Then Tarzan turned his attention to the man. He hadnot slain Numa to save the Negro--he had merely done itin revenge upon the lion; but now that he saw the oldman lying helpless and dying before him something akinto pity touched his savage heart. In his youth hewould have slain the witch-doctor without the slightestcompunction; but civilization had had its softeningeffect upon him even as it does upon the nations andraces which it touches, though it had not yet gone farenough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly oreffeminate. He saw an old man suffering and dying, andhe stooped and felt of his wounds and stanched the flowof blood.

"Who are you?" asked the old man in a trembling voice.

"I am Tarzan--Tarzan of the Apes," replied the ape-manand not without a greater touch of pride than he wouldhave said, "I am John Clayton, Lord Greystoke."

The witch-doctor shook convulsively and closed hiseyes. When he opened them again there was in them aresignation to whatever horrible fate awaited him atthe hands of this feared demon of the woods. "Why doyou not kill me?" he asked.

"Why should I kill you?" inquired Tarzan."You have not harmed me, and anyway you are already dying.Numa, the lion, has killed you."

"You would not kill me?" Surprise and incredulity werein the tones of the quavering old voice.

"I would save you if I could," replied Tarzan, "butthat cannot be done. Why did you think I would killyou?"

For a moment the old man was silent. When he spoke itwas evidently after some little effort to muster hiscourage. "I knew you of old," he said, "when youranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga, the chief.I was already a witch-doctor when you slew Kulonga andthe others, and when you robbed our huts and our poisonpot. At first I did not remember you; but at last Idid--the white-skinned ape that lived with the hairyapes and made life miserable in the village of Mbonga,the chief--the forest god--the Munango-Keewati for whomwe set food outside our gates and who came and ate it.Tell me before I die--are you man or devil?"

Tarzan laughed. "I am a man," he said.

The old fellow sighed and shook his head. "You havetried to save me from Simba," he said. "For that Ishall reward you. I am a great witch-doctor. Listento me, white man! I see bad days ahead of you. It iswrit in my own blood which I have smeared upon my palm.A god greater even than you will rise up and strike youdown. Turn back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back before itis too late. Danger lies ahead of you and danger lurksbehind; but greater is the danger before. I see--"He paused and drew a long, gasping breath. Then hecrumpled into a little, wrinkled heap and died.Tarzan wondered what else he had seen.

It was very late when the ape-man re-entered the bomaand lay down among his black warriors. None had seenhim go and none saw him return. He thought about thewarning of the old witch-doctor before he fell asleepand he thought of it again after he awoke; but he didnot turn back for he was unafraid, though had he knownwhat lay in store for one he loved most in all theworld he would have flown through the trees to her sideand allowed the gold of Opar to remain forever hiddenin its forgotten storehouse.

Behind him that morning another white man ponderedsomething he had heard during the night and very nearlydid he give up his project and turn back upon histrail. It was Werper, the murderer, who in the stillof the night had heard far away upon the trail ahead ofhim a sound that had filled his cowardly soul withterror--a sound such as he never before had heard inall his life, nor dreamed that such a frightful thingcould emanate from the lungs of a God-created creature.He had heard the victory cry of the bull ape as Tarzanhad screamed it forth into the face of Goro, the moon,and he had trembled then and hidden his face; and nowin the broad light of a new day he trembled again as herecalled it, and would have turned back from thenameless danger the echo of that frightful sound seemedto portend, had he not stood in even greater fear ofAchmet Zek, his master.

And so Tarzan of the Apes forged steadily ahead towardOpar's ruined ramparts and behind him slunk Werper,jackal-like, and only God knew what lay in store foreach.

At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking thegolden domes and minarets of Opar, Tarzan halted.By night he would go alone to the treasure vault,reconnoitering, for he had determined that cautionshould mark his every move upon this expedition.

With the coming of night he set forth, and Werper, whohad scaled the cliffs alone behind the ape-man's party,and hidden through the day among the rough boulders ofthe mountain top, slunk stealthily after him. Theboulder-strewn plain between the valley's edge and themighty granite kopje, outside the city's walls, wherelay the entrance to the passage-way leading to thetreasure vault, gave the Belgian ample cover as hefollowed Tarzan toward Opar.

He saw the giant ape-man swing himself nimbly up theface of the great rock. Werper, clawing fearfullyduring the perilous ascent, sweating in terror, almostpalsied by fear, but spurred on by avarice, followingupward, until at last he stood upon the summit of therocky hill.

Tarzan was nowhere in sight. For a time Werper hidbehind one of the lesser boulders that were scatteredover the top of the hill, but, seeing or hearingnothing of the Englishman, he crept from his place ofconcealment to undertake a systematic search of hissurroundings, in the hope that he might discover thelocation of the treasure in ample time to make hisescape before Tarzan returned, for it was the Belgian'sdesire merely to locate the gold, that, after Tarzanhad departed, he might come in safety with hisfollowers and carry away as much as he could transport.

