Bolgani shall be my slaves. Go and tell your fellows that, and that if they would live at all they had best come soon and sue for mercy. Go!'
When the messenger had again departed, Tarzan looked at the old man, who was eyeing him with an expression which might have denoted either awe or reverence, were it not for the vaguest hint of a twinkle in the corners of the eyes. The ape-man breathed a deep sigh of relief. 'That will give us at least another half hour,' he said.
'We shall need it, and more, too,' replied the old man, 'though, at that, you have accomplished more than I had thought possible, for at least you have put a doubt in the minds of the Bolgani, who never before have had cause to question their own power.'
Presently from the outer corridors the sounds of argument and discussion gave place to that of movement among the Bolgani. A company, comprising some fifty of the gorilla-men, took post directly outside the main entrance of the throne room where they stood in silence, their weapons ready, as though for the purpose of disputing any effort upon the part of the inmates of the room to escape. Beyond them the balance of the gorilla-men could be seen moving away and disappearing through doorways and corridors leading from the main hallway of the palace. The Gomangani, together with La and the old man, watched impatiently for the coming of the black reinforcements, while Tarzan sat upon the edge of the dais half-reclining, with an arm about the neck of Jad-bal- ja.
'They are up to something,' said the old man. 'We must watch carefully against a surprise. If the blacks would but come now, while the doorway is held by only fifty, we should overcome them easily, and have, I do verily believe, some slight chance of escaping from the palace grounds.'
'Your long residence here,' said Tarzan, 'has filled you with the same senseless fear of the Bolgani that the Gomangani hold. From the attitude of mind which you hold toward them one would think them some manner of supermen— they are only beasts, my friend, and if we remain loyal to our cause we shall overcome them.'
'Beasts they may be,' replied the old man, 'but they are beasts with the brains of men—their cunning and their cruelty are diabolical.'
A long silence ensued, broken only by the nervous whisperings of the Gomangani, whose morale, it was evident, was slowly disintegrating under the nervous strain of the enforced wait, and the failure of their fellows of the forest to come quickly to their aid. To this was added the demoralizing effect of speculation upon what the Bolgani were planning or what plan they already were putting into effect. The very silence of the gorilla-men was more terrible than the din of actual assault. La was the first of the whites to break the silence.
'If thirty of the Gomangani could leave the palace so easily, why might not we leave also?' she asked.
'There were two reasons,' replied Tarzan. 'One was that should we have left simultaneously the Bolgani, greatly outnumbering us as they did, could have harassed us and detained us for a sufficient length of time to have permitted their messengers to reach the villagers ahead of us, with the result that in a short time we should have been surrounded by thousands of hostile warriors. The second reason is that I desire to punish the creatures, so that in future a stranger may be safe in the Valley of the Palace of Diamonds .' He paused. 'And now I shall give you a third reason why we may not seek to escape at this moment.' He pointed toward the windows overlooking the terrace. 'Look,' he said, 'the terrace and the gardens are filled with Bolgani. Whatever their plan I think its success depends upon our attempt to escape from this room through the windows, for, unless I am mistaken, the Bolgani upon the terrace and in the gardens are making an attempt to hide themselves from us.'
The old man walked to a part of the room from which he could see the greater part of the terrace and gardens upon which the windows of the throne room looked.
'You are right,' he said when he returned to the ape-man's side; 'the Bolgani are all massed outside these windows with the exception of those who guard the entrance, and possibly some others at the doorways at other portions of the throne room. That, however, we must determine.' He walked quickly to the opposite side of the chamber and drew back the hangings before one of the apertures, disclosing beyond a small band of Bolgani. They stood there motionless, not making any effort to seize or harm him. To another exit, and another, he went, and beyond each discovered to the occupants of the chamber the same silent gorilla guardians. He made the circle of the room, passing over the dais behind the three thrones, and then he came back to Tarzan and La.
'It is as I suspected,' he said, 'we are entirely surrounded. Unless help comes soon we are lost.'
'But their force is divided,' Tarzan reminded him.
'Even so, it is sufficient to account for us,' replied the old man.
'Perhaps you are right,' said Tarzan, 'but at least we shall have a bully fight.'
'What is that!' exclaimed La, and simultaneously, attracted by the same noise, the inmates of the throne room raised their eyes to the ceiling above them, where they saw that traps had been lifted from a dozen openings, revealing the scowling faces of several score of gorilla-men.
'What are they up to now!' exclaimed Tarzan, and as though in answer to the query the Bolgani above began hurling bundles of burning, oil-soaked rags, tied in goat skins, into the throne room, which immediately commenced to fill it with a thick, suffocating smoke, accompanied by the stench of burning hide and hair.
CHAPTER XV
THE MAP OF BLOOD
After Esteban and Owaza had buried the gold, they returned to the spot where they had left their five boys, and proceeding with them to the river made camp for the night. Here they discussed their plans, deciding to abandon the balance of the party to reach the coast as best they might, while they returned to another section of the coast where they could recruit sufficient porters to carry out the gold.
'Instead of going way back to the coast for porters,' asked Esteban, 'why could we not just as well recruit them from the nearest village?'
'Such men would not go with us way to the coast,' replied Owaza. 'They are not porters. At best they would but carry our gold to the next village.'
'Why not that, then?' inquired the Spaniard. 'And at the next village we could employ porters to carry us on still farther, until we could employ other men to continue on with us.'
Owaza shook his head. 'It is a good plan, Bwana, but we cannot do it, because we have nothing with which to pay our porters.'
Esteban scratched his head. 'You are right,' he said, 'but it would save us that damnable trip to the coast and return.' They sat for some moments in silence, thinking. 'I have it!' at last exclaimed the Spaniard. 'Even if we had the porters now we could not go directly to the coast for fear of meeting Flora Hawkes's party—we must let them get out of Africa before we take the gold to the coast. Two months will be none too long to wait, for they are going to have a devil of a time getting to the coast at all with that bunch of mutinous porters. While we are waiting, therefore, let us take one of the ingots of gold to the nearest point at which we can dispose of it for trade goods. Then we can return and hire porters to carry it from village to village.'
'The Bwana speaks words of wisdom,' replied Owaza. 'It is not as far to the nearest trading post as it is back to the coast, and thus we shall not only save time, but also many long, hard marches.'
'In the morning, then, we shall return and unearth one of the ingots, but we must be sure that none of your men accompanies us, for no one must know until it is absolutely necessary where the gold is buried. When we return for it, of course, then others must know, too, but inasmuch as we shall be with it constantly thereafter there will be little danger of its being taken from us.'
And so upon the following morning the Spaniard and Owaza returned to the buried treasure, where they unearthed a single ingot.
Before he left the spot the Spaniard drew upon the inner surface of the leopard skin that he wore across his shoulder an accurate map of the location of the treasure, making the drawing with a sharpened stick, dipped in the blood of a small rodent he had killed for the purpose. From Owaza he obtained the native names of the river and of such landmarks as were visible from the spot at which the treasure was buried, together with as explicit directions as possible for reaching the place from the coast. This information, too, he wrote below the map, and when he had finished he felt much relieved from the fear that should aught befall Owaza he might never be able to locate the gold.
