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Title: The Garotters
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To Joan Burroughs
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1 Kidnapped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Marooned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3 Beasts at Bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4 Sheeta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5 Mugambi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6 A Hideous Crew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7 Betrayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8 The Dance of Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
9 Chivalry or Villainy . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
10 The Swede . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
11 Tambudza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
12 A Black Scoundrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
13 Escape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
14 Alone in the Jungle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
15 Down the Ugambi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
16 In the Darkness of the Night . . . . . . . . 132
17 On the Deck of the "Kincaid" . . . . . . . . 140
18 Paulvitch Plots Revenge . . . . . . . . . . . 147
19 The Last of the "Kincaid" . . . . . . . . . . 158
20 Jungle Island Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
21 The Law of the Jungle . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
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 snatch 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 firstborn.
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 nearby 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'
wad."
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-boned,
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 his 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 loincloth 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 of 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 bestial 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 bestial 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 horny 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 offshore 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.
Chapter 6 A Hideous Crew The war-canoe
with its savage load moved slowly toward the break in the reef through which it must pass
to gain the open sea.
Tarzan,
Mugambi,
and Akut wielded the paddles,
for the shore kept the west wind from the little sail.
Sheeta crouched in the bow at the ape-man's feet,
for it had seemed best
to Tarzan always
to keep the wicked beast as far from the other members of the party as possible,
since it would require little or no provocation
to send him at the throat of any than the white man,
whom he evidently now looked upon as his master.
In the stern was Mugambi,
and just in front of him squatted Akut,
while between Akut and Tarzan the twelve hairy apes sat upon their haunches,
blinking dubiously this way and that,
and now and then turning their eyes longingly back toward shore.
All went well until the canoe had passed beyond the reef.
Here the breeze struck the sail,
sending the rude craft lunging among the waves that ran higher and higher as they drew away from the shore.
With the tossing of the boat the apes became panic-stricken.
They first moved uneasily about,
and then commenced grumbling and whining.
With difficulty Akut kept them in hand
for a time;
but when a particularly large wave struck the dugout simultaneously
with a little squall of wind their terror broke all bounds,
and,
leaping
to their feet,
they all but overturned the boat before Akut and Tarzan together could quiet them.
At last calm was restored,
and eventually the apes became accustomed
to the strange antics of their craft,
after which no more trouble was experienced
with them.
The trip was uneventful,
the wind held,
and after ten hours'
steady sailing the black shadows of the coast loomed close before the straining eyes of the ape-man in the bow.
It was far too dark
to distinguish whether they had approached close
to the mouth of the Ugambi or not,
so Tarzan ran in through the surf at the closest point
to await the dawn.
The dugout turned broadside the instant that its nose touched the sand,
and immediately it rolled over,
with all its crew scrambling madly
for the shore.
The next breaker rolled them over and over,
but eventually they all succeeded in crawling
to safety,
and in a moment more their ungainly craft had been washed up beside them.
The balance of the night the apes sat huddled close
to one another
for warmth;
while Mugambi built a fire close
to them over which he crouched.
Tarzan and Sheeta,
however,
were of a different mind,
for neither of them feared the jungle night,
and the insistent craving of their hunger sent them off into the Stygian blackness of the forest in search of prey.
Side by side they walked when there was room
for two abreast.
At other times in single file,
first one and then the other in advance.
It was Tarzan who first caught the scent of meat--a bull buffalo--and presently the two came stealthily upon the sleeping beast in the midst of a dense jungle of reeds close
to a river.
Closer and closer they crept toward the unsuspecting beast,
Sheeta upon his right side and Tarzan upon his left nearest the great heart.
They had hunted together now
for some time,
so that they worked in unison,
with only low,
purring sounds as signals.
For a moment they lay quite silent near their prey,
and then at a sign from the ape-man Sheeta sprang upon the great back,
burying his strong teeth in the bull's neck.
Instantly the brute sprang
to his feet
with a bellow of pain and rage,
and at the same instant Tarzan rushed in upon his left side
with the stone knife,
striking repeatedly behind the shoulder.
One of the ape-man's hands clutched the thick mane,
and as the bull raced madly through the reeds the thing striking at his life was dragged beside him.
Sheeta but clung tenaciously
to his hold upon the neck and back,
biting deep in an effort
to reach the spine.
