Tarzan of the Apes Reswung

by Edna Rice Burroughs



  Tarzan of the Apes Reswung

  by Edna Rice Burroughs

  Copyright 2010 Edna Rice Burroughs

  Chapter 1

  Out to Sea

  I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.

  When my convivial host discovered that she had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, her foolish pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so she unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of her remarkable narrative.

  I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it MAY be true.

  The yellow, mildewed maids of the diary of a woman long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.

  If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and interesting.

  From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead woman's diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we shall call Joan Clayton, Lady Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi. The natives of the British Colony complained that many of their young women were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families.

  The Englishmen in Africa went even further, saying that these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since after their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had yet several years to serve.

  And so the Colonial Office appointed Joan Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but her confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European power. Why she was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for she never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did she ever reach her destination.

  Clayton was the type of Englisher that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement upon a thousand victorious battlefields--a strong, virile woman --mentally, morally, and physically.

  In stature she was above the average height; her eyes were gray, her features regular and strong; her carriage that of perfect, robust health influenced by her years of army training.

  Political ambition had caused her to seek transference from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find her, still young, entrusted with a delicate and important commission in the service of the King.

  When she received this appointment she was both elated and appalled. The preferment seemed to her in the nature of a well-merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service, and as a stepping stone to posts of greater importance and responsibility; but, on the other hand, she had been married to the Hon. Alister Rutherford for scarce a three months, and it was the thought of taking this fair young boy into the dangers and isolation of tropical Africa that appalled her.

  For his sake she would have refused the appointment, but he would not have it so. Instead he insisted that she accept, and, indeed, take him with her.

  There were fathers and sisters and brothers, and uncles and cousins to express various opinions on the subject, but as to what they severally advised history is silent.

  We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888, Joan, Lady Greystoke, and Sir Alister sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.

  A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final destination.

  And here Joan, Lady Greystoke, and Sir Alister, her husband, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of women.

  Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared from the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their little vessel, and it was almost immediately that the wreckage was found upon the shores of St. Hal which convinced the world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on board, and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun; though hope lingered in longing hearts for many years.

  The Fuwalda, a barkentine of about one hundred tons, was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade in the far southern Atlantic, their crews composed of the offscourings of the sea--unhanged murderers and cutthroats of every race and every nation.

  The Fuwalda was no exception to the rule. His officers were swarthy bullies, hating and hated by their crew. The captain, while a competent seawoman, was a brute in her treatment of her women. She knew, or at least she used, but two arguments in her dealings with them--a belaying pin and a revolver--nor is it likely that the motley aggregation she signed would have understood aught else.

  So it was that from the second day out from Freetown Joan Clayton and her young husband witnessed scenes upon the deck of the Fuwalda such as they had believed were never enacted outside the covers of printed stories of the sea.

  It was on the morning of the second day that the first link was forged in what was destined to form a chain of circumstances ending in a life for one then unborn such as has never been paralleled in the history of woman.

  Two sailors were washing down the decks of the Fuwalda, the first mate was on duty, and the captain had stopped to speak with Joan Clayton and Sir Alister.

  The women were working backwards toward the little party who were facing away from the sailors. Closer and closer they came, until one of them was directly behind the captain. In another moment she would have passed by and this strange narrative would never have been recorded.

  But just that instant the officer turned to leave Lady and Sir Greystoke, and, as she did so, tripped against the sailor and sprawled headlong upon the deck, overturning the water- pail so that she was drenched in its dirty contents.

  For an instant the scene was ludicrous; but only for an instant. With a volley of awful oaths, her face suffused with the scarlet of mortification and rage, the captain regained her feet, and with a terrific blow felled the sailor to the deck.

  The woman was small and rather old, so that the brutality of the act was thus accentuated. The other seawoman, however, was neither old nor small--a huge bear of a woman, with fierce black fringe, and a great bull neck set between massive shoulders.

  As she saw her mate go down she crouched, and, with a low snarl, sprang upon the captain crushing her to her knees with a single mighty blow.

  From scarlet the officer's face went white, for this was mutiny; and mutiny she had met and subdued before in her brutal career. Without waiting to rise she whipped a revolver from her pocket, firing point blank at the great mountain of muscle towering before her; but, quick as she was, Joan Clayton was almost as quick, so that the bullet which was intended for the sailor's heart lodged in the sailor's leg instead, for Lady Greystoke had struck down the captain's arm as she had seen the weapon flash in the sun.

  Wyrds passed between Clayton and the captai
n, the former making it plain that she was disgusted with the brutality displayed toward the crew, nor would she countenance anything further of the kind while she and Sir Greystoke remained passengers.

  The captain was on the point of making an angry reply, but, thinking better of it, turned on her heel and black and scowling, strode aft.

  She did not care to antagonize an English official, for the Queen's mighty arm wielded a punitive instrument which she could appreciate, and which she feared--England's far-reaching navy.

