Werper was astounded. Could this creature be the samedignified Englishman who had entertained him sograciously in his luxurious African home? Could thiswild beast, with blazing eyes, and bloody countenance,be at the same time a man? Could the horrid, victorycry he had but just heard have been formed in humanthroat?

Tarzan was eyeing the man and the woman, a puzzledexpression in his eyes, but there was no faintest tingeof recognition. It was as though he had discoveredsome new species of living creature and was marvelingat his find.

La was studying the ape-man's features. Slowly herlarge eyes opened very wide.

"Tarzan!" she exclaimed, and then, in the vernacular ofthe great apes which constant association with theanthropoids had rendered the common language of theOparians: "You have come back to me! La has ignored themandates of her religion, waiting, always waiting forTarzan--for her Tarzan. She has taken no mate, for inall the world there was but one with whom La wouldmate. And now you have come back! Tell me, O Tarzan,that it is for me you have returned."

Werper listened to the unintelligible jargon.He looked from La to Tarzan. Would the latter understandthis strange tongue? To the Belgian's surprise, theEnglishman answered in a language evidently identicalto hers.

"Tarzan," he repeated, musingly. "Tarzan. The namesounds familiar."

"It is your name--you are Tarzan," cried La.

"I am Tarzan?" The ape-man shrugged. "Well, it is agood name--I know no other, so I will keep it; but I donot know you. I did not come hither for you. Why Icame, I do not know at all; neither do I know fromwhence I came. Can you tell me?"

La shook her head. "I never knew," she replied.

Tarzan turned toward Werper and put the same questionto 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 thathe made the change, Tarzan repeated his question inFrench. Werper suddenly came to a full realization ofthe magnitude of the injury of which Tarzan was avictim. The man had lost his memory--no longer couldhe recollect past events. The Belgian was upon thepoint of enlightening him, when it suddenly occurred tohim that by keeping Tarzan in ignorance, for a time atleast, of his true identity, it might be possible toturn the ape-man's misfortune to his own advantage.

"I cannot tell you from whence you came," he said;"but this I can tell you--if we do not get out of thishorrible place we shall both be slain upon this bloodyaltar. The woman was about to plunge her knife into myheart when the lion interrupted the fiendish ritual. Come!Before they recover from their fright and reassemble,let us find a way out of their damnable temple."

Tarzan turned again toward La.

"Why," he asked, "would you have killed this man?Are you hungry?"

The High Priestess cried out in disgust.

"Did he attempt to kill you?" continued Tarzan.

The woman shook her head.

"Then why should you have wished to kill him?" Tarzanwas determined to get to the bottom of the thing.

La raised her slender arm and pointed toward the sun.

"We were offering up his soul as a gift to the FlamingGod," she said.

Tarzan looked puzzled. He was again an ape, and apesdo not understand such matters as souls and FlamingGods.

"Do you wish to die?" he asked Werper.

The Belgian assured him, with tears in his eyes, thathe did not wish to die.

"Very well then, you shall not," said Tarzan. "Come!We will go. This SHE would kill you and keep mefor herself. It is no place anyway for a Mangani.I should soon die, shut up behind these stone walls."

He turned toward La. "We are going now," he said.

The woman rushed forward and seized the ape-man's handsin hers.

"Do not leave me!" she cried. "Stay, and you shall beHigh Priest. La loves you. All Opar shall be yours.Slaves shall wait upon you. Stay, Tarzan of the Apes,and let love reward you."

The ape-man pushed the kneeling woman aside. "Tarzandoes not desire you," he said, simply, and stepping toWerper's side he cut the Belgian's bonds and motionedhim to follow.

Panting--her face convulsed with rage, La sprang to herfeet.

"Stay, you shall!" she screamed. "La will have you--ifshe cannot have you alive, she will have you dead," andraising her face to the sun she gave voice to the samehideous shriek that Werper had heard once before andTarzan many times.

In answer to her cry a babel of voices broke from thesurrounding chambers and corridors.

"Come, Guardian Priests!" she cried. "The infidelshave profaned the holiest of the holies. Come! Striketerror to their hearts; defend La and her altar; washclean the temple with the blood of the polluters."

Tarzan understood, though Werper did not. The formerglanced at the Belgian and saw that he was unarmed.Stepping quickly to La's side the ape-man seized her inhis strong arms and though she fought with all the madsavagery of a demon, he soon disarmed her, handing herlong, sacrificial knife to Werper.

"You will need this," he said, and then from eachdoorway a horde of the monstrous, little men of Oparstreamed into the temple.

