KA-ZAR OF THE BEASTS

CHAPTER XVI
Return of the Oman

W

HEN Paul DeKraft had fled from the jungle clearing, with the sound of Zar's roar echoing in his ears, he had taken with him two secrets. First, the grim details of the death of the mad jungle hermit; second, the location of the richest emerald beds it had ever been his good fortune to stumble across.

The first dark secret slipped readily from his mind. It was not the first time that he had killed nor would it be his last. But the second was forever with him, a shining promise of a vast fortune to be looted by him alone.

The lure of those emeralds, to be picked up by handfuls from the bed of that jungle stream, spurred him on to herculean efforts. He worked, robbed and plotted murder to accumulate a stake to take him once more to the heart of the Belgian Congo.

And now, after five long years, at the end of another rainy season he was leading a large party into the heart of the wilderness over which Zar and Ka-Zar had ruled for so long.

The expedition consisted of a score of blacks and one white man--Ed Kivlin. He was a renegade like DeKraft and if he was not as villainous as the Hollander, it was only because DeKraft had lived some few years more than he and had served a longer apprenticeship to the devil.

DeKraft had not taken him along out of the open generosity of his heart. He had been motivated by far baser and more practical reasons. It was simply that Kivlin had a few hundred dollars--and he needed them. For food, shovels, guns and ammunition, but mostly ammunition.

And all the time there was a little idea in the back of his head that perchance a little accident would befall his benefactor. No matter how it came about--before the fang and claw of some jungle beast or from a bullet from his own gun--he was convinced and determined that Eddie Kivlin would not come out of the jungle with him.

Once he had made his alliance with Kivlin and the dollars, DeKraft started to assemble his party. But to his disgust and impatience, he found that as soon as he mentioned the Congo as his destination, the native blacks shunned him as if he carried the plague.

Strange tales, weird, wonderful and unholy, had drifted down from the Congo. They had first been brought back to civilization by a great white hunter and his camp followers. The tales had to do with a jungle god, the protector of all wild things, who was incensed at man for molesting the beasts of the forest.

Hadn't this god, who spoke with the voice of the lion, liberated a season's catch of the great white hunter? Hadn't he slashed the ropes that held the mighty elephant; broken open the cage that held a huge leopard?

The tale grew with the telling and DeKraft was forced to deceit and trickery to assemble the natives he needed. It was not until the party was a month's march from the nearest white outpost or native village that he told the blacks their real destination.

Then unarmed, without food, it was too late for them to turn back. DeKraft laughed long and raucously over what he considered the good joke he had played on them.

The natives listened to him in silence and with hate in their hearts. Sullenly they struggled on with the party but with each mile they penetrated deeper into the Congo, the greater became their superstitious fears.

It was at the end of a long, hot day when DeKraft triumphantly led his party at last into the small glade he had quitted so precipitately five years before.

H

e looked about him with greedy eyes. Nothing had changed, except that the vines and brush had crept in from the forest and made a dense growth that covered the clearing. The last, tattered remains of his tent still remained where he had abandoned it. The stream still rushed by, innocently tumbling over a fortune in uncut emeralds.

He pounded Kivlin enthusiastically on the back, threw his arm wide. "So help me, Eddie," he said, "here we are! A fortune--there in the stream--ready to be picked up by the handfuls."

Kivlin grinned wolfishly, took a long pull from a bottle of square-face gin and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "We didn't get here any too soon for me," he answered. "And as far as a fortune goes, I could use one."

"Plenty for both of us--plenty for both," said DeKraft heartily. Then he turned hurriedly away to hide the crafty gleam in his eyes.

He issued a string of terse orders to his bearers. Under the lash of his tongue and the persuasive power of his heavy fist, they hurried about the business of making camp. With long knives the undergrowth was cleared away. Tents were pitched; the supplies and ammunition stored away. A half hour after their arrival a thin plume of smoke went up from their fire to announce their coming to the jungle beasts.

