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Tarzan the Untamed

E >> Edgar Rice Burroughs >> Tarzan the Untamed




He passed around to the entrance of the hut and listened. From
within came no sound, not even the low breathing of one awake; yet
he was sure that the girl had been here and perhaps was even now,
and so he entered, slipping in as silently as a disembodied spirit.
For a moment he stood motionless just within the entranceway,
listening. No, there was no one here, of that he was sure, but he
would investigate. As his eyes became accustomed to the greater
darkness within the hut an object began to take form that presently
outlined itself in a human form supine upon the floor.

Tarzan stepped closer and leaned over to examine it--it was the dead
body of a naked warrior from whose chest protruded a short spear.
Then he searched carefully every square foot of the remaining floor
space and at last returned to the body again where he stooped and
smelled of the haft of the weapon that had slain the black. A slow
smile touched his lips--that and a slight movement of his head
betokened that he understood.

A rapid search of the balance of the village assured him that the
girl had escaped and a feeling of relief came over him that no harm
had befallen her. That her life was equally in jeopardy in the
savage jungle to which she must have flown did not impress him
as it would have you or me, since to Tarzan the jungle was not
a dangerous place--he considered one safer there than in Paris or
London by night.

He had entered the trees again and was outside the palisade when
there came faintly to his ears from far beyond the village an old,
familiar sound. Balancing lightly upon a swaying branch he stood,
a graceful statue of a forest god, listening intently. For a minute
he stood thus and then there broke from his lips the long, weird
cry of ape calling to ape and he was away through the jungle toward
the sound of the booming drum of the anthropoids leaving behind him
an awakened and terrified village of cringing blacks, who would
forever after connect that eerie cry with the disappearance of
their white prisoner and the death of their fellow-warrior.

Bertha Kircher, hurrying through the jungle along a well-beaten
game trail, thought only of putting as much distance as possible
between herself and the village before daylight could permit pursuit
of her. Whither she was going she did not know, nor was it a matter
of great moment since death must be her lot sooner or later.

Fortune favored her that night, for she passed unscathed through
as savage and lion-ridden an area as there is in all Africa--a
natural hunting ground which the white man has not yet discovered,
where deer and antelope and zebra, giraffe and elephant, buffalo,
rhinoceros, and the other herbivorous animals of central Africa
abound unmolested by none but their natural enemies, the great
cats which, lured here by easy prey and immunity from the rifles
of big-game hunters, swarm the district.

She had fled for an hour or two, perhaps, when her attention was
arrested by the sound of animals moving about, muttering and growling
close ahead. Assured that she had covered a sufficient distance
to insure her a good start in the morning before the blacks could
take to her trail, and fearful of what the creatures might be,
she climbed into a large tree with the intention of spending the
balance of the night there.

She had no sooner reached a safe and comfortable branch when she
discovered that the tree stood upon the edge of a small clearing
that had been hidden from her by the heavy undergrowth upon the
ground below, and simultaneously she discovered the identity of
the beasts she had heard.

In the center of the clearing below her, clearly visible in the
bright moonlight, she saw fully twenty huge, manlike apes--great,
shaggy fellows who went upon their hind feet with only slight
assistance from the knuckles of their hands. The moonlight glanced
from their glossy coats, the numerous gray-tipped hairs imparting
a sheen that made the hideous creatures almost magnificent in their
appearance.

The girl had watched them but a minute or two when the little band
was joined by others, coming singly and in groups until there were
fully fifty of the great brutes gathered there in the moonlight.
Among them were young apes and several little ones clinging tightly
to their mothers' shaggy shoulders. Presently the group parted to
form a circle about what appeared to be a small, flat-topped mound
of earth in the center of the clearing. Squatting close about this
mound were three old females armed with short, heavy clubs with
which they presently began to pound upon the flat top of the earth
mound which gave forth a dull, booming sound, and almost immediately
the other apes commenced to move about restlessly, weaving in and
out aimlessly until they carried the impression of a moving mass
of great, black maggots.

