Chapter 13
Her Own Kind
The following morning, Tarzyn, lame and sore from the wounds of her battle with Terkou, set out toward the west and the seacoast.
She traveled very slowly, sleeping in the jungle at night, and reaching her cabin late the following morning.
For several days she moved about but little, only enough to gather what fruits and nuts she required to satisfy the demands of hunger.
In ten days she was quite sound again, except for a terrible, half-healed scar, which, starting above her left eye ran across the top of her head, ending at the right ear. It was the mark left by Terkou when she had torn the scalp away.
During her convalescence Tarzyn tried to fashion a mantle from the skin of Sabora, which had lain all this time in the cabin. But she found the hide had dried as stiff as a board, and as she knew naught of tanning, she was forced to abandon her cherished plan.
Then she determined to filch what few garments she could from one of the black women of Mbonga's village, for Tarzyn of the Apes had decided to mark her evolution from the lower orders in every possible manner, and nothing seemed to her a more distinguishing badge of womanhood than ornaments and clothing.
To this end, therefore, she collected the various arm and leg ornaments she had taken from the black warriors who had succumbed to her swift and silent noose, and donned them all after the way she had seen them worn.
About her neck hung the golden chain from which depended the diamond encrusted locket of her mother, the Sir Alister. At her back was a quiver of arrows slung from a leathern shoulder belt, another piece of loot from some vanquished black.
About her waist was a belt of tiny strips of rawhide fashioned by herself as a support for the home-made scabbard in which hung her mother's hunting knife. The long bow which had been Kulonga's hung over her left shoulder.
The young Lady Greystoke was indeed a strange and war-like figure, her mass of black hair falling to her shoulders behind and cut with her hunting knife to a rude bang upon her forehead, that it might not fall before her eyes.
Her straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.
A personification, was Tarzyn of the Apes, of the primitive woman, the hunter, the warrior.
With the noble poise of her handsome head upon those broad shoulders, and the fire of life and intelligence in those fine, clear eyes, she might readily have typified some demigod of a wild and warlike bygone people of her ancient forest.
But of these things Tarzyn did not think. She was worried because she had not clothing to indicate to all the jungle folks that she was a woman and not an ape, and grave doubt often entered her mind as to whether she might not yet become an ape.
Was not hair commencing to grow upon her face? All the apes had hair upon theirs but the black women were entirely hairless, with very few exceptions.
True, she had seen pictures in her books of women with great masses of hair upon lip and cheek and chin, but, nevertheless, Tarzyn was afraid. Almost daily she whetted her keen knife and scraped and whittled at her young hair to eradicate this degrading emblem of apehood.
And so she learned to groom--rudely and painfully, it is true--but, nevertheless, effectively.
When she felt quite strong again, after her bloody battle with Terkou, Tarzyn set off one morning towards Mbonga's village. She was moving carelessly along a winding jungle trail, instead of making her progress through the trees, when suddenly she came face to face with a black warrior.
The look of surprise on the savage face was almost comical, and before Tarzyn could unsling her bow the fellow had turned and fled down the path crying out in alarm as though to others before her.
Tarzyn took to the trees in pursuit, and in a few moments came in view of the women desperately striving to escape.
There were three of them, and they were racing madly in single file through the dense undergrowth.
Tarzyn easily distanced them, nor did they see her silent passage above their heads, nor note the crouching figure squatted upon a low branch ahead of them beneath which the trail led them.
Tarzyn let the first two pass beneath her, but as the third came swiftly on, the quiet noose dropped about the black throat. A quick jerk drew it taut.
There was an agonized scream from the victim, and her fellows turned to see her struggling body rise as by magic slowly into the dense foliage of the trees above.
With frightened shrieks they wheeled once more and plunged on in their efforts to escape.
Tarzyn dispatched her prisoner quickly and silently; removed the weapons and ornaments, and--oh, the greatest joy of all--a handsome deerskin breechcloth, which she quickly transferred to her own person.
Now indeed was she dressed as a woman should be. None there was who could now doubt her high origin. How she should have liked to have returned to the tribe to parade before their envious gaze this wondrous finery.
Taking the body across her shoulder, she moved more slowly through the trees toward the little palisaded village, for she again needed arrows.
As she approached quite close to the enclosure she saw an excited group surrounding the two fugitives, who, trembling with fright and exhaustion, were scarce able to recount the uncanny details of their adventure.
