'No, my friend,' she said. 'I cannot take the chance of losing Jad-bal-ja; nor could you take the chance of losing your blacks, and I fear that they would not remain together in the same camp. Good-bye, Wayne Colt. But do not say that I go alone, at whose side walks Jad-bal-ja.'
From the base camp La knew the trail back to Opar; and as Colt watched her depart, he felt a lump rise in his throat, for the beautiful girl and the great lion seemed personifications of loveliness, and strength, and loneliness.
With a sigh he turned into camp and crossed to where the blacks lay sleeping through the midday heat. He awoke them, and at sight of him they were all very much excited, for they had been members of his own safari from the Coast and recognized him immediately. Having long given him up for lost, they were at first inclined to be a little bit frightened until they had convinced themselves that he was, indeed, flesh and blood.
Since the killing of Dorsky they had had no master, and they confessed to him that they had been seriously considering deserting the camp and returning to their own countries; for they had been unable to rid their minds of the weird and terrifying occurrences that the expedition had witnessed in this strange country, in which they felt very much alone and helpless without the guidance and protection of a white master. Across the plain of Opar, toward the ruined city, walked a girl and a lion; and behind them, at the summit of the escarpment which she had just scaled, a man halted, looking out across the plain, and saw them in the distance.
Behind him a hundred warriors swarmed up the rocky cliff. As they gathered about the tall, bronzed, gray- eyed figure that had preceded them, the man pointed. 'La!' he said.
'And Numa!' said Muviro. 'He is stalking her. It is strange, Bwana, that he does not charge.'
'He will not charge,' said Tarzan. 'Why, I do not know; but I know that he will not because it is Jad-bal- ja.'
'The eyes of Tarzan are like the eyes of the eagle,' said Muviro. 'Muviro sees only a woman and a lion, but Tarzan sees La and Jad-bal-ja.'
'I do not need my eyes for those two,' said the ape-man. 'I have a nose.'
'I, too, have a nose,' said Muviro, 'but it is only a piece of flesh that sticks out from my face. It is good for nothing.'
Tarzan smiled. 'As a little child you did not have to depend upon your nose for your life and your food,' he said, 'as I have always done, then and since. Come, my children, La and Jad-bal-ja will be glad to see us.'
It was the keen ears of Jad-bal-ja that caught the first faint warning noises from the rear. He halted and turned, his great head raised majestically, his ears forward, the skin of his nose wrinkling to stimulate his sense of smell. Then he voiced a low growl, and La stopped and turned back to discover the cause of his displeasure.
As her eyes noted the approaching column, her heart sank. Even Jad-bal-ja could not protect her against so many. She thought then to attempt to outdistance them to the city; but when she glanced again at the ruined walls at the far side of the valley she knew that that plan was quite hopeless, as she would not have the strength to maintain a fast pace for so great a distance, while among those black warriors there must be many trained runners who could easily outdistance her. And so, resigned to her fate, she stood and waited; while Jad-bal-ja, with flattened head and twitching tail, advanced slowly to meet the oncoming men; and as he advanced, his savage growls rose to the tumult of tremendous roars that shook the earth as he sought to frighten away this menace to his loved mistress.
But the men came on; and then, of a sudden, La saw that one who came in advance of the others was lighter in color, and her heart leaped in her breast; and then she recognized him, and tears came to the eyes of the savage high priestess of Opar.
'It is Tarzan! Jad-bal-ja, it is Tarzan!' she cried, the fight of her great love illuminating her beautiful features.
Perhaps at the same instant the lion recognized his master, for the roaring ceased, the eyes no longer glared, no longer was the great head flattened as he trotted forward to meet the ape-man. Like a great dog, he reared up before Tarzan. With a scream of terror little Nkima leaped from the ape-man's shoulder and scampered, screaming, back to Muviro, since bred in the fiber of Nkima was the knowledge that Numa was always Numa. With his great paws on Tarzan's shoulder Jad-bal-ja licked the bronzed cheek, and then Tarzan pushed him aside and walked rapidly toward La; while Nkima, his terror gone, jumped frantically up and down on Muviro's shoulder calling the lion many jungle names for having frightened him.
'At last!' exclaimed Tarzan, as he stood face to face with La.
'At last,' repeated the girl, 'you have come back from your hunt.'
'I came back immediately,' replied the man, 'but you had gone.'
'You came back?' she asked.
'Yes, La,' he replied. 'I travelled far before I made a kill, but at last I found meat and brought it to you, and you were gone and the rain had obliterated your spoor and though I searched for days I could not find you.'
'Had I thought that you intended to return,' she said, 'I should have remained there forever.'
'You should have known that I would not have left you thus,' replied Tarzan.
'La is sorry,' she said.
'And you have not been back to Opar since?' he asked.
'Jad-bal-ja and I are on our way to Opar now,' she said. 'I was lost for a long time. Only recently did I find the trail to Opar, and then, too, there was the white man who was lost and sick with fever. I remained with him until the fever left him and his strength came back, because I thought that he might be a friend of Tarzan's.'
'What was his name?' asked the ape-man.
'Wayne Colt,' she replied.
The ape-man smiled. 'Did he appreciate what you did for him?' he asked.
'Yes, he wanted to come to Opar with me and help me regain my throne.'
'You liked him then, La?' he asked.
'I liked him very much,' she said, 'but not in the same way that I like Tarzan.'
He touched her shoulder in a half caress. 'La, the immutable!' he murmured, and then, with a sudden toss of his head as though he would clear his mind of sad thoughts, he turned once more toward Opar. 'Come,' he said, 'the Queen is returning to her throne.'
The unseen eyes of Opar watched the advancing column. They recognized La, and Tarzan, and the Waziri, and some there were who guessed the identity of Jad-bal-ja; and Oah was frightened, and Dooth trembled, and little Nao, who hated Oah, was almost happy, as happy as one may be who carries a broken heart in one's bosom.
Oah had ruled with a tyrant hand, and Dooth had been a weak fool, whom no one longer trusted; and there were whisperings now among the ruins, whisperings that would have frightened Oah and Dooth had they heard them, and the whisperings spread among the priestesses and the warrior priests, with the result that when Tarzan and Jad-bal-ja led the Waziri into the courtyard of the outer temple there was no one there to resist them; but instead voices called down to them from the dark arches of surrounding corridors pleading for mercy and voicing earnest assurance of their future loyalty to La.
As they made their way into the city, they heard far in the interior of the temple a sudden burst of noise. High voices were punctuated by loud screams, and then came silence; and when they came to the throne room the cause of it was apparent to them, for lying in a welter of blood were the bodies of Oah and Dooth, with those of a half dozen priests and priestesses who had remained loyal to them; and, but for these, the great throne room was empty.
Once again did La, the high priestess of the Flaming God, resume her throne as Queen of Opar.
That night Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, ate again from the golden platters of Opar, while young girls, soon to become priestesses of the Flaming God, served meats and fruits, and wines so old that no living man knew their vintage, nor in what forgotten vineyard grew the grapes that went into their making.
But in such things Tarzan found little interest, and he was glad when the new day found him at the head of his Waziri crossing the plain of Opar toward the barrier cliffs. Upon his bronzed shoulder sat Nkima, and at the ape-man's side paced the golden lion, while in column behind him marched his hundred Waziri warriors.
It was a tired and disheartened company of whites that approached their base camp after a long, monotonous and uneventful journey. Zveri and Ivitch were in the lead, followed by Zora Drinov, while a considerable distance to the rear Romero and Mori walked side by side, and such had been the order in which they had marched all these long days.
