Tarzan Triumphant t-14 Read online

  "If it's expenses that's worrying you," said Danny, noting the other's hesitation, "forget 'em. I'll pay my share and then some, if you say so."

  "I wasn't thinking of that, though the trip will be expensive—not much more for two, though, than for one."

  "How much?"

  "Frankly, I don't know, but I have been assuming that five thousand dollars should cover everything, though I may be wrong."

  Danny Patrick reached into his trousers' pocket and brought forth a great roll of bills—50's and 100's. He counted out three thousand dollars. "Here's three G. to bind the bargain," he said, "and there's more where that came from. I ain't no piker. I'll pay my share and part of yours, too."

  "No," said Smith, motioning the proffered bills aside. "It is not that. You see we don't know anything about each other. We might not get along together."

  "You know as much about me as I do about you," replied Danny, "and I'm game to take a chance. Maybe the less we know the better. Anyhow, I'm goin' to this here Africa , and if you're goin' too, we might as well go together. It'll cut down expenses, and two white fellows is got a better chanct than one alone. Do we stick or do we split?"

  Lafayette Smith laughed. Here, perhaps, was the making of an adventure, and in his scholarly heart he had long held the secret hope that some day he might go adventuring. "We stick," he said.

  "Gimme five!" exclaimed "Gunner" Patrick, extending his hand.

  "Five what?" asked Lafayette Smith, A.M., Ph.D., Sc.D.

  Chapter 4

  Gathering the Strands

  Weeks rolled by. Trains rattled and chugged. Steamships plowed. Black feet padded well worn trails. Three safaris, headed by white men from far separated parts of the earth, moved slowly along different trails that led toward the wild fastnesses of the Ghenzis. None knew of the presence of the others, nor were their missions in any way related.

  From the West came Lafayette Smith and "Gunner" Patrick; from the South, an English big game hunter, Lord Passmore; from the East, Leon Stabutch.

  The Russian had been having trouble with his men. They had enlisted with enthusiasm, but their eagerness to proceed had waned as they penetrated more deeply into strange and unknown country. Recently they had talked with men of a vifiage beside which they had camped, and these men had told them terrifying tales of the great band of shiftas, led by a white man, that was terrorizing the country toward which they were marching, killing and raping as they collected slaves to be sold in the north.

  Stabutch had halted for the noonday rest upon the southern slopes of the foothills of the Ghenzis. To the north rose the lofty peaks of the main range; to the south, below them, they could see forest and jungle stretching away into the distance; about them were rolling hills, sparsely timbered, and between the hills and the forest an open, grassy plain where herds of antelope and zebra could be seen grazing.

  The Russian called his headman to him. "What's the matter with those fellows?" he asked, nodding toward the porters, who were gathered, squatting, in a circle, jabbering in low voices.

  "They are afraid, Bwana," replied the black.

  "Afraid of what?" demanded Stabutch, though he well knew.

  "Afraid of the shiftas, Bwana. Three more deserted last night."

  "We didn't need them anyway," snapped Stabutch; "the loads are getting lighter."

  "More will run away," said the headman. "They are all afraid."

  "They had better be afraid of me," blustered Stabutch. "If any more men desert I'll—I'll—"

  "They are not afraid of you, Bwana," the headman told him, candidly. "They are afraid of the shiftas and the white man who is their chief. They do not want to be sold into slavery, far from their own country."

  "Don't tell me you believe in that cock-and-bull story, you black rascal," snapped Stabutch. "It's just an excuse to turn back. They want to get home so they can loaf, the lazy dogs. And I guess you're as bad as the rest of them. Who said you were a headman, anyway? If you were worth a kopeck you'd straighten those fellows out in no time; and we wouldn't have any more talk about turning back, nor any more desertions, either."

  "Yes, Bwana," replied the black; but what he thought was his own business.

  "Now, listen to me," growled Stabutch, but that to which he would have had the headman listen was never voiced.

