Tarzan wheeled about abruptly, and for the third time in as many minutes met a sight which stunned him with surprise. A young and beautiful woman stood erect and with a certain sweet arrogance, in the center of the obscure pathway. By the standards of any land she would have been accounted lovely, although even in the dim light Tarzan was struck by the strangeness of her red-rimmed eyes. It was the sinking sun again, he thought to himself. Once it was gone all would take the proper perspective in this strange cliff garden.

  “Have you knowledge of my runner, the Waziri called Kamjei?” Tarzan did not ask the lovely woman who she was, nor how she had known he would be arriving. He had come after his man, and only after his first mission had been successful would the ape-man concern himself with other matters.

  “Of course I have, Tarzan of the Apes. He is with us. He has not been harmed, although I must tell you he is somewhat of a coward!”

  “None of my Waziri are cowards!” the ape-man replied harshly, grey eyes turning steely and cold.

  “Kamjei is. But then, perhaps the sight of my people is such a strange thing that even the bravest of your kind lose heart.”

  Tarzan detected a sad inflection beneath the woman’s voice, and now, knowing that Kamjei was safe, his instinctive curiosity came forth.

  “Who,” he spoke softly, “are you? And who are your people that they should put fear into the heart of a brave warrior?”

  “Come with me, Tarzan,” the beautiful woman replied. “I cannot introduce you to any of my people now. The sun has gone down. They will stay in hiding dawn. They must, or they will be killed.” She reached over to Tarzan and took his hand, to lead him down the path toward her quarters. The ape-man was astounded by the dry coldness of her touch. An involuntary shiver went down his strong spine. It was, he thought, like walking hand in hand with a snake!

  Basuli had made his decision. He would not leave the campsite to follow Tarzan until the next morning. He knew full well that Tarzan would be angered should he leave Jane in the jungle without giving her his personal protection. Tarzan would also be angry when he discovered that his wife was not safely at home within the compound, but Basuli was sure she would explain to him that it was not the fault of Basuli. He stood to one side of the small clearing, watching Jane Clayton and the three strange men who sat in front of the blazing campfire and talked to one another. He, Basuli, Chief of the Waziri, did not like these strange white men. They had a smell about them which bred distrust. Basuli would watch over Tarzan’s wife throughout the night. He would depend upon no other warrior to do the job.

  “I’m positive Lord Greystoke will be back to the camp, if not during the night, then surely early in the morning.” Jane Clayton was addressing the eldest of the three men.

  “We are aware, Lady Greystoke, that your husband is the only man in Africa who can help us. His story, his childhood, his life as Tarzan of the Apes, is well known to all who study the jungle and its secrets.” The speaker was Leopold Keinin, a swarthy Belgian of forty hard-lived years. His English was practically without accent, although an occasional word gave evidence it was not his native tongue.

  “We would have gladly awaited him at the compound. my dear lady,” added the second of the three men, Pierre Sortie. While he claimed French nationality the practiced ear would have denied his accent. It was definitely not French, unless one might conjecture it was the France of Alsace-Lorraine—where mostly German is spoken. Jane Clayton, the wife of Tarzan, however, was a most trusting woman. Sortie claimed to be French. She would believe him until he was exposed as a liar. Then she would be sorry for him.

  “But if what we believe to be true is true, every hour is of the utmost urgency. We thank you for understanding our problems, and appreciate your coming into the jungle with us. To you, Lady Greystoke, this land is practically home. To a stranger it is a fearsome place. Watching you relax within it is most reassuring to the three of us.” Bill Harvey, the youngest of the three, was already the favorite of Tarzan’s wife. There was a certain air of youthful sincerity and earnestness about him which had impressed her from the beginning. Also, and Jane Clayton was a bit ashamed of her chauvinism, his obvious American accent and cheery brashness was, to the Baltimore-bred woman, a welcome reminder of home.