It is significant that both DeKraft and Kivlin slept little and lightly that night and in both their hands were heavy automatics. True, the blacks were sullen and surly, but it was not for fear of them that they crept into their respective cots thus armed.

The thoughts of each were the same. A fortune! Why share it? Each in his own way planned towards the same end.

However, despite their mutual distrust and treachery, the first night passed uneventfully.

K

a-Zar was a two-days-march distant from the cave when DeKraft pitched his camp in the clearing. He was on one of his frequent pilgrimages to the feeding grounds of Trajah and he was all unaware that his old enemy, Fat-Face, had returned to his domain; all unaware of the trouble that was brewing for him in the jungle he had so long ruled with Zar.

His first intimation that some serious mischief was afoot came three days later. It was night and be was listening to Trajah's account of distant lands that the elephant had seen on his long migrations.

Trajah was in the midst of some strange and fascinating tales when abruptly, from far off, came the stentorian roar of a lion. Ka-Zar's head snapped up and his eyes narrowed. The elephant's large ears flapped slowly at right angles to his head.

"Zar calls," said Ka-Zar.

"The lion calls to his brother," echoed Trajah gravely.

A vague, disturbing premonition stirred in Ka-Zar's brain. Swiftly he threw back his head, expanded his leather lungs and a moment later the forest shook as he sent the lion's call echoing back to Zar.

Three times more Ka-Zar repeated his roar, then without a sound the massive form of Zar materialized out of the brush. With Trajah lumbering at his side, Ka-Zar stepped eagerly forward to meet him.

He rumbled a warm greeting deep in his throat, then before Zar could answer it, asked what had brought his brother on his trail.

In a few swift grunts and snarls Zar told him. Many two-legged creatures like himself--many Oman--white and black--had come to the glade by the stream that babbled over many stones. They had brought fire sticks with them. There was much death. There was trouble brewing in the forest of Ka-Zar and it would be wise for Ka-Zar, brother of Zar, to return.

The white man's adage that the elephant never forgets, is based on sound fact. He never forgives an injury and he never forgets a friend. To his distant dying day, Trajah would carry always with him the memory of that time when Ka-Zar had rescued Tuta from her strange captivity.

Now trouble had come again to the jungle and there was no question whether the elephant would stand by his friends. Knowing Ka-Zar's delight in riding upon his lofty back, Trajah waited for no more. His trunk snaked out, wound about Ka-Zar's body and lifted him easily up to his favorite perch. Then with Zar gliding swiftly along in the lead, they began their long journey back to the cave.

Ka-Zar was troubled with vague apprehensions of what might already have occurred during his absence. And when at last they reached their home, he found that his fears were well founded.

In the trees around the cave mouth squatted Chaka and his apes, waiting for his return. He slid down from the elephant's back and walked forward as the big leader swung down from his perch and came shambling over to meet him.

Chaka's manner conveyed neither open hostility nor full-hearted friendship. He grunted a greeting, then cocked his head on one side and surveyed Ka-Zar gravely from head to foot. It was plain to see that he nursed suspicions, but was reserving a decision.

"Your two-legged brothers have returned," he announced. "And death comes with them."

Ka-Zar brushed back a lock of his long hair and scowled. "They are not my brothers," he growled. "I belong to the tribe of Zar."

Chaka thrust forward a pendulous lower lip, scratched thoughtfully at one ear. "You are a two-legged creature," he said slowly.

K

a-Zar realized that words were futile. His actions must speak for him. "Death speaks from their fire-sticks?" he asked.

"Two moons ago," answered Chaka, "Dakar saw something that glittered and went to examine it. The Oman cried out and one of them pointed at Dakar with a fire-stick. It spoke with the voice of thunder and Dakar died." A mournful sound rose from the apes squatting in the trees, corroborating his words. "Yesterday," Chaka continued, "Babba, a female, wandered foolishly too near their home. A fire-stick spoke swiftly, many times, and Babba died from many wounds."

