Near the center of the clearing, and not far from the drum, or altar, he commenced to dig.This was harder work than turning up the freshly excavated earth at the grave, but Tarzan of the Apes was persevering and so he kept at his labor until he was rewarded by seeing a hole sufficiently deep to receive the chest and effectually hide it from view.
Why had he gone to all this labor without knowing the value of the contents of the chest?
Tarzan of the Apes had a man's figure and a man's brain, but he was an ape by training and environment.His brain told him that the chest contained something valuable, or the men would not have hidden it.His training had taught him to imitate whatever was new and unusual, and now the natural curiosity, which is as common to men as to apes, prompted him to open the chest and examine its contents.
But the heavy lock and massive iron bands baffled both his cunning and his immense strength, so that he was compelled to bury the chest without having his curiosity satisfied.
By the time Tarzan had hunted his way back to the vicinity of the cabin, feeding as he went, it was quite dark.
Within the little building a light was burning, for Clayton had found an unopened tin of oil which had stood intact for twenty years, a part of the supplies left with the Claytons by Black Michael.The lamps also were still useable, and thus the interior of the cabin appeared as bright as day to the astonished Tarzan.
He had often wondered at the exact purpose of the lamps.
His reading and the pictures had told him what they were, but he had no idea of how they could be made to produce the wondrous sunlight that some of his pictures had portrayed them as diffusing upon all surrounding objects.
As he approached the window nearest the door he saw that the cabin had been divided into two rooms by a rough partition of boughs and sailcloth.
In the front room were the three men; the two older deep in argument, while the younger, tilted back against the wall on an improvised stool, was deeply engrossed in reading one of Tarzan's books.
Tarzan was not particularly interested in the men, however, so he sought the other window.There was the girl.How beautiful her features! How delicate her snowy skin!
She was writing at Tarzan's own table beneath the window.
Upon a pile of grasses at the far side of the room lay the Negress asleep.
For an hour Tarzan feasted his eyes upon her while she wrote.How he longed to speak to her, but he dared not attempt it, for he was convinced that, like the young man, she would not understand him, and he feared, too, that he might frighten her away.
At length she arose, leaving her manuscript upon the table.
She went to the bed upon which had been spread several layers of soft grasses.These she rearranged.
Then she loosened the soft mass of golden hair which crowned her head.Like a shimmering waterfall turned to burnished metal by a dying sun it fell about her oval face;in waving lines, below her waist it tumbled.
Tarzan was spellbound.Then she extinguished the lamp and all within the cabin was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness.
Still Tarzan watched.Creeping close beneath the window he waited, listening, for half an hour.At last he was rewarded by the sounds of the regular breathing within which denotes sleep.
Cautiously he intruded his hand between the meshes of the lattice until his whole arm was within the cabin.Carefully he felt upon the desk.At last he grasped the manuscript upon which Jane Porter had been writing, and as cautiously withdrew his arm and hand, holding the precious treasure.
Tarzan folded the sheets into a small parcel which he tucked into the quiver with his arrows.Then he melted away into the jungle as softly and as noiselessly as a shadow.