Tarzan of the Apes
Behind him came D’Arnot, clothed in some garments which had been
discarded at the cabin by Clayton when the officers of the French
cruiser had fitted him out in more presentable fashion.
Presently one of the blacks looked up, and beholding Tarzan, turned,
shrieking, toward the palisade.
In an instant the air was filled with cries of terror from the fleeing
gardeners, but before any had reached the palisade a white man emerged
from the enclosure, rifle in hand, to discover the cause of the
commotion.
What he saw brought his rifle to his shoulder, and Tarzan of the Apes
would have felt cold lead once again had not D’Arnot cried loudly to
the man with the leveled gun:
“Do not fire! We are friends!”
“Halt, then!” was the reply.
“Stop, Tarzan!” cried D’Arnot. “He thinks we are enemies.”
Tarzan dropped into a walk, and together he and D’Arnot advanced toward
the white man by the gate.
The latter eyed them in puzzled bewilderment.
“What manner of men are you?” he asked, in French.
“White men,” replied D’Arnot. “We have been lost in the jungle for a
long time.”
The man had lowered his rifle and now advanced with outstretched hand.
“I am Father Constantine of the French Mission here,” he said, “and I
am glad to welcome you.”
“This is Monsieur Tarzan, Father Constantine,” replied D’Arnot,
indicating the ape-man; and as the priest extended his hand to Tarzan,
D’Arnot added: “and I am Paul D’Arnot, of the French Navy.”
Father Constantine took the hand which Tarzan extended in imitation of
the priest’s act, while the latter took in the superb physique and
handsome face in one quick, keen glance.
And thus came Tarzan of the Apes to the first outpost of civilization.
For a week they remained there, and the ape-man, keenly observant,
learned much of the ways of men; meanwhile black women sewed white duck
garments for himself and D’Arnot so that they might continue their
journey properly clothed.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Height of Civilization
Another month brought them to a little group of buildings at the mouth
of a wide river, and there Tarzan saw many boats, and was filled with
the timidity of the wild thing by the sight of many men.
Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises and the odd ways
of civilization, so that presently none might know that two short
months before, this handsome Frenchman in immaculate white ducks, who
laughed and chatted with the gayest of them, had been swinging naked
through primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which, raw,
was to fill his savage belly.
The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month before,
Tarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did the polished D’Arnot.
So apt a pupil had he been that the young Frenchman had labored
assiduously to make of Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentleman in so
far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.
“God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend,” D’Arnot had said; “but
we want His works to show upon the exterior also.”
As soon as they had reached the little port, D’Arnot had cabled his
government of his safety, and requested a three-months’ leave, which
had been granted.
He had also cabled his bankers for funds, and the enforced wait of a
month, under which both chafed, was due to their inability to charter a
vessel for the return to Tarzan’s jungle after the treasure.
During their stay at the coast town “Monsieur Tarzan” became the wonder
of both whites and blacks because of several occurrences which to
Tarzan seemed the merest of nothings.
Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck and terrorized the
town, until his evil star had led him to where the black-haired French
giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.
Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, the Negro made
straight for a party of four men sitting at a table sipping the
inevitable absinthe.
Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then the black
spied Tarzan.
With a roar he charged the ape-man, while half a hundred heads peered
from sheltering windows and doorways to witness the butchering of the
poor Frenchman by the giant black.
Tarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of battle
always brought to his lips.
As the Negro closed upon him, steel muscles gripped the black wrist of
the uplifted knife-hand, and a single swift wrench left the hand
dangling below a broken bone.
With the pain and surprise, the madness left the black man, and as
Tarzan dropped back into his chair the fellow turned, crying with
agony, and dashed wildly toward the native village.
On another occasion as Tarzan and D’Arnot sat at dinner with a number
of other whites, the talk fell upon lions and lion hunting.
Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the king of beasts—some
maintaining that he was an arrant coward, but all agreeing that it was
with a feeling of greater security that they gripped their express
rifles when the monarch of the jungle roared about a camp at night.
D’Arnot and Tarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret, and so none
other than the French officer knew of the ape-man’s familiarity with
the beasts of the jungle.
“Monsieur Tarzan has not expressed himself,” said one of the party. “A
man of his prowess who has spent some time in Africa, as I understand
Monsieur Tarzan has, must have had experiences with lions—yes?”