  The interruption came from one of the porters, who leaped suddenly to his feet, voicing a low cry of warning pregnant with terror. "Look!" he cried, pointing toward the west. "The shiftas!"

  Silhouetted against the sky, a group of mounted men bad reined in their horses upon the summit of a low hill a mile away. The distance was too great to permit the excited watchers in the Russian's camp to distinguish details, but the very presence of a body of horsemen was all the assurance that the blacks needed to convince them that it was composed of members of the shifta band of which they had heard terrifying rumors that had filled their simple breasts with steadily increasing dread during the past several days. The white robes fluttering in the breeze at the summit of the distant hill, the barrels of rifles and the shafts of spears that, even at a distance, were sufficiently suggestive of their true nature to permit of no doubt, but served to definitely crystallize the conjectures of the members of Stabutch's safari and augment their panic.

  They were standing now, every eye turned toward the menace of that bristling hill top. Suddenly one of the men ran toward the loads that had been discarded during the noonday halt, calling something back over his shoulder to his fellows. Instantly there was a break for the loads.

  "What are they doing?" cried Stabutch. "Stop them!"

  The headman and the askaris ran quickly toward the porters, many of whom already had shouldered their loads and were starting on the back trail. The headman sought to stop them, but one, a great, burly fellow, felled him with a single blow. Then another, glancing back toward the west, voiced a shrill cry of terror. "Look!" he cried. "They come!"

  Those who heard him turned to see the horsemen, their robes fluttering backward in the breeze, reining down the hillside toward them at a gallop.

  It was enough. As one man, porters, askaris, and the headman, they turned and fled. Those who had shouldered loads threw them to the ground lest their weight retard the runner's speed.

  Stabutch was alone. For an instant he hesitated on the verge of flight, but almost immediately he realized the futility of attempted escape.

  With loud yells the horsemen were bearing down upon his camp; and presently, seeing him standing there alone, they drew rein before him. Hard faced, villainous appearing, they presented such an appearance of evil as might have caused the stoutest heart to quail.

  Their leader was addressing Stabutch in a strange tongue, but his attitude was so definitely menacing that the Russian had little need of knowledge of the other's language to interpret the threat reflected in the speaker's tones and scowling face; but he dissembled his fears and met the men with a cool equanimity that impressed them with the thought that the stranger must be sure of his power. Perhaps he was but the advance guard of a larger body of white men!

  The shiftas looked about them uneasily as this thought was voiced by one of their number, for they well knew the temper and the arms of white men and feared both. Yet, notwithstanding their doubts, they could still appreciate the booty of the camp, as they cast Covetous and appraising eyes upon the abandoned loads of the departed porters, most of whom were still in view as they scurried toward the jungle.

  Failing to make himself understood by the white man, the leader of the shiftas fell into a heated argument with several of his henchmen and when one, sitting, stirrup to stirrup, beside him, raised his rifle and aimed it at Stabutch the leader struck the weapon up and berated his fellow angrily. Then he issued several orders, with the result that, while two of the band remained to guard Stabutch, the others dismounted and loaded the packs on several of the horses.

  A half hour later the shiftas rode back in the direction from which they had come, taking
with them all of the Russian's belongings and him, also, disarmed and a prisoner.

  And, as they rode away, keen grey eyes watched them from the concealing verdure of the jungle—eyes that had been watching every turn of events in the camp of the Russian since Stabutch had called the halt for the disastrous noonday rest.

  Though the distance from the jungle to the camp was considerable, nothing had escaped the keen eyes of the watcher reclining at ease in the fork of a great tree just at the edge of the plain. What his mental reactions to the happenings he had witnessed none might have guessed by any changing expression upon his stern, emotionless countenance.

  He watched the retreating figures of the shiftas until they had disappeared from view, and then he sprang lightly to his feet and swung off through the jungle in the opposite direction—in the direction taken by the fleeing members of Stabutch's safari.

  Goloba, the headman, trod fearfully the gloomy trails of the jungle; and with him were a considerable number of the other members of Stabutch's safari, all equally fearful lest the shiftas pursue them.

