The Beasts of Tarzan
By Edgar Rice Burroughs
To Joan Burroughs
Chapter 1
Kidnapped
"The entire affair is shrouded in mystery," said D'Arnot. "I have
it on the best of authority that neither the police nor the special
agents of the general staff have the faintest conception of how it
was accomplished. All they know, all that anyone knows, is that
Nikolas Rokoff has escaped."
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke--he who had been "Tarzan of the
Apes"--sat in silence in the apartments of his friend, Lieutenant
Paul D'Arnot, in Paris, gazing meditatively at the toe of his
immaculate boot.
His mind revolved many memories, recalled by the escape of his
arch-enemy from the French military prison to which he had been
sentenced for life upon the testimony of the ape-man.
He thought of the lengths to which Rokoff had once gone to compass
his death, and he realized that what the man had already done would
doubtless be as nothing by comparison with what he would wish and
plot to do now that he was again free.
Tarzan had recently brought his wife and infant son to London to
escape the discomforts and dangers of the rainy season upon their
vast estate in Uziri--the land of the savage Waziri warriors whose
broad African domains the ape-man had once ruled.
He had run across the Channel for a brief visit with his old friend,
but the news of the Russian's escape had already cast a shadow upon
his outing, so that though he had but just arrived he was already
contemplating an immediate return to London.
"It is not that I fear for myself, Paul," he said at last. "Many
times in the past have I thwarted Rokoff's designs upon my life;
but now there are others to consider. Unless I misjudge the man,
he would more quickly strike at me through my wife or son than
directly at me, for he doubtless realizes that in no other way
could he inflict greater anguish upon me. I must go back to them
at once, and remain with them until Rokoff is recaptured--or dead."
As these two talked in Paris, two other men were talking together
in a little cottage upon the outskirts of London. Both were dark,
sinister-looking men.
One was bearded, but the other, whose face wore the pallor of long
confinement within doors, had but a few days' growth of black beard
upon his face. It was he who was speaking.
"You must needs shave off that beard of yours, Alexis," he said
to his companion. "With it he would recognize you on the instant.
We must separate here in the hour, and when we meet again upon the
deck of the Kincaid, let us hope that we shall have with us two
honoured guests who little anticipate the pleasant voyage we have
planned for them.
"In two hours I should be upon my way to Dover with one of them,
and by tomorrow night, if you follow my instructions carefully, you
should arrive with the other, provided, of course, that he returns
to London as quickly as I presume he will.
"There should be both profit and pleasure as well as other good things
to reward our efforts, my dear Alexis. Thanks to the stupidity of
the French, they have gone to such lengths to conceal the fact of
my escape for these many days that I have had ample opportunity
to work out every detail of our little adventure so carefully that
there is little chance of the slightest hitch occurring to mar our
prospects. And now good-bye, and good luck!"
Three hours later a messenger mounted the steps to the apartment
of Lieutenant D'Arnot.
"A telegram for Lord Greystoke," he said to the servant who answered
his summons. "Is he here?"
The man answered in the affirmative, and, signing for the message,
carried it within to Tarzan, who was already preparing to depart
for London.
Tarzan tore open the envelope, and as he read his face went white.
"Read it, Paul," he said, handing the slip of paper to D'Arnot.
"It has come already."
The Frenchman took the telegram and read:
"Jack stolen from the garden through complicity of new servant.
Come at once.--JANE."
As Tarzan leaped from the roadster that had met him at the station
and ran up the steps to his London town house he was met at the
door by a dry-eyed but almost frantic woman.
Quickly Jane Porter Clayton narrated all that she had been able to
learn of the theft of the boy.
The baby's nurse had been wheeling him in the sunshine on the walk
before the house when a closed taxicab drew up at the corner of the
street. The woman had paid but passing attention to the vehicle,
merely noting that it discharged no passenger, but stood at the
kerb with the motor running as though waiting for a fare from the
residence before which it had stopped.
Almost immediately the new houseman, Carl, had come running from
the Greystoke house, saying that the girl's mistress wished to
speak with her for a moment, and that she was to leave little Jack
in his care until she returned.
