Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani
Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far to the south to intercept the flight of his deserting lieutenant, Werper.Others had spread out in various directions, so that a vast circle had been formed by them during the night, and now they were beating in toward the center.
Achmet and the two with him halted for a short rest just before noon.They squatted beneath the trees upon the southern edge of a clearing.The chief of the raiders was in ill humor.To have been outwitted by an unbeliever was bad enough; but to have, at the same time, lost the jewels upon which he had set his avaricious heart was altogether too much--Allah must, indeed be angry with his servant.
Well, he still had the woman.She would bring a fair price in the north, and there was, too, the buried treasure beside the ruins of the Englishman's house.
A slight noise in the jungle upon the opposite side of the clearing brought Achmet Zek to immediate and alert attention.He gathered his rifle in readiness for instant use, at the same time motioning his followers to silence and concealment.Crouching behind the bushes the three waited, their eyes fastened upon the far side of the open space.
Presently the foliage parted and a woman's face appeared, glancing fearfully from side to side.
A moment later, evidently satisfied that no immediate danger lurked before her, she stepped out into the clearing in full view of the Arab.
Achmet Zek caught his breath with a muttered exclamation of incredulity and an imprecation.
The woman was the prisoner he had thought safely guarded at his camp!
Apparently she was alone, but Achmet Zek waited that he might make sure of it before seizing her.Slowly Jane Clayton started across the clearing.Twice already since she had quitted the village of the raiders had she barely escaped the fangs of carnivora, and once she had almost stumbled into the path of one of the searchers.Though she was almost despairing of ever reaching safety she still was determined to fight on, until death or success terminated her endeavors.
As the Arabs watched her from the safety of their concealment, and Achmet Zek noted with satisfaction that she was walking directly into his clutches, another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scene from the foliage of an adjacent tree.
Puzzled, troubled eyes they were, for all their gray and savage glint, for their owner was struggling with an intangible suggestion of the familiarity of the face and figure of the woman below him.
A sudden crashing of the bushes at the point from which Jane Clayton had emerged into the clearing brought her to a sudden stop and attracted the attention of the Arabs and the watcher in the tree to the same point.
The woman wheeled about to see what new danger menaced her from behind, and as she did so a great, anthropoid ape waddled into view.Behind him came another and another; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learn how many more of the hideous creatures were so close upon her trail.
With a smothered scream she rushed toward the opposite jungle, and as she reached the bushes there, Achmet Zek and his two henchmen rose up and seized her.At the same instant a naked, brown giant dropped from the branches of a tree at the right of the clearing.
Turning toward the astonished apes he gave voice to a short volley of low gutturals, and without waiting to note the effect of his words upon them, wheeled and charged for the Arabs.
Achmet Zek was dragging Jane Clayton toward his tethered horse.His two men were hastily unfastening all three mounts.The woman, struggling to escape the Arab, turned and saw the ape-man running toward her.
A glad light of hope illuminated her face.
"John!" she cried."Thank God that you have come in time."
Behind Tarzan came the great apes, wondering, but obedient to his summons.The Arabs saw that they would not have time to mount and make their escape before the beasts and the man were upon them.Achmet Zek recognized the latter as the redoubtable enemy of such as he, and he saw, too, in the circumstance an opportunity to rid himself forever of the menace of the ape-man's presence.
Calling to his men to follow his example he raised his rifle and leveled it upon the charging giant.His followers, acting with no less alacrity than himself, fired almost simultaneously, and with the reports of the rifles, Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairy henchmen pitched forward among the jungle grasses.
The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of the apes to a wondering pause, and, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Achmet Zek and his fellows leaped to their horses' backs and galloped away with the now hopeless and grief-stricken woman.
Back to the village they rode, and once again Lady Greystoke found herself incarcerated in the filthy, little hut from which she had thought to have escaped for good.But this time she was not only guarded by an additional sentry, but bound as well.
Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden out with Achmet Zek upon the trail of the Belgian, returned empty handed.With the report of each the raider's rage and chagrin increased, until he was in such a transport of ferocious anger that none dared approach him.Threatening and cursing, Achmet Zek paced up and down the floor of his silken tent; but his temper served him naught--Werper was gone and with him the fortune in scintillating gems which had aroused the cupidity of his chief and placed the sentence of death upon the head of the lieutenant.
With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turned their attention to their fallen comrades.One was dead, but another and the great white ape still breathed.The hairy monsters gathered about these two, grumbling and muttering after the fashion of their kind.