Tarzan And The Silver Globe

New Tarzan 01

(1964)

Barton Werper

Contents

Chapter 01 "The Message"

Chapter 02 "The Witch Doctors Prophecy"

Chapter 03 "The Gold Rush"

Chapter 04 "The Silver Globe"

Chapter 05 "The Sacrifice"

Chapter 06 "Master of the Globe"

Chapter 07 "The Death of an Immortal"

Chapter 08 "The Beasts of Tarzan"

Chapter 09 "Men and Beasts!"

Chapter 10 "For the Followers-Food!"

Chapter 11 "Destroy--Destroy!"

Chapter 12 "The Escape from Opar"

Chapter 13 "The End of Opar"

Chapter 14 "Home"

Chapter One

"The Message"

An ominous quiet had settled over the jungle surrounding the vast estate of Lord and Lady Greystoke. Had it not been for the importance of their conversation. Lord Greystoke, known to his jungle friends as Tarzan of the Apes, would have paid it more heed. Even his wife, Jane, hesitated during her conversation to listen to the strangeness of the quiet for a moment. Her sensitive, feminine nostrils quivered in an effort to identify the strange new odor which seemed to permeate the air. One? glance at her tall, grey-eyed husband, so much more familiar with jungle lore than she, and she dismissed her premonitions. Had it been of importance, her husband would have been aroused. Imagination, she decided, and shrugged it off.

Shortly after the runner had arrived at their holdings with the weekly mails, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, had retired to his study to spend the early evening hours in preoccupied study of the new problem with which he had been presented. At dinner, he seemed distraught, and later in the evening when he excused himself and retired to the bedroom. Lady Greystoke followed him immediately. He told her of the bad news before she could ask about it, and any bystander hearing their voices would have realized that something most unusual to this estate had come about.

"... must of course help them. After all, John, they were our dearest friends in London. Why-without Veronica, it's well possible we might never have returned to Africa." Jane Clayton continued, "I realize it's an incredible sum of money, but we can help them, can't we?"

"We shall," replied Tarzan. "But you must realize that time is of the essence. We cannot put the matter before the board of our company in London. By the time they studied it, and argued about it, Veronica and Ward would be lost." He turned to look tenderly at his wife.

"You must understand, Jane. There is nothing for me to do but go back to Opar. It's the quickest-the only way."

"Oh, no, John," and Jane moved quickly to embrace him, "you can't do that! As much as they mean to us-to me-your life means more! It's so terribly dangerous. You know that Opar has always hurt you-twice, it almost killed you. There must be another way! "

"I've always come back, haven't I, dearest?" Tarzan laughed. "I think I can still take care of myself. Besides which, I will take some of the Waziri with me. Should I falter, they'll see me through."

"You can't say that, John. They failed you before-they may fail you again, and I couldn't bear-"

Tarzan lifted his vote's chin, placing her lips near his. "You want help for our dearest friends, don't you? And you trust me, don't you? "

"Yes, darling, but there must be some other way."

"There is not any other way. Not if we're to get the amount of money Veronica and Ward need, by the time they need it! They did not fail us, Jane. How can we fail them?"

It was at this time the silence, and the strange odor, reached the loving couple. And it was because of their deep love that both ignored these warning signals. They had become immersed in both their memories and their emotions. Jane wept upon Tarzan's shoulder. He held her tenderly, and tried to reassure her.

"I will be careful, Jane. It's truly the easiest way to get that amount of money so quickly. Truth of the matter is, the Oparians will probably never realize I've been there again. After all, they don't even know where the treasure caves are-and this time, I’ll take such small group of warriors that they may keep themselves hidden."

Lady Greystoke shuddered once, sniffed once again, and dissolved into tears. The two abandoned the subject, both recognizing the decision as final. She would wait. He would go. They could both do, more or less, nothing but pray.

They would have begun their prayers that moment had either been aware of the dark figure outside their window. As Jane's tears ended their conversation, this figure stole stealthily away from the bungalow, keeping close to the shadows. Incredibly, it passed almost unobserved through the night guard of the Waziri warriors upon whom Tarzan had placed full dependence, and disappeared into the heavy jungle at the edge of the clearing. As the figure left, the silence descended once again upon the jungle, and the weeping Jane wondered again about the strange odor she sensed.

Someone-or something-knew that Tarzan was returning once more to Opar.

The next morning Tarzan took leave of his wife. Stripped to the loincloth and armed after the primitive fashion he best loved, he led a group of his fierce and loyal Waziri away from the estate and on the path toward the dead city of Opar. And, unknown to Tarzan, someone-or something-haunted their trail during the long hot day; camped close behind his group by night.

To Tarzan, however, the entire expedition was somewhat in the nature of a holiday. No matter how civilized Jane had made him, the veneer always chafed him, and occasionally became all but unbearable. Bad though the news had been from his friends, Tarzan had welcomed this chance to return to his jungle, and his jungle ways. Even while comforting his weeping wife, Tarzan had been mentally unpeeling the European clothes which bound him so. It was her love that kept him civilized-and even her love had failed to remove his contempt for the civilization she'd shown him. He hated the sham, the hypocrisy, the rottenness of it all. Even the finer things of civilization which he had grown to love-art, literature, music-didn't make up the difference for him. His jungle friends also had art, a form of literature, and who -having once heard them-could deny the power of jungle drums? He had tried to explain to his mate these deep, innermost feelings. "Show me," he would tell her softly, "the fat, opulent cowards of your civilized world who have given it any of its grace. Show me one of them who could stand up and face the fears, the natural fears of the jungle beasts, and not cry coward!" And when, as she had once done in the past, Jane tried to protest, he would cover her protests with other words. "There is nothing more beautiful than life, and the fight for living. Even your world will admit this fact. What, then, is more beautiful than the battle for survival in my jungle? The display of Nature's most eminent, most terrific beasts, most wild forces, born to fight? It is the finest thing in the world, Jane." And he would calm her unborn protests with the sweet, natural kisses of love.

So, now, Tarzan came back to the jungle in the spirit of a lover returning to his love after a long absence. Once there, he found again-as he had found always in the past-his Waziri,- his blacks, were more civilized-than he. They did not like raw meat. They had learned to cook it before they ate it. They shunned as not edible many of the foods upon which Tarzan had fed as a child. Tarzan felt always a sense of guilt when his natural longings overcame him in their presence. Rather than eat as he wished, he shared burnt flesh with them. Always, he would have preferred it raw-unspoiled. He brought down game with arrow or spear when he would far rather have leaped on it from ambush and sunk his strong teeth its jugular; but at last the call of the milk of the savage mother that had suckled him in infancy rose to an insistent demand. He craved the hot blood of a fresh kill. His muscles yearned to pit themselves against the savage jungle in the battle for existence that had been his sole birthright for the first twenty years of his life.

Moved by these vague but all-powerful urgings, the ape-man lay awake one night in the little thorn boma that had protected, in a way, his party from the depredations of the great carnivore of the jungle. A single warrior stood sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of the darkness beyond the camp made imperative. The moans and the coughing of the big cats mingled with the myriad noises of the lesser denizens of the jungle to fan the savage flame in the breast of this untamed English lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses, sleepless, for an hour, and then he rose, noiseless as a wraith, and while the Waziri's back was turned, vaulted the boma wall in the face of the flaming eyes, swung silently into a great tree and was gone.

For a time, in sheer exuberance of animal spirits he raced swiftly through the middle terrace, swinging perilously across wide spans from one jungle giant to the next. Then he clambered upward to the swaying, lesser boughs of the upper terrace where the moon shone full upon him an the air was stirred by little breezes and death lurked ready in each frail branch. Here, he paused and raised his face to Goro, the moon. With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of the bull ape quivering upon his lips, and yet he remained silent lest he arouse his faithful Waziri who were all too familiar with the hideous challenge of their master.

Then he went on slower, with greater stealth and caution. Now Tarzan of the Apes was seeking a kill. Down to the ground he came in the utter blackness of the close-set boles and the overhanging verdure of the jungle. He stooped from time to time and put his nose close to earth. He sought and found a wild game trail and at last his nostrils were rewarded with the scent of the fresh spoor of Bara, the deer. Tarzan's mouth watered and a low growl escaped his patrician lips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige of artificial caste; once again he was the primeval hunter-the first man—the highest caste type of the human race. Upwind he had followed the elusive spoor with a sense of perception so transcending that of ordinary man as to be inconceivable to us. Through countercurrents of the heavy stench of meat eaters he traced Bara the deer; the sweet and cloying scent of Horta, the boar, could not drown his quarry's distinctive scent-the permeating, mellow musk of the deer's spoor.

Presently the body scent of the deer told Tarzan that his prey was close at hand. It sent him into the trees again-into the lower terrace where he could watch the ground below and catch with ears and nose the first intimation of actual contact with his quarry. Nor was it long before the ape-man came upon Bara standing alert at the edge of a moon-bathed clearing.

Noiselessly, Tarzan crept through the trees until he was directly over the deer. In the ape-man’s right hand was the long hunting knife of his father and in his heart the blood lust of the carnivore. Just for an instant he poised above the unsuspecting Bara, and then he launched himself downward upon the sleek back. The impact of his weight carried the deer to the ground and before the animal could reach its feet the knife had found its heart. As Tarzan rose to his feet to scream forth his hideous victory cry into the face of the moon, the wind carried something to his nostrils which froze him to statuesque immobility and silence. His savage eyes blazed into the direction from which the wind had borne down the warning to him as a moment later the grasses atone side of the clearing parted, and Numa, the lion, strode majestically into view. His yellow-green eyes were fastened upon Tarzan as he halted just within the clearing and glared enviously at the successful hunter. For Numa had had no luck this night.

Tarzan had been on his way for several days and nights to the mysterious lost city of Opar while Jane missed him sorely, and worried about the ape-man's security, she nevertheless realized that the giant Lord of the Jungle could never be quite all hers, that she shared him with a savage, bloody and dangerous mistress; a mistress, moreover, of whom she was inordinately jealous, but against whom she had no true weapons except her over-weening love for her lord and master. These sufficed on most occasions, but she had long since learned to recognize the flash that came to Tarzan's eyes from time to time, and to resign herself to the fact that her mate would return to his savage ways until the desire was gone from him.

So, for lack of something else to do, Jane Clayton called in the Waziri maidens and commenced a major operation of cleaning. The bewildered natives soon found themselves knee-deep in an endeavor that made absolutely no sense to them at all. When their own huts became cluttered and dirty, they built new, fresh ones, smelling wonderfully of new grass and boughs, so that they now constantly clacked m bewilderment, even while following the stern orders of Tarzan’s mate.

So it came to pass that shortly after midnight of this particular night, Jane, exhausted, nevertheless wakened abruptly from her fatigue-induced slumbers. Her senses, perhaps not as alert as those of her mate, sensed something wrong. It took only a second to realize what it was. An ominous quiet had settled over the jungle which surrounded her bungalow. Night birds, lesser and greater predators-all were silent. Even the trees seemed to be silent, as if the very leaves and boughs had stopped moving. What was it? Jane sat up in bed, clutching the bed-clothing tightly around herself. It was like the calm before a major disaster, almost Nature's way of warning against an impending storm or earthquake, and the lone woman shuddered.

Jane got from her bed, threw on a robe, and padded barefoot into the kitchen. She knew that until her curiosity was satisfied she'd never be able to return to sleep, exhausted from the labors of the day though she was. Before she could make a light, there came a cautious scratching at her kitchen door. Without hesitation, she threw it open. None could pass the eyes of the Waziri guards without permission, so the caller had to be, even at this hour, a welcome one.

It was a great ape, and Jane squinted closely in the moonlight to determine which of them it might be. "Leena?" she said, hesitantly.

The great ape nodded, impatiently. Leena was the mate of Nendat, leader of the tribe that had raised Tarzan from an infant, and hence no minor crisis had arisen. Others could have been sent with an urgent message, but Nendat would trust only his wife for this one. Jane made up her mind quickly. She made a light, and Leena waddled further into the kitchen, squinting anxiously. None of the apes spoke English, but a few, like Leena, understood certain words, and could comprehend gestures.

Leena made anxious sounds, placing a hairy paw on Jane's shoulder. Jane rubbed her cheek alongside Leena's hairy visage, then went to the refrigerator and got out an orange. Leena had learned to love this fruit above all others, and conveyed the urgency of her visit by gently declining it. She made beckoning gestures to Tarzan's mate.

"Danger? "Jane asked.

The ape nodded, shuffling impatiently.

"We go now," Jane decided. Leena made negative gestures, pawing at Jane's robe. "Ah. Dress for jungle travel." Leena agreed with urgent grunts.

When Jane had returned, dressed in soft doeskin, she found Leena happily wiping and licking the last of the orange from her fingers. Apparently, once the urgency of her mission had been conveyed, she felt, practically, that it was both foolish and wasteful not to eat the delicious golden fruit. Leena, wiping a paw across her muzzle, cautioned Jane to be quiet and careful, then herself turned out the light. With grunts and whimpers, she urged Jane out the door. Jane followed without hesitation, trusting Leena as she could never have trusted a beast a few short years ago.

Jane paused at the edge of the little clearing, to pass a few words of reassurance with the Waziri guard, who also was uneasy about the strange silence that hung over the jungle. He nodded, hardly able to keep his attention on the mistress of the place as he rolled white-rimmed eyes about him.

Leena waited impatiently for Tarzan's mate to finish her instruction, then, as Jane returned to her side, leaped into the nearest tree. Jane followed easily, her jungle-trained muscles leaping lithely into play. As they swung up into the middle terrace for speed, Jane found herself hard-pressed to follow the pace set by the she-ape. She marveled anew that Tarzan could outrun all beasts, on the ground or in the trees. Leena slowed her rapid progress only once, stopping for a particularly succulent grub which she'd dug out from under a bit of tree bark. She tore it in half, politely offering Jane a share. The woman refused it courteously, and Leena, with a peculiarly feminine action that brought a faint smile of amusement to Jane’s lips, shrugged, and ate both halves with obvious relish, then swung off at renewed speed. Below the strangely-assorted pair, the jungle was still ominously quiet, and Lady Greystoke still had no idea why she was being taken on this trip. Had something happened to Tarzan?

Chapter Two

"The Witch Doctors Prophecy"

From the lips of the ape-man broke a rumbling growl of warning. Numa answered but he did not advance. Instead, he stood waving his tail gently to and fro, and presently Tarzan squatted on his kill and cut a generous portion from a hindquarter. Numa eyed him with growing rage and resentment as, between mouthfuls, the ape-man growled out his savage warnings. Now, this particular lion had never before come in contact with Tarzan of the Apes, and he was much mystified. Here was the appearance and the scent of a man-thing. Numa had tasted of human flesh and learned that while not the most palatable, it was by far the easiest to secure; yet there was that in the bestial growls of the strange creature which reminded him of formidable antagonists and gave him pause, while his hunger and the odor of the hot flesh of Bara goaded him almost to madness. Always, Tarzan watched him, guessing what was passing in the little brain of the carnivore. Well it was that he did watch him, for Numa could stand it no more. His tail shot suddenly erect and at the same instant, the wary ape-man, knowing all too well what the signal portended, grasped the remainder of the deer's hindquarter between his teeth and leaped into a nearby tree as Numa charged him with all the speed and a sufficient semblance to the weight of an express train.

Tarzan's retreat was no indication that he felt fear. Jungle life is ordered along different lines from ours and different standards prevail. Had Tarzan been famished, he would have stood his ground and met the lion's charge. He had done that very thing before on more than one occasion, just as in the past he had charged lions himself; but tonight he was far from famished and in the hindquarter he had carried off more meat with him than he could eat. Yet it was with no equanimity that he looked down at the spectacle of Numa rending Tarzan's kill. Such presumption must be punished! And forthwith Tarzan set out to make life miserable for the big cat. Close by were many trees bearing large, hard fruits, and to one of these the ape-man swung with the agility of a squirrel. Then commenced a bombardment which brought earth-shaking roars from Numa. One after another, as rapidly as he could gather and hurl them, Tarzan pelted the hard fruit down upon the lion. It was impossible for the tawny cat to eat under the hail of missiles—he could but roar and growl and dodge and eventually he was driven away entirely from the carcass of Bara, the deer. He went roaring and resentful, but in the very center of the clearing his voice was hushed and Tarzan saw the great head lower and flatten out, the body crouch and the long tail quiver as the beast slunk cautiously toward the tree upon the opposite side.

Immediately, Tarzan was alert. He lifted his head and sniffed the slow, jungle breeze. .What was it that had attracted Numa's attention and taken him soft-footed and silent away from the scene of his discomfiture? Just as the lion disappeared among the trees beyond the clearing, Tarzan caught upon the downcoming wind the explanation of his new interest—the scent spoor of man was wafted strongly to his sensitive nostrils.

Caching the remainder of the deer's hindquarters in the crotch of a tree, the ape-man wiped his greasy palms upon his naked thighs and swung off in pursuit of Numa. A broad, well-beaten elephant path led into the forest from the clearing. Parallel to this slung Numa, while above him Tarzan moved through the trees, the shadow of a wraith. The savage cat and the savage man saw Numa's quarry almost simultaneously, though both had known before it came within the vision of their eyes that it was a black man. Their sensitive nostrils had told them this much, and Tarzan's had told him that the scent spoor was that of a strange-old and a male, for race and age and sex each has its ,own distinctive scent.

It was an old man that made his way alone through the gloomy jungle, a wrinkled, dried-up little old man hideously scarred and tattooed and strangely garbed, with the skin of a hyena about his shoulders and the dried head mounted upon his pate. Tarzan recognized the earmarks of the witch doctor and awaited Numa's charge with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation, for the ape-man had no love for witch doctors; but at the instant that Numa did charge, the white man suddenly recalled that Numa had stolen his kill a few moments before, and revenge is sweet.

The first intimation the black man had that he was in danger was the crash of twigs as Numa charged through the bushes into the game trail not twenty yards behind him. He turned to see a huge, black-maned lion racing toward him, and even as he turned, Numa seized him. At the same instant, the ape-man dropped from an over-hanging limb full upon the lion's back and as he alighted he plunged his knife into the tawny side behind the left shoulder, tangled the fingers of his right hand into the long mane, buried his teeth in Numa's neck and wound his powerful legs about the beast's torso. With a roar of rage and pain, Numa reared up and fell back on the ape-man; stilly the mighty man-thing clung to his hold and repeatedly the long knife plunged into his side. Over and over rolled Numa, the lion, clawing and biting at the air, roaring and growling horribly in a savage attempt to reach the thing upon its back. More than once was Tarzan almost brushed from his hold. He was battered and bruised and covered with blood from Numa and dirt from the trail, yet not for an instant did he lessen the ferocity of his attack nor his grim hold upon his antagonist. To have loosened his grip for an instant would have been to bring him into reach 'of those tearing talons or rending fangs, and have ended forever the grim career of this jungle-bred English lord.

Where he had fallen beneath the spring of the lion the witch doctor lay, torn and bleeding, unable to drag himself away, and watched the terrific battle between these two lords of the jungle. His sunken eyes glittered and his wrinkled lips moved ever toothless gums as he mumbled weird incantations to the demons of his cult.

