Jungle Tales of Tarzan Read online

  9

  The Nightmare

  THE BLACKS OF the village of Mbonga, the chief, were feasting, whileabove them in a large tree sat Tarzan of the Apes--grim, terrible,empty, and envious. Hunting had proved poor that day, for there arelean days as well as fat ones for even the greatest of the junglehunters. Oftentimes Tarzan went empty for more than a full sun, and hehad passed through entire moons during which he had been but barelyable to stave off starvation; but such times were infrequent.

  There once had been a period of sickness among the grass-eaters whichhad left the plains almost bare of game for several years, and againthe great cats had increased so rapidly and so overrun the country thattheir prey, which was also Tarzan's, had been frightened off for aconsiderable time.

  But for the most part Tarzan had fed well always. Today, though, hehad gone empty, one misfortune following another as rapidly as heraised new quarry, so that now, as he sat perched in the tree above thefeasting blacks, he experienced all the pangs of famine and his hatredfor his lifelong enemies waxed strong in his breast. It wastantalizing, indeed, to sit there hungry while these Gomangani filledthemselves so full of food that their stomachs seemed almost upon thepoint of bursting, and with elephant steaks at that!

  It was true that Tarzan and Tantor were the best of friends, and thatTarzan never yet had tasted of the flesh of the elephant; but theGomangani evidently had slain one, and as they were eating of the fleshof their kill, Tarzan was assailed by no doubts as to the ethics of hisdoing likewise, should he have the opportunity. Had he known that theelephant had died of sickness several days before the blacks discoveredthe carcass, he might not have been so keen to partake of the feast,for Tarzan of the Apes was no carrion-eater. Hunger, however, may bluntthe most epicurean taste, and Tarzan was not exactly an epicure.

  What he was at this moment was a very hungry wild beast whom cautionwas holding in leash, for the great cooking pot in the center of thevillage was surrounded by black warriors, through whom not even Tarzanof the Apes might hope to pass unharmed. It would be necessary,therefore, for the watcher to remain there hungry until the blacks hadgorged themselves to stupor, and then, if they had left any scraps, tomake the best meal he could from such; but to the impatient Tarzan itseemed that the greedy Gomangani would rather burst than leave thefeast before the last morsel had been devoured. For a time they brokethe monotony of eating by executing portions of a hunting dance, amaneuver which sufficiently stimulated digestion to permit them to fallto once more with renewed vigor; but with the consumption of appallingquantities of elephant meat and native beer they presently became toologgy for physical exertion of any sort, some reaching a stage wherethey no longer could rise from the ground, but lay conveniently closeto the great cooking pot, stuffing themselves into unconsciousness.

  It was well past midnight before Tarzan even could begin to see the endof the orgy. The blacks were now falling asleep rapidly; but a fewstill persisted. From before their condition Tarzan had no doubt butthat he easily could enter the village and snatch a handful of meatfrom before their noses; but a handful was not what he wanted. Nothingless than a stomachful would allay the gnawing craving of that greatemptiness. He must therefore have ample time to forage in peace.

  At last but a single warrior remained true to his ideals--an oldfellow whose once wrinkled belly was now as smooth and as tight as thehead of a drum. With evidences of great discomfort, and even pain, hewould crawl toward the pot and drag himself slowly to his knees, fromwhich position he could reach into the receptacle and seize a piece ofmeat. Then he would roll over on his back with a loud groan and liethere while he slowly forced the food between his teeth and down intohis gorged stomach.

  It was evident to Tarzan that the old fellow would eat until he died,or until there was no more meat. The ape-man shook his head indisgust. What foul creatures were these Gomangani? Yet of all thejungle folk they alone resembled Tarzan closely in form. Tarzan was aman, and they, too, must be some manner of men, just as the littlemonkeys, and the great apes, and Bolgani, the gorilla, were quiteevidently of one great family, though differing in size and appearanceand customs. Tarzan was ashamed, for of all the beasts of the jungle,then, man was the most disgusting--man and Dango, the hyena. Only manand Dango ate until they swelled up like a dead rat. Tarzan had seenDango eat his way into the carcass of a dead elephant and then continueto eat so much that he had been unable to get out of the hole throughwhich he had entered. Now he could readily believe that man, given theopportunity, would do the same. Man, too, was the most unlovely ofcreatures--with his skinny legs and his big stomach, his filed teeth,and his thick, red lips. Man was disgusting. Tarzan's gaze wasriveted upon the hideous old warrior wallowing in filth beneath him.