The woman said that she entertained not the slightest suspicion of
the man's motives until she had reached the doorway of the house,
when it occurred to her to warn him not to turn the carriage so as
to permit the sun to shine in the baby's eyes.
As she turned about to call this to him she was somewhat surprised
to see that he was wheeling the carriage rapidly toward the corner,
and at the same time she saw the door of the taxicab open and a
swarthy face framed for a moment in the aperture.
Intuitively, the danger to the child flashed upon her, and with a
shriek she dashed down the steps and up the walk toward the taxicab,
into which Carl was now handing the baby to the swarthy one within.
Just before she reached the vehicle, Carl leaped in beside his
confederate, slamming the door behind him. At the same time the
chauffeur attempted to start his machine, but it was evident that
something had gone wrong, as though the gears refused to mesh, and
the delay caused by this, while he pushed the lever into reverse
and backed the car a few inches before again attempting to go ahead,
gave the nurse time to reach the side of the taxicab.
Leaping to the running-board, she had attempted to snatch the baby
from the arms of the stranger, and here, screaming and fighting, she
had clung to her position even after the taxicab had got under way;
nor was it until the machine had passed the Greystoke residence at
good speed that Carl, with a heavy blow to her face, had succeeded
in knocking her to the pavement.
Her screams had attracted servants and members of the families
from residences near by, as well as from the Greystoke home. Lady
Greystoke had witnessed the girl's brave battle, and had herself
tried to reach the rapidly passing vehicle, but had been too late.
That was all that anyone knew, nor did Lady Greystoke dream of the
possible identity of the man at the bottom of the plot until her
husband told her of the escape of Nikolas Rokoff from the French
prison where they had hoped he was permanently confined.
As Tarzan and his wife stood planning the wisest course to pursue,
the telephone bell rang in the library at their right. Tarzan
quickly answered the call in person.
"Lord Greystoke?" asked a man's voice at the other end of the line.
"Yes."
"Your son has been stolen," continued the voice, "and I alone may
help you to recover him. I am conversant with the plot of those
who took him. In fact, I was a party to it, and was to share in
the reward, but now they are trying to ditch me, and to be quits
with them I will aid you to recover him on condition that you will
not prosecute me for my part in the crime. What do you say?"
"If you lead me to where my son is hidden," replied the ape-man,
"you need fear nothing from me."
"Good," replied the other. "But you must come alone to meet me,
for it is enough that I must trust you. I cannot take the chance
of permitting others to learn my identity."
"Where and when may I meet you?" asked Tarzan.
The other gave the name and location of a public-house on the
water-front at Dover--a place frequented by sailors.
"Come," he concluded, "about ten o'clock tonight. It would do
no good to arrive earlier. Your son will be safe enough in the
meantime, and I can then lead you secretly to where he is hidden.
But be sure to come alone, and under no circumstances notify Scotland
Yard, for I know you well and shall be watching for you.
"Should any other accompany you, or should I see suspicious characters
who might be agents of the police, I shall not meet you, and your
last chance of recovering your son will be gone."
Without more words the man rang off.
Tarzan repeated the gist of the conversation to his wife. She
begged to be allowed to accompany him, but he insisted that it
might result in the man's carrying out his threat of refusing to
aid them if Tarzan did not come alone, and so they parted, he to
hasten to Dover, and she, ostensibly to wait at home until he should
notify her of the outcome of his mission.
Little did either dream of what both were destined to pass through
before they should meet again, or the far-distant--but why anticipate?
For ten minutes after the ape-man had left her Jane Clayton walked
restlessly back and forth across the silken rugs of the library.
Her mother heart ached, bereft of its firstborn. Her mind was in
an anguish of hopes and fears.
Though her judgment told her that all would be well were her Tarzan
to go alone in accordance with the mysterious stranger's summons,
her intuition would not permit her to lay aside suspicion of the
gravest dangers to both her husband and her son.
The more she thought of the matter, the more convinced she became
that the recent telephone message might be but a ruse to keep them
inactive until the boy was safely hidden away or spirited out of
England. Or it might be that it had been simply a bait to lure
Tarzan into the hands of the implacable Rokoff.
