lgian intently.
The fellow seemed sane enough--yet ten loads of gold! It was
preposterous. The Abyssinian thought in silence for a moment.

"Well, and if I promise," he said. "How far is this gold?"

"A long week's march to the south," replied Werper.

"And if we do not find it where you say it is, do you realize what your
punishment will be?"

"If it is not there I will forfeit my life," replied the Belgian. "I
know it is there, for I saw it buried with my own eyes. And
more--there are not only ten loads, but as many as fifty men may carry.
It is all yours if you will promise to see me safely delivered into the
protection of the English."

"You will stake your life against the finding of the gold?" asked Abdul.

Werper assented with a nod.

"Very well," said the Abyssinian, "I promise, and even if there be but
five loads you shall have your freedom; but until the gold is in my
possession you remain a prisoner."

"I am satisfied," said Werper. "Tomorrow we start?"

Abdul Mourak nodded, and the Belgian returned to his guards. The
following day the Abyssinian soldiers were surprised to receive an
order which turned their faces from the northeast to the south. And so
it happened that upon the very night that Tarzan and the two apes
entered the village of the raiders, the Abyssinians camped but a few
miles to the east of the same spot.

While Werper dreamed of freedom and the unmolested enjoyment of the
fortune in his stolen pouch, and Abdul Mourak lay awake in greedy
contemplation of the fifty loads of gold which lay but a few days
farther to the south of him, Achmet Zek gave orders to his lieutenants
that they should prepare a force of fighting men and carriers to
proceed to the ruins of the Englishman's DOUAR on the morrow and bring
back the fabulous fortune which his renegade lieutenant had told him
was buried there.

And as he delivered his instructions to those within, a silent listener
crouched without his tent, waiting for the time when he might enter in
safety and prosecute his search for the missing pouch and the pretty
pebbles that had caught his fancy.

At last the swarthy companions of Achmet Zek quitted his tent, and the
leader went with them to smoke a pipe with one of their number, leaving
his own silken habitation unguarded. Scarcely had they left the
interior when a knife blade was thrust through the fabric of the rear
wall, some six feet above the ground, and a swift downward strok