He found the narrow cleft leading downward into the heart of the kopje along well-worn, granite steps.He advanced quite to the dark mouth of the tunnel into which the runway disappeared; but here he halted, fearing to enter, lest he meet Tarzan returning.
The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along the rocky passage, until he came to the ancient wooden door.A moment later he stood within the treasure chamber, where, ages since, 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.
No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault.
There was no evidence that another had discovered the forgotten wealth since last the ape-man had visited its hiding place.
Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps toward the summit of the kopje.Werper, from the concealment of a jutting, granite shoulder, watched him pass up from the shadows of the stairway and advance toward the edge of the hill which faced the rim of the valley where the Waziri awaited the signal of their master.
Then Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place, dropped into the somber darkness of the entrance and disappeared.
Tarzan, halting upon the kopje's edge, raised his voice in the thunderous roar of a lion.Twice, at regular intervals, he repeated the call, standing in attentive silence for several minutes after the echoes of the third call had died away.And then, from far across the valley, faintly, came an answering roar--once, twice, thrice.Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heard and replied.
Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault, knowing that in a few hours his blacks would be with him, ready to bear away another fortune in the strangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar.In the meantime he would carry as much of the precious metal to the summit of the kopje as he could.
Six trips he made in the five hours before Basuli reached the kopje, and at the end of that time he had transported forty-eight ingots to the edge of the great boulder, carrying upon each trip a load which might well have staggered two ordinary men, yet his giant frame showed no evidence of fatigue, as he helped to raise his ebon warriors to the hill top with the rope that had been brought for the purpose.
Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, and six times Werper, the Belgian, had cowered in the black shadows at the far end of the long vault.Once again came the ape-man, and this time there came with him fifty fighting men, turning porters for love of the only creature in the world who might command of their fierce and haughty natures such menial service.Fifty-two more ingots passed out of the vaults, ****** the total of one hundred which Tarzan intended taking away with him.
As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber, Tarzan turned back for a last glimpse of the fabulous wealth upon which his two inroads had made no appreciable impression.Before he extinguished the single candle he had brought with him for the purpose, and the flickering light of which had cast the first alleviating rays into the impenetrable darkness of the buried chamber, that it had known for the countless ages since it had lain forgotten of man, Tarzan's mind reverted to that first occasion upon which he had entered the treasure vault, coming upon it by chance as he fled from the pits beneath the temple, where he had been hidden by La, the High Priestess of the Sun Worshipers.
He recalled the scene within the temple when he had lain stretched upon the sacrificial altar, while La, with high-raised dagger, stood above him, and the rows of priests and priestesses awaited, in the ecstatic hysteria of fanaticism, the first gush of their victim's warm blood, that they might fill their golden goblets and drink to the glory of their Flaming God.
The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the mad priest, passed vividly before the ape-man's recollective eyes, the flight of the votaries before the insane blood lust of the hideous creature, the brutal attack upon La, and his own part of the grim tragedy when he had battled with the infuriated Oparian and left him dead at the feet of the priestess he would have profaned.
This and much more passed through Tarzan's memory as he stood gazing at the long tiers of dull-yellow metal.
He wondered if La still ruled the temples of the ruined city whose crumbling walls rose upon the very foundations about him.Had she finally been forced into a union with one of her grotesque priests?
It seemed a hideous fate, indeed, for one so beautiful.
With a shake of his head, Tarzan stepped to the flickering candle, extinguished its feeble rays and turned toward the exit.
Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone.He had learned the secret for which he had come, and now he could return at his leisure to his waiting followers, bring them to the treasure vault and carry away all the gold that they could stagger under.
The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel, and were winding upward toward the fresh air and the welcome starlight of the kopje's summit, before Tarzan shook off the detaining hand of reverie and started slowly after them.
Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he closed the massive door of the treasure room.In the darkness behind him Werper rose and stretched his cramped muscles.He stretched forth a hand and lovingly caressed a golden ingot on the nearest tier.
He raised it from its immemorial resting place and weighed it in his hands.He clutched it to his bosom in an ecstasy of avarice.
Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay before him, of dear arms about his neck, and a soft cheek pressed to his; but there rose to dispel that dream the memory of the old witch-doctor and his warning.
And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes of both these men were shattered.The one forgot even his greed in the panic of terror--the other was plunged into total forgetfulness of the past by a jagged fragment of rock which gashed a deep cut upon his head.