With the lodgment of this thought she stopped in wide-eyed terror.
Instantly it became a conviction. She glanced at the great clock
ticking the minutes in the corner of the library.
It was too late to catch the Dover train that Tarzan was to take.
There was another, later, however, that would bring her to the
Channel port in time to reach the address the stranger had given
her husband before the appointed hour.
Summoning her maid and chauffeur, she issued instructions rapidly.
Ten minutes later she was being whisked through the crowded streets
toward the railway station.
It was nine-forty-five that night that Tarzan entered the squalid
"pub" on the water-front in Dover. As he passed into the evil-smelling
room a muffled figure brushed past him toward the street.
"Come, my lord!" whispered the stranger.
The ape-man wheeled about and followed the other into the ill-lit
alley, which custom had dignified with the title of thoroughfare.
Once outside, the fellow led the way into the darkness, nearer a
wharf, where high-piled bales, boxes, and casks cast dense shadows.
Here he halted.
"Where is the boy?" asked Greystoke.
"On that small steamer whose lights you can just see yonder,"
replied the other.
In the gloom Tarzan was trying to peer into the features of his
companion, but he did not recognize the man as one whom he had ever
before seen. Had he guessed that his guide was Alexis Paulvitch
he would have realized that naught but treachery lay in the man's
heart, and that danger lurked in the path of every move.
"He is unguarded now," continued the Russian. "Those who took
him feel perfectly safe from detection, and with the exception of
a couple of members of the crew, whom I have furnished with enough
gin to silence them effectually for hours, there is none aboard
the Kincaid. We can go aboard, get the child, and return without
the slightest fear."
Tarzan nodded.
"Let's be about it, then," he said.
His guide led him to a small boat moored alongside the wharf. The
two men entered, and Paulvitch pulled rapidly toward the steamer.
The black smoke issuing from her funnel did not at the time make
any suggestion to Tarzan's mind. All his thoughts were occupied
with the hope that in a few moments he would again have his little
son in his arms.
At the steamer's side they found a monkey-ladder dangling close
above them, and up this the two men crept stealthily. Once on
deck they hastened aft to where the Russian pointed to a hatch.
"The boy is hidden there," he said. "You had better go down after
him, as there is less chance that he will cry in fright than should
he find himself in the arms of a stranger. I will stand on guard
here."
So anxious was Tarzan to rescue the child that he gave not the
slightest thought to the strangeness of all the conditions surrounding
the Kincaid. That her deck was deserted, though she had steam up,
and from the volume of smoke pouring from her funnel was all ready
to get under way made no impression upon him.
With the thought that in another instant he would fold that precious
little bundle of humanity in his arms, the ape-man swung down into
the darkness below. Scarcely had he released his hold upon the edge
of the hatch than the heavy covering fell clattering above him.
Instantly he knew that he was the victim of a plot, and that far
from rescuing his son he had himself fallen into the hands of his
enemies. Though he immediately endeavoured to reach the hatch and
lift the cover, he was unable to do so.
Striking a match, he explored his surroundings, finding that a little
compartment had been partitioned off from the main hold, with the
hatch above his head the only means of ingress or egress. It was
evident that the room had been prepared for the very purpose of
serving as a cell for himself.
There was nothing in the compartment, and no other occupant. If
the child was on board the Kincaid he was confined elsewhere.
For over twenty years, from infancy to manhood, the ape-man had
roamed his savage jungle haunts without human companionship of
any nature. He had learned at the most impressionable period of
his life to take his pleasures and his sorrows as the beasts take
theirs.
So it was that he neither raved nor stormed against fate, but instead
waited patiently for what might next befall him, though not by any
means without an eye to doing the utmost to succour himself. To
this end he examined his prison carefully, tested the heavy planking
that formed its walls, and measured the distance of the hatch above
him.
And while he was thus occupied there came suddenly to him the
vibration of machinery and the throbbing of the propeller.
The ship was moving! Where to and to what fate was it carrying
him?
And even as these thoughts passed through his mind there came to
his ears above the din of the engines that which caused him to go
cold with apprehension.
Clear and shrill from the deck above him rang the scream of a
frightened woman.
