Tarzan. Complete Collection

He had been moving very cautiously, keeping just out of sight of the rear-most member of Gulm's party, but now he moved forward more rapidly, risking detection that he might get closer to his quarry. There was nothing like trying!

Doc was becoming very proficient in the use of his bow and he moved through the trees now with so much greater ease than he did when he first attempted it that it was not difficult for him to fit an arrow as he moved through the branches of a particularly large tree that gave him excellent foothold. Below him, and but a few yards distant, walked the priest that brought up the rear of the procession. Doc halted and bent his bow.

The priest screamed and lunged forward upon his face, and in the same instant Doc sprang quickly back behind the foliage of the tree and moved swiftly off into the jungle for a hundred yards.

Gulm and the lesser priests turned back as the scream of their fellow startled them into a realization of their own danger.

They looked in horror at the arrow protruding between the shoulders of the fallen man.

"It is the other, the one who escaped," said Gulm angrily.

He turned to Ulp.

"The Flaming God came in the night, did he, and took Kla from us, did he?" he shouted. "You lied to me, Ulp, and you shall die for it."

"I did not lie, Gulm," said Ulp, sullenly. "I told you the truth. The Flaming God came and spoke to me and I have told you what He said. That He was pleased with us is proven by the fact that He not only gave us back our high priestess, but offered us two sacrifices in addition. Is it His fault that we captured but one of them? Is it my fault? If you had captured them both, Gulm, this would not have happened. The Flaming God is punishing us, not for what I did, but for what you did not to."

"Very well," said Gulm, "you shall walk behind the rest of us so that you may capture the other sacrifice, if he returns," and with a sudden growl, Gulm resumed the march.

CHAPTER ELEVEN—STRIKING FROM THE REAR

Ulp did not like the idea of marching in the rear with his back continually exposed to the arrows of an unseen foe. He turned hes head about so often to look behind him that his neck pained him, and then he turned around and walked backward for awhile until the others got so far away from him that he became frightened and turned and ran rapidly to overtake them.

Meanwhile through the trees behind him came an American boy and now there were only eighteen enemies ahead of him and there were sixteen arrows in his quiver, for he had descended to the trail after the sun worshippers had moved on and wrenched the arrow from the body of his second victim.

It was grim and terrible work for Doc, who never in all his life had really wanted to kill anyone, nor did he wish to now. It was only stern necessity, induced by the danger that threatened Dick and Gretchen, that impelled him to undertake the grizzly work that he hated with all his heart and soul.

The forest was less dense now as the party advanced, and the undergrowth less thick. The trail led constantly into higher ground, and presently Dick and Gretchen saw hills looming before them.

Blk led them into the mouth of a ravine, which rose steeply upward into the hills. The great trees of the jungle disappeared and, in places, the undergrowth gave way entirely to rock formations that supported no vegetation.

Doc, coming to the edge of the jungle, surveyed the landscape ahead.

In a glance he saw that the trees were too scattered to offer him a continuous trail above the ground, and there were many places where the underbrush was so scant as to afford no sufficient shelter for him. But to the left of the ravine, a gently sloping hogback, strewn with great boulders, seemed to offer him the best chance of concealment and the easiest trail from which he might keep the quarry in view.

Ulp had caught up with his fellows and followed close behind them, as Doc clambered upward among the rocks to the summit of the hogback. Here he found a well marked game trail along which he could move with ease and, presently, he looked down into the ravine upon the little party.

Here was another opportunity. Again his bow twanged and as he dropped behind the concealing shelter of a great boulder, Ulp voiced a horrid shriek and crumpled to the ground.

Gulm was furious, not because Ulp had died, but partially because he had been robbed of an intended sacrifice for The Flaming God and partially because he realized the menace to all of them of this unseen foe, who clung so tenaciously to the rear from where he might pick them off one by one at his leisure—while they were helpless.

"It is the anger of The Flaming God!" he cried. "How much further to the temple site, Blk?"

"We are almost there," replied the guide.

"It is well," growled Gulm. "We must offer a sacrifice to appease the wrath of The Flaming God," and his eyes rested upon Dick.

Gretchen heard and understood. She turned imploringly to her companion.

"Oh, Dick!" she cried, her voice almost a sob. "You must escape at once. There is no time to spare. If ever we reach the temple site, you will be lost."

An arrow, speeding silently, buried itself in Gulm's leg, eliciting a cry of pain and anger. He wrenched the missile from his flesh, his eyes searching the direction from which it had come.

Then, quite unexpectedly, for a moment he glimpsed Doc upon the summit of the ridge, and then the lad stood up, clearly revealed to all of them.

"Don't give up hope, Dick," he shouted, "but look for me tonight. I will try to find a way to get you and Gretchen after dark. Be ready."

"It will be too late then, Doc," cried Gretchen. "If Dick is not saved in the next few minutes, he never will be."

"I will do the best I can," said Doc. Without saying more, Doc immediately fitted another arrow to his bow. He drove it swiftly in the direction of the Oparians and another priest collapsed, clutching at his pierced throat.

In a voice that sounded like the growling of a beast, Gulm issued orders to six of his followers, spurring them to action.

"Don't let that boy get the best of us! Go after him," he cried. "Bring him back to me alive if you can, but bring him back—dead or alive."

Doc was fitting another arrow when he saw the six start swiftly up the steep ravine side. They were close together and offered an excellent target, but suddenly an inspiration seized him. All about him were boulders of different shapes and sizes and in them he saw potential engines of destruction that might be used to accomplish his purpose while conserving his few remaining arrows.

Getting behind a fair sized, rounded boulder, he heaved against it with his shoulder until it gave, and then he guided it over the edge of the ridge directly above the six Oparians, who were ascending to capture or kill him. He did not wait for the boulder to strike them, but immediately seized smaller stones and hurled them down at his foe.

The priests attempted to scramble from the path of the descending boulder, but it had gained such momentum and was falling so rapidly that it was upon them before they could elude it. It struck one of them full in the breast, toppling him backward, crushing him, and then continued to bound down to the bottom of the ravine while the body of its victim, rolling and tumbling, leaped grotesquely in its wake.

"Good boy, Doc!" shouted Dick. "Give them another like that."

The five remaining priests hesitated, warding off the smaller stones that Doc hurled down upon them with their cudgels and their forearms.