'Enough!' snapped Abu Batn. 'Come, my children, let us be gone.'
As the flames licked at the edges of the great pile of provisions and equipment that the Aarabs were forced to leave behind, the deserters started upon their march toward the West.
The girls marched near the head of the column, the feet of the Aarabs and the carriers behind them totally obliterating their spoor from the motley record of the trail. They might have found some comfort in their straits had they been able to converse with one another; but La could understand no one and Zora found no pleasure in speaking to the Aarabs, while Wamala and the other blacks were so far toward the rear of the column that she could not have communicated with them had she cared to.
To pass the time away, Zora conceived the idea of teaching her companion in misery some European language, and because in the original party there had been more who were familiar with English than any other tongue, she selected that language for her experiment.
She began by pointing to herself and saying 'woman' and then to La and repeating the same word, after which she pointed to several of the Arabs in succession and said 'man' in each instance. It was evident that La understood her purpose immediately, for she entered into the spirit of it with eagerness and alacrity, repeating the two words again and again, each time indicating either a man or a woman.
Next the European girl again pointed to herself and said 'Zora.' For a moment La was perplexed, and then she smiled and nodded.
'Zora,' she said, pointing to her companion, and then, swiftly, she touched her own breast with a slender forefinger and said, 'La.'
And this was the beginning. Each hour La learned new words, all nouns at first, that described each familiar object that appeared oftenest to their view. She learned with remarkable celerity, evidencing an alert and intelligent mind and a retentive memory, for once she learned a word she never forgot it. Her pronunciation was not always perfect, for she had a decidedly foreign accent that was like nothing Zora Drinov ever had heard before, and so altogether captivating that the teacher never tired of hearing her pupil recite.
As the march progressed, Zora realized that there was little likelihood that they would be mistreated by their captors, it being evident to her that the sheykh was impressed with the belief that the better the condition in which they could be presented to their prospective purchaser the more handsome the return that Abu Batn might hope to receive.
Their route lay to the northwest through a section of the Galla country of Abyssinia, and from scraps of conversation Zora overhead she learned that Abu Batn and his followers were apprehensive of danger during this portion of the journey. And well they may have been, since for ages the Arabs have conducted raids in Galla territory for the purpose of capturing slaves, and among the Negroes with them was a Galla slave that Abu Batn had brought with him from his desert home.
After the first day the prisoners had been allowed the freedom of their hands, but always Aarab guards surrounded them, though there seemed little likelihood that an unarmed girl would take the risk of escaping into the jungle, where she would be surrounded by the dangers of wild beasts or almost certain starvation. However, could Abu Batn have read their thoughts, he might have been astonished to learn that in the mind of each was a determination to escape to any fate rather than to march docilely on to an end that the European girl was fully conscious of and which La of Opar unquestionably surmised in part.
La's education was progressing nicely by the time the party approached the border of the Galla country, but in the meantime both girls had become aware of a new menace threatening La of Opar. Ibn Dammuk marched often beside her, and in his eyes, when he looked at her, was a message that needed no words to convey. But when Abu Batn was near, Ibn Dammuk ignored the fair prisoner, and this caused Zora the most apprehension, for it convinced her that the wily Ibn was but biding his time until he might find conditions favorable to the carrying out of some scheme that he already had decided upon, nor did Zora harbor any doubts as to the general purpose of his plan.
At the edge of the Galla country they were halted by a river in flood. They could not go north into Abyssinia proper, and they dared not go south, where they might naturally have expected pursuit to follow. So perforce they were compelled to wait where they were.
And while they waited Ibn Dammuk struck.
Chapter 9: In the Death Cell of Opar
0NCE again Peter Zveri stood before the walls of Opar, and once again the courage of his black soldiers was dissipated by the weird cries of the inmates of the city of mystery. The ten warriors, who had not been to Opar before and who had volunteered to enter the city, halted trembling as the first of the blood-curdling screams rose, shrill and piercing, from the forbidding ruins.
Miguel Romero once more led the invaders, and directly behind him was Wayne Colt. According to the plan the blacks were to have followed closely behind these two, with the rest of the whites bringing up the rear, where they might rally and encourage the Negroes, or if necessary, force them on at the points of their pistols. But the blacks would not even enter the opening of the outer wall, so demoralized were they by the uncanny warning screams which their superstitious minds attributed to malignant demons, against which there could be no defense and whose animosity meant almost certain death for those who disregarded their wishes.
'In with you, you dirty cowards!' cried Zveri, menacing the blacks with his revolver in an effort to force them into he opening.
One of the warriors raised his rifle threateningly. 'Put way your weapon, white man,' he said. 'We will fight men, but we will not fight the spirits of the dead.'
'Lay off, Peter,' said Dorsky. 'You will have the whole bunch on us in a minute and we shall all be killed.'
Zveri lowered his pistol and commenced to plead with the warriors, promising them rewards that amounted to riches to them if they would accompany the whites into the city; but the volunteers were obdurate-nothing could induce them to venture into Opar.
Seeing failure once again imminent and with a mind already obsessed by the belief that the treasures of Opar would make him fabulously wealthy and insure the success of his secret scheme of empire, Zveri determined to follow Romero and Colt with the remainder of his aides, which consisted only of Dorsky, Ivitch and the Filipino boy. 'Come on,' he said, 'we will have to make a try at it alone, if these yellow dogs won't help us.'
By the time the four men had passed through the outer wall, Romero and Colt were already out of sight beyond the inner wall. Once again the warning scream broke menacingly upon the brooding silence of the ruined city.
'God!' ejaculated Ivitch. 'What do you suppose it could be?'
'Shut up,' exclaimed Zveri irritably. 'Stop thinking about it, or you'll go yellow like those damn blacks.'
Slowly they crossed the court toward the inner wall, nor was there much enthusiasm manifest among them other than for an evident desire in the breast of each to permit one of the others the glory of leading the advance. Tony had reached the opening when a bedlam of noise from the opposite side of the wall burst upon their ears-a hideous chorus of war cries, mingled with the sound of rushing feet. There was a shot, and then another and another.
Tony turned to see if his companions were following him. They had halted and were standing with blanched faces, listening.
Then Ivitch turned. 'To hell with the gold!' he said, and started back toward the outer wall at a run.
'Come back, you lousy cur,' cried Zveri, and took after him with Dorsky at his heels. Tony hesitated for a moment and then scurried in pursuit, nor did any of them halt until they were beyond the outer wall. There Zveri overtook Ivitch and seized him by the shoulder. 'I ought to kill you,' he cried in a trembling voice.
'You were as glad to get out of there as I was,' growled Ivitch. 'What was the sense of going in there? We should only have been killed like Colt and Romero. There were too many of them. Didn't you hear them?'
'I think Ivitch is right,' said Dorsky. 'It's all right to be brave, but we have got to remember the cause-if we are killed everything is lost.'
'But the gold!' exclaimed Zveri. 'Think of the gold!'
