Jungle Tales of Tarzan Read online

  11

  A Jungle Joke

  TIME SELDOM HUNG heavily upon Tarzan's hands. Even where there issameness there cannot be monotony if most of the sameness consists indodging death first in one form and then in another; or in inflictingdeath upon others. There is a spice to such an existence; but eventhis Tarzan of the Apes varied in activities of his own invention.

  He was full grown now, with the grace of a Greek god and the thews of abull, and, by all the tenets of apedom, should have been sullen,morose, and brooding; but he was not. His spirits seemed not to age atall--he was still a playful child, much to the discomfiture of hisfellow-apes. They could not understand him or his ways, for withmaturity they quickly forgot their youth and its pastimes.

  Nor could Tarzan quite understand them. It seemed strange to him thata few moons since, he had roped Taug about an ankle and dragged himscreaming through the tall jungle grasses, and then rolled and tumbledin good-natured mimic battle when the young ape had freed himself, andthat today when he had come up behind the same Taug and pulled him overbackward upon the turf, instead of the playful young ape, a great,snarling beast had whirled and leaped for his throat.

  Easily Tarzan eluded the charge and quickly Taug's anger vanished,though it was not replaced with playfulness; yet the ape-man realizedthat Taug was not amused nor was he amusing. The big bull ape seemedto have lost whatever sense of humor he once may have possessed. Witha grunt of disappointment, young Lord Greystoke turned to other fieldsof endeavor. A strand of black hair fell across one eye. He brushedit aside with the palm of a hand and a toss of his head. It suggestedsomething to do, so he sought his quiver which lay cached in the hollowbole of a lightning-riven tree. Removing the arrows he turned thequiver upside down, emptying upon the ground the contents of itsbottom--his few treasures. Among them was a flat bit of stone and ashell which he had picked up from the beach near his father's cabin.

  With great care he rubbed the edge of the shell back and forth upon theflat stone until the soft edge was quite fine and sharp. He workedmuch as a barber does who hones a razor, and with every evidence ofsimilar practice; but his proficiency was the result of years ofpainstaking effort. Unaided he had worked out a method of his own forputting an edge upon the shell--he even tested it with the ball of histhumb--and when it met with his approval he grasped a wisp of hairwhich fell across his eyes, grasped it between the thumb and firstfinger of his left hand and sawed upon it with the sharpened shelluntil it was severed. All around his head he went until his blackshock was rudely bobbed with a ragged bang in front. For theappearance of it he cared nothing; but in the matter of safety andcomfort it meant everything. A lock of hair falling in one's eyes atthe wrong moment might mean all the difference between life and death,while straggly strands, hanging down one's back were mostuncomfortable, especially when wet with dew or rain or perspiration.

  As Tarzan labored at his tonsorial task, his active mind was busy withmany things. He recalled his recent battle with Bolgani, the gorilla,the wounds of which were but just healed. He pondered the strangesleep adventures of his first dreams, and he smiled at the painfuloutcome of his last practical joke upon the tribe, when, dressed in thehide of Numa, the lion, he had come roaring upon them, only to beleaped upon and almost killed by the great bulls whom he had taught howto defend themselves from an attack of their ancient enemy.

  His hair lopped off to his entire satisfaction, and seeing nopossibility of pleasure in the company of the tribe, Tarzan swungleisurely into the trees and set off in the direction of his cabin; butwhen part way there his attention was attracted by a strong scent spoorcoming from the north. It was the scent of the Gomangani.

  Curiosity, that best-developed, common heritage of man and ape, alwaysprompted Tarzan to investigate where the Gomangani were concerned.There was that about them which aroused his imagination. Possibly itwas because of the diversity of their activities and interests. Theapes lived to eat and sleep and propagate. The same was true of allthe other denizens of the jungle, save the Gomangani.

  These black fellows danced and sang, scratched around in the earth fromwhich they had cleared the trees and underbrush; they watched thingsgrow, and when they had ripened, they cut them down and put them instraw-thatched huts. They made bows and spears and arrows, poison,cooking pots, things of metal to wear around their arms and legs. Ifit hadn't been for their black faces, their hideously disfiguredfeatures, and the fact that one of them had slain Kala, Tarzan mighthave wished to be one of them. At least he sometimes thought so, butalways at the thought there rose within him a strange revulsion offeeling, which he could not interpret or understand--he simply knewthat he hated the Gomangani, and that he would rather be Histah, thesnake, than one of these.

  But their ways were interesting, and Tarzan never tired of spying uponthem, and from them he learned much more than he realized, thoughalways his principal thought was of some new way in which he couldrender their lives miserable. The baiting of the blacks was Tarzan'schief divertissement.

  Tarzan realized now that the blacks were very near and that there weremany of them, so he went silently and with great caution. Noiselesslyhe moved through the lush grasses of the open spaces, and where theforest was dense, swung from one swaying branch to another, or leapedlightly over tangled masses of fallen trees where there was no waythrough the lower terraces, and the ground was choked and impassable.

  And so presently he came within sight of the black warriors of Mbonga,the chief. They were engaged in a pursuit with which Tarzan was moreor less familiar, having watched them at it upon other occasions. Theywere placing and baiting a trap for Numa, the lion. In a cage uponwheels they were tying a kid, so fastening it that when Numa seized theunfortunate creature, the door of the cage would drop behind him,making him a prisoner.

  These things the blacks had learned in their old home, before theyescaped through the untracked jungle to their new village. Formerlythey had dwelt in the Belgian Congo until the cruelties of theirheartless oppressors had driven them to seek the safety of unexploredsolitudes beyond the boundaries of Leopold's domain.

  In their old life they often had trapped animals for the agents ofEuropean dealers, and had learned from them certain tricks, such asthis one, which permitted them to capture even Numa without injuringhim, and to transport him in safety and with comparative ease to theirvillage.

  No longer was there a white market for their savage wares; but therewas still a sufficient incentive for the taking of Numa--alive. Firstwas the necessity for ridding the jungle of man-eaters, and it was onlyafter depredations by these grim and terrible scourges that a lion huntwas organized. Secondarily was the excuse for an orgy of celebrationwas the hunt successful, and the fact that such fetes were rendereddoubly pleasurable by the presence of a live creature that might be putto death by torture.

  Tarzan had witnessed these cruel rites in the past. Being himself moresavage than the savage warriors of the Gomangani, he was not so shockedby the cruelty of them as he should have been, yet they did shock him.He could not understand the strange feeling of revulsion whichpossessed him at such times. He had no love for Numa, the lion, yet hebristled with rage when the blacks inflicted upon his enemy suchindignities and cruelties as only the mind of the one creature moldedin the image of God can conceive.

  Upon two occasions he had freed Numa from the trap before the blackshad returned to discover the success or failure of their venture. Hewould do the same today--that he decided immediately he realized thenature of their intentions.

  Leaving the trap in the center of a broad elephant trail near thedrinking hole, the warriors turned back toward their village. On themorrow they would come again. Tarzan looked after them, upon his lipsan unconscious sneer--the heritage of unguessed caste. He saw themfile along the broad trail, beneath the overhanging verdure of leafybranch and looped and festooned creepers, brushing ebon shouldersagainst gorgeous blooms which inscrutable
Nature has seen fit to lavishmost profusely farthest from the eye of man.

  As Tarzan watched, through narrowed lids, the last of the warriorsdisappear beyond a turn in the trail, his expression altered to theurge of a newborn thought. A slow, grim smile touched his lips. Helooked down upon the frightened, bleating kid, advertising, in its fearand its innocence, its presence and its helplessness.

