Numa heard the growl too and paused. He shook his head and snarled. Tarzan did not pause; he continued on toward the man. There was no sanctuary should the lion attack no tree to offer the safety of its branches; there were only Tarzan's weapons and his great strength and his skill; but greatest of all was his conviction that Numa would not attack.
The Lord of the Jungle well knew the art of bluff and its value. Suddenly he raised his head and voiced the hideous warning-cry of the bull ape. The man shuddered as he heard the bestial cry issue from the lips of a human being. Numa, with a parting growl, turned and stalked away.
Tarzan came and stood over the man. "Are you hurt?" he demanded, "or weak from hunger and thirst?"
The voice of a beast coming from the lips of this strange white giant had been no more disconcerting to the man than now to hear him speak in English. He did not know whether to be afraid or not. He glanced hurriedly in the direction of the lion and saw it moving off in the direction from which it had come, and he was filled with a new awe of this creature who could frighten the king of beasts from its prey.
"Well," demanded the ape-man, "do you understand English?"
"Yes," replied the other; "I am an American. I am not hurt. I have been without food for several days. I have had no water today."
Tarzan stooped and lifted the man to a shoulder. "We will find water and food," he said, "and then you may tell me what you are doing alone in this country."
2. A STRANGE TALE
As Tarzan carried the man toward safety, the limp, dead weight of his burden told him that his charge had lost consciousness. Occasionally he mumbled incoherently, but for the greater part of the journey he was as one dead.
When they came at last to water, Tarzan laid the man in the shade of a small tree; and, raising his head and shoulders, forced a few drops of the liquid between his lips. Presently he could take more, and with its revivifying effects he commenced to speak—broken, disjointed, sometimes incoherent snatches of sentences; as one speaks in delirium or when emerging from an anesthetic.
"She-devil," he mumbled. "—beautiful—God! how beautiful." Then he was silent for a while as Tarzan bathed his face and wrists with the cool water.
Presently he opened his eyes and looked at the ape-man, his brows wrinkled in questioning and puzzlement. "The diamond!" he demanded. "Did you get the diamond? Huge—she must have been sired by Satan—beautiful —enormous - big as—what? It can't be—but I saw it —with my own eyes—eyes! eyes! - what eyes!—but a fiend —ten million dollars—all of that—big—big as a woman's head."
"Be quiet," said the ape-man, "and rest. I will get food."
When he returned, the man was sleeping peacefully and night was falling. Tarzan built a fire and prepared a brace of quail and a hare that he had brought down with arrows from his bow. The quail he wrapped in wet clay and laid in the embers; the hare he jointed and grilled on sharpened sticks.
When he had done, he glanced at the man and saw that his eyes were open and upon him. The gaze was quite normal, but the expression was one of puzzlement.
"Who are you?" asked the man. "What happened? I do not seem to be able to recall."
"I found you out on the plain—exhausted," explained Tarzan.
"O-oh!" exclaimed the other. "You are the—the man the lion ran away from. Now I remember. And you brought me here and got food?—and there is water, too?"
"Yes; you have had some. You can have more now. There is a spring behind you. Are you strong enough to reach it?"
The man turned and saw the water; then he crawled to it. Some of his strength had returned.
"Don't drink too much at once," cautioned the ape-man.
After the man had drunk he turned again toward Tarzan. "Who are you?" he asked. "Why did you save me?"
"You will answer the questions," said the Lord of the Jungle. "Who are you? And what are you doing in this country alone? What are you doing here at all?"
The voice was low and deep. It questioned, but it also commanded. The stranger felt that. It was the well modulated, assured voice of a man who was always obeyed. He wondered who this almost naked white giant could be. A regular Tarzan, he thought. When he looked at the man he could almost believe that such a creature existed outside of story and legend and that this was, indeed, he.
"Perhaps you had better eat first," said the ape-man; "then you may answer my questions." He took a ball of hard baked clay from the fire, scraping it out with a stick; then with the hilt of his knife he broke it open, and the baked clay fell away from the body of the quail, taking the feathers with it. He impaled the bird on the stick and handed it to the man. "It is hot," he said.
It was, but the half-famished stranger risked burning for an initial morsel. Without seasoning, as it was, no food had ever tasted better. Only its high temperature restrained him from wolfing it. He ate one quail and half the rabbit before he lay back, at least partially satisfied.
"To answer your questions," he said, "my name is Wood. I am a writer - travel stuff. Thus I capitalize my natural worthlessness, which often finds its expression and its excuse in wanderlust. It has afforded me more than a competence; so that I am now able to undertake expeditions requiring more financing than a steamer ticket and a pair of stout boots.
"Because of this relative affluence you found me alone and on the point of death in an untracked wilderness; but though you found me deserted and destitute without even a crust of bread, I have here in my head material for such a travel book as has never been written by modern man. I have seen things of which civilization does not dream and will not believe; and I have seen, too, the largest diamond in the world. I have held it in my hands. I even had the temerity to believe that I could bring it away with me.
"I have seen the most beautiful woman in the world—and the cruelest; and I even had the temerity to believe that I could bring her away with me, too; for I loved her. I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep, so nearly one are love and hate, the two most powerful and devastating emotions that control man, nations, life—so nearly one that they are separated only by a glance, a gesture, a syllable. I hate her with my mind; I love her with my body and my soul.
"Bear with me if I anticipate. For me she is the beginning and the end - the beginning and the end of everything; but I'll try to be more coherent and more chronological.
"To begin with: have you ever heard of the mysterious disappearance of Lord and Lady Mountford?"
Tarzan nodded. "Who has not?"
"And the persistent rumors of their survival even now, twenty years after they dropped from the sight and knowledge of civilized man?
"Well, their story held for me such a glamour of romance and mystery that for years I toyed with the idea of organizing an expedition that would track down every rumor until it had been proved false or true. I would find Lord and Lady Mountford or I would learn their fate.
"I had a very good friend, a young man of considerable inherited means, who had backed some of my earlier adventures—Robert van Eyk, of the old New York van Eyks. But of course that means nothing to you."
Tarzan did not comment. He merely listened—no shadow of interest or emotion crossed his face. He was not an easy man in whom to confide, but Stanley Wood was so full of pent emotion that he would have welcomed the insensate ears of a stone Buddha had there been no other ear to listen.