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The Beasts of Tarzan
By
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Chapter 1
Kidnapped
"The entire affair is shrouded in mystery," said D'Arnot. "I have it
on the best of authority that neither the police nor the special agents
of the general staff have the faintest conception of how it was
accomplished. All they know, all that anyone knows, is that Nikolas
Rokoff has escaped."
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke—he who had been "Tarzan of the Apes"—sat
in silence in the apartments of his friend, Lieutenant Paul D'Arnot, in
Paris, gazing meditatively at the toe of his immaculate boot.
His mind revolved many memories, recalled by the escape of his
arch-enemy from the French military prison to which he had been
sentenced for life upon the testimony of the ape-man.
He thought of the lengths to which Rokoff had once gone to compass his
death, and he realized that what the man had already done would
doubtless be as nothing by comparison with what he would wish and plot
to do now that he was again free.
Tarzan had recently brought his wife and infant son to London to escape
the discomforts and dangers of the rainy season upon their vast estate
in Uziri—the land of the savage Waziri warriors whose broad African
domains the ape-man had once ruled.
He had run across the Channel for a brief visit with his old friend,
but the news of the Russian's escape had already cast a shadow upon his
outing, so that though he had but just arrived he was already
contemplating an immediate return to London.
"It is not that I fear for myself, Paul," he said at last. "Many
times in the past have I thwarted Rokoff's designs upon my life; but
now there are others to consider. Unless I misjudge the man, he would
more quickly strike at me through my wife or son than directly at me,
for he doubtless realizes that in no other way could he inflict greater
anguish upon me. I must go back to them at once, and remain with them
until Rokoff is recaptured—or dead."
As these two talked in Paris, two other men were talking together in a
little cottage upon the outskirts of London. Both were dark,
sinister-looking men.
One was bearded, but the other, whose face wore the pallor of long
confinement within doors, had but a few days' growth of black beard
upon his face. It was he who was speaking.
"You must needs shave off that beard of yours, Alexis," he said to his
companion. "With it he would recognize you on the instant. We must
separate here in the hour, and when we meet again upon the deck of the
Kincaid, let us hope that we shall have with us two honoured guests who
little anticipate the pleasant voyage we have planned for them.
"In two hours I should be upon my way to Dover with one of them, and by
tomorrow night, if you follow my instructions carefully, you should
arrive with the other, provided, of course, that he returns to London
as quickly as I presume he will.
"There should be both profit and pleasure as well as other good things
to reward our efforts, my dear Alexis. Thanks to the stupidity of the
French, they have gone to such lengths to conceal the fact of my escape
for these many days that I have had ample opportunity to work out every
detail of our little adventure so carefully that there is little chance
of the slightest hitch occurring to mar our prospects. And now
good-bye, and good luck!"
Three hours later a messenger mounted the steps to the apartment of
Lieutenant D'Arnot.
"A telegram for Lord Greystoke," he said to the servant who answered
his summons. "Is he here?"
The man answered in the affirmative, and, signing for the message,
carried it within to Tarzan, who was already preparing to depart for
London.
Tarzan tore open the envelope, and as he read his face went white.
"Read it, Paul," he said, handing the slip of paper to D'Arnot. "It
has come already."
The Frenchman took the telegram and read:
"Jack stolen from the garden through complicity of new servant. Come
at once.—JANE."
As Tarzan leaped from the roadster that had met him at the station and
ran up the steps to his London town house he was met at the door by a
dry-eyed but almost frantic woman.
Quickly Jane Porter Clayton narrated all that she had been able to
learn of the theft of the boy.
The baby's nurse had been wheeling him in the sunshine on the walk
before the house when a closed taxicab drew up at the corner of the
street. The woman had paid but passing attention to the vehicle,
merely noting that it discharged no passenger, but stood at the kerb
with the motor running as though waiting for a fare from the residence
before which it had stopped.
Almost immediately the new houseman, Carl, had come running from the
Greystoke house, saying that the girl's mistress wished to speak with
her for a moment, and that she was to leave little Jack in his care
until she returned.
The woman said that she entertained not the slightest suspicion of the
man's motives until she had reached the doorway of the house, when it
occurred to her to warn him not to turn the carriage so as to permit
the sun to shine in the baby's eyes.
As she turned about to call this to him she was somewhat surprised to
see that he was wheeling the carriage rapidly toward the corner, and at
the same time she saw the door of the taxicab open and a swarthy face
framed for a moment in the aperture.
Intuitively, the danger to the child flashed upon her, and with a
shriek she dashed down the steps and up the walk toward the taxicab,
into which Carl was now handing the baby to the swarthy one within.
Just before she reached the vehicle, Carl leaped in beside his
confederate, slamming the door behind him. At the same time the
chauffeur attempted to start his machine, but it was evident that
something had gone wrong, as though the gears refused to mesh, and the
delay caused by this, while he pushed the lever into reverse and backed
the car a few inches before again attempting to go ahead, gave the
nurse time to reach the side of the taxicab.
Leaping to the running-board, she had attempted to *** the baby from
the arms of the stranger, and here, screaming and fighting, she had
clung to her position even after the taxicab had got under way; nor was
it until the machine had passed the Greystoke residence at good speed
that Carl, with a heavy blow to her face, had succeeded in knocking her
to the pavement.
Her screams had attracted servants and members of the families from
residences near by, as well as from the Greystoke home. Lady Greystoke
had witnessed the girl's brave battle, and had herself tried to reach
the rapidly passing vehicle, but had been too late.
That was all that anyone knew, nor did Lady Greystoke dream of the
possible identity of the man at the bottom of the plot until her
husband told her of the escape of Nikolas Rokoff from the French prison
where they had hoped he was permanently confined.
As Tarzan and his wife stood planning the wisest course to pursue, the
telephone bell rang in the library at their right. Tarzan quickly
answered the call in person.
"Lord Greystoke?" asked a man's voice at the other end of the line.
"Yes."
"Your son has been stolen," continued the voice, "and I alone may help
you to recover him. I am conversant with the plot of those who took
him. In fact, I was a party to it, and was to share in the reward, but
now they are trying to ditch me, and to be quits with them I will aid
you to recover him on condition that you will not prosecute me for my
part in the crime. What do you say?"
"If you lead me to where my son is hidden," replied the ape-man, "you
need fear nothing from me."
"Good," replied the other. "But you must come alone to meet me, for it
is enough that I must trust you. I cannot take the chance of
permitting others to learn my identity."
"Where and when may I meet you?" asked Tarzan.
The other gave the name and location of a public-house on the
water-front at Dover—a place frequented by sailors.
"Come," he concluded, "about ten o'clock tonight. It would do no good
to arrive earlier. Your son will be safe enough in the meantime, and I
can then lead you secretly to where he is hidden. But be sure to come
alone, and under no circumstances notify Scotland Yard, for I know you
well and shall be watching for you.
"Should any other accompany you, or should I see suspicious characters
who might be agents of the police, I shall not meet you, and your last
chance of recovering your son will be gone."
Without more words the man rang off.
Tarzan repeated the gist of the conversation to his wife. She begged
to be allowed to accompany him, but he insisted that it might result in
the man's carrying out his threat of refusing to aid them if Tarzan did
not come alone, and so they parted, he to hasten to Dover, and she,
ostensibly to wait at home until he should notify her of the outcome of
his mission.
Little did either dream of what both were destined to pass through
before they should meet again, or the far-distant—but why anticipate?
For ten minutes after the ape-man had left her Jane Clayton walked
restlessly back and forth across the silken rugs of the library. Her
mother heart ached, bereft of its first-born. Her mind was in an
anguish of hopes and fears.
Though her judgment told her that all would be well were her Tarzan to
go alone in accordance with the mysterious stranger's summons, her
intuition would not permit her to lay aside suspicion of the gravest
dangers to both her husband and her son.
The more she thought of the matter, the more convinced she became that
the recent telephone message might be but a ruse to keep them inactive
until the boy was safely hidden away or spirited out of England. Or it
might be that it had been simply a bait to lure Tarzan into the hands
of the implacable Rokoff.
With the lodgment of this thought she stopped in wide-eyed terror.
Instantly it became a conviction. She glanced at the great clock
ticking the minutes in the corner of the library.
It was too late to catch the Dover train that Tarzan was to take.
There was another, later, however, that would bring her to the Channel
port in time to reach the address the stranger had given her husband
before the appointed hour.
Summoning her maid and chauffeur, she issued instructions rapidly. Ten
minutes later she was being whisked through the crowded streets toward
the railway station.
It was nine-forty-five that night that Tarzan entered the squalid "pub"
on the water-front in Dover. As he passed into the evil-smelling room
a muffled figure brushed past him toward the street.
"Come, my lord!" whispered the stranger.
The ape-man wheeled about and followed the other into the ill-lit
alley, which custom had dignified with the title of thoroughfare. Once
outside, the fellow led the way into the darkness, nearer a wharf,
where high-piled bales, boxes, and casks cast dense shadows. Here he
halted.
