As she approached, the beasts surrounding Rhonda and the man edged away, making a path for her, though they growled and bared their teeth at her. She paid no attention to them, but came straight for Rhonda.
The man screamed at her, backing away; then he whirled Rhonda to a shoulder, turned, and bolted. Even burdened with the weight of his captive he ran with great speed. Behind him, raging and screaming, the beautiful she-devil pursued.
30. THE WILD-GIRL
The palace guard gave way before the multitude of faithful that battered at the doors of the king's house at the behest of their god. The god was pleased. He wished to punish Henry, but he had never before quite dared to assault the palace. Now he was victorious; and in victory one is often generous, especially to him who made victory possible.
Previously he had fully intended to break his promise to Tarzan and revenge himself for the affront that had been put upon his godhood, but now he was determined to set both the man and the girl free.
Tarzan cared nothing for the political aspects of the night's adventure. He thought only of Rhonda. "We must find the girl," he said to the gorilla god the moment that they had gained entrance to the palace. "Where could she be?"
"She is probably with the other women. Come with me—they are upstairs."
At the top of the stairs stood Howard and Suffolk to do the bidding of their king; but when they saw their god ascending toward them and the lower hall and the stairs behind him filled with his followers and recalled that the king had fled, they experienced a change of heart. They received God on bended knee and assured him that they had driven Henry out of the palace and were just on their way downstairs to fall tooth and nail upon God's enemies; and God knew that they lied, for it was he himself who had implanted the minds of men in their gorilla skulls.
"Where is the hairless she?" demanded the gorilla god.
"Henry took her with him," replied Suffolk.
"Where did he go?"
"I do not know. He ran to the end of the corridor and disappeared."
"Some one must know," snapped Tarzan.
"Perhaps Catherine of Aragon knows," suggested Howard.
"Where is she?" demanded the ape-man.
They led the way to the door of the harem. Suffolk swung the door open. "My Lord God!" he announced.
The shes, nervous and frightened, had been expecting to be dragged to their death by the mob. When they saw the gorilla god they fell on their faces before him.
"Have mercy, My Lord God!" cried Catherine of Aragon. "I am your faithful servant."
"Then tell me where Henry is," demanded the god.
"He fled with the hairless she," replied the old queen.
"Where?"
The rage of a jealous female showed Catherine of Aragon how to have her revenge. "Come with me," she said.
They followed her down the corridor to the room at the end and into the closet there. Then she lifted the trap door. "This shaft leads to a tunnel that runs under the city to the bank of the river beyond the wall—he and that hairless thing went this way."
The keen scent of the ape-man detected the delicate aroma of the white girl. He knew that the king gorilla had carried her into this dark hole. Perhaps they were down there now, the king hiding from his enemies until it would be safe for him to return; or perhaps there was a tunnel running beyond the city as the old she said, and the gorilla had carried his captive off to some fastness in the mountains surrounding the valley.
But in any event the ape-man must go on now alone—he could trust none of the creatures about him to aid him in the pursuit and capture of one of their own kind. He had already removed his rope from around the neck of the gorilla god; now it lay coiled across one shoulder; at his hip swung his hunting knife. Tarzan of the Apes was prepared for any emergency.
Without a word, he swung down the pole into the black abyss below. The gorilla god breathed a sigh of relief when he had departed.
Following the scent spoor of those he sought, Tarzan traversed the tunnel that led from the bottom of the shaft to the river bank. He pushed the great stone away from the entrance and stepped out into the night. He stood erect, listening and sniffing the air. A scarcely perceptible air current was moving up toward the head of the valley. It bore no suspicion of the scent he had been following. All that this indicated was that his quarry was not directly south of him. The gorilla king might have gone to the east or the west or the north; but the river flowed deep and swift on the east, and only the north and west were left.
Tarzan bent close to the ground. Partly by scent, partly by touch he found the trail leading toward the north; or, more accurately, toward the northeast between the river and the cliffs. He moved off upon it; but the necessity for stopping often to verify the trail delayed him, so that he did not move quite as rapidly as the beast he pursued.
He was delayed again at the crossing of the river, for he passed the place at which the trail turned sharply to the right into the stream. He had to retrace his steps, searching carefully until he found it again. Had the wind been right, had the gorilla been moving directly upwind, Tarzan could have trailed him at a run.
The enforced delays caused no irritation or nervousness such as they would have in an ordinary man, for the patience of the hunting beast is infinite. Tarzan knew that eventually he would overhaul his quarry, and that while they were on the move the girl was comparatively safe.
Dawn broke as he crossed the river. Far ahead he heard the roaring of a hunting lion, and presently with it were mingled the snarls and screams of another beast—a gorilla. And the ape- man knew that Numa had attacked one of the great apes. He guessed that it was the gorilla king. But what of the girl? He heard no human voice mingling its screams with that of the anthropoid. He broke into a run.
Presently, from a little rise of rolling round, he saw Numa crouching upon his kill. It was light enough now for him to see that the lion was feeding upon the body of a gorilla. The girl was nowhere in sight.
Tarzan made a detour to avoid the feeding carnivore. He had no intention of risking an encounter with the king of beasts—an encounter that would certainly delay him and possibly end in death.
He passed at a considerable distance upwind from the lion; and when the beast caught his scent it did not rise from its kill.
Beyond the lion, near the edge of the wood, Tarzan picked up the trail of the girl again. He followed it across the second river. It turned south here, upwind; and now he was below her and could follow her scent spoor easily. At a trot he pressed on.
Now other scent spoor impinged upon his nostrils, mingling with those of the girl. They were strange scents—a mixture of mangani and tarmangani, of great ape and white man, of male and of female.
Tarzan increased his gait. That strange instinct that he shared with the other beasts of the forest warned him that danger lay ahead—danger for the girl and perhaps for himself. He moved swiftly and silently through the fringe of forest that bordered the river.
The strange scents became stronger in his nostrils. A babel of angry voices arose in the distance ahead. He was nearing them. He took to the trees now, to his native element; and he felt at once the sense of security and power that the trees always imparted to him. Here, as nowhere else quite in the same measure, was he indeed lord of the jungle.
Now he heard the angry, raging voice of a female. It was almost human, yet the beast notes predominated; and he could recognize words spoken in the language of the great apes. Tarzan was mystified.
He was almost upon them now, and a moment later he looked down upon a strange scene. There were a score of monstrous creatures—part human, part gorilla. And there was a naked white man just disappearing among the trees with the girl he sought across one shoulder. Pursuing them was a white girl with golden hair streaming behind her. She was as naked as the other beasts gibbering and screaming in her wake.