For a time he felt no doubt as to the outcome- the strange white man must certainly succumb to terrible Simba—whoever heard of a lone man armed with only a knife slaying so mighty a beast! Yet presently the old black man's eyes went wider and he commenced to have his doubts and misgivings. What wonderful sort of creature was this that battled with Simba and held his own despite the mighty muscles of the king of beasts? Slowly, there dawned in those sunken eyes, gleaming so brightly from the scarred and wrinkled face, the light of a dawning recollection. Gropingly back into the past reached the fingers of memory until at last they seized upon a faint picture, faded and yellow with the passing years.

It was the picture of a lithe, white-skinned youth swinging through the trees in company with a band of huge apes, and the old eyes blinked and a great fear came into them—the superstitious fear of one who believes in ghosts and spirits and demons.

And came the time once more when the witch doctor no longer doubted the outcome of the duel, yet his first judgment was reversed. Now he knew the jungle god would slay Simba and the old black was even more terrified of his own impending fate at the hands of the victor than he had been by the sure and sudden death which the triumphant lion would have meted out to him.

He saw the lion weaken from loss of blood. He saw the mighty limbs tremble and stagger and at last he saw the great beast sink down to rise no more. He saw the forest god or demon rise from the vanquished foe, and placing afoot upon the still quivering carcass, raise his face to the moon and bay out a hideous cry that froze the ebbing blood in the veins of the witch doctor.

Now Tarzan turned his attention to the old man. He had not slain Numa to save the witch doctor—he had done it merely in revenge upon the lion. But now that he saw the old man lying helpless and dying before him, something akin to pity touched his savage heart. In his youth he would have slain the witch doctor without the slightest compunction, but civilization had had ascertain softening effect on him, even as it does upon the nations and races which it touches, although Tarzan was certainly neither cowardly or effeminate. He saw an old man dying, and stooped to feel of the wounds and stanch the flow of blood.

"Who are you? " he was asked in a trembling voice.

"Tarzan. Tarzan of the Apes," said the ape-man, not without pride, for it was a proud title in the jungle.

The witch doctor shuddered, closed his eyes. When he opened them again there was in them a fatalistic realization that his death was imminent. "Why do you not kill me?" he asked.

"Why should I?" Tarzan asked, in turn. "Numa, the lion, has already killed you, old man."

"You would not kill me?" There was surprise, even incredulity in the voice.

"I would save you if I could," Tarzan said, "but that cannot be done. Why did you think I would kill you?"

When the old man finally spoke, it was with some little effort to muster his courage. "I knew you of old," he said, "when you ranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga, the chief. I was already a witch doctor when you slew Kulonga and the others and when you raided our village, robbed our huts and our poison pot. At first I did not remember you, but now I do. The white-skinned ape that lived with the hairy apes and made life miserable in the village of Mbonga, the chief. Before I die, tell me-are you man or devil?"

Tarzan laughed. "I am a man," he said.

The old fellow sighed and shook his head. "You have tried to save me from Simba," he said. "For that I shall reward you. I am a great witch doctor." He closed his eyes wearily, opened them after a moment. "Listen to me, Tarzan. I see bad days ahead for you. It is writ in my own blood in the palm of my hand. A god even greater than you has come to the jungle, and will smite you down. Danger lies ahead of you, and danger lurks behind you. You laugh at this god? I have seen him. I have smelled him. Listen, now, to the jungle—you hear no night sounds? He is nearby. He ..." The old man fell back, stopped breathing. Tarzan thought of his words, raised his own head and listened. Where were the night sounds? The forest was ominously silent! Not a twig crackled, not a leaf rustled, not a rodent squeaked! Even the air seemed heavy, lifeless. Tarzan's instincts, the instincts of any wild beast, took over. Soundlessly, he leaped into a nearby tree, taking cover, every sense on the alert. He could not doubt the danger surrounding him, but until he knew exactly what it was he was making no bold, foolish foray against it. Undoubtedly the "god" mentioned by the old witch doctor was somewhere in the area, attracted, if for no other reason, by the ape-man's horrible victory cry. So be it. Tarzan settled himself, loosened the knife in his holster, prepared to wait.

Now—did he hear something, or was that an illusion? He strained his ears, then suddenly knew he was very near the danger. An effluvia made a stench in his sensitive nostrils, a strange spoor, indeed, one the ape-man had never before encountered. He tensed, every muscle on the alert. Now there was a cautious, almost unheard crackle of bush across the clearing. Tarzan stared fixedly at the spot.

Jane Clayton and Leena, the hairy she-ape, had been traveling long. Now the shaggy figure of Jane's companion halted, swinging on a bough. Jane was aware of Leena's indecision, but accepted the pause gratefully. A few moments' rest would be most welcome. The ape came slowly back along her tree "path," paused uncertainly, evidently trying to think of a way to convey a message of great importance to the white woman. She rolled her eyes uneasily, chose a well-concealed perch some feet higher in the giant tree they both occupied and, with little nudges and soft grunts, urged Jane to take shelter there. Having little choice in the matter, Jane complied. Leena indicated satisfaction, then quickly turned and started off by herself, turning just once to indicate that Jane was to stay there until the ape returned for her. Lady Greystoke waved reassurance, then with little squirmings tried to make herself as comfortable as possible, comparing her present resting place unfavorably with her own comfortable bed at home. She sighed, knowing that her lord was somewhere out there in the jungle. She wondered how far they'd come, how much farther they must go to arrive at whatever mysterious destination the Great Apes had in mind. She realized that she couldn't stay in her present spot for an indefinite length of time. There was the very real danger, of which Tarzan had often warned her, that the easily-distracted apes might forget all about her. Also, she would need food and water soon. She realized that she was very thirsty already, from her long exertions in the trees.

She closed her eyes, wearily. If anything, the jungle was even more ominously quiet than before; but of course, she assured herself, that might just be her imagination. She hoped this silence didn't preclude a storm; that made tree-travel extremely difficult and slippery treacherous. She wrinkled her nose at a particularly unpleasant smell, concluded that there must be a dead beast on the ground nearby, then, bone-weary, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep. A long, mottled snake-like appendage crept up the trunk of the tree where she slept, obscenely seeking out her hiding place. She sighed in her sleep once, and it halted, abruptly, then continued its seeking slowly, silently. Its tip touched the bare thigh of its prey, recoiled slightly, then struck!

Chapter Three

"The Gold Rush"

Tarzan waited patiently in his vantage point, watching for further movement from the brush across the clearing, but none came. And presently, the cloying scent of decay thinned and finally vanished altogether. Whatever or whoever the new jungle "god"' was, it had apparently no interest in what it had seen in the clearing, the corpse of an old black man and the body of a slain lion. Possibly it had tied the two together.

Tarzan cautiously worked his way through the trees around the clearing to the spot directly over which he'd heard the faint crackle of brush, but nothing remained to be seen or heard. He debated, then decided against tracking the creature this night. The gold was necessary and hence of the first importance. Once he'd removed his needs from Opar, perhaps he could spend a few days and nights establishing exactly who or what this new creature was. As he started back to the boma, he noticed that the little jungle sounds had started up again. Behind him he heard the jittering laugh of a pair of hyenas as they moved into the free feast Tarzan had left behind in the clearing.

It was very late when Tarzan re-entered the boma and lay down among his black warriors. None had seen him go and none had seen him return.

He thought again about the warning of the old witch doctor before he fell asleep, and he thought about it again as he awoke, but he did not turn back. Despite the rather unnerving incidents of the night before, Tarzan was unafraid, although had he but known what lay ahead for the one he loved most in all the world he would have flown through the trees to her side (could he have but found her) and allowed the gold of Opar to remain forever hidden in Its forgotten storehouse.

Behind him that morning, yet another pondered what had been seen and heard through the night, greatly puzzled over the sound that had come from the tiny jungle clearing where he had discovered the body of the witch doctor (although he had no way of knowing that was what the black man was) and the lion. (And he had no way of knowing what that was, either!) Did all mortals in this jungle die with such screeching sounds upon their lips? He had heard the cry of the victorious bull-ape as Tarzan had streamed it forth from his lips in that moment of savage glory, and had trembled just a little. Yet, close investigation had convinced him that nothing more formidable than a meat eater and a very low life-form had together met their ends. Which was responsible for the sound?

No matter. He pressed on, his sinuous body slithering through the underbrush, taking to the trees from time to time. He felt a hunger, a need for living flesh, unsuspecting flesh, and knew it must be satisfied soon. He knew also .that the collection was not yet complete, and that he dare not return to the Silver Globe without it. For a moment, in a consciousness that was alien, not entirely human, nor yet entirely animal, he felt a dim regret that flesh of the dead would not satisfy his needs, for certainly this alien land abounded in such. He wondered dimly, where the others of his kind might be. He sent out a silent call, in the form of what he supposed to be an odorless scent, known only to those of his species. He received no answer, and wondered, for the tenth or twentieth time why the forest fell silent every time he did so.

And so Tarzan of the Apes forged steadily ahead toward Opar's ruined ramparts and behind him slunk the other. God only knew what lay in store for each.

At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking the golden domes and minarets of Opar, Tarzan halted. By night he would go alone to the treasure vault, reconnoitering, for he had determined that caution should mark his every move upon this expedition. With the coming of night he set forth, and the other, the shadower, followed him, after a day of following among the forbidding cliffs and rough boulders. Was Tarzan prey or collector's item? The Follower was not sure. The boulder-strewn plain between the valley's edge and the mighty granite kopje outside the city's walls—where lay the passageway leading to the treasure vault—gave the other, the Follower, ample cover as he followed Tarzan toward Opar.

He paused beside a shadowing boulder, watching with his several eyes as the giant ape-man swung himself nimbly up the cliff-face, then stealthily and silently—albeit a bit fearfully—followed. There were few holds, yet the Follower sought them out almost as nimbly as had Tarzan. At last the Follower stood upon the summit of the rocky hill, but his quarry had disappeared, and the Follower knew just a moment of fear. He crouched in concealment for a time, but, still seeing nothing of the ape-man, he crept from his place of concealment and began a systematic search of the surroundings. He knew nothing of Tarzan’s objective, the gold, but only of his own, which was the Englishman himself. Shudders rippled down his skin.

The Follower realized, from an alien instinct, that he was very close to the Silver Globe, He knew, also, that punishment for failure would be swift, certain, terrible and agonizing. He clung desperately to the available shadows, knowing that much more exposure to sunlight would forever still his several reptilian hearts, if such they could be called. He felt very weak before he finally came upon the entrance which rapidly failing senses told him Tarzan had passed but a short time before. The passageway was cool, dark, inviting, yet he feared to enter. In his weakened condition, he might, be easy prey for the giant, and he was aware of this. He scuttled into the deep shadow of a large boulder and lay as patiently as might be, awaiting the return of the ape-man. He felt a tentacle commence to curl under the direct sunlight, and withdrew it hurriedly into the blessed shadow. With what would pass as a shuddering sigh among his kind, the Follower relaxed, waiting like some fat, loathsome spider for the return of his prey. He knew dimly that Tarzan was seeking "something called "gold," but had no idea what this might be. Patience.

The ape-man, far ahead of his unknown pursuer, groped his way along the rocky passage until he came to a door, an ancient wooden door. A moment later he stood within the treasure chamber where, ages ago, long-dead hands had ranged the lofty rows of precious ingots for the rulers of that great continent which now lies submerged beneath the waters of the Atlantic. Or so the legend goes.

No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault, nor was there any evidence that another had discovered the forgotten wealth since the ape-man had last visited its hiding place.

Tarzan was satisfied that all was secure, and, turning, retraced his steps toward the summit of the kopje. The Follower sensed his coming but was too weak to do anything but observe. The sun had crept higher, and with it, as the shadow of the rock shortened, had weakened the physical and mental strength of the mysterious creature that certainly was not native to Africa. Tarzan, unnoticing, passed carelessly, and the Follower slipped gratefully into the darkened entry which the ape-man had just quitted, feeling the gratifying darkness and coolness of the passage. It disappeared behind an outcropping of rock, regathering its strength. Blocked from communication with its fellows, it exuded no odors, which was just as well, for not only Tarzan but his warriors, as well, would have noticed the scent of which the beast was completely unaware.

Halting at the kopje's edge, Tarzan raised his voice in the thunderous roar of a lion. He repeated the call several times at regular intervals and stood in attentive silence for several minutes after the last had rolled away. Then, from far across the valley, came an answering roar. It was Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, who replied. Tarzan again made his way back to the entrance of the treasure vault, knowing that in a few hours or even less his trustworthy blacks would be with him, ready to carry away another fortune in the strangely-shaped ingots of purest gold from the treasure vaults. In the meantime, he decided, he would make the task both easier and faster by bringing as much of the precious metal to the surface himself as possible. Five times he made the trip to the vault, and five times the Follower half-reached for him, then thought better of it, trying to recoup and regain its strength. On the sixth trip, fifty warriors accompanied him, eager to get the treasure and leave this haunted area.

The Follower cowered in its deep shadow, unable to make a choice or even a move. Only one man in the world, the man they loved and trusted, could turn these fierce killers into porters, and somehow the Follower knew that its superhuman strength could not prevail against such a group. Even among the alien, discretion is almost always considered the better part of valor. The Follower observed, sensed, planned. And above all, remained discreet.

Altogether, a hundred ingots came from the vaults, which was all Tarzan planned on carrying with his little safari. As the last of the Waziri gladly left the treasure chamber, Tarzan turned for a last look. This was his fourth foray into the fabulous wealth, and his efforts had made no appreciable inroads on the vast heap of gold. There was much memory here, Tarzan recalled, as he held aloft the candle stub, the single light which served his purpose. He wondered who still ruled the city, if indeed any ruler was left. He glanced upwards, recalling that the crumbling walls of the city rested upon the top of this very treasure vault. All this and more Tarzan thought about, wondered about, then, with a shake of his head, extinguished the candle and followed his Waziri into the open air.

Behind him, the Follower waited for him to be gone. Burdened as the safari was, the Follower knew, somehow, that progress back to comparative safety and immunity would be difficult-and slow.

Tarzan closed the door. Behind him, the Follower flexed its sinews, feeling well-recovered, and picked up a gold ingot.

With incredible strength, it buried it away. it was poisonous to this strange being, burning its skin like acid!

The Follower forgot its unholy appetite in the moment of anguish; the ingot, crashing through the sturdy wooden door, plunged Tarzan into total forgetfulness of all things as it struck against his skull, driving him from his feet.

The beast below, soundlessly bellowing in pain and anguish, scuttled deeper into the tunnel. The ape-man lay unconscious, bleeding from a deep gash in his forehead.

After she'd left Tarzan's mate high in the trees of the jungle, Leena, the shaggy she-ape, swung swiftly ahead through the trees, traveling with caution, yet with unbelievable speed. She, as did all the great apes, knew that something strange, ominous and quite dangerous was afoot in the forest. She had not seen the mighty, evil creature yet, but her mate, Nendat, had had a brief glimpse of it, knew it for a predator that could move more swiftly than any ordinary beast. Nendat also knew that Tarzan was on the move with a safari of his Waziri warriors, and had ordered Leena to go fetch Tarzan’s she and escort her to the boma of the Lord of the Jungle. It was with a certain regret that he'd made this move. Nendat, in his brutal fashion, thought highly of Leena; still, his duty lay with his tribe, and Leena was more intelligent than the others, so it had to be she.

After an hour or slightly more of swift travel, Leena became aware that she had miscalculated, that Tarzan's boma lay further away than she had anticipated. For a moment she stopped, fussing in querulous mutterings, then turned and raced back in the direction from which she'd so recently come. She passed a small pool of water, mentally noting that it would be a fine place to stop for a drink on the way back with Jane, then stopped abruptly, sniffing the air with her large nostrils.

The strange scent had vanished from the air, and once again the night sounds of the jungle had begun to make themselves heard. She grunted in surprise and apprehension, started a desperate race to the tree where Jane had been hidden.

Tarzan's mate was gone. Leena dropped to the jungle floor and circled, sniffing and snuffling, endeavoring vainly to pick up even the hint of a trail. Baffled, she leaped back into the nearest tree, and raced to her own clan, many miles away.

Chapter Four

"The Silver Globe"

Jane regained a sort of consciousness. She seemed to be held captive within a small chamber. There was enough air to breathe, but it held a dreadful, fetid odor. Gagging, she staggered to her feet and explored her cell. It was small, of that there could be no doubt. A light, of sorts, seemed to emanate from the very walls, and they seemed to be of a metal composition. She ran a hand exploringly over the surface, and noted that, although cool to the touch, it was dry. She bent over, examined the floor. It, too, was of the same substance, seamless. Where did the air come from? She stood in the center of the room, if such it could be called, and examined her surroundings as best she might in the half-gloom. Hardly larger than a small closet. Room to lie down, but no more than enough room. No bunk or bed. No toilet facilities. No chair. Four blank walls, a ceiling and a floor. That was all. There was a drain in the center of the floor, and, listening carefully, she followed a faint sound as of gas escaping to a small vent almost directly overhead. The air source.

Jane could find no entrance or egress from the cell, but as she thought of her thirst, which was almost unbearable, as if by magic a panel slid aside in a wall, and a bowl of water slid through. She picked it up as the panel closed, sniffed it with a certain amount of suspicion, then, smelling nothing alien, drank long and deeply. She set the bowl on the floor, then went to the furthest corner and sat down, propping her back against the wall. What was this strange place? And what was she doing here? Her last conscious recollection was of a small but definite pain in her thigh as she sat crouched and sleeping in a tree-top.

Instinctively, she felt along her leg, finding a small but still sensitive spot on her shapely limb. She looked at it. Nothing more than a thorn-scratch, she thought.

Was this, then, what Leena had brought her to? To some sort of strange captivity? Why? There was no answer. Where was her mate, Tarzan? Still no answer. She got to her feet, working her way around the room. No escape! She could not even find the panel through which the bowl of water had been thrust at her, as if she were a sort of beast in captivity.

Sighing, she sat back down, wondering what next to do. There seemed to be nothing, until and unless someone came to rouse her. She still felt fatigue, in fact almost an unnatural lassitude. Wearily, she wished for a soft mattress. Almost as she wished it, the mysterious panel opened again, and a soft mattress, exactly as she had wished, slid through onto the floor of her cell. Jane Clayton gaped in astonishment. Finally, her weariness overcoming her natural caution, she patted the mattress with her hands. Soft. With a small exhalation of weariness, she lay upon the mattress, feeling with gratitude her body sinking deeply into its comfortable embrace. As she closed her eyes, she wished only that the awful smell would go away. As in a dream, she heard a slightly more sibilant hiss from the air vent, and suddenly the odor of decay was gone!

Like magic, she thought as she sank into an exhausted slumber.

When Tarzan's Waziri reached the surface of the ground, their chieftain halted them. He looked back along the dim trail but saw no sign of the ape-man. Basuli was aware of a strange, hackle-raising scent, and remembered it from the past night. Although he had no instructions from his master, his reactions were almost instinctive as he sensed grave danger. Peril lurks always for the jungle denizen, and the savage native is no less aware of it than is the largest or smallest beast.