"Where is the boy?" asked Greystoke.
"On that small steamer whose lights you can just see yonder," replied
the other.
In the gloom Tarzan was trying to peer into the features of his
companion, but he did not recognize the man as one whom he had ever
before seen. Had he guessed that his guide was Alexis Paulvitch he
would have realized that naught but treachery lay in the man's heart,
and that danger lurked in the path of every move.
"He is unguarded now," continued the Russian. "Those who took him feel
perfectly safe from detection, and with the exception of a couple of
members of the crew, whom I have furnished with enough gin to silence
them effectually for hours, there is none aboard the Kincaid. We can
go aboard, get the child, and return without the slightest fear."
Tarzan nodded.
"Let's be about it, then," he said.
His guide led him to a small boat moored alongside the wharf. The two
men entered, and Paulvitch pulled rapidly toward the steamer. The
black smoke issuing from her funnel did not at the time make any
suggestion to Tarzan's mind. All his thoughts were occupied with the
hope that in a few moments he would again have his little son in his
arms.
At the steamer's side they found a monkey-ladder dangling close above
them, and up this the two men crept stealthily. Once on deck they
hastened aft to where the Russian pointed to a hatch.
"The boy is hidden there," he said. "You had better go down after him,
as there is less chance that he will cry in fright than should he find
himself in the arms of a stranger. I will stand on guard here."
So anxious was Tarzan to rescue the child that he gave not the
slightest thought to the strangeness of all the conditions surrounding
the Kincaid. That her deck was deserted, though she had steam up, and
from the volume of smoke pouring from her funnel was all ready to get
under way made no impression upon him.
With the thought that in another instant he would fold that precious
little bundle of humanity in his arms, the ape-man swung down into the
darkness below. Scarcely had he released his hold upon the edge of the
hatch than the heavy covering fell clattering above him.
Instantly he knew that he was the victim of a plot, and that far from
rescuing his son he had himself fallen into the hands of his enemies.
Though he immediately endeavoured to reach the hatch and lift the
cover, he was unable to do so.
Striking a match, he explored his surroundings, finding that a little
compartment had been partitioned off from the main hold, with the hatch
above his head the only means of ingress or egress. It was evident
that the room had been prepared for the very purpose of serving as a
cell for himself.
There was nothing in the compartment, and no other occupant. If the
child was on board the Kincaid he was confined elsewhere.
For over twenty years, from infancy to manhood, the ape-man had roamed
his savage jungle haunts without human companionship of any nature. He
had learned at the most impressionable period of his life to take his
pleasures and his sorrows as the beasts take theirs.
So it was that he neither raved nor stormed against fate, but instead
waited patiently for what might next befall him, though not by any
means without an eye to doing the utmost to succour himself. To this
end he examined his prison carefully, tested the heavy planking that
formed its walls, and measured the distance of the hatch above him.
And while he was thus occupied there came suddenly to him the vibration
of machinery and the throbbing of the propeller.
The ship was moving! Where to and to what fate was it carrying him?
And even as these thoughts passed through his mind there came to his
ears above the din of the engines that which caused him to go cold with
apprehension.
Clear and shrill from the deck above him rang the scream of a
frightened woman.
Chapter 2
Marooned
As Tarzan and his guide had disappeared into the shadows upon the dark
wharf the figure of a heavily veiled woman had hurried down the narrow
alley to the entrance of the drinking-place the two men had just
quitted.
Here she paused and looked about, and then as though satisfied that she
had at last reached the place she sought, she pushed bravely into the
interior of the vile den.
A score of half-drunken sailors and wharf-rats looked up at the
unaccustomed sight of a richly gowned woman in their midst. Rapidly
she approached the slovenly barmaid who stared half in envy, half in
hate, at her more fortunate sister.
"Have you seen a tall, well-dressed man here, but a minute since," she
asked, "who met another and went away with him?"
The girl answered in the affirmative, but could not tell which way the
two had gone. A sailor who had approached to listen to the
conversation vouchsafed the information that a moment before as he had
been about to enter the "pub" he had seen two men leaving it who walked
toward the wharf.
"Show me the direction they went," cried the woman, slipping a coin
into the man's hand.
The fellow led her from the place, and together they walked quickly
toward the wharf and along it until across the water they saw a small
boat just pulling into the shadows of a near-by steamer.
"There they be," whispered the man.
"Ten pounds if you will find a boat and row me to that steamer," cried
the woman.
"Quick, then," he replied, "for we gotta go it if we're goin' to catch
the Kincaid afore she sails. She's had steam up for three hours an'
jest been a-waitin' fer that one passenger. I was a-talkin' to one of
her crew 'arf an hour ago."
As he spoke he led the way to the end of the wharf where he knew
another boat lay moored, and, lowering the woman into it, he jumped in
after and pushed off. The two were soon scudding over the water.
At the steamer's side the man demanded his pay and, without waiting to
count out the exact amount, the woman thrust a handful of bank-notes
into his outstretched hand. A single glance at them convinced the
fellow that he had been more than well paid. Then he assisted her up
the ladder, holding his skiff close to the ship's side against the
chance that this profitable passenger might wish to be taken ashore
later.
But presently the sound of the donkey engine and the rattle of a steel
cable on the hoisting-drum proclaimed the fact that the Kincaid's
anchor was being raised, and a moment later the waiter heard the
propellers revolving, and slowly the little steamer moved away from him
out into the channel.
As he turned to row back to shore he heard a woman's shriek from the
ship's deck.
"That's wot I calls rotten luck," he soliloquized. "I might jest as
well of 'ad the whole bloomin' ***."
When Jane Clayton climbed to the deck of the Kincaid she found the ship
apparently deserted. There was no sign of those she sought nor of any
other aboard, and so she went about her search for her husband and the
child she hoped against hope to find there without interruption.
Quickly she hastened to the cabin, which was half above and half below
deck. As she hurried down the short companion-ladder into the main
cabin, on either side of which were the smaller rooms occupied by the
officers, she failed to note the quick closing of one of the doors
before her. She passed the full length of the main room, and then
retracing her steps stopped before each door to listen, furtively
trying each latch.
All was silence, utter silence there, in which the throbbing of her own
frightened heart seemed to her overwrought imagination to fill the ship
with its thunderous alarm.
One by one the doors opened before her touch, only to reveal empty
interiors. In her absorption she did not note the sudden activity upon
the vessel, the purring of the engines, the throbbing of the propeller.
She had reached the last door upon the right now, and as she pushed it
open she was seized from within by a powerful, dark-visaged man, and
drawn hastily into the stuffy, ill-smelling interior.
The sudden shock of fright which the unexpected attack had upon her
drew a single piercing scream from her throat; then the man clapped a
hand roughly over the mouth.
"Not until we are farther from land, my dear," he said. "Then you may
yell your pretty head off."
Lady Greystoke turned to look into the leering, bearded face so close
to hers. The man relaxed the pressure of his fingers upon her lips,
and with a little moan of terror as she recognized him the girl shrank
away from her captor.
"Nikolas Rokoff! M. Thuran!" she exclaimed.
"Your devoted admirer," replied the Russian, with a low bow.
"My little boy," she said next, ignoring the terms of
endearment—"where is he? Let me have him. How could you be so
cruel—even as you—Nikolas Rokoff—cannot be entirely devoid of mercy
and compassion? Tell me where he is. Is he aboard this ship? Oh,
please, if such a thing as a heart beats within your breast, take me to
my baby!"
"If you do as you are bid no harm will befall him," replied Rokoff.
"But remember that it is your own fault that you are here. You came
aboard voluntarily, and you may take the consequences. I little
thought," he added to himself, "that any such good luck as this would
come to me."
He went on deck then, locking the cabin-door upon his prisoner, and for
several days she did not see him. The truth of the matter being that
Nikolas Rokoff was so poor a sailor that the heavy seas the Kincaid
encountered from the very beginning of her voyage sent the Russian to
his berth with a bad attack of sea-sickness.
During this time her only visitor was an uncouth Swede, the Kincaid's
unsavoury cook, who brought her meals to her. His name was Sven
Anderssen, his one pride being that his patronymic was spelt with a
double "s."
The man was tall and raw-***, with a long yellow moustache, an
unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with
one grimy thumb buried deep in the lukewarm stew, that seemed, from the
frequency of its repetition, to constitute the pride of his culinary
art, was sufficient to take away the girl's appetite.
His small, blue, close-set eyes never met hers squarely. There was a
shiftiness of his whole appearance that even found expression in the
cat-like manner of his gait, and to it all a sinister suggestion was
added by the long slim knife that always rested at his waist, slipped
through the greasy cord that supported his soiled apron. Ostensibly it
was but an implement of his calling; but the girl could never free
herself of the conviction that it would require less provocation to
witness it put to other and less harmless uses.
