Tarzan. Complete Collection

"Well, I'll bet he wanted you killed for some reason," said Dick, "because he didn't do a thing about coming back and he must have heard the lion roar when he sprang for you, and he must have heard your scream."

"What we ought to do is to get out of here right away," said Doc. "We can do our talking later—when we're in a safe place."

"Come on, then," said Dick, and slowly the three made their way through the trees, the two boys helping and supporting the girl.

It was very slow work in the dark, but because of the lion they did not dare come to the ground, and because of their proximity to the camp of the sun worshippers they dared not remain until morning. They knew that if they could get even a short distance away they might be safe and so they crept slowly through the night until, finally, the first ray of dawn tinged the eastern sky.

When the daylight finally came the boys saw the girl scrutinizing them very closely and she seemed pleased with the result of her examination of them. They had stopped again to rest as they had frequently during the night; this time in a great old patriarch of a bower in the jungle, festooned with moss and hung with great creepers.

It was here that full daylight came upon them and the girl looked into the faces of the boys and smiled with gladness.

"I am happy," she said. "I thought that I should never be happy again. You ca

"Well," said Doc, "we are glad that you are happy, though I am afraid you will have to stretch your imagination a lot if you intend to keep on thinking you're happy."

"Why?" asked the girl.

"Because, in the first place, you may get awfully hungry with us, and, in the second place, there is no telling how long we shall be obliged to roam around the jungle."

"Why may we have to stay in the jungle a long time?" she asked.

"Because we are lost," admitted Doc.

Gretchen laughed aloud then.

"What makes you laugh?" asked Dick.

"Oh, because it struck me as being very amusing that my rescuers are now in need of help, being lost themselves," she replied.

"Well, it isn't our fault," said Dick, "and if you would rather go back with those other men—"

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "You know I wouldn't want to do that. I did not mean to make fun of you, but it is fu

"Well, I guess it is," admitted Doc ruefully, "but, after all, being lost isn't the worst of it."

"Why, is there something you haven't told me?" she asked.

"No," Doc assured her. "We told you all right. It is the question of food."

"Do not let that worry you," said the girl. "I have lived in the jungle nearly all my life. My father is a missionary and a great lover of nature. He taught me ever so many things about the flora of the jungle. I know what is safe to eat and what is not safe, so we shall not have to worry a great deal about food. We shall get enough to keep us alive at least, even if it is not fit for a king."

"Do you see anything around here that we could eat?" demanded Dick. "We are both about starved to death."

"Yes, there are fruits and vegetables and eggs within fifty feet of us; at least I see birds' nests."

Following Gretchen's directions the boys brought the fruits and roots that she indicated and from several nests they gathered enough eggs to make out a fairly satisfactory breakfast.

CHAPTER NINE—THE AMBUSH

As the new day broke, Gulm and the lesser priests finished their meager breakfast and set forth again upon the march to the new temple site that Blk had discovered and toward which he had been guiding them.

With the passing of the hours since the disappearance of Kla, Gulm had had time to consider Ulp's story more carefully and he found that with sober reflection, certain vague suspicions insisted upon obtruding themselves upon his thoughts. Perhaps this may partially have been due to his dislike of Ulp as well as to the fact that the occurrence had upset all his plans for perpetuation in a new location the age-old rituals and ceremonials of his cult, which depended primarily upon the existence of a ruling high priestess whose word would be law to the lesser priests—and a white priestess would awe them.

In emulation of Cadj, the dead high priest, who had ruled Opar through La, he had proposed ruling the new city that he was about to found through the new La.

The Flaming God or, perhaps, and this he was more inclined to believe, a lying Ulp had set all his plans at naught. The more he gave thought to the matter the less probable it seemed that The Flaming God would appear in person to a lesser priest rather than to Gulm himself, and so it was a surly, suspicious Gulm that led his followers upon the trail set by Blk.

The Tarzan twins, tired though they were, did not dare to stop for a long rest until they had put more distance between themselves and the sun worshippers and so, their hunger satisfied, they set out again in the direction toward which, they believed, lay the open veldt and the home of Tarzan.

Gretchen, though very tired, fought bravely to keep pace with the boys that she might not prove a burden to them, but it was necessary for one of both of them to steady and help her through the trees with the result that their progress was slow—so slow that both Dick and Doc soon realized that if the sun worshippers were pursuing them, their chances for escape were hopeless.

"Gee," said Doc, "this old jungle must be as large as the whole state of New York. It seems to me as though we ought to be coming to the end of it pretty soon."

"Are you sure you are going in the right direction?" asked Gretchen.

Doc shook his head.

"That is just the trouble," he admitted. "We think we are going in the right direction, but we do not know for sure."

"You see," explained Dick, "we came into the jungle with Tarzan and neither of us paid any attention to direction. Then Tarzan went away and that terrible storm came and the first thing we knew we were all turned around and were not very sure of any directions, except up and down."

"And then," said Doc, "I am pretty sure that when we are going through the trees it is impossible for us to go in a straight line, and as more than half of the time we never see the sun, even when it is shining, there is nothing to guide us."

"You could probably get out all right if it were not for me," said Gretchen.

"Don't say that," said Dick, gallantly. "On the contrary, we might starve to death before we found the way out if it were not for you."

"I am glad that I can be of some help," said Gretchen, "but I know what boys think of girls—I have two brothers."

"Well," said Doc, candidly, "I never did think a girl was much good for anything like this, but I sure have changed my mind now. Why, you are just like a boy the way you climb and everything."

"And you know so much about the jungle, too," said Dick. "I am awfully glad we found you."

"You are not half as glad as I am," said Gretchen. "It makes me frightened all over every time I think of Gulm and the others and the terrible things they talked of and the horrible plans they were making against the time that their new temple could be built."