At first La closed her eyes and clung to Tarzan in terror,though she made no outcry; but presently she gainedsufficient courage to look about her, to look downat the ground beneath and even to keep her eyes openduring the wide, perilous swings from tree to tree,and then there came over her a sense of safetybecause of her confidence in the perfect physicalcreature in whose strength and nerve and agility herfate lay. Once she raised her eyes to the burning sunand murmured a prayer of thanks to her pagan god thatshe had not been permitted to destroy this godlike man,and her long lashes were wet with tears. A strangeanomaly was La of Opar--a creature of circumstance tornby conflicting emotions. Now the cruel andbloodthirsty creature of a heartless god and again amelting woman filled with compassion and tenderness.Sometimes the incarnation of jealousy and revenge andsometimes a sobbing maiden, generous and forgiving; atonce a virgin and a wanton; but always--a woman.Such was La.

She pressed her cheek close to Tarzan's shoulder.Slowly she turned her head until her hot lips werepressed against his flesh. She loved him and wouldgladly have died for him; yet within an hour she hadbeen ready to plunge a knife into his heart and mightagain within the coming hour.

A hapless priest seeking shelter in the jungle chancedto show himself to enraged Tantor. The great beastturned to one side, bore down upon the crooked, littleman, snuffed him out and then, diverted from hiscourse, blundered away toward the south. In a fewminutes even the noise of his trumpeting was lost inthe distance.

Tarzan dropped to the ground and La slipped to her feetfrom his back. "Call your people together," said Tarzan.

"They will kill me," replied La.

"They will not kill you," contradicted the ape-man."No one will kill you while Tarzan of the Apes is here.Call them and we will talk with them."

La raised her voice in a weird, flutelike call thatcarried far into the jungle on every side. From nearand far came answering shouts in the barking tones ofthe Oparian priests: "We come! We come!" Again andagain, La repeated her summons until singly and inpairs the greater portion of her following approachedand halted a short distance away from the HighPriestess and her savior. They came with scowlingbrows and threatening mien. When all had come Tarzanaddressed them.

"Your La is safe," said the ape-man. "Had she slain meshe would now herself be dead and many more of you; butshe spared me that I might save her. Go your way withher back to Opar, and Tarzan will go his way into thejungle. Let there be peace always between Tarzan andLa. What is your answer?"

The priests grumbled and shook their heads. They spoketogether and La and Tarzan could see that they were notfavorably inclined toward the proposition. They didnot wish to take La back and they did wish to completethe sacrifice of Tarzan to the Flaming God. At lastthe ape-man became impatient.

"You will obey the commands of your queen," he said,"and go back to Opar with her or Tarzan of the Apeswill call together the other creatures of the jungleand slay you all. La saved me that I might save youand her. I have served you better alive than I couldhave dead. If you are not all fools you will let me gomy way in peace and you will return to Opar with La.I know not where the sacred knife is; but you can fashionanother. Had I not taken it from La you would haveslain me and now your god must be glad that I took itsince I have saved his priestess from love-mad Tantor.Will you go back to Opar with La, promising that noharm shall befall her?"

The priests gathered together in a little knot arguingand discussing. They pounded upon their breasts withtheir fists; they raised their hands and eyes to theirfiery god; they growled and barked among themselvesuntil it became evident to Tarzan that one of theirnumber was preventing the acceptance of his proposal.This was the High Priest whose heart was filled withjealous rage because La openly acknowledged her lovefor the stranger, when by the worldly customs of theircult she should have belonged to him. Seemingly therewas to be no solution of the problem until anotherpriest stepped forth and, raising his hand, addressedLa.

"Cadj, the High Priest," he announced, "would sacrificeyou both to the Flaming God; but all of us except Cadjwould gladly return to Opar with our queen."

"You are many against one," spoke up Tarzan."Why should you not have your will? Go your way withLa to Opar and if Cadj interferes slay him."

The priests of Opar welcomed this suggestion with loudcries of approval. To them it appeared nothing shortof divine inspiration. The influence of ages ofunquestioning obedience to high priests had made itseem impossible to them to question his authority; butwhen they realized that they could force him to theirwill they were as happy as children with new toys.

They rushed forward and seized Cadj. They talked inloud menacing tones into his ear. They threatened himwith bludgeon and knife until at last he acquiesced intheir demands, though sullenly, and then Tarzan steppedclose before Cadj.