His manner toward her was surly, yet she never failed to meet him with
a pleasant smile and a word of thanks when he brought her food to her,
though more often than not she hurled the bulk of it through the tiny
cabin port the moment that the door closed behind him.
During the days of anguish that followed Jane Clayton's imprisonment,
but two questions were uppermost in her mind—the whereabouts of her
husband and her son. She fully believed that the baby was aboard the
Kincaid, provided that he still lived, but whether Tarzan had been
permitted to live after having been lured aboard the evil craft she
could not guess.
She knew, of course, the deep hatred that the Russian felt for the
Englishman, and she could think of but one reason for having him
brought aboard the ship—to dispatch him in comparative safety in
revenge for his having thwarted Rokoff's pet schemes, and for having
been at last the means of landing him in a French prison.
Tarzan, on his part, lay in the darkness of his cell, ignorant of the
fact that his wife was a prisoner in the cabin almost above his head.
The same Swede that served Jane brought his meals to him, but, though
on several occasions Tarzan had tried to draw the man into
conversation, he had been unsuccessful. He had hoped to learn through
this fellow whether his little son was aboard the Kincaid, but to every
question upon this or kindred subjects the fellow returned but one
reply, "Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard." So after several
attempts Tarzan gave it up.
For weeks that seemed months to the two prisoners the little steamer
forged on they knew not where. Once the Kincaid stopped to coal, only
immediately to take up the seemingly interminable voyage.
Rokoff had visited Jane Clayton but once since he had locked her in the
tiny cabin. He had come gaunt and hollow-eyed from a long siege of
sea-sickness. The object of his visit was to obtain from her her
personal cheque for a large sum in return for a guarantee of her
personal safety and return to England.
"When you set me down safely in any civilized port, together with my
son and my husband," she replied, "I will pay you in gold twice the
amount you ask; but until then you shall not have a cent, nor the
promise of a cent under any other conditions."
"You will give me the cheque I ask," he replied with a snarl, "or
neither you nor your child nor your husband will ever again set foot
within any port, civilized or otherwise."
"I would not trust you," she replied. "What guarantee have I that you
would not take my money and then do as you pleased with me and mine
regardless of your promise?"
"I think you will do as I bid," he said, turning to leave the cabin.
"Remember that I have your son—if you chance to hear the agonized wail
of a tortured child it may console you to reflect that it is because of
your stubbornness that the baby suffers—and that it is your baby."
"You would not do it!" cried the girl. "You would not—could not be so
fiendishly cruel!"
"It is not I that am cruel, but you," he returned, "for you permit a
paltry sum of money to stand between your baby and immunity from
suffering."
The end of it was that Jane Clayton wrote out a cheque of large
denomination and handed it to Nikolas Rokoff, who left her cabin with a
grin of satisfaction upon his lips.
The following day the hatch was removed from Tarzan's cell, and as he
looked up he saw Paulvitch's head framed in the square of light above
him.
"Come up," commanded the Russian. "But bear in mind that you will be
shot if you make a single move to attack me or any other aboard the
ship."
The ape-man swung himself lightly to the deck. About him, but at a
respectful distance, stood a half-dozen sailors armed with rifles and
revolvers. Facing him was Paulvitch.
Tarzan looked about for Rokoff, who he felt sure must be aboard, but
there was no sign of him.
"Lord Greystoke," commenced the Russian, "by your continued and wanton
interference with M. Rokoff and his plans you have at last brought
yourself and your family to this unfortunate extremity. You have only
yourself to thank. As you may imagine, it has cost M. Rokoff a large
amount of money to finance this expedition, and, as you are the sole
cause of it, he naturally looks to you for reimbursement.
"Further, I may say that only by meeting M. Rokoff's just demands may
you avert the most unpleasant consequences to your wife and child, and
at the same time retain your own life and regain your liberty."
"What is the amount?" asked Tarzan. "And what assurance have I that
you will live up to your end of the agreement? I have little reason to
trust two such scoundrels as you and Rokoff, you know."
The Russian flushed.
"You are in no position to deliver insults," he said. "You have no
assurance that we will live up to our agreement other than my word, but
you have before you the assurance that we can make short work of you if
you do not write out the cheque we demand.
"Unless you are a greater fool than I imagine, you should know that
there is nothing that would give us greater pleasure than to order
these men to fire. That we do not is because we have other plans for
punishing you that would be entirely upset by your death."
"Answer one question," said Tarzan. "Is my son on board this ship?"
"No," replied Alexis Paulvitch, "your son is quite safe elsewhere; nor
will he be killed until you refuse to accede to our fair demands. If
it becomes necessary to kill you, there will be no reason for not
killing the child, since with you gone the one whom we wish to punish
through the boy will be gone, and he will then be to us only a constant
source of danger and embarrassment. You see, therefore, that you may
only save the life of your son by saving your own, and you can only
save your own by giving us the cheque we ask."
"Very well," replied Tarzan, for he knew that he could trust them to
carry out any sinister threat that Paulvitch had made, and there was a
bare chance that by conceding their demands he might save the boy.
That they would permit him to live after he had appended his name to
the cheque never occurred to him as being within the realms of
probability. But he was determined to give them such a battle as they
would never forget, and possibly to take Paulvitch with him into
eternity. He was only sorry that it was not Rokoff.
He took his pocket cheque-book and fountain-pen from his pocket.
"What is the amount?" he asked.
Paulvitch named an enormous sum. Tarzan could scarce restrain a smile.
Their very cupidity was to prove the means of their undoing, in the
matter of the ransom at least. Purposely he hesitated and haggled over
the amount, but Paulvitch was obdurate. Finally the ape-man wrote out
his cheque for a larger sum than stood to his credit at the bank.
As he turned to hand the worthless slip of paper to the Russian his
glance chanced to pass across the starboard bow of the Kincaid. To his
surprise he saw that the ship lay within a few hundred yards of land.
Almost down to the water's edge ran a dense tropical jungle, and behind
was higher land clothed in forest.
Paulvitch noted the direction of his gaze.
"You are to be set at liberty here," he said.
Tarzan's plan for immediate physical revenge upon the Russian vanished.
He thought the land before him the mainland of Africa, and he knew that
should they liberate him here he could doubtless find his way to
civilization with comparative ease.
Paulvitch took the cheque.
"Remove your clothing," he said to the ape-man. "Here you will not
need it."
Tarzan demurred.
Paulvitch pointed to the armed sailors. Then the Englishman slowly
divested himself of his clothing.
A boat was lowered, and, still heavily guarded, the ape-man was rowed
ashore. Half an hour later the sailors had returned to the Kincaid,
and the steamer was slowly getting under way.
As Tarzan stood upon the narrow strip of beach watching the departure
of the vessel he saw a figure appear at the rail and call aloud to
attract his attention.
The ape-man had been about to read a note that one of the sailors had
handed him as the small boat that bore him to the shore was on the
point of returning to the steamer, but at the hail from the vessel's
deck he looked up.
He saw a black-bearded man who laughed at him in derision as he held
high above his head the figure of a little child. Tarzan half started
as though to rush through the surf and strike out for the already
moving steamer; but realizing the futility of so rash an act he halted
at the water's edge.
Thus he stood, his gaze riveted upon the Kincaid until it disappeared
beyond a projecting promontory of the coast.
From the jungle at his back fierce bloodshot eyes glared from beneath
shaggy overhanging brows upon him.
Little monkeys in the tree-tops chattered and scolded, and from the
distance of the inland forest came the scream of a leopard.
But still John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, stood deaf and unseeing,
suffering the pangs of keen regret for the opportunity that he had
wasted because he had been so gullible as to place credence in a single
statement of the first lieutenant of his arch-enemy.
"I have at least," he thought, "one consolation—the knowledge that
Jane is safe in London. Thank Heaven she, too, did not fall into the
clutches of those villains."
Behind him the hairy thing whose evil eyes had been watching him as a
cat watches a mouse was creeping stealthily toward him.
Where were the trained senses of the savage ape-man?
Where the acute hearing?
Where the uncanny sense of scent?
Chapter 3
Beasts at Bay
Slowly Tarzan unfolded the note the sailor had thrust into his hand,
and read it. At first it made little impression on his sorrow-numbed
senses, but finally the full purport of the hideous plot of revenge
unfolded itself before his imagination.
"This will explain to you" [the note read] "the exact nature of my
intentions relative to your offspring and to you.
"You were born an ape. You lived naked in the jungles—to your own we
have returned you; but your son shall rise a step above his sire. It
is the immutable law of evolution.
"The father was a beast, but the son shall be a man—he shall take the
next ascending step in the scale of progress. He shall be no naked
beast of the jungle, but shall wear a loin-cloth and copper anklets,
and, perchance, a ring in his nose, for he is to be reared by men—a
tribe of savage cannibals.
"I might have killed you, but that would have curtailed the full
measure of the punishment you have earned at my hands.
"Dead, you could not have suffered in the knowledge of your son's
plight; but living and in a place from which you may not escape to seek
or succour your child, you shall suffer worse than death for all the
years of your life in contemplation of the horrors of your son's
existence.