Motioning quickly for his men to halt, he climbed upon a giant anthill and surveyed the surrounding area. We think of the word "survey" as a look around. Not so the savage. His "look" is multisensed. Basuli gazed, sniffed and listened. The rank, fetid smell still assailed his nostrils though not, perhaps, as strongly as before. There was no movement, as his eyes studied the area, eyes that could see motion at many thousands of yards. He heard nothing, except the trickle of a stream of water off to the North, a very small stream and a great distance away. He tossed a quick glance upward, estimated the hours of daylight still left, then made his decision." Once, to his shame, he and his warriors had broken and run when Tarzan needed aid. The blot on the honor of his people had not been caused by cowardice as we know it, but by terror, superstition as it is only known to the child- like dweller of the forest. It would never happen again.

He clambered down from the anthill, issued his orders. There was no need to tell his warriors that a strange -danger lurked not too far away—their senses were as alert as his, and they shifted uneasily. He picked his two bravest, strongest warriors. They were to accompany him, their chief. For the others, his plan was simple, easy to understand. They were to put out scouts, to the sides and in front, audio leave a rear guard. The main party was to carry the gold back to their encampment across the boulder-strewn, forbidding valley from whence they had come. This was to be done as quickly as possible. Then, leaving ten guards and the gold behind, with two guards on duty at all times, the rest of the safari was to march directly to Tarzan's estate, there to await word, and meanwhile to alert the other of Basuli’s men and to protect Tarzan's mate, as well as the wives and maidens and old ones among the Waziri.

This disposed of, Basuli and his two giant warriors turned and made their way, with great caution, back to the entrance of the passageway leading downward to the treasure trove. Had Tarzan followed the Waziri from the cave, or was he still in there? Basuli hesitated only a moment, then motioned his two lieutenants to watch. He stepped boldly into the passageway. After a few paces he was in complete blackness, an unhappy situation to this bold savage who was, almost as fearless as Tarzan, but to whom such darkness portended unspeakable, unthinkable evil. He trembled, glad there was no eye to see him. Cold sweat broke out upon his lithe, muscled form as the stench of rot again almost overwhelmingly pervaded his dilated nostrils. He called once, softly, then again. "Tarzan!"

The native crouched against the clammy wall of the cave, waiting for an answer, an answer which was not forthcoming. Perhaps, he tried to convince himself, Tarzan had come out from the tunnel and was even now standing outside in the blessed sunshine. He called once again, then beat a hasty retreat to the surface, collecting himself so that he emerged under the admiring eyes of his lieutenants at a scowling, thoughtful walk, rather than at a headlong race of pure panic which all his instincts screamed out for him to do. Outside, the air smelled almost fresh, and he gulped down a great draught of it. He shook his head warningly at the other two natives, then cast his glance about him. Upward, at the top of the cliff, seemed a good place to look again for his master, and he quickly motioned the others to follow him up the ascent.

The rocky face gave much purchase to steel fingers and almost prehensile toes, but it was still a scramble, and the trio was near exhaustion as they reached the craggy peak.

The foot of one warrior turned over a small rock just as they reached the summit, and of such minor incidents are our fortunes determined. The small rock, dislodged by the careless and weary foot, in turn dislodged another large rock, and then came a veritable cascade of rocks and huge boulders streaming and bounding down the face of the cliff. The entrance to the cave was sealed, it became apparent after the clouds of dust had cleared.

Sealed for all time, under hundreds of tons of impregnable rock.

Basuli regretted only the noise, which was almost sure, he felt, to attract unwelcome attention. He dealt the offender a buffet alongside the cheek and strode angrily and majestically away, glad that Tarzan, at least, was riot ill the cave, sealed away for all eternity.

The three Waziri went their way, purposefully seeking Tarzan.

Tarzan stumbled to his feet. It was a Stygian darkness, and he groped his way, feeling the pain from his head, until he found again the wooden doorway. The ape-man had no recollection of why he was here, in this tomb, nor even that he was seeking a way out. He only knew that he was somewhere. He touched the bloody, still-bleeding gash in his head and winced. All memory was gone. He remembered naught of arriving here, wherever "here" might be, nor the reason thereof. He remembered nothing. He was all animal, without remembrance' of yesterday nor fear of tomorrow. It was enough to be alive today.

Grunting in pain, he sought a way out of his prison. He came upon a wall of rocks, tried them with his mighty muscles, gave up the effort. He turned, retraced his steps in the blackness. He came to the shattered door, wrinkling his nostrils at the odor beyond it. He searched the panel over with sensitive fingers, flung it open. The stench beyond was almost overwhelming. Still, perhaps that was the way things should be. From somewhere came a breath of fresh air, and he followed the elusive tendril, stumbling (although he didn't know it) over the body of the Follower.

A narrower passageway lay beyond, and he followed it. He came upon a flight of stone stairs, and mounted them, feeling his way with animal stealth and cunning for some twenty feet, coming to a corridor which ran in much the same direction. There was still not the faintest glimmer of illumination, and Tarzan almost fell into a circular pit, apparently terminating the passage he was traversing. He regained his balance, teetering dangerously, then cast about for a way around, below or past the barrier. Squinting, his lion-like eyes could dimly ascertain a continuation of the passageway, directly across the pit. How wide was it? Could he leap across it with his uncanny agility, or must he find a way around it? He tested. To one side, the ledge was a narrow trail that continued a few feet, then dropped off into nothingness. Listening carefully, he could hear the passage of water far below. It might be a well of sorts. Whatever it was, it was no place for Tarzan. To the other side, there was not even a ledge. Half-snarling, the ape-man withdrew to his original position.

Behind him, in the blackness of the passageway he’d just traversed, the Follower crept slowly a questing tentacle lashing forward from time to time, seeking the scent or sight of the white ape.

As Tarzan stood there measuring the distance to the opposite side and wondering if even he dared chance such a leap there broke suddenly upon his ears a piercing scream which diminished gradually until it ended in a series of dismal moans. The voice seemed partly human, yet so hideous that it might well have emanated from the tortures of a lost soul writhing in the furnaces of hell.

The sound came from above, and the ape-man, despite himself, shuddered, looking toward the source. There was, he could dimly ascertain, a faint starlit opening far overhead, a patch of sky pinked with brilliant stars. Tarzan's instinct was to climb upward, but there was no possible foothold, no way to go. Frustrated, he realized that he dare not reveal himself to any who might live above, for where such a voice made itself known was no place for the ape-man. If only he could remember why he was here, in this foul-smelling blackness, he might be able to take a course of action. He was conscious only of a pain within his skull when he endeavored to think. He wished himself safely back in ... where? No answer.

The slimy tentacle of the Follower crept closer to him, seeking, seeking. Tarzan leaped upward and outward, in utter darkness, hands outstretched and muscles tensed, seeking a hold should his feet miss the opposite ledge. He struck the edge of the floor at the opposite terminus of the rocky tunnel with his knees, slipped backward, clutched for a moment and at last hung half-in and half-out of the opening; but he was safe. For several moments he dared not move, but clung precariously to his perch. At last, cautiously, he drew himself to the floor of the tunnel and lay at full length, feeling a strange weakness that was occasioned by the blow on his head. Across the well, the Follower extended a tentacle to its utmost length; then retreated in baffled fury. Its muscles were not for leaping. The fetid odor again filled the airspace as the beast flailed itself upon the rocky floor in utter frustration.

Chapter Five

"The Sacrifice"

When Leena, mate of Nendat, king of the great apes, returned to her tribe's encampment, she received exactly what she had expected. Nendat growled as he listened to her report, then drew back a muscular, hairy arm and slammed her to the ground. She lay there, whimpering softly and thankful that she'd received no worse.

Explanations had been in vain, as she had known they would be. Nendat stomped the hard-bitten, solidly packed earth, muttering about the general undependability of the shes in his tribe. Thumping his chest, he called a meeting of all the bull apes of his following.

As protocol had it, he beat his breast savagely, challenging one and all to mortal combat, baring his yellowed teeth in a feral snarl. Jedak, the next-to-oldest, replied as tradition demanded, waddled rapidly to the midst of the circle, growling and expressing dire threats of death and disaster. Nendat waited patiently until the expected outburst had subsided to a mere murmur, and the handful of great apes that were Jedak’s protagonists had stopped their unholy utterances.

"Tarzan," he started to address the assemblage, and was interrupted by a cacophony of breast-beating and growling noises.

"Tarzan," he repeated firmly, flinging dust into the air, "is in grave danger."

Jedak curled lips from his fangs. "Who is this one, Tarzan, that the mangani should take concern, yes, even to make war? A white ape," he ended, derisively, himself throwing a handful of dust into the air to show his contempt.

Nendat, knuckles resting in the hardened dirt, glared with red eyes at his old-time opponent. "If you wish your heart torn out and eaten," he mouthed, coldly, "you have chosen a way. A good way. A swift way. Tarzan is our brother. Who says different is dead!" This last was emphasized by a defiant look around the circle of apes. "And I, your chief, shall see to it! "

Jedak idly scratched a flea-bite under a massive, arm. "Why should we take any action?" he asked. "Tell us, chieftain, without threats of death, who is this white-skinned ape for whom we, the great apes, should risk our lives? Or even," he added cunningly, "our happiness? I see your mate, Leena, in the dirt, suffering from your blows. Why? Because she could not return the soft-skinned she to her mate? What of us? Shall we die?"

Nendat waddled toward his old and ancient foe, frothing from anger. "You forget who you are," he reprimanded the other. "And you forget who I am. I do not ask questions. Only obedience. When you can command it better than I, do so. Meanwhile-" He backhanded the other ape with a blow that rolled him across the compound. The others thumped their breasts and chuckled. It was a great joke. Even Nendat laughed, then swiftly recovered, remembering why he had called the meeting. He pounded a palm on the dart of their compound, commanding attention again.

"Enough," he cried. Silence met his statement, all threats having been properly disposed of. "Enough. Now. All of us have seen the new beast in our jungle, have sniffed its odor. We know something strange has happened, is even now happening to our forest, our home. We are all uneasy. A strange thing has been reported. A strange thing in the sky, a moon, Goro, where and when there should be no Goro. Other animals are disappearing. I can say no more. Where is Gorak, my enemy, who left our tribe many moons ago? Who can say?" He glowered at his little band of apes, trying to make a point that even he did not understand too well. "So it is, and I saw this and will challenge to the death any of my tribe who says it is not true or needed, that we shall make peace with the Waziri, with Numa, with Tantor, with all beings who live with us until this danger is past and destroyed." He thumped upon his chest. "I, Nendat, so say. I await challengers."

There were none.

Basuli’s warriors, true to their instructions, packed the gold ingots to their former camp, some five hours away. There, they halted only to rest for a few minutes; then, guards posted about the gold, the rest of the band set off for Tarzan's estate and their own homes. The average African tribesman, in good health, can easily cover forty to fifty 'miles per day. The Waziri, honed to a peak of physical perfection, can almost double that astounding mileage in a day, day after day. It must be understood that this sort of travel, at such speed and with such demands upon physical endurance is not used casually, but only as a major emergency might dictate. At a mile-consuming lope, the Waziri raced through the jungle, stopping only when it grew dark and dangerous.

Even then, the boma of thornbush they erected was hastily built, although the protective fire was kept well-fueled. At first break of dawn the warriors were on their feet and moving again. At midday of that next day on the trail, the Waziri were met by a runner from their village. Tarzan's mate had not returned, and there was no word other. The she-ape, with which she had left, had returned, seeking her! The jungle was in an uproar. By and large, the Waziri highly mistrusted the great apes, having witnessed, in addition to their uncompromising ferocity in hand-to-hand combat, their absent-mindedness, their tendency to go off on a tangent, their lack of attention to detail. Quick to anger, they were equally quick to a total uninterest in combat. They were, in a word, undependable and unpredictable, at least so far as the Waziri were concerned. Still, this was serious business. It is likely that at any other time the black warriors would have shrugged all this away and proceeded upon their assigned duty; but there had been these ominous silences in the jungle, the strange new spoor to be noted from time to time, even rumors of the sightings of mysterious objects in the sky and on the ground.

N'Gogo, who was Basuli’s second-in-command, stood irresolute. Should he and his men follow the orders of his leader? Finally, like many others in the field, he compromised. This, certainly, was of sufficient importance to be called to the attention of Basuli, and perhaps even to Tarzan, himself, although it was unlikely that the white ape would not already be aware of anything untoward happening in his arboreal kingdom. N'Gogo appointed one of the others to lead the main party back to the compound where dwelt the tribe. He took the runner and three others and once again retraced his footsteps. Privately, N'Gogo was getting a bit fed up with this particular stretch of jungle which it seemed had been his sole surrounding for many moons. For many days, anyway. A brave man, he scoffer at unknown gods, feeling with a savage simplicity that there must be a rational explanation for anything and everything. Let others, like old women, speak of unfavorable omens, of offended deities who allowed it to rain or forbade it to rain, or who wished a visitation upon the patches of well-tended gardens (tended by the women) by apes and all sorts of marauders.

To N'Gogo, it rained or it did not rain. It was as simple as that. And just as N'Gogo felt hunger, so did apes, apes which raided the garden patches. It was a natural thing, needing no explanation, no clattering of old women's tongues. As a sub-chief, N'Gogo had three wives, the eldest of whom was nearly twice his age, and an unwelcome but necessary inheritance from an uncle, upon that worthy's untimely demise from the fangs of a hamadryad, a dreaded king cobra, which could outrun a man—and in this case did. N'Gogo privately wished as he trotted along the trail, that his eldest wife would soon lose her faculty for speech. The trouble the wrinkled hag caused among his other two, plump young wives! Don't do this, don't do that, or the gods will frown and bring sorrow upon our people! "Ptah!" he spat. What gods?

He raised his eyes to the skies, not slackening his pace. If there be gods, he thought, let the ... what was that? An immense silver globe, larger than Goro, the moon, floated slowly overhead, disappearing in the direction to- ward which the five warriors were moving! N'Gogo threw himself, with a terrified cry, to the ground, shielding his eyes from the awesome sight. His followers did likewise. Soundlessly, the huge globe floated past on its way. It was some moments before the sturdy, hitherto unbelieving Waziri regained his feet. He had suffered a monstrous blow to his ego, and his mind needed time for readjustment to his place in the scheme of things.

Later in the day, when Buto, the rhinoceros, was encountered and turned grumpily away rather than loosening his express-train charge, N'Gogo was so preoccupied that he hardly noticed, or, noticing, paid it no heed. What was one angry rhino that failed to charge when one's whole philosophy, one's whole world, has been turned topsy-turvy?

Tarzan came to his senses for the second time, his fingers encountering a wall of masonry which barred his further progress, blocking the tunnel completely from top to bottom, side to side. What could it mean? His jungle-trained mind had taught him to use his mind for the purpose for which it was intended. A blind tunnel such as this, especially after the other obstacles he'd overcome, was senseless. Therefore, it had to continue be- yond the wall. Someone, sometime in the past, had had it blocked for purposes of his own. The ape-man fell to examining the masonry by touch alone. He tugged at a block, and to his delight, it worked free. The stones were fitted loosely, without mortar or cement. He tugged at more of them, until he had finally pulled out enough blocks to admit his body. Across the low barrier, he crawled into a large, low chamber.

Across this another door barred his way, but this, too, gave way before his efforts for it was not locked or shackled in any way. A long dark corridor showed before him, and he entered it simply because there was no choice, no other way to travel. He was still in total darkness, and apprehension rode his neck heavily. What further pitfalls and dangers lay ahead he could not guess; but that he was as far as ever from liberty he was quite willing to believe, so depressing is the utter absence of light to one in unfamiliar surroundings.

Slowly hr groped his way along, feeling with his hands upon the tunnel’s walls, and cautiously with his feet ahead of him. Not a step would he take until his feet felt before him. How long he crept thus he could not guess, but at last, feeling that the tunnel’s length was interminable, and exhausted by his efforts, by pain and loss of sleep, he determined to lie down and rest before proceeding further.

When he awoke, there was no change in the surrounding blackness. He might have slept a second or a day—he could not know, but that he had slept for some time was attested to by the fact that he was both refreshed and hungry.

Again he commenced his groping advance, but this time he had gone but a short distance when he emerged into a room which was lighted through an opening in the ceiling, from which a flight of stone steps led downward to the floor of the chamber.

Above him, though the aperture, Tarzan could see sunlight glancing from massive columns, which were twined about by clinging vines.

He listened keenly but could hear no sound other than the soughing of the wind through leafy branches, the hoarse cry of birds and the idle chattering of monkeys.

Boldly, he ascended the stairway, to find himself in a circular court. Just before him stood a stone altar, stained with rusty-brown discolorations. Uneasily, he almost recalled the origin of those same stains.

Beside the opening in the floor, just behind the altar, through which he had entered the court from the chamber below, the ape-man discovered several doors leading from the enclosure upon the level of the floor. Above, and circling the courtyard, was a series of open balconies. Monkeys scampered about the deserted ruins and gaily plumaged birds flitted in and out among the columns and the galleries far above, but no sign of human presence was discernible. Tarzan sighed, exhaling a deep breath, then took a step toward one of the exits. He halted, wide-eyed in astonishment and apprehension. At the instant, a dozen doors opened in the courtyard wall and a horde of frightful men rushed in upon him.

Although the blow on Tarzan's head had deprived him of his memory, these were the same gnarled, hideous, shaggy little men who had in the past pinioned both his mate, Jane Clayton, and himself to the sacrificial altar. It had been some years ago, on a previous expedition. Their long arms, their short and crooked legs, their close-set, evil eyes and their low, receding foreheads gave them a bestial appearance that sent a momentary qualm of terror even through the mighty heart of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle! They charged him, en masse, and he turned to flee, but the frightful little men anticipated his action. They seized him and he fell, fighting but without hope, under a sheer mass of numbers. He was bound and thrown to the floor of the temple, just before the altar.

A stench, as of death, suddenly filled the room. Tarzan strained against his bonds, knowing it was useless. La, high priestess of Opar, came striding into the sacrificial chamber, her jade-green eyes lighting at the sight of the ape-man, her mortal enemy.

She motioned for his bound body to be stretched across the altar, then raised the golden goblets which were to catch his life's blood. The gnarled, misshapen priests gave vent to an unholy cry, raised the vessels on high, watched with eager expressions on their inhuman faces as La slowly reached for the sacrificial knife of obsidian.

Tarzan closed his eyes, stoically awaiting the downward thrust. Instead, a frightful roar filled the room. Tarzan opened his eyes, as La dropped the knife and fled. The evil priests tumbled over each other racing for the exits from the room. In the center, tail up as if to charge, and uttering a frightful challenging roar, was Numa, the lion!

Where had he come from, and what was he doing here? Tarzan tensed as the golden-maned beast walked slowly toward his bound figure, then, with what seemed almost a sigh of resignation, leaned forward and with his carnivorous teeth worked and worried at Tarzan's bonds until the ape-man sprang free. The ill-assorted pair eyed each other warily. Numa padded silently about the chamber, then sprang into one of the passageways, and Tarzan heard a scream of mortal terror and death, as the giant lion found and vented his rage on one of the little priests. Tarzan started to follow the white priestess, remembering vaguely where she'd left the chamber and by which exit, but his weakened condition betrayed him, and he fell, swooning, to the floor.