For several hundred yards the bellowing bull carried his two savage antagonists,
until at last the blade found his heart,
when
with a final bellow that was half-scream he plunged headlong
to the earth.
Then Tarzan and Sheeta feasted
to repletion.
After the meal the two curled up together in a thicket,
the man's black head pillowed upon the tawny side of the panther.
Shortly after dawn they awoke and ate again,
and then returned
to the beach that Tarzan might lead the balance of the pack
to the kill.
When the meal was done the brutes were
for curling up
to sleep,
so Tarzan and Mugambi set off in search of the Ugambi River.
They had proceeded scarce a hundred yards when they came suddenly upon a broad stream,
which the Negro instantly recognized as that down which he and his warriors had paddled
to the sea upon their ill-starred expedition.
The two now followed the stream down
to the ocean,
finding that it emptied into a bay not over a mile from the point upon the beach at which the canoe had been thrown the night before.
Tarzan was much elated by the discovery,
as he knew that in the vicinity of a large watercourse he should find natives,
and from some of these he had little doubt but that he should obtain news of Rokoff and the child,
for he felt reasonably certain that the Russian would rid himself of the baby as quickly as possible after having disposed of Tarzan.
He and Mugambi now righted and launched the dugout,
though it was a most difficult feat in the face of the surf which rolled continuously in upon the beach;
but at last they were successful,
and soon after were paddling up the coast toward the mouth of the Ugambi.
Here they experienced considerable difficulty in making an entrance against the combined current and ebb tide,
but by taking advantage of eddies close in
to shore they came about dusk
to a point nearly opposite the spot where they had left the pack asleep.
Making the craft fast
to an overhanging bough,
the two made their way into the jungle,
presently coming upon some of the apes feeding upon fruit a little beyond the reeds where the buffalo had fallen.
Sheeta was not anywhere
to be seen,
nor did he return that night,
so that Tarzan came
to believe that he had wandered away in search of his own kind.
Early the next morning the ape-man led his band down
to the river,
and as he walked he gave vent
to a series of shrill cries.
Presently from a great distance and faintly there came an answering scream,
and a half-hour later the lithe form of Sheeta bounded into view where the others of the pack were clambering gingerly into the canoe.
The great beast,
with arched back and purring like a contented tabby,
rubbed his sides against the ape-man,
and then at a word from the latter sprang lightly
to his former place in the bow of the dugout.
When all were in place it was discovered that two of the apes of Akut were missing,
and though both the king ape and Tarzan called
to them
for the better part of an hour,
there was no response,
and finally the boat put off without them.
As it happened that the two missing ones were the very same who had evinced the least desire
to accompany the expedition from the island,
and had suffered the most from fright during the voyage,
Tarzan was quite sure that they had absented themselves purposely rather than again enter the canoe.
As the party were putting in
for the shore shortly after noon
to search
for food a slender,
naked savage watched them
for a moment from behind the dense screen of verdure which lined the river's bank,
then he melted away up-stream before any of those in the canoe discovered him.
Like a deer he bounded along the narrow trail until,
filled
with the excitement of his news,
he burst into a native village several miles above the point at which Tarzan and his pack had stopped
to hunt.
"Another white man is coming!"
he cried
to the chief who squatted before the entrance
to his circular hut.
"Another white man,
and
with him are many warriors.
They come in a great war-canoe
to kill and rob as did the black-bearded one who has just left us."
Kaviri leaped
to his feet.
He had but recently had a taste of the white man's medicine,
and his savage heart was filled
with bitterness and hate.
In another moment the rumble of the war-drums rose from the village,
calling in the hunters from the forest and the tillers from the fields.
Seven war-canoes were launched and manned by paint-daubed,
befeathered warriors.
Long spears bristled from the rude battle-ships,
as they slid noiselessly over the bosom of the water,
propelled by giant muscles rolling beneath glistening,
ebony hides.
There was no beating of tom-toms now,
nor blare of native horn,
for Kaviri was a crafty warrior,
and it was in his mind
to take no chances,
if they could be avoided.
He would swoop noiselessly down
with his seven canoes upon the single one of the white man,
and before the guns of the latter could inflict much damage upon his people he would have overwhelmed the enemy by force of numbers.