"This, then, is to be a part of your punishment for having dared to pit
yourself against
N. R.
"P.S.—The balance of your punishment has to do with what shall
presently befall your wife—that I shall leave to your imagination."
As he finished reading, a slight sound behind him brought him back with
a start to the world of present realities.
Instantly his senses awoke, and he was again Tarzan of the Apes.
As he wheeled about, it was a beast at bay, vibrant with the instinct
of self-preservation, that faced a huge bull-ape that was already
charging down upon him.
The two years that had elapsed since Tarzan had come out of the savage
forest with his rescued mate had witnessed slight diminution of the
mighty powers that had made him the invincible lord of the jungle. His
great estates in Uziri had claimed much of his time and attention, and
there he had found ample field for the practical use and retention of
his almost superhuman powers; but naked and unarmed to do battle with
the shaggy, bull-necked beast that now confronted him was a test that
the ape-man would scarce have welcomed at any period of his wild
existence.
But there was no alternative other than to meet the rage-maddened
creature with the weapons with which nature had endowed him.
Over the bull's shoulder Tarzan could see now the heads and shoulders
of perhaps a dozen more of these mighty fore-runners of primitive man.
He knew, however, that there was little chance that they would attack
him, since it is not within the reasoning powers of the anthropoid to
be able to weigh or appreciate the value of concentrated action against
an enemy—otherwise they would long since have become the dominant
creatures of their haunts, so tremendous a power of destruction lies in
their mighty thews and savage fangs.
With a low snarl the beast now hurled himself at Tarzan, but the
ape-man had found, among other things in the haunts of civilized man,
certain methods of scientific warfare that are unknown to the jungle
folk.
Whereas, a few years since, he would have met the brute rush with brute
force, he now sidestepped his antagonist's headlong charge, and as the
brute hurtled past him swung a mighty right to the pit of the ape's
stomach.
With a howl of mingled rage and anguish the great anthropoid bent
double and sank to the ground, though almost instantly he was again
struggling to his feet.
Before he could regain them, however, his white-skinned foe had wheeled
and pounced upon him, and in the act there dropped from the shoulders
of the English lord the last shred of his superficial mantle of
civilization.
Once again he was the jungle beast revelling in bloody conflict with
his kind. Once again he was Tarzan, son of Kala the she-ape.
His strong, white teeth sank into the hairy throat of his enemy as he
sought the pulsing jugular.
Powerful fingers held the mighty fangs from his own flesh, or clenched
and beat with the power of a steam-hammer upon the snarling,
foam-flecked face of his adversary.
In a circle about them the balance of the tribe of apes stood watching
and enjoying the struggle. They muttered low gutturals of approval as
bits of white hide or hairy bloodstained skin were torn from one
contestant or the other. But they were silent in amazement and
expectation when they saw the mighty white ape wriggle upon the back of
their king, and, with steel muscles tensed beneath the armpits of his
antagonist, bear down mightily with his open palms upon the back of the
thick bullneck, so that the king ape could but shriek in agony and
flounder helplessly about upon the thick mat of jungle grass.
As Tarzan had overcome the huge Terkoz that time years before when he
had been about to set out upon his quest for human beings of his own
kind and colour, so now he overcame this other great ape with the same
wrestling hold upon which he had stumbled by accident during that other
combat. The little audience of fierce anthropoids heard the creaking
of their king's neck mingling with his agonized shrieks and hideous
roaring.
Then there came a sudden crack, like the breaking of a stout limb
before the fury of the wind. The bullet-head crumpled forward upon its
flaccid neck against the great hairy chest—the roaring and the
shrieking ceased.
The little pig-eyes of the onlookers wandered from the still form of
their leader to that of the white ape that was rising to its feet
beside the vanquished, then back to their king as though in wonder that
he did not arise and slay this presumptuous stranger.
They saw the new-comer place a foot upon the neck of the quiet figure
at his feet and, throwing back his head, give vent to the wild, uncanny
challenge of the bull-ape that has made a kill. Then they knew that
their king was dead.
Across the jungle rolled the horrid notes of the victory cry. The
little monkeys in the tree-tops ceased their chattering. The
harsh-voiced, brilliant-plumed birds were still. From afar came the
answering wail of a leopard and the deep roar of a lion.
It was the old Tarzan who turned questioning eyes upon the little knot
of apes before him. It was the old Tarzan who shook his head as though
to toss back a heavy mane that had fallen before his face—an old habit
dating from the days that his great shock of thick, black hair had
fallen about his shoulders, and often tumbled before his eyes when it
had meant life or death to him to have his vision unobstructed.
The ape-man knew that he might expect an immediate attack on the part
of that particular surviving bull-ape who felt himself best fitted to
contend for the kingship of the tribe. Among his own apes he knew
that it was not unusual for an entire stranger to enter a community
and, after having dispatched the king, assume the leadership of the
tribe himself, together with the fallen monarch's mates.
On the other hand, if he made no attempt to follow them, they might
move slowly away from him, later to fight among themselves for the
supremacy. That he could be king of them, if he so chose, he was
confident; but he was not sure he cared to assume the sometimes irksome
duties of that position, for he could see no particular advantage to be
gained thereby.
One of the younger apes, a huge, splendidly muscled brute, was edging
threateningly closer to the ape-man. Through his bared fighting fangs
there issued a low, sullen growl.
Tarzan watched his every move, standing rigid as a statue. To have
fallen back a step would have been to precipitate an immediate charge;
to have rushed forward to meet the other might have had the same
result, or it might have put the bellicose one to flight—it all
depended upon the young bull's stock of courage.
To stand perfectly still, waiting, was the middle course. In this
event the bull would, according to custom, approach quite close to the
object of his attention, growling hideously and baring slavering fangs.
Slowly he would circle about the other, as though with a chip upon his
shoulder; and this he did, even as Tarzan had foreseen.
It might be a bluff royal, or, on the other hand, so unstable is the
mind of an ape, a passing impulse might hurl the hairy mass, tearing
and rending, upon the man without an instant's warning.
As the brute circled him Tarzan turned slowly, keeping his eyes ever
upon the eyes of his antagonist. He had appraised the young bull as
one who had never quite felt equal to the task of overthrowing his
former king, but who one day would have done so. Tarzan saw that the
beast was of wondrous proportions, standing over seven feet upon his
short, bowed legs.
His great, hairy arms reached almost to the ground even when he stood
erect, and his fighting fangs, now quite close to Tarzan's face, were
exceptionally long and sharp. Like the others of his tribe, he
differed in several minor essentials from the apes of Tarzan's boyhood.
At first the ape-man had experienced a thrill of hope at sight of the
shaggy bodies of the anthropoids—a hope that by some strange freak of
fate he had been again returned to his own tribe; but a closer
inspection had convinced him that these were another species.
As the threatening bull continued his stiff and jerky circling of the
ape-man, much after the manner that you have noted among dogs when a
strange canine comes among them, it occurred to Tarzan to discover if
the language of his own tribe was identical with that of this other
family, and so he addressed the brute in the language of the tribe of
Kerchak.
"Who are you," he asked, "who threatens Tarzan of the Apes?"
The hairy brute looked his surprise.
"I am Akut," replied the other in the same simple, primal tongue which
is so low in the scale of spoken languages that, as Tarzan had
surmised, it was identical with that of the tribe in which the first
twenty years of his life had been spent.
"I am Akut," said the ape. "Molak is dead. I am king. Go away or I
shall kill you!"
"You saw how easily I killed Molak," replied Tarzan. "So I could kill
you if I cared to be king. But Tarzan of the Apes would not be king of
the tribe of Akut. All he wishes is to live in peace in this country.
Let us be friends. Tarzan of the Apes can help you, and you can help
Tarzan of the Apes."
"You cannot kill Akut," replied the other. "None is so great as Akut.
Had you not killed Molak, Akut would have done so, for Akut was ready
to be king."
For answer the ape-man hurled himself upon the great brute who during
the conversation had slightly relaxed his vigilance.
In the twinkling of an eye the man had seized the wrist of the great
ape, and before the other could grapple with him had whirled him about
and leaped upon his broad back.
Down they went together, but so well had Tarzan's plan worked out that
before ever they touched the ground he had gained the same hold upon
Akut that had broken Molak's neck.
Slowly he brought the pressure to bear, and then as in days gone by he
had given Kerchak the chance to surrender and live, so now he gave to
Akut—in whom he saw a possible ally of great strength and
resource—the option of living in amity with him or dying as he had
just seen his savage and heretofore invincible king die.
"Ka-Goda?" whispered Tarzan to the ape beneath him.
It was the same question that he had whispered to Kerchak, and in the
language of the apes it means, broadly, "Do you surrender?"
Akut thought of the creaking sound he had heard just before Molak's
thick neck had snapped, and he shuddered.
