Chapter Nineteen
Lord Tarzan
THERE was a nasty smile upon Tollog's lips as he thought how neatly he had foiled Ateja, who would have warned the Nasrany of the plot to slay him, and he thanked Allah that chance had placed him in a position to intercept her before she had been able to ruin them all. Even as Tollog, the brother of the sheik, smiled in his beard a hand reached out of the darkness behind him and seized him by the throat—fingers grasped him and he was dragged away.
Into the beyt that had been Zeyd's and which had been set up for the Nasrany, Tollog was dragged. He struggled and tried to scream for help, but he was powerless in the grip of steel that held him and choked him.
Inside the beyt a voice whispered in his ear. 'Cry out, Tollog,' it said, 'and I shall have to kill you.' Then the grasp upon his throat relaxed, but Tollog did not call for help, for he had recognized the voice that spoke and he knew that it had made no idle threat.
He lay still while the bonds were drawn tight about his wrists and ankles and a gag fastened securely in his mouth, he felt the folds of his burnous drawn across his face and then—silence.
He heard Stimbol creep into the beyt, but he thought that it as still he who had bound him. And thus died Tollog, the brother of Ibn Jad, died as he had planned that Tarzan of the Apes should die.
And, knowing that he would die thus, there was a smile upon the lips of the ape-man as he swung through the forest toward the southeast.
Tarzan's quest was not for Beduins but for Blake. Having ensured himself that the white man in the menzil of Ibn Jad w as Stimbol and that none knew the whereabouts of the other American, he was hastening back to the locality where Blake's boy had told him their bwana had disappeared, in the hope of picking up his trail and, if unable to assist him, at least to learn what fate had overtaken him.
Tarzan moved swiftly and his uncanny senses of sight and smell aided him greatly in wresting its secrets from the jungle, yet it was three days before he found the spot where Ara the lightning had struck down Blake's gun bearer.
Here he discovered Blake's faint spoor leading toward the north. Tarzan shook his head, for he knew that there was a stretch of uninhabited forest laying between this place and the first Galla villages. Also he knew that if Blake survived hunger and the menace of wild beasts he might only live to fall victim to a Galla spear.
For two days Tarzan followed a spoor that no other human eye might have discerned. On the afternoon of the second day he came upon a great stone cross built directly in the center of an ancient trail. Tarzan saw the cross from the concealment of bushes for he moved as beasts of prey moved, taking advantage of every cover, suspicious of every strange object, always ready for flight or battle as occasion might demand.
So it was that he did not walk blindly into the clutches of the two men-at-arms that guarded the outer way to the City of Nimmr . To his keen ears was borne the sound of their voices long before he saw them.
Even as Sheeta or Numa approach their prey, so Tarzan of the Apes crept through the brush until he lay within a few yards of the men-at-arms. To his vast astonishment he heard them conversing in a quaint form of English that, while understandable to him, seemed yet a foreign tongue. He marvelled at their antiquated costumes and obsolete weapons, and in them he saw an explanation of Blake's disappearance and a suggestion of his fate.
For a time Tarzan lay watching the two with steady, unblinking eyes—it might have been Numa himself, weighing the chances of a sudden charge. He saw that each was armed with a sturdy pike and a sword. They could speak English, after a fashion, therefore, he argued, they might be able to give him word of Blake. But would they receive him in a friendly spirit or would they attempt to set upon and slay him?
He determined that he could never ascertain what their attitude would be by lying hidden among the brush, and so he gathered himself, as Numa does when he is about to spring.
The two blacks were idly gossiping, their minds as far from thoughts of danger as it were possible they could be, when suddenly without warning Tarzan launched himself full upon the back of the nearer, hurling him to the ground. Before the other could gather his wits the ape-man had dragged his victim into the concealment of the bush from which he had sprung, while the fellow's companion turned and fled in the direction of the tunnel.
The man in Tarzan's grasp fought and struggled to be free but the ape-man held him as easily as he might have held a child.
'Lie still,' he advised, 'I shall not harm you.'
'Ods blud!' cried the black. 'What manner of creature be thou?'
'One who will not harm you if you will tell him the truth,' replied Tarzan.
'What wouldst thou know?' demanded the black.
'A white man came this way many weeks ago. Where is he?'
'Thou speakest of Sir James?' asked the soldier.
'Sir James!' mused Tarzan and then he recollected that Blake's first name was James. 'His name was James,' he replied, 'James Blake.'
'Verily, 'tis the same,' said the soldier.
'You have seen him? Where is he now?'
'He be defending the honor of Our Lord Jesus and the Knights of Nimmr in the Great Tourney in the lists upon the plain below the city, and have ye come to wreak despite upon our good Sir James thou wilt find many doughty knights and men-at-arms who will take up the gage in his behalf.'
'I am his friend,' said Tarzan.
'Then why didst thou leap upon me thus, if thou art a friend to Sir James?' demanded the man.
'I did not know how you had received him or how you would receive me.'
'A friend of Sir James will be received well in Nimmr,' said the man.
Tarzan took the man's sword from him and permitted him to rise—his pike he had dropped before being dragged among the bushes.
'Go before me and lead me to your master,' commanded the ape-man, 'and remember that your life will be the forfeit that you must pay for treachery.'
'Do not make me leave the road unguarded against the Saracens,' begged the man. 'Soon my companion will return with others and then I shall beg them to take thee where thou wilt.'
'Very well,' agreed the ape-man. They had not waited long before he heard the sound of hastening footsteps and a strange jingling and clanking that might have been caused by the shaking of many chains and the striking against them of objects of metal.
Shortly afterward he was surprised to see a white man clothed in chain mail and carrying a sword and buckler descending the trail at a trot, a dozen pike-men at his back.
'Tell them to halt!' commanded Tarzan, placing the point of the man's sword in the small of his back. 'Tell them I would talk with them before they approach too closely.'
'Stop, I pray thee!' cried the fellow. 'This be a friend of Sir James, but he wilt run me through with my own sword and ye press him too close. Parley with him, most noble sir knight, for I wouldst live at least to know the result of the Great Tourney.'
The knight halted a few paces from Tarzan and looked him up and down from feet to head. 'Thou art truly a friend to Sir James?' he demanded.
Tarzan nodded. 'I have been seeking him for days.'
'And some mishap befell thee and thou lost thy apparel.'
The ape-man smiled. 'I go thus, in the jungle,' he said.
'Art thou a sir knight and from the same country as Sir James?'
'I am an Englishman,' replied Tarzan of the Apes.
'An Englishman! Thrice welcome then to Nimmr! I be Sir Bertram and a good friend to Sir James.'
'And I am called Tarzan,' said the ape-man.
'And thy rank?' inquired Sir Bertram.
Tarzan was mystified by the strange manners and garb of his seemingly friendly inquisitor, but he sensed that whatever the man might be he took himself quite seriously and would be more impressed if he knew that Tarzan
