Edgar Burroughs - Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

For a time Werper did not reply, then he turned suddenly toward the woman.

“I have a plan,” he cried. “It will require nerve and courage on your part; but you have already shown that you possess both. Can you endure still more?”

“I can endure anything,” she replied with a brave smile, “that may offer us even a slight chance for escape.”

“You must simulate death,” he explained, “while I carry you from the camp. I will explain to the sentries that Mohammed Beyd has ordered me to take your body into the jungle. This seemingly unnecessary act I shall explain upon the grounds that Mohammed Beyd had conceived a violent passion for you and that he so regretted the act by which he had become your slayer that he could not endure the silent reproach of your lifeless body.”

The girl held up her hand to stop. A smile touched her lips.

“Are you quite mad?” she asked. “Do you imagine that the sentries will credit any such ridiculous tale?”

“You do not know them,” he replied. “Beneath their rough exteriors, despite their calloused and criminal natures, there exists in each a well-defined strain of romantic emotionalism—you will find it among such as these throughout the world. It is romance which lures men to lead wild lives of outlawry and crime. The ruse will succeed—never fear.”

Jane Clayton shrugged. “We can but try it—and then what?”

“I shall hide you in the jungle,” continued the Belgian, “coming for you alone and with two horses in the morning.”

“But how will you explain Mohammed Beyd's death?” she asked. “It will be discovered before ever you can escape the camp in the morning.”

“I shall not explain it,” replied Werper. “Mohammed Beyd shall explain it himself—we must leave that to him. Are you ready for the venture?”

“Yes.”

“But wait, I must get you a weapon and ammunition,” and Werper walked quickly from the tent.

Very shortly he returned with an extra revolver and ammunition belt strapped about his waist.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Quite ready,” replied the girl.

“Then come and throw yourself limply across my left shoulder,” and Werper knelt to receive her.

“There,” he said, as he rose to his feet. “Now, let your arms, your legs and your head hang limply.

Remember that you are dead.”

A moment later the man walked out into the camp, the body of the woman across his shoulder.

A thorn boma had been thrown up about the camp, to discourage the bolder of the hungry carnivora. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in the light of a fire which they kept burning brightly. The nearer of these looked up in surprise as he saw Werper approaching.

“Who are you?” he cried. “What have you there?”

Werper raised the hood of his burnoose that the fellow might see his face.

“This is the body of the woman,” he explained.

“Mohammed Beyd has asked me to take it into the jungle, for he cannot bear to look upon the face of her whom he loved, and whom necessity compelled him to slay. He suffers greatly—he is inconsolable. It was with difficulty that I prevented him taking his own life.”

Across the speaker's shoulder, limp and frightened, the girl waited for the Arab's reply. He would laugh at this preposterous story; of that she was sure. In an instant he would unmask the deception that M. Frecoult was attempting to practice upon him, and they would both be lost. She tried to plan how best she might aid her would-be rescuer in the fight which must most certainly follow within a moment or two.

Then she heard the voice of the Arab as he replied to M. Frecoult.

“Are you going alone, or do you wish me to awaken someone to accompany you?” he asked, and his tone denoted not the least surprise that Mohammed Beyd had suddenly discovered such remarkably sensitive characteristics.

“I shall go alone,” replied Werper, and he passed on and out through the narrow opening in the boma, by which the sentry stood.

A moment later he had entered among the boles of the trees with his burden, and when safely hidden from the sentry's view lowered the girl to her feet, with a low, “sh-sh,” when she would have spoken.

Then he led her a little farther into the forest, halted beneath a large tree with spreading branches, buckled a cartridge belt and revolver about her waist, and assisted her to clamber into the lower branches.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered, “as soon as I can elude them, I will return for you. Be brave, Lady Greystoke—we may yet escape.”

“Thank you,” she replied in a low tone. “You have been very kind, and very brave.”

Werper did not reply, and the darkness of the night hid the scarlet flush of shame which swept upward across his face. Quickly he turned and made his way back to camp. The sentry, from his post, saw him enter his own tent; but he did not see him crawl under the canvas at the rear and sneak cautiously to the tent which the prisoner had occupied, where now lay the dead body of Mohammed Beyd.

Raising the lower edge of the rear wall, Werper crept within and approached the corpse. Without an instant's hesitation he seized the dead wrists and dragged the body upon its back to the point where he had just entered. On hands and knees he backed out as he had come in, drawing the corpse after him. Once outside the Belgian crept to the side of the tent and surveyed as much of the camp as lay within his vision—no one was watching.

Returning to the body, he lifted it to his shoulder, and risking all on a quick sally, ran swiftly across the narrow opening which separated the prisoner's tent from that of the dead man. Behind the silken wall he halted and lowered his burden to the ground, and there he remained motionless for several minutes, listening.

Satisfied, at last, that no one had seen him, he stooped and raised the bottom of the tent wall, backed in and dragged the thing that had been Mohammed Beyd after him. To the sleeping rugs of the dead raider he drew the corpse, then he fumbled about in the darkness until he had found Mohammed Beyd's revolver. With the weapon in his hand he returned to the side of the dead man, kneeled beside the bedding, and inserted his right hand with the weapon beneath the rugs, piled a number of thicknesses of the closely woven fabric over and about the revolver with his left hand. Then he pulled the trigger, and at the same time he coughed.

The muffled report could not have been heard above the sound of his cough by one directly outside the tent.

Werper was satisfied. A grim smile touched his lips as he withdrew the weapon from the rugs and placed it carefully in the right hand of the dead man, fixing three of the fingers around the grip and the index finger inside the trigger guard.

A moment longer he tarried to rearrange the disordered rugs, and then he left as he had entered, fastening down the rear wall of the tent as it had been before he had raised it.

Going to the tent of the prisoner he removed there also the evidence that someone might have come or gone beneath the rear wall. Then he returned to his own tent, entered, fastened down the canvas, and crawled into his blankets.

The following morning he was awakened by the excited voice of Mohammed Beyd's slave calling to him at the entrance of his tent.

“Quick! Quick!” cried the black in a frightened tone.

“Come! Mohammed Beyd is dead in his tent—dead by his own hand.”

Werper sat up quickly in his blankets at the first alarm, a startled expression upon his countenance; but at the last words of the black a sigh of relief escaped his lips and a slight smile replaced the tense lines upon his face.

“I come,” he called to the slave, and drawing on his boots, rose and went out of his tent.