  Dropping to the ground, Tarzan approached the trap and entered.Without disturbing the fiber cord, which was adjusted to drop the doorat the proper time, he loosened the living bait, tucked it under an armand stepped out of the cage.

  With his hunting knife he quieted the frightened animal, severing itsjugular; then he dragged it, bleeding, along the trail down to thedrinking hole, the half smile persisting upon his ordinarily graveface. At the water's edge the ape-man stooped and with hunting knifeand quick strong fingers deftly removed the dead kid's viscera.Scraping a hole in the mud, he buried these parts which he did not eat,and swinging the body to his shoulder took to the trees.

  For a short distance he pursued his way in the wake of the blackwarriors, coming down presently to bury the meat of his kill where itwould be safe from the depredations of Dango, the hyena, or the othermeat-eating beasts and birds of the jungle. He was hungry. Had hebeen all beast he would have eaten; but his man-mind could entertainurges even more potent than those of the belly, and now he wasconcerned with an idea which kept a smile upon his lips and his eyessparkling in anticipation. An idea, it was, which permitted him toforget that he was hungry.

  The meat safely cached, Tarzan trotted along the elephant trail afterthe Gomangani. Two or three miles from the cage he overtook them andthen he swung into the trees and followed above and behindthem--waiting his chance.

  Among the blacks was Rabba Kega, the witch-doctor. Tarzan hated themall; but Rabba Kega he especially hated. As the blacks filed along thewinding path, Rabba Kega, being lazy, dropped behind. This Tarzannoted, and it filled him with satisfaction--his being radiated a grimand terrible content. Like an angel of death he hovered above theunsuspecting black.

  Rabba Kega, knowing that the village was but a short distance ahead,sat down to rest. Rest well, O Rabba Kega! It is thy last opportunity.

  Tarzan crept stealthily among the branches of the tree above thewell-fed, self-satisfied witch-doctor. He made no noise that the dullears of man could hear above the soughing of the gentle jungle breezeamong the undulating foliage of the upper terraces, and when he cameclose above the black man he halted, well concealed by leafy branch andheavy creeper.

  Rabba Kega sat with his back against the bole of a tree, facing Tarzan.The position was not such as the waiting beast of prey desired, and so,with the infinite patience of the wild hunter, the ape-man crouchedmotionless and silent as a graven image until the fruit should be ripefor the plucking. A poisonous insect buzzed angrily out of space. Itloitered, circling, close to Tarzan's face. The ape-man saw andrecognized it. The virus of its sting spelled death for lesser thingsthan he--for him it would mean days of anguish. He did not move. Hisglittering eyes remained fixed upon Rabba Kega after acknowledging thepresence of the winged torture by a single glance. He heard andfollowed the movements of the insect with his keen ears, and then hefelt it alight upon his forehead. No muscle twitched, for the musclesof such as he are the servants of the brain. Down across his facecrept the horrid thing--over nose and lips and chin. Upon his throatit paused, and turning, retraced its steps. Tarzan watched Rabba Kega.Now not even his eyes moved. So motionless he crouched that only deathmight counterpart his movelessness. The insect crawled upward over thenut-brown cheek and stopped with its antennae brushing the lashes ofhis lower lid. You or I would have started back, closing our eyes andstriking at the thing; but you and I are the slaves, not the masters ofour nerves. Had the thing crawled upon the eyeball of the ape-man, itis believable that he could yet have remained wide-eyed and rigid; butit did not. For a moment it loitered there close to the lower lid,then it rose and buzzed away.

  Down toward Rabba Kega it buzzed and the black man heard it, saw it,struck at it, and was stung upon the cheek before he killed it. Thenhe rose with a howl of pain and anger, and as he turned up the trailtoward the village of Mbonga, the chief, his broad, black back wasexposed to the silent thing waiting above him.

  And as Rabba Kega turned, a lithe figure shot outward and downward fromthe tree above upon his broad shoulders. The impact of the springingcreature carried Rabba Kega to the ground. He felt strong jaws closeupon his neck, and when he tried to scream, steel fingers throttled histhroat. The powerful black warrior struggled to free himself; but hewas as a child in the grip of his adversary.

  Presently Tarzan released his grip upon the other's throat; but eachtime that Rabba Kega essayed a scream, the cruel fingers choked himpainfully. At last the warrior desisted. Then Tarzan half rose andkneeled upon his victim's back, and when Rabba Kega struggled to arise,the ape-man pushed his face down into the dirt of the trail. With abit of the rope that had secured the kid, Tarzan made Rabba Kega'swrists secure behind his back, then he rose and jerked his prisoner tohis feet, faced him back along the trail and pushed him on ahead.

  Not until he came to his feet did Rabba Kega obtain a square look athis assailant. When he saw that it was the white devil-god his heartsank within him and his knees trembled; but as he walked along thetrail ahead of his captor and was neither injured nor molested hisspirits slowly rose, so that he took heart again. Possibly thedevil-god did not intend to kill him after all. Had he not had littleTibo in his power for days without harming him, and had he not sparedMomaya, Tibo's mother, when he easily might have slain her?

  And then they came upon the cage which Rabba Kega, with the other blackwarriors of the village of Mbonga, the chief, had placed and baited forNuma. Rabba Kega saw that the bait was gone, though there was no lionwithin the cage, nor was the door dropped. He saw and he was filledwith wonder not unmixed with apprehension. It entered his dull brainthat in some way this combination of circumstances had a connectionwith his presence there as the prisoner of the white devil-god.

  Nor was he wrong. Tarzan pushed him roughly into the cage, and inanother moment Rabba Kega understood. Cold sweat broke from every poreof his body--he trembled as with ague--for the ape-man was binding himsecurely in the very spot the kid had previously occupied. Thewitch-doctor pleaded, first for his life, and then for a death lesscruel; but he might as well have saved his pleas for Numa, sincealready they were directed toward a wild beast who understood no wordof what he said.

  But his constant jabbering not only annoyed Tarzan, who worked insilence, but suggested that later the black might raise his voice incries for succor, so he stepped out of the cage, gathered a handful ofgrass and a small stick and returning, jammed the grass into RabbaKega's mouth, laid the stick crosswise between his teeth and fastenedit there with the thong from Rabba Kega's loin cloth. Now could thewitch-doctor but roll his eyes and sweat. Thus Tarzan left him.

  The ape-man went first to the spot where he had cached the body of thekid. Digging it up, he ascended into a tree and proceeded to satisfyhis hunger. What remained he again buried; then he swung away throughthe trees to the water hole, and going to the spot where fresh, coldwater bubbled from between two rocks, he drank deeply. The otherbeasts might wade in and drink stagnant water; but not Tarzan of theApes. In such matters he was fastidious. From his hands he washedevery trace of the repugnant scent of the Gomangani, and from his facethe blood of the kid. Rising, he stretched himself not unlike somehuge, lazy cat, climbed into a near-by tree and fell asleep.

  When he awoke it was dark, though a faint luminosity still tinged thewestern heavens. A lion moaned and coughed as it strode through thejungle toward water. It was approaching the drinking hole. Tarzangrinned sleepily, changed his position and fell asleep again.

  When the blacks of Mbonga, the chief, reached their village theydiscovered that Rabba Kega was not among them. When se
veral hours hadelapsed they decided that something had happened to him, and it was thehope of the majority of the tribe that whatever had happened to himmight prove fatal. They did not love the witch-doctor. Love and fearseldom are playmates; but a warrior is a warrior, and so Mbongaorganized a searching party. That his own grief was not unassuagablemight have been gathered from the fact that he remained at home andwent to sleep. The young warriors whom he sent out remained steadfastto their purpose for fully half an hour, when, unfortunately for RabbaKega--upon so slight a thing may the fate of a man rest--a honey birdattracted the attention of the searchers and led them off for thedelicious store it previously had marked down for betrayal, and RabbaKega's doom was sealed.