“Some,” replied Tarzan, dryly. “Enough to know that each of you are
right in your judgment of the characteristics of the lions—you have
met. But one might as well judge all blacks by the fellow who ran amuck
last week, or decide that all whites are cowards because one has met a
cowardly white.
“There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlemen, as
there is among ourselves. Today we may go out and stumble upon a lion
which is over-timid—he runs away from us. To-morrow we may meet his
uncle or his twin brother, and our friends wonder why we do not return
from the jungle. For myself, I always assume that a lion is ferocious,
and so I am never caught off my guard.”
“There would be little pleasure in hunting,” retorted the first
speaker, “if one is afraid of the thing he hunts.”
D’Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!
“I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear,” said Tarzan. “Like
lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only
pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power
to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple
of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a
lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the
pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased
safety which I felt.”
“Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked
into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of
beasts,” laughed the other, good naturedly, but with the merest touch
of sarcasm in his tone.
“And a piece of rope,” added Tarzan.
Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant jungle, as
though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with him.
“There is your opportunity, Monsieur Tarzan,” bantered the Frenchman.
“I am not hungry,” said Tarzan simply.
The men laughed, all but D’Arnot. He alone knew that a savage beast had
spoken its simple reason through the lips of the ape-man.
“But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out there naked,
armed only with a knife and a piece of rope,” said the banterer. “Is it
not so?”
“No,” replied Tarzan. “Only a fool performs any act without reason.”
“Five thousand francs is a reason,” said the other. “I wager you that
amount you cannot bring back a lion from the jungle under the
conditions we have named—naked and armed only with a knife and a piece
of rope.”
Tarzan glanced toward D’Arnot and nodded his head.
“Make it ten thousand,” said D’Arnot.
“Done,” replied the other.
Tarzan arose.
“I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement, so
that if I do not return before daylight I shall have something to wear
through the streets.”
“You are not going now,” exclaimed the wagerer—“at night?”
“Why not?” asked Tarzan. “Numa walks abroad at night—it will be easier
to find him.”
“No,” said the other, “I do not want your blood upon my hands. It will
be foolhardy enough if you go forth by day.”
“I shall go now,” replied Tarzan, and went to his room for his knife
and rope.
The men accompanied him to the edge of the jungle, where he left his
clothes in a small storehouse.
But when he would have entered the blackness of the undergrowth they
tried to dissuade him; and the wagerer was most insistent of all that
he abandon his foolhardy venture.
“I will accede that you have won,” he said, “and the ten thousand
francs are yours if you will but give up this foolish attempt, which
can only end in your death.”
Tarzan laughed, and in another moment the jungle had swallowed him.
The men stood silent for some moments and then slowly turned and walked
back to the hotel veranda.
Tarzan had no sooner entered the jungle than he took to the trees, and
it was with a feeling of exultant freedom that he swung once more
through the forest branches.
This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing like this
in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and
conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance.
At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been.
How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then make toward
the south and his own jungle and cabin.
Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling up wind.
Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound of padded feet and
the brushing of a huge, fur-clad body through the undergrowth.
Tarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently stalked
him until he came into a little patch of moonlight.
Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and,
as he had done it a hundred times in the past, Tarzan made fast the end
to a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom,
dropped to the ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back,
plunged his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.
Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised his voice in the
awesome victory cry of his savage tribe.
For a moment Tarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting emotions of
loyalty to D’Arnot and a mighty lust for the freedom of his own jungle.
At last the vision of a beautiful face, and the memory of warm lips
crushed to his dissolved the fascinating picture he had been drawing of
his old life.
The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across his shoulders and
took to the trees once more.
The men upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.
They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects, and
always the thing uppermost in the mind of each had caused the
conversation to lapse.
“_Mon Dieu_,” said the wagerer at length, “I can endure it no longer. I
am going into the jungle with my express and bring back that mad man.”
“I will go with you,” said one.
“And I”—“And I”—“And I,” chorused the others.
As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some horrid nightmare
they hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headed
toward the jungle—each one heavily armed.
“God! What was that?” suddenly cried one of the party, an Englishman,
as Tarzan’s savage cry came faintly to their ears.
“I heard the same thing once before,” said a Belgian, “when I was in
the gorilla country. My carriers said it was the cry of a great bull
ape who has made a kill.”