Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 131: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GOLDEN LION. TARZAN AND before that happens, but if I am not, divide into two parties and stand upon either side of the gateway and let the West Coast blacks escape; we do not care for them. Watch only for Lady Greystoke, and when you see her take her away from those who guard her. Do you understand?” His companions nodded. ‘‘ Then come,” he said, and selecting ten men, disappeared into the jungle. Luvini had carried Jane Clayton to a hut not far from the gateway to the village. Here he had bound her securely and tied her to a stake, still believing that she was Flora Hawkes, and then he had left her to hurry back toward the gate that he might take command of his forces in defense of _ the village. So rapidly had the events of the past hour transpired that Jane Clayton was still half dazed from the series of shocks that she had been called upon to endure. Dwarf- ing to nothingness the menace of her pres- ent position was the remembrance that her Tarzan had deserted her in her hour of need, and carried off into the jungle another woman. Not even the remembrance of what Usula had told her concerning the accident that Tarzan had sustained, and which had supposedly again affected his memory, could reconcile her to the brutality of his desertion, and now she lay, face down, in the filth of the Arab hut, sobbing as she had not for many years. As she lay there, torn by grief, Usula and his ten.crept stealthily and silently around the outside of the palisade’ to the rear of the village. Here they found great quantities of dead brush left from the clear- ing which the Arabs had made when con- structing their village. This they brought and piled along the palisade, close against it, until nearly three-quarters of the palisade upon that side of the village was banked high with it. Finding that it was difficult to prosecute their work in silence, Usula dis- patched one of his men to the main body upon the opposite side of the village, with instructions that they were to keep up a continuous din of shouting to drown the sound of the operations of their fellows. The plan worked to perfection, yet even though it permitted Usula and his com- 8A panions to labor with redoubled efforts, it was more than an hour before the brush pile was disposed to his satisfaction. Luvini, from an aperture in the palisade, watched the main: body of the Waziri who were now revealed by the rising of the moon, and finally he came to the conclu- sion that they did not intend to attack that night, and therefore he might relax his watchfulness and utilize the time in another and more agreeable manner. Instructing the bulk of his warriors to remain near the gate and ever upon the alert, with or- ders that he be summoned the moment that the Waziri showed any change in attitude, Luvini repaired to the hut in which he had left Lady Greystoke. | The black was a huge fellow, with low, receding forehead and prognathous jaw— a type of the lowest form of African negro. As he entered the hut with a lighted torch which he stuck in the floor, his bloodshot eyes gazed greedily at the still form of the woman lying prone before him. He licked his thick lips, and coming closer, reached out and touched her. Jane Clayton looked up, and recoiling in revulsion, shrunk away. At sight of the woman’s face the black looked his surprise. ‘““Who are you?” he demanded in the pidgin English of the coast. “YT am Lady Greystoke, wife of Tarzan of the Apes,” replied Jane Clayton. “Ii you are wise you will release me at once.” © Surprise and terror showed in the eyes of Luvini, and another emotion as well, but which would dominate the muddy brain it was difficult, then, to tell. For a long time he sat gazing at her, and slowly the greedy, gloating expression upon his face dominated and expunged the fear that had at first been written there, and in the change Jane Clay- ton read her doom. With fumbling fingers Luvini untied the knots of the bonds that held Jane Clayton’s wrists and ankles. She felt his hot breath upon her, and saw his bloodshot eyes and the red tongue that momentarily licked the thick lips. The instant that she felt the last thong with which she was tied fall away she. leaped to her feet and sprang for the en- trance to the hut, but a great hand reached forth and seized her, and as Luvini dragged (EOLA MUG JOO 593 S.C Me Do eam) HU