  There! the thing was struggling to its knees to reach for anothermorsel of flesh. It groaned aloud in pain and yet it persisted ineating, eating, ever eating. Tarzan could endure it no longer--neitherhis hunger nor his disgust. Silently he slipped to the ground with thebole of the great tree between himself and the feaster.

  The man was still kneeling, bent almost double in agony, before thecooking pot. His back was toward the ape-man. Swiftly and noiselesslyTarzan approached him. There was no sound as steel fingers closedabout the black throat. The struggle was short, for the man was oldand already half stupefied from the effects of the gorging and the beer.

  Tarzan dropped the inert mass and scooped several large pieces of meatfrom the cooking pot--enough to satisfy even his great hunger--then heraised the body of the feaster and shoved it into the vessel. When theother blacks awoke they would have something to think about! Tarzangrinned. As he turned toward the tree with his meat, he picked up avessel containing beer and raised it to his lips, but at the firsttaste he spat the stuff from his mouth and tossed the primitive tankardaside. He was quite sure that even Dango would draw the line at suchfilthy tasting drink as that, and his contempt for man increased withthe conviction.

  Tarzan swung off into the jungle some half mile or so before he pausedto partake of his stolen food. He noticed that it gave forth a strangeand unpleasant odor, but assumed that this was due to the fact that ithad stood in a vessel of water above a fire. Tarzan was, of course,unaccustomed to cooked food. He did not like it; but he was veryhungry and had eaten a considerable portion of his haul before it wasreally borne in upon him that the stuff was nauseating. It requiredfar less than he had imagined it would to satisfy his appetite.

  Throwing the balance to the ground he curled up in a convenient crotchand sought slumber; but slumber seemed difficult to woo. OrdinarilyTarzan of the Apes was asleep as quickly as a dog after it curls itselfupon a hearthrug before a roaring blaze; but tonight he squirmed andtwisted, for at the pit of his stomach was a peculiar feeling thatresembled nothing more closely than an attempt upon the part of thefragments of elephant meat reposing there to come out into the nightand search for their elephant; but Tarzan was adamant. He gritted histeeth and held them back. He was not to be robbed of his meal afterwaiting so long to obtain it.

  He had succeeded in dozing when the roaring of a lion awoke him. Hesat up to discover that it was broad daylight. Tarzan rubbed his eyes.Could it be that he had really slept? He did not feel particularlyrefreshed as he should have after a good sleep. A noise attracted hisattention, and he looked down to see a lion standing at the foot of thetree gazing hungrily at him. Tarzan made a face at the king of beasts,whereat Numa, greatly to the ape-man's surprise, started to climb upinto the branches toward him. Now, never before had Tarzan seen a lionclimb a tree, yet, for some unaccountable reason, he was not greatlysurprised that this particular lion should do so.

  As the lion climbed slowly toward him, Tarzan sought higher branches;but to his chagrin, he discovered that it was with the utmostdifficulty that he could climb at all. Again and again he slippedback, losing all that he had gained, while the lion kept steadily athis climbing, coming ever closer
and closer to the ape-man. Tarzancould see the hungry light in the yellow-green eyes. He could see theslaver on the drooping jowls, and the great fangs agape to seize anddestroy him. Clawing desperately, the ape-man at last succeeded ingaining a little upon his pursuer. He reached the more slenderbranches far aloft where he well knew no lion could follow; yet on andon came devil-faced Numa. It was incredible; but it was true. Yetwhat most amazed Tarzan was that though he realized the incredibilityof it all, he at the same time accepted it as a matter of course, firstthat a lion should climb at all and second that he should enter theupper terraces where even Sheeta, the panther, dared not venture.

