came for the diamonds?'
'I knew nothing of the map. How could we have had a map of this valley which, until we came, was absolutely unknown to white men?'
'You had a map.'
'But who could have made it?'
'I made it.'
'You! How could we have a map that you made? Have you returned to England since you first came here?'
'No—but I made that map.'
'You came here because you hated men and to escape them. It is not reasonable that you should have made a map to invite men here, and if you did make it how did it get to America or to England or wherever it was that these—my people got it?' demanded Tarzan.
'I will tell you. I loved a girl. She was not interested in a poor scientist with no financial future ahead of him. She wanted wealth and luxuries. She wanted a rich husband.
'When I came to this valley and found the diamonds I thought of her. I cannot say that I still loved her, but I wanted her. I should have liked to be revenged upon her for the suffering that she had caused me. I thought what a fine revenge it would be to get her here and keep her here as long as she lived. I would give her wealth—more wealth than any other creature in the world possessed; but she would be unable to buy anything with it.' He chuckled as he recalled his plan.
'So I made the map, and I wrote her a letter. I told her what to do, where to land, and how to form her safari. Then I waited. I have been waiting for seventy-four years, but she has never come.
'I had gone to considerable effort to get the letter to her. It had been necessary for me to go a long way from the valley to find a friendly tribe of natives and employ one of them as a runner to take my letter to the coast. I never knew whether or not the letter reached the coast. The runner might have been killed. Many things might have happened. I often wondered what became of the map. Now it has come back to me—after seventy-four years.' Again he chuckled. 'And brought another girl—a very much prettier girl. Mine would be—let's see—ninety- four years old, a toothless old hag.' He sighed. 'But now I suppose that I shall not have either of them.'
There was a sound at the outer door. Tarzan sprang to Ms feet. The door opened, and an old gorilla started to enter. At sight of the ape-man he bared his fangs and paused.
'It is all right, Father Tobin,' said the gorilla god. 'Come in and close the door.'
'My Lord!' exclaimed the old gorilla as he closed the door behind him and threw himself upon his knees. 'We thought that you had perished in the flames. Praises be to heaven that you have been spared to us.'
'Blessing be upon you, my son,' replied the gorilla god. 'And now tell me what has happened in the city.'
'The castle is destroyed.'
'Yes, I knew that; but what of the king? Does he think me dead?'
'All think so; and, may curses descend upon him, Henry is pleased. They say that he will proclaim himself God.'
'Do you know aught of the fate of the girl Wolsey rescued from Henry's clutches and brought to my castle? Did she die in the fire?' asked the gorilla god.
'She escaped, My Lord. I saw her.'
'Where is she?' demanded Tarzan.
'The king's men recaptured her and took her to the palace.'
'That will be the end of her,' announced the gorilla god,
'for if Henry insists on marrying her, as he certainly will, Catherine of Aragon will tear her to pieces.'
'We must get her away from him at once,' said Tarzan.
The gorilla god shrugged. 'I doubt if that can be done.'
'You have said that some one did it before—Wolsey I think you called him.'
'But Wolsey had a strong incentive.'
'No stronger than the one you have,' said the ape-man quietly, but he jerked a little on the rope about God's neck and fingered the hilt of his hunting knife.
'But how can I do it?' demanded the gorilla god. 'Henry has many soldiers. The people think that I am dead, and now they will be more afraid of the king than ever.'
'You have many faithful followers, haven't you?' inquired Tarzan.
'Yes.'
'Then send this priest out to gather them. Tell them to meet outside this cave with whatever weapons they can obtain.'
The priest was looking in astonishment from his god to the stranger who spoke to him with so little reverence and who held an end of the rope tied about the god's neck. With horror, he had even seen the creature jerk the rope.
'Go, Father Tobin,' said the gorilla god, 'and gather the faithful.'
'And see that there is no treachery,' snapped Tarzan. 'I have your god's promise to help me save that girl. You see this rope about his neck? You see this knife at my side?'
The priest nodded.
'If you both do not do all within your power to help me your god dies.' There was no mistaking the sincerity of that statement.
'Go, Father Tobin,' said the gorilla god.
'And hurry,' added Tarzan.
'I go, My Lord,' cried the priest; 'but I hate to leave you in the clutches of this creature.'
'He will be safe enough if you do your part,' Tarzan assured him.
The priest knelt again, crossed himself, and departed. As the door closed after him, Tarzan turned to his companion. 'How is it,' he asked, 'that you have been able to transmit the power to speak and perhaps to reason to these brutes, yet they have not taken on any of the outward physical attributes of man?'
'That is due to no fault of mine,' replied the gorilla god, 'but rather to an instinct of the beasts themselves more powerful than their newly acquired reasoning faculties. Transmitting human germ cells from generation to generation, as they now do, it is not strange that there are often born to them children with the physical attributes of human beings. But in spite of all that I can do these sports have invariably been destroyed at birth.
'In the few cases where they have been spared they have developed into monsters that seem neither beast nor human—manlike creatures with all the worst qualities of man and beast. Some of these have either been driven out of the city or have escaped, and there is known to be a tribe of them living in caves on the far side of the valley.
'I know of two instances where the mutants were absolutely perfect in human form and figure but possessed the minds of gorillas; the majority, however, have the appearance of grotesque hybrids.
'Of these two, one was a very beautiful girl when last I saw her but with the temper of a savage lioness; the other was a young man with the carriage and the countenance of an aristocrat and the sweet amiability of a Jack the Ripper.
'And now, young man,' continued the gorilla god, 'when my followers have gathered here, what do you purpose doing?'
'Led by us,' replied Tarzan, 'they will storm the palace of the king and take the girl from him.'
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Death at Dawn
Rhonda terry awoke with a start. She heard shouting and growls and screams and roars that sounded very close indeed. She saw the shes of Henry's harem moving about restlessly. Some of them uttered low growls like nervous, half frightened beasts; but it was not these sounds that had awakened her—they came through the unglazed windows of the apartment, loud, menacing.
