Presently he stood her on her feet and looked at her. "How did you escape from God?" he demanded.
Naomi Madison gasped in astonishment, and her eyes went wide. A great fear crept over her, a fear greater than the physical terror that the brute itself aroused—she feared that she was losing her reason. She stood with wild, staring eyes gazing at the beast. Then, suddenly, she burst into wild laughter.
"What are you laughing at?" growled Buckingham.
"At you," she cried. "You think you can fool me, but you can't. I know that I am just dreaming. In a moment I'll be awake, and I'll see the sun coming in my bedroom window. I'll see the orange tree and the loquat in my patio. I'll see Hollywood stretching below me with its red roofs and its green trees."
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Buckingham. "You are not asleep. You are awake. Look down there, and you will see London and the Thames."
Naomi looked where he indicated. She saw a strange city on the banks of a small river. She pinched herself; and it hurt, but she did not awake. Slowly she realized that she was not dreaming, that the terrible unrealities she had passed through were real.
"Who are you? What are you?" she asked. "Answer my question," commanded Buckingham. "How did you escape from God?"
"I don't know what you mean. The Arabs captured me. I escaped from them once, but they got me again."
"Was that before I captured you several days ago?"
"I never saw you before."
Buckingham scratched his head again. "Are there two of you?" he demanded. "I certainly caught you or another just like you at the falls over a week ago."
Suddenly Naomi thought that she comprehended. "You caught a girl like me?" she demanded. "Yes."
"Did she wear a red handkerchief around her neck?"
"Yes."
"Where is she?"
"If you are not she, she is with God in his castle—-down there." He leaned out over the edge of the cliff and pointed to a stone castle on a ledge far below. He turned toward her as a new idea took form in his mind. "If you are not she," he said, "then God has the other one—and I can have you!"
"No! No!" cried the girl. "Let me go! Let me go back to my people."
Buckingham seized her and tucked her under one of his huge arms. "Neither God nor Henry the Eighth shall ever see you," he growled. "I'll take you away where they can't find you—they shan't rob me of you as they robbed me of the other. I'll take you to a place I know where there is food and water. I'll build a shelter among the trees. We'll be safe there from both God and the king."
Naomi struggled and struck at him; but he paid no attention to her, as he swung off to the south toward the lower end of the valley.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Imposter
The Lord of the Jungle awoke and stretched. A new day was dawning. He had traveled far from Mpugu's village the previous night before he lay up to rest. Now, refreshed, he swung on toward the north. He would make a kill and eat on the way, or he would go hungry—it depended upon the fortunes of the trail. Tarzan could go for long periods without food with little inconvenience. He was no such creature of habit as are the poor slaves of civilization.
He had gone but a short distance when he caught the scent spoor of men—tarmangani—white men. And before he saw them he had recognized them by their scent.
He paused in a tree above them and looked down upon them. There were three of them—two whites and an Arab. They had made a poor camp the night before. Tarzan saw no sign of food. The men looked haggard, almost exhausted. Not far from them was a buck, but the starving men did not know it. Tarzan knew it because Usha, the wind, was carrying the scent of the buck to his keen nostrils.
Seeing their dire need and fearing that they might frighten the animal away before he could kill it, Tarzan passed around them unseen and swung silently on through the trees.
Wappi, the antelope, browsed on the tender grasses of a little clearing. He would take a few mouthfuls; then raise his head, looking and listening—always alert. But he was not sufficiently alert to detect the presence of the noiseless stalker creeping upon him.
Suddenly the antelope started! He had heard, but it was too late. A beast of prey had launched itself upon him from the branches of a tree.
A quarter of a mile away Orman had risen to his feet. "We might as well get going, Bill," he said.
"Can't we make this bird understand that we want him to guide us to the point where he last saw one of the girls?"
"I've tried. You've heard me threaten to kill him if he doesn't, but he either can't or won't understand."
"If we don't get something to eat pretty soon we won't ever find anybody. If—" The incompleted sentence died in a short gasp.
An uncanny cry had come rolling out of the mysterious jungle fastness, freezing the blood in the veins of all three men.
"The ghost!" said Orman in a whisper.
An involuntary shudder ran through West's frame. "You know that's all hooey, Tom," he said.
"Yes, I know it," admitted Orman; "but "
"That probably wasn't—Obroski at all. It must have been some animal," insisted West.
"Look!" exclaimed Orman, pointing beyond West.
As the cameraman wheeled he saw an almost naked white man walking toward them, the carcass of a buck across one broad shoulder.
"Obroski!" exclaimed West.
Tarzan saw the two men gazing at him in astonishment, he heard West's ejaculation, and he recalled the striking resemblance that he and Obroski bore to one another. If the shadow of a smile was momentarily reflected by his grey eyes it was gone when he stopped before the two men and tossed the carcass of the buck at their feet.
"I thought you might be hungry," he said. "You look hungry."
"Obroski!" muttered Orman. "Is it really you?" He stepped closer to Tarzan and touched his shoulder.
"What did you think I was—a ghost?" asked the ape-man.