Chapter Six

"Master of the Globe"

Glamo was unhappy. He switched off the transceiver which occupied most of one wall of his cubicle aboard the Silver Globe, and paced up and down the chamber, tail twitching, expressing his anger. The gnomes, the little, bent-legged priests who were the actual descendants of Atlantis, now called Opar, had needed a blood sacrifice in order to appease their superstitious lusts, and La, so-called, had failed him badly. She, too, was a Venusian of the ruling class, and more, she was his mate. Her true name was Marda. Like all shes of the green planer she was tailless. Only the male could swish that proud appendage. On their last collecting trip to Earth, she had inadvertently been left behind. What matter? It was only a paltry two or three hundred of these Earth- years. Now, the Great Lords had sent him back to complete a collection, and he'd taken valuable time to come in the Silver Globe to Opar, just to pick her up. And at the same time, he had thought it amusing to snare a few more specimens, and had accordingly sent out a baker's dozen of the Followers to make rather indiscriminate selections. His tanks and cages had already been three-quarters full, and he needed only a few more turns of the Sun to finish here. He also needed the full and complete cooperation of the Atlanteans for a matter of two or three days and a blood sacrifice was necessary to appease the appetites of the little monsters. So be it, but now! Now, Marda had allowed herself to be panicked by the appearance of a ... what was it called? ... a lion. Could the earthling be recaptured? He thought about it, strode back to the computer console, switched on once again the screen which showed him the room just vacated hastily. No lion. No man. He flicked it back off, ran a finger down a row of studs on the console. Time was of the essence. Let's see ... perhaps that female in the cage ... what was that number? He pressed for an answer, and the view-screen threw back "77-L-21-B." He pressed still other buttons, looked at the result. A very tired Jane Clayton sprang into view. Standing there, looking at the near-nude image of Tarzan's mate, he felt a shameful desire. Had she been other than an Earthling, he might have ... no matter. She was an Earthling, and would be offensive to his lordly nostrils when approached. The priests of Opar would have no such reservations, he mused.

Very well. So be it. She would be the sacrifice, and he gave it no more thought than a hunter shooting at rabbits. One must bait a hook to catch fish, and one does not ordinarily ask an opinion of the worm so used!

He sent out a call for a Follower, watching the screen as the image of Jane Clayton faded and the hideous image of a Follower came into view. He issued instructions, mentally, then followed with the customary mental charge of terror which was the only way one could control these octopoid monsters. The Follower writhed in momentary agony, then hastened to do his bidding. He smiled grimly, closed all contacts, sank back into a chair, his tail curling automatically over his shoulder. He grasped it absently, relaxed, sunk in thought.

Basuli and his two sturdy warriors had climbed the cliff, east about for clues, sniffed the air, listened carefully and discovered—nothing.

Almost automatically, Basuli, as befits a great chieftain, found a small twig and squatted upon his haunches. His two aides squatted respectfully beside him, awaiting his remarks. He scratched in the sand, smoothing it with one callused palm, raising small mounds with the other. When he had done, and it took some time, he had a fair contour map of the surrounding terrain. He poked the stick in a certain spot.

"There," he said. "There is the camp from whence we came."

The other two heads nodded. "That is true."

"And here," poking again, "is the entrance to the treasure trove."

"Truly, it is, O chieftain."

He picked up three tiny pebbles, spotted them down. "And here we are, we three. So." He swept a handover the remainder of the map. "Somewhere here is Tarzan. Here, or here, or here. But where?"

One of his warriors sucked a hollow tooth thoughtfully, and Basuli looked annoyed. The noise stopped.

Basuli wrinkled his brow. "But where?" he repeated. Slowly, he shook his head. "There is a great deal of ... ."

One of his warriors spoke, humbly. "Someone comes."

Basuli looked up from his concentrated search of the map he'd made. "What? "

"Someone, or something, comes. Look, chief. Among those rocks, over there."

Basuli shadowed his eyes with cupped palms. "Simba," he announced. "Simba, the lion, and he stalks us. Very well. We are Waziri. I have never seen a lion here before. No matter, there is one here now." He gave this matter more serious thought. "I shall be bait. I will lay here as if dead or crippled. You," indicating one of the warriors, A crawl slowly, on your belly, behind that bush." He indicated the bush. "And you, behind that rock. When Simba comes close, kill him."

"But, Basuli ..."

"Enough," he whispered. "As I say it, shall it be. This is a small thing. Then we must seek Tarzan. Quickly, now!"

The others did as bidden.

The golden-maned lion approached cautiously sniffing the breeze, going from bush to bush, cat-like, coming ever closer. Through squinted eyes, Basuli watched the beast's approach, his stomach rumbling inside him despite his bravery. Within charging distance, Simba paused, tail lashing, then going erect as if to charge. Basuli almost shouted to his men, then held, waiting for the charge. It never came. Grumbling and growling as if in complete and utter frustration, Simba snarled, snapping at a gnat. The lion sat down and began delicately washing a paw.

Basuli, despite his ancestors, sat up, watching in astonishment. Unthinkable. Completely and utterly unthinkable!

Hah!" he shouted suddenly at the top of his lungs, daring a charge. The lion stopped licking its paw long enough to stare at him with golden, killer's eyes, then resumed its self-ordained duties.

Basuli, thinking of the events of this long day, uttered a silent prayer. He, the skeptic, the unbeliever in gods and portents, in omens and witch doctory, was faced with an altogether fantastic scene. A lion which would not charge, which would not kill, which licked his paw!

"On your feet," he commanded his men. "On your feet!" He got to his own feet reluctantly, feeling the weight of command bearing heavily upon his shoulders. "Have no fear. We are protected by the gods!" His men looked at him with curiosity and only a very little trust. Could this be Basuli speaking, the disbeliever, the heretic? The lion, Simba, continued to lick its paws, only occasionally casting a vivid yellow-eyed glance in their direction.

"We go on," Basuli ordered, sternly. "We seek Tarzan. On your feet, old women. Forget Simba." He tried valiantly to remember his own advice, but when the three of them passed the lion, Simba snarled with ill-disguised rancor. Although the lion made no move to charge, Basuli’s feet tingled on the path. He was ready to run. Moreover, he was puzzled at the strange behavior of the mighty beast, the animal which, above all others, Tarzan loved to kill. The three passed in uneasy but reassuring safety. "You see," Basuli remarked, when the trio was well out of charging distance, "how the gods favor us? Even mighty Simba dares not interfere with our search."

The other two Waziri followed their leader without enthusiasm, but where else was there to go, except back past the pawning jaws and mighty fangs of Simba, and who knew? Without Basuli, Simba might kill. So it was they stayed close upon his heels. Uncomfortably close. And so it was that they stumbled onto an air-shaft leading downward. Had there been no reluctant lion, they might have spent several hours or even days working out in their primitive minds what to do, exactly, about this descent into the bowels of the Earth. As it was, some- what buoyed up by the favorable portents of the day, they unhesitatingly followed Basuli down into the very heart of the veldt. The shaft was narrow, but there were steps. Slime-ridden, mossy steps, and the shaft itself gave off an effluvium of death and decay. But it might lead to Tarzan. Loyalty to the White Lord of the Jungle overcame natural fears, and they swiftly descended. Not, let it be understood, eagerly.

Nendat, in the absence of anything better, ate the filling, cloying but unsatisfying tropical fruit gathered by his she, Leena, waiting for the last one or two members of his "village" (called thus for lack of a better word) to come back from the assigned task. As his savage jaws, capable of biting through a thigh-bone in one snap, munched thoughtfully at a sticky, ripe date, he wrinkled his brow in thought. Certainly, no other great ape had ever before tried to make peace among the hunters of the jungle. Was it possible that he was meeting with success? Would the lion, the elephant, the buffalo all become brothers for a brief spell against this new danger? Was it possible that the rhino, the leopard and all the other predators might unite, this one time, in a common cause? Had Nendat been human, he might well have felt pride at so uniting the most savage elements. As an ape, Nendat was only aware of a vague uneasiness. Such a state of affairs was not natural, nor normal, nor perhaps even desirable. Only the forest gods knew. He spat out a seed, probed within his deadly jaw with a finger, scowling and tossing his head in irritation. Leena whimpered, and he turned a beetle-browed scowl upon her, as if to blame her for all this. Hurriedly, she looked away, then started fingering through her fur, making a pretense of searching for fleas, although it was well- known that the insect season was not yet upon them. He made a sucking noise of disapproval through thick Ups us she cast a worried glance at her unpredictable mate.

One by one, the other great apes in his camp returned, each boasting of his fearless exploits, and the stories, although wildly exaggerated, were uniformly favorable. Yes, the others of the forest would cooperate, Yes, they would help seek Tarzan and his mate; yes, they would walk warily, seeking but avoiding the new "god"—whatever he or it might be, the beast that smelled of death and decay. Finally, Pintat, youngest of all the great apes—and possibly the most fearless, having known little danger—rode up to the very edge of the clearing high on the neck of mighty Tantor, the elephant. There was a general scramble to get out from underfoot as Tantor trumpeted his greetings, and it was some moments before Nendat could bring order out of the chaos.

Finally, he had his tribe assembled, a grinning, chattering Pintat clinging closely to Tantor's mighty brow.

"We go as a group," he instructed. There is no other way. If we meet the new, strange creature, we attack as a group." He beat upon his chest, emanating a confidence he did not really feel. "No one, nothing, can stand against our might. We go. Now. This minute." He strutted about in the dust, much to the admiration of his mate and the young of the tribe.

With a fine last cry of open-mouthed defiance to both the new and old gods of the forest, capering awkwardly, Nendat, king of the great apes, led his small but formidable band off into the trackless paths of the jungle. They headed in the general direction of Opar—and the Silver Globe.

Mighty Tantor, the elephant, carrying the youngest and most fearless of the apes upon his back, lifted his trunk in a salute and trumpeted mightily. Who is to say whether the cry of Tantor was of admiration or derision? Nendat looked back over his shoulder with a certain amount of speculation along these very lines, but chose to believe that Tantor was impressed and awed. There were many miles to go to reach their rather indefinite destination, and Nendat found that he had his work cut out for him, trying to keep the tribe in some semblance of a disciplined advance.

Some stopped here and there to sample a tropical fruit. Others sought under mouldering bark for a succulent grub, still others wearied of the trip or, indeed, forgot what was afoot and had to be prodded along the trail, complaining. Still, it was a triumphal march, joined, here and there, under a cloud of mutual distrust, brother savage denizens of the jungle. A white hunter could have bagged his limit of the larger game within minutes of coming upon the increasing mainstream of this unlikely exodus—although he'd never have lived to get away!

Never before had the forest seen such strange comrades-at-arms, and it was unlikely that the sight would ever be witnessed again!

Chapter Seven

"The Death of an Immortal"

Glamo gave little or no thought to Tarzan. The tail-less white man presented no particular problem; he could not escape. Either the Atlanteans would discover him and bring him down by sheer force of numbers, or else he might stumble upon a Follower, and that would be that. However it happened, Tarzan had no future to speak of, Glamo thought with a small, contemptuous Smile. The cold Laws of Probability, governing every action of the true Venusian, counted Tarzan as a negative factor and a minor annoyance, scarcely worth noting, and Glamo logically closed his mind to any thoughts of the savage figure.

Meanwhile, the ape-man had regained consciousness. Weakened by his head wound, he nevertheless, with animal cunning, sought sanctuary out of the sacrificial chamber, and entered a corridor leading off the scene of his near death. Had it not been for his condition, he would have known at once where the passage led. Instead, he followed it cautiously and slowly, encouraged, finally, by the glow of daylight ahead. He emerged carefully, into the ruined city of Opar. Ruined minarets still shone of gold, but the city itself was obviously dead. Puzzled, Tarzan tried to sort out his thoughts. Had he been here before? It seemed certain that he had, yet he was unable to identify any of the buildings. The absence of any population puzzled him, as well.

He roamed through what could only be called the rubble of the city streets, ever aware, increasingly, of a strange glow that drew him closer to he knew not what. It was the Silver Globe. When he finally saw it, he didn't I believe his eyes. How tall was it? What he could see, and he suspected he was only seeing a small part, loomed above him enormously. It was mammoth, majestic, awe-inspiring. Certainly the jungle had never seen anything like it before. It sat on a sort of plain, just behind the I city, but it didn't just sit there, it dominated the landscape.

The ape-man crouched behind a concealing rock, watching with hawk-like eyes. Was there something moving over there, on the side of the Silver Globe? Yes. Yes! A door was opening. He tensed, crouching, ready for he knew not what.

Tarzan stared in wonderment as a creature emerged from what was obviously an air-tight compartment. Seconds before, there'd been no apparent crevice; yet, suddenly, a door had opened where no door had a right to be!

From it emerged a horrible, slimy, eight-legged creature, carrying a she of the tribe of Tarzan. The Lord of the Jungle took only a second to compare his white skin with hers, then charged, giving a horrible challenge of the bull apes! In his dazed state, Tarzan did not recognize his mate, he looked only at the creature. It was something he’d never seen before. Octopoid, with eyes in the tip of each limb, and what seemed to be poisonous fangs embedded just below the eyes in each tentacle!

Drawing his knife, the ape-man charged the horrendous creature, striving to chop off the ends of the mighty tentacles. The Follower held Jane high above its humped, carapaced body as Tarzan darted in for the kill Glamo saw none of this. Indeed, he'd have probably convulsed with laughter had he seen Tarzan charging the immortal, the unkillable, for in more than two thousand years of Venusian history, no Follower had been slain. How to slay such a creature, with no central brain? Each tentacle a segment of intelligence! Each tentacle held vision and a fang that could' render the victim either unconscious or dead, depending upon the amount of venom released into the bloodstream!

Nevertheless, Tarzan charged, knife out. Swiftly he I severed a poised tentacle, which writhed after its severance. Jane still was held in the air. Tarzan struck again and again, and then two of the mighty arms grasped him, and he felt the agony of the sucking arms as they closed about him tightly.

Roaring his rage, the ape-man sliced and severed again, ridding himself of first one, then the other mighty, seeking arm. Blisters rose upon his body, but he paid them no heed, lost in a jungle savagery that would brook no obstacles. It was kill or be killed, and Tarzan was killing!

The tentacle holding Jane on high wavered, then sank to the earth. Tarzan continued to slice with his knife. He had finally worked out the rather peculiar physical limitations of this creature.

He was struck, not once, but several times, by the poisonous fangs of the Follower, but so great was his rage that he could scarcely feel instead, he fought to the death, and finally left the eight-limbed monster a quivering mass of muscle and poison. He placed his foot upon the still-moving carcass, and gave the victory cry of the bull-ape. It echoed through the silver-lined passageways.

Glamo, half-hearing, frowned. All was not going well. He thought shrewdly, called Marda, also known as "La." She answered at once, fearful of his wrath.

"Yes?"

"The White Savage has escaped my clutches, as well as yours. He has just destroyed a Follower, which is impossible. Can you bring him here, to me?"

It was more of an order than a question.

"Yes. He lacks memory. His mate?"

Glamo laughed, curtly. "Unconscious, and she will remain so for a trip of the sun about this shriveled glow. You will bring him to me?"

"Yes. When do we leave? For home? "

"Soon."

"Only-soon."

Glamo idly regarded a fingernail. "You don't really expect me to leave such a mess behind, do you? It's part of your doing. Help clean it up. I'll expect the white ape soon. As soon as you can deliver him. It shouldn't be much of a problem, with your seductive body."

"I'll bring him."

Glamo sighed. "Of course you will. There's a choice?" He turned to admit the scurrying little green creatures who called themselves the survivors of Atlantis. They brought Jane Clayton to his chambers. He nodded his approval to them as they deposited her tender body before him, waiting impassively until they had fled, then turned his fierce, cold eyes upon her, feasting on her, loveliness. A shame that such creatures had tiny lifespans, but there it ,was. With interest but no pity, he noted the sucker-marks on her smooth thighs, her back, her bosom. He allowed his brow to furrow in disapproval, Perhaps the Follower was better off dead. Certainly the creature had overdone what was needful.

Tarzan, exhausted from his head wound, and from his triumphant battle with the Follower, fell almost weary unto death upon the flagstones of the Oparian street, still smelling the awful stench and effluvium given off by the mortally wounded Follower He was aware of chattering little gnarled men picking him up and carrying him somewhere, but just where he didn't know, nor did he care, so great was his weariness.

How long he was unconscious, he did not know, nor greatly care. When he opened his eyes with an effort, he was in some sort of room, comfortably lying on a pile of soft furs. Leaning over him was a beautiful woman whom he did not recognize in his weakness and confusion.

"Tarzan! she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular of the great apes which constant association with the anthropoids had rendered the common language of the Oparians: "You have come back to me! La has ignored the mandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting for Tarzan—for her Tarzan. She has taken no mate, for in all the world there was but one with whom La would mate. And now you have come back! Tell me, O Tarzan, that it is for me you have returned!"

The Englishman answered in a language identical with hers.

"Tarzan," he repeated, musingly. "Tarzan. The name sounds familiar."

"It is your name—you are Tarzan," cried La.

"I am Tarzan?" The ape-man shrugged. "Well, it is a good name. I know no other so I will keep it; but I do not know you. I did not come hither for you. Why I came, I do not know at all; neither do I know from whence I came. Can you tell me?"

La shook her head. "I never knew," she replied.

Tarzan, without apparently realizing it, spoke the same question, but this time not in the language of the great apes. This time, in French, seemingly without realizing the transition.

"I don’t understand," La replied.

Tarzan grunted. "Why," he said, again in the language of the great apes, "why would you have killed me there on the altar? Are you hungry?"

La cried out in disgust.

"Then why should you have desired to kill me!"

La raised a slender arm, pointing toward the sun.

Tarzan looked puzzled. After all, he was again an ape, and apes do not understand such things as souls, sacrifices, flaming gods. He gathered himself to his feet. "I go now." He reflected a moment. "This is no place for a Mangani. Yes, I leave."

The woman rushed forward and seized the ape-man's hands in hers.

"Do not leave me!" she cried. "Stay, and you shall be high priest. La loves you. All Opar shall be yours. Slaves shall wait upon you. Stay, Tarzan of the Apes, and let love reward you!"

The ape-man pushed the kneeling woman aside. "Tarzan does not desire you," he said, simply. He looked at her more in sorrow than in scorn.

Panting—her face convulsed with rage—La sprang to her feet.

''Stay you shall," she screamed. "La will have you! If she cannot have you alive, she will have you dead," and raising her face to the sun she gave voice to the same hideous shriek that Tarzan gave often.

In answer to her cries came a babel of voices from the surrounding chambers and corridors.

"Come, guardian priests!" she cried. "The infidels have profaned the holiest of holies. Come! Strike terror to their hearts; defend La and her altar; wash clean the temple with the blood of the polluters! "

Tarzan understood each word, and stepped quickly to her side, seizing her in his strong arms. Quickly, he disarmed her of the obsidian sacrificial knife, although she fought with the mad savagery of a demon.

