Tarzan of the Apes
There stood Tarzan, his arms filled with ripe and luscious fruit.
Jane reeled and would have fallen, had not Tarzan, dropping his burden,
caught her in his arms. She did not lose consciousness, but she clung
tightly to him, shuddering and trembling like a frightened deer.
Tarzan of the Apes stroked her soft hair and tried to comfort and quiet
her as Kala had him, when, as a little ape, he had been frightened by
Sabor, the lioness, or Histah, the snake.
Once he pressed his lips lightly upon her forehead, and she did not
move, but closed her eyes and sighed.
She could not analyze her feelings, nor did she wish to attempt it. She
was satisfied to feel the safety of those strong arms, and to leave her
future to fate; for the last few hours had taught her to trust this
strange wild creature of the forest as she would have trusted but few
of the men of her acquaintance.
As she thought of the strangeness of it, there commenced to dawn upon
her the realization that she had, possibly, learned something else
which she had never really known before—love. She wondered and then she
smiled.
And still smiling, she pushed Tarzan gently away; and looking at him
with a half-smiling, half-quizzical expression that made her face
wholly entrancing, she pointed to the fruit upon the ground, and seated
herself upon the edge of the earthen drum of the anthropoids, for
hunger was asserting itself.
Tarzan quickly gathered up the fruit, and, bringing it, laid it at her
feet; and then he, too, sat upon the drum beside her, and with his
knife opened and prepared the various fruits for her meal.
Together and in silence they ate, occasionally stealing sly glances at
one another, until finally Jane broke into a merry laugh in which
Tarzan joined.
“I wish you spoke English,” said the girl.
Tarzan shook his head, and an expression of wistful and pathetic
longing sobered his laughing eyes.
Then Jane tried speaking to him in French, and then in German; but she
had to laugh at her own blundering attempt at the latter tongue.
“Anyway,” she said to him in English, “you understand my German as well
as they did in Berlin.”
Tarzan had long since reached a decision as to what his future
procedure should be. He had had time to recollect all that he had read
of the ways of men and women in the books at the cabin. He would act as
he imagined the men in the books would have acted were they in his
place.
Again he rose and went into the trees, but first he tried to explain by
means of signs that he would return shortly, and he did so well that
Jane understood and was not afraid when he had gone.
Only a feeling of loneliness came over her and she watched the point
where he had disappeared, with longing eyes, awaiting his return. As
before, she was appraised of his presence by a soft sound behind her,
and turned to see him coming across the turf with a great armful of
branches.
Then he went back again into the jungle and in a few minutes reappeared
with a quantity of soft grasses and ferns.
Two more trips he made until he had quite a pile of material at hand.
Then he spread the ferns and grasses upon the ground in a soft flat
bed, and above it leaned many branches together so that they met a few
feet over its center. Upon these he spread layers of huge leaves of the
great elephant’s ear, and with more branches and more leaves he closed
one end of the little shelter he had built.
Then they sat down together again upon the edge of the drum and tried
to talk by signs.
The magnificent diamond locket which hung about Tarzan’s neck, had been
a source of much wonderment to Jane. She pointed to it now, and Tarzan
removed it and handed the pretty bauble to her.
She saw that it was the work of a skilled artisan and that the diamonds
were of great brilliancy and superbly set, but the cutting of them
denoted that they were of a former day. She noticed too that the locket
opened, and, pressing the hidden clasp, she saw the two halves spring
apart to reveal in either section an ivory miniature.
One was of a beautiful woman and the other might have been a likeness
of the man who sat beside her, except for a subtle difference of
expression that was scarcely definable.
She looked up at Tarzan to find him leaning toward her gazing on the
miniatures with an expression of astonishment. He reached out his hand
for the locket and took it away from her, examining the likenesses
within with unmistakable signs of surprise and new interest. His manner
clearly denoted that he had never before seen them, nor imagined that
the locket opened.
This fact caused Jane to indulge in further speculation, and it taxed
her imagination to picture how this beautiful ornament came into the
possession of a wild and savage creature of the unexplored jungles of
Africa.
Still more wonderful was how it contained the likeness of one who might
be a brother, or, more likely, the father of this woodland demi-god who
was even ignorant of the fact that the locket opened.
Tarzan was still gazing with fixity at the two faces. Presently he
removed the quiver from his shoulder, and emptying the arrows upon the
ground reached into the bottom of the bag-like receptacle and drew
forth a flat object wrapped in many soft leaves and tied with bits of
long grass.
Carefully he unwrapped it, removing layer after layer of leaves until
at length he held a photograph in his hand.
Pointing to the miniature of the man within the locket he handed the
photograph to Jane, holding the open locket beside it.
The photograph only served to puzzle the girl still more, for it was
evidently another likeness of the same man whose picture rested in the
locket beside that of the beautiful young woman.
