mayan she had learned from Itzl Cha.
"That is for Cit Coh Xiu to decide," he said. "I shall send you back to Chichen Itza , back to the palace of the king"; then he instructed four of his warriors to take the prisoner to Cit Coh Xiu.
As Patricia was led away, Xatl Din and his remaining warriors continued on in the direction of Camp Saigon . The noble was quite pleased with himself. Even if he were not successful in bringing Itzl Cha back to Chichen Itza , he had at least furnished another sacrifice in her stead, and he would doubtless be praised by both the king and the high priest.
I Colonel Leigh and his companions followed, quite by accident, the same trail by which Patricia had come. They climbed the ledge which ran around the shoulder of the mountain; and, although badly winded, kept on almost at a run. Their advance was noisy and without caution, for their one thought was to find Patricia as quickly as possible; and when they were suddenly met by a band of plumed warriors, they were taken wholly by surprise. With savage war cries, the Mayans charged, hurling stones from their slings.
"Fire over their heads!" commanded the Colonel.
The terrifying noise momentarily stopped the Mayans, but when Xatl Din realized that it was only noise and that it had not injured any of his men, he ordered them to charge again; and once more their hideous war cries sounded in the ears of the whites.
"Shoot to kill!" snapped the Colonel; "we've got to stop those beggars before they reach us with their swords."
The rifles barked again, and four warriors fell. The others wavered, but Xatl Din urged them on.
These things that killed with a loud noise at a distance terrified the Mayans; and although some of them almost came to grips with the whites, they finally turned and fled, taking their wounded with them. Following their strategy, they scattered through the jungle so as to leave no well-marked trail to their city; and the whites, going in the wrong direction, became lost, for it is difficult to orient one's self in a dense jungle; and when they came to a steep declivity down a mountain side, they thought that they had crossed the mountain and were descending the opposite slope.
After stumbling about in dense shrubbery for an hour, they came suddenly to the end of the jungle, only to stand looking at one another in amazement, for before them lay the beach and their own camp.
"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated the Colonel.
As they approached the camp, Tibbett came to meet them, a troubled look on his face.
"Something wrong, Tibbet?" demanded the Colonel.
"I'll say there's something wrong, sir. I just came back from the Saigon with a load of planks to find that Schmidt and his outfit have stolen al
l the firearms and ammunition that were left in camp, as well as a considerable part of our stores."
"The scoundrels!" ejaculated the Colonel.
"But that's not the worst of it," continued Tibbet; "they took Miss Laon away with them."
De Groote went white. "Which way did they go, Tibbet?" he asked.
"Back up the beach," replied the second mate; "probably to their old camp."
De Groote, heartbroken and furious, started away. "Wait," said the Colonel; "where are you going?"
"I'm going after them," he said.
"They are all heavily armed," said the Colonel; "you couldn't do anything alone, and we can't spare men to go with you now—that is, we couldn't all go and leave Mrs. Leigh alone here again, with the chance that those painted devils may attack the camp at any time."
"I'm going anyway," said de Groote doggedly.
"I'll go with you," said Tibbet, and then two of the sailors from the Naiad also volunteered.
"I wish you luck," said the Colonel, "but for heaven's sake be careful. You'd better sneak up on the camp from the jungle side and snipe them from the concealment of the underbrush."
"Yes, sir," replied de Groote, as he and the three who had volunteered to accompany him started up the beach at a dog-trot.
Chapter XXII
From a distance, Tarzan heard the firing during the encounter between the whites and the Mayans, and immediately turned and started back in the direction from which he thought the sounds came; but because of the echoes and reverberations caused by the mountains, he failed to locate it correctly, and went in the wrong direction. Also, he was misled by his assumption that any fighting there might be, would naturally be around Camp Saigon or Schmidt's camp.
Knowing that he was nearer Schmidt's camp then Camp Saigon , he decided to go there first and follow along the beach to Camp Saigon , if the fight were not at the former place.
As he approached the end of the forest opposite Schmidt's camp, he went more slowly and carefully, and it was well that he did for as he came in view of the camp, he saw the men returning and that the four whites were heavily armed. He saw Janette Laon being dragged along by Krause, and the Lascars bearing loads. He knew what had happened; but how it had happened, he could not guess. He naturally assumed that the shooting he had heard had marked an engagement between these men and those at Camp Saigon , and the inference was that Schmidt's party had been victorious. Perhaps all the other whites had been killed, but where was Patricia? Where was little Itzl Cha? He was not concerned over the fate of Penelope Leigh.
The Colonel was on the horns of a dilemma. The camp could boast of only four armed men now, scarcely enough to defend it; and he couldn't go out to search for Patricia and leave Penelope unguarded, nor could he divide his little force, for even four men would scarcely be enough to repel another attack by Schmidt or by the Mayans if they came in force, nor could four men hope successfully to storm the city of Chichen Itza to which he was convinced Patricia had been taken. And as the Colonel sought in vain for a solution of his problem, Patricia Leigh-Burden was led into the throne room of Cit Coh Xiu, King of Uxmal Island, and the leader of her escort addressed the king.
"The noble Xatl Din ordered us to bring this prisoner to his King and Master, as Xatl Din and his warriors continued on to attack the camp of the strangers. There was a battle, for we heard the strange noises with which these white men kill, but how the battle went we do not know."
The king nodded. "Xatl Din has done well," he said.
"He has done excellently," said Chal Yip Xiu, the high priest; "this woman will make a fitting offering to our gods."