He hated to give up the kingship, though, so again he struggled to free
himself; but a sudden torturing pressure upon his vertebra brought an
agonized "ka-goda!" from his lips.
Tarzan relaxed his grip a trifle.
"You may still be king, Akut," he said. "Tarzan told you that he did
not wish to be king. If any question your right, Tarzan of the Apes
will help you in your battles."
The ape-man rose, and Akut came slowly to his feet. Shaking his
bullet head and growling angrily, he waddled toward his tribe, looking
first at one and then at another of the larger bulls who might be
expected to challenge his leadership.
But none did so; instead, they drew away as he approached, and
presently the whole pack moved off into the jungle, and Tarzan was left
alone once more upon the beach.
The ape-man was sore from the wounds that Molak had inflicted upon him,
but he was inured to physical suffering and endured it with the calm
and fortitude of the wild beasts that had taught him to lead the jungle
life after the manner of all those that are born to it.
His first need, he realized, was for weapons of offence and defence,
for his encounter with the apes, and the distant notes of the savage
voices of Numa the lion, and Sheeta, the panther, warned him that his
was to be no life of indolent ease and security.
It was but a return to the old existence of constant bloodshed and
danger—to the hunting and the being hunted. Grim beasts would stalk
him, as they had stalked him in the past, and never would there be a
moment, by savage day or by cruel night, that he might not have instant
need of such crude weapons as he could fashion from the materials at
hand.
Upon the shore he found an out-cropping of brittle, igneous rock. By
dint of much labour he managed to chip off a narrow sliver some twelve
inches long by a quarter of an inch thick. One edge was quite thin for
a few inches near the tip. It was the rudiment of a knife.
With it he went into the jungle, searching until he found a fallen tree
of a certain species of hardwood with which he was familiar. From this
he cut a small straight branch, which he pointed at one end.
Then he scooped a small, round hole in the surface of the prostrate
trunk. Into this he crumbled a few bits of dry bark, minutely
shredded, after which he inserted the tip of his pointed stick, and,
sitting astride the bole of the tree, spun the slender rod rapidly
between his palms.
After a time a thin smoke rose from the little mass of tinder, and a
moment later the whole broke into flame. Heaping some larger twigs
and sticks upon the tiny fire, Tarzan soon had quite a respectable
blaze roaring in the enlarging cavity of the dead tree.
Into this he thrust the blade of his stone knife, and as it became
superheated he would withdraw it, touching a spot near the thin edge
with a drop of moisture. Beneath the wetted area a little flake of the
glassy material would crack and scale away.
Thus, very slowly, the ape-man commenced the tedious operation of
putting a thin edge upon his primitive hunting-knife.
He did not attempt to accomplish the feat all in one sitting. At first
he was content to achieve a cutting edge of a couple of inches, with
which he cut a long, pliable bow, a handle for his knife, a stout
cudgel, and a goodly supply of arrows.
These he cached in a tall tree beside a little stream, and here also he
constructed a platform with a roof of palm-leaves above it.
When all these things had been finished it was growing dusk, and Tarzan
felt a strong desire to eat.
He had noted during the brief incursion he had made into the forest
that a short distance up-stream from his tree there was a much-used
watering place, where, from the trampled mud of either bank, it was
evident beasts of all sorts and in great numbers came to drink. To
this spot the hungry ape-man made his silent way.
Through the upper terrace of the tree-tops he swung with the grace and
ease of a monkey. But for the heavy burden upon his heart he would
have been happy in this return to the old free life of his boyhood.
Yet even with that burden he fell into the little habits and manners of
his early life that were in reality more a part of him than the thin
veneer of civilization that the past three years of his association
with the white men of the outer world had spread lightly over him—a
veneer that only hid the crudities of the beast that Tarzan of the Apes
had been.
Could his fellow-peers of the House of Lords have seen him then they
would have held up their noble hands in holy horror.
Silently he crouched in the lower branches of a great forest giant that
overhung the trail, his keen eyes and sensitive ears strained into the
distant jungle, from which he knew his dinner would presently emerge.
Nor had he long to wait.
Scarce had he settled himself to a comfortable position, his lithe,
muscular legs drawn well up beneath him as the panther draws his
hindquarters in preparation for the spring, than Bara, the deer, came
daintily down to drink.
But more than Bara was coming. Behind the graceful buck came another
which the deer could neither see nor scent, but whose movements were
apparent to Tarzan of the Apes because of the elevated position of the
ape-man's ambush.
He knew not yet exactly the nature of the thing that moved so
stealthily through the jungle a few hundred yards behind the deer; but
he was convinced that it was some great beast of prey stalking Bara for
the selfsame purpose as that which prompted him to await the fleet
animal. Numa, perhaps, or Sheeta, the panther.
In any event, Tarzan could see his repast slipping from his grasp
unless Bara moved more rapidly toward the ford than at present.
Even as these thoughts passed through his mind some noise of the
stalker in his rear must have come to the buck, for with a sudden start
he paused for an instant, trembling, in his tracks, and then with a
swift bound dashed straight for the river and Tarzan. It was his
intention to flee through the shallow ford and escape upon the opposite
side of the river.
Not a hundred yards behind him came Numa.
Tarzan could see him quite plainly now. Below the ape-man Bara was
about to pass. Could he do it? But even as he asked himself the
question the hungry man launched himself from his perch full upon the
back of the startled buck.
In another instant Numa would be upon them both, so if the ape-man were
to dine that night, or ever again, he must act quickly.
Scarcely had he touched the sleek hide of the deer with a momentum that
sent the animal to its knees than he had grasped a horn in either hand,
and with a single quick wrench twisted the animal's neck completely
round, until he felt the vertebrae snap beneath his grip.
The lion was roaring in rage close behind him as he swung the deer
across his shoulder, and, grasping a foreleg between his strong teeth,
leaped for the nearest of the lower branches that swung above his head.
With both hands he grasped the limb, and, at the instant that Numa
sprang, drew himself and his prey out of reach of the animal's cruel
talons.
There was a thud below him as the baffled cat fell back to earth, and
then Tarzan of the Apes, drawing his dinner farther up to the safety of
a higher limb, looked down with grinning face into the gleaming yellow
eyes of the other wild beast that glared up at him from beneath, and
with taunting insults flaunted the tender carcass of his kill in the
face of him whom he had cheated of it.
With his crude stone knife he cut a juicy steak from the hindquarters,
and while the great lion paced, growling, back and forth below him,
Lord Greystoke filled his savage belly, nor ever in the choicest of his
exclusive London clubs had a meal tasted more palatable.
The warm blood of his kill smeared his hands and face and filled his
nostrils with the scent that the savage carnivora love best.
And when he had finished he left the balance of the carcass in a high
fork of the tree where he had dined, and with Numa trailing below him,
still keen for revenge, he made his way back to his tree-top shelter,
where he slept until the sun was high the following morning.
Chapter 4
Sheeta
The next few days were occupied by Tarzan in completing his weapons and
exploring the jungle. He strung his bow with tendons from the buck
upon which he had dined his first evening upon the new shore, and
though he would have preferred the gut of Sheeta for the purpose, he
was content to wait until opportunity permitted him to kill one of the
great cats.
He also braided a long grass rope—such a rope as he had used so many
years before to tantalize the ill-natured Tublat, and which later had
developed into a wondrous effective weapon in the practised hands of
the little ape-boy.
A sheath and handle for his hunting-knife he fashioned, and a quiver
for arrows, and from the hide of Bara a belt and loin-cloth. Then he
set out to learn something of the strange land in which he found
himself. That it was not his old familiar west coast of the African
continent he knew from the fact that it faced east—the rising sun came
up out of the sea before the threshold of the jungle.
But that it was not the east coast of Africa he was equally positive,
for he felt satisfied that the Kincaid had not passed through the
Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea, nor had she had time to
round the Cape of Good Hope. So he was quite at a loss to know where
he might be.
Sometimes he wondered if the ship had crossed the broad Atlantic to
deposit him upon some wild South American shore; but the presence of
Numa, the lion, decided him that such could not be the case.
As Tarzan made his lonely way through the jungle paralleling the shore,
he felt strong upon him a desire for companionship, so that gradually
he commenced to regret that he had not cast his lot with the apes. He
had seen nothing of them since that first day, when the influences of
civilization were still paramount within him.
Now he was more nearly returned to the Tarzan of old, and though he
appreciated the fact that there could be little in common between
himself and the great anthropoids, still they were better than no
company at all.
Moving leisurely, sometimes upon the ground and again among the lower
branches of the trees, gathering an occasional fruit or turning over a
fallen log in search of the larger bugs, which he still found as
palatable as of old, Tarzan had covered a mile or more when his
attention was attracted by the scent of Sheeta up-wind ahead of him.
Now Sheeta, the panther, was one whom Tarzan was exceptionally glad
to fall in with, for he had it in mind not only to utilize the great
cat's strong gut for his bow, but also to fashion a new quiver and
loin-cloth from pieces of his hide. So, whereas the ape-man had gone
carelessly before, he now became the personification of noiseless
stealth.
