Edgar Burroughs - Tarzan the Magnificent

His captors talked incessantly among themselves. They discussed other women who were not with them, always disparagingly; they complained of the difficulties they experienced in the dressing of their hair; they compared the cut and fit and quality of the pelts that formed their loincloths; and each of them expatiated upon the merits of some exceptionally rare skin she hoped to acquire in the future.

The four men marching with Tarzan sought to engage him in conversation. One was a Swede, one a Pole, one a German, and one an Englishman. All spoke the strange tongue of the Kaji-a mixture of many tongues. Tarzan could understand them, but he had difficulty in making them understand him unless he spoke in the native tongue of the one he chanced to be talking to or spoke in French, which he had learned from d'Arnot before he acquired a knowledge of English. The Swede alone understood no French, but he spoke broken English, a language the German understood but not the Pole. Thus a general conversation was rendered difficult. He found it easier to talk to the Englishman, whose French was sketchy, in their common language.

He heard this man addressed as Troll, and recalled that Stanley Wood had told him that this was the name of one of their white hunters. The man was short and stalky, with heavy, stooped shoulders and long arms that gave him a gorillaesque appearance. He was powerfully muscled. Tarzan moved closer to him.

"You were with Wood and van Eyk?" he asked.

The man looked up at Tarzan in surprise. "You know them?" he asked.

"I know Wood. They recaptured him?"

Troll nodded. "You can't get away from this damned place. Mafka always drags you back, if he doesn't kill you. Wood nearly got away. A fellow-" He paused. "Say, are you Clayton?"

"Yes."

"Wood told me about you. I ought to have known you right away from his description of you."

"Is he still alive?"

"Yes. Mafka hasn't killed him yet, but he's mighty sore. No one ever came so near escaping before. I guess it made the old duffer shake in his pants-only he don't wear pants. A big expedition of whites could make it hot for him-say a battalion of Tommies. God-almighty! How I'd like to see 'em come marchin' in."

"How about the Gonfal?" inquired Tarzan. "Couldn't he stop them, just as he does others, with the power of the great diamond?"

"No one knows, but we think not. Because if he could, why is he so scared of one of us escaping?"

"Do you think Mafka intends to kill Wood?"

"We're pretty sure of it. He's not only sore about his almost getting away, but he's sorer still because Wood has a crush on Gonfala, the Queen; and it looks like Gonfala was sort of soft on Wood. That'd be too bad, too; because she's a Negress."

"Wood told me she was white."

"She's whiter than you, but look at these dames here. Ain't they white? They look white, but they all got Negro blood in 'em. But don't never remind 'em of it. You remember Kipling's, 'She knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white'? Well that's it; that's the answer. They want to be white. God only knows why; nobody ever sees 'em but us; and we don't care what color they are. They could be green as far as I'm concerned. I'm married to six of 'em. They make me do all the work while they sit around an' gabble about hair and loincloths. God almighty! I hate the sight of hair an' loincloths. When they ain't doin' that they're knockin' hell out o' some dame that ain't there.

"I got an old woman back in England . I thought she was bad. I run away from her, an' look what I go into! Six of em."

Troll kept up a running fire of conversation all the way to the city. He had more troubles than the exchange desk in a department store.

The city of Kaji was walled with blocks of limestone quarried from the cliff against which it was built. The buildings within the enclosure were of limestone also. They were of one and two stories, except the palace of Mafka , which rose against the cliff to a height of four stories.

The palace and the city gave evidence of having been long in the building, some parts of the palace and some of the buildings below it being far more weather-worn than others. There were black men and white and warrior women in the streets. A few children, all girls, played in the sunshine; milch goats were everywhere under foot. These things and many others the ape-man observed as he was conducted along the main street toward the palace of Mafka .

He heard the women discussing him and appraising him as farmers might discuss a prize bull. One of them remarked that he should bring a good price. But he moved on, apparently totally oblivious of them all.

The interior of the palace reminded him of that of Woora, except that there was more and richer stuff here. Mafka was nearer the source of supply. Here was the loot of many safaris. Tarzan wondered how Woora had obtained anything.

The four men had been dismissed within the city; only the eight women accompanied Tarzan into the palace. They had been halted at the heavily guarded entrance and had waited there while word was carried into the interior; then with a number of the guard as escort, they had been led into the palace.

Down a long corridor to another guarded doorway they proceeded; then they were ushered into a large chamber. At the far end, a figure crouched upon a throne. At sight of him, Tarzan was almost surprised into a show of emotion-it was Woora!

Beside him, on another throne-chair, sat a beautiful girl. Tarzan assumed that this must be Gonfala, the Queen. But Woora! He had seen the man killed before his own eyes. Did magic go as far as this, that it could resurrect the dead?

As he was led forward and halted before the thrones he waited for Woora to recognize him, to show the resentment he must feel because he had been thwarted and the great emerald stolen from him; but the man gave no indication that he ever had seen Tarzan before.

He listened to the report of the leader of the party that had captured the ape-man, but all the time his eyes were upon the prisoner. They seemed to be boring through him, yet there was no sign of recognition. When the report had been completed, the magician shook his head impatiently. He appeared baffled and troubled.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"I am an Englishman. I was hunting."

"For what?"

"Food."

While the magician questioned Tarzan he kept a hand upon an immense diamond that rested on a stand beside him. It was the Gonfal, the great diamond of the Kaji, that endowed its possessor with the same mysterious powers that were inherent in the great emerald of the Zuli.

The girl upon the second throne-chair sat silent and sullen, her eyes always on the ape-man. She wore breastplates of virgin gold and a stomacher covered with gold sequins. Her skirt was of the skins of unborn leopards, soft and clinging. Dainty sandals shod her, and upon her upper arms and her wrists and her ankles were many bands of copper and gold. A light crown rested upon her blond head. She was the symbol of power; but Tarzan knew that the real power lay in the grotesque and hideous figure at her side, clothed only in an old and dirty loincloth.

Finally the man motioned impatiently. "Take him away," he commanded.

"Am I not to choose wives for him?" demanded Gonfala. "The women would pay well for this one."

"Not yet," replied her companion. "There are reasons why I should observe him for a while. It will probably be better to destroy him than give him to the women. Take him away!"

The guard took the ape-man to an upper floor and put him in a large chamber. There they left him alone, bolting the door behind them as they departed. The apartment was absolutely bare except for two benches. Several small windows in the wall overlooking the city gave light and ventilation. In the opposite wall was an enormous fireplace in which, apparently, no fire had ever been built.