From each doorway poured a horde of the monstrous little men of Opar, armed with bludgeons and knives and fortified in their courage by fanatical hate and frenzy. Tarzan stood eying the foe in proud disdain. Slowly, he advanced toward the exit he had chosen to utilize in making his way from the temple. A burly priest barred his way. Behind the first was a score of others. Tarzan swung his heavy spear, club-like, down upon the skull of the priest. The green man collapsed, his skull crushed.

Again and again the weapon fell as Tarzan made his way slowly toward the doorway. La, having regained the sacrificial knife, followed Tarzan's retreat, yet not willing to advance, upon his snarling fangs and flashing steel blade. For a time she wondered how the priests could so bravely battle with the ape-man, yet hesitate to rush in upon him, he who was relatively so weak. Had they done so, reasoned La, he must have fallen at the first charge. What was it? Did some superstition, unknown even to La, surround that flashing blade? Were there deaths—and deaths? Strange. No Oparian rushed that knife, yet they willingly sacrificed themselves against the spear!

Outside the temple court, Tarzan grinned savagely, brandishing the weapon given him by his father, and which had drunk much blood. Like leaves before a gale, the Oparians scattered in all directions, and Tarzan found a clear passage through the temple corridors and chambers.

La's—or if you' prefer, Marda's—silent screams reached the attention of Glamo in the Silver Globe, but he could do nothing about Tarzan just yet. Tarzan was now passing through the rooms, common to Opar, which held the seven "magic" pillars of gold. No Follower could track him there, for the Followers could not touch gold without the most savage pain, and often, death. Glamo turned on his private viewer in the Globe, watching in stoney-eyed silence as the ape-man, unscathed and unaware, raced on silent feet down the corridors of gold. This was, indeed, a fascinating specimen, and Glamo determined to take it back to Venus. It had (so far as he could determine) little or no true intelligence, but a will to survive and overcome that was practically incredulous! He clicked off his viewing-screen, mentally reviewed the maps of the place, then hurriedly sent out a call for the twelve Followers still alive and operative.

As for Marda, he sank back and mused. If she could not attract, to distraction, a simple savage—little better than an ape—with her charms, he'd have to make a report on her when he returned that would be tantamount to a death sentence! Perhaps it would be kinder to leave her here, to her fate. And besides, he thought slyly, that way there be no witness against him. Was it possible that the ape-man could escape his, Glamo’s, web? Not really. No living being could escape the network of hunting that could be laid down by a dozen Followers. No. But he might be able to communicate with Glamo’s superiors upon that ones return to Venus. So be it. Glamo switched on all screens, stepped up the power, imprinted the order "Kill!" on all the Followers. He smiled in grim satisfaction as the beasts cringed, mentally.

Chapter Eight

"The Beasts of Tarzan"

Jedak, of the great apes, alone was not in the caravan of beasts marching upon Opar. Indeed, his name carried with it a certain magic to those primates able to relate one event to another. Had not Jedak disappeared at about the same time as the appearance of the Silver Globe and the new scent, of death and decay, upon the air? It was true. It was well-known that Jedak was not to be trusted, that he challenged Tarzan whenever that white-skinned son of the tribe founded by the old she, Kala, long since dead, appeared in the village.

Jedak might have gone over to one of the other tribes of apes, or might even have founded his own tribe. He was not to be trusted, and Nendat was secretly glad that Jedak had gone away, whatever his fate. Jedak, however, was not roaming the Congo. Jedak was a prisoner, roaring his indignation against the silvery walls of his cage aboard the Silver Globe, a prime specimen for the collection of Glamo, the Venusian. On that planet, he would be placed into the public view for the admiration or shudders of the young Venusians who might or might not offer him succulent stalks of r=ril, purchased with their admission tickets. Of this he knew nothing, of course, and cared less. His somewhat limited mind wanted one thing—freedom. Freedom to again roam his jungle, with all its dangers, freedom to seek a she of mating age, to raid the bean and mealie plantations of the unsuspecting Waziri tribes. Jedak howled in rage, beat with enormous muscles upon the silver walls of the cage land, finally, opened a crack in the door. He sat back, sucking his bruised fingers, then cunningly inserted one under the silvery-grey edge, seeking to force it more open. He rumbled in his chest, even issued a low-pitched challenge, then pried with all his brute force.

It moved!

Only a little, but enough to encourage him. With a single-minded purpose, unmatched before in his brutish life, he explored the widening crack, applying sheer animal strength to it. The blood thrummed and throbbed in his temples as he pulled and pried. With a final surge of power, the bolt gave way with a "crack," and he emerged quickly, into a long, dimly lit corridor. His deep-set eyes turned both ways with an animal cunning, but there was no choice. Neither end of the corridor looked more promising than the other. With a snuffle, he turned to his right and made his way, sensing, testing the air. What was that? Something approaching? Quickly, he found a niche in the corridor, drew back into the shadows, waiting.

It was only a green thing, a priest of Opar. Almost contemptuously, Jedak reached forth and throttled it. The gnarled body fell to the floor as he released it, and I he almost gave the victory cry of the bull ape, then thought better of it. With a sly cunning unlike the others of his tribe, he dragged the priest back into the shadowy niche, then went on his way, sniffing the air with his sensitive nostrils. Somewhere there was one who had to be killed. He forgot his imprisonment, became the executioner rather than the victim. He knew not for whom or what he looked, but only that he sought revenge. No other member of that tribe of forest wanderers had ever felt this particular emotion. Revenge was unknown. Was Jedak, for all his surliness, perhaps a step further along the path of civilization?

Back in the sealed tunnel, which was both the entrance to the treasure troves of Opar and a secret entrance to that almost mythical city, populated by the lost tribes of Atlantis, the Follower, one of a number, lay in the dark, barely twitching, baffled by the sealed entrance on one end and the bottomless void at the other, the chasm which Tarzan had leaped but which was beyond the physical powers of the Follower. Lacking live food—for a Follower must drain the life-stuff from its prey—it had shrunk to almost vestigial size. It could live like this for a thousand years or more, but unhappily. Constantly, almost without conscious volition, the Follower lifted a tentacle, seeking out rays of light, or a scent of a living being. During the period of its incarceration in the tomb-like tunnel, it had chanced upon one hapless mammal, an unwary and low-flying bat. A tentacle had snared the flying animal from the air, and the body of the Follower had lain upon it, absorbing the life-force from it, after its fashion. But it was a weak thing at best, and the Follower, hungry as it was, had flung the bat from itself almost contemptuously after the unsatisfactory feeding. What else could live in this Stygian gloom? From somewhere, it was dimly aware of noise, muffled by the thick walls of the tunnel. The Follower was instantly alert, shuffling its eight-legged body into a small, unmoving mass behind the outcropping of rock. It waited patiently. Sometime, a few minutes or a few years or a few hundred years from now (the Follower was not accurate in estimating time, for time was not of the essence) something living would be coming down the tunnel. Something living. Breathing, perhaps.

Food!

A ripple of a thrill ran down its suckered tentacles, as savored--years in advance? its forthcoming repast!

The Waziri, including Basuli, had turned back from their fruitless expedition over the top of the cliffs that shadowed and protected from discovery the ruins of Opar. No trail of Tarzan had been apparent, and the Waziri warriors, not too far removed from their fellow-inhabitants of the jungle, depended largely upon spoor, not rumor. There were no toemarks in the sand, no bent bushes, no faint odor of the ape-man. Hence, he had not passed this way. With a certain amount of dismay, the blacks turned and retraced their steps. The mass of rubble in front of the entrance to the tunnel leading to the mine dismayed them, yet Tarzan almost certainly was sealed in that spot. More than once did Basuli cast a threatening gaze at the lead footed warrior who had disgraced his tribe and his people by unwarily starting the landslide that had sealed off the tunnel entrance, and thereby, almost certainly, Tarzan. Nor was that unhappy warrior unaware of the look that foreboded no good. Full well he knew that, had the Lord of the Jungle come to any harm through his carelessness, he would not live to see the red dawn. Now he stepped high and fastidiously. Basuli grunted. The chieftain might have taken positive and even lethal action even then, he was aware of something else in the air.

First, it was the sounds of his tribesmen running. This he could hear as instinctively as he breathed, for there was no doubt of it. Other sounds, muffled by distance, there were, but for the moment Basuli paid them no heed. One thing at a time. What could have brought back even a small band of his warriors? He hastened his strides, racing to the edge of the cliff overlooking the entrance to the tunnel, saw a small band of Waziri, led by the incomparable N'Gogo, Basuli’s second-in-command. For a moment, the savage tribesman's anger flared, then quickly subsided as he realized that of all his followers, N'Gogo would be the last to go against his orders unless the circumstances warranted. This, then, meant a grave peril, and, hence, long and thoughtful consultation between the pair, preferably out of earshot of the others.

Accordingly, he waved a spear topped by a lion's tail at his sub-chieftain, saw an answering spear raised, twice, thrice. He motioned to the pair accompanying him to wait, then descended the cliff with as much dignity as the circumstances permitted. N'Gogo advanced stiffly, unaccompanied, and no higher compliment could each have paid to the other, for when two warriors met unaccompanied by underlings or weapons, it implied confidence, one in the other.

"Good hunting and fruitful kills," Basuli greeted his lieutenant gravely and according to etiquette.

"To you, Lord," N'Gogo replied, dutifully, also according to custom.

They squatted, ignoring the other warriors assembled at their backs. Basuli was happy to see his subchieftain, but would have gladly died before admitting it. "You return against my orders," he quietly accused.

N’Gogo waited a proper waited a proper respectful time before deigning to answer. "Yes, mighty chief. It came to me that the she of mighty Tarzan was missing from the plantation. This news came by a runner, who is doubtless untrustworthy and unreliable. Still, what was I to do? A He spread his hands appealingly. He broke a twig in his hands, tossed it on the sand between them. "So can I take his life. Let you or Tarzan speak the word" He glanced over his shoulder at the unlucky bearer of the news, who in turn looked in all possible other directions. "And Tarzan?" asked N'Gogo, politely. "He is here? Shall it be his decision?"

It was Basuli’s turn to think of a suitable answer, no easy matter. He and his men had tried to track the white ape, but had met with absolutely no success. Basuli scratched at an imaginary flea, thought out what his answer might be. The distant noise saved him that much effort. He squinted into the distance, at a cloud of dust rising on the desert air, then spat between his prehensile toes, choosing his words carefully.

"The Arabs," he said without special emphasis. "They are raiding for slaves again?" He spat once more, indicating that this was no more than a polite inquiry.

N'Gogo, wondering exactly what his chieftain was really discussing, looked for permission, then also spat. "Your knowledge of these matters is greater than mine could ever hope to be," he said politely. "It may be that the Bedouins have risen again to raid our people. I think not, but it may well be. The gold of Tarzan is well-guarded, however. And," he pointed out, our compound, and our maidens, these are secure."

"As the gods will," offered Basuli, still not taking his eyes off the cloud in the desert that indicated the approach of a vast group. N’Gogo raised his eyes piously at the remark.

"Indeed," he contributed to the conversation.

"Umm," Basuli continued. "Indeed. Still, someone comes. Many, many people. Or—beasts. Turn, quietly so as not to startle our warriors, and tell me what you see." N'Gogo looked rather ostentatiously at the sky, back to his feet, rose, stretched, yawned to show a vast indifference, then cautiously turned his head. He glanced at the oncoming horde for no more than a few seconds, then resumed his place squatting in the sand before his chieftain, who looked at him with hooded eyes.

"So? "asked Basuli.

N'Gogo gulped. "Apes, I think. Great apes. And Simba. And Tantor, the elephant. Horta, the boar. Buto, the rhinoceros. An ocean of them."

Basuli squinted over the other's shoulder. "Buto? I saw no ... ah, yes. There he is. Many. Many. So." He paused, scowling. "One must think."

N'Gogo showed his immaturity. "We should hide among the rocks and bushes, chieftain. Why should we sacrifice good men?"

Basuli scowled. ''Quiet, There is a purpose in this thing. Have you ever seen such a group? I think not. Therefore, there is a purpose which has not yet been revealed to us. I will go to meet this, migration. I will speak to the apes. I have the language which Tarzan has taught me. You will look to our warriors, but—" and this was emphatic, "there will be no hiding, no outward sign of fear." He smiled, adding, "Although I could not slay the warrior who felt it. I feel it."

N’Gogo sprang to his feet, all admiration and adulation. "They shall not move until your order, chieftain," he promised, holding his clenched fist over his heart to indicate that his own life verified his promise.

Basuli stood up, his gleaming ebon skin shining proudly in the fading light. He hunched his shoulders, relieving a muscle cramp which was the direct result of the fear he felt but dared not show. "Yes," he said, unnecessarily, and clambered down the face of the cliff, advancing to meet the oncoming horde.

The rest of his troop squatted uneasily, held in place as if transfixed by the hawk-like stare of N’Gogo.

In turn, he looked with adulation unmixed with envy at the back of Basuli as that worthy advanced across the veldt.

In truth, thought N'Gogo, it was not always desirable to be the chief. He felt his loins quiver and his skin tingle as the horde of advancing beasts enveloped, surrounded Basuli’s stalwart, erect and unafraid figure.

N'Gogo looked at the mass of flesh before him, estimating how many apes, lions, boars, elephants, rhinos there were. He could count with very little effort to five, which placed him a desirable notch or two above the great apes, who could count only to three. He estimated that there were many times five. Many, many times. He grunted. The whole thing was somewhat incomprehensible. "He who moves without my permission," he warned the warriors, "dies at my hand." Privately, looking over the mass of savage animals which surrounded and threatened to completely overwhelm his chief, he thought his statement was perhaps optimistic.

It wasn't extremely likely, he thought, that any of them would livelong enough for him to fulfill his threat. Yet, it was a necessary threat, both to maintain discipline and to establish his place (probably briefly, all things considered) in the hierarchy of the tribe. He felt a cold trickle of sweat run down his back, but refused to shudder. If one was going to die, he reflected, allowing a handful of dust to sift through his fingers as he maintained a stony-faced demeanor, it was better to die as a man than as a beast. He thought of his young, fat wives, and wondered who would inherit them, then brought his line of thinking up short. This was no way for a sub-chieftain of the mighty, fearless Waziri to die, if die he must!

Chapter Nine

"Men and Beasts!"

Night settled upon the jungle and the desert and the hidden city of Opar. It settled as well upon the Silver Globe and the crouching, patient Tarzan, once more restored to his senses. Night settled, also, to the savage horde of Waziri and beasts of the jungle crouched on the plain leading to the one known tunnel leading to the mysterious city. N'Gogo, shoulders crawling in superstitious fear, suggested softly to Basuli, chief of the Waziri, that their men might take heart from a campfire or two.

Basuli shook his head and grunted a negative. "It will make the beasts uneasy," he explained.

"It is cold, O chief," complained N'Gogo. "And the warriors shiver. We have not the shaggy hides of others."

Basuli allowed a moment of silence before he answered. "Not so cold as the bare bones picked so by the hyena. Not so cold as death. There will be no fires tonight." He grunted with a dry humor unusual in a Waziri warrior. "Think of thy fat wives and keep warm, N'Gogo."

"Or my first wife, and grow even colder," complained N’Gogo.

Basuli smiled thinly. "There is that. One chooses."

N'Gogo grunted, scooped out a bit of sand and a couple of hard rocks from under his hips, making himself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Just before he settled himself loan uneasy slumber, he asked his chief, "Shall I not set guards for this night"

Basuli stretched beside him. "Not needed. We have many guards around us. Guards who wake at night. No need."

N'Gogo heard, just then, the faint pad of the paws of Simba the lion passing within a few feet and, shuddering, lay back down. Was one being guarded, he wondered, or kept alive for the breakfast of a beast? He'd had a hard two days and nights of it, and finally dropped off to a slumber, a deep slumber marred only by uneasy and fitful dreams of his first wife, that cold hag.

Night fell elsewhere, although the impatient Glamo, high in his control chamber aboard the Silver Globe was only aware of it in passing. After all, the day and night periods meant little to this member of Venusian aristocracy; as a matter of fact Glamo was immune to the normal "wake-sleep" habits of warm-blooded sentient creatures of planets away from his own. He glanced, this time without interest, at Jane Clayton, privately wondering if it would be worth the effort to add her to his already exotic collection of Earth specimens. A number of the Followers had come aboard the Globe and were in their communal, reeking pit, well down in the bowels of the interplanetary craft. Adjusting his golden armor, the Venusian took a last quick check of his instruments, and leaving Tarzan's mate behind him, unconscious, descended innumerable silvery passageways. He paused, opposite the entrance to the cage that had held the renegade ape Jedak, frowning at the warning signal over the entry. He pressed a switch at the side of the door and peered through the revealed transparency. Empty!

Cursing Marda silently for causing this delay mid the now apparent damage to the exterior skin of the Silver Globe, he pressed the computer studs on his belt and watched carefully as the mighty space ship healed itself.

He stood, irresolute, for a few seconds, uneasily aware that there was a missing factor for which he would be held accountable—the white ape. So be it.

Deeper into the space craft he descended, activating the door which allowed him to enter the fetid pit of the Followers. They lay in a great intertangled loathsome mass which took him some period of time to mentally separate. All were accounted for with the exception of two, it seemed. He strode forward to double check and their writhing tentacles shrank back from his golden armor, the one metal their otherwise practically indestructible bodies could not tolerate.

He nodded shortly, satisfied with his count, stepped outside and activated the external lock to the chamber of the beasts, so that none inside Could leave, but so that those outside would still be able to enter.

Something, some atavistic instinct, warned the Englishman that there was a something here that must be fought to the death. Ordinary rules did not apply. Besides, from his crouched position outside the Globe, he felt—rather than heard—a throb, hum, call it what you will, of energy, as if the mighty foreign object was preparing for something. Flight, perhaps. Lord Greystoke, bloody, scarred, seeking his mate, Jane, tried desperately to recall what had happened up to this point, from the time he'd been battered senseless until the moment when he'd regained his senses.

Tarzan eased himself into a more comfortable position, resigning himself to watch. He half-dozed, his enormous, more than human vitality drained to almost utter exhaustion from his trials. There was little he could do until Goro, the Moon, rose to illuminate the Silver Globe and the surrounding area. Tarzan slept, hand upon the handle of his knife, ears on the alert, now able to discern the ordinary night sounds aside from the uneasy purr of the mighty generators of the Silver Globe as Glamo impatiently paced its silver decks, waiting for his mechanism to warm up to flight pitch. Jane had long since been consigned to a cargo space where she floated in a state of suspended animation, and Marda, known as "La" for so many years, was making her cautious way to the side of Glamo. Her only entrance to the Globe was through the pit of the Followers, she knew, and she shuddered as she adjusted her golden armor, the only means of fending off their death-dealing tentacles.

Half-dawn broke, and N'Gogo felt himself nudged in the ribs by Basuli, who regarded him wryly, not quite smiling, yet with the suggestion of a smile upon his ebon countenance. "The old wife?" Basuli inquired after N’Gogo's dreams, impolitely, for dreams were private.

N'Gogo squinted upward at the half-rays of sun, forgetting for the moment the vast hordes of beasts surrounding him and the rest of the Waziri, instead finding a source of indignation at even Basuli, who dared pry into the innermost thoughts of a warrior. Basuli again smiled. "Your face looked like a sour fruit," he said, softly. "It could have been but your first wife, the old one."