  When the searchers returned empty handed, Mbonga was wroth; but when hesaw the great store of honey they brought with them his rage subsided.Already Tubuto, young, agile and evil-minded, with face hideouslypainted, was practicing the black art upon a sick infant in the fondhope of succeeding to the office and perquisites of Rabba Kega.Tonight the women of the old witch-doctor would moan and howl.Tomorrow he would be forgotten. Such is life, such is fame, such ispower--in the center of the world's highest civilization, or in thedepths of the black, primeval jungle. Always, everywhere, man is man,nor has he altered greatly beneath his veneer since he scurried into ahole between two rocks to escape the tyrannosaurus six million yearsago.

  The morning following the disappearance of Rabba Kega, the warriors setout with Mbonga, the chief, to examine the trap they had set for Numa.Long before they reached the cage, they heard the roaring of a greatlion and guessed that they had made a successful bag, so it was withshouts of joy that they approached the spot where they should findtheir captive.

  Yes! There he was, a great, magnificent specimen--a huge, black-manedlion. The warriors were frantic with delight. They leaped into theair and uttered savage cries--hoarse victory cries, and then they camecloser, and the cries died upon their lips, and their eyes went wide sothat the whites showed all around their irises, and their pendulouslower lips drooped with their drooping jaws. They drew back in terrorat the sight within the cage--the mauled and mutilated corpse of whathad, yesterday, been Rabba Kega, the witch-doctor.

  The captured lion had been too angry and frightened to feed upon thebody of his kill; but he had vented upon it much of his rage, until itwas a frightful thing to behold.

  From his perch in a near-by tree Tarzan of the Apes, Lord Greystoke,looked down upon the black warriors and grinned. Once again hisself-pride in his ability as a practical joker asserted itself. It hadlain dormant for some time following the painful mauling he hadreceived that time he leaped among the apes of Kerchak clothed in theskin of Numa; but this joke was a decided success.

  After a few moments of terror, the blacks came closer to the cage, ragetaking the place of fear--rage and curiosity. How had Rabba Kegahappened to be in the cage? Where was the kid? There was no sign norremnant of the original bait. They looked closely and they saw, totheir horror, that the corpse of their erstwhile fellow was bound withthe very cord with which they had secured the kid. Who could have donethis thing? They looked at one another.

  Tubuto was the first to speak. He had come hopefully out with theexpedition that morning. Somewhere he might find evidence of the deathof Rabba Kega. Now he had found it, and he was the first to find anexplanation.

  "The white devil-god," he whispered. "It is the work of the whitedevil-god!"

  No one contradicted Tubuto, for, indeed, who else could it have beenbut the great, hairless ape they all so feared? And so their hatred ofTarzan increased again with an increased fear of him. And Tarzan satin his tree and hugged himself.

  No one there felt sorrow because of the death of Rabba Kega; but eachof the blacks experienced a personal fear of the ingenious mind whichmight discover for any of them a death equally horrible to that whichthe witch-doctor had suffered. It was a subdued and thoughtful companywhich dragged the captive lion along the broad elephant path back tothe village of Mbonga, the chief.

  And it was with a sigh of relief that they finally rolled it into thevillage and closed the gates behind them. Each had experienced thesensation of being spied upon from the moment they left the spot wherethe trap had been set, though none had seen or heard aught to givetangible food to his fears.

  At the sight of the body within the cage with the lion, the women andchildren of the village set up a most frightful lamentation, workingthemselves into a joyous hysteria which far transcended the happymisery derived by their more civilized prototypes who make a businessof dividing their time between the movies and the neighborhood funeralsof friends and strangers--especially strangers.

  From a tree overhanging the palisade, Tarzan watched all that passedwithin the village. He saw the frenzied women tantalizing the greatlion with sticks and stones. The cruelty of the blacks toward acaptive always induced in Tarzan a feeling of angry contempt for theGomangani. Had he attempted to analyze this feeling he would havefound it difficult, for during all his life he had been accustomed tosights of suffering and cruelty. He, himself, was cruel. All thebeasts of the jungle were cruel; but the cruelty of the blacks was of adifferent order. It was the cruelty of wanton torture of the helpless,while the cruelty of Tarzan and the other beasts was the cruelty ofnecessity or of passion.

  Perhaps, had he known it, he might have credited this feeling ofrepugnance at the sight of unnecessary suffering to heredity--to thegerm of British love of fair play which had been bequeathed to him byhis father and his mother; but, of course, he did not know, since hestill believed that his mother had been Kala, the great ape.

  And just in proportion as his anger rose against the Gomangani hissavage sympathy went out to Numa, the lion, for, though Numa was hislifetime enemy, there was neither bitterness nor contempt in Tarzan'ssentiments toward him. In the ape-man's mind, therefore, thedetermination formed to thwart the blacks and liberate the lion; but hemust accomplish this in some way which would cause the Gomangani thegreatest chagrin and discomfiture.

  As he squatted there watching the proceeding beneath him, he saw thewarriors seize upon the cage once more and drag it between two huts.Tarzan knew that it would remain there now until evening, and that theblacks were planning a feast and orgy in celebration of their capture.When he saw that two warriors were placed beside the cage, and thatthese drove off the women and children and young men who would haveeventually tortured Numa to death, he knew that the lion would be safeuntil he was needed for the evening's entertainment, when he would bemore cruelly and scientifically tortured for the edification of theentire tribe.

  Now Tarzan preferred to bait the blacks in as theatric a manner as hisfertile imagination could evolve. He had some half-formed conceptionof their superstitious fears and of their especial dread of night, andso he decided to wait until darkness fell and the blacks partiallyworked to hysteria by their dancing and religious rites before he tookany steps toward the freeing of Numa. In the meantime, he hoped, anidea adequate to the possibilities of the various factors at hand wouldoccur to him. Nor was it long before one did.

  He had swung off through the jungle to search for food when the plancame to him. At first it made him smile a little and then lookdubious, for he still retained a vivid memory of the dire results thathad followed the carrying out of a very wonderful idea along almostidentical lines, yet he did not abandon his intention, and a momentlater, food temporarily forgotten, he was swinging through the middleterraces in rapid flight toward the stamping ground of the tribe ofKerchak, the great ape.

  As was his wont, he alighted in the midst of the little band withoutannouncing his approach save by a hideous scream just as he sprang froma branch above them. Fortunate are the apes of Kerchak that their kindis not subject to heart failure, for the methods of Tarzan subjectedthem to one severe shock after another, nor could they ever accustomthemselves to the ape-man's peculiar style of humor.

  Now, when they saw who it was they merely snarled an
d grumbled angrilyfor a moment and then resumed their feeding or their napping which hehad interrupted, and he, having had his little joke, made his way tothe hollow tree where he kept his treasures hid from the inquisitiveeyes and fingers of his fellows and the mischievous little manus. Herehe withdrew a closely rolled hide--the hide of Numa with the head on; aclever bit of primitive curing and mounting, which had once been theproperty of the witch-doctor, Rabba Kega, until Tarzan had stolen itfrom the village.

  With this he made his way back through the jungle toward the village ofthe blacks, stopping to hunt and feed upon the way, and, in theafternoon, even napping for an hour, so that it was already dusk whenhe entered the great tree which overhung the palisade and gave him aview of the entire village. He saw that Numa was still alive and thatthe guards were even dozing beside the cage. A lion is no greatnovelty to a black man in the lion country, and the first keen edge oftheir desire to worry the brute having worn off, the villagers paidlittle or no attention to the great cat, preferring now to await thegrand event of the night.