At this recital of their loss, the apes in the trees set up an angry muttering. One called to Chaka. "Let us go and kill these Oman."

Others took up the cry of vengeance. Chaka hesitated, looked to Ka-Zar.

The brother of Zar shook his head. "Do not try," he warned. "The fire-stick strikes like the lightning and before you could kill, many more would join Dakar and Babba in the Great Sleep." His eyes narrowed and he fingered the knife at his belt. "I have driven these Oman from the jungle before and I will do it again. Keep well away from their home while I go see what can be done."

Zar and Trajah would willingly have accompanied him. But he told them that he desired to go alone and leaving his friends and the muttering apes to await his return, he set out at once for the camp.

His ears quickly told him that the men had made their home where DeKraft's old tent still mouldered. When he approached the spot, Nono saw him from his vantage point in the upper branches of a tall tree. The little monkey, fearful and yet overcome by an insatiable curiosity, could not tear himself away from the scene of so much activity.

Ka-Zar, too, took to the trees. He reached one that gave him a clear view of the camp in the clearing and then, flattened along a stout limb and so screened by the dense foliage that he was invisible from below, he watched.

The fact that the men had come to this very spot brought back once more all the terrible memory of that day when his father had been killed. And with it revived the deep seated desire to wreak vengeance upon the fat, black-bearded man.

He saw many black men busy before the tents. One took a steaming kettle from sticks that held it suspended above the fire, carried it a little apart and set it down to cool. A white man suddenly appeared from the fringe of the forest, on the opposite side of the clearing. Ka-Zar stiffened.

A long fire-stick hung loosely from the crook of the man's arm. His head was covered by something that looked like a bloated, white mushroom. He took it off, revealing a thatch of hair, the color of the flaming sunset. Then he looked towards one of the tents and called out: "Hey, Dutch!"

In answer, a bulky form pushed out from the tent. Ka-Zar saw a swarthy face, an untidy black beard, a bulging belly. A low growl rumbled deep in his throat and the hair at the base of his skull prickled. His usual caution was drowned by the deep, undying hatred that suddenly flamed up within him. There stood the slayer of his father--and he had to fight the impulse to snatch his knife, scream the kill of the lion and drop down from the tree to confront his old enemy.

For a long moment the battle raged within him, then wisdom conquered. Every nerve in his body taut, he lay on the branch and glared his hatred from slitted, tawny eyes.

T

he two men stood for a moment, conversing in low tones. A clumsy, bristly gray creature wandered out from the forest into the clearing. Quag, brother of Quog the wild pig, paid no heed to his strange new surroundings. He was headed for the stream to slake his thirst and on his way, he nosed for the berries and succulent roots that comprised his diet.

The cooling kettle was directly in his path. Carelessly he nudged it with his snout. It tipped over, spilling its savoury contents on the ground.

One of the blacks shouted. DeKraft looked up, saw at a glance what had happened. With a torrent of oaths he snatched the rifle from Kivlin's arm, whipped it to his shoulder and blazed at the clumsy pig who had spoiled his dinner.

There was a stab of flame, an echoing roar. The hapless Quag squealed once in shrill agony, then pitched forward, never to move again.

His needless death, the wanton cruelty with which DeKraft had taken a jungle life, added fuel to the flame of Ka-Zar's wrath. Again he had to battle the impulse to challenge the vicious Fat-Face, who had shattered the peace of the forest.

With a low growl, telling Nono to follow, he edged lithely back along the limb, turned and headed towards the cave. When he was well out of ear-shot from the camp, he sent the monkey off on a strange errand.

"Go! Find all the big beasts of the jungle and tell them to go to Zar's cave. I will wait for them there. Make haste, silly one."

While Nono obediently set off, he continued on his way to rejoin his friends and the troubled apes. They greeted him with expectant gaze but he merely went to sit on a great boulder and there silently pondered his problem.

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