The Son Of Tarzan
By
Edgar Rice Burroughs
To Hulbert Burroughs
Chapter 1
The long boat of the Marjorie W. was floating down the broad Ugambiwith ebb tide and current. Her crew were lazily enjoying this respitefrom the arduous labor of rowing up stream. Three miles below them laythe Marjorie W. herself, quite ready to sail so soon as they shouldhave clambered aboard and swung the long boat to its davits. Presentlythe attention of every man was drawn from his dreaming or his gossipingto the northern bank of the river. There, screaming at them in acracked falsetto and with skinny arms outstretched, stood a strangeapparition of a man.
"Wot the 'ell?" ejaculated one of the crew.
"A white man!" muttered the mate, and then: "Man the oars, boys, andwe'll just pull over an' see what he wants."
When they came close to the shore they saw an emaciated creature withscant white locks tangled and matted. The thin, bent body was nakedbut for a loin cloth. Tears were rolling down the sunken pock-markedcheeks. The man jabbered at them in a strange tongue.
"Rooshun," hazarded the mate. "Savvy English?" he called to the man.
He did, and in that tongue, brokenly and haltingly, as though it hadbeen many years since he had used it, he begged them to take him withthem away from this awful country. Once on board the Marjorie W. thestranger told his rescuers a pitiful tale of privation, hardships, andtorture, extending over a period of ten years. How he happened to havecome to Africa he did not tell them, leaving them to assume he hadforgotten the incidents of his life prior to the frightful ordeals thathad wrecked him mentally and physically. He did not even tell them histrue name, and so they knew him only as Michael Sabrov, nor was thereany resemblance between this sorry wreck and the virile, thoughunprincipled, Alexis Paulvitch of old.
It had been ten years since the Russian had escaped the fate of hisfriend, the arch-fiend Rokoff, and not once, but many times duringthose ten years had Paulvitch cursed the fate that had given toNicholas Rokoff death and immunity from suffering while it had meted tohim the hideous terrors of an existence infinitely worse than the deaththat persistently refused to claim him.
Paulvitch had taken to the jungle when he had seen the beasts of Tarzanand their savage lord swarm the deck of the Kincaid, and in his terrorlest Tarzan pursue and capture him he had stumbled on deep into thejungle, only to fall at last into the hands of one of the savagecannibal tribes that had felt the weight of Rokoff's evil temper andcruel brutality. Some strange whim of the chief of this tribe savedPaulvitch from death only to plunge him into a life of misery andtorture. For ten years he had been the butt of the village, beaten andstoned by the women and children, cut and slashed and disfigured by thewarriors; a victim of often recurring fevers of the most malignantvariety. Yet he did not die. Smallpox laid its hideous clutches uponhim; leaving him unspeakably branded with its repulsive marks. Betweenit and the attentions of the tribe the countenance of Alexis Paulvitchwas so altered that his own mother could not have recognized in thepitiful mask he called his face a single familiar feature. A fewscraggly, yellow-white locks had supplanted the thick, dark hair thathad covered his head. His limbs were bent and twisted, he walked witha shuffling, unsteady gait, his body doubled forward. His teeth weregone--knocked out by his savage masters. Even his mentality was but asorry mockery of what it once had been.
They took him aboard the Marjorie W., and there they fed and nursedhim. He gained a little in strength; but his appearance never alteredfor the better--a human derelict, battered and wrecked, they had foundhim; a human derelict, battered and wrecked, he would remain untildeath claimed him. Though still in his thirties, Alexis Paulvitchcould easily have passed for eighty. Inscrutable Nature had demandedof the accomplice a greater penalty than his principal had paid.
In the mind of Alexis Paulvitch there lingered no thoughts ofrevenge--only a dull hatred of the man whom he and Rokoff had tried tobreak, and failed. There was hatred, too, of the memory of Rokoff, forRokoff had led him into the horrors he had undergone. There was hatredof the police of a score of cities from which he had had to flee.There was hatred of law, hatred of order, hatred of everything. Everymoment of the man's waking life was filled with morbid thought ofhatred--he had become mentally as he was physically in outwardappearance, the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate. Hehad little or nothing to do with the men who had rescued him. He wastoo weak to work and too morose for company, and so they quickly lefthim alone to his own devices.
The Marjorie W. had been chartered by a syndicate of wealthymanufacturers, equipped with a laboratory and a staff of scientists,and sent out to search for some natural product which the manufacturerswho footed the bills had been importing from South America at anenormous cost. What the product was none on board the Marjorie W. knewexcept the scientists, nor is it of any moment to us, other than thatit led the ship to a certain island off the coast of Africa afterAlexis Paulvitch had been taken aboard.