Orman laughed—an apologetic, embarrassed laugh. "I—well—we thought you were dead. It was so surprising to see you—-and then the way that you killed the lion the other day—you did kill the lion, didn't you?"
"He seemed to be dead," replied the ape-man.
"Yes, of course; but then it didn't seem exactly like you, Obroski—we didn't know that you could do anything like that."
"There are probably a number of things about me that you don't know. But never mind about that. I've come to find out what you know about the girls. Are they safe? And how about the rest of the safari?"
"The girls were stolen by the Arabs almost two weeks ago. Bill and I have been looking for them. I don't know where the rest of the outfit are. I told Pat to try to get everything to Omwamwi Falls and wait for me there if I didn't show up before. We captured this Arab. It's Eyad—you probably remember him. Of course we can't understand his lingo; but from what we can make out one of the girls has been killed by a wild beast, and something terrible has happened to the other girl and the rest of the Arabs."
Tarzan turned to Eyad; and, much to the Arab's surprise, questioned him in his own tongue while Orman and West looked on in astonishment. The two spoke rapidly for a few minutes; then Tarzan handed Eyad an arrow, and the man, squatting on his haunches, smoothed a little area of ground with the palm of his hand and commenced to draw something with the point of the arrow.
"What's he doing?" asked West. "What did he say?"
"He's drawing a map to show me where this fight took place between the Arabs and the gorillas."
"Gorillas! What did he say about the girls?"
"One of them was killed by a lion a week or more ago, and the last he saw of the other she was being carried off by a big bull gorilla."
"Which one is dead?" asked West. "Did he say?"
Tarzan questioned Eyad, and then turned to the American. "He does not know. He says that he could never tell the two girls apart."
Eyad had finished his map and was pointing out the different landmarks to the ape-man. Orma
n and West were also scrutinizing the crude tracing.
The director gave a short laugh. "This bird's stringin' you, Obroski." he said. "That's a copy of a fake map we had for use in the picture."
Tarzan questioned Eyad rapidly in Arabic; then he turned again to Orman. "I think he is telling the truth," he said. "Anyway, I'll soon know. I am going up to this valley and look around. You and West follow on up to the falls. Eyad can guide you. This buck will last you until you get there." Then he turned and swung into the trees.
The three men stood staring at the spot for a moment. Finally Orman shook his head. "I never was so fooled in any one before in my life," he said. "I had Obroski all wrong—we all did. By golly, I never saw such a change in a man before in my whole life."
"Even his voice has changed," said West
"He certainly was a secretive son-of-a-gun," said Orman. "I never had the slightest idea that he could speak Arabic."
"I think he mentioned that there were several things about him that you did not know."
"If I wasn't so familiar with that noble mug of his and that godlike physique I'd swear that this guy isn't Obroski at all."
"Not a chance," said West. "I'd know him in a million."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Man and Beast
The great bull gorilla carried Naomi Madison south along the wooded crest of the mountains toward the southern end of the valley. When they came to open spaces he scurried quickly across them, and he looked behind him often as though fearing pursuit.
The girl's first terror had subsided, to be replaced by a strange apathy that she could not understand. It was as though her nervous system was under the effects of an anesthetic that deadened her susceptibility to fear but left all her other faculties unimpaired. Perhaps she had undergone so much that she no longer cared what befell her.
That she could converse in English with this brutal beast lent an unreality to the adventure that probably played a part in inducing the mental state in which she found herself. After this, anything might be, anything might happen.
The uncomfortable position in which she was being carried and her hunger presently became matters of the most outstanding importance, relegating danger to the background,
"Let me walk," she said.
Buckingham grunted and lowered her to her feet. "Do not try to run away from me," he warned.
They continued on through the woods towards the south, the beast sometimes stopping to look back and listen. He was moving into the wind; so his nose was useless in apprehending danger from the rear.
During one of these stops Naomi saw fruit growing upon a tree. "I am hungry," she said. "Is this fruit good to eat?"
"Yes," he replied and permitted her to gather some; then he pushed on again.
They had come almost to the end of the valley and were crossing a space almost devoid of trees at a point where the mountains fell in a series of precipitous cliffs down to the floor of the valley when the gorilla paused as usual under such circumstances to glance back.
The girl, thinking he feared pursuit by the Arabs, always looked hopefully back at such times. Even the leering countenance of Atewy would have been a welcome sight under the circumstances. Heretofore they had seen no sign of pursuit, but this time a figure emerged from the patch of wood they had just quitted—it was the lumbering figure of a bull gorilla.
With a snarl, Buckingham lifted the girl from her feet and broke into a lumbering run. A short distance within the forest beyond the clearing he turned abruptly toward the cliff; and when he reached the edge he swung the girl to his back, telling her to put her arms about his neck and hang on.
Naomi Madison glanced once into the abyss below; then she shut her eyes and prayed for strength to hang onto the hairy creature making its way down the sheer face of the rocky escarpment.
What he found to cling to she did not know, for she did not open her eyes until he loosed her hands by main strength and let her drop to her feet behind him.