N'Gogo, outraged at this intrusion upon his innermost thoughts, started to sit abruptly upright, was restrained by his chieftain's firm, sinewy hand. Softly," whispered Basuli. "Look about you. Your night picket is both hungry and thirsty. Blood, for some, makes an excellent substitute for other liquids."

N’Gogo looked again. Restlessly, about the encampment of the Waziri, all of them asleep—or feigning sleep—prowled the night predators. Lion. Leopard. One black leopard, notoriously a knave of the forest, rolled piercing yellow eyes at the recumbent figure of the sub-chief of the natives, curling a lip over a startling protrusion of yellowed fangs, emitting a soft hiss.

N'Gogo gulped. "Yes, mighty Basuli," he agreed, under his breath, "Softly, indeed. But you reached a sort of agreement with these creatures, is this not true?" He felt a little more cheerful.

Basuli, impassive, appeared to meditate. "True, yes. But that was at nightfall. And that is a long time ago, valued one. Who knows what these creatures may be thinking by now, hours later?"

"I thirst."

The Waziri chieftain nodded. "And so do they. There are no waterholes here, and the beasts are notoriously impatient. We are men, and we understand thirst. They do not" He watched carefully. "Go now and waken the others of our tribe. Crawl like a snake, with your belly deep in the sand, so that Simba will not notice you. It is his feeding time. Quickly, before first light, but carefully."

With great distaste for his appointed task, N'Gogo made his way carefully, cautiously among the others of the tribe, waking them one by one, cautioning them all to silence and circumspection. The warning, once each warrior was awake, was hardly necessary. Never, had any of them slept so close to so many beasts.

Now dawn started to streak the plain with roseate streamers of light. The mighty elephant—Tantor—got to his feet, as did the near-sighted Buto, the rhino, snuffling, searching for the water which had been denied them by the terrain. Horta, the boar, one of the most savage of all the jungle denizens, rooted futilely in. the dry sands looking in vain for a sign of moisture while the great cats snarled their disapproval of the entire proceedings, then slunk off to find shelter in the shade of such few boulders and clumps of brush as might be seen.

As the cats disappeared into the shade, the Waziri cautiously stretched, yawned, stood erect. From a previously unnoticed swale, also pawning and scratching, emerged two of the great apes, and they waddled carefully toward Basuli, who alone of all the Waziri warriors spoke their language.

They stood at a respectful distance.

"I see you," said Nendat, chief of the apes.

"And I see you," grunted Basuli.

"I also," grunted Leena, Nendat's she.

With a mighty backhanded blow which would have torn the head off a man, Nendat disciplined his mate. "This is talk for hes," he reprimanded her, as she scuttled, whimpering, away from the feet of the two oddly-matched tribal leaders. He apologized to Basuli. "My apologies. Shes are this way."

The Waziri solemnly inclined his head. indeed. And you rule your tribe wisely. This is indeed talk for men."

Nendat thumped one mighty paw half-heartedly upon his breast, not at all sure he should have slapped his mate with such vigor. "Although, to give that one credit, it was she who brought much of this to our attention."

Basuli, slipping a wise eye around at N'Gogo, asked the great ape, "You have other mates, certainly?"

"Not our custom. One such is certainly enough for any he. More would be a sign of weakness. And foolishness."

N'Gogo looked elsewhere in embarrassment, as his own chief nodded assent. "Correct. Now, shall we get to work?"

"You have given this thought?"

"There was little else to do during the hours of darkness. When the night beasts were roaming about."

Nendat let sand sift through his fingers. "An uneasy truce."

"Yes." Basuli let the thought lay, turning over the possibilities in his own mind, all the time keeping a stony visage. Could the great ape note human expressions? Could he, mighty Basuli, read the expression on the face of a great ape? There was a certain mutual distrust between the pair, as there was, in greater or lesser degree, between all humans and sub-humans. Yet, as he studied the muzzle of the mighty primate, Basuli could not help but be impressed by Nendat's apparent, almost obvious sincerity in the latter's concern for the whereabouts and the safety of Tarzan. Finally, Basuli spoke again. "We have certain tools. Do I speak with wisdom? We, you and I, serve the same master, Tarzan."

Surprisingly, the leader of the great apes bared yellowed fangs, dancing about in awkward shuffles that raised little puffs of desert sand, and beat upon his breast defiantly. Startled lions and leopards snarled in protest of this unseemly exhibition, but Nendat ignored them all. "I serve no master!" the giant ape roared. "I am the master of my people!" He growled, deep in his throat, tiny red-rimmed eyes glowing, wickedly. He picked up a pawful of dust, threw it into the air, indicating that the discussion was either closed, or that mortal combat was next on the agenda.

N'Gogo searched around for a crevasse or a swale in which to hide himself. He knew nothing of the language being spoken, but he sensed the antagonism in the air.

Basuli held his peace, waiting until the mighty ape ran out of super-charged energy, finally quieted down to a more rational level, then stood erect, casting his spear to the ground, opening his arms. "I serve my master, Tarzan," he announced. "I congratulate you on having no master, although it seems to me, in my slavish and servile fashion, that we must all of us have a master. So be it. You are obviously more wise, infinitely so, than am I, Basuli, who leads a miserable two hundred warriors. I await your decision. What shall our combined forces do?"

Nendat, satisfied, now that his vanity had been restored, rubbed a puzzled paw over his muzzle. "Why, then," he offered, strutting on all fours for the exclusive benefit of his clan, "why we should ... make plans"

"Yes. I bow to you, mighty Nendat." The leader of his tribe became almost magically engrossed in the progress of an early-moving caterpillar. The great ape watched it soberly as it made its slow way across a desert leaf, then leisurely reached out with banana-sized fingers and picking it up delicately, thrust the unfortunate but succulent grub into his mouth, smacking his lips in delight. Leena, his she, uttered a small squeak of hunger, and her master turned glowering brows upon her. To tell the truth, Nendat was uncertain as to where they all were and as to the purpose of their visit. The caterpillar was not very tasty, yet he used it as a diplomat might use a hard-drawing pipe, as a killer of time. He swallowed the tiny remains, looking thoughtfully in the general direction of his own encampment, many miles to the rear.

"Plans," the Waziri chieftain reminded him.

Nendat, the ape, was now uneasily aware of the stirring on the plain of the hundreds of savage beasts, including more carnivores than he'd seen in a lifetime. Actually, it was far more responsibility than he cared to accept. "I leave plans, and such, to you, black warrior." He felt that this was a good gambit as he thoughtfully scratched an accursed sand-flea.

Nendat inspected the rock-fall with uncomprehending eyes. "Ah. A tunnel, you say?"

"And in it, perhaps, almost certainly, Tarzan"

"Yes. Just as I saw and forecast. Let it be opened."

"As you say, Nendat. I shall start my warriors clearing away the fallen rock at once. N'Gogo!"

The great ape registered scorn in his voice. "With those puny weaklings? Look around you ... with Tantor, the elephant and Buto, the rhinoceros at our ... at my command?" He gave orders to others of his tribe, who sped out and rounded up the mightiest of the forest dwellers. Soon, huge boulders were being pried loose by the horn of Buto, thrown to one side by the trunk of Tantor.

"You are indeed a wizard, chieftain," N'Gogo whispered to Basuli, as the work progressed.

"That is quite possibly true," Basuli said, watching with interest as the entrance to the vaults of Opar was speedily being reopened. "At least," he went on thoughtfully, "a wizard until the sun is midway through his journey this day. I find no pleasure in thinking what will happen when these hundreds of beasts become crazed with thirst. For there is no water. Now, O brave one, how does the thought of thy first wife, the old, wrinkled one, seize thee?"

Chapter Ten

"For the Followers-Food!"

Glamo, in the control room of the Silver Globe, sent out a sardonic call to Marda. "Even you should know," he said with thinly veiled irony, "that we are in need of two basic items for our return to Venus; water, and food for the Followers. Opar has enough of both, and you of all persons should know the source. The Globe is warming even now for our return to Venus; water, and food for the Followers. Opar has enough of both, and you of all persons should know the source. I might also point out to yon, my beloved, that fuel is not unlimited. We must leave soon or not at all."

AI have anticipated your requirements, my master, but these Oparians refuse to bring water onboard our vessel until they have a sacrificial ceremony. The white savage has escaped."

"Yes." Glamo gave the matter some thought. He rather disliked giving up the prize specimen in the person of the woman—she would be a valuable rarely on Venus, worth much gold, that metal so rare that only the aristocracy possessed it, and then in the smallest quantities. There was perhaps a thousand pounds of it on the a planet. Glamo was one of four Lords of Venus who could boast a full suit of golden armor. Coldly, he toyed for a moment with the idea of giving his mate herself to the Oparians. Only that her presence here was known on his home planet, and that his failure to return with her might conceivably cause some unpleasant inquiry deterred him. No, it had to be the female captive.

"Glamo? " It was his mate again.

"Yes."

"Could you not lift the ship and capture a native?"

The Venusian growled in his throat at such nonsense. No time. And not enough fuel." Too bad it couldn't be Marda. He pounded one fist into the palm of the other hand, switching his long tail angrily. Anything, anything, he told himself, to get off this damnable savage planet, back to Venus among his own kind, to enjoy again the pleasant vices of overeating, overdrinking, the secret trips to the various Temples of Pleasure. "Send some of the Oparians on board the Globe. I will give them the woman for their stupid sacrifice."

"I shall conduct the sacrifice myself," came Marda's thought, almost too eagerly.

Smiling grimly, Glamo switched off their mental contact, reaching with his prehensile tail almost negligently to the control that opened a hatch in the side of the spacecraft, then awaited the arrival of the wizened, twisted—yes, insane—little creatures. The Venusian lord didn't deign to turn on the view screen before the entryway. Had he done so, he would have seen another sort of lord altogether, as Tarzan's giant, supple body slid with cat-like speed into the opened port.

Lord Greystoke was seeking his mate!

It took the ape-man only a few moments to roughly map out the interior of the Silver Globe, and to find a cubbyhole from which he could keep the entryway under observation without himself being easily discovered. He settled there with true animal patience, the patience of some great carnivore on the hunt. The hatch had not been opened without reason, he knew. Someone—or something—would presently use it, and Tarzan wanted I to know who, or what, and for what purpose.

His wait was not a long one; soon a band of the gnarled priests of Opar trooped in through the entry. Tarzan drew back more closely in his hiding place, awaiting future developments. Had Glamo not been careless, activating the warning buzzer that told of passage into and out of the Globe only after a tardy minute or two, future developments might have taken a most ugly turn for the ape-man, indeed.

He watched curiously as the band of little beings gazed about themselves in obvious fear and apprehension. If their unease was so great, Tarzan wondered why they had come aboard at all. Suddenly, they turned as if hearing a command, although the keen ears of the giant 'heard nothing and followed a circular corridor until they were out of his vision. Mental control? He'd heard of such phenomena, but never seen it before. Most interesting! He paused only a second, then, reasoning that a circular corridor must eventually come back upon itself, set off on silent, speeding feet in the direction opposite to that taken by the little priests. Tarzan had thus sped for some distance, when he suddenly came to a halt, thinking. Certainly, he felt, he had at least made the circumference of the spacecraft ... why then had he seen nothing, encountered no one, heard nothing? In fact, he’d been running in an almost total darkness. Panting, he paused and wondered about it all. From whence came the almost invisible glow that just did enable him to maneuver? He gazed about, deep chest heaving. It might have emanated from the very walls themselves. And why had he not at least have reached the hatchway from which he'd started? He trotted a few steps more in the direction he'd been proceeding, then stopped and, turning, trotted a few steps back. Aha!

No doubt of it, and Tarzan cursed himself for his stupidity. In the excitement of the pursuit, he'd neglected to note that, although the corridors were circular, they were formed as a spiral! Thus, the Lord of the Jungle had been running, ever so slightly, uphill! Quickly, he retraced his path, and when he'd come back approximately as far as he'd gone, put his left hand to the wall, once again seeking his hideaway. Now the gently-sloping downwardness of the ramp became obvious from the pull on the calves of his legs, and Tarzan grunted in self-disgust. How foolish not to have noticed the peculiar construction at once, before expending the energy! His left hand encountered a familiar jog in the smooth silver wall, and he paused. This felt—he explored the area carefully with his sensitive fingertips—like the cubbyhole into which he'd pressed his body as the green men of Opar entered, but where was the opening into the ship? Had he miscalculated? Had the almost total darkness confused the instincts of even the mighty Tarmangani? Not likely, but yet ... he sniffed the air. Nothing. Moving with the utmost stealth, he slipped a foot into the corridor, estimating his possible mistake in location. He was more than aware of his fatigue, and for a second wondered if he were living some ill-illumined nightmare. In this ship, almost certainly a vehicle from some other planet, was his mate, Jane. He was sure of it. Now he became aware of a strange, pulsing—not sound, but feeling, that his subconscious had been noting for some time, as if the mighty machine were alive and breathing after a period of hibernation. A sudden alarm sent adrenalin coursing through his bloodstream. Was the space ship preparing to leave, to take off for some un- known, not-to-be-guessed destination? Suddenly, the faint glow of the walls began to increase, slowly, in brightness, and Tarzan darted back to the cubbyhole. Another exit, another entrance? His keen eyes could now make out the almost invisible break in the silver wall nearly opposite which marked the outline of the entryway. He held his place for another moment, but as the light grew brighter, hastily slid out of his hiding place and retreated still further around the corridor, now plainly feeling the passageway lifting before his withdrawing steps. He stayed close to the inner wall so as to keep out of sight of whoever might be following the same path. The illumination coming from the walls ceased to increase in brightness presently, and Tarzan stopped his retreat, properly deciding that whoever was causing the uncanny effect had arrived at his goal. Now, the mighty white ape went on the offensive. Loosing the steel blade in his sheath, Tarzan retraced his steps again, slowly, silently, peering as best he could around the long curve of the corridor wall.

There! A sheen of golden armor, and Tarzan stopped in astonishment. What could it be? It moved, therefore it was prey. Lips curled back in a feral snarl, Tarzan slid forward, ever forward, until he could at last make out the full figure of what appeared to be an armor-encased man, almost as large as the giant himself, and with the somewhat interesting addition of what could only be a flourishing, whipping and prehensile tail almost as long as its owner was tall!

Tarzan stopped in his tracks, searching in the half-light for a chink in the golden armor where his blade might slip easily through to halt the life-force of this strange creature. Here, inside the Silver Globe, anything that moved, man or animal, was an enemy!

Glamo, unaware of the close scrutiny of the ape-man, activated the view screen of the pit which housed the Followers. The two priests of Opar, whom he'd held back under taut mental control from the party which only seconds before had taken Jane Clayton to the sacrificial chamber of their ancient city, stood shaking before him, awed at the horrible sight of the glutinous mass of intertwining tentacles which comprised the communal nesting place of what might well be the most horrible creatures ever designed by nature. Glamo was about to test the Oparian edibility, with a view to keeping a well-stocked larder on board for his return to Venus. He felt that perhaps a hundred of the pygmies might supply at least the basic necessities, and purely as a dietetic experiment, wanted to see how long two of them would last and how well the voracious appetites of his Followers would be satisfied with a pair. It was fifty Earth-days return and if two a day would at least take care of the monsters' minimal needs, his problems were over!

With a cold smile, he pressed the stud opening the door, and urged the pair of gnarled Oparians through with an irresistible mental command. The opened door released a fetid blast of rotting air that almost caused the closely-watching ape-man to gag, but Tarzan steeled himself. He felt no pity for the Oparians; rather, he was glad to see yet another pair of the small fiends approach their certain death; still, the manner of it was not pleasing. Tarzan brushed this thought aside. What he was witnessing might be of further value to him, and he peered as closely as he dare. The trembling priests tottered on reedy legs into the vast, foul-smelling pit, and the door swung shut behind the Oparians and the figure in the golden armor. Swiftly, Tarzan darted from his place of concealment, staring through a tiny slit in the door. The writhing movement of the mass of tentacles stopped momentarily, then stealthily, seeking, eye-tipped and poison-fanged rubbery arms reached cautiously out of the mass of alien bodies. One such touched the golden armor of Glamo, and recoiled in haste. Another delicately fingered the body of an Oparian, then struck savagely. Swiftly, the writhing, half-paralyzed little body was drawn back down into the pit. Still others reached for Glamo, recoiling as always at the touch of his golden armor. The Venusian took only the precaution of keeping his tail well out of reach, and watched with great interest as the Followers made quick work of the first Oparian. Tarzan nodded to himself, slowly. The golden armor meant something after all. Its function was not, as he had opposed, purely ornamental. He recalled the golden anklets, bracelets, breast-plates and stomacher of La, high priestess of Opar, and realized for the first time that she, too, must be such an alien, for gold was absolutely unknown to the present-day descendants of Atlantis!

The ape-man watched impatiently as Glamo shoved; the second priest into the pit. The alien nodded as if satisfied, prepared to turn, and Tarzan sped away from the door, taking up a position just around the bend of the corridor. He heard the door to the pit open, smelled the awful stench, then heard the door close. He followed closely this time, keeping the flaunting tail of the Venusian in sight, moving on silent feet, a soundless snarl upon his lips.

In his eagerness to be off, Glamo neglected to send out the mental probes which would have safeguarded him from attack. His only thought was to hurry the loading of his hip, and that could not be done until the female human was sacrificed upon the altar for the edification of the filthy little Oparians.

Tarzan was sorely tempted to close with the Venusian at once, to kill—yet, unquestionably the alien could exercise some form of mental control. The ape-man had just seen two terrified Oparians walk to their death, a death so horrible that even mighty Tarzan blanched to think of it, although he had long learned that death comes to all creatures and is more accepted in the jungle than elsewhere. While the Lord of the Jungle felt no fear of death, neither did he court it. To sacrifice himself foolishly was not to be thought of. His mission was to rescue Jane, and after that ... well, what was to happen must happen. Best, then, to overpower, to stun or to kill this alien life-form at once. After that, a speedy search of the Globe until he should find his mate, and then escape. The Venusian must be overcome before he was aware of his hunter's presence, before he could exercise that uncanny thought-control.

The alien halted so suddenly that Tarzan almost overran him, and pressed a stud on the wall, which slid back revealing a lighted, comfortable although austere room. Before he stepped through, Tarzan charged on silent, padded feet. He could not restrain himself from a frightful snarl as he sprang, and Glamo, the Venusian, turned in complete and utter surprise, just in time to receive a bone-shattering crash in his face which drove him clear across the room, against a bulkhead and to the floor, unconscious. The giant ape-man sprang after him, knife in hand, leaping astride the unconscious body and forcing back the other's chin, preparatory to slashing the fallen one=s throat. It was with the greatest of difficulty that Tarzan restrained himself from making the kill then and there. Certainly no moral compunctions stayed his keen blade and mighty sinews; it was combination of the curiosity common among all the apes, the same apes which had reared Tarzan, and a very human thought that this rather strained mercy might prove helpful in some way in the next few tense moments. Reluctantly, Tarzan sheathed his knife and got slowly to his feet. The alien would be unconscious for some time, of that there was little doubt. Tarzan grunted, looked about him. It was definitely the nerve center of the strange craft. He gazed at what appeared to be a control console. One knob, a red one, appeared to be in an "on" position. At least, it was switched to an entirely different position from the others in its line. All the gauges and meters on the console, except for the one over the red knob, were at rest. The last was quivering only a little. Tarzan grunted again, baffled. This wasn't for him.