Swiftly and silently he glided through the forest in the wake of the
savage cat, nor was the pursuer, for all his noble birth, one whit less
savage than the wild, fierce thing he stalked.
As he came closer to Sheeta he became aware that the panther on his
part was stalking game of his own, and even as he realized this fact
there came to his nostrils, wafted from his right by a vagrant breeze,
the strong odour of a company of great apes.
The panther had taken to a large tree as Tarzan came within sight of
him, and beyond and below him Tarzan saw the tribe of Akut lolling in a
little, natural clearing. Some of them were dozing against the boles
of trees, while others roamed about turning over bits of bark from
beneath which they transferred the luscious grubs and beetles to their
mouths.
Akut was the closest to Sheeta.
The great cat lay crouched upon a thick limb, hidden from the ape's
view by dense foliage, waiting patiently until the anthropoid should
come within range of his spring.
Tarzan cautiously gained a position in the same tree with the panther
and a little above him. In his left hand he grasped his slim stone
blade. He would have preferred to use his noose, but the foliage
surrounding the huge cat precluded the possibility of an accurate throw
with the rope.
Akut had now wandered quite close beneath the tree wherein lay the
waiting death. Sheeta slowly edged his hind paws along the branch
still further beneath him, and then with a hideous shriek he launched
himself toward the great ape. The barest fraction of a second before
his spring another beast of prey above him leaped, its weird and savage
cry mingling with his.
As the startled Akut looked up he saw the panther almost above him, and
already upon the panther's back the white ape that had bested him that
day near the great water.
The teeth of the ape-man were buried in the back of Sheeta's neck and
his right arm was round the fierce throat, while the left hand,
grasping a slender piece of stone, rose and fell in mighty blows upon
the panther's side behind the left shoulder.
Akut had just time to leap to one side to avoid being pinioned beneath
these battling monsters of the jungle.
With a crash they came to earth at his feet. Sheeta was screaming,
snarling, and roaring horribly; but the white ape clung tenaciously and
in silence to the thrashing body of his quarry.
Steadily and remorselessly the stone knife was driven home through the
glossy hide—time and again it drank deep, until with a final agonized
lunge and shriek the great feline rolled over upon its side and, save
for the spasmodic jerking of its muscles, lay quiet and still in death.
Then the ape-man raised his head, as he stood over the carcass of his
kill, and once again through the jungle rang his wild and savage
victory challenge.
Akut and the apes of Akut stood looking in startled wonder at the dead
body of Sheeta and the lithe, straight figure of the man who had slain
him.
Tarzan was the first to speak.
He had saved Akut's life for a purpose, and, knowing the limitations of
the ape intellect, he also knew that he must make this purpose plain to
the anthropoid if it were to serve him in the way he hoped.
"I am Tarzan of the Apes," he said, "Mighty hunter. Mighty fighter.
By the great water I spared Akut's life when I might have taken it and
become king of the tribe of Akut. Now I have saved Akut from death
beneath the rending fangs of Sheeta.
"When Akut or the tribe of Akut is in danger, let them call to Tarzan
thus"—and the ape-man raised the hideous cry with which the tribe of
Kerchak had been wont to summon its absent members in times of peril.
"And," he continued, "when they hear Tarzan call to them, let them
remember what he has done for Akut and come to him with great speed.
Shall it be as Tarzan says?"
"Huh!" assented Akut, and from the members of his tribe there rose a
unanimous "Huh."
Then, presently, they went to feeding again as though nothing had
happened, and with them fed John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
He noticed, however, that Akut kept always close to him, and was often
looking at him with a strange wonder in his little bloodshot eyes, and
once he did a thing that Tarzan during all his long years among the
apes had never before seen an ape do—he found a particularly tender
morsel and handed it to Tarzan.
As the tribe hunted, the glistening body of the ape-man mingled with
the brown, shaggy hides of his companions. Oftentimes they brushed
together in passing, but the apes had already taken his presence for
granted, so that he was as much one of them as Akut himself.
If he came too close to a she with a young baby, the former would bare
her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a
truculent young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while
the former was eating. But in those things the treatment was no
different from that which they accorded any other member of the tribe.
Tarzan on his part felt very much at home with these fierce, hairy
progenitors of primitive man. He skipped nimbly out of reach of each
threatening female—for such is the way of apes, if they be not in one
of their occasional fits of *** rage—and he growled back at the
truculent young bulls, baring his canine teeth even as they. Thus
easily he fell back into the way of his early life, nor did it seem
that he had ever tasted association with creatures of his own kind.
For the better part of a week he roamed the jungle with his new
friends, partly because of a desire for companionship and partially
through a well-laid plan to impress himself indelibly upon their
memories, which at best are none too long; for Tarzan from past
experience knew that it might serve him in good stead to have a tribe
of these powerful and terrible beasts at his call.
When he was convinced that he had succeeded to some extent in fixing
his identity upon them he decided to again take up his exploration. To
this end he set out toward the north early one day, and, keeping
parallel with the shore, travelled rapidly until almost nightfall.
When the sun rose the next morning he saw that it lay almost directly
to his right as he stood upon the beach instead of straight out across
the water as heretofore, and so he reasoned that the shore line had
trended toward the west. All the second day he continued his rapid
course, and when Tarzan of the Apes sought speed, he passed through the
middle terrace of the forest with the rapidity of a squirrel.
That night the sun set straight out across the water opposite the land,
and then the ape-man guessed at last the truth that he had been
suspecting.
Rokoff had set him ashore upon an island.
He might have known it! If there was any plan that would render his
position more harrowing he should have known that such would be the one
adopted by the Russian, and what could be more terrible than to leave
him to a lifetime of suspense upon an uninhabited island?
Rokoff doubtless had sailed directly to the mainland, where it would be
a comparatively easy thing for him to find the means of delivering the
infant Jack into the hands of the cruel and savage foster-parents, who,
as his note had threatened, would have the upbringing of the child.
Tarzan shuddered as he thought of the cruel suffering the little one
must endure in such a life, even though he might fall into the hands of
individuals whose intentions toward him were of the kindest. The
ape-man had had sufficient experience with the lower savages of Africa
to know that even there may be found the cruder virtues of charity and
humanity; but their lives were at best but a series of terrible
privations, dangers, and sufferings.
Then there was the horrid after-fate that awaited the child as he grew
to manhood. The horrible practices that would form a part of his
life-training would alone be sufficient to bar him forever from
association with those of his own race and station in life.
A cannibal! His little boy a savage man-eater! It was too horrible to
contemplate.
The filed teeth, the slit nose, the little face painted hideously.
Tarzan groaned. Could he but feel the throat of the Russ fiend beneath
his steel fingers!
And Jane!
What tortures of doubt and fear and uncertainty she must be suffering.
He felt that his position was infinitely less terrible than hers, for
he at least knew that one of his loved ones was safe at home, while she
had no idea of the whereabouts of either her husband or her son.
It is well for Tarzan that he did not guess the truth, for the
knowledge would have but added a hundredfold to his suffering.
As he moved slowly through the jungle his mind absorbed by his gloomy
thoughts, there presently came to his ears a strange scratching sound
which he could not translate.
Cautiously he moved in the direction from which it emanated, presently
coming upon a huge panther pinned beneath a fallen tree.
As Tarzan approached, the beast turned, snarling, toward him,
struggling to extricate itself; but one great limb across its back and
the smaller entangling branches pinioning its legs prevented it from
moving but a few inches in any direction.
The ape-man stood before the helpless cat fitting an arrow to his bow
that he might dispatch the beast that otherwise must die of starvation;
but even as he drew back the shaft a sudden whim stayed his hand.
Why rob the poor creature of life and liberty, when it would be so easy
a thing to restore both to it! He was sure from the fact that the
panther moved all its limbs in its futile struggle for freedom that its
spine was uninjured, and for the same reason he knew that none of its
limbs were broken.
Relaxing his bowstring, he returned the arrow to the quiver and,
throwing the bow about his shoulder, stepped closer to the pinioned
beast.
On his lips was the soothing, purring sound that the great cats
themselves made when contented and happy. It was the nearest approach
to a friendly advance that Tarzan could make in the language of Sheeta.
The panther ceased his snarling and eyed the ape-man closely. To lift
the tree's great weight from the animal it was necessary to come within
reach of those long, strong talons, and when the tree had been removed
the man would be totally at the mercy of the savage beast; but to
Tarzan of the Apes fear was a thing unknown.
Having decided, he acted promptly.
Unhesitatingly, he stepped into the tangle of branches close to the
panther's side, still voicing his friendly and conciliatory purr. The
cat turned his head toward the man, eyeing him steadily—questioningly.
The long fangs were bared, but more in preparedness than threat.
Tarzan put a broad shoulder beneath the bole of the tree, and as he did
so his bare leg pressed against the cat's silken side, so close was the
man to the great beast.
