'Well, forget it for a while,' counseled the ape-man. 'We'll eat presently; then you'll feel better.'
'You killed that buck?' demanded Wood.
Tarzan looked surprised. 'Why, yes.'
'You must have killed it with an arrow. That would take an ordinary man hours-stalk an antelope and get close enough to kill it with an arrow.'
'I didn't use an arrow,' replied the ape-man.
'Then how did you kill him?'
'I killed him with my knife-less danger of losing an arrow.'
'And you brought him back through the trees on your shoulder! Say, that bird Tarzan has nothing on you. How did you ever come to live this way, Clayton? How did you learn to do these things?'
'That is a long story,' said Tarzan. 'Our business now is to grill some of this meat and get on our way.'
After they had eaten, Tarzan told the other to carry some of the meat in his pockets. 'You may need food before I can make another kill,' he said. 'We'll leave the rest for Dango and Ungo.'
'Dango and Ungo? Who are they?'
'The hyena and the jackal.'
'What language is that? I never heard them called that before, and I am a little bit familiar with a number of native dialects.'
'No natives speak that language,' replied the ape-man. 'It is not spoken by men.'
'Who does speak it, then?' demanded Wood; but he got no reply, and he did not insist. There was something mysterious about him, and that in his mien and his manner of speech that discouraged inquisitiveness. Wood wondered if the man were not a little mad. He had heard of white men going primitive, living solitary lives like wild animals; and they were always a little bit demented. Yet his companion seemed sane enough. No, it was not that; yet undeniably the man was different from other men. He reminded Wood of a lion. Yes, that was it-he was the personification of the strength and majesty and the ferocity of the lion. It was controlled ferocity; but it was there-Wood felt it. And that, perhaps, was why he was a little afraid of him.
He followed in silence behind the bronzed white savage back up the valley of the Neubari, and as they drew closer to the country of the Kaji he felt the power of Mafka increasing, drawing him back into the coils of intrigue and sorcery that made life hideous in the land of the women who would be white. He wondered if Clayton felt it too.
They came at length to the junction of the Mafa and the Neubari. It was here, where the smaller stream emptied into the larger, that the trail to the Kaji country followed up the gorge of the Mafa. It was here that they would have to turn up the Mafa.
Tarzan was a few yards in advance of Wood. The latter watched him intently as he came to the well-marked forking of the trail to the right leading to the crossing of the Neubari and up the Mafa. Here, regardless of his previous intentions, he would have to turn toward Kaji. The power of Mafka would bend his will to that of the malign magician; but Tarzan did not turn-he continued upon his way, unperturbed, up the Neubari.
Could it be that Mafka was ignorant of their coming? Wood felt a sudden sense of elation. If one of them could pass, they could both pass. There was an excellent chance that they might elude Mafka entirely. If he could only get by-if he could get away somewhere and organize a large expedition, he might return and rescue Van Eyk, Spike, and Troll.
But could he get by? He thought of the invisible presence that seemed to have him under constant surveillance. Had that been only the fruit of an overwrought imagination, as Clayton had suggested?
He came then to the forking of the trails. He focused all his power of will upon his determination to follow Clayton up the Neubari-and his feet turned to the right toward the crossing that led up the Mafa.
He called to Clayton, a note of hopelessness in his voice. 'It's no go, old man,' he said. 'I've got to go up the Mafa-Mafka's got me. You go on-if you can.'
Tarzan turned back. 'You really want to go with me?' he asked.
'Of course, but I can't. I tried to pass this damnable trail, but I couldn't. My feet just followed it.'
'Mafka makes strong medicine,' said the ape-man, 'but I think we can beat him.'
'No,' said Wood, 'you can't beat him. No one can.'
'We'll see,' said Tarzan, and lifting Wood from the ground he threw him across a broad shoulder and turned back to the Neubari trail.
'You don't feel it?' demanded Wood. 'You don't feel any urge to go up the Mafa?'
'Only a strong curiosity to see these people-especially Mafka,' replied the ape-man.
'You'd never see him-no one does. They're afraid someone will kill him, and so is he. He's pretty well guarded all the time. If one of us could have killed him, most of the Kaji's power would be gone. We'd all have had a chance to escape. There are about fifty white prisoners there. Some of them have been there a long time. We could have fought our way out, if it hadn't been for Mafka; and some of us would have come through alive.'
But Tarzan did not yield to his curiosity. He moved on toward the North with an easy grace that belied the weight of the burden across his shoulder. He went in silence, his mind occupied by the strange story that the American had told him. How much of it he might believe, he did not know; but he was inclined to credit the American with believing it, thus admitting his own belief in the mysterious force that enslaved the other mentally as well as physically; for the man seemed straightforward and honest, impressing Tarzan with his dependability.
There was one phase of the story that seemed to lack any confirmation-the vaunted fighting ability of the Amazonian Kaji. Wood admitted that he had never seen them fight and that they captured their prisoners by the wiles of Mafka's malign power. How, then, did he know that they were such redoubtable warriors? He put the question to the American.
Whom did they fight?
'There is another tribe farther to the East,' explained Wood, 'across the divide beyond the headwaters of the Mafa. They are called Zuli. Once the Kaji and the Zuli were one tribe with two medicine-men, or witch-doctors, or whatever you might call them. One was Mafka, the other was a chap called Woora.
'Jealousy arose between the two, causing a schism. Members of the tribe took sides, and there was a battle. During the fracas, Woora swiped one of the holy fetishes and beat it, telling some of his followers where he was going and to join him when the fight was over. You see, like the people who cause civilized wars, he was not taking part in it personally.
'Well, it seems that this other fetish that he lifts is the complement of the great diamond, the Gonfal, of the Kaji. United, their power is supreme; but separated, that of each is greatly reduced. So the Kaji and the Zuli are often battling, each seeking to obtain possession of the fetish of the other.
'It was the stories of the raids and skirmishes and battles for these prizes, as told me by Gonfala and others of the Kaji, that gave me the hunch that these ladies are pretty mean warriors. Some of the yarns I've heard were sure tall; but the scars of old wounds on most of them sort of bear them out, as do the grisly trophies that hang from the outer walls of Gonfala's palace-the shriveled heads of women, suspended by their long hair.
'An interesting feature of the story is the description of the fetish of the Zuli-a green stone as large as the Gonfal and as brilliant. It glistens like an emerald; but, holy cats! Think of an emerald weighing six thousand carats! That would be something worth battling for, and they don't know the value of it.'
'Do you?' asked Tarzan
'Well, no, not exactly-perhaps twenty million dollars at a rough guess.'
'What would that mean to you-luxuries and power? The Kaji probably know little of luxuries; but, from what you have told me, power is everything to them; and they believe that this other fetish would give them unlimited power, just as you think that twenty million dollars would give you happiness.
'Probably you are both wrong; but the fact remains that they know quite as well the value of it as you, and at least it does less harm here than it would out in the world among men who would steal the pennies from the eyes of the dead!'
Wood smiled. This was the longest speech that his strange companion had vouchsafed. It suggested a philosophy of life that might make an uninhabited wilderness preferable to contacts of civilization in the eyes of this man.
For an hour Tarzan carried the American; then he lowered him to his feet. 'Perhaps you can go it on your own now,' he said.
'I'll try. Come on!'
