Chapter 23
The Fifty Frightful Men
For several long minutes Jane Porter and William Cecil Clayton stoodsilently looking at the dead body of the beast whose prey they had sonarrowly escaped becoming.
The girl was the first to speak again after her outbreak of impulsiveavowal.
"Who could it have been?" she whispered.
"God knows!" was the man's only reply.
"If it is a friend, why does he not show himself?" continued Jane."Wouldn't it be well to call out to him, and at least thank him?"
Mechanically Clayton did her bidding, but there was no response.
Jane Porter shuddered. "The mysterious jungle," she murmured. "Theterrible jungle. It renders even the manifestations of friendshipterrifying."
"We had best return to the shelter," said Clayton. "You will be atleast a little safer there. I am no protection whatever," he addedbitterly.
"Do not say that, William," she hastened to urge, acutely sorry for thewound her words had caused. "You have done the best you could. Youhave been noble, and self-sacrificing, and brave. It is no fault ofyours that you are not a superman. There is only one other man I haveever known who could have done more than you. My words were ill chosenin the excitement of the reaction--I did not wish to wound you. Allthat I wish is that we may both understand once and for all that I cannever marry you--that such a marriage would be wicked."
"I think I understand," he replied. "Let us not speak of it again--atleast until we are back in civilization."
The next day Thuran was worse. Almost constantly he was in a state ofdelirium. They could do nothing to relieve him, nor was Claytonover-anxious to attempt anything. On the girl's account he feared theRussian--in the bottom of his heart he hoped the man would die. Thethought that something might befall him that would leave her entirelyat the mercy of this beast caused him greater anxiety than theprobability that almost certain death awaited her should she be leftentirely alone upon the outskirts of the cruel forest.
The Englishman had extracted the heavy spear from the body of the lion,so that when he went into the forest to hunt that morning he had afeeling of much greater security than at any time since they had beencast upon the savage shore. The result was that he penetrated fartherfrom the shelter than ever before.
To escape as far as possible from the mad ravings of the fever-strickenRussian, Jane Porter had descended from the shelter to the foot of thetree--she dared not venture farther. Here, beside the crude ladderClayton had constructed for her, she sat looking out to sea, in thealways surviving hope that a vessel might be sighted.
Her back was toward the jungle, and so she did not see the grassespart, or the savage face that peered from between. Little, bloodshot,close-set eyes scanned her intently, roving from time to time about theopen beach for indications of the presence of others than herself.Presently another head appeared, and then another and another. The manin the shelter commenced to rave again, and the heads disappeared assilently and as suddenly as they had come. But soon they were thrustforth once more, as the girl gave no sign of perturbation at thecontinued wailing of the man above.
One by one grotesque forms emerged from the jungle to creep stealthilyupon the unsuspecting woman. A faint rustling of the grasses attractedher attention. She turned, and at the sight that confronted herstaggered to her feet with a little shriek of fear. Then they closedupon her with a rush. Lifting her bodily in his long, gorilla-likearms, one of the creatures turned and bore her into the jungle. Afilthy paw covered her mouth to stifle her screams. Added to the weeksof torture she had already undergone, the shock was more than she couldwithstand. Shattered nerves collapsed, and she lost consciousness.When she regained her senses she found herself in the thick of theprimeval forest. It was night. A huge fire burned brightly in thelittle clearing in which she lay. About it squatted fifty frightfulmen. Their heads and faces were covered with matted hair. Their longarms rested upon the bent knees of their short, crooked legs. Theywere gnawing, like beasts, upon unclean food. A pot boiled upon theedge of the fire, and out of it one of the creatures would occasionallydrag a hunk of meat with a sharpened stick.
When they discovered that their captive had regained consciousness, apiece of this repulsive stew was tossed to her from the foul hand of anearby feaster. It rolled close to her side, but she only closed hereyes as a qualm of nausea surged through her.
For many days they traveled through the dense forest. The girl,footsore and exhausted, was half dragged, half pushed through the long,hot, tedious days. Occasionally, when she would stumble and fall, shewas cuffed and kicked by the nearest of the frightful men. Long beforethey reached their journey's end her shoes had been discarded--thesoles entirely gone. Her clothes were torn to mere shreds and tatters,and through the pitiful rags her once white and tender skin showed rawand bleeding from contact with the thousand pitiless thorns andbrambles through which she had been dragged.
The last two days of the journey found her in such utter exhaustionthat no amount of kicking and abuse could force her to her poor,bleeding feet. Outraged nature had reached the limit of endurance, andthe girl was physically powerless to raise herself even to her knees.
As the beasts surrounded her, chattering threateningly the while theygoaded her with their cudgels and beat and kicked her with their fistsand feet, she lay with closed eyes, praying for the merciful death thatshe knew alone could give her surcease from suffering; but it did notcome, and presently the fifty frightful men realized that their victimwas no longer able to walk, and so they picked her up and carried herthe balance of the journey.
