Tarzan of the Apes
thought much about fear and that sort of thing—never tried to determine
whether I was a coward or brave man; but the other night as we lay in
the jungle there after poor D’Arnot was taken, and those jungle noises
rose and fell around us I began to think that I was a coward indeed. It
was not the roaring and growling of the big beasts that affected me so
much as it was the stealthy noises—the ones that you heard suddenly
close by and then listened vainly for a repetition of—the unaccountable
sounds as of a great body moving almost noiselessly, and the knowledge
that you didn’t KNOW how close it was, or whether it were creeping
closer after you ceased to hear it? It was those noises—and the eyes.
“_Mon Dieu!_ I shall see them in the dark forever—the eyes that you
see, and those that you don’t see, but feel—ah, they are the worst.”
All were silent for a moment, and then Jane spoke.
“And he is out there,” she said, in an awe-hushed whisper. “Those eyes
will be glaring at him to-night, and at your comrade Lieutenant
D’Arnot. Can you leave them, gentlemen, without at least rendering them
the passive succor which remaining here a few days longer might insure
them?”
“Tut, tut, child,” said Professor Porter. “Captain Dufranne is willing
to remain, and for my part I am perfectly willing, perfectly willing—as
I always have been to humor your childish whims.”
“We can utilize the morrow in recovering the chest, Professor,”
suggested Mr. Philander.
“Quite so, quite so, Mr. Philander, I had almost forgotten the
treasure,” exclaimed Professor Porter. “Possibly we can borrow some men
from Captain Dufranne to assist us, and one of the prisoners to point
out the location of the chest.”
“Most assuredly, my dear Professor, we are all yours to command,” said
the captain.
And so it was arranged that on the next day Lieutenant Charpentier was
to take a detail of ten men, and one of the mutineers of the _Arrow_ as
a guide, and unearth the treasure; and that the cruiser would remain
for a full week in the little harbor. At the end of that time it was to
be assumed that D’Arnot was truly dead, and that the forest man would
not return while they remained. Then the two vessels were to leave with
all the party.
Professor Porter did not accompany the treasure-seekers on the
following day, but when he saw them returning empty-handed toward noon,
he hastened forward to meet them—his usual preoccupied indifference
entirely vanished, and in its place a nervous and excited manner.
“Where is the treasure?” he cried to Clayton, while yet a hundred feet
separated them.
Clayton shook his head.
“Gone,” he said, as he neared the professor.
“Gone! It cannot be. Who could have taken it?” cried Professor Porter.
“God only knows, Professor,” replied Clayton. “We might have thought
the fellow who guided us was lying about the location, but his surprise
and consternation on finding no chest beneath the body of the murdered
Snipes were too real to be feigned. And then our spades showed us that
_something_ had been buried beneath the corpse, for a hole had been
there and it had been filled with loose earth.”
“But who could have taken it?” repeated Professor Porter.
“Suspicion might naturally fall on the men of the cruiser,” said
Lieutenant Charpentier, “but for the fact that sub-lieutenant Janviers
here assures me that no men have had shore leave—that none has been on
shore since we anchored here except under command of an officer. I do
not know that you would suspect our men, but I am glad that there is
now no chance for suspicion to fall on them,” he concluded.
“It would never have occurred to me to suspect the men to whom we owe
so much,” replied Professor Porter, graciously. “I would as soon
suspect my dear Clayton here, or Mr. Philander.”
The Frenchmen smiled, both officers and sailors. It was plain to see
that a burden had been lifted from their minds.
“The treasure has been gone for some time,” continued Clayton. “In fact
the body fell apart as we lifted it, which indicates that whoever
removed the treasure did so while the corpse was still fresh, for it
was intact when we first uncovered it.”
“There must have been several in the party,” said Jane, who had joined
them. “You remember that it took four men to carry it.”
“By jove!” cried Clayton. “That’s right. It must have been done by a
party of blacks. Probably one of them saw the men bury the chest and
then returned immediately after with a party of his friends, and
carried it off.”
“Speculation is futile,” said Professor Porter sadly. “The chest is
gone. We shall never see it again, nor the treasure that was in it.”
Only Jane knew what the loss meant to her father, and none there knew
what it meant to her.
Six days later Captain Dufranne announced that they would sail early on
the morrow.
Jane would have begged for a further reprieve, had it not been that she
too had begun to believe that her forest lover would return no more.
In spite of herself she began to entertain doubts and fears. The
reasonableness of the arguments of these disinterested French officers
commenced to convince her against her will.
That he was a cannibal she would not believe, but that he was an
adopted member of some savage tribe at length seemed possible to her.