He found the narrow cleft leading downward into theheart of the kopje along well-worn, granite steps. Headvanced quite to the dark mouth of the tunnel intowhich the runway disappeared; but here he halted,fearing to enter, lest he meet Tarzan returning.

The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along therocky passage, until he came to the ancient woodendoor. A moment later he stood within the treasurechamber, where, ages since, long-dead hands had rangedthe lofty rows of precious ingots for the rulers ofthat great continent which now lies submerged beneaththe waters of the Atlantic.

No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault.There was no evidence that another had discovered theforgotten wealth since last the ape-man had visited itshiding place.

Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps towardthe summit of the kopje. Werper, from the concealmentof a jutting, granite shoulder, watched him pass upfrom the shadows of the stairway and advance toward theedge of the hill which faced the rim of the valleywhere the Waziri awaited the signal of their master.Then Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place,dropped into the somber darkness of the entrance anddisappeared.

Tarzan, halting upon the kopje's edge, raised his voicein the thunderous roar of a lion. Twice, at regularintervals, he repeated the call, standing in attentivesilence for several minutes after the echoes of thethird call had died away. And then, from far acrossthe valley, faintly, came an answering roar--once,twice, thrice. Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heardand replied.

Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault,knowing that in a few hours his blacks would be withhim, ready to bear away another fortune in thestrangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar. In themeantime he would carry as much of the precious metalto the summit of the kopje as he could.

Six trips he made in the five hours before Basulireached the kopje, and at the end of that time he hadtransported forty-eight ingots to the edge of the greatboulder, carrying upon each trip a load which mightwell have staggered two ordinary men, yet his giantframe showed no evidence of fatigue, as he helped toraise his ebon warriors to the hill top with the ropethat had been brought for the purpose.

Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, andsix times Werper, the Belgian, had cowered in the blackshadows at the far end of the long vault. Once againcame the ape-man, and this time there came with himfifty fighting men, turning porters for love of theonly creature in the world who might command of theirfierce and haughty natures such menial service. Fifty-twomore ingots passed out of the vaults, making the totalof one hundred which Tarzan intended taking awaywith him.

As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber,Tarzan turned back for a last glimpse of the fabulouswealth upon which his two inroads had made noappreciable impression. Before he extinguished thesingle candle he had brought with him for the purpose,and the flickering light of which had cast the firstalleviating rays into the impenetrable darkness of theburied chamber, that it had known for the countlessages since it had lain forgotten of man, Tarzan's mindreverted to that first occasion upon which he hadentered the treasure vault, coming upon it by chance ashe fled from the pits beneath the temple, where he hadbeen hidden by La, the High Priestess of the SunWorshipers.

He recalled the scene within the temple when he hadlain stretched upon the sacrificial altar, while La,with high-raised dagger, stood above him, and the rowsof priests and priestesses awaited, in the ecstatichysteria of fanaticism, the first gush of theirvictim's warm blood, that they might fill their goldengoblets and drink to the glory of their Flaming God.

The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the madpriest, passed vividly before the ape-man'srecollective eyes, the flight of the votaries beforethe insane blood lust of the hideous creature, thebrutal attack upon La, and his own part of the grimtragedy when he had battled with the infuriated Oparianand left him dead at the feet of the priestess he wouldhave profaned.

This and much more passed through Tarzan's memory ashe stood gazing at the long tiers of dull-yellow metal.He wondered if La still ruled the temples of the ruinedcity whose crumbling walls rose upon the veryfoundations about him. Had she finally been forcedinto a union with one of her grotesque priests?It seemed a hideous fate, indeed, for one so beautiful.With a shake of his head, Tarzan stepped to theflickering candle, extinguished its feeble rays andturned toward the exit.

Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone. He hadlearned the secret for which he had come, and now hecould return at his leisure to his waiting followers,bring them to the treasure vault and carry away all thegold that they could stagger under.

The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel,and were winding upward toward the fresh air and thewelcome starlight of the kopje's summit, before Tarzanshook off the detaining hand of reverie and startedslowly after them.

Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, heclosed the massive door of the treasure room. In thedarkness behind him Werper rose and stretched hiscramped muscles. He stretched forth a hand andlovingly caressed a golden ingot on the nearest tier.He raised it from its immemorial resting place andweighed it in his hands. He clutched it to his bosomin an ecstasy of avarice.

Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay beforehim, of dear arms about his neck, and a soft cheekpressed to his; but there rose to dispel that dream thememory of the old witch-doctor and his warning.

And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopesof both these men were shattered. The one forgot evenhis greed in the panic of terror--the other was plungedinto total forgetfulness of the past by a jaggedfragment of rock which gashed a deep cut upon his head.