  Nor was it long after dark before the festivities commenced. To thebeating of tom-toms, a lone warrior, crouched half doubled, leaped intothe firelight in the center of a great circle of other warriors, behindwhom stood or squatted the women and the children. The dancer waspainted and armed for the hunt and his movements and gestures suggestedthe search for the spoor of game. Bending low, sometimes resting for amoment on one knee, he searched the ground for signs of the quarry;again he poised, statuesque, listening. The warrior was young andlithe and graceful; he was full-muscled and arrow-straight. Thefirelight glistened upon his ebon body and brought out into bold reliefthe grotesque designs painted upon his face, breasts, and abdomen.

  Presently he bent low to the earth, then leaped high in air. Everyline of face and body showed that he had struck the scent. Immediatelyhe leaped toward the circle of warriors about him, telling them of hisfind and summoning them to the hunt. It was all in pantomime; but sotruly done that even Tarzan could follow it all to the least detail.

  He saw the other warriors grasp their hunting spears and leap to theirfeet to join in the graceful, stealthy "stalking dance." It was veryinteresting; but Tarzan realized that if he was to carry his design toa successful conclusion he must act quickly. He had seen these dancesbefore and knew that after the stalk would come the game at bay andthen the kill, during which Numa would be surrounded by warriors, andunapproachable.

  With the lion's skin under one arm the ape-man dropped to the ground inthe dense shadows beneath the tree and then circled behind the hutsuntil he came out directly in the rear of the cage, in which Numa pacednervously to and fro. The cage was now unguarded, the two warriorshaving left it to take their places among the other dancers.

  Behind the cage Tarzan adjusted the lion's skin about him, just as hehad upon that memorable occasion when the apes of Kerchak, failing topierce his disguise, had all but slain him. Then, on hands and knees,he crept forward, emerged from between the two huts and stood a fewpaces back of the dusky audience, whose whole attention was centeredupon the dancers before them.

  Tarzan saw that the blacks had now worked themselves to a proper pitchof nervous excitement to be ripe for the lion. In a moment the ring ofspectators would break at a point nearest the caged lion and the victimwould be rolled into the center of the circle. It was for this momentthat Tarzan waited.

  At last it came. A signal was given by Mbonga, the chief, at which thewomen and children immediately in front of Tarzan rose and moved to oneside, leaving a broad path opening toward the caged lion. At the sameinstant Tarzan gave voice to the low, coughing roar of an angry lionand slunk slowly forward through the open lane toward the frenzieddancers.

  A woman saw him first and screamed. Instantly there was a panic in theimmediate vicinity of the ape-man. The strong light from the fire fellfull upon the lion head and the blacks leaped to the conclusion, asTarzan had known they would, that their captive had escaped his cage.

  With another roar, Tarzan moved forward. The dancing warriors pausedbut an instant. They had been hunting a lion securely housed within astrong cage, and now that he was at liberty among them, an entirelydifferent aspect was placed upon the matter. Their nerves were notattuned to this emergency. The women and children already had fled tothe questionable safety of the nearest huts, and the warriors were notlong in following their example, so that presently Tarzan was left insole possession of the village street.

  But not for long. Nor did he wish to be left thus long alone. Itwould not comport with his scheme. Presently a head peered forth froma near-by hut, and then another and another until a score or more ofwarriors were looking out upon him, waiting for his next move--waitingfor the lion to charge or to attempt to escape from the village.

  Their spears were ready in their hands against either a charge or abolt for freedom, and then the lion rose erect upon its hind legs, thetawny skin dropped from it and there stood revealed before them in thefirelight the straight young figure of the white devil-god.

  For an instant the blacks were too astonished to act. They feared thisapparition fully as much as they did Numa, yet they would gladly haveslain the thing could they quickly enough have gathered together theirwits; but fear and superstition and a natural mental density held themparalyzed while the ape-man stooped and gathered up the lion skin.They saw him turn then and walk back into the shadows at the far end ofthe village. Not until then did they gain courage to pursue him, andwhen they had come in force, with brandished spears and loud war cries,the quarry was gone.

  Not an instant did Tarzan pause in the tree. Throwing the skin over abranch he leaped again into the village upon the opposite side of thegreat bole, and diving into the shadow of a hut, ran quickly to wherelay the caged lion. Springing to the top of the cage he pulled uponthe cord which raised the door, and a moment later a great lion in theprime of his strength and vigor leaped out into the village.

  The warriors, returning from a futile search for Tarzan, saw him stepinto the firelight. Ah! there was the devil-god again, up to his oldtrick. Did he think he could twice fool the men of Mbonga, the chief,the same way in so short a time? They would show him! For long theyhad waited for such an opportunity to rid themselves forever of thisfearsome jungle demon. As one they rushed forward with raised spears.

  The women and the children came from the huts to witness the slaying ofthe devil-god. The lion turned blazing eyes upon them and then swungabout toward the advancing warriors.

  With shouts of savage joy and triumph they came toward him, menacinghim with their spears. The devil-god was theirs!

  And then, with a frightful roar, Numa, the lion, charged.

  The men of Mbonga, the chief, met Numa with ready spears and screams ofraillery. In a solid mass of muscled ebony they waited the coming ofthe devil-god; yet beneath their brave exteriors lurked a haunting fearthat all might not be quite well with them--that this strange creaturecould yet prove invulnerable to their weapons and inflict upon themfull punishment for their effrontery. The charging lion was all toolifelike--they saw that in the brief instant of the charge; but beneaththe tawny hide they knew was hid the soft flesh of the white man, andhow could that withstand the assault of many war spears?

  In their forefront stood a huge young warrior in the full arrogance ofhis might and his youth. Afraid? Not he! He laughed as Numa bore downupon him; he laughed and couched his spear, setting the point for thebroad breast. And then the lion was upon him. A great paw swept awaythe heavy war spear, splintering it as the hand of man might splinter adry twig.

  Down went the black, his skull crushed by another blow. And then thelion was in the midst of the warriors, clawing and tearing to right andleft. Not for long did they stand their ground; but a dozen men weremauled before the others made good their escape from those frightfultalons and gleaming fangs.

  In terror the villagers fled hither and thither. No hut seemed asufficiently secure asylum with N
uma ranging within the palisade. Fromone to another fled the frightened blacks, while in the center of thevillage Numa stood glaring and growling above his kills.

  At last a tribesman flung wide the gates of the village and soughtsafety amid the branches of the forest trees beyond. Like sheep hisfellows followed him, until the lion and his dead remained alone in thevillage.

  From the nearer trees the men of Mbonga saw the lion lower his greathead and seize one of his victims by the shoulder and then with slowand stately tread move down the village street past the open gates andon into the jungle. They saw and shuddered, and from another treeTarzan of the Apes saw and smiled.

  A full hour elapsed after the lion had disappeared with his feastbefore the blacks ventured down from the trees and returned to theirvillage. Wide eyes rolled from side to side, and naked fleshcontracted more to the chill of fear than to the chill of the junglenight.

  "It was he all the time," murmured one. "It was the devil-god."

  "He changed himself from a lion to a man, and back again into a lion,"whispered another.

  "And he dragged Mweeza into the forest and is eating him," said athird, shuddering.

  "We are no longer safe here," wailed a fourth. "Let us take ourbelongings and search for another village site far from the haunts ofthe wicked devil-god."

  But with morning came renewed courage, so that the experiences of thepreceding evening had little other effect than to increase their fearof Tarzan and strengthen their belief in his supernatural origin.