  To the very top of a tall tree the ape-man clawed his awkward way andafter him came Numa, the lion, moaning dismally. At last Tarzan stoodbalanced upon the very utmost pinnacle of a swaying branch, high abovethe forest. He could go no farther. Below him the lion came steadilyupward, and Tarzan of the Apes realized that at last the end had come.He could not do battle upon a tiny branch with Numa, the lion,especially with such a Numa, to which swaying branches two hundred feetabove the ground provided as substantial footing as the ground itself.

  Nearer and nearer came the lion. Another moment and he could reach upwith one great paw and drag the ape-man downward to those awful jaws.A whirring noise above his head caused Tarzan to glance apprehensivelyupward. A great bird was circling close above him. He never had seenso large a bird in all his life, yet he recognized it immediately, forhad he not seen it hundreds of times in one of the books in the littlecabin by the land-locked bay--the moss-grown cabin that with itscontents was the sole heritage left by his dead and unknown father tothe young Lord Greystoke?

  In the picture-book the great bird was shown flying far above theground with a small child in its talons while, beneath, a distractedmother stood with uplifted hands. The lion was already reaching fortha taloned paw to seize him when the bird swooped and buried no lessformidable talons in Tarzan's back. The pain was numbing; but it waswith a sense of relief that the ape-man felt himself snatched from theclutches of Numa.

  With a great whirring of wings the bird rose rapidly until the forestlay far below. It made Tarzan sick and dizzy to look down upon it fromso great a height, so he closed his eyes tight and held his breath.Higher and higher climbed the huge bird. Tarzan opened his eyes. Thejungle was so far away that he could see only a dim, green blur belowhim, but just above and quite close was the sun. Tarzan reached outhis hands and warmed them, for they were very cold. Then a suddenmadness seized him. Where was the bird taking him? Was he to submitthus passively to a feathered creature however enormous? Was he, Tarzanof the Apes, mighty fighter, to die without striking a blow in his owndefense? Never!

  He snatched the hunting blade from his gee-string and thrusting upwarddrove it once, twice, thrice into the breast above him. The mightywings fluttered a few more times, spasmodically, the talons relaxedtheir hold, and Tarzan of the Apes fell hurtling downward toward thedistant jungle.

  It seemed to the ape-man that he fell for many minutes before hecrashed through the leafy verdure of the tree tops. The smallerbranches broke his fall, so that he came to rest for an instant uponthe very branch upon which he had sought slumber the previous night.For an instant he toppled there in a frantic attempt to regain hisequilibrium; but at last he rolled off, yet, clutching wildly, hesucceeded in grasping the branch and hanging on.

  Once more he opened his eyes, which he had closed during the fall.Again it was night. With all his old agility he clambered back to thecrotch from which he had toppled. Below him a lion roared, and,looking downward, Tarzan could see the yellow-green eyes shining in themoonlight as they bored hungrily upward through the darkness of thejungle night toward him.

  The ape-man gasped for breath. Cold sweat stood out from every pore,there was a great sickness at the pit of Tarzan's stomach. Tarzan ofthe Apes had dreamed his first dream.

  For a long time he sat watching for Numa to climb into the tree afterhim, and listening for the sound of the great wings from above, for toTarzan of the Apes his dream was a reality.

  He could not believe what he had seen and yet, having seen even theseincredible things, he could not disbelieve the evidence of his ownperceptions. Never in all his life had Tarzan's senses deceived himbadly, and so, naturally, he had great faith in them. Each perceptionwhich ever had been transmitted to Tarzan's brain had been, withvarying accuracy, a true perception. He could not conceive of thepossibility of apparently having passed through such a weird adventurein which there was no grain of truth. That a stomach, disordered bydecayed elephant flesh, a lion roaring in the jungle, a picture-book,and sleep could have so truly portrayed all the clear-cut details ofwhat he had seemingly experienced was quite beyond his knowledge; yethe knew that Numa could not climb a tree, he knew that there existed inthe jungle no such bird as he had seen, and he knew, too, that he couldnot have fallen a tiny fraction of the distance he had hurtleddownward, and lived.

  To say the least, he was a very puzzled Tarzan as he tried to composehimself once more for slumber--a very puzzled and a very nauseatedTarzan.

