but his thoughts were elsewhere. Presently he recalled the question he
had tried to ask when he first came to the tribe--the question he could
not at that time make them understand. For weeks he had forgotten so
trivial a thing as gold, for he had been for the time a truly primeval
man with no thought beyond today. But of a sudden the sight of gold
awakened the sleeping civilization that was in him, and with it came
the lust for wealth. That lesson Tarzan had learned well in his brief
experience of the ways of civilized man. He knew that gold meant power
and pleasure. He pointed to the bauble.

"From whence came the yellow metal, Busuli?" he asked.

The black pointed toward the southeast.

"A moon's march away--maybe more," he replied.

"Have you been there?" asked Tarzan.

"No, but some of our people were there years ago, when my father was
yet a young man. One of the parties that searched farther for a
location for the tribe when first they settled here came upon a strange
people who wore many ornaments of yellow metal. Their spears were
tipped with it, as were their arrows, and they cooked in vessels made
all of solid metal like my armlet.

"They lived in a great village in huts that were built of stone and
surrounded by a great wall. They were very fierce, rushing out and
falling upon our warriors before ever they learned that their errand
was a peaceful one. Our men were few in number, but they held their
own at the top of a little rocky hill, until the fierce people went
back at sunset into their wicked city. Then our warriors came down
from their hill, and, after taking many ornaments of yellow metal from
the bodies of those they had slain, they marched back out of the
valley, nor have any of us ever returned.

"They are wicked people--neither white like you nor black like me, but
covered with hair as is Bolgani, the gorilla. Yes, they are very bad
people indeed, and Chowambi was glad to get out of their country."

"And are none of those alive who were with Chowambi, and saw these
strange people and their wonderful city?" asked Tarzan.

"Waziri, our chief, was there," replied Busuli. "He was a very young
man then, but he accompanied Chowambi, who was his father."

So that night Tarzan asked Waziri about it, and Waziri, who was now an
old man, said that it was a long march, but that the way was not
difficult to follow. He remembered it well.

"For ten days we followed this river which ru