Chapter 23
The
Fifty Frightful Men
For several long
minutes Jane Porter and William Cecil Clayton stood silently looking at
the dead body of the beast whose prey they had so narrowly escaped
becoming.
The girl was the
first to speak again after her outbreak of impulsive avowal.
"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. "The terrible jungle.
It renders even the manifestations of friendship terrifying."
"We had best return
to the shelter," said Clayton. "You will be at least a little safer
there. I am no protection whatever," he added bitterly.
"Do not say that,
William," she hastened to urge, acutely sorry for the wound her words
had caused. "You have done the best you could. You have been noble, and
self-sacrificing, and brave. It is no fault of yours that you are not a
superman. There is only one other man I have ever known who could have
done more than you. My words were ill chosen in the excitement of the
reaction — I did not wish to wound you. All that I wish is that we may
both understand once and for all that I can never marry you — that such
a marriage would be wicked."
"I think I
understand," he replied. "Let us not speak of it again — at least until
we are back in civilization."
The next day Thuran
was worse. Almost constantly he was in a state of delirium. They could
do nothing to relieve him, nor was Clayton over-anxious to attempt
anything. On the girl's account he feared the Russian — in the bottom
of his heart he hoped the man would die. The thought that something
might befall him that would leave her entirely at the mercy of this
beast caused him greater anxiety than the probability that almost
certain death awaited her should she be left entirely 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 a feeling of much
greater security than at any time since they had been cast upon the
savage shore. The result was that he penetrated farther from the
shelter than ever before.
To escape as far as
possible from the mad ravings of the fever-stricken Russian, Jane
Porter had descended from the shelter to the foot of the tree — she
dared not venture farther. Here, beside the crude ladder Clayton had
constructed for her, she sat looking out to sea, in the always
surviving hope that a vessel might be sighted.
Her back was toward
the jungle, and so she did not see the grasses part, or the savage face
that peered from between. Little, bloodshot, close-set eyes scanned her
intently, roving from time to time about the open beach for indications
of the presence of others than herself. Presently another head
appeared, and then another and another. The man in the shelter
commenced to rave again, and the heads disappeared as silently and as
suddenly as they had come. But soon they were thrust forth once more,
as the girl gave no sign of perturbation at the continued wailing of
the man above.
One by one grotesque
forms emerged from the jungle to creep stealthily upon the unsuspecting
woman. A faint rustling of the grasses attracted her attention. She
turned, and at the sight that confronted her staggered to her feet with
a little shriek of fear. Then they closed upon her with a rush. Lifting
her bodily in his long, gorilla-like arms, one of the creatures turned
and bore her into the jungle. A filthy paw covered her mouth to stifle
her screams. Added to the weeks of torture she had already undergone,
the shock was more than she could withstand. Shattered nerves
collapsed, and she lost consciousness. When she regained her senses she
found herself in the thick of the primeval forest. It was night. A huge
fire burned brightly in the little clearing in which she lay. About it
squatted fifty frightful men. Their heads and faces were covered with
matted hair. Their long arms rested upon the bent knees of their short,
crooked legs. They were gnawing, like beasts, upon unclean food. A pot
boiled upon the edge of the fire, and out of it one of the creatures
would occasionally drag a hunk of meat with a sharpened stick.
When they discovered
that their captive had regained consciousness, a piece of this
repulsive stew was tossed to her from the foul hand of a nearby
feaster. It rolled close to her side, but she only closed her eyes 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, she was cuffed and
kicked by the nearest of the frightful men. Long before they reached
their journey's end her shoes had been discarded — the soles entirely
gone. Her clothes were torn to mere shreds and tatters, and through the
pitiful rags her once white and tender skin showed raw and bleeding
from contact with the thousand pitiless thorns and brambles through
which she had been dragged.
The last two days of
the journey found her in such utter exhaustion that no amount of
kicking and abuse could force her to her poor, bleeding feet. Outraged
nature had reached the limit of endurance, and the girl was physically
powerless to raise herself even to her knees.