  “You, too, would be relaxed and confident herein the jungle, if you had learned its secrets from my husband. This is his land, you know. Even the great apes acknowledge this. Oh, from time to time there is trouble, but Tarzan always manages to get it cleaned up. You have come to the right place, gentlemen. I know my husband will help you find your lost friend— and I know he will find him in time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall retire for the evening. Sleep well. The Waziri are the bravest warriors in all of Africa. They will let no harm befall us.” Jane stood up, waved a quick goodnight to the three men, who, unused to the quickness of jungle movements, were still struggling to get to their feet. She moved lithely toward her small sleeping tent. There, she turned and looked up toward Goro, the moon, who seemed to be smiling protectively toward her. As she brought her eyes down to the earth again, she was startled for a moment. She’d imagined she had seen a pair of red-rimmed eyes, glaring maliciously at her from the swale. She shook her head, and when she looked back, there was nothing. Jane walked into her tent and lay down to await the arrival of Tarzan. Outside the night was still silent.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Challenge of Tarzan

  She had told him her name was Lyta. And as they sat before the fire in her well-protected cave-like quarters, she had continued with a story that taxed the imagination of even the great ape-man, and drew, to his face, an expression of stern, worried disbelief.

  The flickering lights of the multitude of fires which surrounded not only the entrance to her quarters, but which burned fiercely in every even slightly dimmed corner of the spacious room, heightened the woman’s beauty as well as her strangeness. She sat—had she been less of a beauty one might say she almost coiled —beside the throne-like a piece of furniture which was the largest and most ornate object in the chamber. Her slender, well-shaped arms draped despondently about the legs of her throne. As she spoke, her expressive face and enormous eyes changed expression constantly, from that of burning, white-hot anger, to that of pleading, gently submission, and swinging the pendulum of emotions back to a seething, almost molten mass of hatred for the object of her disdain. Lyta was very beautiful. By the standards of any race, she was physically a creature of the utmost perfection. And, as her story unfolded, even Tarzan felt a sense of sorrow that this beautiful and desirable woman was tied to a fate that would always keep her lonely. Her full bosom rose and fell rhythmically as she spoke, and the strange lids which sometimes fell abruptly to cover her eyes could not completely hide the admiration for the ape-man that seemed to grow within her as she spoke.

  Intrigued as he was by her tale, Tarzan was masculine enough to recognize the warning signals of those blazing eyes. So it was that each time he felt an empathy for this high priestess and her strange followers, it was almost immediately removed from his being as he repulsed her obvious desires.

  “You seem strangely alone in this vast cliffside, Lyta.” The grey eyes studied her keenly as he spoke. “Yet, beyond the fires surrounding your doorway, my eyes see many other flickering lights, which would indicate that your people are here—but not with you?”

  “It is a strange tale, Tarzan. I cannot prove all of it to you tonight, and I know that I must prove it before you will help us.” She turned her strange, slumbrous eyes up to stare deeply into his searching grey gaze. “My people are not of your world. We have known of you since first you were a child with the mangani. No one in the furthest reaches of the jungle has not heard —rather, not failed to hear of Tarzan of the Apes. You, however, would never had known of us had it not been for Narda.”

  “Narda?” The voice of Tarzan was troubled. This was a new, a strange name to him.

  “My sister. My once-beloved sister. My bitter, enemy now. And, Tarzan,” the voluptuous woman swung around with snake-like ease, “it is a man of your people who has corrupted her! Through corrupting her, he has started a war between the Snake People —the last, true people of our times!” She pulled herself erect, almost viciously, still with a weird, sinuous grace. “My people, Tarzan! Look into those corners so carefully guarded by fire. Tell me what you see.”

  The keen grey eyes peered cautiously beyond the nearest fire. The caution gave way to an amazed expression of discovery, then, immediately to complete disbelief. He turned back to Lyta, still standing before the fires guarding her chambers, her draped gown serving but to accentuate the lushly curved body beneath it.

  “But, Lyta … they are not people…” The sinewy body whirled about, looking with the grey eyes, caution and strength in every movement “… they are snakes. Huge, actually enormous snakes, but Lyta …” and his grey eyes filled with pity as he turned to look the lovely woman full in the eye, “they are not people !”

  She smiled, strangely, and moved very close to Tarzan. “I, Tarzan, am a woman—am I not?”

