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Updated: May 21, 2025
Now he went more rapidly; but the mounted Arabs had covered a great distance while the wounded black had been painfully crawling after them. They had reached their fortified camp, and there Achmet Zek awaited the return of his lieutenant, Albert Werper. During the long, rough journey, Jane Clayton had suffered more in anticipation of her impending fate than from the hardships of the road.
It occurred to them that possibly the woman had successfully defended herself against their leader. Werper heard the men approaching. To be apprehended as the slayer of Mohammed Beyd would be equivalent to a sentence of immediate death. The fierce and brutal raiders would tear to pieces a Christian who had dared spill the blood of their leader.
What could he, Werper, hope to accomplish, other than his own death, by an attempt to wrest the gems from their savage owner? Disconsolate, Werper threw himself upon his side. His head was pillowed on one arm, the other rested across his face in such a way that his eyes were hidden from the ape-man, though one of them was fastened upon him from beneath the shadow of the Belgian's forearm.
Again, that night, as the two sat before their camp fire, Tarzan played with his shining baubles. Werper asked him what they were and where he had found them. The ape-man replied that they were gay-colored stones, with which he purposed fashioning a necklace, and that he had found them far beneath the sacrificial court of the temple of the Flaming God.
For two days Werper sought for the party that had accompanied him from the camp to the barrier cliffs; but not until late in the afternoon of the second day did he find clew to its whereabouts, and then in such gruesome form that he was totally unnerved by the sight.
The hand of every white man was against him. She was his natural enemy, and if he refused to lend himself to her undoing, Achmet Zek would have him killed. "You hesitate," murmured the Arab. "I was but weighing the chances of success," lied Werper, "and my reward. As a European I can gain admittance to their home and table. You have no other with you who could do so much. The risk will be great.
Do not bother me again or I shall have you whipped." But Werper persisted. His liberty and perhaps his life depended upon his success. "Listen to me," he pleaded. "If I can give you as much gold as ten men may carry will you promise that I shall be conducted in safety to the nearest English commissioner?" "As much gold as ten men may carry!" repeated Abdul Mourak. "You are crazy.
Tarzan turned toward Werper and put the same question to him; but in the language of the great apes. The Belgian shook his head. "I do not understand that language," he said in French. Without effort, and apparently without realizing that he made the change, Tarzan repeated his question in French.
"I am shocked," said Werper, in well-simulated sympathy; "but I am not surprised. That devil there," and he pointed toward the body of Achmet Zek, "has terrorized the entire country. Your Waziri are either exterminated, or have been driven out of their country, far to the south. The men of Achmet Zek occupy the plain about your former home there is neither sanctuary nor escape in that direction.
A moment later the man walked out into the camp, the body of the woman across his shoulder. A thorn boma had been thrown up about the camp, to discourage the bolder of the hungry carnivora. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in the light of a fire which they kept burning brightly. The nearer of these looked up in surprise as he saw Werper approaching. "Who are you?" he cried.
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