He went back to his victim, rolled him over roughly and stripped the armor from him. Amazingly, it was almost paper-thin, and, for gold, very lightweight. Thus stripped, the alien was not particularly a formidable physical specimen by Tarzan's standards. The highly-ornamented belt pleased Tarzan. It was jeweled, and he determined to keep it for Jane—if he ever found her. He strapped it about his own waist as a convenient place to wear it, slapping the buckle in front to make sure it was secure. The response to this action was immediate and violent. Unknowingly, Tarzan had touched off a series of relays within the computer system of the electronically- controlled "brain" of the Silver Globe, relays that were contradicting each other at such a speed that the "brain" itself was driven immediately insane. The Globe rocked upon its axis, relays clicked into position and off again, lights lit up and went out, doors and hatches opened and closed, and, finally, the whole giant mechanism went dead! The Globe itself wound up canted slightly to the side. Tarzan, alarmed, sprang to the door, but it refused to open. He whirled in his tracks, frantically seeking a way out. There was none! He glanced quickly at the figure on the floor. One eye was open, gazing fiercely at the ape-man!

Chapter Eleven

"Destroy--Destroy!"

The desert sun rose ever higher, and the work of clearing the entry to the tunnel was becoming difficult. More, Basuli noted, tempers were becoming short. The great cats snarled sullenly as they sought the scant shade, and he noticed his own warriors, the fierce Waziri, were casting apprehensive glances at them. Nendat, leader of the great apes, and ostensible overseer of the operation, was having some trouble keeping his savage followers in line. The elephants seemed more tractable. Their great, grey shapes labored constantly and with a certain amount of willingness, but Buto, the rhino, even at best an ill-tempered and short-tempered beast, had made a few indiscriminate although abortive charges at whatever moving shapes his near-sighted eyes could perceive. Basuli looked carefully at the face of the cliff from which the rock was being removed, noting that it could only be a matter of moments until a breakthrough. After that, what? It was a situation that could quickly disintegrate into utter chaos. The great beasts, maddened by thirst, might easily declare an end to their truce and turn upon each other. This bothered him not at all, but there was an excellent chance that such activity might wipe out the leaser beasts, including himself and his band of Waziri warriors. So thinking, he picked his way carefully among the laboring animals, attracting the eyes of Nendat and silently urging a conference. The oddly-assorted pair retired to a convenient rock and squatted in what little shade it offered.

Basuli offered the leader of the great apes his water bottle, first uncorking the spout. Nendat sniffed suspiciously, growled, looked about under beetling brows, then drank the contents at a single gulp. He tossed it aside carelessly after he had finished. Basuli winced, but maintained his composure. "You have them working well," he complimented Nendat.

The ape maintained a silence, glowering with red-rimmed eyes at Basuli.

"As I recall this place as it was, we approach the end of our task," he went on. "It is a moment of fear."

At once the huge ape was on his feet, stomping, muffling, snorting, beating his chest and showing his teeth in a fearful grin. "Nendat fears no one!" he challenged. "Say he does and die, smooth-skin!

"Basuli waited patiently for the ape's rage to subside. "It was not of your people and mine I was speaking, Nendat, but of these others, these beasts that cannot reason, that cannot see ahead, that do not know there is a tomorrow, or that Goro, the moon, will surely rise in the heavens tonight." This was rather crude, unsubtle flattery, but it served its purpose in setting the great apes apart from other denizens of the jungle. Nendat was almost immediately pacified, and resumed his position.

"That is true," he admitted after a moment. "We stand alone among these ... these ..."

"Beasts," helpfully added the skillful Waziri chieftain.

ABeasts! Just so. What think you will happen when the work here finishes, as it surely must do in a few moments?"

Although he'd primed the pump, Basuli was startled to hear even this much forethought retained in the mind of a great ape. Surely this was a leader among his own kind! "I fear they may turn upon each other; and upon us. Our kind are fearless, Nendat, but we are few in number. Think you we could survive?"

Nendat thoughtfully picked an insect from his fur, sniffed it, then popped it into his muzzle. He face was a study in earnest but futile concentration.

"I’m sure you have thought of this as have I, and that you have arrived at the same conclusion, O wise Nendat," Basuli went on, slyly.

"Doubtless," offered the ape, to Basuli’s secret amusement, "but first I would hear your plan."

"Well, then, if you ask. Opar has long been a sore spot in our jungle. And never before have so many of the great beasts been assembled in one place. Ill-tempered, angry great beasts, that might turn upon us unless we can find something more interesting for them to do. Your pardon for this plan, which I am sure you have already decided upon. To pass the word that now is the time to kill ... to wipe out Opar and the ugly little men, the evil priests! To kill, kill, kill and destroy, until Opar is no more!"

Nendat enthusiastically sprang to his feet, stomping and shouting, beating his breast with mighty paws, giving forth a drumming noise that made the Waziri chieftain's blood run cold. "Kill!" the bull ape screamed. "Kill, kill, kill!"

Work on the tunnel mouth stopped, as others took up the frenzied cry. Silently, Basuli cursed himself, for now the great heads were turning slowly, uneasily, and here and there the cough could be heard as the tawny-eyed beasts started to echo the cry. Basuli feared for the lives of his warriors-and- himself-as Tantor and Buto took up the challenge, each in his own language, yet a language common to the forest dwellers. Nendat continued to bay his approval of the plan still flailing his mighty chest and, indeed, turned reddened eyes upon Basuli, himself. Basuli, attempting to stave off disaster, waved his spear on high. "To Opar," he cried in the language of the great apes, "to the evil place of Opar! Nendat will lead you. Kill—kill in Opar. Destroy, smash the green ones!"

Basuli stood behind his rock, assegai at hand, as the thirst-maddened beasts flowed past him in a tide that seemed never-ending. Huge clouds of dust rose from the plain as the enraged animals first followed, then overtook, the prancing, bellowing figure of the leader of the great apes. He hoped his warriors had taken to the high ground, as they had been so carefully schooled to do, and, still bitterly cursing his own stupidity, vowed never again to treat an ape as an equal—a lesson Tarzan had learned long ago.

Jane Clayton lay, bound and helpless—and barely conscious—upon the altar of the sacrificial chamber of the priests of Opar. It was a place, this chamber, which would strike fear to the heart of the bravest man. Evil-smelling torches illuminated the scene and filled the cave-like room with smoke, despite the tunnels that led both into and out of it.

All was in readiness. The priests were filing in, taking their places, with the high priests standing near at hand. One held the bowl which was to receive the still-pulsating heart as it was torn from Lady Greystoke's breast, three more with urns which were designed to catch the blood from the victim which would be passed among the monstrous descendants of the once-great race of Atlantis.

Jane Clayton, Lady Greystoke, mate of the mighty Tarzan, opened her eyes slowly and looked with horror at the setting. Where was her mate, he who never before had failed her? She turned her head the other way as far as her bonds would allow her, and met the icy smile and glittering eyes of Marda, or "La," who stood calmly, hands pressed to her breast. "But why?" Jane whispered. "Why? What purpose does it serve?" Her voice, faint as it was, was almost lost entirely amidst the wild chanting of the assembled Oparians, who were by now working themselves into a veritable frenzy of blood lust.

The answer came, Jane realized with a shock, not in spoken words, but in words directly implanted into her brain by a mental force so powerful, so dripping with hatred, that she almost swooned again.

"You are his mate," was the message. "Were it not for you, he would have been mine. Heave this savage world after a desolate stay here that could have been pleasant were it not for Tarzan's love for you. And to leave it, I must have a sacrifice for these ... these animals. Who better than you, who has dared deprive Marda, a member of the aristocracy of her own planet?"

"Then," Jane said aloud, not knowing how to communicate telepathically, "I am glad to die, because I have known him and you have not." She closed her eyes, her brain almost outraged by the venom that flowed from the Venusian woman.

Marda smiled cruelly, viciously, then called Glamo aboard the Silver Globe. There was no response. What was wrong? A gnarled little Oparian priest offered her the sacrificial obsidian blade, and she waved him contemptuously aside, frantically trying to establish mental contact with her own mate, Glamo. The little priest whimpered in frustration, but still she paid him no heed. Indeed, her ears were closed to the noise, else she might have heard the assembled priests urge the High Priest to kill, kill, kill ... to strike, and to tear the heart from La, the high priestess—the high Priestess who bad refused her duty!

A moan of anticipation went up from the assemblage as the High Priest backed off a step and raised the sacrificial blade on high.

"Glamo?" Marda tried again to reach him. "Glamo? What has happened? You must answer me, Glamo!"

Tarzan little knew the forces he had unleashed when he'd pressed, unwittingly, it is true, the many studs on the golden belt that had been the property of Glamo. The Lord from Venus perhaps had a better idea. When Tarzan had seen the glittering eyes of Glamo fixed upon him, he had swiftly sprung to the kill, his knife at the Venusian's throat.

"One word," the mighty white ape commanded, "and you die. One attempt to control me, and this blade shall surely saw through your neck, letting your life-blood loose!"

While Glamo might not have understood the words, for they were spoken in Lord Greystoke's native tongue, English, there was no mistaking the underlying intent. It was, both realized, something of an impasse.

If Glamo attempted to speak, either physically or mentally, his life would be immediately forfeit. If there was no communication between the pair, Glamo's life would be likely forfeit anyway. Tarzan realized the situation as speedily as did the Venusian.

He pressed the keen blade even closer against the other's throat. "Well," he said, hesitantly.

Glamo sent out a small tentacle of thought. "Well," it said to the ape-man's mind. Slowly, insinuatingly, and (it must be told, truthfully) other thoughts followed the first. Untold horrors had been let loose by the belt. Doors that should never have been open in the Silver Globe had been opened by the unschooled, unskilled blunder. Strange beasts from far-flung corners of the universe had been let loose upon the domain of the Lord of the Jungle, beasts that could kill in mysterious ways, mysterious fashions, ways that were undefendable by means of man or jungle beast. Even now, Tarzan's mate was stretched upon an Oparian altar, awaiting the sacrificial knife, and what was Tarzan going to do about that, now that he had frozen the controls, the controls that only Glamo could hope to unfreeze, unlock?

"You lie," growled Tarzan, pressing his knife even tighter across Glamo's throat.

Wait! Came the answering tendril of persuasive thought. See it through my eyes. Into the brain of Tarzan came pictures ... pictures of unholy, completely alien monsters, so alien that his very brain cells recoiled from them. Viscous, oozing creatures which had burst within their cages aboard the Silver Globe at the impact of a foreign atmospheric pressure, pictures of many-legged or no-legged monsters that had died horribly upon their first exposure to an alien atmosphere. Others that had dropped ,from open hatches, some lizard-like, others plainly carnivorous, some with many legs, others with no legs at all, some armor-plated, multi-fanged, others deadly to the touch. One, a brilliant red, emanating deadly electrical impulses that killed any moving thing which might come within feet of it. They were spined, slimy, scaled, fanged, fast-moving and ponderous. They had one thing in common. All were deadly. And worst of all were the Followers. Yes, Glamo assured the ape-man through telepathy, these last creatures had been loosed, also. All had been captured for the Games of Venus. First, went on the mental imagery, convicted felons were heavily armed and offered to them and then, after the inevitable death of the animals of Venus, the beasts were pitted against each other in battles that often lasted for hundreds of days—as days were known here on Earth. Now, if Tarzan would only ...

Tarzan would not! Tarzan picked up the body of the Venusian, threw it mightily against the closed door of the control room. Bones crunched, but metal bent, and Tarzan, without a backward glance at his enemy, buried his own body against the thin metal, forcing open the door. He sped down the circular corridor, once avoiding a hissing, giant-sized and well-fanged head that reared up in his dark path. The entry hatch was closed, but there was light from the pen that had held the Followers, and the door stood open.

A number of the monsters were still splashing about-in their pit, and struck at Tarzan as he sped by, nearly gagging at the scent, but each tentacle recoiled as it neared him, and he remembered the golden belt about his middle with gratitude. Down their slippery entryway he skidded and slid, gulping air in great inhalations as he gained the ground outside the Silver Globe. A giant purple creature, which had the appearance of a salamander mounted upon a hundred hairy legs, and as tall at the shoulder as Tarzan himself, stabbed futilely at the ape-man with its tail, which seemed to be barbed. The area around the Globe crawled with beasts which Tarzan had never seen before, and which even the Venusian's brain-probes hadn't prepared him to accept, but he evaded them all, darting to the sacrificial chamber.

He raced down the tunnel leading to the underground scene of many—of untold thousands upon thousands of blood sacrifices. He raced boldly into the vast room, lit by flickering torches thrust into holders against the stone walls.

Chaos reigned. "La," or Marda, as he now knew her to be truly named, was just crumpling under the high priest's knife. He held her pulsing heart, torn from her breast, aloft in his hand, uttering shrill squeals of pleasure from his foul, blood-spattered countenance. On the sacrificial dais, a roughly-hewn rock, Tarzan saw the form of his mate, Jane, and slashing right and left, made his way to her. Others were killing, too!

Two of the Followers were at liberty, and under no restraining influence, were feeding greedily upon a score of priests, while with other tentacles they were fending off attacks from still other strange monsters let loose from the Silver Globe.

Tarzan swept his mate into his arms after severing her bonds with one mighty slash of his knife, a slash with which he followed through decapitating the high priest. Then, Jane swung up over his shoulder, the ape-man charged out the entrance, the entrance which led down into the very bowels of the earth, down the tunnel to the chasm, to the treasure vaults of Opar, which lay forever beyond the reach of the Oparians themselves! And the tunnel which was closed, as far as Tarzan now knew, by a vast rockslide. Could he leap the chasm with his mate on his shoulders? He didn't know. He'd hardly made it unencumbered. Behind him, he knew, lay death. Ahead? He trotted rapidly, hearing snuffling sounds behind him in the abysmal blackness, one hand guiding his body as he let fingers trail the rough-hewn walls. He stopped, panting for breath, and found himself engaged in fearsome combat with a creature from the Globe! He struck, struck again with his knife, then went to close hand-to-hand, fang-to-fang combat. Something like a giant claw raked his back as the beast, whatever it was, fell dead under his fierce attack. Tarzan, in the dark, beat his chest and let out the fearful victory cry of the bull ape! Its fearful sound echoed off the stone walls. Several other beasts pursuing the scent stopped and gave thought to the awesome noise, recommencing their pursuit only half-heartedly. Panting, Tarzan resumed his burden, Jane, and trotted on in the dark, now feeling ahead carefully for the bottomless pit.

Chapter Twelve

"The Escape from Opar"

N'Gogo heaved a great sigh of relief as the last of the beasts—Tantor, the elephant, Buto, the rhinoceros, Horta, the mad boar with the curved, slashing tusks, Simba, the lion and all the others, including the leopard, the panther, the jackal and the hyena, the wild dog and the buffalo (fearsome, but predictable and, under certain circumstances, easily domesticated) and last, but by no means least, the mighty scampering, short-tempered and completely unpredictable great apes—disappeared from view.

Frankly, N'Gogo hadn't expected to live through this morning. There were several crumpled, lifeless forms upon the desert floor but, he was glad to note, none of them were the Waziri, Tarzan's warriors. So far, so good. He looked about anxiously for his chieftain, Basuli. That worthy shortly appeared from behind a huge boulder, little the worse for wear. Quickly, N’Gogo shouted unnecessary orders to the other Waziri, doing his best to maintain some semblance of discipline among the black warriors. Basuli waved a weary hand in acknowledgment, stood amongst his men, gazing at each in turn.

"We are here, O chieftain," proudly acknowledged N’Gogo. While he was still shaking from the massed charge of the beasts, he felt pride in not having broken and run, which had happened once before, to the shame of the entire tribe.

The heat of midday was upon the Waziri. "Do all have water?" asked their waterless (thanks to the great ape) leader.

The answer came back "yes," in varying degrees of enthusiasm. N'Gogo offered his own water jug to his chieftain. Basuli was parched with thirst but haughtily declined. No chief ever showed weakness. N'Gogo then moved about the rest .of the tribe, lifting their bottles, shaking them tentatively, adding a bit from his own here and there until finally his own was dry. He held it rather conspicuously high, bottom up, to show that he had, like Basuli, like any great chieftain, shared his all with his men—nay, more than shared, given all. With a deprecating, dramatic, typically African gesture, he shook his water bottle once, then cast it away. He turned to Basuli, thrilling as the haughty chieftain nodded his approbation. Basuli nodded for N'Gogo to come closer. With great dignity, the pair consulted in undertones, completely inaudible to the rest of the warriors which made up the command.

"It will be needful," Basuli said, "for one to enter the tunnel in search of the Tarmangani, our leader, Tarzan. It is open now?"

N'Gogo nodded, not daring to speak aloud, for this was serious business.

"Good. There is a warrior braver than the rest? One you personally can trust to be brave above all else, a veritable panther among warriors? One who is silent, fierce, who knows no fear? If you know such a man, send him into the tunnel ahead of the rest of us. His instructions are to explore, to seek Tarzan, to fear nothing, to return if return is advisable, to stay and die if needed."

N'Gogo pressed a fist to his breast to indicate he understood, then turned and coolly surveyed the rest of the little party. Stiffly, he walked down the line, shaking again each warrior's canteen, counting arrows, testing assegai tips. Finally, reaching the end of the band, he dropped all his own equipment except a knife, placed a clenched fist to his brow in a manner that meant "we who are about to die ..." and plunged into the opening of the tunnel.

Basuli sighed. N'Gogo was such a child, so vain, yet—not without honor. He could have as easily ordered him into the tunnel, but this way was better. His stem, hawk-like eyes fixed the band of warriors in their positions.

"We follow," he said, calmly, "the brave N'Gogo in five minutes. Take water, and rest."

Opar was doomed, that much was certain. Pouring around the Cliffs that led into the city were the jungle denizens, vast hordes of them, savage, looking for the kill, driven by a frenzy of blood-lust, thirst and frustration. Meanwhile, the unspeakable beasts from the Silver Globe, aliens all, were having their way. Squealing priests died under strange fangs, claws, lashing tails and tentacles. Surely, this was the end, the finish of Opar! There was no other exit from the mysterious city except the forbidden tunnel, and already this was chokingly filled with the nauseous Followers who were trailing Tarzan and his mate.

The mighty white hairless ape swung along with striding sweeps of his sinewy legs, gulping mighty gasps of dank air into his lungs, hoping only to find the pit, and then whatever might be behind it. Sounds of pursuit died off, but there might be silent beasts behind, still in pursuit. He paced on, restlessly, never-endingly, until it seemed as though even his mighty lungs might burst.