The beating of the drum was in a slow, ponderous cadence, at first
without time but presently settling into a heavy rhythm to which
the apes kept time with measured tread and swaying bodies. Slowly
the mass separated into two rings, the outer of which was composed
of shes and the very young, the inner of mature bulls. The former
ceased to move and squatted upon their haunches, while the bulls
now moved slowly about in a circle the center of which was the drum
and all now in the same direction.

It was then that there came faintly to the ears of the girl from
the direction of the village she had recently quitted a weird and
high-pitched cry. The effect upon the apes was electrical--they
stopped their movements and stood in attitudes of intent listening
for a moment, and then one fellow, huger than his companions, raised
his face to the heavens and in a voice that sent the cold shudders
through the girl's slight frame answered the far-off cry.

Once again the beaters took up their drumming and the slow dance
went on. There was a certain fascination in the savage ceremony
that held the girl spellbound, and as there seemed little likelihood
of her being discovered, she felt that she might as well remain
the balance of the night in her tree and resume her flight by the
comparatively greater safety of daylight.

Assuring herself that her packet of papers was safe she sought as
comfortable a position as possible among the branches, and settled
herself to watch the weird proceedings in the clearing below her.

A half-hour passed, during which the cadence of the drum increased
gradually. Now the great bull that had replied to the distant call
leaped from the inner circle to dance alone between the drummers
and the other bulls. He leaped and crouched and leaped again, now
growling and barking, again stopping to raise his hideous face
to Goro, the moon, and, beating upon his shaggy breast, uttered
a piercing scream-the challenge of the bull ape, had the girl but
known it.

He stood thus in the full glare of the great moon, motionless after
screaming forth his weird challenge, in the setting of the primeval
jungle and the circling apes a picture of primitive savagery and
power--a mightily muscled Hercules out of the dawn of life--when
from close behind her the girl heard an answering scream, and an
instant later saw an almost naked white man drop from a near-by
tree into the clearing.

Instantly the apes became a roaring, snarling pack of angry beasts.
Bertha Kircher held her breath. What maniac was this who dared
approach these frightful creatures in their own haunts, alone against
fifty? She saw the brown-skinned figure bathed in moonlight walk
straight toward the snarling pack. She saw the symmetry and the
beauty of that perfect body--its grace, its strength, its wondrous
proportioning, and then she recognized him. It was the same creature
whom she had seen carry Major Schneider from General Kraut's
headquarters, the same who had rescued her from Numa, the lion;
the same whom she had struck down with the butt of her pistol and
escaped when he would have returned her to her enemies, the same
who had slain Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and spared her life that
night in Wilhelmstal.

Fear-filled and fascinated she watched him as he neared the apes.
She heard sounds issue from his throat--sounds identical with
those uttered by the apes--and though she could scarce believe the
testimony of her own ears, she knew that this godlike creature was
conversing with the brutes in their own tongue.

Tarzan halted just before he reached the shes of the outer circle.
"I am Tarzan of the Apes!" he cried. "You do not know me because
I am of another tribe, but Tarzan comes in peace or he comes to
fight--which shall it be? Tarzan will talk with your king," and so
saying he pushed straight forward through the shes and the young
who now gave way before him, making a narrow lane through which he
passed toward the inner circle.

Shes and balus growled and bristled as he passed closer, but none
hindered him and thus he came to the inner circle of bulls. Here
bared fangs menaced him and growling faces hideously contorted. "I
am Tarzan," he repeated. "Tarzan comes to dance the Dum-Dum with
his brothers. Where is your king?" Again he pressed forward and the
girl in the tree clapped her palms to her cheeks as she watched,
wide-eyed, this madman going to a frightful death. In another instant
they would be upon him, rending and tearing until that perfect form
had been ripped to shreds; but again the ring parted, and though
the apes roared and menaced him they did not attack, and at last
he stood in the inner circle close to the drum and faced the great
king ape.

Again he spoke. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he cried. "Tarzan comes
to live with his brothers. He will come in peace and live in peace
or he will kill; but he has come and he will stay. Which--shall
Tarzan dance the Dum-Dum in peace with his brothers, or shall Tarzan
kill first?"

