'It will not be necessary,' replied the Hindu, enigmatically. His half-closed eyes were fixed steadily upon those of the girl. For perhaps less than half a minute the two stood thus, while there crept through Zora Drinov a sense of growing weakness, a realization of approaching capitulation. She fought against it, pitting her will against that of the man. Suddenly she tore her eyes from his. She had won, but victory left her weak and trembling as might be one who had but just experienced a stubbornly contested physical encounter. Turning quickly away, she moved swiftly toward her tent, not daring to look back for fear that she might again encounter those twin pools of vicious and malignant power that were the eyes of Raghunath Jafar; and so she did not see the oily smile of satisfaction that twisted the sensuous lips of the Hindu, nor did she hear his whispered repetition-'It will not be necessary.'
As the expedition wound along the trail that leads to the foot of the barrier cliffs that hem the lower frontier of the arid plateau beyond which stand the ancient ruins that are Opar, Wayne Colt, far to the west, pushed on toward the base camp of the conspirators. To the south, a little monkey rode upon the back of a great lion, shrilling insults now with perfect impunity at every jungle creature that crossed their path; while, with equal contempt for all lesser creatures, the mighty carnivore strode haughtily down wind, secure in the knowledge of his unquestioned might. A herd of antelope, grazing in his path, caught the acrid scent of the cat and moved nervously about; but when he came within sight of them they trotted only a short distance to one side, making a path for him; and, while he was still in sight, they resumed their feeding, for Numa, the lion, had fed well and the herbivores knew, as creatures of the wild know many things that are beyond the dull sensibilities of man, and felt no fear of Numa with a full belly.
To others, yet far off, came the scent of the lion; and they, too, moved nervously, though their fear was less than bad been the first fear of the antelopes. These others were the great apes of the tribe of To-yat, whose mighty bulls had little cause to fear even Numa himself, though their shes and their balus might well tremble.
As the cat approached, the Mangani became more restless and more irritable. To-yat, the king ape, beat his breast and bared his great fighting fangs. Ga-yat, his powerful shoulders hunched, moved to the edge of the herd nearest the approaching danger. Zu-tho thumped a warning menace with his calloused feet. The shes called their balus to them, and many took to the lower branches of the larger trees or sought positions close to an arboreal avenue of escape.
It was at this moment that an almost naked white man dropped from the dense foliage of a tree and alighted in their midst. Taut nerves and short tempers snapped. Roaring and snarling, the herd rushed upon the rash and hated manthing. The king ape was in the lead.
'To-yat has a short memory,' said the man in the tongue of the Mangani.
For an instant the ape paused, surprised perhaps to hear the language of his kind issuing from the lips of a manthing. 'I am To-yat!' he growled. 'I kill.'
'I am Tarzan,' replied the man, 'mighty hunter, mighty fighter. I come in peace.'
'Kill! Kill!' roared To-yat, and the other great bulls advanced, bare-fanged, menacingly.
'Zu-tho! Ga-yat!' snapped the man, 'it is I, Tarzan of the Apes'; but the bulls were nervous and frightened now, for the scent of Numa was strong in their nostrils, and the shock of Tarzan's sudden appearance had plunged them into a panic.
'Kill! Kill!' they bellowed, though as yet they did not charge, but advanced slowly, working themselves into the necessary frenzy of rage that would terminate in a sudden, blood-mad rush that no living creature might withstand and which would leave naught but torn and bloody fragments of the object of their wrath.
And then a shrill scream broke from the lips of a great, hairy mother with a tiny balu on her back. 'Numa!' she shrieked, and, turning, fled into the safety of the foliage of a nearby tree.
Instantly the shes and balus remaining upon the ground took to the trees. The bulls turned their attention for a moment from the man to the new menace. What they saw upset what little equanimity remained to them. Advancing straight toward them, his round, yellow-green eyes blazing in ferocity, was a mighty, yellow lion; and upon his back perched a little monkey, screaming insults at them. The sight was too much for the apes of To-yat, and the king was the first to break before it. With a roar, the ferocity of which may have salved his self esteem, he leaped for the nearest tree; and instantly the others broke and fled, leaving the white giant to face the angry lion alone.
