Tarzan of the Apes
anthropoid.
The tribe had kept his women. He must find others to replace them. This
hairless white ape would be the first of his new household, and so he
threw her roughly across his broad, hairy shoulders and leaped back
into the trees, bearing Jane away.
Esmeralda’s scream of terror had mingled once with that of Jane, and
then, as was Esmeralda’s manner under stress of emergency which
required presence of mind, she swooned.
But Jane did not once lose consciousness. It is true that that awful
face, pressing close to hers, and the stench of the foul breath beating
upon her nostrils, paralyzed her with terror; but her brain was clear,
and she comprehended all that transpired.
With what seemed to her marvelous rapidity the brute bore her through
the forest, but still she did not cry out or struggle. The sudden
advent of the ape had confused her to such an extent that she thought
now that he was bearing her toward the beach.
For this reason she conserved her energies and her voice until she
could see that they had approached near enough to the camp to attract
the succor she craved.
She could not have known it, but she was being borne farther and
farther into the impenetrable jungle.
The scream that had brought Clayton and the two older men stumbling
through the undergrowth had led Tarzan of the Apes straight to where
Esmeralda lay, but it was not Esmeralda in whom his interest centered,
though pausing over her he saw that she was unhurt.
For a moment he scrutinized the ground below and the trees above, until
the ape that was in him by virtue of training and environment, combined
with the intelligence that was his by right of birth, told his wondrous
woodcraft the whole story as plainly as though he had seen the thing
happen with his own eyes.
And then he was gone again into the swaying trees, following the
high-flung spoor which no other human eye could have detected, much
less translated.
At boughs’ ends, where the anthropoid swings from one tree to another,
there is most to mark the trail, but least to point the direction of
the quarry; for there the pressure is downward always, toward the small
end of the branch, whether the ape be leaving or entering a tree.
Nearer the center of the tree, where the signs of passage are fainter,
the direction is plainly marked.
Here, on this branch, a caterpillar has been crushed by the fugitive’s
great foot, and Tarzan knows instinctively where that same foot would
touch in the next stride. Here he looks to find a tiny particle of the
demolished larva, ofttimes not more than a speck of moisture.
Again, a minute bit of bark has been upturned by the scraping hand, and
the direction of the break indicates the direction of the passage. Or
some great limb, or the stem of the tree itself has been brushed by the
hairy body, and a tiny shred of hair tells him by the direction from
which it is wedged beneath the bark that he is on the right trail.
Nor does he need to check his speed to catch these seemingly faint
records of the fleeing beast.
To Tarzan they stand out boldly against all the myriad other scars and
bruises and signs upon the leafy way. But strongest of all is the
scent, for Tarzan is pursuing up the wind, and his trained nostrils are
as sensitive as a hound’s.
There are those who believe that the lower orders are specially endowed
by nature with better olfactory nerves than man, but it is merely a
matter of development.
Man’s survival does not hinge so greatly upon the perfection of his
senses. His power to reason has relieved them of many of their duties,
and so they have, to some extent, atrophied, as have the muscles which
move the ears and scalp, merely from disuse.
The muscles are there, about the ears and beneath the scalp, and so are
the nerves which transmit sensations to the brain, but they are
under-developed because they are not needed.
Not so with Tarzan of the Apes. From early infancy his survival had
depended upon acuteness of eyesight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste
far more than upon the more slowly developed organ of reason.
The least developed of all in Tarzan was the sense of taste, for he
could eat luscious fruits, or raw flesh, long buried with almost equal
appreciation; but in that he differed but slightly from more civilized
epicures.
Almost silently the ape-man sped on in the track of Terkoz and his
prey, but the sound of his approach reached the ears of the fleeing
beast and spurred it on to greater speed.
Three miles were covered before Tarzan overtook them, and then Terkoz,
seeing that further flight was futile, dropped to the ground in a small
open glade, that he might turn and fight for his prize or be free to
escape unhampered if he saw that the pursuer was more than a match for
him.
He still grasped Jane in one great arm as Tarzan bounded like a leopard
into the arena which nature had provided for this primeval-like battle.
When Terkoz saw that it was Tarzan who pursued him, he jumped to the
conclusion that this was Tarzan’s woman, since they were of the same
kind—white and hairless—and so he rejoiced at this opportunity for
double revenge upon his hated enemy.
To Jane the strange apparition of this god-like man was as wine to sick
nerves.
From the description which Clayton and her father and Mr. Philander had
given her, she knew that it must be the same wonderful creature who had
saved them, and she saw in him only a protector and a friend.
But as Terkoz pushed her roughly aside to meet Tarzan’s charge, and she
saw the great proportions of the ape and the mighty muscles and the
fierce fangs, her heart quailed. How could any vanquish such a mighty
antagonist?
Like two charging bulls they came together, and like two wolves sought
each other’s throat. Against the long canines of the ape was pitted the
thin blade of the man’s knife.
