Chap­ter 2 – On the Road to Opar begins with a telling glimpse into Tarzan’s character—though sur­round­ed by the com­forts of civ­i­liza­tion, his heart remains teth­ered to the wilder­ness. He ignores the famil­iar fruits, insects, and wild fare that once sus­tained him, choos­ing instead to revis­it the world of men out of love for Lady Jane Greystoke. Civ­i­liza­tion may offer struc­ture, but to Tarzan, it’s only worth tol­er­at­ing because of her. Deep with­in, he yearns for the untamed free­dom of the jun­gle. That call of the wild nev­er weak­ens, even as he walks among men. His rest­less­ness becomes the seed for his deci­sion to revis­it Opar, drawn by neces­si­ty and the promise of adven­ture buried beneath ancient stone.

When Tarzan notices a par­ty approach­ing from the plains, he antic­i­pates a peace­ful vis­it. Among them is M. Jules Fre­coult, a sup­posed French gen­tle­man who claims to have lost his way in the African wilder­ness. Wel­comed into the home by Tarzan and Lady Jane, Fre­coult hides a dark­er truth—he is actu­al­ly Wer­p­er, a cun­ning crim­i­nal seek­ing for­tune through decep­tion. At first, Wer­p­er finds no open­ing to act. Tarzan’s pres­ence and the loy­al­ty of the Waziri offer Jane an unshak­able lay­er of pro­tec­tion. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to exe­cute his plan seems elu­sive, and so he waits, play­ing the role of a grate­ful guest. His mind, how­ev­er, stays fixed on per­son­al gain. Beneath every polite exchange lies cal­cu­la­tion and qui­et plot­ting.

For­tune tilts in Werper’s favor when he over­hears news of Tarzan’s recent finan­cial hard­ship and his inten­tion to jour­ney back to Opar in search of trea­sure. See­ing this as a path to far more than ran­som, Wer­p­er begins to move care­ful­ly. He requests per­mis­sion to hunt in Waziri ter­ri­to­ry, a request Tarzan grants with­out sus­pi­cion. Once away from Greystoke’s home, Wer­p­er dis­miss­es his guide, cit­ing ill­ness, and sets his own plan in motion. A spy is sent to trail Tarzan, to sig­nal his move­ments, allow­ing Wer­p­er to shad­ow the jour­ney. The criminal’s ambi­tion grows with each step. Ran­som has been replaced by visions of Opar’s fabled wealth—gold beyond mea­sure, wait­ing to be claimed by a man bold enough to steal it.

Mean­while, Tarzan ven­tures for­ward unaware of the shad­ow trail­ing him. To him, the expe­di­tion is not a mis­sion of des­per­a­tion but a return to some­thing pure. The jun­gle is not a place of fear—it is home. His mind is unbur­dened, filled with the qui­et antic­i­pa­tion of recon­nect­ing with the wild, of feel­ing the earth beneath his bare feet and the vines in his hands. He does not sense Werper’s decep­tion, nor sus­pect the betray­al bloom­ing behind every polite ges­ture back at the bun­ga­low. While Tarzan sees the trip as rou­tine, the real­i­ty is any­thing but. This jour­ney car­ries the weight of schemes, greed, and poten­tial ruin—though Tarzan sens­es none of it.

The nar­ra­tive sets two oppos­ing forces in motion. On one side, Tarzan—guided by sim­plic­i­ty, loy­al­ty, and the rhythm of nature. On the oth­er, Werper—driven by greed, decep­tion, and blind ambi­tion. As they move sep­a­rate­ly toward Opar, the con­trast between them becomes more dis­tinct. Tarzan’s trust and open­ness high­light Werper’s deceit, cre­at­ing a lay­ered ten­sion. It is not only a jour­ney through the jun­gle but through the hid­den inten­tions that define the men mak­ing it. The clos­er they get to Opar, the more inevitable their con­fronta­tion becomes.

This chap­ter frames the begin­ning of a larg­er con­flict root­ed in human nature itself—between puri­ty and cor­rup­tion, between pur­pose and manip­u­la­tion. As Tarzan moves deep­er into the for­est with no thought of betray­al, Wer­p­er draws clos­er with secrets, ready to claim what he has not earned. In the raw land­scape of Africa, stripped of social pre­tens­es, true char­ac­ter is exposed. The road to Opar is not mere­ly physical—it is a path that will reveal each man for who he tru­ly is. And in the untamed jun­gle, inten­tions are test­ed, and sur­vival is reserved for those who under­stand both the wild and the peo­ple who enter it.