"I'm glad to hear that. I was afraid you were."
Wolff knitted his brows. He was trying to digest this when his attention was attracted to Tarzan. "There goes the monkey-man," he said. "Look at him swingin' through the trees. You can't tell me he ain't half monkey."
Magra, tiring of Wolff, walked toward d'Arnot just as Gregory came up. "Where's Tarzan going?" asked the latter.
"To reconnoiter for a native village," replied the Frenchman, "on the chance we can get some supplies and a few 'boys'—askaris and porters, and, perhaps, a cook. That would give Tarzan a chance to go on ahead and search for your daughter."
As the Lord of the Jungle swung through the trees in search of some indication of the presence of native habitation his active mind reviewed the events of the past several weeks. He knew that three scoundrels were pitted against him—Thome, Taask, and Wolff. He could cope with them, but could he cope with Magra? He could not understand the girl. Twice she had saved him from the bullets of would-be assassins, yet he knew that she was an associate, perhaps an accomplice, of Thome. The first time it might have been because she had thought him to be Brian Gregory, but now she knew better. It was all quite beyond him. With a shrug, he dismissed the whole matter from his mind, content to know that he was forewarned and, consequently, on guard.
The day was coming to a close as Tarzan gave up the search for a native village and decided to return to camp. Suddenly he stood erect upon a branch of a great tree, head up, statuesque, alert, listening. A vagrant breeze had brought to his nostrils the scent of Wappi, the antelope, suggesting that he take meat back to camp; but as he prepared to stalk his prey, the booming of distant native drums came faintly to his ears.
Chapter 8
AS NIGHT FELL, Helen, lying bound in a filthy hut, heard the booming of drums in the village street outside. Eerie and menacing they sounded, mysterious, threatening. She felt that they were beating for her—a savage, insistent dirge, foretelling death. She wondered what form it would take, when it would come to her. She felt that she might almost welcome it as an escape from the terror that engulfed her. Presently, warriors came and jerked her roughly to her feet after removing the bonds that confined her ankles; then they dragged her out into the village street before the hut of Mpingu, the chief, and tied her to a stake, while around her milled screaming women and shouting warriors. In the glare of the cooking fires the whole scene seemed to the doomed girl the horrible phantasmagoria of some hideous nightmare from which she must awaken. It was all too fantastic to be real, but when a spear point pierced her flesh and warm blood flowed she knew she did not dream.
A well equipped safari lay in an ordered camp. Porters and askaris squatted around tiny cook fires; and before the central beast fire, two men who were not natives talked with Mbuli, the headman, while faintly from afar came the sullen sound of native drums.
"They are at it," said Atan Thome. "Mbuli tells me this is cannibal country and that we had better get out quickly. Tomorrow we'll make a long trek toward Ashair. The girl is lost. The drums may be for her."
"Her blood is on your head, master," said Lal Taask.
"Shut up," snapped Thome. "She is a fool. She might have lived happily and enjoyed the fruits of The Father of Diamonds."
Lal Taask shook his head. "The ways of women are beyond the comprehension of even thou, master. She was very young and very beautiful; she loved life; and you took it from her. I warned you, but you would not heed. Her blood is on your head."
Atan Thome turned irritably away, but the drums followed him to his tent and would give him no rest.
"The drums!" said d'Arnot. "I do not like them; so often they spell death for some poor devil. The first time I heard them, I was tied to a stake; and a lot of painted devils were dancing around me pricking me with spears. They don't quite kill you at first, they just torture you and let you live as long as possible so that you may suffer more, for your suffering is their pleasure."
"But how did you escape?" asked Lavac.
"Tarzan came," said d'Arnot.
"He has not returned," said Magra. "I am afraid for him. Perhaps the drums are for him."
"Do you suppose they could have gotten him?" asked Gregory.
"No such luck," snarled Wolff. "The damn monkey has as many lives as a cat."
D'Arnot turned angrily away; and Gregory, Lavac, and Magra followed him, leaving Wolff alone, listening to the beating of the distant drums.
The drams had carried their message to Tarzan. They told him of impending torture and sacrifice and death. The lives of strangers meant nothing to the ape-man, who, all his life, had lived with death. It was something that came to all creatures. He had no fear of it, he who feared nothing. To avoid it was a game that added zest to life. To pit his courage, his strength, his agility, his cunning against Death, and win—there was the satisfaction. Some day Death would win, but to that day Tarzan gave no thought. He could fight or he could run away; and in either event preserve his self-respect, for only, a fool throws his life away uselessly; and Tarzan had no respect for fools; but if the stake warranted it, he could lightly accept the gravest risks.
As he heard the drums against the new night, he thought less of their sinister portent than of the fact that they would guide him to a native village where, perhaps, he might obtain porters later. First, however, he must reconnoiter and investigate to learn the temper of the natives. If they were fierce and warlike, he must avoid their country, leading his little party around it; and the message of the drums suggested that this would be the case.
As the radio beam guides the flyer, the drums of the Buiroos guided Tarzan as he swung through the trees toward their village. He moved swiftly, anticipating a sport he had enjoyed many times in the course of his savage existence—that of frustrating the Gomangani in the exercise of weird rites of torture and death. The drums told him that a victim was to die, but that death had not as yet been meted out. Who the victim was, was of no importance to the ape-man. All that mattered was the sport of cheating the torturers of the final accomplishment of their aims. Perhaps he would arrive in time, perhaps not. Also, if he did arrive in time, he might fail to accomplish his design. It was these factors that lent interest to the savage game that Tarzan loved to play.
As Tarzan neared the village of Mpingu , the chief, Atan Thome and Lal Taask sat smoking beside the fire that burned brightly in their camp as a discourager of predatory felines.
"Curse those drums!" snapped Lal Taask. "They give me the creeps; they have my nerves on edge."
"Tomorrow night we shall not hear them," said Atan Thome, "for then we shall be a long way on the trail to Ashair—to Ashair and The Father of Diamonds."
"Wolff will have difficulty catching up with us," said Lal Taask, "and if we come back from Ashair by another route, he will never catch up with us."
"You forget Magra," said Thome.
"No," replied Taask; "I do not forget Magra. She will find her way to Paris as the homing pigeon finds its cote. We shall see her there."
"You underestimate Wolff's cupidity," said Thome. "He will come through for his half of the diamond. Never fear."
"And get this!" Lal Taask touched his knife.
"You are psychic," laughed Thome.
"Those drums!" growled Lal Taask.
"Those drums!" exclaimed Magra. "Did you ever hear anything so horribly insistent?"
"A radio fan's nightmare," said Gregory; "a boring broadcast that one can't dial out."
"I am so worried about Tarzan," said Magra, "out there all alone in that awful forest."
"I wouldn't worry too much about him," d'Arnot reassured her; "he has spent his life in awful forests, and has a way of taking care of himself."