CHAPTER XXI



AN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE


At sight of the true Tarzan, Esteban Miranda turned and fled
blindly into the jungle.

His heart was cold with terror as he rushed on in blind
fear. He had no objective in mind. He did not know in what
direction he was going. His only thought--the thought
which dominated him--was based solely upon a desire to put
as much distance as possible between himself and the
ape-man, and so he blundered on, forcing his way through
dense thickets of thorns that tore and lacerated his flesh
until, at every step he left a trail of blood behind him.

At the river's edge the thorns reached out and seized again,
as they had several times before, the precious leopard skin
to which he clung with almost the same tenacity as he clung
to life itself. But this time the thorns would not leave go
their hold, and as he struggled to tear it away from them
his eyes turned back in the direction from which he had
come. He heard the sound of a great body, moving rapidly
through the thicket toward him, and an instant later saw the
baleful glare of two gleaming, yellow-green spots of flame.
With a stifled cry of terror the Spaniard relinquished his
hold upon the leopard skin and, wheeling, dived into the
river.

As the black waters closed above his head Jad-bal-ja came to
the edge of the bank and looked down upon the widening
circles which marked the spot of his quarry's disappearance,
for Esteban, who was a strong swimmer, struck boldly for the
opposite side of the stream, keeping himself well submerged.

For a moment the golden lion scanned the surface of the
river, and then he turned and sniffed at the hide the
Spaniard had been forced to leave behind, and grasping it in
his jaws tore it from the thorns that held it and carried it
back to lay it at the feet of his master.

Forced at last to come to the surface for air the Spaniard
arose amid a mass of tangled foliage and branches.  For a
moment he thought that he was lost, so tightly held was he
by the entangling boughs, but presently he forced his way
upward, and as his head appeared above the surface of the
water amidst the foliage he discovered that he had arisen
directly beneath a fallen tree that was floating down the
center of the stream.  After considerable effort he managed
to draw himself up to the boughs and find a place astride
the great bole, and thus he floated down stream in
comparative safety.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he realized with what
comparative ease he had escaped the just vengeance of the
ape-man.  It is true that he bemoaned the loss of the hide
which carried the map to the location of the hidden gold,
but he still retained in his possession a far greater
treasure, and as he thought of it his hands gloatingly
fondled the bag of diamonds fastened to his loin cloth. Yet,
even though he possessed this great fortune in diamonds, his
avaricious mind constantly returned to the golden ingots by
the waterfall.

"Owaza will get it," he muttered to himself. "I never
trusted the black dog, and when he deserted me I knew well
enough what his plans were."

All night long Esteban Miranda floated down stream upon the
fallen tree, seeing no sign of life, until shortly after
daybreak, he passed a native village upon the shore.

It was the village of Obebe, the cannibal, and at sight of
the strange figure of the white giant floating down the
stream upon the bole of a tree, the young woman who espied
him raised a great hue and cry until the population of the
village lined the shore watching him pass.

"It is a strange god," cried one.

"It is the river devil," said the witch doctor. "He is a
friend of mine.  Now, indeed, shall we catch many fish if
for each ten that you catch you give one to me."

"It is not the river devil," rumbled the deep voice of
Obebe, the cannibal.  "You are getting old," he said to the
witch doctor, "and of late your medicine has been poor
medicine, and now you tell me that Obebe's greatest enemy is
the river devil. That is Tarzan of the Apes. Obebe knows him
well, and in truth every cannibal chief in the vicinity knew
Tarzan of the Apes well and feared and hated him, for
relentless had been the ape-man's war against them.

"It is Tarzan of the Apes," repeated Obebe, "and he is in
trouble.  Perhaps it is our chance to capture him."

He called his warriors about him, and presently half a
hundred brawny young bucks started at a jog trot down the
trail that paralleled the river. For miles they followed the
slowly moving tree which carried Esteban Miranda until at
last at a bend in the river the tree was caught in the outer
circle of a slow-moving eddy, which carried it beneath the
overhanging limbs of trees growing close to the river's
edge.

Cramped and chilled and hungry as he was, Esteban was glad
of the opportunity to desert his craft and gain the shore.
And so, laboriously, he drew himself up among the branches
of the tree that momentarily offered him a haven of retreat
from the river, and crawling to its stem lowered himself to
the ground beneath, unconscious of the fact that in the
grasses around him squatted half a hundred cannibal
warriors.

Leaning against the bole of the tree the Spaniard rested for
a moment. He felt for the diamonds and found that they were
safe.