"Priest," he said, "La goes back to her temple underthe protection of her priests and the threat of Tarzanof the Apes that whoever harms her shall die. Tarzanwill go again to Opar before the next rains and if harmhas befallen La, woe betide Cadj, the High Priest."

Sullenly Cadj promised not to harm his queen.

"Protect her," cried Tarzan to the other Oparians."Protect her so that when Tarzan comes again he willfind La there to greet him."

"La will be there to greet thee," exclaimed the HighPriestess, "and La will wait, longing, always longing,until you come again. Oh, tell me that you will come!"

"Who knows?" asked the ape-man as he swung quickly intothe trees and raced off toward the east.

For a moment La stood looking after him, then her headdrooped, a sigh escaped her lips and like an old womanshe took up the march toward distant Opar.

Through the trees raced Tarzan of the Apes until thedarkness of night had settled upon the jungle, then helay down and slept, with no thought beyond the morrowand with even La but the shadow of a memory within hisconsciousness.

But a few marches to the north Lady Greystoke lookedforward to the day when her mighty lord and mastershould discover the crime of Achmet Zek, and bespeeding to rescue and avenge, and even as she picturedthe coming of John Clayton, the object of her thoughtssquatted almost naked, beside a fallen log, beneathwhich he was searching with grimy fingers for a chancebeetle or a luscious grub.

Two days elapsed following the theft of the jewelsbefore Tarzan gave them a thought. Then, as theychanced to enter his mind, he conceived a desire toplay with them again, and, having nothing better to dothan satisfy the first whim which possessed him, herose and started across the plain from the forest inwhich he had spent the preceding day.

Though no mark showed where the gems had been buried,and though the spot resembled the balance of anunbroken stretch several miles in length, where thereeds terminated at the edge of the meadowland, yet theape-man moved with unerring precision directly to theplace where he had hid his treasure.

With his hunting knife he upturned the loose earth,beneath which the pouch should be; but, though heexcavated to a greater distance than the depth of theoriginal hole there was no sign of pouch or jewels.Tarzan's brow clouded as he discovered that he had beendespoiled. Little or no reasoning was required toconvince him of the identity of the guilty party, andwith the same celerity that had marked his decision tounearth the jewels, he set out upon the trail of thethief.

Though the spoor was two days old, and practicallyobliterated in many places, Tarzan followed it withcomparative ease. A white man could not have followedit twenty paces twelve hours after it had been made, ablack man would have lost it within the first mile; butTarzan of the Apes had been forced in childhood todevelop senses that an ordinary mortal scarce ever uses.

We may note the garlic and whisky on the breath of afellow strap hanger, or the cheap perfume emanatingfrom the person of the wondrous lady sitting in frontof us, and deplore the fact of our sensitive noses;but, as a matter of fact, we cannot smell at all, ourolfactory organs are practically atrophied, bycomparison with the development of the sense among thebeasts of the wild.

Where a foot is placed an effluvium remains for aconsiderable time. It is beyond the range of oursensibilities; but to a creature of the lower orders,especially to the hunters and the hunted, asinteresting and ofttimes more lucid than is the printedpage to us.

Nor was Tarzan dependent alone upon his sense of smell.Vision and hearing had been brought to a marvelousstate of development by the necessities of his earlylife, where survival itself depended almost daily uponthe exercise of the keenest vigilance and the constantuse of all his faculties.

And so he followed the old trail of the Belgian throughthe forest and toward the north; but because of the ageof the trail he was constrained to a far from rapidprogress. The man he followed was two days ahead ofhim when Tarzan took up the pursuit, and each day hegained upon the ape-man. The latter, however, felt notthe slightest doubt as to the outcome. Some day hewould overhaul his quarry--he could bide his time inpeace until that day dawned. Doggedly he followed thefaint spoor, pausing by day only to kill and eat, andat night only to sleep and refresh himself.

Occasionally he passed parties of savage warriors; butthese he gave a wide berth, for he was hunting with apurpose that was not to be distracted by the minoraccidents of the trail.

These parties were of the collecting hordes of theWaziri and their allies which Basuli had scattered hismessengers broadcast to summon. They were marching toa common rendezvous in preparation for an assault uponthe stronghold of Achmet Zek; but to Tarzan they wereenemies--he retained no conscious memory of anyfriendship for the black men.

