The Return of Tarzan Read online

  Chapter 15

  From Ape to Savage

  The noise of their battle with Numa had drawn an excited horde ofsavages from the nearby village, and a moment after the lion's deaththe two men were surrounded by lithe, ebon warriors, gesticulating andjabbering--a thousand questions that drowned each ventured reply.

  And then the women came, and the children--eager, curious, and, atsight of Tarzan, more questioning than ever. The ape-man's new friendfinally succeeded in making himself heard, and when he had done talkingthe men and women of the village vied with one another in doing honorto the strange creature who had saved their fellow and battledsingle-handed with fierce Numa.

  At last they led him back to their village, where they brought himgifts of fowl, and goats, and cooked food. When he pointed to theirweapons the warriors hastened to fetch spear, shield, arrows, and abow. His friend of the encounter presented him with the knife withwhich he had killed Numa. There was nothing in all the village hecould not have had for the asking.

  How much easier this was, thought Tarzan, than murder and robbery tosupply his wants. How close he had been to killing this man whom henever had seen before, and who now was manifesting by every primitivemeans at his command friendship and affection for his would-be slayer.Tarzan of the Apes was ashamed. Hereafter he would at least wait untilhe knew men deserved it before he thought of killing them.

  The idea recalled Rokoff to his mind. He wished that he might have theRussian to himself in the dark jungle for a few minutes. There was aman who deserved killing if ever any one did. And if he could haveseen Rokoff at that moment as he assiduously bent every endeavor to thepleasant task of ingratiating himself into the affections of thebeautiful Miss Strong, he would have longed more than ever to mete outto the man the fate he deserved.

  Tarzan's first night with the savages was devoted to a wild orgy in hishonor. There was feasting, for the hunters had brought in an antelopeand a zebra as trophies of their skill, and gallons of the weak nativebeer were consumed. As the warriors danced in the firelight, Tarzanwas again impressed by the symmetry of their figures and the regularityof their features--the flat noses and thick lips of the typical WestCoast savage were entirely missing. In repose the faces of the menwere intelligent and dignified, those of the women ofttimesprepossessing.

  It was during this dance that the ape-man first noticed that some ofthe men and many of the women wore ornaments of gold--principallyanklets and armlets of great weight, apparently beaten out of the solidmetal. When he expressed a wish to examine one of these, the ownerremoved it from her person and insisted, through the medium of signs,that Tarzan accept it as a gift. A close scrutiny of the baubleconvinced the ape-man that the article was of virgin gold, and he wassurprised, for it was the first time that he had ever seen goldenornaments among the savages of Africa, other than the trifling baublesthose near the coast had purchased or stolen from Europeans. He triedto ask them from whence the metal came, but he could not make themunderstand.

  When the dance was done Tarzan signified his intention to leave them,but they almost implored him to accept the hospitality of a great hutwhich the chief set apart for his sole use. He tried to explain thathe would return in the morning, but they could not understand. When hefinally walked away from them toward the side of the village oppositethe gate, they were still further mystified as to his intentions.

  Tarzan, however, knew just what he was about. In the past he had hadexperience with the rodents and vermin that infest every nativevillage, and, while he was not overscrupulous about such matters, hemuch preferred the fresh air of the swaying trees to the fetidatmosphere of a hut.

  The natives followed him to where a great tree overhung the palisade,and as Tarzan leaped for a lower branch and disappeared into thefoliage above, precisely after the manner of Manu, the monkey, therewere loud exclamations of surprise and astonishment. For half an hourthey called to him to return, but as he did not answer them they atlast desisted, and sought the sleeping-mats within their huts.

  Tarzan went back into the forest a short distance until he had found atree suited to his primitive requirements, and then, curling himself ina great crotch, he fell immediately into a deep sleep.

  The following morning he dropped into the village street as suddenly ashe had disappeared the preceding night. For a moment the natives werestartled and afraid, but when they recognized their guest of the nightbefore they welcomed him with shouts and laughter. That day heaccompanied a party of warriors to the nearby plains on a great hunt,and so dexterous did they find this white man with their own crudeweapons that another bond of respect and admiration was thereby wrought.