  He could but nod.

  “I told you I could not prove everything tonight. We are hindered by night. But I can prove one thing to you. You are a brave man, oh tarmangani. The great apes knew and told us of you. You are also wily and wise. You have noted the unusual eyes Lyta has? No? Yes. You have concealed it well, but we Snake People see beyond the surface. It has been our foundation. Now, Tarzan of the Apes, watch this!” She moved, once again with incredible swiftness, and, standing before one of the corner fires, she bent down over it. From her mouth emanated a long, thin, and clearly forked tongue which whipped above the fire and struck the coiled snake behind it. As the unbelievable tongue was retracted into the woman’s full, petulant lips, the coils of the snake moved slightly to reveal to Tarzan of the Apes the same human head and gleaming red eyes which earlier had so terrified his runner.

  Lyta turned back to face the ane-man “Now. Tarzan of the Apes, now will you hear my story – and least believe it might be possible?”

  ” The sight of the creature behind the fire had brought the runner Kamjei back to Tarzan’‘s mind. What, he wondered to himself, would that poor devil be thinking of this? If Tarzan himself were amazed and shocked, how could his Waziri retain his senses?

  “I will listen, after you have returned Kamjei to me.”

  Her eyes flickered with dismay. “I cannot do that tonight, Tarzan,” she replied. The ape-man moved toward the entrance. “But, if you will but listen, you will understand. You must believe me, he is all right. We brought him here but to bring you to help us. We’ve done him no harm.”

  The steely grey eyes were cold as they looked upon Lyta. “I shall give you,” Tarzan answered, “but ten minutes to bring my runner to me. Or, if you prefer, ten minutes to weave this strange story you speak of so often. Either way,” and his sinewy muscles rippled in the firelight as he shrugged, “at the end of that time, I shall go after Kamjei myself, if your people have not returned him to me.”

  “The origin of our people,” Lyta told Tarzan, “is lost within legend. We, ourselves, know not what is fact and what is fiction. We know only how it is with us, and how, to the best of our memories, it has always been. We Snake People are of two tribes. Once, it has been told, we were vast and powerful. Then something happened. It does not matter within this scant ten minutes you have allowed me. You saw one of my guards. Perhaps you wondered why he had his head hidden and seemed to sleep, while I, his priestess, sat here, with a stranger—perhaps an enemy—and unprotected. My Snake People can move, hunt, build, procreate, and do battle only during the hours of the sun. For many years our brother tribe protected us, for they—and their priestess is my sister Narda—are equally active during the hours of Goro the moon, and equally without protection during the sunlit days. Of both tribes, only my sister Narda and myself know both day and night.

  “My people are a very old and great race—the first of the reptiles to attain the brain and heart of man. I will not bore you with our legends as to why—having attained so much—most of us have not been allowed to grow further. Once a year, three of the most skilled of our hunters, the most prolific of our fathers, the most protective of our tribes, are allowed to shed their dis-mal homes, their scaly, cold, dry skins. At the full of Goro, the moon, every November of every year, these three of our guards—actually, six altogether—three for me, and three for Narda—become men.”

  The cold eyes of Tarzan fixed themselves upon this woman of the snakes. Although all of it seemed less than possible, Tarzan himself knew the many strange secrets of the jungle—secrets which no white man would ever believe. He, actually, had been one of them. The parents he had known best of all—the great apes were but another. His eyes lost their coldness and became filled with a great interest, the curiosity which, for so long, had kept him king of the jungle. “And, during November … ?”

  “As women, both Narda and I have met with many problems we could not handle. As women, also, both Narda and I need mates. It is forbidden– or,” and her voice became suddenly most bitter, “it was forbidden, that we go with anyone not of our people. During the old Novembers, we met with our six men. They helped us with our problems. We made plans for living and eating and protection during the next many male-less moons. Then, on the last night, each of us would select a mate. And,” her strange eyes looked imploringly at him, “for that night, that most wonderful night of the year, we were not both snake and person, we were man and woman! For that night, both Narda and I lived every day between.”

  “Were there—” the lean man s face was gravely puzzled.