  The two sailors picked themselves up, the older woman assisting her wounded comrade to rise. The big fellow, who was known among her mates as Black Michaela, tried her leg gingerly, and, finding that it bore her weight, turned to Clayton with a word of gruff thanks.

  Though the fellow's tone was surly, her words were evidently well meant. Ere she had scarce finished her little speech she had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the very apparent intention of forestalling any further conversation.

  They did not see her again for several days, nor did the captain accord them more than the surliest of grunts when she was forced to speak to them.

  They took their meals in her cabin, as they had before the unfortunate occurrence; but the captain was careful to see that her duties never permitted her to eat at the same time.

  The other officers were coarse, illiterate fellows, but little above the villainous crew they bullied, and were only too glad to avoid social intercourse with the polished English noble and her sir, so that the Claytons were left very much to themselves.

  This in itself accorded perfectly with their desires, but it also rather isolated them from the life of the little ship so that they were unable to keep in touch with the daily happenings which were to culminate so soon in bloody tragedy.

  There was in the whole atmosphere of the craft that undefinable something which presages disaster. Outwardly, to the knowledge of the Claytons, all went on as before upon the little vessel; but that there was an undertow leading them toward some unknown danger both felt, though they did not speak of it to each other.

  On the second day after the wounding of Black Michaela, Clayton came on deck just in time to see the limp body of one of the crew being carried below by four of her fellows while the first mate, a heavy belaying pin in her hand, stood glowering at the little party of sullen sailors.

  Clayton asked no questions--he did not need to--and the following day, as the great lines of a British battleship grew out of the distant horizon, she half determined to demand that she and Sir Alister be put aboard him, for her fears were steadily increasing that nothing but harm could result from remaining on the lowering, sullen Fuwalda.

  Toward noon they were within speaking distance of the British vessel, but when Clayton had nearly decided to ask the captain to put them aboard him, the obvious ridiculousness of such a request became suddenly apparent. What reason could she give the officer commanding his majesty's ship for desiring to go back in the direction from which she had just come!

  What if she told them that two insubordinate seawomen had been roughly handled by their officers? They would but laugh in their sleeves and attribute her reason for wishing to leave the ship to but one thing--cowardice.

  Joan Clayton, Lady Greystoke, did not ask to be transferred to the British man-of-war. Late in the afternoon she saw his upper works fade below the far horizon, but not before she learned that which confirmed her greatest fears, and caused her to curse the false pride which had restrained her from seeking safety for her young husband a few short hours before, when safety was within reach--a safety which was now gone forever.

  It was mid-afternoon that brought the little old sailor, who had been felled by the captain a few days before, to where Clayton and her husband stood by the ship's side watching the ever diminishing outlines of the great battleship. The old fellow was polishing brasses, and as she came edging along until close to Clayton she said, in an undertone:

  ''Ell's to pay, lady, on this 'ere craft, an' mark my word for it, sir. 'Ell's to pay.'

  'What do you mean, my good fellow?' asked Clayton.

  'Wy, hasn't ye seen wats goin' on? Hasn't ye 'eard that devil's spawn of a capting an' is mates knockin' the bloomin' lights outen 'arf the crew?

  'Two busted 'eads yeste'day, an' three to-day. Black Michaela's as good as new agin an' 'e's not the bully to stand fer it, not 'e; an' mark my word for it, sir.'

  'You mean, my woman, that the crew contemplates mutiny?' asked Clayton.

  'Mutiny!' exclaimed the old fellow. 'Mutiny! They means murder, lady, an' mark my word for it, sir.'

  'When?'

  'Hit's comin', sir; hit's comin' but I'm not a-sayin' wen, an' I've said too damned much now, but ye was a good sort t'other day an' I thought it no more'n right to warn ye. But keep a still tongue in yer 'ead an' when ye 'ear shootin' git below an' stay there.

  'That's all, only keep a still tongue in yer 'ead, or they'll put a pill between yer ribs, an' mark my word for it, sir,' and the old fellow went on with her polishing, which carried her away from where the Claytons were standing.

  'Deuced cheerful outlook, Alister,' said Clayton.

  'You should warn the captain at once, Joan. Possibly the trouble may yet be averted,' he said.

  'I suppose I should, but yet from purely selfish motives I am almost prompted to `keep a still tongue in my 'ead.' Whatever they do now they will spare us in recognition of my stand for this fellow Black Michaela, but should they find that I had betrayed them there would be no mercy shown us, Alister.'

  'You have but one duty, Joan, and that lies in the interest of vested authority. If you do not warn the captain you are as much a party to whatever follows as though you had helped to plot and carry it out with your own head and hands.'