  As he thought deeply upon the strange occurrences of the night, hewitnessed another remarkable happening. It was indeed quitepreposterous, yet he saw it all with his own eyes--it was nothing lessthan Histah, the snake, wreathing his sinuous and slimy way up the boleof the tree below him--Histah, with the head of the old man Tarzan hadshoved into the cooking pot--the head and the round, tight, black,distended stomach. As the old man's frightful face, with upturnedeyes, set and glassy, came close to Tarzan, the jaws opened to seizehim. The ape-man struck furiously at the hideous face, and as hestruck the apparition disappeared.

  Tarzan sat straight up upon his branch trembling in every limb,wide-eyed and panting. He looked all around him with his keen,jungle-trained eyes, but he saw naught of the old man with the body ofHistah, the snake, but on his naked thigh the ape-man saw acaterpillar, dropped from a branch above him. With a grimace heflicked it off into the darkness beneath.

  And so the night wore on, dream following dream, nightmare followingnightmare, until the distracted ape-man started like a frightened deerat the rustling of the wind in the trees about him, or leaped to hisfeet as the uncanny laugh of a hyena burst suddenly upon a momentaryjungle silence. But at last the tardy morning broke and a sick andfeverish Tarzan wound sluggishly through the dank and gloomy mazes ofthe forest in search of water. His whole body seemed on fire, a greatsickness surged upward to his throat. He saw a tangle of almostimpenetrable thicket, and, like the wild beast he was, he crawled intoit to die alone and unseen, safe from the attacks of predatorycarnivora.

  But he did not die. For a long time he wanted to; but presently natureand an outraged stomach relieved themselves in their own therapeuticmanner, the ape-man broke into a violent perspiration and then fellinto a normal and untroubled sleep which persisted well into theafternoon. When he awoke he found himself weak but no longer sick.

  Once more he sought water, and after drinking deeply, took his wayslowly toward the cabin by the sea. In times of loneliness and troubleit had long been his custom to seek there the quiet and restfulnesswhich he could find nowhere else.

  As he approached the cabin and raised the crude latch which his fatherhad fashioned so many years before, two small, blood-shot eyes watchedhim from the concealing foliage of the jungle close by. From beneathshaggy, beetling brows they glared maliciously upon him, maliciouslyand with a keen curiosity; then Tarzan entered the cabin and closed thedoor after him. Here, with all the world shut out from him, he coulddream without fear of interruption. He could curl up and look at thepictures in the strange things which were books, he could puzzle outthe printed word he had learned to read without knowledge of the spokenlanguage it represented, he could live in a wonderful world of which hehad no knowledge beyond the covers of his beloved books. Numa andSabor might prowl about close to him, the elements might rage in alltheir fury; but here at least, Tarzan might
be entirely off his guardin a delightful relaxation which gave him all his faculties for theuninterrupted pursuit of this greatest of all his pleasures.

  Today he turned to the picture of the huge bird which bore off thelittle Tarmangani in its talons. Tarzan puckered his brows as heexamined the colored print. Yes, this was the very bird that hadcarried him off the day before, for to Tarzan the dream had been sogreat a reality that he still thought another day and a night hadpassed since he had lain down in the tree to sleep.

  But the more he thought upon the matter the less positive he was as tothe verity of the seeming adventure through which he had passed, yetwhere the real had ceased and the unreal commenced he was quite unableto determine. Had he really then been to the village of the blacks atall, had he killed the old Gomangani, had he eaten of the elephantmeat, had he been sick? Tarzan scratched his tousled black head andwondered. It was all very strange, yet he knew that he never had seenNuma climb a tree, or Histah with the head and belly of an old blackman whom Tarzan already had slain.

  Finally, with a sigh he gave up trying to fathom the unfathomable, yetin his heart of hearts he knew that something had come into his lifethat he never before had experienced, another life which existed whenhe slept and the consciousness of which was carried over into hiswaking hours.

  Then he commenced to wonder if some of these strange creatures which hemet in his sleep might not slay him, for at such times Tarzan of theApes seemed to be a different Tarzan, sluggish, helpless andtimid--wishing to flee his enemies as fled Bara, the deer, most fearfulof creatures.