"I am Go-lat, King of the Apes," screamed the great bull. "I kill!
I kill! I kill!" and with a sullen roar he charged the Tarmangani.

The ape-man, as the girl watched him, seemed entirely unprepared
for the charge and she looked to see him borne down and slain at
the first rush. The great bull was almost upon him with huge hands
outstretched to seize him before Tarzan made a move, but when he
did move his quickness would have put Ara, the lightning, to shame.
As darts forward the head of Histah, the snake, so darted forward
the left hand of the man-beast as he seized the left wrist of his
antagonist. A quick turn and the bull's right arm was locked beneath
the right arm of his foe in a jujutsu hold that Tarzan had learned
among civilized men--a hold with which he might easily break the
great bones, a hold that left the ape helpless.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes!" screamed the ape-man. "Shall Tarzan
dance in peace or shall Tarzan kill?''

"I kill! I kill! I kill!" shrieked Go-lat.

With the quickness of a cat Tarzan swung the king ape over one hip
and sent him sprawling to the ground. "I am Tarzan, King of all
the Apes!" he shouted. "Shall it be peace?"

Go-lat, infuriated, leaped to his feet and charged again, shouting
his war cry: "I kill! I kill! I kill!" and again Tarzan met him
with a sudden hold that the stupid bull, being ignorant of, could
not possibly avert--a hold and a throw that brought a scream of
delight from the interested audience and suddenly filled the girl
with doubts as to the man's madness--evidently he was quite safe
among the apes, for she saw him swing Go-lat to his back and then
catapult him over his shoulder. The king ape fell upon his head
and lay very still.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes!" cried the ape-man. "I come to dance the
Dum-Dum with my brothers," and he made a motion to the drummers,
who immediately took up the cadence of the dance where they had
dropped it to watch their king slay the foolish Tarmangani.

It was then that Go-lat raised his head and slowly crawled to his
feet. Tarzan approached him. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he cried.
"Shall Tarzan dance the Dum-Dum with his brothers now, or shall he
kill first?"

Go-lat raised his bloodshot eyes to the face of the Tarmangani.
"Kagoda!" he cried "Tarzan of the Apes will dance the Dum-Dum with
his brothers and Go-lat will dance with him!"

And then the girl in the tree saw the savage man leaping, bending, and
stamping with the savage apes in the ancient rite of the Dum-Dum.
His roars and growls were more beastly than the beasts. His
handsome face was distorted with savage ferocity. He beat upon his
great breast and screamed forth his challenge as his smooth, brown
hide brushed the shaggy coats of his fellows. It was weird; it
was wonderful; and in its primitive savagery it was not without
beauty--the strange scene she looked upon, such a scene as no other
human being, probably, ever had witnessed--and yet, withal, it was
horrible.

As she gazed, spell-bound, a stealthy movement in the tree behind
her caused her to turn her head, and there, back of her, blazing
in the reflected moonlight, shone two great, yellow-green eyes.
Sheeta, the panther, had found her out.

The beast was so close that it might have reached out and touched
her with a great, taloned paw. There was no time to think, no
time to weigh chances or to choose alternatives. Terror-inspired
impulse was her guide as, with a loud scream, she leaped from the
tree into the clearing.

Instantly the apes, now maddened by the effects of the dancing and
the moonlight, turned to note the cause of the interruption. They
saw this she Tarmangani, helpless and alone and they started for
her. Sheeta, the panther, knowing that not even Numa, the lion,
unless maddened by starvation, dares meddle with the great apes at
their Dum-Dum, had silently vanished into the night, seeking his
supper elsewhere.

Tarzan, turning with the other apes toward the cause of the
interruption, saw the girl, recognized her and also her peril.
Here again might she die at the hands of others; but why consider
it! He knew that he could not permit it, and though the acknowledgment
shamed him, it had to be admitted.

The leading shes were almost upon the girl when Tarzan leaped among
them, and with heavy blows scattered them to right and left; and
then as the bulls came to share in the kill they thought this new
ape-thing was about to make that he might steal all the flesh for
himself, they found him facing them with an arm thrown about the
creature as though to protect her.