N'Gogo advanced at a slow walk, prodding each foot of the air before him with his assegai, seeking what might be before him. He knew nothing of the almost-dead Follower that sensed his coming, the Follower that lay just this side of the bottomless pit which mighty Tarzan had leaped to evade the monster, to its futile and savage fury. N'Gogo was a forced hero, in a manner of speaking. It wasn't that he was innately a coward; he was not. He was a brave man, with a brave man's fears. Fear of the dark, fear of the unknown. A fetid stench assailed the Waziri’s nostrils, and he stopped short. Something dead was close, and he wisely paused before venturing onward. What was this stench? Where had he smelled it before? N'Gogo wondered how much time had passed, how closely upon his heels followed Basuli and the rest of the Waziri?

Thinking thus, he still prodded into the darkness with his assegai, and stopped short when the spear met a yielding substance that felt very much like flesh! Whatever it was he touched recoiled sharply, as did N'Gogo, who stood trembling. Nothing alive should be here, in this cavern of darkness! The smell of rot grew sharper as the savage paused, immobile. Some animate form lashed at ,him in the blackness, and he recoiled by instinct, holding his spear at the ready, waiting for the next attack. Now, behind him, he heard the welcome pad of bare feet, knowing it was the rest of his band, the band of which he was a subchief. Knowing that Basuli would be in the forefront was a warming and comforting thought, and he jabbed again, fearlessly, with his assegai. Something seized it, jerked it forward, and the native hung on desperately. This was N'Gogo's undoing, because it brought him into the clutches of the almost-dormant Follower. Quickly, instantaneously, three or four sucker-faced tentacles clasped their way about his body, and a mighty form threw itself upon him, drawing the life from his body, stifling and muffling his screams of mortal agony as the Follower drew much-needed sustenance from his quivering carcass.

So died N'Gogo, perhaps not a hero but certainly not a coward. The Follower, still pulsating in its hideous mass from the life-force it had drawn from the African, drew back cannily into a sort of crevasse in the rocky walls of the dungeon, awaiting another victim. Only its stench gave it away, but of course it had no way of knowing this, and as a safety measure it waved an eye- tipped tentacle across the chasm which it could not cross and which, it sensed, Tarzan was again approaching.

The mighty beasts reached Opar, by way of the cliffs, and maddened by thirst as well as the command to "kill," made of that once proud citadel a shambles. Walls fell beneath the mighty bodies, and small Oparians were crushed to an unrecognizable melange of twisted, mashed shapes.

"La" lay dead, heart torn from her smooth breast, while all about her recumbent form strange creatures from other worlds scuttled and crawled. It was a nightmare, a fantasy from deepest hell, yet there it was!

In the courtyard, where only a few of the other-world- lings smacked what passed for lips in satisfaction over the feast of Oparians, the giant Silver Globe, awry on its axis, still hummed ominously. Glamo was not dead, but near to it. So weak, in fact, he could not reach the telereceiver that would have connected his mental impulses with Venus.

The drama was being played in the one, long tunnel, as Opar lay dying. As Glamo died.

Chapter Thirteen

"The End of Opar"

Behind Tarzan as he frantically raced for safety- was the stench of death, the stench of the Followers. Jane's body was a dead weight, but one which he carried gladly as he raced for the pit, the bottomless pit in the tunnel which he knew lay only seconds ahead. Now his formerly failing memory came back in a flash ... on the other side of the pit, even if he could leap it with the delightful burden on his back lay ... another Follower!

His rapid pace slowed as he thought about this. This was not the element of the mighty Tarzan; here were no trees, no vines, no branches, no natural enemies. The ape-man roared his displeasure, all civilization stripped from him, and the walls echoed his dislike of his surroundings without giving back a comforting answer. Baffled, he continued to trot forward because there was no other way to go, but a low growl from his lips indicated his displeasure, his reluctance to accept defeat.

And then, there it was! The edge of the mighty chasm, across which he had, unburdened, leaped and so foiled the Follower which still lay in wait on the other side. A Follower, moreover, which had recently been fed and hence was twice as dangerous, twice as alert!

Suddenly, as if by the hand of the mighty gods, came a rumble followed by a sharp blast, arid a shock wave which almost threw the Lord of the Jungle into the bottomless pit! The Silver Globe had exploded, utterly destroying Opar and many of the beasts still prowling its deserted, blood-reeking streets. The Followers, which were on the trail of Tarzan and Jane felt an almost mortal blow as Glamo died, sharply cutting off their sensory contacts with the world, and even the mighty ape-man knew that something out of the ordinary was amiss.

Wild creatures sense the trap, and so did Tarzan sense his entrapment. Opar gone, that entrance to the tunnel sealed, and the dreaded Followers between him and what would almost certainly be a sealed exit; before him, a chasm which, at the height of his powers, he had been barely able to leap; on his back his mate, Jane; across the abyss, another Follower, already waving its tentacles hungrily!

There was no way for him to know that the other end of the tunnel had been opened; indeed, he could only measure the peril of one Follower against that of a dozen, which were hot on his trail. For a moment, and a moment only, he felt the golden belt about his waist, hoping it would be enough to fend off one Follower long enough for the kill, knowing it couldn't help him in the pack that pursued.

Patiently, yet with animal cunning, he retraced his steps from the edge of the pit, counting. Just so! He shifted his wife's form more comfortably upon his shoulders, and then, with giant, leaping strides, raced for the edge of the abyss and leaped into darkest space, right hand holding the steel blade willed to him by his father!

To Jane Clayton, it seemed that she was in the midst of a nightmare, a nightmare that would never end, yet end it did at last, and as she regained consciousness, safe in the arms of her mighty mate, her spirits leaped with renewed hope.

That which she saw was the merest flicker of a shadow upon the walls of the tunnel down which Tarzan was racing to save her, yet it might have been the sun, so brightly did her spirits soar. Had the lifted blade of La deprived her of all reason? No matter ... her mate held her firmly, and his way led only to safety, to the blessed seclusion of their cottage, where, enfolded tenderly in Tarzan's arms, she might be reassured that all this was only a dream, a very bad dream.

Basuli and his warriors advanced slowly along the newly-opened tunnel, treading cautiously in the path of N'Gogo. Ahead came noises, foreign to the ears of the black hunter. He stopped, and his tribe of Waziri stopped behind him. He listened closely. It was a horrible, sucking sound, a sound with which he was not at all familiar, and he paused, considering. A fetid stench reached his nostrils, as of decaying meat, yet not quite of decaying meat. Basuli inched forward, considering. Basuli barked once, the bark of a baboon, then listened for a response which should have been returned forthwith.

Nothing.

So.

Basuli, intuitively, knew that N'Gogo was dead, that the sounds he'd heard were those of N'Gogo's body being devoured by some beast heretofore unencountered by the Waziri, although the odor of decay was dismaying and strangely familiar. The unknown that his warriors had encountered in the jungle many days to the west of this strangely reprehensible territory.

Basuli and his warriors pressed on, assegais at the ready, zebra-skin shields raised before them. Somewhere ahead, not too far, was a monster which none of them had ever before encountered, unless one counted N'Gogo, and that worthy was not going to be available for a detailed report.

Just as Tarzan prepared to leap the gap, he felt a stealthy tentacle caress his leg, and stopped, his stride broken. There was no chance of even his mighty muscles throwing him across the gap with Jane upon his shoulders unless the take-off was perfect. Snarling, the ape-man turned upon his pursuers, those deadly Followers who were all but invulnerable, and his keen steel blade flashed in the demi-gloom as he slashed again and again at what he now knew to be their most sensitive parts, the eyes on the tips of their tentacles.

He thrust savagely, and the coiling tips withdrew, to strike again. Only by a miracle did the ape-man evade the poisonous fangs of the many-legged monster and then slash an extension of the evil body with his keen-edged knife. A foul odor, stronger than the odor now in the close air of the passageway, filled his nostrils as slime oozed from the severed member.

Tarzan thought rapidly, unbuckled the golden belt about his waist, lashed behind him with it. The response was both immediate and satisfying as the huge creature cringed away from the acid touch of the gold. Heartened, he laid Jane upon the path of the tunnel, drove the Followers back up the passageway. When he had cleared a path sufficient for a take-off and leap, to the best of his judgment, he picked up his mate, retreated the few steps necessary, and jumped off into utter black-ness!

This had to be it! Over the pit his lithe body sailed, every muscle strained to the breaking point as his steel-tipped fingers grasped for the edge, scrabbling on the hard rock. The leap seemed like an eternity to both the ape-man and his mate, although it lasted only a split second. On the far side of the pit, the Follower struck and struck again, its tentacles drawing back as they touched or came close to the golden belt. Behind it, Basuli’s warriors engaged other tentacles, each with its own brain, its own poisonous fang, its own eye. Their spears struck, even in the darkness, true and strong.

"Kill!" cried Basuli, standing astride the shrunken, dry form that had once been N'Gogo. Kill, for the Waziri, for the Tarmangani, for our fellow, N'Gogo!" As the Waziri stabbed, slashed, fighting an unknown but dreaded enemy in almost total darkness, so did Tarzan inflict deep and mortal wounds on the Follower and its eight evil brains, each contained in a tentacle. Behind him, back across the pit, he could hear the others, thwarted in their aimless hunger, thrash the floor of the chamber with futility. The battle on this side was not going as well as could be desired, and Tarzan thought- fully removed his golden belt, the belt he'd taken from the limp form of Glamo, the Venusian. With it, he started to lash out at the tentacles of the Follower, and drove it back upon the all-consuming spears of the Waziri.

Finally, all eight tentacles pulsating, but lifeless, the Follower lay dead, exuding an odorous effluvium that all but sent the Waziri into a panic.

The ape-man shouldered his mate, stepped over the oozing stumps of the Venusian monster, and commanded Basuli to lead the party to daylight.

"N’Gogo?" asked the Lord of the Jungle.

"Ah," answered Basuli. AI fear he has walked down the trail for the last time. May his hunting be good, his women fat and warm!"

Tarzan, in the dark, patted a firm thigh, the leg of Lady Jane Greystoke, appreciatively. "Aye," he said to Basuli. "May his hunting be good. And his women fat."

The party left the chamber rapidly. The stench became less. One Follower was dead, behind them. Several were alive, but barely so, on the other side of the pit, with no means of egress into the desert. There, where they were, would they perish, although perhaps not for many years, perhaps centuries. La, high priestess of Opar, also known as Marda, the Venusian, was dead, her heart torn from her breast and held aloft to unknown Atlantean gods. Dead, also, was Glamo, the Venusian Lord, along with the Silver Globe, his space ship, the vehicle which had so terrified the natives of the Congo.

As Tarzan, Jane and the Waziri emerged upon the plain, all was silent and it was becoming the purple dusk which can only be found in a few remote spots of the world; the dusk that is not quite dusk, yet neither dark nor daylight. When all shadows are luminous and mysterious, when the air cools, the flowers freshen and the beasts come to life. When the water runs cold and clear, and the shy ones, the hartebeest, the eland, the gnu, the dikdik, the topi and the barking zebra come down the game trails to drink.

This night there was a strange silence as Tarzan's party set off across the plains.

There were no carnivores, or at least very few.

Most had been wiped out without a trace or a sound when the Silver Globe had gone up in atoms.

Opar was no more, nor were its former inhabitants.

Finally, ultimately, many-centuries after the fact, all traces of the proud continent that had once called itself Atlantis had been wiped from the memory of man. Nothing remained, except the skeletal remains of a few strange beasts, which puzzled paleontologists of the thirtieth century would try, without result, to reconcile with what was known of the twentieth century, and of the fossils of Africa.

So have ended many dynasties.

Chapter Fourteen

"Home"

As Tarzan of the Apes and Jane, his mate, hurtled through the trees leading back to their bungalow—following an exhausting march with the Waziri across the desert—the ape-man, also a peer of the British aristocracy, let his thoughts wander to the strange, almost unbelievable circumstances that had brought him into and relieved him from incredible adventure. He and his lady stopped their headlong flight along the middle terrace, and they descended to the earth.

Once there, the mighty white ape took Jane into his arms.

He held her tightly, looking over his shoulder. "Opar is gone," he said, wishing to elaborate, yet unable to expound on his statement. "And with it is gone the Silver Globe."

"Yes," answered his mate.

"Yes," echoed Tarzan, "the city is forever destroyed. And the tunnel to the treasure chamber ... that too, above all, is gone."

And good riddance, A murmured his wife.

Good riddance? A Tarzan looked aghast.

"Yes. My darling, this has long been a sore spot with me. That this gold was so available, so easily taken; as an Englishman, you simply must start to buckle down to your responsibilities. Not," she added hastily as she observed the look that came over her lord and master's face, "that you have not discharged your obligations to me and to Jack, but simply that you have a certain ... well, obligation to discharge as a civilized Englishman."

The Lord of the Jungle happily heard something approach. "Up that tree," he ordered.

"What? "Jane didn't understand. "Up that tree." Tarzan gestured with his free hand, drawing his knife with the other. "Quickly. Someone approaches."

Jane did as ordered, as her mate faced the brush around the small swale they had chosen in which to talk. There was an ominous crackling of brush, and a great ape strode boldly into the clearing.

"Nendat!" He announced, beating his chest, and swaggering about.

"I see you," replied Tarzan, strutting about rather ridiculously for the benefit of Jane, happily perched on a high branch.

"My tribe killed many," boasted the ape. "And I, Nendat, led all the beasts. I am Lord of the Jungle." He beat his chest again. "I, Nendat, only Nendat!"

Tarzan glanced over his shoulder, making sure that his mate, Jane, was taking all this in. "There is one Lord of the Jungle," he told the strutting ape, firmly. "One. Tarzan. I am Tarzan!"

Nendat roared his displeasure, tearing a few small shrubs from the earth to emphasize his dislike of the conversation, such as it was.

Tarzan, in the manner of the great apes, thrust out his chest and stuck out his rump, circling the other, showing his extreme displeasure at the tenure of the insulting remarks.

Despite the fact that one or the other might die because of this foolish insistence on leadership, Jane could not help but chuckle at the resemblance to two small boys as Tarzan and the great ape strutted and swaggered about each other, uttering ominous threats and menacing growls. There was a small crackle of brush behind the ape-man=s mate, and she turned in time to see a she-ape climb up beside her. It was Leena, Nendat's mate. Sociably, Leena offered Jane half a squirming grub, which Lady Greystoke declined politely. Leena gave the equivalent of a shrug, settling herself beside Tarzan's mate, and watched the contest below.

Somehow, Jane felt very close to the hairy ape, and put an impulsive arm about the shaggy body.

"Males! "Jane exclaimed.

Leena munched contentedly on the grub, placed an arm about Tarzan's mate. She sucked a hollow fang, watching the rather ridiculous show below as the two males snarled and snapped, stomped and swaggered. The she-ape happily scratched a flea, turned a muzzle to Jane. "Males," she agreed, as the pair below, with frightful bellows of rage and much showing of gnashing fangs rolled over and over in the dirt. "Males. Yet for us shes, what else is there?"

"Um," Jane said aloud. "And your mate, Nendat, is he stern with you?"

The two males were rolling on the ground now, a squawling, tangled mass of disagreement.

Leena considered this question. She felt her jaw. "No more than he should be, no more than is proper. I suffer his blows gladly, as is proper among shes. And you?"

"Oh," Jane hastened to assure her, "exactly the same." Jane had felt not so much as a stern finger laid upon her, but knew that among the natives, the Waziri, this would mean a certain loss of face; just so must it mean a loss of face among the great apes, although heaven knew what Jane Clayton's family in Baltimore would think if they knew she was trying to save face with an ape. Jane cast an eye to the really rather nasty disagreement on the ground where the protagonists were roiling in the dirt, muttering obscure curses at each other but doing little real damage. Comfortable after her long ordeal, Jane swung her legs back and forth. "You have children?" she asked Leena.

"Pintat," Leena said, proudly. She tried to erase the obvious pride by picking nonchalantly at her yellowed fangs with her fingernails. "Of little value," she added, as an afterthought. Politely: "You?"

"A small Tarzan. We call him Jack."

Leena grimaced in what might have been a smile. "He is like your mate?"

"Well—yes. And your son? It is a son? "

Leena snuffled, waved a negligent paw at the pair snarling and cuffing each other on the jungle floor. "Like him. Proud. Strong. What can you expect from a male child? I want more. This time, a she. Small. Dainty. Like me." With this, the huge ape encircled Jane in a crushing embrace. Jane winced from the strength, but understood.

The struggle continued for some moments below the branch on which Jane and Leena perched, but without a definite outcome. Indeed, Jane thought, neither wanted a definite outcome. It was a test of strength and fortitude with both seeming more than equal to the occasion. Companionably, they stopped their scuffling and shared a particularly succulent and unwary caterpillar that had wandered across their path.

Jane and Leena stared at each other in what would have passed for unvoiced laughter in any civilized society, then the two went their ways. Jane told a panting and still enraged Tarzan that he was indeed, king of the bush, Lord of the Jungle, master of all he surveyed.

Leena undoubtedly told Nendat much the same, At my rate, both males left the common arena, r barking, stomping, wondering if their mates had ob- served with what valor each had conducted himself.

Tarzan swung easily into the tree beside Jane. It was rapidly growing dark. The pair climbed to the upper terrace, to find sleep for the night in the springy boughs.

"Sleep," Tarzan told his mate gruffly. "I will protect you as always."

Jane found a comfortable bough and wedged herself in securely. "Good night. Lord," she said. "Among all men, you are the bravest and strongest."

Tarzan, settling into a comfortable position himself, muttered good-naturedly. It was something to have a mate who knew you were brave—strong—indomitable.

Months had passed. The labor of the Waziri and the gold of Opar had rebuilt and refurnished the wasted homestead of the Greystokes; indeed, so much had been leftover that Tarzan had declared a holiday, and he and Jane had placed the plantation under the care of Basuli and had hied themselves off to London.

Actually, the trip was a combined one; both wanted very much to visit Jack, their son, now in his final year at Oxford. Lord Greystoke had matters of business which could be much better handled in person, and Jane, Lady Greystoke, had certain social obligations which were much better met by her ladyship, personally.

Now things had come to somewhat of a standstill. Tarzan ate his roast beef with a wry face, his Yorkshire pudding not at all. Jane sat unhappily over her dessert, deciding that no matter how you named it, it was nothing more than a blob of vanilla pudding with a dash of raspberry jam deposited in the middle. "They look at you" she told Tarzan.

Tarzan looked up from the trifle he'd been toying with. "What, my dear?"

"The women" explained Jane. "They look at you. As if you were some sort of a freak or ... or something!"

Lord Greystoke smiled, had another bite of pudding. "Not as good as I'd remembered it," he told Jane, put ting his spoon aside. "Jack looks very well, don't you think?"

"John, you're vain!" exclaimed his mate. "You actually like those women looking at you!" Tarzan shoved his plate away, concealing a burp, with the greatest of gentility.

"And you, my darling, you've had your share of admirers. Although," he continued, "I can't say much for any of them. However, I'm sure the whole plot, the entire idea, must be most gratifying to a woman."

"That's absolutely ridiculous!"

He smiled, gently. "Then so must be these tickets. Transportation back to Africa!" He held the priceless paper in his hand.

"Oh, John!"

"Yes, my darling ..."

"You're such a ... a fool?"

"Yes, dear." Patiently, Lord Greystoke finished his trifle as Jane, Lady Greystoke, dropped a few more tears into her luncheon.

The End