  And thus waxed the fame and the power of the ape-man in the mysterioushaunts of the savage jungle where he ranged, mightiest of beastsbecause of the man-mind which directed his giant muscles and hisflawless courage.

  12

  Tarzan Rescues the Moon

  THE MOON SHONE down out of a cloudless sky--a huge, swollen moon thatseemed so close to earth that one might wonder that she did not brushthe crooning tree tops. It was night, and Tarzan was abroad in thejungle--Tarzan, the ape-man; mighty fighter, mighty hunter. Why heswung through the dark shadows of the somber forest he could not havetold you. It was not that he was hungry--he had fed well this day, andin a safe cache were the remains of his kill, ready against the comingof a new appetite. Perhaps it was the very joy of living that urgedhim from his arboreal couch to pit his muscles and his senses againstthe jungle night, and then, too, Tarzan always was goaded by an intensedesire to know.

  The jungle which is presided over by Kudu, the sun, is a very differentjungle from that of Goro, the moon. The diurnal jungle has its ownaspect--its own lights and shades, its own birds, its own blooms, itsown beasts; its noises are the noises of the day. The lights andshades of the nocturnal jungle are as different as one might imaginethe lights and shades of another world to differ from those of ourworld; its beasts, its blooms, and its birds are not those of thejungle of Kudu, the sun.

  Because of these differences Tarzan loved to investigate the jungle bynight. Not only was the life another life; but it was richer innumbers and in romance; it was richer in dangers, too, and to Tarzan ofthe Apes danger was the spice of life. And the noises of the junglenight--the roar of the lion, the scream of the leopard, the hideouslaughter of Dango, the hyena, were music to the ears of the ape-man.

  The soft padding of unseen feet, the rustling of leaves and grasses tothe passage of fierce beasts, the sheen of opalesque eyes flamingthrough the dark, the million sounds which proclaimed the teeming lifethat one might hear and scent, though seldom see, constituted theappeal of the nocturnal jungle to Tarzan.

  Tonight he had swung a wide circle--toward the east first and thentoward the south, and now he was rounding back again into the north.His eyes, his ears and his keen nostrils were ever on the alert.Mingled with the sounds he knew, there were strange sounds--weirdsounds which he never heard until after Kudu had sought his lair belowthe far edge of the big water--sounds which belonged to Goro, themoon--and to the mysterious period of Goro's supremacy. These soundsoften caused Tarzan profound speculation. They baffled him because hethought that he knew his jungle so well that there could be nothingwithin it unfamiliar to him. Sometimes he thought that as colors andforms appeared to differ by night from their familiar daylight aspects,so sounds altered with the passage of Kudu and the coming of Goro, andthese thoughts roused within his brain a vague conjecture that perhapsGoro and Kudu influenced these changes. And what more natural thateventually he came to attribute to the sun and the moon personalitiesas real as his own? The sun was a living creature and ruled the day.The moon, endowed with brains and miraculous powers, ruled the night.

  Thus functioned the untrained man-mind groping through the dark nightof ignorance for an explanation of the things he could not touch orsmell or hear and of the great, unknown powers of nature which he couldnot see.

  As Tarzan swung north again upon his wide circle the scent of theGomangani came to his nostrils, mixed with the acrid odor of woodsmoke. The ape-man moved quickly in the direction from which the scentwas borne down to him upon the gentle night wind. Presently the ruddysheen of a great fire filtered through the foliage to him ahead, andwhen Tarzan came to a halt in the trees near it, he saw a party of halfa dozen black warriors huddled close to the blaze. It was evidently ahunting party from the village of Mbonga, the chief, caught out in thejungle after dark. In a rude circle about them they had constructed athorn boma which, with the aid of the fire, they apparently hoped woulddiscourage the advances of the larger carnivora.

  That hope was not conviction was evidenced by the very palpable terrorin which they crouched, wide-eyed and trembling, for already Numa andSabor were moaning through the jungle toward them. There were othercreatures, too, in the shadows beyond the firelight. Tarzan could seetheir yellow eyes flaming there. The blacks saw them and shivered.Then one arose and grasping a burning branch from the fire hurled it atthe eyes, which immediately disappeared. The black sat down again.Tarzan watched and saw that it was several minutes before the eyesbegan to reappear in twos and fours.

  Then came Numa, the lion, and Sabor, his mate. The other eyesscattered to right and left before the menacing growls of the greatcats, and then the huge orbs of the man-eaters flamed alone out of thedarkness. Some of the blacks threw themselves upon their faces andmoaned; but he who before had hurled the burning branch now hurledanother straight at the faces of the hungry lions, and they, too,disappeared as had the lesser lights before them. Tarzan was muchinterested. He saw a new reason for the nightly fires maintained bythe blacks--a reason in addition to those connected with warmth andlight and cooking. The beasts of the jungle feared fire, and so firewas, in a measure, a protection from them. Tarzan himself knew acertain awe of fire. Once he had, in investigating an abandoned firein the village of the blacks, picked up a live coal. Since then he hadmaintained a respectful distance from such fires as he had seen. Oneexperience had sufficed.

  For a few minutes after the black hurled the firebrand no eyesappeared, though Tarzan could hear the soft padding of feet all abouthim. Then flashed once more the twin fire spots that marked the returnof the lord of the jungle and a moment later, upon a slightly lowerlevel, there appeared those of Sabor, his mate.

  For some time they remained fixed and unwavering--a constellation offierce stars in the jungle night--then the male lion advanced slowlytoward the boma, where all but a single black still crouched intrembling terror. When this lone guardian saw that Numa was againapproaching, he threw another firebrand, and, as before, Numa retreatedand with him Sabor, the lioness; but not so far, this time, nor for solong. Almost instantly they turned and began circling the boma, theireyes turning constantly toward the firelight, while low, throaty growlsevidenced their increasing displeasure. Beyond the lions glowed theflaming eyes of the lesser satellites, until the black jungle was shotall around the black men's camp with little spots of fire.

  Again and again the black warrior hurled his puny brands at the two bigcats;
but Tarzan noticed that Numa paid little or no attention to themafter the first few retreats. The ape-man knew by Numa's voice thatthe lion was hungry and surmised that he had made up his mind to feedupon a Gomangani; but would he dare a closer approach to the dreadedflames?

  Even as the thought was passing in Tarzan's mind, Numa stopped hisrestless pacing and faced the boma. For a moment he stood motionless,except for the quick, nervous upcurving of his tail, then he walkeddeliberately forward, while Sabor moved restlessly to and fro where hehad left her. The black man called to his comrades that the lion wascoming, but they were too far gone in fear to do more than huddlecloser together and moan more loudly than before.

  Seizing a blazing branch the man cast it straight into the face of thelion. There was an angry roar, followed by a swift charge. With asingle bound the savage beast cleared the boma wall as, with almostequal agility, the warrior cleared it upon the opposite side and,chancing the dangers lurking in the darkness, bolted for the nearesttree.

  Numa was out of the boma almost as soon as he was inside it; but as hewent back over the low thorn wall, he took a screaming negro with him.Dragging his victim along the ground he walked back toward Sabor, thelioness, who joined him, and the two continued into the blackness,their savage growls mingling with the piercing shrieks of the doomedand terrified man.

  At a little distance from the blaze the lions halted, there ensued ashort succession of unusually vicious growls and roars, during whichthe cries and moans of the black man ceased--forever.

  Presently Numa reappeared in the firelight. He made a second trip intothe boma and the former grisly tragedy was reenacted with anotherhowling victim.

