'It is very simple,' replied Obebe. 'If some morning we find that he has escaped we will know that he is the river devil, and because we have not harmed him but have fed him well while he has been here in our village, he will befriend us and no harm will come of it. But if he does not escape we will know that he is Tarzan of the Apes, provided he dies a natural death. And so, if he does not escape, we shall keep him until he dies and then we shall know that he was, indeed, Tarzan of the Apes.'
'But suppose he does not die?' asked the witch doctor, scratching his woolly head.
'Then,' exclaimed Obebe triumphantly, 'we will know that you are right, and that he was indeed, the river devil.'
Obebe went and ordered women to take food to the Spaniard while the witch doctor stood, where Obebe had left him, in the middle of the street, still scratching his head in thought.
And thus was Esteban Miranda, possessor of the most fabulous fortune in diamonds that the world had ever known, condemned to life imprisonment in the village of Obebe , the cannibal.
While he had been lying in the hut his traitorous confederate, Owaza, from the opposite bank of the river from the spot where he and Esteban had hidden the golden ingots, saw Tarzan and his Waziri come and search for the gold and go away again, and the following morning Owaza came with fifty men whom he had recruited from a neighboring village and dug up the gold and started with it toward the coast.
That night Owaza made camp just outside a tiny village of a minor chief, who was weak in warriors. The old fellow invited Owaza into his compound, and there he fed him and gave him native beer, while the chief's people circulated among Owaza's boys plying them with innumerable questions until at last the truth leaked out and the chief knew that Owaza's porters were carrying a great store of yellow gold.
When the chief learned this for certain he was much perturbed, but finally a smile crossed his face as he talked with the half-drunken Owaza.
'You have much gold with you'' said the Old chief, and it is very heavy. It will be hard to get your boys to carry it all the way back to the coast.'
'Yes,' said Owaza, 'but I shall pay them well.'
'If they did not have to carry it so far from home you would not have to pay them so much, would you?' asked the chief.
'No,' said Owaza, 'but I cannot dispose of it this side of the coast.'
'I know where you can dispose of it within two days' march,' replied the old chief.
'Where?' demanded Owaza. 'And who here in the interior will buy it?'
'There is a white man who will give you a little piece of paper for it and you can take that paper to the coast and get the full value of your gold.'
'Who is this white man?' demanded Owaza, 'and where is he?'
'He is a friend of mine,' said the chief, 'and if you wish I will take you to him on the morrow, and you can bring with you all your gold and get the little piece of paper.'
'Good,' said Owaza, 'and then I shall not have to pay the carriers but a very small amount.'
The carriers were glad, indeed, to learn the next day that they were not to go all the way to the coast, for even the lure of payment was not sufficient to overcome their dislike to so long a journey, and their fear of being at so great a distance from home. They were very happy, therefore, as they set forth on a two days' march toward the northeast. And Owaza was happy and so was the old chief, who accompanied them himself, though why he was happy about it Owaza could not guess.
They had marched for almost two days when the chief sent one of his own men forward with a message.
'It is to my friend,' he said, 'to tell him to come and meet us and lead us to his village.' And a few hours later, as the little caravan emerged from the jungle onto a broad, grassy plain, they saw not far from them, and approaching rapidly, a large band of warriors. Owaza halted.
'Who are those?' he demanded.
'Those are the warriors of my friend,' replied the chief, 'and he is with them. See?' and he pointed toward a figure at the head of the blacks, who were approaching at a trot, their spears and white plumes gleaming in the sunshine.
'They come for war and not for peace,' said Owaza fearfully.
'That depends upon you, Owaza,' replied the chief.
'I do not understand you,' said Owaza.
'But you will in a few minutes after my friend has come.'
As the advancing warriors approached more closely Owaza saw a giant white at their head—a white whom he mistook for Esteban—the confederate he had so traitorously deserted. He turned upon the chief. 'You have betrayed me,' he cried.
'Wait,' said the old chief; 'nothing that belongs to you shall be taken from you.'
'The gold is not his,' cried Owaza. 'He stole it,' and he pointed at Tarzan who had approached and halted before him, but who ignored him entirely and turned to the chief.
'Your runner came,' he said to the old man, 'and brought your message, and Tarzan and his Waziri have come to see what they could do for their old friend.'
The chief smiled. 'Your runner came to me, O Tarzan, four days since, and two days later came this man with his carriers, bearing golden ingots toward the coast. I told him that I had a friend who would buy them, giving him a little piece of paper for them, but that, of course, only in case the gold belonged to Owaza.'
The ape-man smiled. 'You have done well, my friend,' he said. 'The gold does not belong to Owaza.'
'It does not belong to you, either,' cried Owaza. 'You are not Tarzan of the Apes. I know you. You came with the four white men and the white woman to steal the gold from Tarzan's country, and then you stole it from your own friends.'
The chief and the Waziri laughed. The ape-man smiled one of his slow smiles.
'The other was an impostor, Owaza,' he said, 'but I am Tarzan of the Apes, and I thank you for bringing my gold to me. Come,' he said. 'It is but a few more miles to my home,' and the ape-man compelled Owaza to direct his carriers to bear the golden ingots to the Greystoke bungalow. There Tarzan fed the carriers and paid them, and the next morning sent them back toward their own country, and he sent Owaza with them, but not without a gift of value, accompanied with an admonition that the black never again return to Tarzan's country.
When they had all departed, and Tarzan and Jane and Korak were standing upon the veranda of the bungalow with Jad-bal-ja lying at their feet, the ape-man threw an arm about his mate's shoulders.
'I shall have to retract what I said about the gold of Opar not being for me, for you see before you a new fortune that has come all the way from the treasure vaults of Opar without any effort on my part.'
'Now, if someone would only bring your diamonds back,' laughed Jane.
'No chance of that,' said Tarzan. 'They are unquestionably at the bottom of the Ugogo River,' and far away, upon the banks of the Ugogo, in the village of Obebe, the cannibal, Esteban Miranda lay in the filth of the hut that had been assigned to him, gloating over the fortune that he could never utilize as he entered upon a life of captivity that the stubbornness and superstition of Obebe had doomed him to undergo.
THE END