Late one afternoon she saw the ruined walls of a mighty city loomingbefore them, but so weak and sick was she that it inspired not thefaintest shadow of interest. Wherever they were bearing her, therecould be but one end to her captivity among these fierce half brutes.
At last they passed through two great walls and came to the ruined citywithin. Into a crumbling pile they bore her, and here she wassurrounded by hundreds more of the same creatures that had brought her;but among them were females who looked less horrible. At sight of themthe first faint hope that she had entertained came to mitigate hermisery. But it was short-lived, for the women offered her no sympathy,though, on the other hand, neither did they abuse her.
After she had been inspected to the entire satisfaction of the inmatesof the building she was borne to a dark chamber in the vaults beneath,and here upon the bare floor she was left, with a metal bowl of waterand another of food.
For a week she saw only some of the women whose duty it was to bringher food and water. Slowly her strength was returning--soon she wouldbe in fit condition to offer as a sacrifice to The Flaming God.Fortunate indeed it was that she could not know the fate for which shewas destined.
As Tarzan of the Apes moved slowly through the jungle after casting thespear that saved Clayton and Jane Porter from the fangs of Numa, hismind was filled with all the sorrow that belongs to a freshly openedheart wound.
He was glad that he had stayed his hand in time to prevent theconsummation of the thing that in the first mad wave of jealous wrathhe had contemplated. Only the fraction of a second had stood betweenClayton and death at the hands of the ape-man. In the short momentthat had elapsed after he had recognized the girl and her companion andthe relaxing of the taut muscles that held the poisoned shaft directedat the Englishman's heart, Tarzan had been swayed by the swift andsavage impulses of brute life.
He had seen the woman he craved--his woman--his mate--in the arms ofanother. There had been but one course open to him, according to thefierce jungle code that guided him in this other existence; but justbefore it had become too late the softer sentiments of his inherentchivalry had risen above the flaming fires of his passion and savedhim. A thousand times he gave thanks that they had triumphed beforehis fingers had released that polished arrow.
As he contemplated his return to the Waziri the idea became repugnant.H
e did not wish to see a human being again. At least he would rangealone through the jungle for a time, until the sharp edge of his sorrowhad become blunted. Like his fellow beasts, he preferred to suffer insilence and alone.
That night he slept again in the amphitheater of the apes, and forseveral days he hunted from there, returning at night. On theafternoon of the third day he returned early. He had lain stretchedupon the soft grass of the circular clearing for but a few moments whenhe heard far to the south a familiar sound. It was the passing throughthe jungle of a band of great apes--he could not mistake that. Forseveral minutes he lay listening. They were coming in the direction ofthe amphitheater.
Tarzan arose lazily and stretched himself. His keen ears followedevery movement of the advancing tribe. They were upwind, and presentlyhe caught their scent, though he had not needed this added evidence toassure him that he was right.
As they came closer to the amphitheater Tarzan of the Apes melted intothe branches upon the other side of the arena. There he waited toinspect the newcomers. Nor had he long to wait.
Presently a fierce, hairy face appeared among the lower branchesopposite him. The cruel little eyes took in the clearing at a glance,then there was a chattered report returned to those behind. Tarzancould hear the words. The scout was telling the other members of thetribe that the coast was clear and that they might enter theamphitheater in safety.
First the leader dropped lightly upon the soft carpet of the grassyfloor, and then, one by one, nearly a hundred anthropoids followed him.There were the huge adults and several young. A few nursing babesclung close to the shaggy necks of their savage mothers.
Tarzan recognized many members of the tribe. It was the same intowhich he had come as a tiny babe. Many of the adults had been littleapes during his boyhood. He had frolicked and played about this veryjungle with them during their brief childhood. He wondered if theywould remember him--the memory of some apes is not overlong, and twoyears may be an eternity to them.
From the talk which he overheard he learned that they had come tochoose a new king--their late chief had fallen a hundred feet beneath abroken limb to an untimely end.
Tarzan walked to the end of an overhanging limb in plain view of them.The quick eyes of a female caught sight of him first. With a barkingguttural she called the attention of the others. Several huge bullsstood erect to get a better view of the intruder. With bared fangs andbristling necks they advanced slowly toward him, with deep-throated,ominous growls.
"Karnath, I am Tarzan of the Apes," said the ape-man in the vernacularof the tribe. "You remember me. Together we teased Numa when we werestill little apes, throwing sticks and nuts at him from the safety ofhigh branches."
The brute he had addressed stopped with a look of half-comprehending,dull wonderment upon his savage face.
"And Magor," continued Tarzan, addressing another, "do you not recallyour former king--he who slew the mighty Kerchak? Look at me! Am Inot the same Tarzan--mighty hunter--invincible fighter--that you allknew for many seasons?"
The apes all crowded forward now, but more in curiosity thanthreatening. They muttered among themselves for a few moments.