The ship lay at anchor off the coast for several weeks. The monotonyof life aboard her became trying for the crew. They went often ashore,and finally Paulvitch asked to accompany them--he too was tiring of theblighting sameness of existence upon the ship.
The island was heavily timbered. Dense jungle ran down almost to thebeach. The scientists were far inland, prosecuting their search forthe valuable commodity that native rumor upon the mainland had led themto believe might be found here in marketable quantity. The ship'scompany fished, hunted, and explored. Paulvitch shuffled up and downthe beach, or lay in the shade of the great trees that skirted it. Oneday, as the men were gathered at a little distance inspecting the bodyof a panther that had fallen to the gun of one of them who had beenhunting inland, Paulvitch lay sleeping beneath his tree. He wasawakened by the touch of a hand upon his shoulder. With a start he satup to see a huge, anthropoid ape squatting at his side, inspecting himintently. The Russian was thoroughly frightened. He glanced towardthe sailors--they were a couple of hundred yards away. Again the apeplucked at his shoulder, jabbering plaintively. Paulvitch saw nomenace in the inquiring gaze, or in the attitude of the beast. He gotslowly to his feet. The ape rose at his side.
Half doubled, the man shuffled cautiously away toward the sailors. Theape moved with him, taking one of his arms. They had come almost tothe little knot of men before they were seen, and by this timePaulvitch had become assured that the beast meant no harm. The animalevidently was accustomed to the association of human beings. Itoccurred to the Russian that the ape represented a certain considerablemoney value, and before they reached the sailors he had decided heshould be the one to profit by it.
When the men looked up and saw the oddly paired couple shuffling towardthem they were filled with amazement, and started on a run toward thetwo. The ape showed no sign of fear. Instead he grasped each sailorby the shoulder and peered long and earnestly into his face. Havinginspected them all he returned to Paulvitch's side, disappointmentwritten strongly upon his countenance and in his carriage.
The men were delighted with him. They gathered about, asking Paulvitchmany questions, and examining his companion. The Russian told themthat the ape was his--nothing further would he offer--but kept harpingcontinually upon the same theme, "The ape is mine. The ape is mine."Tiring of Paulvitch, one of the men essayed a pleasantry. Circlingabout behind the ape he prodded the anthropoid in the back with a pin.Like a flash the beast wheeled upon its tormentor, and, in the briefestinstant of turning, the placid, friendly animal was metamorphosed to afrenzied demon of rage. The broad grin that had sat upon the sailor'sface as he perpetrated his little joke froze to an expression ofterror. He attempted to dodge the long arms that reached for him; bu
t,failing, drew a long knife that hung at his belt. With a single wrenchthe ape tore the weapon from the man's grasp and flung it to one side,then his yellow fangs were buried in the sailor's shoulder.
With sticks and knives the man's companions fell upon the beast, whilePaulvitch danced around the cursing, snarling pack mumbling andscreaming pleas and threats. He saw his visions of wealth rapidlydissipating before the weapons of the sailors.
The ape, however, proved no easy victim to the superior numbers thatseemed fated to overwhelm him. Rising from the sailor who hadprecipitated the battle he shook his giant shoulders, freeing himselffrom two of the men that were clinging to his back, and with mightyblows of his open palms felled one after another of his attackers,leaping hither and thither with the agility of a small monkey.
The fight had been witnessed by the captain and mate who were justlanding from the Marjorie W., and Paulvitch saw these two now runningforward with drawn revolvers while the two sailors who had brought themashore trailed at their heels. The ape stood looking about him at thehavoc he had wrought, but whether he was awaiting a renewal of theattack or was deliberating which of his foes he should exterminatefirst Paulvitch could not guess. What he could guess, however, wasthat the moment the two officers came within firing distance of thebeast they would put an end to him in short order unless something weredone and done quickly to prevent. The ape had made no move to attackthe Russian but even so the man was none too sure of what might happenwere he to interfere with the savage beast, now thoroughly aroused tobestial rage, and with the smell of new spilled blood fresh in itsnostrils. For an instant he hesitated, and then again there rosebefore him the dreams of affluence which this great anthropoid woulddoubtless turn to realities once Paulvitch had landed him safely insome great metropolis like London.
The captain was shouting to him now to stand aside that he might have ashot at the animal; but instead Paulvitch shuffled to the ape's side,and though the man's hair quivered at its roots he mastered his fearand laid hold of the ape's arm.
"Come!" he commanded, and tugged to pull the beast from among thesailors, many of whom were now sitting up in wide eyed fright orcrawling away from their conqueror upon hands and knees.