"I'll come back for you when I have thrown Suffolk off the trail," said the beast and was gone.
The Madison found herself in a small natural cave in the face of the cliff. A tiny stream of water trickled from a hidden spring, formed a little pool at the front of the cave, and ran over the edge down the face of the cliff. A part of the floor of the cave was dry; but there was no covering upon it, only the bare rock.
The girl approached the ledge and looked down. The great height of the seemingly bare cliff face made her shrink back, giddy. Then she tried it again and looked up. There seemed scarcely a hand or foothold in any direction. She marveled that the heavy gorilla had been able to make his way to the cave safely, burdened by her weight.
As she examined her situation, Buckingham clambered quickly to the summit of the cliff and continued on toward the south. He moved slowly, and it was not long before the pursuing beast overtook him.
The creature upon his trail hailed him. "Where is the hairless she?" he demanded.
"I do not know," replied the other. "She has run away from me. I am looking for her."
"Why did you run away from me, Buckingham?"
"I did not know it was you, Suffolk. I thought you were one of Wolsey's men trying to rob me of the she so that I could not take her to the king."
Suffolk grunted. "We had better find her. The king is not in a good humor. How do you suppose she escaped from God?"
"She did not escape from God—this is a different she, though they look much alike." The two passed on through the forest, searching for the Madison.
For two nights and two days the girl lay alone in the rocky cave. She could neither ascend nor descend the vertical cliff. If the beast did not return for her, she must starve. This she knew, yet she hoped that it would not return.
The third night fell. Naomi was suffering from hunger. Fortunately the little trickle of water through the cave saved her from suffering from thirst also. She heard the savage sounds of the night life of the wilderness, but she was not afraid. The cave had at least that advantage. If she had food she could live there in safety indefinitely, but she had no food.
The first pangs of hunger had passed. She did not suffer. She only knew that she was growing weaker. It seemed strange to her that she, Naomi Madison, should be dying of hunger—and alone! Why, in all the world the only creature that could save her from starvation, the only creature that knew where she was was a great, savage gorilla—she who numbered her admirers by the millions, whose whereabouts, whose every act was chronicled in a hundred newspapers and magazines. She felt very small and insignificant now. Here was no room for arrogant egotism.
During the long hours she had had more opportunity for self-scrutiny than ever before, and what she discovered was not very flattering. She realized that she had already changed much during the past two weeks—she had learned much from the attitude of the other members of the safari toward her but most from the example that Rhonda Terry had set her. If she were to have the chance, she knew that she would be a very different woman; but she did not expect the chance. She did not want life at the price she would have to pay. She prayed that she might die before the gorilla returned to claim his prize.
She slept fitfully through the third night—the rocky floor that was her bed was torture to her soft flesh. The morning sun, shining full into the mouth of her cave, gave her renewed hope even though her judgment told her that there was no hope.
She drank, and bathed her hands and face; then she sat and looked out over the valley of diamonds. She should have hated it, for it had aroused the avarice that had brought her to this sorry pass; but she did not—it was too beautiful.
Presently her attention was attracted by a scraping sound outside the cave and above it. She listened intently. What could it be?
A moment later a black, hairy leg appeared below the top of the mouth of the cave; and then the gorilla dropped to the narrow ledge before it. The thing had returned! The girl crouched against the back wall, shuddering.
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The brute stopped and peered into the gloomy cavern. "Come here!" it commanded. "I see you. Hurry—we have no time to waste. They may have followed me. Suffolk has had me watched for two days. He did not believe that you had run away. He guessed that I had hidden you. Come! Hurry!"
"Go away and leave me," she begged. "I would rather stay here and die."
He made no answer at once, but stooped and came toward her. Seizing her roughly by the arm he dragged her to the mouth of the cave. "So I'm not good enough for you?" he growled. "Don't you know that I am the Duke of Buckingham? Get on my back, and hold tight."
He swung her up into position, and she clung about his neck. She wanted to hurl herself over the edge of the cliff, but she could not raise her courage to the point. Against her will she clung to the shaggy brute as he climbed the sheer face of the cliff toward the summit. She did not dare even to look down.
At the top he lowered her to her feet and started on southward toward the lower end of the valley, dragging her after him.
She was weak; and she staggered, stumbling often. Then he would jerk her roughly to her feet and growl at her, using strange, medieval oaths.
"I can't go on," she said. "I am weak. I have had nothing to eat for two days."
"You are just trying to delay me so that Suffolk can over-take us. You would rather belong to the king, but you won't. You'll never see the king. He is just waiting for an excuse to have my head, but he won't ever get it. We're never going back to London, you and I. We'll go out of the valley and find a place below the falls."
Again she stumbled and fell. The beast became enraged. He kicked her as she lay on the ground; then he seized her by the hair and dragged her after him.
But he did not go far thus. He had taken but a few steps when he came to a sudden halt. With a savage growl and upturned lips baring powerful yellow fangs he faced a figure that had dropped from a tree directly in his path.
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