Tarzan was looking at her with an expression of puzzled bewilderment in
his eyes as she glanced up at him. He seemed to be framing a question
with his lips.
The girl pointed to the photograph and then to the miniature and then
to him, as though to indicate that she thought the likenesses were of
him, but he only shook his head, and then shrugging his great
shoulders, he took the photograph from her and having carefully
rewrapped it, placed it again in the bottom of his quiver.
For a few moments he sat in silence, his eyes bent upon the ground,
while Jane held the little locket in her hand, turning it over and over
in an endeavor to find some further clue that might lead to the
identity of its original owner.
At length a simple explanation occurred to her.
The locket had belonged to Lord Greystoke, and the likenesses were of
himself and Lady Alice.
This wild creature had simply found it in the cabin by the beach. How
stupid of her not to have thought of that solution before.
But to account for the strange likeness between Lord Greystoke and this
forest god—that was quite beyond her, and it is not strange that she
could not imagine that this naked savage was indeed an English
nobleman.
At length Tarzan looked up to watch the girl as she examined the
locket. He could not fathom the meaning of the faces within, but he
could read the interest and fascination upon the face of the live young
creature by his side.
She noticed that he was watching her and thinking that he wished his
ornament again she held it out to him. He took it from her and taking
the chain in his two hands he placed it about her neck, smiling at her
expression of surprise at his unexpected gift.
Jane shook her head vehemently and would have removed the golden links
from about her throat, but Tarzan would not let her. Taking her hands
in his, when she insisted upon it, he held them tightly to prevent her.
At last she desisted and with a little laugh raised the locket to her
lips.
Tarzan did not know precisely what she meant, but he guessed correctly
that it was her way of acknowledging the gift, and so he rose, and
taking the locket in his hand, stooped gravely like some courtier of
old, and pressed his lips upon it where hers had rested.
It was a stately and gallant little compliment performed with the grace
and dignity of utter unconsciousness of self. It was the hall-mark of
his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of
fine breeding, an hereditary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime
of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate.
It was growing dark now, and so they ate again of the fruit which was
both food and drink for them; then Tarzan rose, and leading Jane to the
little bower he had erected, motioned her to go within.
For the first time in hours a feeling of fear swept over her, and
Tarzan felt her draw away as though shrinking from him.
Contact with this girl for half a day had left a very different Tarzan
from the one on whom the morning’s sun had risen.
Now, in every fiber of his being, heredity spoke louder than training.
He had not in one swift transition become a polished gentleman from a
savage ape-man, but at last the instincts of the former predominated,
and over all was the desire to please the woman he loved, and to appear
well in her eyes.
So Tarzan of the Apes did the only thing he knew to assure Jane of her
safety. He removed his hunting knife from its sheath and handed it to
her hilt first, again motioning her into the bower.
The girl understood, and taking the long knife she entered and lay down
upon the soft grasses while Tarzan of the Apes stretched himself upon
the ground across the entrance.
And thus the rising sun found them in the morning.
When Jane awoke, she did not at first recall the strange events of the
preceding day, and so she wondered at her odd surroundings—the little
leafy bower, the soft grasses of her bed, the unfamiliar prospect from
the opening at her feet.
Slowly the circumstances of her position crept one by one into her
mind. And then a great wonderment arose in her heart—a mighty wave of
thankfulness and gratitude that though she had been in such terrible
danger, yet she was unharmed.
She moved to the entrance of the shelter to look for Tarzan. He was
gone; but this time no fear assailed her for she knew that he would
return.
In the grass at the entrance to her bower she saw the imprint of his
body where he had lain all night to guard her. She knew that the fact
that he had been there was all that had permitted her to sleep in such
peaceful security.
With him near, who could entertain fear? She wondered if there was
another man on earth with whom a girl could feel so safe in the heart
of this savage African jungle. Even the lions and panthers had no fears
for her now.
She looked up to see his lithe form drop softly from a near-by tree. As
he caught her eyes upon him his face lighted with that frank and
radiant smile that had won her confidence the day before.
As he approached her Jane’s heart beat faster and her eyes brightened
as they had never done before at the approach of any man.
He had again been gathering fruit and this he laid at the entrance of
her bower. Once more they sat down together to eat.
Jane commenced to wonder what his plans were. Would he take her back to
the beach or would he keep her here? Suddenly she realized that the
matter did not seem to give her much concern. Could it be that she did
not care!
She began to comprehend, also, that she was entirely contented sitting
here by the side of this smiling giant eating delicious fruit in a
sylvan paradise far within the remote depths of an African jungle—that
she was contented and very happy.
She could not understand it. Her reason told her that she should be
torn by wild anxieties, weighted by dread fears, cast down by gloomy
forebodings; but instead, her heart was singing and she was smiling
into the answering face of the man beside her.