The Return of Tarzan Read online

  Chapter 14

  Back to the Primitive

  As Tarzan struck the water, his first impulse was to swim clear of theship and possible danger from her propellers. He knew whom to thankfor his present predicament, and as he lay in the sea, just supportinghimself by a gentle movement of his hands, his chief emotion was one ofchagrin that he had been so easily bested by Rokoff.

  He lay thus for some time, watching the receding and rapidlydiminishing lights of the steamer without it ever once occurring to himto call for help. He never had called for help in his life, and so itis not strange that he did not think of it now. Always had he dependedupon his own prowess and resourcefulness, nor had there ever been sincethe days of Kala any to answer an appeal for succor. When it did occurto him it was too late.

  There was, thought Tarzan, a possible one chance in a hundred thousandthat he might be picked up, and an even smaller chance that he wouldreach land, so he determined that to combine what slight chances therewere, he would swim slowly in the direction of the coast--the shipmight have been closer in than he had known.

  His strokes were long and easy--it would be many hours before thosegiant muscles would commence to feel fatigue. As he swam, guidedtoward the east by the stars, he noticed that he felt the weight of hisshoes, and so he removed them. His trousers went next, and he wouldhave removed his coat at the same time but for the precious papers inits pocket. To assure himself that he still had them he slipped hishand in to feel, but to his consternation they were gone.

  Now he knew that something more than revenge had prompted Rokoff topitch him overboard--the Russian had managed to obtain possession ofthe papers Tarzan had wrested from him at Bou Saada. The ape-man sworesoftly, and let his coat and shirt sink into the Atlantic. Before manyhours he had divested himself of his remaining garments, and wasswimming easily and unencumbered toward the east.

  The first faint evidence of dawn was paling the stars ahead of him whenthe dim outlines of a low-lying black mass loomed up directly in histrack. A few strong strokes brought him to its side--it was the bottomof a wave-washed derelict. Tarzan clambered upon it--he would restthere until daylight at least. He had no intention to remain thereinactive--a prey to hunger and thirst. If he must die he preferreddying in action while making some semblance of an attempt to savehimself.

  The sea was quiet, so that the wreck had only a gently undulatingmotion, that was nothing to the swimmer who had had no sleep for twentyhours. Tarzan of the Apes curled up upon the slimy timbers, and wassoon asleep.

  The heat of the sun awoke him early in the forenoon. His firstconscious sensation was of thirst, which grew almost to the proportionsof suffering with full returning consciousness; but a moment later itwas forgotten in the joy of two almost simultaneous discoveries. Thefirst was a mass of wreckage floating beside the derelict in the midstof which, bottom up, rose and fell an overturned lifeboat; the otherwas the faint, dim line of a far-distant shore showing on the horizonin the east.

  Tarzan dove into the water, and swam around the wreck to the lifeboat.The cool ocean refreshed him almost as much as would a draft of water,so that it was with renewed vigor that he brought the smaller boatalongside the derelict, and, after many herculean efforts, succeeded indragging it onto the slimy ship's bottom. There he righted andexamined it--the boat was quite sound, and a moment later floatedupright alongside the wreck. Then Tarzan selected several pieces ofwreckage that might answer him as paddles, and presently was makinggood headway toward the far-off shore.

  It was late in the afternoon by the time he came close enough todistinguish objects on land, or to make out the contour of the shoreline. Before him lay what appeared to be the entrance to a little,landlocked harbor. The wooded point to the north was strangelyfamiliar. Could it be possible that fate had thrown him up at the verythreshold of his own beloved jungle! But as the bow of his boatentered the mouth of the harbor the last shred of doubt was clearedaway, for there before him upon the farther shore, under the shadows ofhis primeval forest, stood his own cabin--built before his birth by thehand of his long-dead father, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.

  With long sweeps of his giant muscles Tarzan sent the little craftspeeding toward the beach. Its prow had scarcely touched when theape-man leaped to shore--his heart beat fast in joy and exultation aseach long-familiar object came beneath his roving eyes--the cabin, thebeach, the little brook, the dense jungle, the black, impenetrableforest. The myriad birds in their brilliant plumage--the gorgeoustropical blooms upon the festooned creepers falling in great loops fromthe giant trees.