She would not admit that he could be dead. It was impossible to believe
that that perfect body, so filled with triumphant life, could ever
cease to harbor the vital spark—as soon believe that immortality were
dust.
As Jane permitted herself to harbor these thoughts, others equally
unwelcome forced themselves upon her.
If he belonged to some savage tribe he had a savage wife—a dozen of
them perhaps—and wild, half-caste children. The girl shuddered, and
when they told her that the cruiser would sail on the morrow she was
almost glad.
It was she, though, who suggested that arms, ammunition, supplies and
comforts be left behind in the cabin, ostensibly for that intangible
personality who had signed himself Tarzan of the Apes, and for D’Arnot
should he still be living, but really, she hoped, for her forest
god—even though his feet should prove of clay.
And at the last minute she left a message for him, to be transmitted by
Tarzan of the Apes.
She was the last to leave the cabin, returning on some trivial pretext
after the others had started for the boat.
She kneeled down beside the bed in which she had spent so many nights,
and offered up a prayer for the safety of her primeval man, and
crushing his locket to her lips she murmured:
“I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if I did not
believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there
been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you—forever.”
CHAPTER XXV.
The Outpost of the World
With the report of his gun D’Arnot saw the door fly open and the figure
of a man pitch headlong within onto the cabin floor.
The Frenchman in his panic raised his gun to fire again into the
prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the open door he saw
that the man was white and in another instant realized that he had shot
his friend and protector, Tarzan of the Apes.
With a cry of anguish D’Arnot sprang to the ape-man’s side, and
kneeling, lifted the latter’s head in his arms—calling Tarzan’s name
aloud.
There was no response, and then D’Arnot placed his ear above the man’s
heart. To his joy he heard its steady beating beneath.
Carefully he lifted Tarzan to the cot, and then, after closing and
bolting the door, he lighted one of the lamps and examined the wound.
The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull. There was an ugly
flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of the skull.
D’Arnot breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing the blood
from Tarzan’s face.
Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened his eyes to
look in questioning surprise at D’Arnot.
The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and as he saw that
Tarzan had regained consciousness he arose and going to the table wrote
a message, which he handed to the ape-man, explaining the terrible
mistake he had made and how thankful he was that the wound was not more
serious.
Tarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the couch and
laughed.
“It is nothing,” he said in French, and then, his vocabulary failing
him, he wrote:
You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Kerchak, and Terkoz,
before I killed them—then you would laugh at such a little scratch.
D’Arnot handed Tarzan the two messages that had been left for him.
Tarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on his face.
The second one he turned over and over, searching for an opening—he had
never seen a sealed envelope before. At length he handed it to D’Arnot.
The Frenchman had been watching him, and knew that Tarzan was puzzled
over the envelope. How strange it seemed that to a full-grown white man
an envelope was a mystery. D’Arnot opened it and handed the letter back
to Tarzan.
Sitting on a camp stool the ape-man spread the written sheet before him
and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Mr. Clayton for the
kindness you have shown in permitting us the use of your cabin.
That you never came to make friends with us has been a great regret to
us. We should have liked so much to have seen and thanked our host.
There is another I should like to thank also, but he did not come back,
though I cannot believe that he is dead.
I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who wore the
diamond locket upon his breast.
If you know him and can speak his language carry my thanks to him, and
tell him that I waited seven days for him to return.
Tell him, also, that in my home in America, in the city of Baltimore,
there will always be a welcome for him if he cares to come.
I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath a tree near
the cabin. I do not know how you learned to love me, who have never
spoken to me, and I am very sorry if it is true, for I have already
given my heart to another.
But know that I am always your friend,
JANE PORTER.
Tarzan sat with gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an hour. It was
evident to him from the notes that they did not know that he and Tarzan
of the Apes were one and the same.
“I have given my heart to another,” he repeated over and over again to
himself.
Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended love, and
raised him to such a pinnacle of hope only to cast him down to such
utter depths of despair!
Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did he know, who
knew nothing of the customs of human beings?
Suddenly he arose, and, bidding D’Arnot good night as he had learned to
do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that had been Jane Porter’s.
D’Arnot extinguished the lamp, and lay down upon the cot.
For a week they did little but rest, D’Arnot coaching Tarzan in French.
At the end of that time the two men could converse quite easily.
One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before retiring,
Tarzan turned to D’Arnot.
“Where is America?” he said.
D’Arnot pointed toward the northwest.
“Many thousands of miles across the ocean,” he replied. “Why?”
“I am going there.”
D’Arnot shook his head.
“It is impossible, my friend,” he said.
Tarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned with a
well-thumbed geography.
Turning to a map of the world, he said:
“I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please.”
When D’Arnot had done so, showing him that the blue represented all the
water on the earth, and the bits of other colors the continents and