It was night when he halted outside the palisadedvillage of the Arab raider. Perched in the branches ofa great tree he gazed down upon the life within theenclosure. To this place had the spoor led him. Hisquarry must be within; but how was he to find him amongso many huts? Tarzan, although cognizant of his mightypowers, realized also his limitations. He knew that hecould not successfully cope with great numbers in openbattle. He must resort to the stealth and trickery ofthe wild beast, if he were to succeed.

Sitting in the safety of his tree, munching upon theleg bone of Horta, the boar, Tarzan waited a favorableopportunity to enter the village. For awhile he gnawedat the bulging, round ends of the large bone,splintering off small pieces between his strong jaws,and sucking at the delicious marrow within; but all thetime he cast repeated glances into the village. He sawwhite-robed figures, and half-naked blacks; but notonce did he see one who resembled the stealer of the gems.

Patiently he waited until the streets were deserted byall save the sentries at the gates, then he droppedlightly to the ground, circled to the opposite side ofthe village and approached the palisade.

At his side hung a long, rawhide rope--a natural andmore dependable evolution from the grass rope of hischildhood. Loosening this, he spread the noose upon theground behind him, and with a quick movement of hiswrist tossed the coils over one of the sharpenedprojections of the summit of the palisade.

Drawing the noose taut, he tested the solidity of itshold. Satisfied, the ape-man ran nimbly up the verticalwall, aided by the rope which he clutched in bothhands. Once at the top it required but a moment togather the dangling rope once more into its coils, makeit fast again at his waist, take a quick glancedownward within the palisade, and, assured that no onelurked directly beneath him, drop softly to the ground.

Now he was within the village. Before him stretched aseries of tents and native huts. The business ofexploring each of them would be fraught with danger;but danger was only a natural factor of each day'slife--it never appalled Tarzan. The chances appealedto him--the chances of life and death, with his prowessand his faculties pitted against those of a worthyantagonist.

It was not necessary that he enter each habitation--through a door, a window or an open chink, his nosetold him whether or not his prey lay within. For sometime he found one disappointment following upon theheels of another in quick succession. No spoor of theBelgian was discernible. But at last he came to a tentwhere the smell of the thief was strong. Tarzanlistened, his ear close to the canvas at the rear, butno sound came from within.

At last he cut one of the pin ropes, raised the bottomof the canvas, and intruded his head within theinterior. All was quiet and dark. Tarzan crawledcautiously within--the scent of the Belgian was strong;but it was not live scent. Even before he had examinedthe interior minutely, Tarzan knew that no one waswithin it.

In one corner he found a pile of blankets and clothingscattered about; but no pouch of pretty pebbles.A careful examination of the balance of the tent revealednothing more, at least nothing to indicate the presenceof the jewels; but at the side where the blankets andclothing lay, the ape-man discovered that the tent wallhad been loosened at the bottom, and presently hesensed that the Belgian had recently passed out of thetent by this avenue.

Tarzan was not long in following the way that his preyhad fled. The spoor led always in the shadow and atthe rear of the huts and tents of the village--it wasquite evident to Tarzan that the Belgian had gone aloneand secretly upon his mission. Evidently he feared theinhabitants of the village, or at least his work hadbeen of such a nature that he dared not risk detection.

At the back of a native hut the spoor led through asmall hole recently cut in the brush wall and into thedark interior beyond. Fearlessly, Tarzan followed thetrail. On hands and knees, he crawled through thesmall aperture. Within the hut his nostrils wereassailed by many odors; but clear and distinct amongthem was one that half aroused a latent memory of thepast--it was the faint and delicate odor of a woman.With the cognizance of it there rose in the breast ofthe ape-man a strange uneasiness--the result of anirresistible force which he was destined to becomeacquainted with anew--the instinct which draws the maleto his mate.

In the same hut was the scent spoor of the Belgian,too, and as both these assailed the nostrils of theape-man, mingling one with the other, a jealous rageleaped and burned within him, though his memory heldbefore the mirror of recollection no image of the sheto which he had attached his desire.

Like the tent he had investigated, the hut, too, wasempty, and after satisfying himself that his stolenpouch was secreted nowhere within, he left, as he hadentered, by the hole in the rear wall.

Here he took up the spoor of the Belgian, followed itacross the clearing, over the palisade, and out intothe dark jungle beyond.