Kaviri's own canoe went in advance of the others a short distance,
and as it rounded a sharp bend in the river where the swift current bore it rapidly on its way it came suddenly upon the thing that Kaviri sought.
So close were the two canoes
to one another that the black had only an opportunity
to note the white face in the bow of the oncoming craft before the two touched and his own men were upon their feet,
yelling like mad devils and thrusting their long spears at the occupants of the other canoe.
But a moment later,
when Kaviri was able
to realize the nature of the crew that manned the white man's dugout,
he would have given all the beads and iron wire that he possessed
to have been safely within his distant village.
Scarcely had the two craft come together than the frightful apes of Akut rose,
growling and barking,
from the bottom of the canoe,
and,
with long,
hairy arms far outstretched,
grasped the menacing spears from the hands of Kaviri's warriors.
The blacks were overcome
with terror,
but there was nothing
to do other than
to fight.
Now came the other war-canoes rapidly down upon the two craft.
Their occupants were eager
to join the battle,
for they thought that their foes were white men and their native porters.
They swarmed about Tarzan's craft;
but when they saw the nature of the enemy all but one turned and paddled swiftly upriver.
That one came too close
to the ape-man's craft before its occupants realized that their fellows were pitted against demons instead of men.
As it touched Tarzan spoke a few low words
to Sheeta and Akut,
so that before the attacking warriors could draw away there sprang upon them
with a blood-freezing scream a huge panther,
and into the other end of their canoe clambered a great ape.
At one end the panther wrought fearful havoc
with his mighty talons and long,
sharp fangs,
while Akut at the other buried his yellow canines in the necks of those that came within his reach,
hurling the terror-stricken blacks overboard as he made his way toward the centre of the canoe.
Kaviri was so busily engaged
with the demons that had entered his own craft that he could offer no assistance
to his warriors in the other.
A giant of a white devil had wrested his spear from him as though he,
the mighty Kaviri,
had been but a new-born babe.
Hairy monsters were overcoming his fighting men,
and a black chieftain like himself was fighting shoulder
to shoulder
with the hideous pack that opposed him.
Kaviri battled bravely against his antagonist,
for he felt that death had already claimed him,
and so the least that he could do would be
to sell his life as dearly as possible;
but it was soon evident that his best was quite futile when pitted against the superhuman brawn and agility of the creature that at last found his throat and bent him back into the bottom of the canoe.
Presently Kaviri's head began
to whirl--objects became confused and dim before his eyes--there was a great pain in his chest as he struggled
for the breath of life that the thing upon him was shutting off
for ever.
Then he lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes once more he found,
much
to his surprise,
that he was not dead.
He lay,
securely bound,
in the bottom of his own canoe.
A great panther sat upon its haunches,
looking down upon him.
Kaviri shuddered and closed his eyes again,
waiting
for the ferocious creature
to spring upon him and put him out of his misery of terror.
After a moment,
no rending fangs having buried themselves in his trembling body,
he again ventured
to open his eyes.
Beyond the panther kneeled the white giant who had overcome him.
The man was wielding a paddle,
while directly behind him Kaviri saw some of his own warriors similarly engaged.
Back of them again squatted several of the hairy apes.
Tarzan,
seeing that the chief had regained consciousness,
addressed him.
"Your warriors tell me that you are the chief of a numerous people,
and that your name is Kaviri,"
he said.
"Yes,"
replied the black.
"Why did you attack me?
I came in peace."
"Another white man `came in peace'
three moons ago,"
replied Kaviri;
"and after we had brought him presents of a goat and cassava and milk,
he set upon us
with his guns and killed many of my people,
and then went on his way,
taking all of our goats and many of our young men and women."
"I am not as this other white man,"
replied Tarzan.
"I should not have harmed you had you not set upon me.
Tell me,
what was the face of this bad white man like?
I am searching
for one who has wronged me.
Possibly this may be the very one."
"He was a man
with a bad face,
covered
with a great,
black beard,
and he was very,
very wicked--yes,
very wicked indeed."
"Was there a little white child
with him?"
asked Tarzan,
his heart almost stopped as he awaited the black's answer.
"No,
bwana,"
replied Kaviri,
"the white child was not
with this man's party--it was
with the