"This is Tarzan's she," he said. "Do not harm her." It was the only
way he could make them understand that they must not slay her. He
was glad that she could not interpret the words. It was humiliating
enough to make such a statement to wild apes about this hated enemy.

So once again Tarzan of the Apes was forced to protect a Hun.
Growling, he muttered to himself in extenuation:

"She is a woman and I am not a German, so it could not be otherwise!"





Dropped from the Sky




Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, Royal Air Service, was on
reconnaissance. A report, or it would be better to say a rumor,
had come to the British headquarters in German East Africa that
the enemy had landed in force on the west coast and was marching
across the dark continent to reinforce their colonial troops. In
fact the new army was supposed to be no more than ten or twelve days'
march to the west. Of course the thing was ridiculous--preposterous--but
preposterous things often happen in war; and anyway no good general
permits the least rumor of enemy activity to go uninvestigated.

Therefore Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick flew low toward
the west, searching with keen eyes for signs of a Hun army. Vast
forests unrolled beneath him in which a German army corps might
have lain concealed, so dense was the overhanging foliage of the
great trees. Mountain, meadowland, and desert passed in lovely
panorama; but never a sight of man had the young lieutenant.

Always hoping that he might discover some sign of their passage--a
discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site--he continued
farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon.
Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a
winding river he determined to turn about and start for camp. It
would take straight flying at top speed to cover the distance before
dark; but as he had ample gasoline and a trustworthy machine there
was no doubt in his mind but that he could accomplish his aim. It
was then that his engine stalled.

He was too low to do anything but land, and that immediately,
while he had the more open country accessible, for directly east of
him was a vast forest into which a stalled engine could only have
plunged him to certain injury and probable death; and so he came
down in the meadowland near the winding river and there started to
tinker with his motor.

As he worked he hummed a tune, some music-hall air that had been
popular in London the year before, so that one might have thought
him working in the security of an English flying field surrounded
by innumerable comrades rather than alone in the heart of an unexplored
African wilderness. It was typical of the man that he should be
wholly indifferent to his surroundings, although his looks entirely
belied any assumption that he was of particularly heroic strain.

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick was fair-hatred, blue-eyed,
and slender, with a rosy, boyish face that might have been molded
more by an environment of luxury, indolence, and ease than the more
strenuous exigencies of life's sterner requirements.

And not only was the young lieutenant outwardly careless of the
immediate future and of his surroundings, but actually so. That
the district might be infested by countless enemies seemed not to
have occurred to him in the remotest degree. He bent assiduously
to the work of correcting the adjustment that had caused his motor
to stall without so much as an upward glance at the surrounding
country. The forest to the east of him, and the more distant jungle
that bordered the winding river, might have harbored an army of
bloodthirsty savages, but neither could elicit even a passing show
of interest on the part of Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick

And even had he looked, it is doubtful if he would have seen the
score of figures crouching in the concealment of the undergrowth
at the forest's edge. There are those who are reputed to be endowed
with that which is sometimes, for want of a better appellation,
known as the sixth sense--a species of intuition which apprises
them of the presence of an unseen danger. The concentrated gaze of
a hidden observer provokes a warning sensation of nervous unrest in
such as these, but though twenty pairs of savage eyes were gazing
fixedly at Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, the fact aroused
no responsive sensation of impending danger in his placid breast.
He hummed peacefully and, his adjustment completed, tried out his
motor for a minute or two, then shut it off and descended to the
ground with the intention of stretching his legs and taking a smoke
before continuing his return flight to camp. Now for the first time
he took note of his surroundings, to be immediately impressed by
both the wildness and the beauty of the scene. In some respects the
tree-dotted meadowland reminded him of a park-like English forest,
and that wild beasts and savage men could ever be a part of so
quiet a scene seemed the remotest of contingencies.

Some gorgeous blooms upon a flowering shrub at a little distance
from his machine caught the attention of his aesthetic eye, and as
he puffed upon his cigarette, he walked over to examine the flowers
more closely. As he bent above them he was probably some hundred
yards from his plane and it was at this instant that Numabo, chief
of the Wamabo, chose to leap from his ambush and lead his warriors
in a sudden rush upon the white man.