As the beasts
surrounded her, chattering threateningly the while they goaded her with
their cudgels and beat and kicked her with their fists and feet, she
lay with closed eyes, praying for the merciful death that she knew
alone could give her surcease from suffering; but it did not come, and
presently the fifty frightful men realized that their victim was no
longer able to walk, and so they picked her up and carried her the
balance of the journey.
Late one afternoon
she saw the ruined walls of a mighty city looming before them, but so
weak and sick was she that it inspired not the faintest shadow of
interest. Wherever they were bearing her, there could 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 city within. Into a
crumbling pile they bore her, and here she was surrounded by hundreds
more of the same creatures that had brought her; but among them were
females who looked less horrible. At sight of them the first faint hope
that she had entertained came to mitigate her misery. 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 inmates of 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 water and another of
food.
For a week she saw
only some of the women whose duty it was to bring her food and water.
Slowly her strength was returning — soon she would be 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 she was destined.
As Tarzan of the Apes
moved slowly through the jungle after casting the spear that saved
Clayton and Jane Porter from the fangs of Numa, his mind was filled
with all the sorrow that belongs to a freshly opened heart wound.
He was glad that he
had stayed his hand in time to prevent the consummation of the thing
that in the first mad wave of jealous wrath he had contemplated. Only
the fraction of a second had stood between Clayton and death at the
hands of the ape-man. In the short moment that had elapsed after he had
recognized the girl and her companion and the relaxing of the taut
muscles that held the poisoned shaft directed at the Englishman's
heart, Tarzan had been swayed by the swift and savage impulses of brute
life.
He had seen the woman
he craved — his woman — his mate — in the arms of another. There had
been but one course open to him, according to the fierce jungle code
that guided him in this other existence; but just before it had become
too late the softer sentiments of his inherent chivalry had risen above
the flaming fires of his passion and saved him. A thousand times he
gave thanks that they had triumphed before his fingers had released
that polished arrow.
As he contemplated
his return to the Waziri the idea became repugnant. He did not wish to
see a human being again. At least he would range alone through the
jungle for a time, until the sharp edge of his sorrow had become
blunted. Like his fellow beasts, he preferred to suffer in silence and
alone.
That night he slept
again in the amphitheater of the apes, and for several days he hunted
from there, returning at night. On the afternoon of the third day he
returned early. He had lain stretched upon the soft grass of the
circular clearing for but a few moments when he heard far to the south
a familiar sound. It was the passing through the jungle of a band of
great apes — he could not mistake that. For several minutes he lay
listening. They were coming in the direction of the amphitheater.
Tarzan arose lazily
and stretched himself. His keen ears followed every movement of the
advancing tribe. They were upwind, and presently he caught their scent,
though he had not needed this added evidence to assure him that he was
right.
As they came closer
to the amphitheater Tarzan of the Apes melted into the branches upon
the other side of the arena. There he waited to inspect the newcomers.
Nor had he long to wait.
Presently a fierce,
hairy face appeared among the lower branches opposite him. The cruel
little eyes took in the clearing at a glance, then there was a
chattered report returned to those behind. Tarzan could hear the words.
The scout was telling the other members of the tribe that the coast was
clear and that they might enter the amphitheater in safety.
First the leader
dropped lightly upon the soft carpet of the grassy floor, and then, one
by one, nearly a hundred anthropoids followed him. There were the huge
adults and several young. A few nursing babes clung close to the shaggy
necks of their savage mothers.
Tarzan recognized
many members of the tribe. It was the same into which he had come as a
tiny babe. Many of the adults had been little apes during his boyhood.
He had frolicked and played about this very jungle with them during
their brief childhood. He wondered if they would remember him — the
memory of some apes is not overlong, and two years may be an eternity
to them.
From the talk which
he overheard he learned that they had come to choose a new king — their
late chief had fallen a hundred feet beneath a broken 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 barking guttural she called
the attention of the others. Several huge bulls stood erect to get a
better view of the intruder. With bared fangs and bristling necks they
advanced slowly toward him, with deep-throated, ominous growls.