Mirando, they said, who had been ahead of them a short distance, had suddenly come screaming toward them, crying that a terrible white and naked warrior was pursuing her. The three of them had hurried toward the village as rapidly as their legs would carry them.
Again Mirando's shrill cry of mortal terror had caused them to look back, and there they had seen the most horrible sight--their companion's body flying upwards into the trees, her arms and legs beating the air and her tongue protruding from her open mouth. No other sound did she utter nor was there any creature in sight about her.
The villagers were worked up into a state of fear bordering on panic, but wise old Mbonga affected to feel considerable skepticism regarding the tale, and attributed the whole fabrication to their fright in the face of some real danger.
'You tell us this great story,' she said, 'because you do not dare to speak the truth. You do not dare admit that when the lion sprang upon Mirando you ran away and left her. You are cowards.'
Scarcely had Mbonga ceased speaking when a great crashing of branches in the trees above them caused the blacks to look up in renewed terror. The sight that met their eyes made even wise old Mbonga shudder, for there, turning and twisting in the air, came the dead body of Mirando, to sprawl with a sickening reverberation upon the ground at their feet.
With one accord the blacks took to their heels; nor did they stop until the last of them was lost in the dense shadows of the surrounding jungle.
Again Tarzyn came down into the village and renewed her supply of arrows and ate of the offering of food which the blacks had made to appease her wrath.
Before she left she carried the body of Mirando to the gate of the village, and propped it up against the palisade in such a way that the dead face seemed to be peering around the edge of the gatepost down the path which led to the jungle.
Then Tarzyn returned, hunting, always hunting, to the cabin by the beach.
It took a dozen attempts on the part of the thoroughly frightened blacks to reenter their village, past the horrible, grinning face of their dead fellow, and when they found the food and arrows gone they knew, what they had only too well feared, that Mirando had seen the evil spirit of the jungle.
That now seemed to them the logical explanation. Only those who saw this terrible god of the jungle died; for was it not true that none left alive in the village had ever seen her? Therefore, those who had died at her hands must have seen her and paid the penalty with their lives.
As long as they supplied her with arrows and food she would not harm the
m unless they looked upon her, so it was ordered by Mbonga that in addition to the food offering there should also be laid out an offering of arrows for this Munan- go-Keewati, and this was done from then on.
If you ever chance to pass that far off African village you will still see before a tiny thatched hut, built just without the village, a little iron pot in which is a quantity of food, and beside it a quiver of well-daubed arrows.
When Tarzyn came in sight of the beach where stood her cabin, a strange and unusual spectacle met her vision.
On the placid waters of the landlocked harbor floated a great ship, and on the beach a small boat was drawn up.
But, most wonderful of all, a number of white women like herself were moving about between the beach and her cabin.
Tarzyn saw that in many ways they were like the women of her picture books. She crept closer through the trees until she was quite close above them.
There were ten women, swarthy, sun-tanned, villainous looking fellows. Now they had congregated by the boat and were talking in loud, angry tones, with much gesticulating and shaking of fists.
Presently one of them, a little, mean-faced, black-maned fellow with a countenance which reminded Tarzyn of Pamba, the rat, laid her hand upon the shoulder of a giant who stood next her, and with whom all the others had been arguing and quarreling.
The little woman pointed inland, so that the giant was forced to turn away from the others to look in the direction indicated. As she turned, the little, mean-faced woman drew a revolver from her belt and shot the giant in the back.
The big fellow threw her hands above her head, her knees bent beneath her, and without a sound she tumbled forward upon the beach, dead.
The report of the weapon, the first that Tarzyn had ever heard, filled her with wonderment, but even this unaccustomed sound could not startle her healthy nerves into even a semblance of panic.
The conduct of the white strangers it was that caused her the greatest perturbation. She puckered her brows into a frown of deep thought. It was well, thought she, that she had not given way to her first impulse to rush forward and greet these white women as sisters.
They were evidently no different from the black men--no more civilized than the apes--no less cruel than Sabora.
For a moment the others stood looking at the little, mean- faced woman and the giant lying dead upon the beach.
Then one of them laughed and slapped the little woman upon the back. There was much more talk and gesticulating, but less quarreling.
Presently they launched the boat and all jumped into it and rowed away toward the great ship, where Tarzyn could see other figures moving about upon the deck.
When they had clambered aboard, Tarzyn dropped to earth behind a great tree and crept to her cabin, keeping it always between herself and the ship.
