"Here's Tarzan now," said Helen, as the ape-man came trotting along the trail with the carcass of his kill across his shoulder.
Tarzan found a very disorganized party as he joined them. They were all excited and trying to talk at the same time.
"We never saw them 'til they jumped us," said Lavac.
"They were as big as gorillas," added Helen.
"They were gorillas," put in Wolff.
"They were not gorillas," contradicted d'Arnot; "and anyway, you didn't wait to see what they were."
"The biggest one carried Magra off under his arm," said Gregory.
"They took Magra?" Tarzan looked concerned. "Why didn't you say so in the first place? Which way did they go?"
D'Arnot pointed in the direction in which the apes had made off.
"Keep on this trail until you find a good place to camp," said Tarzan; then he was gone.
As the moon rose slowly over the arena where Magra lay beside a primitive earthen drum upon which three old apes beat with sticks, several of the great shaggy bulls commenced to dance around her. Menacing her with heavy sticks, the bulls leaped and whirled as they circled the frightened girl. Magra had no knowledge of the significance of these rites. She only guessed that she was to die.
The Lord of the Jungle followed the trail of the great apes through the darkness of the forest as unerringly as though he were following a well marked spoor by daylight, followed it by the scent of the anthropoids that clung to the grasses and the foliage of the underbrush, tainting the air with the effluvia of the great bodies. He knew that he should come upon them eventually, but would he be in time?
As the moon rose, the throbbing of the earthen drum directed him toward the arena of the Dum-Dum; so that he could take to the trees and move more swiftly in a direct line. It told him, too, the nature of the danger that threatened Magra. He knew that she still lived, for the drum would be stilled only after her death, when the apes would be fighting over her body and tearing it to pieces. He knew, because he had leaped and danced in the moonlight at many a Dum- Dum when Sheeta, the panther, or Wappi, the antelope, was the sacrificial victim.
The moon was almost at zenith as he neared the arena. When it hung at zenith would be the moment of the kill; and in the arena, the shaggy bulls danced in simulation of the hunt. Magra lay as they had thrown her, exhausted, hopeless, resigned to death, knowing that nothing could save her now.
Goro, the moon, hung upon the verge of the fateful moment, when a tarmangani, naked but for a G string, dropped from an overhanging tree into the arena. With growls and mutterings of rage, the bulls turned upon the intruder who dared thus sacrilegiously to invade the sanctity of their holy of holies. The king ape, crouching, led them.
"I am Ungo," he said. "I kill!"
Tarzan, too, crouched and growled as he advanced to meet the king ape. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he said in the language of the first-men, the only language he had known for the first twenty years of his life. "I am Tarzan of the Apes, mighty hunter, mighty fighter. I kill!"
One word of the ape-man's challenge Magra had understood—"Tarzan." Astounded, she opened her eyes to see the king ape and Tarzan circling one another, each looking for an opening. What a brave but what a futile gesture the man was making in her defense! He was giving his life for her, and uselessly. What chance had he against the huge, primordial beast?
Suddenly, Tarzan reached out and seized the ape's wrist; then, turning quickly, he hurled the great creature over his shoulder heavily to the ground; but instantly Ungo was on his feet again. Growling and roaring horribly, he charged. This time he would overwhelm the puny man-thing with his great weight, crush him in those mighty arms.
Magra trembled for the man, and she blanched as she saw him meet the charge with growls equally as bestial as those of the ape. Could this growling, snarling beast be the quiet, resourceful man she had come to love? Was he, after all, but a primitive Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Spellbound and horrified, she watched.
Swift as Ara, the lightning, is Tarzan; as agile as Sheeta, the panther. Dodging, and ducking beneath Ungo's great flailing arms, he leaped upon the hairy back and locked a full Nelson on the raging ape. As he applied the pressure of his mighty thews, the ape screamed in agony.
"Kreegah!" shouted Tarzan, bearing down a little harder. "Surrender!"
The members of the Gregory party sat around their camp fire listening to the throbbing of the distant drum and waiting in nervous expectancy, for what, they did not know.
"It is the Dum-Dum of the great apes, I think," said d'Arnot. "Tarzan has told me about them. When the full moon hangs at zenith, the bulls kill a victim. It is, perhaps, a rite older than the human race, the tiny germ from which all religious observances have sprung."
"And Tarzan has seen this rite performed?" asked Helen.
"He was raised by the great apes," explained d'Arnot, "and he has danced the dance of death in many a Dum-Dum."
"He has helped to kill men and women and tear them to pieces?" demanded Helen.
"No, no!" cried d'Arnot. "The apes rarely secure a human victim. They did so only once while Tarzan ranged with them, and he saved that one. The victim they prefer is their greatest enemy, the panther."
"And you think the drums are for Magra?" asked Lavac.
"Yes," said d'Arnot, "I fear so."
"I wish I'd gone after her myself," said Wolff. "That guy didn't have no gun."
"He may not have had a gun," said d'Arnot, "but at least he went in the right direction." Wolff lapsed into moody silence. "We all had a chance to do something when the ape first took her," continued d'Arnot; "but, frankly, I was too stunned to think."
"It all happened so quickly," said Gregory. "It was over before I really knew what had happened."
"Listen!" exclaimed d'Arnot. "The drums have stopped."
He looked up at the moon. "The moon is at zenith," he said. "Tarzan must have been too late."
"Them gorillas would pull him apart," said Wolff. "If it wasn't for Magra, I'd say good riddance."
"Shut up!" snapped Gregory. "Without Tarzan, we're lost."
As they talked, Tarzan and Ungo battled in the arena; and Magra watched in fearful astonishment. She could scarcely believe her eyes as she saw the great ape helpless in the hands of the man. Ungo was screaming in pain. Slowly, relentlessly, his neck was being broken. At last he could stand it no longer, and bellowed, "Kreegah!" which means "I surrender;" and Tarzan released him and sprang to his feet.
"Tarzan is king!" he cried, facing the other bulls.
He stood there, waiting; but no young bull came forward to dispute the right of kingship with him. They had seen what he had done to Ungo, and they were afraid. Thus, by grace of a custom ages old, Tarzan became king of the tribe.
Magra did not understand. She was still terrified. Springing to her feet, she ran to Tarzan and threw her arms about him, pressing close. "I am afraid," she said. "Now they will kill us both."
Tarzan shook his head. "No," he said; "they will not kill us. They will do whatever I tell them to do, for now I am their king."
CHAPTER 12
In the light of early morning, after a night of terror, Atan Thome and Lal Taask started to retrace their steps along the precarious pathway they had so laboriously risked the day before.
"I am glad, master, that you decided to turn back," said Lal Taask.
"Without porters and askaris, it would be madness to attempt to force our way into The Forbidden City," growled Thorne. "We'll return to Bonga and enlist a strong force of men who fear no taboos."
"If we live to get to Bonga," said Lal Taask.
"Cowards invite death," snapped Thorne.