Tarzan of the Apes
For an hour Tarzan feasted his eyes upon her while she wrote. How he
longed to speak to her, but he dared not attempt it, for he was
convinced that, like the young man, she would not understand him, and
he feared, too, that he might frighten her away.
At length she arose, leaving her manuscript upon the table. She went to
the bed upon which had been spread several layers of soft grasses.
These she rearranged.
Then she loosened the soft mass of golden hair which crowned her head.
Like a shimmering waterfall turned to burnished metal by a dying sun it
fell about her oval face; in waving lines, below her waist it tumbled.
Tarzan was spellbound. Then she extinguished the lamp and all within
the cabin was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness.
Still Tarzan watched. Creeping close beneath the window he waited,
listening, for half an hour. At last he was rewarded by the sounds of
the regular breathing within which denotes sleep.
Cautiously he intruded his hand between the meshes of the lattice until
his whole arm was within the cabin. Carefully he felt upon the desk. At
last he grasped the manuscript upon which Jane Porter had been writing,
and as cautiously withdrew his arm and hand, holding the precious
treasure.
Tarzan folded the sheets into a small parcel which he tucked into the
quiver with his arrows. Then he melted away into the jungle as softly
and as noiselessly as a shadow.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Jungle Toll
Early the following morning Tarzan awoke, and his first thought of the
new day, as the last of yesterday, was of the wonderful writing which
lay hidden in his quiver.
Hurriedly he brought it forth, hoping against hope that he could read
what the beautiful white girl had written there the preceding evening.
At the first glance he suffered a bitter disappointment; never before
had he so yearned for anything as now he did for the ability to
interpret a message from that golden-haired divinity who had come so
suddenly and so unexpectedly into his life.
What did it matter if the message were not intended for him? It was an
expression of her thoughts, and that was sufficient for Tarzan of the
Apes.
And now to be baffled by strange, uncouth characters the like of which
he had never seen before! Why, they even tipped in the opposite
direction from all that he had ever examined either in printed books or
the difficult script of the few letters he had found.
Even the little bugs of the black book were familiar friends, though
their arrangement meant nothing to him; but these bugs were new and
unheard of.
For twenty minutes he pored over them, when suddenly they commenced to
take familiar though distorted shapes. Ah, they were his old friends,
but badly crippled.
Then he began to make out a word here and a word there. His heart
leaped for joy. He could read it, and he would.
In another half hour he was progressing rapidly, and, but for an
exceptional word now and again, he found it very plain sailing.
Here is what he read:
WEST COAST OF AFRICA, ABOUT 10° SOUTH
LATITUDE. (So Mr. Clayton says.)
_February 3 (?), 1909._
DEAREST HAZEL:
It seems foolish to write you a letter that you may never see, but I
simply must tell somebody of our awful experiences since we sailed from
Europe on the ill-fated _Arrow_.
If we never return to civilization, as now seems only too likely, this
will at least prove a brief record of the events which led up to our
final fate, whatever it may be.
As you know, we were supposed to have set out upon a scientific
expedition to the Congo. Papa was presumed to entertain some wondrous
theory of an unthinkably ancient civilization, the remains of which lay
buried somewhere in the Congo valley. But after we were well under sail
the truth came out.
It seems that an old bookworm who has a book and curio shop in
Baltimore discovered between the leaves of a very old Spanish
manuscript a letter written in 1550 detailing the adventures of a crew
of mutineers of a Spanish galleon bound from Spain to South America
with a vast treasure of “doubloons” and “pieces of eight,” I suppose,
for they certainly sound weird and piraty.
The writer had been one of the crew, and the letter was to his son, who
was, at the very time the letter was written, master of a Spanish
merchantman.
Many years had elapsed since the events the letter narrated had
transpired, and the old man had become a respected citizen of an
obscure Spanish town, but the love of gold was still so strong upon him
that he risked all to acquaint his son with the means of attaining
fabulous wealth for them both.
The writer told how when but a week out from Spain the crew had
mutinied and murdered every officer and man who opposed them; but they
defeated their own ends by this very act, for there was none left
competent to navigate a ship at sea.
They were blown hither and thither for two months, until sick and dying
of scurvy, starvation, and thirst, they had been wrecked on a small
islet.
The galleon was washed high upon the beach where she went to pieces;
but not before the survivors, who numbered but ten souls, had rescued
one of the great chests of treasure.
This they buried well up on the island, and for three years they lived
there in constant hope of being rescued.
One by one they sickened and died, until only one man was left, the
writer of the letter.
The men had built a boat from the wreckage of the galleon, but having
no idea where the island was located they had not dared to put to sea.
When all were dead except himself, however, the awful loneliness so
weighed upon the mind of the sole survivor that he could endure it no
longer, and choosing to risk death upon the open sea rather than
madness on the lonely isle, he set sail in his little boat after nearly
a year of solitude.
Fortunately he sailed due north, and within a week was in the track of
the Spanish merchantmen plying between the West Indies and Spain, and
was picked up by one of these vessels homeward bound.