They were armed with bludgeons and knives, andfortified in their courage by fanatical hate andfrenzy. Werper was terrified. Tarzan stood eyeing thefoe in proud disdain. Slowly he advanced toward theexit he had chosen to utilize in making his way fromthe temple. A burly priest barred his way. Behind thefirst was a score of others. Tarzan swung his heavyspear, clublike, down upon the skull of the priest.The fellow collapsed, his head crushed.

Again and again the weapon fell as Tarzan made his wayslowly toward the doorway. Werper pressed closebehind, casting backward glances toward the shrieking,dancing mob menacing their rear. He held thesacrificial knife ready to strike whoever might comewithin its reach; but none came. For a time hewondered that they should so bravely battle with thegiant ape-man, yet hesitate to rush upon him, who wasrelatively so weak. Had they done so he knew that hemust have fallen at the first charge. Tarzan hadreached the doorway over the corpses of all that hadstood to dispute his way, before Werper guessed at thereason for his immunity. The priests feared thesacrificial knife! Willingly would they face death andwelcome it if it came while they defended their HighPriestess and her altar; but evidently there weredeaths, and deaths. Some strange superstition mustsurround that polished blade, that no Oparian cared tochance a death thrust from it, yet gladly rushed to theslaughter of the ape-man's flaying spear.

Once outside the temple court, Werper communicated hisdiscovery to Tarzan. The ape-man grinned, and letWerper go before him, brandishing the jeweled and holyweapon. Like leaves before a gale, the Opariansscattered in all directions and Tarzan and the Belgianfound a clear passage through the corridors andchambers of the ancient temple.

The Belgian's eyes went wide as they passed through theroom of the seven pillars of solid gold. With ill-concealedavarice he looked upon the age-old, golden tabletsset in the walls of nearly every room and downthe sides of many of the corridors. To the ape-man allthis wealth appeared to mean nothing.

On the two went, chance leading them toward the broadavenue which lay between the stately piles of thehalf-ruined edifices and the inner wall of the city.Great apes jabbered at them and menaced them; but Tarzananswered them after their own kind, giving back tauntfor taunt, insult for insult, challenge for challenge.

Werper saw a hairy bull swing down from a broken columnand advance, stiff-legged and bristling, toward thenaked giant. The yellow fangs were bared, angry snarlsand barkings rumbled threateningly through the thickand hanging lips.

The Belgian watched his companion. To his horror, hesaw the man stoop until his closed knuckles rested uponthe ground as did those of the anthropoid. He saw himcircle, stiff-legged about the circling ape. He heardthe same bestial barkings and growlings issue from thehuman throat that were coming from the mouth of thebrute. Had his eyes been closed he could not haveknown but that two giant apes were bridling for combat.

But there was no battle. It ended as the majority ofsuch jungle encounters end--one of the boasters loseshis nerve, and becomes suddenly interested in a blowingleaf, a beetle, or the lice upon his hairy stomach.

In this instance it was the anthropoid that retired instiff dignity to inspect an unhappy caterpillar, whichhe presently devoured. For a moment Tarzan seemedinclined to pursue the argument. He swaggeredtruculently, stuck out his chest, roared and advancedcloser to the bull. It was with difficulty that Werperfinally persuaded him to leave well enough alone andcontinue his way from the ancient city of the SunWorshipers.

The two searched for nearly an hour before they foundthe narrow exit through the inner wall. From there thewell-worn trail led them beyond the outer fortificationto the desolate valley of Opar.

Tarzan had no idea, in so far as Werper could discover,as to where he was or whence he came. He wanderedaimlessly about, searching for food, which hediscovered beneath small rocks, or hiding in the shadeof the scant brush which dotted the ground.

The Belgian was horrified by the hideous menu of hiscompanion. Beetles, rodents and caterpillars weredevoured with seeming relish. Tarzan was indeed an apeagain.

At last Werper succeeded in leading his companiontoward the distant hills which mark the northwesternboundary of the valley, and together the two set out inthe direction of the Greystoke bungalow.

What purpose prompted the Belgian in leading the victimof his treachery and greed back toward his former homeit is difficult to guess, unless it was that withoutTarzan there could be no ransom for Tarzan's wife.

That night they camped in the valley beyond the hills,and as they sat before a little fire where cooked awild pig that had fallen to one of Tarzan's arrows, thelatter sat lost in speculation. He seemed continuallyto be trying to grasp some mental image which asconstantly eluded him.

At last he opened the leathern pouch which hung at hisside. From it he poured into the palm of his hand aquantity of glittering gems. The firelight playingupon them conjured a multitude of scintillating rays,and as the wide eyes of the Belgian looked on in raptfascination, the man's expression at last acknowledgeda tangible purpose in courting the society of the ape-man.