Those above held the rope while the ape-man swarmed up it with the agility of a monkey. When he stood upon solid ground, he was faced with several spear-points. There were eight women and four men. All were white. The women were armed; the men carried a heavy net.
The women appraised him boldly. 'Who are you?' demanded one of them.
'A hunter,' replied Tarzan.
'What are you doing here?'
'I was on my way down in search of the Neubari when I fell into your pit.'
'You were going out?'
'Yes.'
'But how did you get in? There is only one entrance to the country of the Kaji, and that is guarded. How did you get past our warriors?'
Tarzan shrugged. 'Evidently I did not come in that way,' he said.
'There is no other way, I tell you,' insisted the warrior.
'But I came in another way. I entered the mountains several marches from here to hunt; that is the reason I came down from the east. I hunted in the back country, coming down from the north. The going was rough. I was looking for an easier way to the Neubari. Now that I am out of the pit, I'll go on my way.'
'Not so fast,' said the woman who had first addressed him and who had done most of the talking since. 'You are coming with us. You are a prisoner.'
'All right,' conceded the ape-man. 'Have it your own way –you are eight spears, and I am only one knife.'
Presently, Tarzan was not even a knife; for they took it away from him. They did not bind his hands behind him, evidencing their contempt for the prowess of men. Some of them marched ahead, some behind Tarzan and the four other men, as they started back toward the city that could be seen in the near distance. At any time the ape- man could have made a break for escape had he wished to, and with the chances greatly in his favor because of his great speed; but it pleased him to go to the city of the Kaji.
His captors talked incessantly among themselves. They discussed other women who were not with them, always disparagingly; they complained of the difficulties they experienced in the dressing of their hair; they compared the cut and fit and quality of the pelts that formed their loincloths; and each of them expatiated upon the merits of some exceptionally rare skin she hoped to acquire in the future.
The four men marching with Tarzan sought to engage him in conversation. One was a Swede, one a Pole, one a German, and one an Englishman. All spoke the strange tongue of the Kaji-a mixture of many tongues. Tarzan could understand them, but he had difficulty in making them understand him unless he spoke in the native tongue of the one he chanced to be talking to or spoke in French, which he had learned from d'Arnot before he acquired a knowledge of English. The Swede alone understood no French, but he spoke broken English, a language the German understood but not the Pole. Thus a general conversation was rendered difficult. He found it easier to talk to the Englishman, whose French was sketchy, in their common language.
He heard this man addressed as Troll, and recalled that Stanley Wood had told him that this was the name of one of their white hunters. The man was short and stalky, with heavy, stooped shoulders and long arms that gave him a gorillaesque appearance. He was powerfully muscled. Tarzan moved closer to him.
'You were with Wood and van Eyk?' he asked.
The man looked up at Tarzan in surprise. 'You know them?' he asked.
'I know Wood. They recaptured him?'
Troll nodded. 'You can't get away from this damned place. Mafka always drags you back, if he doesn't kill you. Wood nearly got away. A fellow-' He paused. 'Say, are you Clayton?'
'Yes.'
'Wood told me about you. I ought to have known you right away from his description of you.'
'Is he still alive?'
'Yes. Mafka hasn't killed him yet, but he's mighty sore. No one ever came so near escaping before. I guess it made the old duffer shake in his pants-only he don't wear pants. A big expedition of whites could make it hot for him-say a battalion of Tommies. God-almighty! How I'd like to see 'em come marchin' in.'
'How about the Gonfal?' inquired Tarzan. 'Couldn't he stop them, just as he does others, with the power of the great diamond?'
'No one knows, but we think not. Because if he could, why is he so scared of one of us escaping?'
'Do you think Mafka intends to kill Wood?'
'We're pretty sure of it. He's not only sore about his almost getting away, but he's sorer still because Wood has a crush on Gonfala, the Queen; and it looks like Gonfala was sort of soft on Wood. That'd be too bad, too; because she's a Negress.'
'Wood told me she was white.'
'She's whiter than you, but look at these dames here. Ain't they white? They look white, but they all got Negro blood in 'em. But don't never remind 'em of it. You remember Kipling's, 'She knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white'? Well that's it; that's the answer. They want to be white. God only knows why; nobody ever sees 'em but us; and we don't care what color they are. They could be green as far as I'm concerned. I'm married to six of 'em. They make me do all the work while they sit around an' gabble about hair and loincloths. God almighty! I hate the sight of hair an' loincloths. When they ain't doin' that they're knockin' hell out o' some dame that ain't there.
'I got an old woman back in England . I thought she was bad. I run away from her, an' look what I go into! Six of em.'
Troll kept up a running fire of conversation all the way to the city. He had more troubles than the exchange desk in a department store.
The city of Kaji was walled with blocks of limestone quarried from the cliff against which it was built. The buildings within the enclosure were of limestone also. They were of one and two stories, except the palace of Mafka , which rose against the cliff to a height of four stories.
The palace and the city gave evidence of having been long in the building, some parts of the palace and some of the buildings below it being far more weather-worn than others. There were black men and white and warrior women in the streets. A few children, all girls, played in the sunshine; milch goats were everywhere under foot. These things and many others the ape-man observed as he was conducted along the main street toward the palace of Mafka .
He heard the women discussing him and appraising him as farmers might discuss a prize bull. One of them remarked that he should bring a good price. But he moved on, apparently totally oblivious of them all.
The interior of the palace reminded him of that of Woora, except that there was more and richer stuff here. Mafka was nearer the source of supply. Here was the loot of many safaris. Tarzan wondered how Woora had obtained anything.
The four men had been dismissed within the city; only the eight women accompanied Tarzan into the palace. They had been halted at the heavily guarded entrance and had waited there while word was carried into the interior; then with a number of the guard as escort, they had been led into the palace.
Down a long corridor to another guarded doorway they proceeded; then they were ushered into a large chamber. At the far end, a figure crouched upon a throne. At sight of him, Tarzan was almost surprised into a show of emotion-it was Woora!
Beside him, on another throne-chair, sat a beautiful girl. Tarzan assumed that this must be Gonfala, the Queen. But Woora! He had seen the man killed before his own eyes. Did magic go as far as this, that it could resurrect the dead?
As he was led forward and halted before the thrones he waited for Woora to recognize him, to show the resentment he must feel because he had been thwarted and the great emerald stolen from him; but the man gave no indication that he ever had seen Tarzan before.
He listened to the report of the leader of the party that had captured the ape-man, but all the time his eyes were upon the prisoner. They seemed to be boring through him, yet there was no sign of recognition. When the report had been completed, the magician shook his head impatiently. He appeared baffled and troubled.
'Who are you?' he demanded.
'I am an Englishman. I was hunting.'
