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The very night that Tarzan of the Apes became chief ofthe Waziri the woman he loved lay dying in a tiny boattwo hundred miles west of him upon the Atlantic.As he danced among his naked fellow savages, the firelightgleaming against his great, rolling muscles, thepersonification of physical perfection and strength,the woman who loved him lay thin and emaciated in thelast coma that precedes death by thirst and starvation.

The week following the induction of Tarzan into the kingshipof the Waziri was occupied in escorting the Manyuema ofthe Arab raiders to the northern boundary of Waziri inaccordance with the promise which Tarzan had made them.Before he left them he exacted a pledge from them that theywould not lead any expeditions against the Waziri in thefuture, nor was it a difficult promise to obtain. They had hadsufficient experience with the fighting tactics of the newWaziri chief not to have the slightest desire to accompanyanother predatory force within the boundaries of his domain.

Almost immediately upon his return to the village Tarzancommenced making preparations for leading an expeditionin search of the ruined city of gold which old Waziri haddescribed to him. He selected fifty of the sturdiestwarriors of his tribe, choosing only men who seemed anxiousto accompany him on the arduous march, and share the dangersof a new and hostile country.

The fabulous wealth of the fabled city had been almostconstantly in his mind since Waziri had recounted thestrange adventures of the former expedition which hadstumbled upon the vast ruins by chance. The lure ofadventure may have been quite as powerful a factor in urgingTarzan of the Apes to undertake the journey as the lure ofgold, but the lure of gold was there, too, for he had learnedamong civilized men something of the miracles that maybe wrought by the possessor of the magic yellow metal. Whathe would do with a golden fortune in the heart of savageAfrica it had not occurred to him to consider--it would beenough to possess the power to work wonders, even though henever had an opportunity to employ it.

So one glorious tropical morning Waziri, chief of the Waziri,set out at the head of fifty clean-limbed ebon warriorsin quest of adventure and of riches. They followed the coursewhich old Waziri had described to Tarzan. For days theymarched--up one river, across a low divide; down anotherriver; up a third, until at the end of the twenty-fifth daythey camped upon a mountainside, from the summit ofwhich they hoped to catch their first view of the marvelouscity of treasure.

Early the next morning they were climbing the almostperpendicular crags which formed the last, but greatest,natural barrier between them and their destination.It was nearly noon before Tarzan, who headed the thinline of climbing warriors, scrambled over the top ofthe last cliff and stood upon the little flat table-landof the mountaintop.

On either hand towered mighty peaks thousands of feethigher than the pass through which they were entering theforbidden valley. Behind him stretched the wooded valleyacross which they had marched for many days, and at theopposite side the low range which marked the boundary oftheir own country.

But before him was the view that centered his attention.Here lay a desolate valley--a shallow, narrow valley dottedwith stunted trees and covered with many great bowlders. And on the far side of the valley lay what appeared to bea mighty city, its great walls, its lofty spires, its turrets,minarets, and domes showing red and yellow in the sunlight.Tarzan was yet too far away to note the marks of ruin--tohim it appeared a wonderful city of magnificent beauty,and in imagination he peopled its broad avenues and its hugetemples with a throng of happy, active people.

For an hour the little expedition rested upon the mountain-top, and then Tarzan led them down into the valley below.There was no trail, but the way was less arduous than theascent of the opposite face of the mountain had been.Once in the valley their progress was rapid, so that itwas still light when they halted before the towering wallsof the ancient city.

The outer wall was fifty feet in height where it had notfallen into ruin, but nowhere as far as they could see hadmore than ten or twenty feet of the upper courses fallen away.It was still a formidable defense. On several occasionsTarzan had thought that he discerned things moving behindthe ruined portions of the wall near to them, as thoughcreatures were watching them from behind the bulwarks ofthe ancient pile. And often he felt the sensation of unseeneyes upon him, but not once could he be sure that it was morethan imagination.

That night they camped outside the city. Once, at midnight,they were awakened by a shrill scream from beyond the great wall.It was very high at first, descending gradually until itended in a series of dismal moans. It had a strange effectupon the blacks, almost paralyzing them with terror whileit lasted, and it was an hour before the camp settleddown to sleep once more. In the morning the effects of itwere still visible in the fearful, sidelong glances that theWaziri continually cast at the massive and forbidding structurewhich loomed above them.

It required considerable encouragement and urging onTarzan's part to prevent the blacks from abandoning theventure on the spot and hastening back across the valleytoward the cliffs they had scaled the day before. But at length,by dint of commands, and threats that he would enter thecity alone, they agreed to accompany him.

For fifteen minutes they marched along the face of thewall before they discovered a means of ingress. Then theycame to a narrow cleft about twenty inches wide. Within, aflight of concrete steps, worn hollow by centuries of use,rose before them, to disappear at a sharp turning of thepassage a few yards ahead.