"What do you want among us now?" asked Karnath.
"Only peace," answered the ape-man.
Again the apes conferred. At length Karnath spoke again.
"Come in peace, then, Tarzan of the Apes," he said.
And so Tarzan of the Apes dropped lightly to the turf into the midst ofthe fierce and hideous horde--he had completed the cycle of evolution,and had returned to be once again a brute among brutes.
There were no greetings such as would have taken place among men aftera separation of two years. The majority of the apes went on about thelittle activities that the advent of the ape-man had interrupted,paying no further attention to him than as though he had not been gonefrom the tribe at all.
One or two young bulls who had not been old enough to remember himsidled up on all fours to sniff at him, and one bared his fangs andgrowled threateningly--he wished to put Tarzan immediately into hisproper place. Had Tarzan backed off, growling, the young bull wouldquite probably have been satisfied, but always after Tarzan's stationamong his fellow apes would have been beneath that of the bull whichhad made him step aside.
But Tarzan of the Apes did not back off. Instead, he swung his giantpalm with all the force of his mighty muscles, and, catching the youngbull alongside the head, sent him sprawling across the turf. The apewas up and at him again in a second, and this time they closed withtearing fingers and rending fangs--or at least that had been theintention of the young bull; but scarcely had they gone down, growlingand snapping, than the ape-man's fingers found the throat of hisantagonist.
Presently the young bull ceased to struggle, and lay quite still. ThenTarzan released his hold and arose--he did not wish to kill, only toteach the young ape, and others who might be watching, that Tarzan ofthe Apes was still master.
The lesson served its purpose--the young apes kept out of his way, asyoung apes should when their betters were about, and the old bulls madeno attempt to encroach upon his prerogatives. For several days theshe-apes with young remained suspicious of him, and when he venturedtoo near rushed upon him with wide mouths and hideous roars. ThenTarzan discreetly skipped out of harm's way, for that also is a customamong the apes--only mad bulls will attack a mother. But after a whileeven they became accustomed to him.
He hunted with them as in days gone by, and when they found that hissuperior reason guided him to the best food sources, and that hiscunning rope ensnared toothsome game that they seldom if ever tasted,they came again to look up to him as they had in the past after he hadbecome their king. And so it was that before they left theamphitheater to return to their wanderings they had once more chosenhim as their leader.
The ape-man felt quite contented with his new lot. He was nothappy--that he never could be again, but he was at least as far fromeverything that might remind him of his past misery as he could be.Long since he had given up every intention of returning tocivilization, and now he had decided to see no more his black friendsof the Waziri. He had foresworn humanity forever. He had started lifean ape--as an ape he would die.
He could not, however, erase from his memory the fact that the woman heloved was within a short journey of the stamping-ground of his tribe;nor could he banish the haunting fear that she might be constantly indanger. That she was illy protected he had seen in the brief instantthat had witnessed Clayton's inefficiency. The more Tarzan thought ofit, the more keenly his conscience pricked him.
Finally he came to loathe himself for permitting his own selfish sorrowand jealousy to stand between Jane Porter and safety. As the dayspassed the thing preyed more and more upon his mind, and he had aboutdetermined to return to the coast and place himself on guard over JanePorter and Clayton, when news reached him that altered all his plansand sent him dashing madly toward the east in reckless disregard ofaccident and death.
Before Tarzan had returned to the tribe, a certain young bull, notbeing able to secure a mate from among his own people, had, accordingto custom, fared forth through the wild jungle, like some knight-errantof old, to win a fair lady from some neighboring community.
He had but just returned with his bride, and was narrating hisadventures quickly before he should forget them. Among other things hetold of seeing a great tribe of strange-looking apes.
"They were all hairy-faced bulls but one," he said, "and that one was ashe, lighter in color even than this stranger," and he chucked a thumbat Tarzan.
The ape-man was all attention in an instant. He asked questions asrapidly as the slow-witted anthropoid could answer them.
"Were the bulls short, with crooked legs?"
"They were."
"Did they wear the skins of Numa and Sheeta about their loins, andcarry sticks and knives?"
"They did."
"And were there many yellow rings about their arms and legs?"
"And the she one--was she small and slender, and very white?"
"Yes."
"Did she seem to be one of the tribe, or was she a prisoner?"
"They dragged her along--sometimes by an arm--sometimes by the longhair that grew upon her head; and always they kicked and beat her. Oh,but it was great fun to watch them."
"God!" muttered Tarzan.
"Where were they when you saw them, and which way were they going?"continued the ape-man.
"They were beside the second water back there," and he pointed to thesouth. "When they passed me they were going toward the morning, upwardalong the edge of the water."
"When was this?" asked Tarzan.
"Half a moon since."
Without another word the ape-man sprang into the trees and fled like adisembodied spirit eastward in the direction of the forgotten city ofOpar.
The Return of Tarzan Page 23