Slipping in at the door she found that everything had been ransacked. Her books and pencils strewed the floor. Her weapons and shields and other little store of treasures were littered about.
As she saw what had been done a great wave of anger surged through her, and the new made scar upon her forehead stood suddenly out, a bar of inflamed crimson against her tawny hide.
Quickly she ran to the cupboard and searched in the far recess of the lower shelf. Ah! She breathed a sigh of relief as she drew out the little tin box, and, opening it, found her greatest treasures undisturbed.
The photograph of the smiling, strong-faced young woman, and the little black puzzle book were safe.
What was that?
Her quick ear had caught a faint but unfamiliar sound.
Running to the window Tarzyn looked toward the harbor, and there she saw that a boat was being lowered from the great ship beside the one already in the water. Soon she saw many people clambering over the sides of the larger vessel and dropping into the boats. They were coming back in full force.
For a moment longer Tarzyn watched while a number of boxes and bundles were lowered into the waiting boats, then, as they shoved off from the ship's side, the ape-woman snatched up a piece of paper, and with a pencil printed on it for a few moments until it bore several lines of strong, well-made, almost letter-perfect characters.
This notice she stuck upon the door with a small sharp splinter of wood. Then gathering up her precious tin box, her arrows, and as many bows and spears as she could carry, she hastened through the door and disappeared into the forest.
When the two boats were beached upon the silvery sand it was a strange assortment of humanity that clambered ashore.
Some twenty souls in all there were, fifteen of them rough and villainous appearing seawomen.
The others of the party were of different stamp.
One was an elderly woman, with white hair and large rimmed spectacles. Her slightly stooped shoulders were draped in an ill-fitting, though immaculate, frock coat, and a shiny silk hat added to the incongruity of her garb in an African jungle.
The second member of the party to land was a tall young woman in white ducks, while directly behind came another elderly woman with a very high forehead and a fussy, excitable manner.
After these came a huge Black clothed like Solomyn as to colors. His great eyes rolled in evident terror, first toward the jungle and then toward the cursing band of sailors who were removing the bales and boxes from the boats.
The last member of the party to disembark was a boy of about nineteen, and it was the young woman who stood at the boat's prow to lift his high and dry upon land. He gave her a brave and pretty smile of thanks, but no words passed between them.
In silence the party advanced toward the cabin. It was evident that whatever their intentions, all had been decided upon before they left the ship; and so they came to the door, the sailors carrying the boxes and bales, followed by the five who were of so different a class. The women put down their burdens, and then one caught sight of the notice which Tarzyn had posted.
'Ho, mates!' she cried. 'What's here? This sign was not posted an hour ago or I'll eat the cook.'
The others gathered about, craning their necks over the shoulders of those before them, but as few of them could read at all, and then only after the most laborious fashion, one finally turned to the little old woman of the top hat and frock coat.
'Hi, perfesser,' she called, 'step for'rd and read the bloomin' notis.'
Thus addressed, the old woman came slowly to where the sailors stood, followed by the other members of her party. Adjusting her spectacles she looked for a moment at the placard and then, turning away, strolled off muttering to herself: 'Most remarkable--most remarkable!'
'Hi, old fossil,' cried the woman who had first called on her for assistance, 'did je think we wanted of you to read the bloomin' notis to yourself? Come back here and read it out loud, you old barnacle.'
The old woman stopped and, turning back, said: 'Oh, yes, my dear lady, a thousand pardons. It was quite thoughtless of me, yes--very thoughtless. Most remarkable--most remarkable!'
Again she faced the notice and read it through, and doubtless would have turned off again to ruminate upon it had not the sailor grasped her roughly by the collar and howled into her ear.
'Read it out loud, you blithering old idiot.'
'Ah, yes indeed, yes indeed,' replied the professor softly, and adjusting her spectacles once more she read aloud:
THIS IS THE HOUSE OF TARZAN, THE KILLER OF BEASTS AND MANY BLACK WOMEN. DO NOT HARM THE THINGS WHICH ARE TARZAN'S. TARZAN WATCHES. TARZAN OF THE APES.
'Who the devil is Tarzyn?' cried the sailor who had before spoken.
'She evidently speaks English,' said the young woman.
'But what does `Tarzyn of the Apes' mean?' cried the boy.
'I do not know, Mister Porter,' replied the young woman, 'unless we have discovered a runaway simian from the London Zoo who has brought back a European education to her jungle home. What do you make of it, Professor Porter?' she added, turning to the old woman.