  “Our children?” Lyta’s laughter was the most bitter sound Tarzan had ever heard. “We lay eggs. Hundreds of tiny eggs. The luckier ones die. The others are hatched, and become one of the tribe.”

  “And now?” “As I said, one of your people. A vast, ugly, evil-smelling member of your people, has become mate to Narda. He has made her war upon us. He has moved us from our homes, our safe, well-hidden homes in which we lived peacefully for so many years. Tarzan of the Apes …” she leaned forward dramatically, “he does not love her. There is something back there, something in our hidden valley that this evil man wants for his own.”

  “But …”

  Tarzan was defeated at his attempt to interject. Lyta had been too many moons waiting for someone to speak to about her problems. “You know, Tarzan, as does Bara the deer, Horta, the boar, even Numa, the lion … all beasts and men are animals. My people are helpless at night. Narda’s tribe has always been our protector. But now, instead of protecting us, she and her vile mate seek ways of leading our enemies to us. She has corrupted her people, they too seek to destroy us. We …” and her voice rose in a sudden, sibilant hiss, “have nothing but the sun. And, if your mate is willing—you, Tarzan!”

  For long moments the great muscular man sat beside the strange woman in deep thought. Then, almost as though realizing that having heard a tale of traitorous action, he must not become a part of one, he rose. “I shall give it much consideration, Lyta. First, however, I must bring Kamjei here, to certain safety.”

  “Tarzan,” the woman was almost wailing, “You cannot go out into that night! Neither our God nor your God knows what the night snakes have lurking outside. He is safe. Kamjei is safe. Why, when we took him, to lure you, we had a snake-man watching over your mate, that no harm should befall her. Certainly you heard the silence, that dread silence with which your jungle greets us now that Narda and that vile man have turned them all against us ? “

  Tarzan looked with pity upon the weeping priestess. “You came to Tarzan for help? You must then know that Tarzan fears neither man nor beast. If what you say is true, perhaps Kamjei has seen something which may be of help. But, even if he has not, Tarzan does not hide behind a small fire, nor a woman’s pleas. I promise you, Lyta. I shall return with Kamjei. The waiting night holds no terror for me. Perhaps,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “I shall, instead, put a bit of their terror into the hearts of Narda and her mate. What, by the way, does this human beast call himself?”

  “It is a strange name to me, Tarzan. He is from another continent. He calls himself Leopold. Leopold Keinin, I think.”

  Tarzan spoke sneeringly. “We shall see if he understands the language of a true man.” He strode purposefully toward the cavern entrance. There, he lifted himself to his full height, lifted one of his muscular arms, and lips quivering but a moment, let forth the challenge taught to him by his jungle parents. The cry of the bull ape. And Narda, across the valley, heard the piercing scream, partly human, yet so hideous it might have emanated from a soul in hell. She shuddered, wishing her lover would return from the south hoping their plans for this night would work. And far to the south, the echo of the cry reverberated through the jungle. Jane Clayton heard it, and knew peace. Leopold Keinin, Pierre Sortie, and their roommate heard it and knew horror. Leopold because he knew what it was. The others, because to them, any country in which such a cry could exist was not habitable by humans.

  CHAPTER VII

  The Night Battle

  Once Bill Harvey had retired for the night, his two supposed friends drew together to whisper quietly of their most diabolical plan. For it was Leopold Keinin who had first discovered the incredible wealth hidden in the Valley of the Snake People. And it was Leopold Keinin, the erstwhile representative of the Belgian Society of Anthropological Knowledge, who had been given an honest grant for research, which was at this point ending in such a completely discredited demise. The first time Leopold had seen the radium, glowing brightly at night, he had thought it to be the eyes of another of the Snake People—with whom he had easily made friends during his early days in their Valley. Both night and day tribes were, to the sophisticated European, more than naive. Before the next day had worn through, Leopold had studied the grounds, and by erudite questioning of the day priestess Lyta, learned that this precious element was worthless to her people, although guarded with care because of its night-emanating-light. His greedy mind immediately spied the possibilities of the untold fortune upon which he stood.