  The first panic of their terror had abated; and as the minutes sped, with no sign of pursuit, they took greater heart, though there grew in the breast of Goloba another fear to replace that which was fading—it was the fear of the trusted lieutenant who has deserted his bwana. It was something that Goloba would have to explain one day, and even now he was formulating his excuse.

  "They rode upon us, firing their rifles," he said. "There were many of them—at least a hundred." No one disputed him. "We fought bravely in defense of the Bwana, but we were few and could not repulse them." He paused and looked at those walking near him. He saw that they nodded their heads in assent. "And then I saw the Bwana fall and so, to escape being taken and sold into slavery, we ran away."

  "Yes," said one walking at his side, "it is all as Goloba has said. I myself—" but he got no further. The figure of a bronzed white man, naked but for a loin cloth, dropped from the foliage of the trees into the trail a dozen paces ahead of them. As one man they halted, surprise and fear writ large upon their faces.

  "Which is the headman?" demanded the stranger in their own dialect, and every eye turned upon Goloba.

  "I am," replied the black leader.

  "Why did you desert your bwana?"

  Goloba was about to reply when the thought occurred to him that here was only a single, primitively armed white without companions, without a safari—a poor creature, indeed, in the jungle-lower than the meanest black.

  "Who are you, to question Goloba, the headman?" he demanded, sneeringly. "Get out of my way," and he started forward along the trail toward the stranger.

  But the white man did not move. He merely spoke, in low, even tones. "Goloba should know better," he said, "than to speak thus to any white man."

  The black hesitated. He was not quite sure of himself, but yet he ventured to hold his ground. "Great bwanas do not go naked and alone through the forests, like the low Bagesu. Where is your safari?"

  "Tarzan of the Apes needs no safari," replied the white man.

  Goloba was stunned. He had never seen Tarzan of the Apes, for he came from a country far from Tarzan's stamping ground, but he had heard tales of the great bwana—tales that had lost nothing in the telling.

  "You are Tarzan?" he asked.

  The white man nodded, and Goloba sank, fearfully, to his knees. "Have mercy, great bwana!" he begged. "Goloba did not know."

  "Now, answer my question," said Tarzan. "Why did you desert your bwana?"

  "We were attacked by a band of shiftas," replied Goloba. "They rode upon us, firing their rifles. There were at least a hundred of them. We fought bravely—"

  "Stop!" commanded Tarzan. "I saw all that transpired. No shots were fired. You ran away before you knew whether the horsemen were enemies or friends. Speak now, but speak true words."

  "We knew that they were enemies," said Goloba, "for we had been warned by vifiagers, near whom we had camped, that these shiftas would attack us and sell into slavery all whom they captured."

  "What more did the villagers tell you?" asked the ape-man.

  "That the shiftas are led by a white man."

  "That is what I wished to know," said Tarzan.

  "And now may Goloba and his people go?" asked the black. "We fear that the shiftas may be pursuing us."

  "They are not," Tarzan assured him. "I saw them ride away toward the west, taking your bwana with them. It is of him I would know more. Who is he? What does he here?"

  "He is from a country far in the north," replied Goloba. "He called it Russa."

  "Yes," said Tarzan. "I know the country. Why did he come here?"

  "I do not know," replied Goloba. "It was not to hunt. He did not hunt, except for food."

  "Did he speak ever of Tarzan?" demanded the ape-man.

  "Yes," replied Goloba. "Often he asked about Tarzan. At every village he asked when they had seen Tarzan and where he was; but none knew."

  "That is all,!" said the ape-man. "You may go."

  Chapter 5

  When the Lion Charged

  Lord Passmore was camped in a natural clearing on the bank of a small river a few miles south of the jungle's northern fringe. His stalwart porters and askaris squatted over their cooking fires laughing and joking among themselves. It was two hours past sunset; and Lord Passmore, faultlessly attired in dinner clothes, was dining, his native boy, standing behind his chair, ready to anticipate his every need.