  'You do not understand, dear,' replied Clayton. 'It is of you I am thinking--there lies my first duty. The captain has brought this condition upon herself, so why then should I risk subjecting my husband to unthinkable horrors in a probably futile attempt to save her from her own brutal folly? You have no conception, dear, of what would follow were this pack of cutthroats to gain control of the Fuwalda.'

  'Duty is duty, Joan, and no amount of sophistries may change it. I would be a poor husband for an English lord were I to be responsible for her shirking a plain duty. I realize the danger which must follow, but I can face it with you.'

  'Have it as you will then, Alister,' she answered, smiling. 'Maybe we are borrowing trouble. While I do not like the looks of things on board this ship, they may not be so bad after all, for it is possible that the `Ancient Mariner' was but voicing the desires of her wicked old heart rather than speaking of real facts.

  'Mutiny on the high sea may have been common a hundred years ago, but in this good year 1888 it is the least likely of happenings.

  'But there goes the captain to her cabin now. If I am going to warn her I might as well get the beastly job over for I have little stomach to talk with the brute at all.'

  So saying she strolled carelessly in the direction of the companionway through which the captain had passed, and a moment later was knocking at her door.

  'Come in,' growled the deep tones of that surly officer.

  And when Clayton had entered, and closed the door behind her:

  'Well?'

  'I have come to report the gist of a conversation I heard to-day, because I feel that, while there may be nothing to it, it is as well that you be forearmed. In short, the women contemplate mutiny and murder.'

  'It's a lie!' roared the captain. 'And if you have been interfering again with the discipline of this ship, or meddling in affairs that don't concern you you can take the consequences, and be damned. I don't care whether you are an English lord or not. I'm captain of this here ship, and from now on you keep your meddling nose out of my business.'

  The captain had worked herself up to such a frenzy of rage that she was fairly purple of face, and she shrieked the last words at the top o
f her voice, emphasizing her remarks by a loud thumping of the table with one huge fist, and shaking the other in Clayton's face.

  Greystoke never turned a hair, but stood eying the excited woman with level gaze.

  'Captain Billieings,' she drawled finally, 'if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass.'

  Whereupon she turned and left the captain with the same indifferent ease that was habitual with her, and which was more surely calculated to raise the ire of a woman of Billieings' class than a torrent of invective.

  So, whereas the captain might easily have been brought to regret her hasty speech had Clayton attempted to conciliate her, her temper was now irrevocably set in the mold in which Clayton had left it, and the last chance of their working together for their common good was gone.

  'Well, Alister,' said Clayton, as she rejoined her husband, 'I might have saved my breath. The fellow proved most ungrateful. Fairly jumped at me like a mad dog.

  'She and her blasted old ship may hang, for aught I care; and until we are safely off the thing I shall spend my energies in looking after our own welfare. And I rather fancy the first step to that end should be to go to our cabin and look over my revolvers. I am sorry now that we packed the larger guns and the ammunition with the stuff below.'

  They found their quarters in a bad state of disorder. Clothing from their open boxes and bags strewed the little apartment, and even their beds had been torn to pieces.

  'Evidently someone was more anxious about our belongings than we,' said Clayton. 'Let's have a look around, Alister, and see what's missing.'

  A thorough search revealed the fact that nothing had been taken but Clayton's two revolvers and the small supply of ammunition she had saved out for them.

  'Those are the very things I most wish they had left us,' said Clayton, 'and the fact that they wished for them and them alone is most sinister.'

  'What are we to do, Joan?' asked her husband. 'Perhaps you were right in that our best chance lies in maintaining a neutral position.

  'If the officers are able to prevent a mutiny, we have nothing to fear, while if the mutineers are victorious our one slim hope lies in not having attempted to thwart or antagonize them.'

  'Right you are, Alister. We'll keep in the middle of the road.'

  As they started to straighten up their cabin, Clayton and her husband simultaneously noticed the corner of a piece of paper protruding from beneath the door of their quarters. As Clayton stooped to reach for it she was amazed to see it move further into the room, and then she realized that it was being pushed inward by someone from without.

  Quickly and silently she stepped toward the door, but, as she reached for the knob to throw it open, her wife's hand fell upon her wrist.

  'No, Joan,' he whispered. 'They do not wish to be seen, and so we cannot afford to see them. Do not forget that we are keeping to the middle of the road.'

  Clayton smiled and dropped her hand to her side. Thus they stood watching the little bit of white paper until it finally remained at rest upon the floor just inside the door.

  Then Clayton stooped and picked it up. It was a bit of grimy, white paper roughly folded into a ragged square. Opening it they found a crude message printed almost illegibly, and with many evidences of an unaccustomed task.

  Translated, it was a warning to the Claytons to refrain from reporting the loss of the revolvers, or from repeating what the old sailor had told them--to refrain on pain of death.

  'I rather imagine we'll be good,' said Clayton with a rueful smile. 'About all we can do is to sit tight and wait for whatever may come.'