The young Englishman's first intimation of danger was a chorus of
savage yells from the forest behind him. Turning, he saw a score
of naked, black warriors advancing rapidly toward him. They moved
in a compact mass and as they approached more closely their rate
of speed noticeably diminished. Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick realized
in a quick glance that the direction of their approach and their
proximity had cut off all chances of retreating to his plane, and
he also understood that their attitude was entirely warlike and
menacing. He saw that they were armed with spears and with bows and
arrows, and he felt quite confident that notwithstanding the fact
that he was armed with a pistol they could overcome him with the
first rush. What he did not know about their tactics was that at
any show of resistance they would fall back, which is the nature of
the native Negroes, but that after numerous advances and retreats,
during which they would work themselves into a frenzy of rage by
much shrieking, leaping, and dancing, they would eventually come
to the point of a determined and final assault.

Numabo was in the forefront, a fact which taken in connection with
his considerably greater size and more warlike appearance, indicated
him as the natural target and it was at Numabo that the Englishman
aimed his first shot. Unfortunately for him it missed its target,
as the killing of the chief might have permanently dispersed
the others. The bullet passed Numabo to lodge in the breast of a
warrior behind him and as the fellow lunged forward with a scream
the others turned and retreated, but to the lieutenant's chagrin
they ran in the direction of the plane instead of back toward the
forest so that he was still cut off from reaching his machine.

Presently they stopped and faced him again. They were talking loudly
and gesticulating, and after a moment one of them leaped into the
air, brandishing his spear and uttering savage war cries, which
soon had their effect upon his fellows so that it was not long ere
all of them were taking part in the wild show of savagery, which
would bolster their waning courage and presently spur them on to
another attack.

The second charge brought them closer to the Englishman, and though
he dropped another with his pistol, it was not before two or three
spears had been launched at him. He now had five shots remaining
and there were still eighteen warriors to be accounted for, so that
unless he could frighten them off, it was evident that his fate
was sealed.

That they must pay the price of one life for every attempt to take
his had its effect upon them and they were longer now in initiating
a new rush and when they did so it was more skillfully ordered than
those that had preceded it, for they scattered into three bands
which, partially surrounding him, came simultaneously toward him
from different directions, and though he emptied his pistol with
good effect, they reached him at last. They seemed to know that
his ammunition was exhausted, for they circled close about him now
with the evident intention of taking him alive, since they might
easily have riddled him with their sharp spears with perfect safety
to themselves.

For two or three minutes they circled about him until, at a word
from Numabo, they closed in simultaneously, and though the slender
young lieutenant struck out to right and left, he was soon overwhelmed
by superior numbers and beaten down by the hafts of spears in brawny
hands.

He was all but unconscious when they finally dragged him to his
feet, and after securing his hands behind his back, pushed him
roughly along ahead of them toward the jungle.

As the guard prodded him along the narrow trail, Lieutenant
Smith-Oldwick could not but wonder why they had wished to take him
alive. He knew that he was too far inland for his uniform to have
any significance to this native tribe to whom no inkling of the
World War probably ever had come, and he could only assume that he
had fallen into the hands of the warriors of some savage potentate
upon whose royal caprice his fate would hinge.

They had marched for perhaps half an hour when the Englishman saw
ahead of them, in a little clearing upon the bank of the river,
the thatched roofs of native huts showing above a crude but strong
palisade; and presently he was ushered into a village street where
he was immediately surrounded by a throng of women and children
and warriors. Here he was soon the center of an excited mob whose
intent seemed to be to dispatch him as quickly as possible. The
women were more venomous than the men, striking and scratching him
whenever they could reach him, until at last Numabo, the chief, was
obliged to interfere to save his prisoner for whatever purpose he
was destined.

As the warriors pushed the crowd back, opening a space through
which the white man was led toward a hut, Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick
saw coming from the opposite end of the village a number of Negroes
wearing odds and ends of German uniforms. He was not a little
surprised at this, and his first thought was that he had at last
come in contact with some portion of the army which was rumored to
be crossing from the west coast and for signs of which he had been
searching.

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