With blazing eyes the king of beasts advanced upon the man, his head lowered and flattened, his tail extended, the brush flicking. The man spoke a single word in a low tone that might have carried but a few yards. Instantly the head of the lion came up, the horrid glare died in his eyes; and at the same instant the little monkey, voicing a shrill scream of recognition and delight, leaped over Numa's head and in three prodigious bounds was upon the shoulder of the man, his little arms encircling the bronzed neck.
'Little Nkima!' whispered Tarzan, the soft cheek of the monkey pressed against his own.
The lion strode majestically forward. He sniffed the bare legs of the man, rubbed his head against his side and lay down at his feet.
'Jad-bal-ja!' greeted the ape man.
The great apes of the tribe of To-yat watched from the safety of the trees. Their panic and their anger had subsided. 'It is Tarzan,' said Zu-tho.
'Yes, it is Tarzan,' echoed Ga-yat.
To-yat grumbled. He did not like Tarzan, but he feared him; and now, with this new evidence of the power of the great Tarmangani, he feared him even more.
For a time Tarzan listened to the glib chattering of little Nkima. He learned of the strange Tarmangani and the many Gomangani warriors who had invaded the domain of the Lord of the Jungle.
The great apes moved restlessly in the trees, wishing to descend; but they feared Numa, and the great bulls were too heavy to travel in safety upon the high flung leafy trails along which the lesser apes might pass with safety, and so could not depart until Numa had gone.
'Go away!' cried To-yat, the King. 'Go away, and leave the Mangani in peace.'
'We are going,' replied the ape-man, 'but you need not fear either Tarzan or the Golden Lion. We are your friends. I have told Jad-bal-ja that he is never to harm you. You may descend.'
'We shall stay in the trees until he has gone,' said To-yat; 'he might forget.'
'You are afraid,' said Tarzan contemptuously. 'Zu-tho or Ga-yat would not be afraid.'
'Zu-tho is afraid of nothing,' boasted that great bull.
Without a word Ga-yat climbed ponderously from the tree in which he had taken refuge and, if not with marked enthusiasm, at least with slight hesitation, advanced toward Tarzan and Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion. His fellows eyed him intently, momentarily expecting to see him charged and mauled by the yellow-eyed destroyer that lay at Tarzan's feet watching every move of the shaggy bull. The Lord of the Jungle also watched great Numa, for none knew better than he, that a lion, however accustomed to obey his master, is still a lion. The years of their companionship, since Jad-bal-ja had been a little, spotted, fluffy ball, had never given him reason to doubt the loyalty of the carnivore, though there had been times when he had found it both difficult and dangerous to thwart some of the beast's more ferocious hereditary instincts.
Ga-yat approached, while little Nkima scolded and chattered from the safety of his master's shoulder; and the lion, blinking lazily, finally looked away. The danger, if there had been any, was over-it is the fixed, intent gaze of the lion that bodes ill.
Tarzan advanced and laid a friendly hand upon the shoulder of the ape. 'This is Ga-yat,' he said addressing Jad-bal-ja, 'friend of Tarzan; do not harm him.' He did not speak in any language of man. Perhaps the medium of communication that he used might not properly be called a language at all, but the lion and the great ape and the little Manu understood him.
'Tell the Mangani that Tarzan is the friend of little Nkima,' shrilled the monkey. 'He must not harm little Nkima.'
'It is as Nkima has said,' the ape-man assured Ga-yat.
'The friends of Tarzan are the friends of Ga-yat,' replied the great ape.
'It is well,' said Tarzan, 'and now I go. Tell To-yat and the others what we have said and tell them also that there are strange men in this country which is Tarzan's. Let them watch them, but do not let the men see them, for these are bad men, perhaps, who carry the thunder sticks that hurl death with smoke and fire and a great noise. Tarzan goes now to see why these men are in his country.'
Zora Drinov had avoided Jafar since the departure of the expedition to Opar. Scarcely had she left her tent,
