Tarzan of the Apes
the screeching and twittering of the thousand jungle birds flitting
ceaselessly amongst the vivid orchids and flamboyant blossoms which
festooned the myriad, moss-covered branches of the forest kings.
At length as darkness settled upon the jungle the apes commenced to
bestir themselves, and soon they formed a great circle about the
earthen drum. The females and young squatted in a thin line at the
outer periphery of the circle, while just in front of them ranged the
adult males. Before the drum sat three old females, each armed with a
knotted branch fifteen or eighteen inches in length.
Slowly and softly they began tapping upon the resounding surface of the
drum as the first faint rays of the ascending moon silvered the
encircling tree tops.
As the light in the amphitheater increased the females augmented the
frequency and force of their blows until presently a wild, rhythmic din
pervaded the great jungle for miles in every direction. Huge, fierce
brutes stopped in their hunting, with up-pricked ears and raised heads,
to listen to the dull booming that betokened the Dum-Dum of the apes.
Occasionally one would raise his shrill scream or thunderous roar in
answering challenge to the savage din of the anthropoids, but none came
near to investigate or attack, for the great apes, assembled in all the
power of their numbers, filled the breasts of their jungle neighbors
with deep respect.
As the din of the drum rose to almost deafening volume Kerchak sprang
into the open space between the squatting males and the drummers.
Standing erect he threw his head far back and looking full into the eye
of the rising moon he beat upon his breast with his great hairy paws
and emitted his fearful roaring shriek.
Once—twice—thrice that terrifying cry rang out across the teeming
solitude of that unspeakably quick, yet unthinkably dead, world.
Then, crouching, Kerchak slunk noiselessly around the open circle,
veering far away from the dead body lying before the altar-drum, but,
as he passed, keeping his little, fierce, wicked, red eyes upon the
corpse.
Another male then sprang into the arena, and, repeating the horrid
cries of his king, followed stealthily in his wake. Another and another
followed in quick succession until the jungle reverberated with the now
almost ceaseless notes of their bloodthirsty screams.
It was the challenge and the hunt.
When all the adult males had joined in the thin line of circling
dancers the attack commenced.
Kerchak, seizing a huge club from the pile which lay at hand for the
purpose, rushed furiously upon the dead ape, dealing the corpse a
terrific blow, at the same time emitting the growls and snarls of
combat. The din of the drum was now increased, as well as the frequency
of the blows, and the warriors, as each approached the victim of the
hunt and delivered his bludgeon blow, joined in the mad whirl of the
Death Dance.
Tarzan was one of the wild, leaping horde. His brown, sweat-streaked,
muscular body, glistening in the moonlight, shone supple and graceful
among the uncouth, awkward, hairy brutes about him.
None was more stealthy in the mimic hunt, none more ferocious than he
in the wild ferocity of the attack, none who leaped so high into the
air in the Dance of Death.
As the noise and rapidity of the drumbeats increased the dancers
apparently became intoxicated with the wild rhythm and the savage
yells. Their leaps and bounds increased, their bared fangs dripped
saliva, and their lips and breasts were flecked with foam.
For half an hour the weird dance went on, until, at a sign from
Kerchak, the noise of the drums ceased, the female drummers scampering
hurriedly through the line of dancers toward the outer rim of squatting
spectators. Then, as one, the males rushed headlong upon the thing
which their terrific blows had reduced to a mass of hairy pulp.
Flesh seldom came to their jaws in satisfying quantities, so a fit
finale to their wild revel was a taste of fresh killed meat, and it was
to the purpose of devouring their late enemy that they now turned their
attention.
Great fangs sunk into the carcass tearing away huge hunks, the
mightiest of the apes obtaining the choicest morsels, while the weaker
circled the outer edge of the fighting, snarling pack awaiting their
chance to dodge in and snatch a dropped tidbit or filch a remaining
bone before all was gone.
Tarzan, more than the apes, craved and needed flesh. Descended from a
race of meat eaters, never in his life, he thought, had he once
satisfied his appetite for animal food; and so now his agile little
body wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an
endeavor to obtain a share which his strength would have been unequal
to the task of winning for him.
At his side hung the hunting knife of his unknown father in a sheath
self-fashioned in copy of one he had seen among the pictures of his
treasure-books.
At last he reached the fast disappearing feast and with his sharp knife
slashed off a more generous portion than he had hoped for, an entire
hairy forearm, where it protruded from beneath the feet of the mighty
Kerchak, who was so busily engaged in perpetuating the royal
prerogative of gluttony that he failed to note the act of
_lèse-majesté_.
So little Tarzan wriggled out from beneath the struggling mass,
clutching his grisly prize close to his breast.
Among those circling futilely the outskirts of the banqueters was old
Tublat. He had been among the first at the feast, but had retreated
with a goodly share to eat in quiet, and was now forcing his way back
for more.
So it was that he spied Tarzan as the boy emerged from the clawing,
pushing throng with that hairy forearm hugged firmly to his body.
Tublat’s little, close-set, bloodshot, pig-eyes shot wicked gleams of
hate as they fell upon the object of his loathing. In them, too, was
greed for the toothsome dainty the boy carried.