"I am a lucky devil, after all," he said aloud and almost
simultaneously the fifty blacks arose about him and leaped
upon him. So sudden was the attack, so overwhelming the
force, that the Spaniard had no opportunity to defend
himself against them, with the result that he was down and
securely bound almost before he could realize what was
happening to him.

"Ah, Tarzan of the Apes, I have you at last," gloated Obebe,
the cannibal, but Esteban did not understand a word the man
said, and so he could make no reply. He talked to Obebe in
English, but that language the latter did not understand.
Of only one thing was Esteban certain; that he was a
prisoner and that he was being taken back toward the
interior. When they reached Obebe's village there was great
rejoicing on the part of the women and the children and the
warriors who had remained behind. But the witch doctor shook
his head and made wry faces and dire prophecies.

"You have seized the river devil," he said. "We shall catch
no more fish, and presently a great sickness will fall upon
Obebe's people and they will all die like flies."  But Obebe
only laughed at the witch doctor for, being an old man and a
great king, he had accumulated much wisdom and, with the
acquisition of wisdom man is more inclined to be skeptical
in matters of religion.

"You may laugh now, Obebe," said the witch doctor, "but
later you will not laugh. Wait and see."

"When, with my own hands, I kill Tarzan of the Apes, then
indeed shall I laugh," replied the chief, "and when I and my
warriors have eaten his heart and his flesh, then, indeed,
shall we no longer fear any of your devils."

"Wait," cried the witch doctor angrily, "and you shall see."

They took the Spaniard, securely bound, and threw him into a
filthy hut, through the doorway of which he could see the
women of the village preparing cooking fires and pots for
the feast of the coming night. A cold sweat stood out upon
the brow of Esteban Miranda as he watched these grewsome
preparations, the significance of which he could not
misinterpret, when coupled with the gestures and the glances
that were directed toward the hut where he lay, by the
inhabitants of the village.

The afternoon was almost spent and the Spaniard felt that he
could count the hours of life remaining to him upon possibly
two fingers of one hand, when there came from the direction
of the river a series of piercing screams which shattered
the quiet of the jungle, and brought the inhabitants of the
village to startled attention, and an instant later sent
them in a mad rush in the direction of the fear-laden
shrieks. But they were too late and reached the river only
just in time to see a woman dragged beneath the surface by a
huge crocodile.

"Ah, Obebe, what did I tell you?" demanded the witch doctor,
exultantly.  "Already has the devil god commenced his
revenge upon your people."

The ignorant villagers, steeped in superstition, looked
fearfully from their witch doctor to their chief.  Obebe
scowled.  "He is Tarzan of the Apes," he insisted.

"He is the river devil who has taken the shape of Tarzan of
the Apes," insisted the witch doctor.

"We shall see," replied Obebe. "If he is the river devil he
can escape our bonds.  If he is Tarzan of the Apes he
cannot. If he is the river devil he will not die a natural
death, like men die, but will live on forever.  If he is
Tarzan of the Apes some day he will die.  We will keep him,
then, and see, and that will prove whether or not he is
Tarzan of the Apes or the river devil."

"How?" asked the witch doctor.

"It is very simple," replied Obebe. "If some morning we find
that he has escaped we will know that he is the river devil,
and because we have not harmed him but have fed him well
while he has been here in our village, he will befriend us
and no harm will come of it. But if he does not escape we
will know that he is Tarzan of the Apes, provided he dies a
natural death. And so, if he does not escape, we shall keep
him until he dies and then we shall know that he was,
indeed, Tarzan of the Apes."

"But suppose he does not die?" asked the witch doctor,
scratching his woolly head.

"Then," exclaimed Obebe triumphantly, "we will know that you
are right, and that he was indeed, the river devil."

Obebe went and ordered women to take food to the Spaniard
while the witch doctor stood, where Obebe had left him, in
the middle of the street, still scratching his head in
thought.

And thus was Esteban Miranda, possessor of the most fabulous
fortune in diamonds that the world had ever known, condemned
to life imprisonment in the village of Obebe, the cannibal.


While he had been lying in the hut his traitorous
confederate, Owaza, from the opposite bank of the river from
the spot where he and Esteban had hidden the golden ingots,
saw Tarzan and his Waziri come and search for the gold and
go away again, and the following morning Owaza came with
fifty men whom he had recruited from a neighboring village
and dug up the gold and started with it toward the coast.

That night Owaza made camp just outside a tiny village of a
minor chief, who was weak in warriors. The old fellow
invited Owaza into his compound, and there he fed him and
gave him native beer, while the chief's people circulated
among Owaza's boys plying them with innumerable questions
until at last the truth leaked out and the chief knew that
Owaza's porters were carrying a great store of yellow gold.