  Tarzan of the Apes had come into his own again, and that all the worldmight know it he threw back his young head, and gave voice to thefierce, wild challenge of his tribe. For a moment silence reigned uponthe jungle, and then, low and weird, came an answering challenge--itwas the deep roar of Numa, the lion; and from a great distance,faintly, the fearsome answering bellow of a bull ape.

  Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst. Then heapproached his cabin. The door was still closed and latched as he andD'Arnot had left it. He raised the latch and entered. Nothing hadbeen disturbed; there were the table, the bed, and the little cribbuilt by his father--the shelves and cupboards just as they had stoodfor over twenty-three years--just as he had left them nearly two yearsbefore.

  His eyes satisfied, Tarzan's stomach began to call aloud forattention--the pangs of hunger suggested a search for food. There wasnothing in the cabin, nor had he any weapons; but upon a wall hung oneof his old grass ropes. It had been many times broken and spliced, sothat he had discarded it for a better one long before. Tarzan wishedthat he had a knife. Well, unless he was mistaken he should have thatand a spear and bows and arrows before another sun had set--the ropewould take care of that, and in the meantime it must be made to procurefood for him. He coiled it carefully, and, throwing it about hisshoulder, went out, closing the door behind him.

  Close to the cabin the jungle commenced, and into it Tarzan of the Apesplunged, wary and noiseless--once more a savage beast hunting its food.For a time he kept to the ground, but finally, discovering no spoorindicative of nearby meat, he took to the trees. With the first dizzyswing from tree to tree all the old joy of living swept over him. Vainregrets and dull heartache were forgotten. Now was he living. Now,indeed, was the true happiness of perfect freedom his. Who would goback to the stifling, wicked cities of civilized man when the mightyreaches of the great jungle offered peace and liberty? Not he.

  While it was yet light Tarzan came to a drinking place by the side of ajungle river. There was a ford there, and for countless ages thebeasts of the forest had come down to drink at this spot. Here of anight might always be found either Sabor or Numa crouching in the densefoliage of the surrounding jungle awaiting an antelope or a water buckfor their meal. Here came Horta, the boar, to water, and here cameTarzan of the Apes to make a kill, for he was very empty.

  On a low branch he squatted above the trail. For an hour he waited.It was growing dark. A little to one side of the ford in the densestthicket he heard the faint sound of padded feet, and the brushing of ahuge body against tall grasses and tangled creepers. None other thanTarzan might have heard it, but the ape-man heard and translated--itwas Numa, the lion, on the same errand as himself. Tarzan smiled.

  Presently he heard an animal approaching warily along the trail towardthe drinking place. A moment more and it came in view--it was Horta,the boar. Here was delicious meat--and Tarzan's mouth watered. Thegrasses where Numa lay were very still now--ominously still. Hortapassed beneath Tarzan--a few more steps and he would be within theradius of Numa's spring. Tarzan could imagine how old Numa's eyes wereshining--how he was already sucking in his breath for the awful roarwhich would freeze his prey for the brief instant between the moment ofthe spring and the sinking of terrible fangs into splintering bones.

  But as Numa gathered himself, a slender rope flew through the air fromthe low branches of a near-by tree.
A noose settled about Horta'sneck. There was a frightened grunt, a squeal, and then Numa saw hisquarry dragged backward up the trail, and, as he sprang, Horta, theboar, soared upward beyond his clutches into the tree above, and amocking face looked down and laughed into his own.

  Then indeed did Numa roar. Angry, threatening, hungry, he paced backand forth beneath the taunting ape-man. Now he stopped, and, rising onhis hind legs against the stem of the tree that held his enemy,sharpened his huge claws upon the bark, tearing out great pieces thatlaid bare the white wood beneath.

  And in the meantime Tarzan had dragged the struggling Horta to the limbbeside him. Sinewy fingers completed the work the choking noose hadcommenced. The ape-man had no knife, but nature had equipped him withthe means of tearing his food from the quivering flank of his prey, andgleaming teeth sank into the succulent flesh while the raging lionlooked on from below as another enjoyed the dinner that he had thoughtalready his.

  It was quite dark by the time Tarzan had gorged himself. Ah, but ithad been delicious! Never had he quite accustomed himself to theruined flesh that civilized men had served him, and in the bottom ofhis savage heart there had constantly been the craving for the warmmeat of the fresh kill, and the rich, red blood.