  For weeks Tarzan lived with his savage friends, hunting buffalo,antelope, and zebra for meat, and elephant for ivory. Quickly helearned their simple speech, their native customs, and the ethics oftheir wild, primitive tribal life. He found that they were notcannibals--that they looked with loathing and contempt upon men who atemen.

  Busuli, the warrior whom he had stalked to the village, told him manyof the tribal legends--how, many years before, his people had come manylong marches from the north; how once they had been a great andpowerful tribe; and how the slave raiders had wrought such havoc amongthem with their death-dealing guns that they had been reduced to a mereremnant of their former numbers and power.

  "They hunted us down as one hunts a fierce beast," said Busuli. "Therewas no mercy in them. When it was not slaves they sought it was ivory,but usually it was both. Our men were killed and our women driven awaylike sheep. We fought against them for many years, but our arrows andspears could not prevail against the sticks which spit fire and leadand death to many times the distance that our mightiest warrior couldplace an arrow. At last, when my father was a young man, the Arabscame again, but our warriors saw them a long way off, and Chowambi, whowas chief then, told his people to gather up their belongings and comeaway with him--that he would lead them far to the south until theyfound a spot to which the Arab raiders did not come.

  "And they did as he bid, carrying all their belongings, including manytusks of ivory. For months they wandered, suffering untold hardshipsand privations, for much of the way was through dense jungle, andacross mighty mountains, but finally they came to this spot, andalthough they sent parties farther on to search for an even betterlocation, none has ever been found."

  "And the raiders have never found you here?" asked Tarzan.

  "About a year ago a small party of Arabs and Manyuema stumbled upon us,but we drove them off, killing many. For days we followed them,stalking them for the wild beasts they are, picking them off one byone, until but a handful remained, but these escaped us."

  As Busuli talked he fingered a heavy gold armlet that encircled theglossy hide of his left arm. Tarzan's eyes had been upon the ornament,but his thoughts were elsewhere. Presently he recalled the question hehad tried to ask when he first came to the tribe--the question he couldnot at that time make them understand. For weeks he had forgotten sotrivial a thing as gold, for he had been for the time a truly primevalman with no thought beyond today. But of a sudden the sight of goldawakened the sleeping civilization that was in him, and with it camethe lust for wealth. That lesson Tarzan had learned well in his briefexperience of the ways of civilized man. He knew that gold meant powerand pleasure. He pointed to the bauble.

  "From whence came the yellow metal, Busuli?" he asked.

  The black pointed toward the southeast.

  "A moon's march away--maybe more," he replied.

  "Have you been there?" asked Tarzan.

  "No, but some of our people were there years ago, when my father wasyet a young man. One of the parties that searched farther for alocation for the tribe when first they settled here came upon a strangepeople who wore many ornaments of yellow metal. Their spears weretipped with it, as were their arrows, and they cooked in vessels madeall of solid metal like my armlet.

  "They lived in a great village in huts that were built of s
tone andsurrounded by a great wall. They were very fierce, rushing out andfalling upon our warriors before ever they learned that their errandwas a peaceful one. Our men were few in number, but they held theirown at the top of a little rocky hill, until the fierce people wentback at sunset into their wicked city. Then our warriors came downfrom their hill, and, after taking many ornaments of yellow metal fromthe bodies of those they had slain, they marched back out of thevalley, nor have any of us ever returned.

  "They are wicked people--neither white like you nor black like me, butcovered with hair as is Bolgani, the gorilla. Yes, they are very badpeople indeed, and Chowambi was glad to get out of their country."

  "And are none of those alive who were with Chowambi, and saw thesestrange people and their wonderful city?" asked Tarzan.

  "Waziri, our chief, was there," replied Busuli. "He was a very youngman then, but he accompanied Chowambi, who was his father."

  So that night Tarzan asked Waziri about it, and Waziri, who was now anold man, said that it was a long march, but that the way was notdifficult to follow. He remembered it well.

  "For ten days we followed this river which runs beside our village. Uptoward its source we traveled until on the tenth day we came to alittle spring far up upon the side of a lofty mountain range. In thislittle spring our river is born. The next day we crossed over the topof the mountain, and upon the other side we came to a tiny rivuletwhich we followed down into a great forest. For many days we traveledalong the winding banks of the rivulet that had now become a river,until we came to a greater river, into which it emptied, and which randown the center of a mighty valley.