  Thus, with a dream, came the first faint tinge of a knowledge of fear,a knowledge which Tarzan, awake, had never experienced, and perhaps hewas experiencing what his early forbears passed through and transmittedto posterity in the form of superstition first and religion later; forthey, as Tarzan, had seen things at night which they could not explainby the daylight standards of sense perception or of reason, and so hadbuilt for themselves a weird explanation which included grotesqueshapes, possessed of strange and uncanny powers, to whom they finallycame to attribute all those inexplicable phenomena of nature which witheach recurrence filled them with awe, with wonder, or with terror.

  And as Tarzan concentrated his mind on the little bugs upon the printedpage before him, the active recollection of the strange adventurespresently merged into the text of that which he was reading--a story ofBolgani, the gorilla, in captivity. There was a more or less lifelikeillustration of Bolgani in colors and in a cage, with many remarkablelooking Tarmangani standing against a rail and peering curiously at thesnarling brute. Tarzan wondered not a little, as he always did, at theodd and seemingly useless array of colored plumage which covered thebodies of the Tarmangani. It always caused him to grin a trifle whenhe looked at these strange creatures. He wondered if they so coveredtheir bodies from shame of their hairlessness or because they thoughtthe odd things they wore added any to the beauty of their appearance.Particularly was Tarzan amused by the grotesque headdresses of thepictured people. He wondered how some of the shes succeeded inbalancing theirs in an upright position, and he came as near tolaughing aloud as he ever had, as he contemplated the funny littleround things upon the heads of the hes.

  Slowly the ape-man picked out the meaning of the various combinationsof letters on the printed page, and as he read, the little bugs, for assuch he always thought of the letters, commenced to run about in a mostconfusing manner, blurring his vision and befuddling his thoughts.Twice he brushed the back of a hand smartly across his eyes; but onlyfor a moment could he bring the bugs back to coherent and intelligibleform. He had slept ill the night before and now he was exhausted fromloss of sleep, from sickness, and from the slight fever he had had, sothat it became more and more difficult to fix his attention, or to keephis eyes open.

  Tarzan realized that he was falling asleep, and just as the realizationwas borne in upon him and he had decided to relinquish himself to aninclination which had assumed almost the proportions of a physicalpain, he was aroused by the opening of the cabin door. Turning quicklytoward the interruption Tarzan was amazed, for a moment, to see bulkinglarge in the doorway the huge and hairy form of Bolgani, the gorilla.

  Now there was scarcely a denizen of the great jungle with whom Tarzanwould rather not have been cooped up inside the small cabin thanBolgani, the gorilla, yet he felt no fear, even though his quick eyenoted that Bolgani was in the throes of that jungle madness whichseizes upon so many of the fiercer males. Ordinarily the huge gorillasavoid conflict, hide themselves from the other jungle folk, and aregenerally the best of neighbors; but when they are attacked, or themadness seizes them, there is no jungle denizen so bold and fierce asto deliberately seek a quarrel with them.

  But for Tarzan there was no escape. Bolgani was glowering at him fromred-rimmed, wicked eyes. In a moment he would rush in and seize theape-man. Tarzan reached for the hunting knife where he had lain it onthe table beside him; but as his fingers did not immediately locate theweapon, he turned a quick glance in search of it. As he did so hiseyes fell upon the book he had been looking at which still lay open atthe picture of Bolgani. Tarzan found his knife, but he merely fingeredit idly and grinned in the direction of the advancing gorilla.

  Not again would he be fooled by empty things which came while he slept!In a moment, no doubt, Bolgani would turn into Pamba, the rat, with thehead of Tantor, the elephant. Tarzan had seen enough of such strangehappenings recently to have some idea as to what he might expect; butthis time Bolgani did not alter his form as he came slowly toward theyoung ape-man.

  Tarzan was a bit puzzled, too, that he felt no desire to rushfrantically to some place of safety, as had been the sensation mostconspicuous in the other of his new and remarkable adventures. He wasjust himself now, ready to fight, if necessary; but still sure that noflesh and blood gorilla stood before him.