Slowly the ape permitted itself to be led to one side, nor did it showthe slightest indication of a desire to harm the Russian. The captaincame to a halt a few paces from the odd pair.
"Get aside, Sabrov!" he commanded. "I'll put that brute where he won'tchew up any more able seamen."
"It wasn't his fault, captain," pleaded Paulvitch. "Please don't shoothim. The men started it--they attacked him first. You see, he'sperfectly gentle--and he's mine--he's mine--he's mine! I won't let youkill him," he concluded, as his half-wrecked mentality pictured anewthe pleasure that money would buy in London--money that he could nothope to possess without some such windfall as the ape represented.
The captain lowered his weapon. "The men started it, did they?" herepeated. "How about that?" and he turned toward the sailors who hadby this time picked themselves from the ground, none of them much theworse for his experience except the fellow who had been the cause ofit, and who would doubtless nurse a sore shoulder for a week or so.
"Simpson done it," said one of the men. "He stuck a pin into the monkfrom behind, and the monk got him--which served him bloomin' wellright--an' he got the rest of us, too, for which I can't blame him,since we all jumped him to once."
The captain looked at Simpson, who sheepishly admitted the truth of theallegation, then he stepped over to the ape as though to discover forhimself the sort of temper the beast possessed, but it was noticeablethat he kept his revolver cocked and leveled as he did so. However, hespoke soothingly to the animal who squatted at the Russian's sidelooking first at one and then another of the sailors. As the captainapproached him the ape half rose and waddled forward to meet him. Uponhis countenance was the same strange, searching expression that hadmarked his scrutiny of each of the sailors he had first encountered.He came quite close to the officer and laid a paw upon one of the man'sshoulders, studying his face intently for a long moment, then came theexpression of disappointment accompanied by what was almost a humansigh, as he turned away to peer in the same curious fashion into thefaces of the mate and the two sailors who had arrived with theofficers. In each instance he sighed and passed on, returning atlength to Paulvitch's side, where he squatted down once more;thereafter evincing little or no interest in any of the other men, andapparently forgetful of his recent battle with them.
When the party returned aboard the Marjorie W., Paulvitch wasaccompanied by the ape, who seemed anxious to follow him. The captaininterposed no obstacles to the arrangement, and so the great anthropoidwas tacitly admitted to membership in the ship's company. Once aboardhe examined each new face minutely, evincing the same disappointment ineach instance that had marked his scrutiny of the others. The officersand scientists aboard often discussed the beast, but they were unableto account satisfactorily for the strange ceremony with which hegreeted each new face. Had he been discovered upon the mainland, orany other place than the almost unknown island that had been his home,they would have concluded that he had formerly been a pet of man; butthat theory was not tenable in the face of the isolation of hisuninhabited island. He seemed continually to be searching for someone,and during the first days of the return voyage from the island he wasoften discovered nosing about in various parts of the ship; but afterhe had seen and examined each face of the ship's company, and exploredevery corner of the vessel he lapsed into utter indifference of allabout him. Even the Russian elicited only casual interest when hebrought him food. At other times the ape appeared merely to toleratehim. He never showed affection for him, or for anyone else upon theMarjorie W., nor did he at any time evince any indication of the savagetemper that had marked his resentment of the attack of the sailors uponhim at the time that he had come among them.
Most of his time was spent in the eye of the ship scanning the horizonahead, as though he were endowed with sufficient reason to know thatthe vessel was bound for some port where there would be other humanbeings to undergo his searching scrutiny. All in all, Ajax, as he hadbeen dubbed, was considered the most remarkable and intelligent apethat any one aboard the Marjorie W. ever had seen. Nor was hisintelligence the only remarkable attribute he owned. His stature andphysique were, for an ape, awe inspiring. That he was old was quiteevident, but if his age had impaired his physical or mental powers inthe slightest it was not apparent.
And so at length the Marjorie W. came to England, and there theofficers and the scientists, filled with compassion for the pitifulwreck of a man they had rescued from the jungles, furnished Paulvitchwith funds and bid him and his Ajax Godspeed.
Upon the dock and all through the journey to London the Russian had hishands full with Ajax. Each new face of the thousands that came withinthe anthropoid's ken must be carefully scrutinized, much to the horrorof many of his victims; but at last, failing, apparently, to discoverwhom he sought, the great ape relapsed into morbid indifference, onlyoccasionally evincing interest in a passing face.
In London, Paulvitch went directly with his prize to a certain famousanimal trainer. This man was much impressed with Ajax with the resultthat he agreed to train him for a lion's share of the profits ofexhibiting him, and in the meantime to provide for the keep of both theape and his owner.
And so came Ajax to London, and there was forged another link in thechain of strange circumstances that were to affect the lives of manypeople.
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