Cit Coh Xiu's eyes appraised the white girl and found her beautiful. She was the first white woman that he had ever seen, and it suddenly occurred to him that it would be a shame to give her to some god that might not want her. He didn't dare say so aloud, but he thought that the girl was far too beautiful for any god; and, as a matter of fact, by the standards of any race, Patricia Leigh-Burden was beautiful.
"I think," said the king, "that I shall keep her as one of my handmaidens for a while."
Chal Yip Xiu, the high priest, looked at the king in well-simulated surprise. As a matter of fact, he was not surprised at all, for he knew his king, who had already robbed the gods of several pulchritudinous offerings. "If she is chosen for the gods," he said, "the gods will be angry with Cit Cob Xiu if he keeps her for himself."
"Perhaps it would be well," said the king, "if you were to see that she is not chosen—at least immediately. I don't think the gods want her anyway," he added.
Patricia, listening intently, had been able to understand at least the gist of this conversation. "A god has already chosen me," she said, "and he will be angry if you harm me."
Cit Cob Xiu looked at her in surprise. "She speaks the language of the Maya," he said to the high priest.
"But not very well," commented Chal Yip Xiu.
"The gods speak their own language," said Patricia; "they have little use for the language of mortals."
"Can it be that she is a goddess?" demanded the king.
"I am the mate of Che, Lord Forest ," said Patricia. "He is already very angry with you for the way you treated him when he came to Chichen Itza . If you are wise, you will send me back to him. If you don't, he will certainly destroy you."
The king scratched his head and looked at his high priest questioningly. "Well," he said, "you should know all about gods, Chal Yip Xiu; was it indeed Che, Lord Forest , who came to Chichen Itza ? Was it a god that you put in a wooden cage? Was it a god who stole the offering from the sacrificial altar?"
"It was not," snapped the high priest; "he was only a mortal."
"Nevertheless, we must not act hastily," said the king. "You may keep the girl temporarily; have her taken to the Temple of the Virgins, and see that she is well treated;" so Chal Yip Xiu summoned two lesser priests and told them to conduct the prisoner to The Temple of the Virgins.
Patricia felt that while she had not made much of an impression on the high priest, she had upon the king, and that at least she had won a reprieve which might give Tarzan and the others time in which to rescue her; and as she was lead from the Palace, her mind was sufficiently at ease to permit her to note the wonders of Chichen Itza.
Before her loomed a mighty pyramid of lava blocks, and up the steep stairs on one side of this, she was led to an ornately carved temple at the summit—The Temple of the Virgins. Here she was turned over to the high priestess who was in charge of the temple, in which were housed some fifty girls, mostly of noble families; for it was considered an honor to volunteer for this service. They kept the sacred fires alight and swept the temple floors. When they wished to, they might resign and marry; and they were always sought after by warriors and nobles.
Patricia stood in the temple colonnade and looked out over the city of Chichen Itza . She could see its palaces and temples clustered about the foot of the pyramid and the thatched huts of the common people beyond the wall, and beyond these the fields which extended to the edge of the jungle; and she fancied that she had been carried back many centuries to ancient Yucatan.
As Tarzan watched through the concealing verdure of the forest, he realized the futility of attempting to come out in the open and face four heavily armed men, while he was armed with only a bow. But Tarzan had ways of his own, and he was quite secure in the belief that he could take Janette away from these men without unnecessarily risking his own life.
He waited until they had come closer and the Lascars had thrown down their loads; then he fitted an arrow to his bow, and bending the latter until the point of the arrow rested against his left thumb, he took careful aim. The bow string twanged; and, an instant later, Krause screamed and pitched forward upon his face, an arrow through his heart.
The others looked about in consternation. "What happened" demanded Oubanovitch; "what's the matter with Krause?"
"He's dead!" said Schmidt. "someone shot him with an arrow."
"Where is he?" demanded Schmidt.
"Here I am," said Tarzan, "and I have plenty more arrows. Come straight toward my voice, Janette, and into the forest; and if anyone tries to stop you, he'll get what Krause got."
Janette walked quickly toward the forest, and no hand was raised to detain her.
"That damn wildman!" ejaculated Schmidt, and then he broke into a volley of lurid profanity. "I'll get him!" I'll get him!" he screamed, and, raising his rifle, fired into the forest in the direction from which Tarzan's voice had come.
Again the bow-string twanged; and Schmidt, clutching at an arrow in his chest, dropped to his knees and then rolled over on his side, just as Janette entered the forest, and Tarzan dropped to the ground beside her.
"What happened at the camp?" he asked, and she told him briefly.
"So they let Schmidt and his gang come back," said Tarzan. "I am surprised at the Colonel."
"It was mostly the fault of that horrid old woman," said Janette.
"Come," said Tarzan, "we'll get back there as quickly as we can," and swinging Janette to his shoulder, he took to the trees. As he and Janette approached Camp Saigon , de Groote, Tibbet, and the two sailors came into sight of Schmidt's camp.
A quick glance around the camp did not reveal Janette, but de Groote saw two men lying on the ground, and the Lascars huddled to one side, apparently terrified.
Abdullah was the first to see de Groote and his party, and knowing that they had come for revenge and would show no quarter, he swung his rifle to his shoulder and fired. He missed, and de Groote and Tibbet ran forward, firing, the two sailors, armed only with gaffs, at their heels.
Several shots were exchanged without any casualties, and then de Groote dropped to one knee and took careful aim, and Tibbet followed his example. "Take Oubanovitch," said de Groote; "I'll get the Arab."
The two rifles spoke almost simultaneously, and Oubanovitch and Abdullah Abu Nejm dropped in their tracks.
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