  "Then we followed this large river toward its source, hoping to come tomore open land. After twenty days of marching from the time we hadcrossed the mountains and passed out of our own country we came againto another range of mountains. Up their side we followed the greatriver, that had now dwindled to a tiny rivulet, until we came to alittle cave near the mountain-top. In this cave was the mother of theriver.

  "I remember that we camped there that night, and that it was very cold,for the mountains were high. The next day we decided to ascend to thetop of the mountains, and see what the country upon the other sidelooked like, and if it seemed no better than that which we had so fartraversed we would return to our village and tell them that they hadalready found the best place in all the world to live.

  "And so we clambered up the face of the rocky cliffs until we reachedthe summit, and there from a flat mountain-top we saw, not far beneathus, a shallow valley, very narrow; and upon the far side of it was agreat village of stone, much of which had fallen and crumbled intodecay."

  The balance of Waziri's story was practically the same as that whichBusuli had told.

  "I should like to go there and see this strange city," said Tarzan,"and get some of their yellow metal from its fierce inhabitants."

  "It is a long march," replied Waziri, "and I am an old man, but if youwill wait until the rainy season is over and the rivers have gone downI will take some of my warriors and go with you."

  And Tarzan had to be contented with that arrangement, though he wouldhave liked it well enough to have set off the next morning--he was asimpatient as a child. Really Tarzan of the Apes was but a child, or aprimeval man, which is the same thing in a way.

  The next day but one a small party of hunters returned to the villagefrom the south to report a large herd of elephant some miles away. Byclimbing trees they had had a fairly good view of the herd, which theydescribed as numbering several large tuskers, a great many cows andcalves, and full-grown bulls whose ivory would be worth having.

  The balance of the day and evening was filled with preparation for agreat hunt--spears were overhauled, quivers were replenished, bows wererestrung; and all the while the village witch doctor passed through thebusy throngs disposing of various charms and amulets designed toprotect the possessor from hurt, or bring him good fortune in themorrow's hunt.

  At dawn the hunters were off. There were fifty sleek, black warriors,and in their midst, lithe and active as a young forest god, strodeTarzan of the Apes, his brown skin contrasting oddly with the ebony ofhis companions. Except for color he was one of them. His ornamentsand weapons were the same as theirs--he spoke their language--helaughed and joked with them, and leaped and shouted in the brief wilddance that preceded their departure from the village, to all intent andpurpose a savage among savages. Nor, had he questioned himself, is itto be doubted that he would have admitted that he was far more closelyallied to these people and their life than to the Parisian friendswhose ways, apelike, he had successfully mimicked for a few shortmonths.

  But he did think of D'Arnot, and a grin of amusement showed his strongwhite teeth as he pictured the immaculate Frenchman's expression couldhe by some means see Tarzan as he was that minute. Poor Paul, who hadprided himself on having eradicated from his friend the last traces ofwild savagery. "How quickly have I fallen!" thought Tarzan; but in hisheart he did not consider it a fall--rather, he pitied the poorcreatures of Paris, penned up like prisoners in their silly clothes,and watched by policemen all their poor lives, that they might donothing that was not entirely artificial and tiresome.

  A two hours' march brought them close to the vicinity in which theelephants had been seen the previous day. From there on they movedvery quietly indeed searching for the spoor of the great beasts. Atlength they found the well-marked trail along which the herd had passednot many hours before. In single file they followed it for about halfan hour. It was Tarzan who first raised his hand in signal that thequarry was at hand--his sensitive nose had warned him that theelephants were not far ahead of them.

  The blacks were skeptical when he told them how he knew.

  "Come with me," said Tarzan, "and we shall see."

  With the agility of a squirrel he sprang into a tree and ran nimbly tothe top. One of the blacks followed more slowly and carefully. Whenhe had reached a lofty limb beside the ape-man the latter pointed tothe south, and there, some few hundred yards away, the black saw anumber of huge black backs swaying back and forth above the top of thelofty jungle grasses. He pointed the direction to the watchers below,indicating with his fingers the number of beasts he could count.