  He wiped his bloody hands upon a bunch of leaves, slung the remains ofhis kill across his shoulder, and swung off through the middle terraceof the forest toward his cabin, and at the same instant Jane Porter andWilliam Cecil Clayton arose from a sumptuous dinner upon the LADYALICE, thousands of miles to the east, in the Indian Ocean.

  Beneath Tarzan walked Numa, the lion, and when the ape-man deigned toglance downward he caught occasional glimpses of the baleful green eyesfollowing through the darkness. Numa did not roar now--instead, hemoved stealthily, like the shadow of a great cat; but yet he took nostep that did not reach the sensitive ears of the ape-man.

  Tarzan wondered if he would stalk him to his cabin door. He hoped not,for that would mean a night's sleep curled in the crotch of a tree, andhe much preferred the bed of grasses within his own abode. But he knewjust the tree and the most comfortable crotch, if necessity demandedthat he sleep out. A hundred times in the past some great jungle cathad followed him home, and compelled him to seek shelter in this sametree, until another mood or the rising sun had sent his enemy away.

  But presently Numa gave up the chase and, with a series ofblood-curdling moans and roars, turned angrily back in search ofanother and an easier dinner. So Tarzan came to his cabin unattended,and a few moments later was curled up in the mildewed remnants of whathad once been a bed of grasses. Thus easily did Monsieur Jean C.Tarzan slough the thin skin of his artificial civilization, and sinkhappy and contented into the deep sleep of the wild beast that has fedto repletion. Yet a woman's "yes" would have bound him to that otherlife forever, and made the thought of this savage existence repulsive.

  Tarzan slept late into the following forenoon, for he had been verytired from the labors and exertion of the long night and day upon theocean, and the jungle jaunt that had brought into play muscles that hehad scarce used for nearly two years. When he awoke he ran to thebrook first to drink. Then he took a plunge into the sea, swimmingabout for a quarter of an hour. Afterward he returned to his cabin,and breakfasted off the flesh of Horta. This done, he buried thebalance of the carcass in the soft earth outside the cabin, for hisevening meal.

  Once more he took his rope and vanished into the jungle. This time hehunted nobler quarry--man; although had you asked him his own opinionhe could have named a dozen other denizens of the jungle which heconsidered far the superiors in nobility of the men he hunted. TodayTarzan was in quest of weapons. He wondered if the women and childrenhad remained in Mbonga's village after the punitive expedition from theFrench cruiser had massacred all the warriors in revenge for D'Arnot'ssupposed death. He hoped that he should find warriors there, for heknew not how long a quest he should have to make were the villagedeserted.

  The ape-man traveled swiftly through the forest, and about noon came tothe site of the village, but to his disappointment found that thejungle had overgrown the plantain fields and that the thatched huts hadfallen in decay. There was no sign of man. He clambered about amongthe ruins for half an hour, hoping that he might discover someforgotten weapon, but his search was without fruit, and so he took uphis quest once more, following up the stream, which flowed from asoutheasterly direction. He knew that near fresh water he would bemost likely to find another settlement.

  As he traveled he hunted as he had hunted with his ape people in thepast, as Kala had taught him to hunt, turning over rotted logs to findsome toothsome vermin, running high into the trees to rob a bird'snest, or pouncing upon a tiny rodent with the quickness of a cat.There were other things that he ate, too, but the less detailed theaccount of an ape's diet, the better--and Tarzan was again an ape, thesame fierce, brutal anthropoid that Kala had taught him to be, and thathe had been for the first twenty years of his life.

  Occasionally he smiled as he recalled some friend who might even at themoment be sitting placid and immaculate within the precincts of hisselect Parisian club--just as Tarzan had sat but a few months before;and then he would stop, as though turned suddenly to stone as thegentle breeze carried to his trained nostrils the scent of some newprey or a formidable enemy.

  That night he slept far inland from his cabin, securely wedged into thecrotch of a giant tree, swaying a hundred feet above the ground. Hehad eaten heartily again--this time from the flesh of Bara, the deer,who had fallen prey to his quick noose.