Slowly Tarzan extended his giant thews.
The great tree with its entangling branches rose gradually from the
panther, who, feeling the encumbering weight diminish, quickly crawled
from beneath. Tarzan let the tree fall back to earth, and the two
beasts turned to look upon one another.
A grim smile lay upon the ape-man's lips, for he knew that he had taken
his life in his hands to free this savage jungle fellow; nor would it
have surprised him had the cat sprung upon him the instant that it had
been released.
But it did not do so. Instead, it stood a few paces from the tree
watching the ape-man clamber out of the maze of fallen branches.
Once outside, Tarzan was not three paces from the panther. He might
have taken to the higher branches of the trees upon the opposite side,
for Sheeta cannot climb to the heights to which the ape-man can go; but
something, a spirit of bravado perhaps, prompted him to approach the
panther as though to discover if any feeling of gratitude would prompt
the beast to friendliness.
As he approached the mighty cat the creature stepped warily to one
side, and the ape-man brushed past him within a foot of the dripping
jaws, and as he continued on through the forest the panther followed on
behind him, as a hound follows at heel.
For a long time Tarzan could not tell whether the beast was following
out of friendly feelings or merely stalking him against the time he
should be hungry; but finally he was forced to believe that the former
incentive it was that prompted the animal's action.
Later in the day the scent of a deer sent Tarzan into the trees, and
when he had dropped his noose about the animal's neck he called to
Sheeta, using a purr similar to that which he had utilized to pacify
the brute's suspicions earlier in the day, but a trifle louder and more
shrill.
It was similar to that which he had heard panthers use after a kill
when they had been hunting in pairs.
Almost immediately there was a crashing of the underbrush close at
hand, and the long, lithe body of his strange companion broke into view.
At sight of the body of Bara and the smell of blood the panther gave
forth a shrill scream, and a moment later two beasts were feeding side
by side upon the tender meat of the deer.
For several days this strangely assorted pair roamed the jungle
together.
When one made a kill he called the other, and thus they fed well and
often.
On one occasion as they were dining upon the carcass of a boar that
Sheeta had dispatched, Numa, the lion, grim and terrible, broke through
the tangled grasses close beside them.
With an angry, warning roar he sprang forward to chase them from their
kill. Sheeta bounded into a near-by thicket, while Tarzan took to the
low branches of an overhanging tree.
Here the ape-man unloosed his grass rope from about his neck, and as
Numa stood above the body of the boar, challenging head erect, he
dropped the sinuous noose about the maned neck, drawing the stout
strands taut with a sudden jerk. At the same time he called shrilly
to Sheeta, as he drew the struggling lion upward until only his hind
feet touched the ground.
Quickly he made the rope fast to a stout branch, and as the panther, in
answer to his summons, leaped into sight, Tarzan dropped to the earth
beside the struggling and infuriated Numa, and with a long sharp knife
sprang upon him at one side even as Sheeta did upon the other.
The panther tore and rent Numa upon the right, while the ape-man struck
home with his stone knife upon the other, so that before the mighty
clawing of the king of beasts had succeeded in parting the rope he hung
quite dead and harmless in the noose.
And then upon the jungle air there rose in unison from two savage
throats the victory cry of the bull-ape and the panther, blended into
one frightful and uncanny scream.
As the last notes died away in a long-drawn, fearsome wail, a score of
painted warriors, drawing their long war-canoe upon the beach, halted
to stare in the direction of the jungle and to listen.
Chapter 5
Mugambi
By the time that Tarzan had travelled entirely about the coast of the
island, and made several trips inland from various points, he was sure
that he was the only human being upon it.
Nowhere had he found any sign that men had stopped even temporarily
upon this shore, though, of course, he knew that so quickly does the
rank vegetation of the tropics erase all but the most permanent of
human monuments that he might be in error in his deductions.
The day following the killing of Numa, Tarzan and Sheeta came upon the
tribe of Akut. At sight of the panther the great apes took to flight,
but after a time Tarzan succeeded in recalling them.
It had occurred to him that it would be at least an interesting
experiment to attempt to reconcile these hereditary enemies. He
welcomed anything that would occupy his time and his mind beyond the
filling of his belly and the gloomy thoughts to which he fell prey the
moment that he became idle.
To communicate his plan to the apes was not a particularly difficult
matter, though their narrow and limited vocabulary was strained in the
effort; but to impress upon the little, wicked brain of Sheeta that he
was to hunt with and not for his legitimate prey proved a task almost
beyond the powers of the ape-man.
Tarzan, among his other weapons, possessed a long, stout cudgel, and
after fastening his rope about the panther's neck he used this
instrument freely upon the snarling beast, endeavouring in this way to
impress upon its memory that it must not attack the great, shaggy
manlike creatures that had approached more closely once they had seen
the purpose of the rope about Sheeta's neck.
That the cat did not turn and rend Tarzan is something of a miracle
which may possibly be accounted for by the fact that twice when it
turned growling upon the ape-man he had rapped it sharply upon its
sensitive nose, inculcating in its mind thereby a most wholesome fear
of the cudgel and the ape-beasts behind it.
It is a question if the original cause of his attachment for Tarzan was
still at all clear in the mind of the panther, though doubtless some
subconscious suggestion, superinduced by this primary reason and aided
and abetted by the habit of the past few days, did much to compel the
beast to tolerate treatment at his hands that would have sent it at the
throat of any other creature.
Then, too, there was the compelling force of the manmind exerting its
powerful influence over this creature of a lower order, and, after all,
it may have been this that proved the most potent factor in Tarzan's
supremacy over Sheeta and the other beasts of the jungle that had from
time to time fallen under his domination.
Be that as it may, for days the man, the panther, and the great apes
roamed their savage haunts side by side, making their kills together
and sharing them with one another, and of all the fierce and savage
band none was more terrible than the smooth-skinned, powerful beast
that had been but a few short months before a familiar figure in many a
London drawing room.
Sometimes the beasts separated to follow their own inclinations for an
hour or a day, and it was upon one of these occasions when the ape-man
had wandered through the tree-tops toward the beach, and was stretched
in the hot sun upon the sand, that from the low summit of a near-by
promontory a pair of keen eyes discovered him.
For a moment the owner of the eyes looked in astonishment at the figure
of the savage white man basking in the rays of that hot, tropic sun;
then he turned, making a sign to some one behind him. Presently
another pair of eyes were looking down upon the ape-man, and then
another and another, until a full score of hideously trapped, savage
warriors were lying upon their bellies along the crest of the ridge
watching the white-skinned stranger.
They were down wind from Tarzan, and so their scent was not carried to
him, and as his back was turned half toward them he did not see their
cautious advance over the edge of the promontory and down through the
rank grass toward the sandy beach where he lay.
Big fellows they were, all of them, their barbaric headdresses and
grotesquely painted faces, together with their many metal ornaments and
gorgeously coloured feathers, adding to their wild, fierce appearance.
Once at the foot of the ridge, they came cautiously to their feet, and,
bent half-double, advanced silently upon the unconscious white man,
their heavy war-clubs swinging menacingly in their brawny hands.
The mental suffering that Tarzan's sorrowful thoughts induced had the
effect of numbing his keen, perceptive faculties, so that the advancing
savages were almost upon him before he became aware that he was no
longer alone upon the beach.
So quickly, though, were his mind and muscles wont to react in unison
to the slightest alarm that he was upon his feet and facing his
enemies, even as he realized that something was behind him. As he
sprang to his feet the warriors leaped toward him with raised clubs and
savage yells, but the foremost went down to sudden death beneath the
long, stout stick of the ape-man, and then the lithe, sinewy figure was
among them, striking right and left with a fury, power, and precision
that brought panic to the ranks of the blacks.
For a moment they withdrew, those that were left of them, and consulted
together at a short distance from the ape-man, who stood with folded
arms, a half-smile upon his handsome face, watching them. Presently
they advanced upon him once more, this time wielding their heavy
war-spears. They were between Tarzan and the jungle, in a little
semicircle that closed in upon him as they advanced.
There seemed to the ape-man but slight chance to escape the final
charge when all the great spears should be hurled simultaneously at
him; but if he had desired to escape there was no way other than
through the ranks of the savages except the open sea behind him.
His predicament was indeed most serious when an idea occurred to him
that altered his smile to a broad grin. The warriors were still some
little distance away, advancing slowly, making, after the manner of
their kind, a frightful din with their savage yells and the pounding of
their naked feet upon the ground as they leaped up and down in a
fantastic war dance.
Then it was that the ape-man lifted his voice in a series of wild,
weird screams that brought the blacks to a sudden, perplexed halt.
They looked at one another questioningly, for here was a sound so
hideous that their own frightful din faded into insignificance beside
it. No human throat could have formed those *** notes, they were
sure, and yet with their own eyes they had seen this white man open his
mouth to pour forth his awful cry.