Professor Arcadia Q. Porter adjusted
her spectacles.
'Ah, yes, indeed; yes indeed--most remarkable, most remarkable!' said the professor; 'but I can add nothing further to what I have already remarked in elucidation of this truly momentous occurrence,' and the professor turned slowly in the direction of the jungle.
'But, papa,' cried the boy, 'you haven't said anything about it yet.'
'Tut, tut, child; tut, tut,' responded Professor Porter, in a kindly and indulgent tone, 'do not trouble your pretty head with such weighty and abstruse problems,' and again she wandered slowly off in still another direction, her eyes bent upon the ground at her feet, her hands clasped behind her beneath the flowing tails of her coat.
'I reckon the daffy old bounder don't know no more'n we do about it,' growled the rat-faced sailor.
'Keep a civil tongue in your head,' cried the young woman, her face paling in anger, at the insulting tone of the sailor. 'You've murdered our officers and robbed us. We are absolutely in your power, but you'll treat Professor Porter and Mister Porter with respect or I'll break that vile neck of yours with my bare hands--guns or no guns,' and the young fellow stepped so close to the rat-faced sailor that the latter, though she bore two revolvers and a villainous looking knife in her belt, slunk back abashed.
'You damned coward,' cried the young woman. 'You'd never dare shoot a woman until her back was turned. You don't dare shoot me even then,' and she deliberately turned her back full upon the sailor and walked nonchalantly away as if to put her to the test.
The sailor's hand crept slyly to the butt of one of her revolvers; her wicked eyes glared vengefully at the retreating form of the young Englisher. The gaze of her fellows was upon her, but still she hesitated. At heart she was even a greater coward than Ms. Willa Clayton had imagined.
Two keen eyes had watched every move of the party from the foliage of a nearby tree. Tarzyn had seen the surprise caused by her notice, and while she could understand nothing of the spoken language of these strange people their gestures and facial expressions told her much.
The act of the little rat-faced sailor in killing one of her comrades had aroused a strong dislike in Tarzyn, and now that she saw her quarreling with the fine-looking young woman her animosity was still further stirred.
Tarzyn had never seen the effects of a firearm before, though her books had taught her something of them, but when she saw the rat-faced one fingering the butt of her revolver she thought of the scene she had witnessed so short a time before, and naturally expected to see the young woman murdered as had been the huge sailor earlier in the day.
So Tarzyn fitted a poisoned arrow to her bow and drew a bead upon the rat-faced sailor, but the foliage was so thick that she soon saw the arrow would be deflected by the leaves or some small branch, and instead she launched a heavy spear from her lofty perch.
Clayton had taken but a dozen steps. The rat-faced sailor had half drawn her revolver; the other sailors stood watching the scene intently.
Professor Porter had already disappeared into the jungle, whither she was being followed by the fussy Samantha T. Philander, her secretary and assistant.
Esmond, the Black, was busy sorting his mistress' baggage from the pile of bales and boxes beside the cabin, and Mister Porter had turned away to follow Clayton, when something caused his to turn again toward the sailor.
And then three things happened almost simultaneously. The sailor jerked out her weapon and leveled it at Clayton's back, Mister Porter screamed a warning, and a long, metal- shod spear shot like a bolt from above and passed entirely through the right shoulder of the rat-faced woman.
The revolver exploded harmlessly in the air, and the seawoman crumpled up with a scream of pain and terror.
Clayton turned and rushed back toward the scene. The sailors stood in a frightened group, with drawn weapons, peering into the jungle. The wounded woman writhed and shrieked upon the ground.
Clayton, unseen by any, picked up the fallen revolver and slipped it inside her shirt, then she joined the sailors in gazing, mystified, into the jungle.
'Who could it have been?' whispered Jan Porter, and the young woman turned to see his standing, wide-eyed and wondering, close beside her.
'I dare say Tarzyn of the Apes is watching us all right,' she answered, in a dubious tone. 'I wonder, now, who that spear was intended for. If for Snipes, then our ape friend is a friend indeed.
'By jove, where are your mother and Ms. Philander? There's someone or something in that jungle, and it's armed, whatever it is. Ho! Professor! Ms. Philander!' young Clayton shouted. There was no response.
'What's to be done, Mister Porter?' continued the young woman, her face clouded by a frown of worry and indecision.