  Tarzan rose and stretched lazily. The entertainment was beginning tobore him. He yawned and turned upon his way toward the clearing wherethe tribe would be sleeping in the encircling trees.

  Yet even when he had found his familiar crotch and curled himself forslumber, he felt no desire to sleep. For a long time he lay awakethinking and dreaming. He looked up into the heavens and watched themoon and the stars. He wondered what they were and what power keptthem from falling. His was an inquisitive mind. Always he had beenfull of questions concerning all that passed around him; but therenever had been one to answer his questions. In childhood he had wantedto KNOW, and, denied almost all knowledge, he still, in manhood, wasfilled with the great, unsatisfied curiosity of a child.

  He was never quite content merely to perceive that things happened--hedesired to know WHY they happened. He wanted to know what made thingsgo. The secret of life interested him immensely. The miracle of deathhe could not quite fathom. Upon innumerable occasions he hadinvestigated the internal mechanism of his kills, and once or twice hehad opened the chest cavity of victims in time to see the heart stillpumping.

  He had learned from experience that a knife thrust through this organbrought immediate death nine times out of ten, while he might stab anantagonist innumerable times in other places without even disablinghim. And so he had come to think of the heart, or, as he called it,"the red thing that breathes," as the seat and origin of life.

  The brain and its functionings he did not comprehend at all. That hissense perceptions were transmitted to his brain and there translated,classified, and labeled was something quite beyond him. He thoughtthat his fingers knew when they touched something, that his eyes knewwhen they saw, his ears when they heard, his nose when it scented.

  He considered his throat, epidermis, and the hairs of his head as thethree principal seats of emotion. When Kala had been slain a peculiarchoking sensation had possessed his throat; contact with Histah, thesnake, imparted an unpleasant sensation to the skin of his whole body;while the approach of an enemy made the hairs on his scalp stand erect.

  Imagine, if you can, a child filled with the wonders of nature,bursting with queries and surrounded only by beasts of the jungle towhom his questionings were as strange as Sanskrit would have been. Ifhe asked Gunto what made it rain, the big old ape would but gaze at himin dumb astonishment for an instant and then return to his interestingand edifying search for fleas; and when he questioned Mumga, who wasvery old and should have been very wise, but wasn't, as to the reasonfor the closing of certain flowers after Kudu had deserted the sky, andthe opening of others during the night, he was surprised to discoverthat Mumga had never noticed these interesting facts, though she couldtell to an inch just where the fattest grubworm should be hiding.

  To Tarzan these things were wonders. They appealed to his intellectand to his imagination. He saw the flowers close and open; he sawcertain blooms which turned their faces always toward the sun; he sawleaves which moved when there was no breeze; he saw vines crawl likeliving things up the boles and over the branches of great trees; and toTarzan of the Apes the flowers and the vines and the trees were livingcreatures. He often talked to them, as he talked to Goro, the moon,and Kudu, the sun, and always was he disappointed that they did notreply. He asked them questions; but they could not answer, though heknew that the whispering of the leaves was the language of theleaves--they talked with one another.

  The wind he attributed to the trees and grasses. He thought that theyswayed themselves to and fro, creating the wind. In no other way couldhe account for this phenomenon. The rain he finally attributed to thestars, the moon, and the sun; but his hypothesis was entirely unlovelyand unpoetical.

  Tonight as Tarzan lay thinking, there sprang to his fertile imaginationan explanation of the stars and the moon. He became quite excitedabout it. Taug was sleeping in a nearby crotch. Tarzan swung overbeside him.

  "Taug!" he cried. Instantly the great bull was awake and bristling,sensing danger from the nocturnal summons. "Look, Taug!" exclaimedTarzan, pointing toward the stars. "See the eyes of Numa and Sabor, ofSheeta and Dango. They wait around Goro to leap in upon him for theirkill. See the eyes and the nose and the mouth of Goro. And the lightthat shines upon his face is the light of the great fire he has builtto frighten away Numa and Sabor and Dango and Sheeta.

  "All about him are the eyes, Taug, you can see them! But they do notcome very close to the fire--there are few eyes close to Goro. Theyfear the fire! It is the fire that saves Goro from Numa. Do you seethem, Taug? Some night Numa will be very hungry and very angry--then hewill leap over the thorn bushes which encircle Goro and we will have nomore light after Kudu seeks his lair--the night will be black with theblackness that comes when Goro is lazy and sleeps late into the night,or when he wanders through the skies by day, forgetting the jungle andits people."

  Taug looked stupidly at the heavens and then at Tarzan. A meteor fell,blazing a flaming way through the sky.

  "Look!" cried Tarzan. "Goro has thrown a burning branch at Numa."

  Taug grumbled. "Numa is down below," he said. "Numa does not huntabove the trees." But he looked curiously and a little fearfully at thebright stars above him, as though he saw them for the first time, anddoubtless it was the first time that Taug ever had seen the stars,though they had been in the sky above him every night of his life. ToTaug they were as the gorgeous jungle blooms--he could not eat them andso he ignored them.

  Taug fidgeted and was nervous. For a long time he lay sleepless,watching the stars--the flaming eyes of the beasts of prey surroundingGoro, the moon--Goro, by whose light the apes danced to the beating oftheir earthen drums. If Goro should be eaten by Numa there could be nomore Dum-Dums. Taug was overwhelmed by the thought. He glanced atTarzan half fearfully. Why was his friend so different from the othersof the tribe? No one else whom Taug ever had known had had such queerthoughts as Tarzan. The ape scratched his head and wondered, dimly, ifTarzan was a safe companion, and then he recalled slowly, and by alaborious mental process, that Tarzan had served him better than anyother of the apes, even the strong and wise bulls of the tribe.

  Tarzan it was who had freed him from the blacks at the very time thatTaug had thought Tarzan wanted Teeka. It was Tarzan who had savedTaug's little balu from death. It was Tarz
an who had conceived andcarried out the plan to pursue Teeka's abductor and rescue the stolenone. Tarzan had fought and bled in Taug's service so many times thatTaug, although only a brutal ape, had had impressed upon his mind afierce loyalty which nothing now could swerve--his friendship forTarzan had become a habit, a tradition almost, which would endure whileTaug endured. He never showed any outward demonstration ofaffection--he growled at Tarzan as he growled at the other bulls whocame too close while he was feeding--but he would have died for Tarzan.He knew it and Tarzan knew it; but of such things apes do notspeak--their vocabulary, for the finer instincts, consisting more ofactions than words. But now Taug was worried, and he fell asleep againstill thinking of the strange words of his fellow.

  The following day he thought of them again, and without any intentionof disloyalty he mentioned to Gunto what Tarzan had suggested about theeyes surrounding Goro, and the possibility that sooner or later Numawould charge the moon and devour him. To the apes all large things innature are male, and so Goro, being the largest creature in the heavensby night, was, to them, a bull.

  Gunto bit a sliver from a horny finger and recalled the fact thatTarzan had once said that the trees talked to one another, and Gozanrecounted having seen the ape-man dancing alone in the moonlight withSheeta, the panther. They did not know that Tarzan had roped thesavage beast and tied him to a tree before he came to earth and leapedabout before the rearing cat, to tantalize him.

  Others told of seeing Tarzan ride upon the back of Tantor, theelephant; of his bringing the black boy, Tibo, to the tribe, and ofmysterious things with which he communed in the strange lair by thesea. They had never understood his books, and after he had shown themto one or two of the tribe and discovered that even the picturescarried no impression to their brains, he had desisted.

  "Tarzan is not an ape," said Gunto. "He will bring Numa to eat us, ashe is bringing him to eat Goro. We should kill him."