Into this narrow alley Tarzan made his way, turning hisgiant shoulders sideways that they might enter at all.Behind him trailed his black warriors. At the turn in thecleft the stairs ended, and the path was level; but it woundand twisted in a serpentine fashion, until suddenly at a sharpangle it debouched upon a narrow court, across whichloomed an inner wall equally as high as the outer. This innerwall was set with little round towers alternating along itsentire summit with pointed monoliths. In places these hadfallen, and the wall was ruined, but it was in a much betterstate of preservation than the outer wall.

Another narrow passage led through this wall, and at itsend Tarzan and his warriors found themselves in a broad avenue,on the opposite side of which crumbling edifices of hewn graniteloomed dark and forbidding. Upon the crumbling debris along theface of the buildings trees had grown, and vines wound in andout of the hollow, staring windows; but the building directlyopposite them seemed less overgrown than the others, and ina much better state of preservation. It was a massive pile,surmounted by an enormous dome. At either side of its greatentrance stood rows of tall pillars, each capped by a huge,grotesque bird carved from the solid rock of the monoliths.

As the ape-man and his companions stood gazing in varyingdegrees of wonderment at this ancient city in the midstof savage Africa, several of them became aware ofmovement within the structure at which they were looking.Dim, shadowy shapes appeared to be moving about in thesemi-darkness of the interior. There was nothing tangiblethat the eye could grasp--only an uncanny suggestion of lifewhere it seemed that there should be no life, for livingthings seemed out of place in this weird, dead city of thelong-dead past.

Tarzan recalled something that he had read in the library atParis of a lost race of white men that native legend describedas living in the heart of Africa. He wondered if he were notlooking upon the ruins of the civilization that this strangepeople had wrought amid the savage surroundings of theirstrange and savage home. Could it be possible that even nowa remnant of that lost race inhabited the ruined grandeur thathad once been their progenitor? Again he became consciousof a stealthy movement within the great temple before him."Come!" he said, to his Waziri. "Let us have a look at whatlies behind those ruined walls."

His men were loath to follow him, but when they saw thathe was bravely entering the frowning portal they trailed a fewpaces behind in a huddled group that seemed the personificationof nervous terror. A single shriek such as they hadheard the night before would have been sufficient to havesent them all racing madly for the narrow cleft that ledthrough the great walls to the outer world.

As Tarzan entered the building he was distinctly aware ofmany eyes upon him. There was a rustling in the shadowsof a near-by corridor, and he could have sworn that hesaw a human hand withdrawn from an embrasure thatopened above him into the domelike rotunda in which hefound himself.

The floor of the chamber was of concrete, the walls ofsmooth granite, upon which strange figures of men and beastswere carved. In places tablets of yellow metal had been setin the solid masonry of the walls.

When he approached closer to one of these tablets he sawthat it was of gold, and bore many hieroglyphics. Beyond thisfirst chamber there were others, and back of them the buildingbranched out into enormous wings. Tarzan passed throughseveral of these chambers, finding many evidences of thefabulous wealth of the original builders. In one room wereseven pillars of solid gold, and in another the floor itselfwas of the precious metal. And all the while that he explored,his blacks huddled close together at his back, andstrange shapes hovered upon either hand and before themand behind, yet never close enough that any might say thatthey were not alone.

The strain, however, was telling upon the nerves of the Waziri.They begged Tarzan to return to the sunlight. They said thatno good could come of such an expedition, for the ruins werehaunted by the spirits of the dead who had once inhabited them.

"They are watching us, O king," whispered Busuli. "They arewaiting until they have led us into the innermost recesses oftheir stronghold, and then they will fall upon us and tearus to pieces with their teeth. That is the way with spirits.My mother's uncle, who is a great witch doctor, hastold me all about it many times."

Tarzan laughed. "Run back into the sunlight, my children,"he said. "I will join you when I have searched this old ruinfrom top to bottom, and found the gold, or found that thereis none. At least we may take the tablets from the walls,though the pillars are too heavy for us to handle; but thereshould be great storerooms filled with gold--gold that wecan carry away upon our backs with ease. Run on now, outinto the fresh air where you may breathe easier."

Some of the warriors started to obey their chief with alacrity,but Busuli and several others hesitated to leave him--hesitatedbetween love and loyalty for their king, and superstitious fearof the unknown. And then, quite unexpectedly, that occurred whichdecided the question without the necessity for further discussion.Out of the silence of the ruined temple there rang, close totheir ears, the same hideous shriek they had heard the previousnight, and with horrified cries the black warriors turned andfled through the empty halls of the age-old edifice.