  Early the next morning he resumed his journey, always following thecourse of the stream. For three days he continued his quest, until hehad come to a part of the jungle in which he never before had been.Occasionally upon the higher ground the forest was much thinner, and inthe far distance through the trees he could see ranges of mightymountains, with wide plains in the foreground. Here, in the openspaces, were new game--countless antelope and vast herds of zebra.Tarzan was entranced--he would make a long visit to this new world.

  On the morning of the fourth day his nostrils were suddenly surprisedby a faint new scent. It was the scent of man, but yet a long way off.The ape-man thrilled with pleasure. Every sense was on the alert aswith crafty stealth he moved quickly through the trees, up-wind, in thedirection of his prey. Presently he came upon it--a lone warriortreading softly through the jungle.

  Tarzan followed close above his quarry, waiting for a clearer space inwhich to hurl his rope. As he stalked the unconscious man, newthoughts presented themselves to the ape-man--thoughts born of therefining influences of civilization, and of its cruelties. It came tohim that seldom if ever did civilized man kill a fellow being withoutsome pretext, however slight. It was true that Tarzan wished thisman's weapons and ornaments, but was it necessary to take his life toobtain them?

  The longer he thought about it, the more repugnant became the thoughtof taking human life needlessly; and thus it happened that while he wastrying to decide just what to do, they had come to a little clearing,at the far side of which lay a palisaded village of beehive huts.

  As the warrior emerged from the forest, Tarzan caught a fleetingglimpse of a tawny hide worming its way through the matted junglegrasses in his wake--it was Numa, the lion. He, too, was stalking theblack man. With the instant that Tarzan realized the native's dangerhis attitude toward his erstwhile prey altered completely--now he was afellow man threatened by a common enemy.

  Numa was about to charge--there was little time in which to comparevarious methods or weigh the probable results of any. And then anumber of things happened, almost simultaneously--the lion sprang fromhis ambush toward the retreating black--Tarzan cried out inwarning--and the black turned just in time to see Numa halted inmid-flight by a slender strand of grass rope, the noosed end of whichhad fallen cleanly about his neck.

  The ape-man had acted so quickly that he had been unable to preparehimself to withstand the strain and shock of Numa's great weight up
onthe rope, and so it was that though the rope stopped the beast beforehis mighty talons could fasten themselves in the flesh of the black,the strain overbalanced Tarzan, who came tumbling to the ground not sixpaces from the infuriated animal. Like lightning Numa turned upon thisnew enemy, and, defenseless as he was, Tarzan of the Apes was nearer todeath that instant than he ever before had been. It was the black whosaved him. The warrior realized in an instant that he owed his life tothis strange white man, and he also saw that only a miracle could savehis preserver from those fierce yellow fangs that had been so near tohis own flesh.

  With the quickness of thought his spear arm flew back, and then shotforward with all the force of the sinewy muscles that rolled beneaththe shimmering ebon hide. True to its mark the iron-shod weapon flew,transfixing Numa's sleek carcass from the right groin to beneath theleft shoulder. With a hideous scream of rage and pain the brute turnedagain upon the black. A dozen paces he had gone when Tarzan's ropebrought him to a stand once more--then he wheeled again upon theape-man, only to feel the painful prick of a barbed arrow as it sankhalf its length in his quivering flesh. Again he stopped, and by thistime Tarzan had run twice around the stem of a great tree with hisrope, and made the end fast.

  The black saw the trick, and grinned, but Tarzan knew that Numa must bequickly finished before those mighty teeth had found and parted theslender cord that held him. It was a matter of but an instant to reachthe black's side and drag his long knife from its scabbard. Then hesigned the warrior to continue to shoot arrows into the great beastwhile he attempted to close in upon him with the knife; so as onetantalized upon one side, the other sneaked cautiously in upon theother. Numa was furious. He raised his voice in a perfect frenzy ofshrieks, growls, and hideous moans, the while he reared upon his hindlegs in futile attempt to reach first one and then the other of histormentors.

  But at length the agile ape-man saw his chance, and rushed in upon thebeast's left side behind the mighty shoulder. A giant arm encircledthe tawny throat, and a long blade sank once, true as a die, into thefierce heart. Then Tarzan arose, and the black man and the whitelooked into each other's eyes across the body of their kill--and theblack made the sign of peace and friendship, and Tarzan of the Apesanswered in kind.