  A tall, well built Negro approached the fly beneath which Lord Passmore's camp table had been placed. "You sent for me, bwana?" he asked.

  Lord Passmore glanced up into the intelligent eyes of the handsome black. There was just the faintest shadow of a smile lurking about the corners of the patrician mouth of the white man. "Have you anything to report?" he asked.

  "No, bwana," replied the black. "Neither to the east nor to the west were there signs of game. Perhaps the bwana had better luck."

  "Yes," replied Passmore, "I was more fortunate. To the north I saw signs of game. Tomorrow, perhaps, we shall have better hunting. Tomorrow I shall—" He broke off abruptly. Both men were suddenly alert, straining their ears to a faint sound that rose above the nocturnal voices of the jungle for a few brief seconds.

  The black looked questioningly at his master. "You heard it, bwana?" he asked. The white nodded. "What was it, bwana?"

  "It sounded deucedly like a machine gun," replied Passmore. "It came from south of us; but who the devil would be firing a machine gun here? and why at night?"

  "I do not know, bwana," replied the headman. "Shall I go and find out?"

  "No," said the Englishman. "Perhaps totnorrow. We shall see. Go now, and get your sleep."

  "Yes, bwana; good night."

  "Good night—and warn the askari on sentry duty to be watchful."

  "Yes, bwana." The black bowed very low and backed from beneath the fly. Then he moved silently away, the flickering flames of the cook fires reflecting golden high lights from his smooth brown skin, beneath which played the mighty muscles of a giant.

  "This," remarked "Gunner" Patrick, "is the life. I ain't seen a cop for weeks."

  Lafayette Smith smiled. "If cops are the only things you fear, Danny, your mind and your nerves can be at rest for several weeks more."

  "What give you the idea I was afraid of cops?" demanded Danny. "I ain't never seen the cop I was afraid of. They're a bunch of punks. Anyhow, they ain't got nothin' on me. What a guy's got to look out for though is they might frame a guy. But, geeze, out here a guy don't have to worry about nothin'." He settled back easily in his camp chair and exhaled a slowly spiraling column of cigarette smoke that rose lazily in the soft night air of the jungle. "Geeze," he remarked after a brief silence, "I didn't know a guy could feel so peaceful. Say, do you know this is the first time in years I ain't packed a rod?"

  "A what?"

  "A rod, iron, a gat—you know—a gun."

  "Why didn't you say so in th
e first place?" laughed Smith. "Why don't you try talking English once in a while?"

  "Geeze!" exclaimed Danny. "You're a great guy to talk about a guy talkin' English. What's that you pulled on me the other day when we was crossin' that open rollin' coun, try? I learned that by heart—'a country of low relief in an advanced stage of mature dissection'—an' you talk about me talkin' English! You and your thrust faults and escarpments, your calderas and solfataras—geeze!"

  "Well, you're learning, Danny."

  "Learnin' what? Every racket has its own lingo. What good is your line to me? But every guy wants to know what a rod is—if he knows what's good for his health."

  "From what Ogonyo tells me it may be just as well to continue 'packing your rod,'" said Smith.

  "How come?"

  "He says we're getting into lion country. We may even find them near here. They don't often frequent jungles, but we're only about a day's march to more open terrain."

  "Whatever that is. Talk English. Geeze! What was that?" A series of coughing grunts rose from somewhere in the solid black wall of jungle that surrounded the camp, to be followed by a thunderous roar that shook the earth.

  "Simba!" cried one of the blacks, and immediately a half dozen men hastened to add fuel to the fires.

  "Gunner" Patrick leaped to his feet and ran into the tent, emerging a moment later with a Thompson submachine gun. "T'ell with a rod," he said. "When I get that baby on the spot I want a typewriter."

  "Are you going to take him for a ride?" inquired Lafayette Smith, whose education had progressed noticeably in the weeks he had spent in the society of Danny "Gunner" Patrick.

  "No," admitted Danny, "unless he tries to muscle in on my racket."