But only for a moment they hesitated, and then with one accord they
again took up their fantastic advance upon their prey; but even then a
sudden crashing in the jungle behind them brought them once more to a
halt, and as they turned to look in the direction of this new noise
there broke upon their startled visions a sight that may well have
frozen the blood of braver men than the Wagambi.
Leaping from the tangled vegetation of the jungle's rim came a huge
panther, with blazing eyes and bared fangs, and in his wake a score of
mighty, shaggy apes lumbering rapidly toward them, half erect upon
their short, bowed legs, and with their long arms reaching to the
ground, where their *** knuckles bore the weight of their ponderous
bodies as they lurched from side to side in their grotesque advance.
The beasts of Tarzan had come in answer to his call.
Before the Wagambi could recover from their astonishment the frightful
horde was upon them from one side and Tarzan of the Apes from the
other. Heavy spears were hurled and mighty war-clubs wielded, and
though apes went down never to rise, so, too, went down the men of
Ugambi.
Sheeta's cruel fangs and tearing talons ripped and tore at the black
hides. Akut's mighty yellow tusks found the jugular of more than one
sleek-skinned savage, and Tarzan of the Apes was here and there and
everywhere, urging on his fierce allies and taking a heavy toll with
his long, slim knife.
In a moment the blacks had scattered for their lives, but of the score
that had crept down the grassy sides of the promontory only a single
warrior managed to escape the horde that had overwhelmed his people.
This one was Mugambi, chief of the Wagambi of Ugambi, and as he
disappeared in the tangled luxuriousness of the rank growth upon the
ridge's summit only the keen eyes of the ape-man saw the direction of
his flight.
Leaving his pack to eat their fill upon the flesh of their
victims—flesh that he could not touch—Tarzan of the Apes pursued the
single survivor of the bloody fray. Just beyond the ridge he came
within sight of the fleeing black, making with headlong leaps for a
long war-canoe that was drawn well up upon the beach above the high
tide surf.
Noiseless as the fellow's shadow, the ape-man raced after the
terror-stricken black. In the white man's mind was a new plan,
awakened by sight of the war-canoe. If these men had come to his
island from another, or from the mainland, why not utilize their craft
to make his way to the country from which they had come? Evidently it
was an inhabited country, and no doubt had occasional intercourse with
the mainland, if it were not itself upon the continent of Africa.
A heavy hand fell upon the shoulder of the escaping Mugambi before he
was aware that he was being pursued, and as he turned to do battle with
his assailant giant fingers closed about his wrists and he was hurled
to earth with a giant astride him before he could strike a blow in his
own defence.
In the language of the West Coast, Tarzan spoke to the prostrate man
beneath him.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Mugambi, chief of the Wagambi," replied the black.
"I will spare your life," said Tarzan, "if you will promise to help me
to leave this island. What do you answer?"
"I will help you," replied Mugambi. "But now that you have killed all
my warriors, I do not know that even I can leave your country, for
there will be none to wield the paddles, and without paddlers we cannot
cross the water."
Tarzan rose and allowed his prisoner to come to his feet. The fellow
was a magnificent specimen of manhood—a black counterpart in physique
of the splendid white man whom he faced.
"Come!" said the ape-man, and started back in the direction from which
they could hear the snarling and growling of the feasting pack.
Mugambi drew back.
"They will kill us," he said.
"I think not," replied Tarzan. "They are mine."
Still the black hesitated, fearful of the consequences of approaching
the terrible creatures that were dining upon the bodies of his
warriors; but Tarzan forced him to accompany him, and presently the two
emerged from the jungle in full view of the grisly spectacle upon the
beach. At sight of the men the beasts looked up with menacing growls,
but Tarzan strode in among them, dragging the trembling Wagambi with
him.
As he had taught the apes to accept Sheeta, so he taught them to adopt
Mugambi as well, and much more easily; but Sheeta seemed quite unable
to understand that though he had been called upon to devour Mugambi's
warriors he was not to be allowed to proceed after the same fashion
with Mugambi. However, being well filled, he contented himself with
walking round the terror-stricken savage, emitting low, menacing growls
the while he kept his flaming, baleful eyes riveted upon the black.
Mugambi, on his part, clung closely to Tarzan, so that the ape-man
could scarce control his laughter at the pitiable condition to which
the chief's fear had reduced him; but at length the white took the
great cat by the scruff of the neck and, dragging it quite close to the
Wagambi, slapped it sharply upon the nose each time that it growled at
the stranger.
At the sight of the thing—a man mauling with his bare hands one of the
most relentless and fierce of the jungle carnivora—Mugambi's eyes
bulged from their sockets, and from entertaining a sullen respect for
the giant white man who had made him prisoner, the black felt an almost
worshipping awe of Tarzan.
The education of Sheeta progressed so well that in a short time Mugambi
ceased to be the object of his hungry attention, and the black felt a
degree more of safety in his society.
To say that Mugambi was entirely happy or at ease in his new
environment would not be to adhere strictly to the truth. His eyes
were constantly rolling apprehensively from side to side as now one and
now another of the fierce pack chanced to wander near him, so that for
the most of the time it was principally the whites that showed.
Together Tarzan and Mugambi, with Sheeta and Akut, lay in wait at the
ford for a deer, and when at a word from the ape-man the four of them
leaped out upon the affrighted animal the black was sure that the poor
creature died of fright before ever one of the great beasts touched it.
Mugambi built a fire and cooked his portion of the kill; but Tarzan,
Sheeta, and Akut tore theirs, raw, with their sharp teeth, growling
among themselves when one ventured to encroach upon the share of
another.
It was not, after all, strange that the white man's ways should have
been so much more nearly related to those of the beasts than were the
savage blacks. We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the
seeming necessity for schooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist,
we fall naturally and easily into the manners and customs which long
usage has implanted ineradicably within us.
Mugambi from childhood had eaten no meat until it had been cooked,
while Tarzan, on the other hand, had never tasted cooked food of any
sort until he had grown almost to manhood, and only within the past
three or four years had he eaten cooked meat. Not only did the habit
of a lifetime prompt him to eat it raw, but the craving of his palate
as well; for to him cooked flesh was spoiled flesh when compared with
the rich and juicy meat of a fresh, hot kill.
That he could, with relish, eat raw meat that had been buried by
himself weeks before, and enjoy small rodents and disgusting grubs,
seems to us who have been always "civilized" a revolting fact; but had
we learned in childhood to eat these things, and had we seen all those
about us eat them, they would seem no more sickening to us now than do
many of our greatest dainties, at which a savage African cannibal would
look with repugnance and turn up his nose.
For instance, there is a tribe in the vicinity of Lake Rudolph that
will eat no sheep or cattle, though its next neighbors do so. Near by
is another tribe that eats donkey-meat—a custom most revolting to the
surrounding tribes that do not eat donkey. So who may say that it is
nice to eat snails and frogs' legs and oysters, but disgusting to feed
upon grubs and beetles, or that a raw oyster, hoof, horns, and tail, is
less revolting than the sweet, clean meat of a fresh-killed buck?
The next few days Tarzan devoted to the weaving of a barkcloth sail
with which to equip the canoe, for he despaired of being able to teach
the apes to wield the paddles, though he did manage to get several of
them to embark in the frail craft which he and Mugambi paddled about
inside the reef where the water was quite smooth.
During these trips he had placed paddles in their hands, when they
attempted to imitate the movements of him and Mugambi, but so difficult
is it for them long to concentrate upon a thing that he soon saw that
it would require weeks of patient training before they would be able to
make any effective use of these new implements, if, in fact, they
should ever do so.
There was one exception, however, and he was Akut. Almost from the
first he showed an interest in this new sport that revealed a much
higher plane of intelligence than that attained by any of his tribe.
He seemed to grasp the purpose of the paddles, and when Tarzan saw that
this was so he took much pains to explain in the meagre language of the
anthropoid how they might be used to the best advantage.
From Mugambi Tarzan learned that the mainland lay but a short distance
from the island. It seemed that the Wagambi warriors had ventured too
far out in their frail craft, and when caught by a heavy tide and a
high wind from off-shore they had been driven out of sight of land.
After paddling for a whole night, thinking that they were headed for
home, they had seen this land at sunrise, and, still taking it for the
mainland, had hailed it with joy, nor had Mugambi been aware that it
was an island until Tarzan had told him that this was the fact.
The Wagambi chief was quite dubious as to the sail, for he had never
seen such a contrivance used. His country lay far up the broad Ugambi
River, and this was the first occasion that any of his people had found
their way to the ocean.
Tarzan, however, was confident that with a good west wind he could
navigate the little craft to the mainland. At any rate, he decided, it
would be preferable to perish on the way than to remain indefinitely
upon this evidently uncharted island to which no ships might ever be
expected to come.
And so it was that when the first fair wind rose he embarked upon his
cruise, and with him he took as strange and fearsome a crew as ever
sailed under a savage master.
Mugambi and Akut went with him, and Sheeta, the panther, and a dozen
great males of the tribe of Akut.
End of Chapter 5 