"Karnath, I am Tarzan
of the Apes," said the ape-man in the vernacular of the tribe. "You
remember me. Together we teased Numa when we were still little apes,
throwing sticks and nuts at him from the safety of high 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 recall your former
king — he who slew the mighty Kerchak? Look at me! Am I not the same
Tarzan — mighty hunter — invincible fighter — that you all knew for
many seasons?"
The apes all crowded
forward now, but more in curiosity than threatening. 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 of the 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 after a separation
of two years. The majority of the apes went on about the little
activities that the advent of the ape-man had interrupted, paying no
further attention to him than as though he had not been gone from the
tribe at all.
One or two young
bulls who had not been old enough to remember him sidled up on all
fours to sniff at him, and one bared his fangs and growled
threateningly — he wished to put Tarzan immediately into his proper
place. Had Tarzan backed off, growling, the young bull would quite
probably have been satisfied, but always after Tarzan's station among
his fellow apes would have been beneath that of the bull which had made
him step aside.
But Tarzan of the
Apes did not back off. Instead, he swung his giant palm with all the
force of his mighty muscles, and, catching the young bull alongside the
head, sent him sprawling across the turf. The ape was up and at him
again in a second, and this time they closed with tearing fingers and
rending fangs — or at least that had been the intention of the young
bull; but scarcely had they gone down, growling and snapping, than the
ape-man's fingers found the throat of his antagonist.
Presently the young
bull ceased to struggle, and lay quite still. Then Tarzan released his
hold and arose — he did not wish to kill, only to teach the young ape,
and others who might be watching, that Tarzan of the Apes was still
master.
The lesson served its
purpose — the young apes kept out of his way, as young apes should when
their betters were about, and the old bulls made no attempt to encroach
upon his prerogatives. For several days the she-apes with young
remained suspicious of him, and when he ventured too near rushed upon
him with wide mouths and hideous roars. Then Tarzan discreetly skipped
out of harm's way, for that also is a custom among the apes — only mad
bulls will attack a mother. But after a while even they became
accustomed to him.
He hunted with them
as in days gone by, and when they found that his superior reason guided
him to the best food sources, and that his cunning 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 had become their king. And
so it was that before they left the amphitheater to return to their
wanderings they had once more chosen him as their leader.
The ape-man felt
quite contented with his new lot. He was not happy — that he never
could be again, but he was at least as far from everything that might
remind him of his past misery as he could be. Long since he had given
up every intention of returning to civilization, and now he had decided
to see no more his black friends of the Waziri. He had foresworn
humanity forever. He had started life an ape — as an ape he would die.
He could not,
however, erase from his memory the fact that the woman he loved was
within a short journey of the stamping-ground of his tribe; nor could
he banish the haunting fear that she might be constantly in danger.
That she was illy protected he had seen in the brief instant that had
witnessed Clayton's inefficiency. The more Tarzan thought of it, the
more keenly his conscience pricked him.
Finally he came to
loathe himself for permitting his own selfish sorrow and jealousy to
stand between Jane Porter and safety. As the days passed the thing
preyed more and more upon his mind, and he had about determined to
return to the coast and place himself on guard over Jane Porter and
Clayton, when news reached him that altered all his plans and sent him
dashing madly toward the east in reckless disregard of accident and
death.
Before Tarzan had
returned to the tribe, a certain young bull, not being able to secure a
mate from among his own people, had, according to custom, fared forth
through the wild jungle, like some knight-errant of old, to win a fair
lady from some neighboring community.
He had but just
returned with his bride, and was narrating his adventures quickly
before he should forget them. Among other things he told of seeing a
great tribe of strange-looking apes.
"They were all
hairy-faced bulls but one," he said, "and that one was a she, lighter
in color even than this stranger," and he chucked a thumb at Tarzan.
The ape-man was all
attention in an instant. He asked questions as rapidly 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, and carry sticks and
knives?"
"They did."
"And were there many
yellow rings about their arms and legs?"
"Yes."
"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 long hair 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 the south. "When they
passed me they were going toward the morning, upward along 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 a disembodied spirit
eastward in the direction of the forgotten city of Opar.
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