  The thing should be fading away into thin air by now, thought Tarzan,or changing into something else; yet it did not. Instead it loomedclear-cut and real as Bolgani himself, the magnificent dark coatglistening with life and health in a bar of sunlight which shot acrossthe cabin through the high window behind the young Lord Greystoke.This was quite the most realistic of his sleep adventures, thoughtTarzan, as he passively awaited the next amusing incident.

  And then the gorilla charged. Two mighty, calloused hands seized uponthe ape-man, great fangs were bared close to his face, a hideous growlburst from the cavernous throat and hot breath fanned Tarzan's cheek,and still he sat grinning at the apparition. Tarzan might be fooledonce or twice, but not for so many times in succession! He knew thatthis Bolgani was no real Bolgani, for had he been he never could havegained entrance to the cabin, since only Tarzan knew how to operate thelatch.

  The gorilla seemed puzzled by the strange passivity of the hairlessape. He paused an instant with his jaws snarling close to the other'sthroat, then he seemed suddenly to come to some decision. Whirling theape-man across a hairy shoulder, as easily as you or I might lift ababe in arms, Bolgani turned and dashed out into the open, racingtoward the great trees.

  Now, indeed, was Tarzan sure that this was a sleep adventure, and sogrinned largely as the giant gorilla bore him, unresisting, away.Presently, reasoned Tarzan, he would awaken and find himself back inthe cabin where he had fallen asleep. He glanced back at the thoughtand saw the cabin door standing wide open. This would never do! Alwayshad he been careful to close and latch it against wild intruders.Manu, the monkey, would make sad havoc there among Tarzan's treasuresshould he have access to the interior for even a few minutes. Thequestion which arose in Tarzan's mind was a baffling one. Where didsleep adventures end and reality commence? How was he to be sure thatthe cabin door was not really open? Everything about him appearedquite normal--there were none of the grotesque exaggerations of hisformer sleep adventures. It would be better then to be upon the safeside and make sure that the cabin door was closed--it would do no harmeven if all that seemed to be happening were not hap
pening at all.

  Tarzan essayed to slip from Bolgani's shoulder; but the great beastonly growled ominously and gripped him tighter. With a mighty effortthe ape-man wrenched himself loose, and as he slid to the ground, thedream gorilla turned ferociously upon him, seized him once more andburied great fangs in a sleek, brown shoulder.

  The grin of derision faded from Tarzan's lips as the pain and the hotblood aroused his fighting instincts. Asleep or awake, this thing wasno longer a joke! Biting, tearing, and snarling, the two rolled overupon the ground. The gorilla now was frantic with insane rage. Againand again he loosed his hold upon the ape-man's shoulder in an attemptto seize the jugular; but Tarzan of the Apes had fought before withcreatures who struck first for the vital vein, and each time hewriggled out of harm's way as he strove to get his fingers upon hisadversary's throat. At last he succeeded--his great muscles tensed andknotted beneath his smooth hide as he forced with every ounce of hismighty strength to push the hairy torso from him. And as he chokedBolgani and strained him away, his other hand crept slowly upwardbetween them until the point of the hunting knife rested over thesavage heart--there was a quick movement of the steel-thewed wrist andthe blade plunged to its goal.

  Bolgani, the gorilla, voiced a single frightful shriek, tore himselfloose from the grasp of the ape-man, rose to his feet, staggered a fewsteps and then plunged to earth. There were a few spasmodic movementsof the limbs and the brute was still.

  Tarzan of the Apes stood looking down upon his kill, and as he stoodthere he ran his fingers through his thick, black shock of hair.Presently he stooped and touched the dead body. Some of the redlife-blood of the gorilla crimsoned his fingers. He raised them to hisnose and sniffed. Then he shook his head and turned toward the cabin.The door was still open. He closed it and fastened the latch.Returning toward the body of his kill he again paused and scratched hishead.

  If this was a sleep adventure, what then was reality? How was he toknow the one from the other? How much of all that had happened in hislife had been real and how much unreal?

  He placed a foot upon the prostrate form and raising his face to theheavens gave voice to the kill cry of the bull ape. Far in thedistance a lion answered. It was very real and, yet, he did not know.Puzzled, he turned away into the jungle.

  No, he did not know what was real and what was not; but there was onething that he did know--never again would he eat of the flesh ofTantor, the elephant.