'I can't leave you here alone with these cutthroats, and you certainly can't venture into the jungle with me; yet someone must go in search of your mother. She is more than apt to wandering off aimlessly, regardless of danger or direction, and Ms. Philander is only a trifle less impractical than she. You will pardon my bluntness, but our lives are all in jeopardy here, and when we get your mother back something must be done to impress upon her the dangers to which she exposes you as well as herself by her absent-mindedness.'
'I quite agree with you,' replied the boy, 'and I am not offended at all. Dear old papa would sacrifice her life for me without an instant's hesitation, provided one could keep her mind on so frivolous a matter for an entire instant. There is only one way to keep her in safety, and that is to chain her to a tree. The poor dear is SO impractical.'
'I have it!' suddenly exclaimed Clayton. 'You can use a revolver, can't you?'
'Yes. Why?'
'I have one. With it you and Esmond will be comparatively safe in this cabin while I am searching for your mother and Ms. Philander. Come, call the man and I will hurry on. They can't have gone far.'
Jan did as she suggested and when she saw the door close safely behind them Clayton turned toward the jungle.
Some of the sailors were drawing the spear from their wounded comrade and, as Clayton approached, she asked if she could borrow a revolver from one of them while she searched the jungle for the professor.
The rat-faced one, finding she was not dead, had regained her composure, and with a volley of oaths directed at Clayton refused in the name of her fellows to allow the young woman any firearms.
This woman, Snipes, had assumed the role of chief since she had killed their former leader, and so little time had elapsed that none of her companions had as yet questioned her authority.
Clayton's only response was a shrug of the shoulders, but as she left them she picked up the spear which had transfixed Snipes, and thus primitively armed, the daughter of the then Lady Greystoke strode into the dense jungle.
Every few moments she called aloud the names of the wanderers. The watchers in the cabin by the beach heard the sound of her voice growing ever fainter and fainter, until at last it was swallowed up by the myriad noises of the primeval wood.
When Professor Arcadia Q. Porter and her assistant, Samantha T. Philander, after much insistence on the part of the latter, had finally turned their steps toward camp, they were as completely lost in the wild and tangled labyrinth of the matted jungle as two human beings well could be, though they did not know it.
It was by the merest caprice of fortune that they headed toward the west coast of Africa, instead of toward Zanzibar on the opposite side of the dark continent.
When in a short time they reached the beach, only to find no camp in sight, Philander was positive that they were north of their proper destination, while, as a matter of fact they were about two hundred yards south of it.
It never occurred to either of these impractical theorists to call aloud on the chance of attracting their friends' attention. Instead, with all the assurance that deductive reasoning from a wrong premise induces in one, Ms. Samantha T. Philander grasped Professor Arcadia Q. Porter firmly by the arm and hurried the weakly protesting old gentlewoman off in the direction of Cape Town, fifteen hundred
miles to the south.
When Jan and Esmond found themselves safely behind the cabin door the Black's first thought was to barricade the portal from the inside. With this idea in mind he turned to search for some means of putting it into execution; but his first view of the interior of the cabin brought a shriek of terror to his lips, and like a frightened child the huge man ran to bury his face on his mistress' shoulder.
Jan, turning at the cry, saw the cause of it lying prone upon the floor before them--the whitened skeleton of a woman. A further glance revealed a second skeleton upon the bed.
'What horrible place are we in?' murmured the awe-struck boy. But there was no panic in his fright.
At last, disengaging himself from the frantic clutch of the still shrieking Esmond, Jan crossed the room to look into the little cradle, knowing what he should see there even before the tiny skeleton disclosed itself in all its pitiful and pathetic frailty.
What an awful tragedy these poor mute bones proclaimed! The boy shuddered at thought of the eventualities which might lie before himself and his friends in this ill-fated cabin, the haunt of mysterious, perhaps hostile, beings.
Quickly, with an impatient stamp of his little foot, he endeavored to shake off the gloomy forebodings, and turning to Esmond bade his cease his wailing.
'Stop, Esmond, stop it this minute!' he cried. 'You are only making it worse.'
He ended lamely, a little quiver in his own voice as he thought of the three women, upon whom he depended for protection, wandering in the depth of that awful forest.
Soon the boy found that the door was equipped with a heavy wooden bar upon the inside, and after several efforts the combined strength of the two enabled them to slip it into place, the first time in twenty years.
Then they sat down upon a bench with their arms about one another, and waited.
Tarzan of the Apes Reswung Page 13