Jane—her lithe, young form flattened against the trunk of a great tree,
her hands tight pressed against her rising and falling bosom, and her
eyes wide with mingled horror, fascination, fear, and
admiration—watched the primordial ape battle with the primeval man for
possession of a woman—for her.
As the great muscles of the man’s back and shoulders knotted beneath
the tension of his efforts, and the huge biceps and forearm held at bay
those mighty tusks, the veil of centuries of civilization and culture
was swept from the blurred vision of the Baltimore girl.
When the long knife drank deep a dozen times of Terkoz’ heart’s blood,
and the great carcass rolled lifeless upon the ground, it was a
primeval woman who sprang forward with outstretched arms toward the
primeval man who had fought for her and won her.
And Tarzan?
He did what no red-blooded man needs lessons in doing. He took his
woman in his arms and smothered her upturned, panting lips with kisses.
For a moment Jane lay there with half-closed eyes. For a moment—the
first in her young life—she knew the meaning of love.
But as suddenly as the veil had been withdrawn it dropped again, and an
outraged conscience suffused her face with its scarlet mantle, and a
mortified woman thrust Tarzan of the Apes from her and buried her face
in her hands.
Tarzan had been surprised when he had found the girl he had learned to
love after a vague and abstract manner a willing prisoner in his arms.
Now he was surprised that she repulsed him.
He came close to her once more and took hold of her arm. She turned
upon him like a tigress, striking his great breast with her tiny hands.
Tarzan could not understand it.
A moment ago and it had been his intention to hasten Jane back to her
people, but that little moment was lost now in the dim and distant past
of things which were but can never be again, and with it the good
intentions had gone to join the impossible.
Since then Tarzan of the Apes had felt a warm, lithe form close pressed
to his. Hot, sweet breath against his cheek and mouth had fanned a new
flame to life within his breast, and perfect lips had clung to his in
burning kisses that had seared a deep brand into his soul—a brand which
marked a new Tarzan.
Again he laid his hand upon her arm. Again she repulsed him. And then
Tarzan of the Apes did just what his first ancestor would have done.
He took his woman in his arms and carried her into the jungle.
Early the following morning the four within the little cabin by the
beach were awakened by the booming of a cannon. Clayton was the first
to rush out, and there, beyond the harbor’s mouth, he saw two vessels
lying at anchor.
One was the _Arrow_ and the other a small French cruiser. The sides of
the latter were crowded with men gazing shoreward, and it was evident
to Clayton, as to the others who had now joined him, that the gun which
they had heard had been fired to attract their attention if they still
remained at the cabin.
Both vessels lay at a considerable distance from shore, and it was
doubtful if their glasses would locate the waving hats of the little
party far in between the harbor’s points.
Esmeralda had removed her red apron and was waving it frantically above
her head; but Clayton, still fearing that even this might not be seen,
hurried off toward the northern point where lay his signal pyre ready
for the match.
It seemed an age to him, as to those who waited breathlessly behind,
ere he reached the great pile of dry branches and underbrush.
As he broke from the dense wood and came in sight of the vessels again,
he was filled with consternation to see that the _Arrow_ was making
sail and that the cruiser was already under way.
Quickly lighting the pyre in a dozen places, he hurried to the extreme
point of the promontory, where he stripped off his shirt, and, tying it
to a fallen branch, stood waving it back and forth above him.
But still the vessels continued to stand out; and he had given up all
hope, when the great column of smoke, rising above the forest in one
dense vertical shaft, attracted the attention of a lookout aboard the
cruiser, and instantly a dozen glasses were leveled on the beach.
Presently Clayton saw the two ships come about again; and while the
_Arrow_ lay drifting quietly on the ocean, the cruiser steamed slowly
back toward shore.
At some distance away she stopped, and a boat was lowered and
dispatched toward the beach.
As it was drawn up a young officer stepped out.
“Monsieur Clayton, I presume?” he asked.
“Thank God, you have come!” was Clayton’s reply. “And it may be that it
is not too late even now.”
“What do you mean, Monsieur?” asked the officer.
Clayton told of the abduction of Jane Porter and the need of armed men
to aid in the search for her.
“_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed the officer, sadly. “Yesterday and it would not
have been too late. Today and it may be better that the poor lady were
never found. It is horrible, Monsieur. It is too horrible.”
Other boats had now put off from the cruiser, and Clayton, having
pointed out the harbor’s entrance to the officer, entered the boat with
him and its nose was turned toward the little landlocked bay, into
which the other craft followed.
Soon the entire party had landed where stood Professor Porter, Mr.
Philander and the weeping Esmeralda.
Among the officers in the last boats to put off from the cruiser was
the commander of the vessel; and when he had heard the story of Jane’s
abduction, he generously called for volunteers to accompany Professor
Porter and Clayton in their search.
Not an officer or a man was there of those brave and sympathetic
Frenchmen who did not quickly beg leave to be one of the expedition.
The commander selected twenty men and two officers, Lieutenant D’Arnot
and Lieutenant Charpentier. A boat was dispatched to the cruiser for