Behind them stood Tarzan of the Apes where they had lefthim, a grim smile upon his lips--waiting for the enemy hefully expected was about to pounce upon him. But againsilence reigned, except for the faint suggestion of the soundof naked feet moving stealthily in near-by places.

Then Tarzan wheeled and passed on into the depths of the temple.From room to room he went, until he came to one at whicha rude, barred door still stood, and as he put his shoulderagainst it to push it in, again the shriek of warningrang out almost beside him. It was evident that he wasbeing warned to refrain from desecrating this particular room.Or could it be that within lay the secret to the treasure stores?

At any rate, the very fact that the strange, invisibleguardians of this weird place had some reason for wishing himnot to enter this particular chamber was sufficient to trebleTarzan's desire to do so, and though the shrieking was repeatedcontinuously, he kept his shoulder to the door until it gavebefore his giant strength to swing open upon creaking wooden hinges.

Within all was black as the tomb. There was no windowto let in the faintest ray of light, and as the corridor uponwhich it opened was itself in semi-darkness, even the open doorshed no relieving rays within. Feeling before him upon the floorwith the butt of his spear, Tarzan entered the Stygian gloom.Suddenly the door behind him closed, and at the same timehands clutched him from every direction out of the darkness.

The ape-man fought with all the savage fury of self-preservation backed by the herculean strength that was his.But though he felt his blows land, and his teeth sink into softflesh, there seemed always two new hands to take the placeof those that he fought off. At last they dragged him down,and slowly, very slowly, they overcame him by the mereweight of their numbers. And then they bound him--hishands behind his back and his feet trussed up to meet them.He had heard no sound except the heavy breathing of hisantagonists, and the noise of the battle. He knew not whatmanner of creatures had captured him, but that they werehuman seemed evident from the fact that they had bound him.

Presently they lifted him from the floor, and half dragging,half pushing him, they brought him out of the blackchamber through another doorway into an inner courtyardof the temple. Here he saw his captors. There must havebeen a hundred of them--short, stocky men, with great beardsthat covered their faces and fell upon their hairy breasts.

The thick, matted hair upon their heads grew low overtheir receding brows, and hung about their shoulders andtheir backs. Their crooked legs were short and heavy, theirarms long and muscular. About their loins they wore theskins of leopards and lions, and great necklaces of theclaws of these same animals depended upon their breasts.Massive circlets of virgin gold adorned their arms and legs.For weapons they carried heavy, knotted bludgeons, and in thebelts that confined their single garments each had a long,wicked-looking knife.

But the feature of them that made the most startlingimpression upon their prisoner was their white skins--neitherin color nor feature was there a trace of the negroid about them.Yet, with their receding foreheads, wicked little close-set eyes,and yellow fangs, they were far from prepossessing in appearance.

During the fight within the dark chamber, and whilethey had been dragging Tarzan to the inner court, no wordhad been spoken, but now several of them exchanged grunting,monosyllabic conversation in a language unfamiliar tothe ape-man, and presently they left him lying upon theconcrete floor while they trooped off on their short legs intoanother part of the temple beyond the court.

As Tarzan lay there upon his back he saw that the templeentirely surrounded the little inclosure, and that on all sidesits lofty walls rose high above him. At the top a little patchof blue sky was visible, and, in one direction, through anembrasure, he could see foliage, but whether it was beyondor within the temple he did not know.

About the court, from the ground to the top of the temple,were series of open galleries, and now and then the captivecaught glimpses of bright eyes gleaming from beneath massesof tumbling hair, peering down upon him from above.

The ape-man gently tested the strength of the bonds thatheld him, and while he could not be sure it seemed that theywere of insufficient strength to withstand the strain of hismighty muscles when the time came to make a break forfreedom; but he did not dare to put them to the crucial testuntil darkness had fallen, or he felt that no spying eyes wereupon him.

He had lain within the court for several hours beforethe first rays of sunlight penetrated the vertical shaft;almost simultaneously he heard the pattering of bare feetin the corridors about him, and a moment later saw thegalleries above fill with crafty faces as a score or moreentered the courtyard.

For a moment every eye was bent upon the noonday sun,and then in unison the people in the galleries and those inthe court below took up the refrain of a low, weird chant.Presently those about Tarzan began to dance to the cadenceof their solemn song. They circled him slowly, resembling intheir manner of dancing a number of clumsy, shuffling bears;but as yet they did not look at him, keeping their little eyesfixed upon the sun.

For ten minutes or more they kept up their monotonouschant and steps, and then suddenly, and in perfect unison,they turned toward their victim with upraised bludgeonsand emitting fearful howls, the while they contorted theirfeatures into the most diabolical expressions, they rushedupon him.

At the same instant a female figure dashed into the midstof the bloodthirsty horde, and, with a bludgeon similar totheir own, except that it was wrought from gold, beat backthe advancing men.