  Immediately the hunters started toward the elephants. The black in thetree hastened down, but Tarzan stalked, after his own fashion, alongthe leafy way of the middle terrace.

  It is no child's play to hunt wild elephants with the crude weapons ofprimitive man. Tarzan knew that few native tribes ever attempted it,and the fact that his tribe did so gave him no little pride--already hewas commencing to think of himself as a member of the little community.As Tarzan moved silently through the trees he saw the warriors belowcreeping in a half circle upon the still unsuspecting elephants.Finally they were within sight of the great beasts. Now they singledout two large tuskers, and at a signal the fifty men rose from theground where they had lain concealed, and hurled their heavy war spearsat the two marked beasts. There was not a single miss; twenty-fivespears were embedded in the sides of each of the giant animals. Onenever moved from the spot where it stood when the avalanche of spearsstruck it, for two, perfectly aimed, had penetrated its heart, and itlunged forward upon its knees, rolling to the ground without a struggle.

  The other, standing nearly head-on toward the hunters, had not provedso good a mark, and though every spear struck not one entered the greatheart. For a moment the huge bull stood trumpeting in rage and pain,casting about with its little eyes for the author of its hurt. Theblacks had faded into the jungle before the weak eyes of the monsterhad fallen upon any of them, but now he caught the sound of theirretreat, and, amid a terrific crashing of underbrush and branches, hecharged in the direction of the noise.

  It so happened that chance sent him in the direction of Busuli, whom hewas overtaking so rapidly that it was as though the black were standingstill instead of racing at full speed to escape the certain death whichpursued him. Tarzan ha
d witnessed the entire performance from thebranches of a nearby tree, and now that he saw his friend's peril heraced toward the infuriated beast with loud cries, hoping to distracthim.

  But it had been as well had he saved his breath, for the brute was deafand blind to all else save the particular object of his rage that racedfutilely before him. And now Tarzan saw that only a miracle could saveBusuli, and with the same unconcern with which he had once hunted thisvery man he hurled himself into the path of the elephant to save theblack warrior's life.

  He still grasped his spear, and while Tantor was yet six or eight pacesbehind his prey, a sinewy white warrior dropped as from the heavens,almost directly in his path. With a vicious lunge the elephant swervedto the right to dispose of this temerarious foeman who dared intervenebetween himself and his intended victim; but he had not reckoned on thelightning quickness that could galvanize those steel muscles intoaction so marvelously swift as to baffle even a keener eyesight thanTantor's.

  And so it happened that before the elephant realized that his new enemyhad leaped from his path Tarzan had driven his iron-shod spear frombehind the massive shoulder straight into the fierce heart, and thecolossal pachyderm had toppled to his death at the feet of the ape-man.

  Busuli had not beheld the manner of his deliverance, but Waziri, theold chief, had seen, and several of the other warriors, and they hailedTarzan with delight as they swarmed about him and his great kill. Whenhe leaped upon the mighty carcass, and gave voice to the weirdchallenge with which he announced a great victory, the blacks shrankback in fear, for to them it marked the brutal Bolgani, whom theyfeared fully as much as they feared Numa, the lion; but with a fearwith which was mixed a certain uncanny awe of the manlike thing towhich they attributed supernatural powers.

  But when Tarzan lowered his raised head and smiled upon them they werereassured, though they did not understand. Nor did they ever fullyunderstand this strange creature who ran through the trees as quicklyas Manu, yet was even more at home upon the ground than themselves; whowas except as to color like unto themselves, yet as powerful as ten ofthem, and singlehanded a match for the fiercest denizens of the fiercejungle.

  When the remainder of the warriors had gathered, the hunt was againtaken up and the stalking of the retreating herd once more begun; butthey had covered a bare hundred yards when from behind them, at a greatdistance, sounded faintly a strange popping.

  For an instant they stood like a group of statuary, intently listening.Then Tarzan spoke.

  "Guns!" he said. "The village is being attacked."

  "Come!" cried Waziri. "The Arab raiders have returned with theircannibal slaves for our ivory and our women!"