The story he told was merely one of shipwreck in which all but a few
had perished, the balance, except himself, dying after they reached the
island. He did not mention the mutiny or the chest of buried treasure.
The master of the merchantman assured him that from the position at
which they had picked him up, and the prevailing winds for the past
week he could have been on no other island than one of the Cape Verde
group, which lie off the West Coast of Africa in about 16° or 17° north
latitude.
His letter described the island minutely, as well as the location of
the treasure, and was accompanied by the crudest, funniest little old
map you ever saw; with trees and rocks all marked by scrawly X’s to
show the exact spot where the treasure had been buried.
When papa explained the real nature of the expedition, my heart sank,
for I know so well how visionary and impractical the poor dear has
always been that I feared that he had again been duped; especially when
he told me he had paid a thousand dollars for the letter and map.
To add to my distress, I learned that he had borrowed ten thousand
dollars more from Robert Canler, and had given his notes for the
amount.
Mr. Canler had asked for no security, and you know, dearie, what that
will mean for me if papa cannot meet them. Oh, how I detest that man!
We all tried to look on the bright side of things, but Mr. Philander,
and Mr. Clayton—he joined us in London just for the adventure—both felt
as skeptical as I.
Well, to make a long story short, we found the island and the
treasure—a great iron-bound oak chest, wrapped in many layers of oiled
sailcloth, and as strong and firm as when it had been buried nearly two
hundred years ago.
It was _simply filled_ with gold coin, and was so heavy that four men
bent underneath its weight.
The horrid thing seems to bring nothing but murder and misfortune to
those who have anything to do with it, for three days after we sailed
from the Cape Verde Islands our own crew mutinied and killed every one
of their officers.
Oh, it was the most terrifying experience one could imagine—I cannot
even write of it.
They were going to kill us too, but one of them, the leader, named
King, would not let them, and so they sailed south along the coast to a
lonely spot where they found a good harbor, and here they landed and
have left us.
They sailed away with the treasure to-day, but Mr. Clayton says they
will meet with a fate similar to the mutineers of the ancient galleon,
because King, the only man aboard who knew aught of navigation, was
murdered on the beach by one of the men the day we landed.
I wish you could know Mr. Clayton; he is the dearest fellow imaginable,
and unless I am mistaken he has fallen very much in love with me.
He is the only son of Lord Greystoke, and some day will inherit the
title and estates. In addition, he is wealthy in his own right, but the
fact that he is going to be an English Lord makes me very sad—you know
what my sentiments have always been relative to American girls who
married titled foreigners. Oh, if he were only a plain American
gentleman!
But it isn’t his fault, poor fellow, and in everything except birth he
would do credit to my country, and that is the greatest compliment I
know how to pay any man.
We have had the most weird experiences since we were landed here. Papa
and Mr. Philander lost in the jungle, and chased by a real lion.
Mr. Clayton lost, and attacked twice by wild beasts. Esmeralda and I
cornered in an old cabin by a perfectly awful man-eating lioness. Oh,
it was simply “terrifical,” as Esmeralda would say.
But the strangest part of it all is the wonderful creature who rescued
us. I have not seen him, but Mr. Clayton and papa and Mr. Philander
have, and they say that he is a perfectly god-like white man tanned to
a dusky brown, with the strength of a wild elephant, the agility of a
monkey, and the bravery of a lion.
He speaks no English and vanishes as quickly and as mysteriously after
he has performed some valorous deed, as though he were a disembodied
spirit.
Then we have another weird neighbor, who printed a beautiful sign in
English and tacked it on the door of his cabin, which we have
preempted, warning us to destroy none of his belongings, and signing
himself “Tarzan of the Apes.”
We have never seen him, though we think he is about, for one of the
sailors, who was going to shoot Mr. Clayton in the back, received a
spear in his shoulder from some unseen hand in the jungle.
The sailors left us but a meager supply of food, so, as we have only a
single revolver with but three cartridges left in it, we do not know
how we can procure meat, though Mr. Philander says that we can exist
indefinitely on the wild fruit and nuts which abound in the jungle.
I am very tired now, so I shall go to my funny bed of grasses which Mr.
Clayton gathered for me, but will add to this from day to day as things
happen.
Lovingly,
JANE PORTER.
TO HAZEL STRONG, BALTIMORE, MD.
Tarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finished reading
the letter. It was filled with so many new and wonderful things that
his brain was in a whirl as he attempted to digest them all.
So they did not know that he was Tarzan of the Apes. He would tell
them.
In his tree he had constructed a rude shelter of leaves and boughs,
beneath which, protected from the rain, he had placed the few treasures
brought from the cabin. Among these were some pencils.
He took one, and beneath Jane Porter’s signature he wrote:
I am Tarzan of the Apes
He thought that would be sufficient. Later he would return the letter
to the cabin.
In the matter of food, thought Tarzan, they had no need to worry—he
would provide, and he did.