When the chief learned this for certain he was much
perturbed, but finally a smile crossed his face as he talked
with the half-drunken Owaza.

"You have much gold with you"' said the Old chief, and it is
very heavy. It will be hard to get your boys to carry it all
the way back to the coast."

"Yes," said Owaza, "but I shall pay them well."

"If they did not have to carry it so far from home you would
not have to pay them so much, would you?" asked the chief.

"No," said Owaza, "but I cannot dispose of it this side of
the coast."

"I know where you can dispose of it within two days' march,"
replied the old chief.

"Where?" demanded Owaza. "And who here in the interior will
buy it?"

"There is a white man who will give you a little piece of
paper for it and you can take that paper to the coast and
get the full value of your gold."

"Who is this white man?" demanded Owaza, "and where is he?"

"He is a friend of mine," said the chief, "and if you wish I
will take you to him on the morrow, and you can bring with
you all your gold and get the little piece of paper."

"Good," said Owaza, "and then I shall not have to pay the
carriers but a very small amount."


The carriers were glad, indeed, to learn the next day that
they were not to go all the way to the coast, for even the
lure of payment was not sufficient to overcome their dislike
to so long a journey, and their fear of being at so great a
distance from home. They were very happy, therefore, as they
set forth on a two days' march toward the northeast. And
Owaza was happy and so was the old chief, who accompanied
them himself, though why he was happy about it Owaza could
not guess.

They had marched for almost two days when the chief sent one
of his own men forward with a message.

"It is to my friend," he said, "to tell him to come and meet
us and lead us to his village." And a few hours later, as
the little caravan emerged from the jungle onto a broad,
grassy plain, they saw not far from them, and approaching
rapidly, a large band of warriors.  Owaza halted.

"Who are those?" he demanded.

"Those are the warriors of my friend," replied the chief,
"and he is with them.  See?" and he pointed toward a figure
at the head of the blacks, who were approaching at a trot,
their spears and white plumes gleaming in the sunshine.

"They come for war and not for peace," said Owaza fearfully.

"That depends upon you, Owaza," replied the chief.

"I do not understand you," said Owaza.

"But you will in a few minutes after my friend has come."

As the advancing warriors approached more closely Owaza saw
a giant white at their head--a white whom he mistook for
Esteban--the confederate he had so traitorously deserted.
He turned upon the chief. "You have betrayed me," he cried.

"Wait," said the old chief; "nothing that belongs to you
shall be taken from you."

"The gold is not his," cried Owaza. "He stole it," and he
pointed at Tarzan who had approached and halted before him,
but who ignored him entirely and turned to the chief.

"Your runner came," he said to the old man, "and brought your
message, and Tarzan and his Waziri have come to see what
they could do for their old friend."

The chief smiled. "Your runner came to me, O Tarzan, four
days since, and two days later came this man with his
carriers, bearing golden ingots toward the coast. I told him
that I had a friend who would buy them, giving him a little
piece of paper for them, but that, of course, only in case
the gold belonged to Owaza."

The ape-man smiled. "You have done well, my friend," he
said.  "The gold does not belong to Owaza."

"It does not belong to you, either," cried Owaza.  "You are
not Tarzan of the Apes. I know you.  You came with the four
white men and the white woman to steal the gold from
Tarzan's country, and then you stole it from your own
friends."

The chief and the Waziri laughed. The ape-man smiled one of
his slow smiles.

"The other was an impostor, Owaza," he said, "but I am
Tarzan of the Apes, and I thank you for bringing my gold to
me. Come," he said. "It is but a few more miles to my home,"
and the ape-man compelled Owaza to direct his carriers to
bear the golden ingots to the Greystoke bungalow. There
Tarzan fed the carriers and paid them, and the next morning
sent them back toward their own country, and he sent Owaza
with them, but not without a gift of value, accompanied with
an admonition that the black never again return to Tarzan's
country.

When they had all departed, and Tarzan and Jane and Korak
were standing upon the veranda of the bungalow with
Jad-bal-ja lying at their feet, the ape-man threw an arm
about his mate's shoulders.

"I shall have to retract what I said about the gold of Opar
not being for me, for you see before you a new fortune that
has come all the way from the treasure vaults of Opar
without any effort on my part."

"Now, if someone would only bring your diamonds back,"
laughed Jane.

"No chance of that," said Tarzan. "They are unquestionably
at the bottom of the Ugogo River," and far away, upon the
banks of the Ugogo, in the village of Obebe, the cannibal,
Esteban Miranda lay in the filth of the hut that had been
assigned to him, gloating over the fortune that he could
never utilize as he entered upon a life of captivity that
the stubbornness and superstition of Obebe had doomed him to
undergo.



THE END