But Tarzan saw his arch enemy as quickly, and divining what the great
beast would do he leaped nimbly away toward the females and the young,
hoping to hide himself among them. Tublat, however, was close upon his
heels, so that he had no opportunity to seek a place of concealment,
but saw that he would be put to it to escape at all.
Swiftly he sped toward the surrounding trees and with an agile bound
gained a lower limb with one hand, and then, transferring his burden to
his teeth, he climbed rapidly upward, closely followed by Tublat.
Up, up he went to the waving pinnacle of a lofty monarch of the forest
where his heavy pursuer dared not follow him. There he perched, hurling
taunts and insults at the raging, foaming beast fifty feet below him.
And then Tublat went mad.
With horrifying screams and roars he rushed to the ground, among the
females and young, sinking his great fangs into a dozen tiny necks and
tearing great pieces from the backs and breasts of the females who fell
into his clutches.
In the brilliant moonlight Tarzan witnessed the whole mad carnival of
rage. He saw the females and the young scamper to the safety of the
trees. Then the great bulls in the center of the arena felt the mighty
fangs of their demented fellow, and with one accord they melted into
the black shadows of the overhanging forest.
There was but one in the amphitheater beside Tublat, a belated female
running swiftly toward the tree where Tarzan perched, and close behind
her came the awful Tublat.
It was Kala, and as quickly as Tarzan saw that Tublat was gaining on
her he dropped with the rapidity of a falling stone, from branch to
branch, toward his foster mother.
Now she was beneath the overhanging limbs and close above her crouched
Tarzan, waiting the outcome of the race.
She leaped into the air grasping a low-hanging branch, but almost over
the head of Tublat, so nearly had he distanced her. She should have
been safe now but there was a rending, tearing sound, the branch broke
and precipitated her full upon the head of Tublat, knocking him to the
ground.
Both were up in an instant, but as quick as they had been Tarzan had
been quicker, so that the infuriated bull found himself facing the
man-child who stood between him and Kala.
Nothing could have suited the fierce beast better, and with a roar of
triumph he leaped upon the little Lord Greystoke. But his fangs never
closed in that nut brown flesh.
A muscular hand shot out and grasped the hairy throat, and another
plunged a keen hunting knife a dozen times into the broad breast. Like
lightning the blows fell, and only ceased when Tarzan felt the limp
form crumple beneath him.
As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot
upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full
moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible
cry of his people.
One by one the tribe swung down from their arboreal retreats and formed
a circle about Tarzan and his vanquished foe. When they had all come
Tarzan turned toward them.
“I am Tarzan,” he cried. “I am a great killer. Let all respect Tarzan
of the Apes and Kala, his mother. There be none among you as mighty as
Tarzan. Let his enemies beware.”
Looking full into the wicked, red eyes of Kerchak, the young Lord
Greystoke beat upon his mighty breast and screamed out once more his
shrill cry of defiance.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Tree-top Hunter
The morning after the Dum-Dum the tribe started slowly back through the
forest toward the coast.
The body of Tublat lay where it had fallen, for the people of Kerchak
do not eat their own dead.
The march was but a leisurely search for food. Cabbage palm and gray
plum, pisang and scitamine they found in abundance, with wild
pineapple, and occasionally small mammals, birds, eggs, reptiles, and
insects. The nuts they cracked between their powerful jaws, or, if too
hard, broke by pounding between stones.
Once old Sabor, crossing their path, sent them scurrying to the safety
of the higher branches, for if she respected their number and their
sharp fangs, they on their part held her cruel and mighty ferocity in
equal esteem.
Upon a low-hanging branch sat Tarzan directly above the majestic,
supple body as it forged silently through the thick jungle. He hurled a
pineapple at the ancient enemy of his people. The great beast stopped
and, turning, eyed the taunting figure above her.
With an angry lash of her tail she bared her yellow fangs, curling her
great lips in a hideous snarl that wrinkled her bristling snout in
serried ridges and closed her wicked eyes to two narrow slits of rage
and hatred.
With back-laid ears she looked straight into the eyes of Tarzan of the
Apes and sounded her fierce, shrill challenge. And from the safety of
his overhanging limb the ape-child sent back the fearsome answer of his
kind.
For a moment the two eyed each other in silence, and then the great cat
turned into the jungle, which swallowed her as the ocean engulfs a
tossed pebble.
But into the mind of Tarzan a great plan sprang. He had killed the
fierce Tublat, so was he not therefore a mighty fighter? Now would he
track down the crafty Sabor and slay her likewise. He would be a mighty
hunter, also.
At the bottom of his little English heart beat the great desire to
cover his nakedness with _clothes_ for he had learned from his picture
books that all _men_ were so covered, while _monkeys_ and _apes_ and
every other living thing went naked.
_Clothes_ therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the insignia
of the superiority of _man_ over all other animals, for surely there
could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things.
Many moons ago, when he had been much smaller, he had desired the skin
of Sabor, the lioness, or Numa, the lion, or Sheeta, the leopard to