  Immediately Taug bristled. Kill Tarzan! "First you will kill Taug," hesaid, and lumbered away to search for food.

  But others joined the plotters. They thought of many things whichTarzan had done--things which apes did not do and could not understand.Again Gunto voiced the opinion that the Tarmangani, the white ape,should be slain, and the others, filled with terror about the storiesthey had heard, and thinking Tarzan was planning to slay Goro, greetedthe proposal with growls of accord.

  Among them was Teeka, listening with all her ears; but her voice wasnot raised in furtherance of the plan. Instead she bristled, showingher fangs, and afterward she went away in search of Tarzan; but shecould not find him, as he was roaming far afield in search of meat.She found Taug, though, and told him what the others were planning, andthe great bull stamped upon the ground and roared. His bloodshot eyesblazed with wrath, his upper lip curled up to expose his fightingfangs, and the hair upon his spine stood erect, and then a rodentscurried across the open and Taug sprang to seize it. In an instant heseemed to have forgotten his rage against the enemies of his friend;but such is the mind of an ape.

  Several miles away Tarzan of the Apes lolled upon the broad head ofTantor, the elephant. He scratched beneath the great ears with thepoint of a sharp stick, and he talked to the huge pachyderm ofeverything which filled his black-thatched head. Little, or nothing,of what he said did Tantor understand; but Tantor is a good listener.Swaying from side to side he stood there enjoying the companionship ofhis friend, the friend he loved, and absorbing the delicious sensationsof the scratching.

  Numa, the lion, caught the scent of man, and warily stalked it until hecame within sight of his prey upon the head of the mighty tusker; thenhe turned, growling and muttering, away in search of more propitioushunting grounds.

  The elephant caught the scent of the lion, borne to him by an eddyingbreeze, and lifting his trunk trumpeted loudly. Tarzan stretched backluxuriously, lying supine at full length along the rough hide. Fliesswarmed about his face; but with a leafy branch torn from a tree helazily brushed them away.

  "Tantor," he said, "it is good to be alive. It is good to lie in thecool shadows. It is good to look upon the green trees and the brightcolors of the flowers--upon everything which Bulamutumumo has put herefor us. He is very good to us, Tantor; He has given you tender leavesand bark, and rich grasses to eat; to me He has given Bara and Hortaand Pisah, the fruits and the nuts and the roots. He provides for eachthe food that each likes best. All that He asks is that we be strongenough or cunning enough to go forth and take it. Yes, Tantor, it isgood to live. I should hate to die."

  Tantor made a little sound in his throat and curled his trunk upwardthat he might caress the ape-man's cheek with the finger at its tip.

  "Tantor," said Tarzan presently, "turn and feed in the direction of thetribe of Kerchak, the great ape, that Tarzan may ride home upon yourhead without walking."

  The tusker turned and moved slowly off along a broad, tree-archedtrail, pausing occasionally to pluck a tender branch, or strip theedible bark from an adjacent tree. Tarzan sprawled face downward uponthe beast's head and back, his legs hanging on either side, his headsupported by his open palms, his elbows resting on the broad cranium.And thus they made their leisurely way toward the gathering place ofthe tribe.

  Just before they arrived at the clearing from the north there reachedit from the south another figure--that of a well-knit black warrior,who stepped cautiously through the jungle, every sense upon the alertagainst the many dangers which might lurk anywhere along the way. Yethe passed beneath the southernmost sentry that was posted in a greattree commanding the trail from the south. The ape permitted theGomangani to pass unmolested, for he saw that he was alone; but themoment that the warrior had entered the clearing a loud "Kreeg-ah!"rang out from behind him, immediately followed by a chorus of repliesfrom different directions, as the great bulls crashed through the treesin answer to the summons of their fellow.

  The black man halted at the first cry and looked about him. He couldsee nothing, but he knew the voice of the hairy tree men whom he andhis kind feared, not alone because of the strength and ferocity of thesavage beings, but as well through a superstitious terror engendered bythe manlike appearance of the apes.

  But Bulabantu was no coward. He heard the apes all about him; he knewthat escape was probably impossible, so he stood his ground, his spearready in his hand and a war cry trembling on his lips. He would sellhis life dearly, would Bulabantu, under-chief of the village of Mbonga,the chief.

  Tarzan and Tantor were but a short distance away when the first cry ofthe sentry rang out through the quiet jungle. Like a flash the ape-manleaped from the elephant's back to a near-by tree and was swingingrapidly in the direction of the clearing before the echoes of the first"Kreeg-ah" had died away. When he arrived he saw a dozen bullscircling a single Gomangani. With a blood-curdling scream Tarzansprang to the attack. He hated the blacks even more than did the apes,and here was an opportunity for a kill in the open. What had theGomangani done? Had he slain one of the tribe?

  Tarzan asked the nearest ape. No, the Gomangani had harmed none.Gozan, being on watch, had seen him coming through the forest and hadwarned the tribe--that was all. The ape-man pushed through the circleof bulls, none of which as yet had worked himself into sufficientfrenzy for a charge, and came where he had a full and close view of theblack. He recognized the man instantly. Only the night before he hadseen him facing the eyes in the dark, while his fellows groveled in thedirt at his feet, too terrified even to defend themselves. Here was abrave man, and Tarzan had deep admiration for bravery. Even his hatredof the blacks was not so strong a passion as his love of courage. Hewould have joyed in battling with a black warrior at almost any time;but this one he did not wish to kill--he felt, vaguely, that the manhad earned his life by his brave defense of it on the preceding night,nor did he fancy the odds that were pitted against the lone warrior.

  He turned to the apes. "Go back to your feeding," he said, "and letthis Gomangani go his way in peace. He h
as not harmed us, and lastnight I saw him fighting Numa and Sabor with fire, alone in the jungle.He is brave. Why should we kill one who is brave and who has notattacked us? Let him go."

  The apes growled. They were displeased. "Kill the Gomangani!" criedone.

  "Yes," roared another, "kill the Gomangani and the Tarmangani as well."

  "Kill the white ape!" screamed Gozan, "he is no ape at all; but aGomangani with his skin off."

  "Kill Tarzan!" bellowed Gunto. "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

  The bulls were now indeed working themselves into the frenzy ofslaughter; but against Tarzan rather than the black man. A shaggy formcharged through them, hurling those it came in contact with to one sideas a strong man might scatter children. It was Taug--great, savageTaug.

  "Who says 'kill Tarzan'?" he demanded. "Who kills Tarzan must killTaug, too. Who can kill Taug? Taug will tear your insides from you andfeed them to Dango."

  "We can kill you all," replied Gunto. "There are many of us and few ofyou," and he was right. Tarzan knew that he was right. Taug knew it;but neither would admit such a possibility. It is not the way of bullapes.

  "I am Tarzan," cried the ape-man. "I am Tarzan. Mighty hunter; mightyfighter. In all the jungle none so great as Tarzan."

  Then, one by one, the opposing bulls recounted their virtues and theirprowess. And all the time the combatants came closer and closer to oneanother. Thus do the bulls work themselves to the proper pitch beforeengaging in battle.

  Gunto came, stiff-legged, close to Tarzan and sniffed at him, withbared fangs. Tarzan rumbled forth a low, menacing growl. They mightrepeat these tactics a dozen times; but sooner or later one bull wouldclose with another and then the whole hideous pack would be tearing andrending at their prey.

  Bulabantu, the black man, had stood wide-eyed in wonder from the momenthe had seen Tarzan approaching through the apes. He had heard much ofthis devil-god who ran with the hairy tree people; but never before hadhe seen him in full daylight. He knew him well enough from thedescription of those who had seen him and from the glimpses he had hadof the marauder upon several occasions when the ape-man had entered thevillage of Mbonga, the chief, by night, in the perpetration of one ofhis numerous ghastly jokes.

