"Well, I gabbled so much about my plans to Bob van Eyk that he got all hepped up himself; and insisted on going along and sharing the expenses; which meant, of course, that we could equip much more elaborately than I had planned to and therefore more certainly ensure the success of our undertaking.
"We spent a whole year in research, both in England and Africa, with the result that we were pretty thoroughly convinced that Lord and Lady Mountford had disappeared from a point on the Neubari River somewhere northwest of Lake Rudolph. Everything seemed to point to that, although practically everything was based on rumor.
"We got together a peach of a safari and picked up a couple of white hunters who were pretty well familiar with everything African, although they had never been to this particular part of the country.
"Everything went well until we got a little way up the Neubari. The country was sparsely inhabited, and the farther we pushed in the fewer natives we saw. These were wild and fearful. We couldn't get a thing out of them about what lay ahead, but they talked to our boys. They put the fear o' God into 'em.
"Pretty soon we commenced to have desertions. We tried to get a line on the trouble from those who remained, but they wouldn't tell us a thing. They just froze up—scared stiff—didn't even admit that they were scared at first; but they kept on deserting.
"It got mighty serious. There we were in a country we didn't know the first thing about—a potentially hostile country—with a lot of equipment and provisions and scarcely enough men to carry on with.
"Finally one of the headmen told me what they were scared of. The natives they had talked with had told them that there was a tribe farther up the Neubari that killed or enslaved every black that came into their territory, a tribe with some mysterious kind of magic that held you—wouldn't let you escape, or, if you did escape, the magic followed you and killed you before you got back to your own country—maybe many marches away. They said you couldn't kill these people because they were not human—they were demons that had taken the form of women.
"Well, when I told Spike and Troll, the white hunters, what the trouble was, they pooh-poohed the whole business, of course. Said it was just an excuse to make us turn back because our carriers didn't like the idea of being so far from their own country and were getting homesick.
"So they got tough with the boys. Whaled hell out of 'em, and drove 'em on like slaves. As Spike said, 'Put the fear o' God into 'em', and the next night all the rest of 'em deserted—every last mother's son of 'em.
"When we woke up in the morning there were the four of us, Bob van Eyk, Spike, Troll, and myself, four white men all alone with loads for fifty porters; our personal boys, our gun bearers, our askaris all gone.
"Spike and Troll back-tracked to try to pick up some of the boys to take us out, for we knew we were licked; but they never found a one of them, though they were gone for two days.
"Bob and I were just about to pull out on our own when they got back; for, believe me, if we'd had plenty of it before they left we'd had a double dose while they were away.
"I can't tell you what it was, for we never saw anyone. Maybe we were just plain scared, but I don't think that could have been it. Van Eyk has plenty of nerve, and I have been in lots of tough places—lost and alone among the head-hunters of Ecuador, captured in the interior of New Guinea by cannibals, stood up in front of a firing squad during a Central American revolution - the kind of things, you know, that a travel writer gets mixed up in if he's really looking for thrills to write about and hasn't very good sense.
"No, this was different. It was just a feeling—a haunting sense of being watched by invisible eyes, day and night. And there were noises, too. I can't describe them—they weren't human noises, nor animal either. They were just noises that made your flesh creep and your scalp tingle.
"We had a council of war the night Spike and Troll got back. At first they laughed at us, but pretty soon they commenced to feel and hear things. After that they agreed with us that the best thing to do would be to beat it back.
"We decided to carry nothing but a revolver and rifle apiece, ammunition, and food, abandoning everything else. We were going to start early the following morning.
"When morning came we ate our breakfasts in silence, shouldered our packs, and without a word started out up the Neubari. We didn't even look at one another. I don't know about the rest of them, but I was ashamed to.
"There we were, doing just the opposite of the thing we had decided on - going deeper and deeper into trouble—and not knowing why we were doing it. I tried to exercise my will and force my feet in the opposite direction, but it was no go. A power far greater than my own will directed me. It was terrifying.
"We hadn't gone more than five miles before we came across a man lying in the trail—a white man. His hair and beard were white, but he didn't look so very old—well under fifty, I should have said. He seemed pretty well done in, notwithstanding the fact that he appeared in good physical condition—no indication of starvation; and he couldn't very well have been suffering from thirst, for the Neubari river was less than fifty yards from where he lay.
"When we stopped beside him, he opened his eyes and looked up at us.
" 'Go back!' he whispered. He seemed very weak, and it was obviously an effort for him to speak.
"I had a little flask of brandy that I carried for emergencies, and I made him drink a little. It seemed to revive him some.
" 'For God's sake turn back,' he said. 'There are not enough of you. They'll get you as they got me more than twenty years ago, and you can't get away—you can't escape. After all these years I thought I saw my chance; and I tried it. But you see! They've got me. I'm dying. His power! He sends it after you, and it gets you. Go back and get a big force of white men —blacks won't come into this country. Get a big force and get into the country of the Kaji. If you can kill him you'll be all right. He is the power, he alone.'
" 'Whom do you mean by "he"?' I asked.
" 'Mafka,' he replied.
" 'He's the chief?' I asked.
" 'No; I wouldn't know what to call him. He's not a chief, and yet he's all-powerful. He's more like a witch-doctor. In the dark ages he'd have been a magician. He does things that no ordinary witch- doctor ever dreamed of doing. He's a devil. Sometimes I have thought that he is the Devil. And he is training her—teaching her his hellish powers.'
" 'Who are you?'
" 'I'm Mountford,' he replied.
" 'Lord Mountford?' I exclaimed.
"He nodded."
"Did he tell you about the diamond?" asked Tarzan.
Wood looked at the ape-man in surprise. "How did you know about that?"
"You rambled a little while you were delirious, but I knew about it before. Is it really twice the size of the Cullinan?"
"I never saw the Cullinan, but the Kaji diamond is enormous. It must be worth ten million dollars at least, possibly more. Troll used to work at Kimerly. He said somewhere between ten and fifteen million. Yes, Mountford told us about it; and after that Troll and Spike were keen on getting into this Kaji country, hoping to steal the diamond. Nothing Mountford said could deter them. But after all it made no difference. We couldn't have turned back if we'd wanted to."
"And Mountford?" asked Tarzan. "What became of him?"
"He was trying to tell us something about a girl. He rambled a little, and we couldn't quite make out what he was driving at. His last words were, 'Save her—kill Mafka.' Then he died.
"We never did find out whom he meant even after we got into the Kaji country. We never saw any woman captive. If they had one they kept her hidden. But then, we never saw Mafka either. He lives in a regular castle that must have been built centuries ago, possibly by the Portuguese, though it may have antedated their excursion into Abyssinia. Van Eyk thought it may have been built during the Crusades, though what the Crusaders were doing in this neck of the woods he couldn't explain. At any rate, the Kaji never built it; though they had done considerable toward restoring and preserving it.