  Bulabantu could not, of course, understand anything which passedbetween Tarzan and the apes; but he saw that the ape-man and one of thelarger bulls were in argument with the others. He saw that these twowere standing with their back toward him and between him and thebalance of the tribe, and he guessed, though it seemed improbable, thatthey might be defending him. He knew that Tarzan had once spared thelife of Mbonga, the chief, and that he had succored Tibo, and Tibo'smother, Momaya. So it was not impossible that he would help Bulabantu;but how he could accomplish it Bulabantu could not guess; nor as amatter of fact could Tarzan, for the odds against him were too great.

  Gunto and the others were slowly forcing Tarzan and Taug back towardBulabantu. The ape-man thought of his words with Tantor just a shorttime before: "Yes, Tantor, it is good to live. I should hate to die."And now he knew that he was about to die, for the temper of the greatbulls was mounting rapidly against him. Always had many of them hatedhim, and all were suspicious of him. They knew he was different.Tarzan knew it too; but he was glad that he was--he was a MAN; that hehad learned from his picture-books, and he was very proud of thedistinction. Presently, though, he would be a dead man.

  Gunto was preparing to charge. Tarzan knew the signs. He knew thatthe balance of the bulls would charge with Gunto. Then it would soonbe over. Something moved among the verdure at the opposite side of theclearing. Tarzan saw it just as Gunto, with the terrifying cry of achallenging ape, sprang forward. Tarzan voiced a peculiar call andthen crouched to meet the assault. Taug crouched, too, and Bulabantu,assured now that these two were fighting upon his side, couched hisspear and sprang between them to receive the first charge of the enemy.

  Simultaneously a huge bulk broke into the clearing from the junglebehind the charging bulls. The trumpeting of a mad tusker rose shrillabove the cries of the anthropoids, as Tantor, the elephant, dashedswiftly across the clearing to the aid of his friend.

  Gunto never closed upon the ape-man, nor did a fang enter flesh uponeither side. The terrific reverberation of Tantor's challenge sent thebulls scurrying to the trees, jabbering and scolding. Taug raced offwith them. Only Tarzan and Bulabantu remained. The latter stood hisground because he saw that the devil-god did not run, and because theblack had the courage to face a certain and horrible death beside onewho had quite evidently dared death for him.

  But it was a surprised Gomangani who saw the mighty elephant come to asudden halt in front of the ape-man and caress him with his long,sinuous trunk.

  Tarzan turned toward the black man. "Go!" he said in the language ofthe apes, and pointed in the direction of the village of Mbonga.Bulabantu understood the gesture, if not the word, nor did he lose timein obeying. Tarzan stood watching him until he had disappeared. Heknew that the apes would not follow. Then he said to the elephant:"Pick me up!" and the tusker swung him lightly to his head.

  "Tarzan goes to his lair by the big water," shouted the ape-man to theapes in the trees. "All of you are more foolish than Manu, except Taugand Teeka. Taug and Teeka may come to see Tarzan; but the others mustkeep away. Tarzan is done with the tribe of Kerchak."

  He prodded Tantor with a calloused toe and the big beast swung offacross the clearing, the apes watching them until they were swallowedup by the jungle.

  Before the night fell Taug killed Gunto, picking a quarrel with himover his attack upon Tarzan.

  For a moon the tribe saw nothing of Tarzan of the Apes. Many of themprobably never gave him a thought; but there were those who missed himmore than Tarzan imagined. Taug and Teeka often wished that he wasback, and Taug determined a dozen times to go and visit Tarzan in hisseaside lair; but first one thing and then another interfered.

  One night when Taug lay sleepless looking up at the starry heavens herecalled the strange things that Tarzan once had suggested to him--thatthe bright spots were the eyes of the meat-eaters waiting in the darkof the jungle sky to leap upon Goro, the moon, and devour him. Themore he thought about this matter the more perturbed he became.

  And then a strange thing happened. Even as Taug looked at Goro, he sawa portion of one edge disappear, precisely as though something wasgnawing upon it. Larger and larger became the hole in the side ofGoro. With a scream, Taug leaped to his feet. His frenzied"Kreeg-ahs!" brought the terrified tribe screaming and chatteringtoward him.

  "Look!" cried Taug, pointing at the moon. "Look! It is as Tarzan said.Numa has sprung through the fires and is devouring Goro. You calledTarzan names and drove him from the tribe; now see how wise he was.Let one of you who hated Tarzan go to Goro's aid. See the eyes in thedark jungle all about Goro. He is in danger and none can helphim--none except Tarzan. Soon Goro will be devoured by Numa and weshall have no more light after Kudu seeks his lair. How shall we dancethe Dum-Dum without the light of Goro?"

  The apes trembled and whimpered. Any manifestation of the powers ofnature always filled them with terror, for they could not understand.

  "Go and bring Tarzan," cried one, and then they all took up the cry of"Tarzan!" "Bring Tarzan!" "He will save Goro." But who was to travelthe dark jungle by night to fetch him?

  "I will go," volunteered Taug, and an instant later he was off throughthe Stygian gloom toward the little land-locked harbor by the sea.

  And as the tribe waited they watched the slow devouring of the moon.Already Numa had eaten out a great semicircular piece. At that rateGoro would be entirely gone before Kudu came again. The apes trembledat the thought of perpetual darkness by night. They could not sleep.Restlessly they moved here and there among the branches of trees,watching Numa of the skies at his deadly feast, and listening for thecoming of Taug with Tarzan.

  Goro was nearly gone when the apes heard the sounds of the approachthrough the trees of
the two they awaited, and presently Tarzan,followed by Taug, swung into a nearby tree.

  The ape-man wasted no time in idle words. In his hand was his long bowand at his back hung a quiver full of arrows, poisoned arrows that hehad stolen from the village of the blacks; just as he had stolen thebow. Up into a great tree he clambered, higher and higher until hestood swaying upon a small limb which bent low beneath his weight.Here he had a clear and unobstructed view of the heavens. He saw Goroand the inroads which the hungry Numa had made into his shining surface.

  Raising his face to the moon, Tarzan shrilled forth his hideouschallenge. Faintly and from afar came the roar of an answering lion.The apes shivered. Numa of the skies had answered Tarzan.

  Then the ape-man fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing the shaft farback, aimed its point at the heart of Numa where he lay in the heavensdevouring Goro. There was a loud twang as the released bolt shot intothe dark heavens. Again and again did Tarzan of the Apes launch hisarrows at Numa, and all the while the apes of the tribe of Kerchakhuddled together in terror.

  At last came a cry from Taug. "Look! Look!" he screamed. "Numa iskilled. Tarzan has killed Numa. See! Goro is emerging from the bellyof Numa," and, sure enough, the moon was gradually emerging fromwhatever had devoured her, whether it was Numa, the lion, or the shadowof the earth; but were you to try to convince an ape of the tribe ofKerchak that it was aught but Numa who so nearly devoured Goro thatnight, or that another than Tarzan preserved the brilliant god of theirsavage and mysterious rites from a frightful death, you would havedifficulty--and a fight on your hands.

  And so Tarzan of the Apes came back to the tribe of Kerchak, and in hiscoming he took a long stride toward the kingship, which he ultimatelywon, for now the apes looked up to him as a superior being.

  In all the tribe there was but one who was at all skeptical about theplausibility of Tarzan's remarkable rescue of Goro, and that one,strange as it may seem, was Tarzan of the Apes.