Chapter 3
Beasts at Bay
Slowly Tarzan unfolded the note the sailor had thrust into
his hand, and read it. At first it made little impression on his
sorrow-numbed senses, but finally the full purport of the hideous
plot of revenge unfolded itself before his imagination.
"This will explain to you" [the note read] "the exact nature of my
intentions relative to your offspring and to you.
"You were born an ape. You lived naked in the jungles--to your
own we have returned you; but your son shall rise a step above his
sire. It is the immutable law of evolution.
"The father was a beast, but the son shall be a man--he shall take
the next ascending step in the scale of progress. He shall be no
naked beast of the jungle, but shall wear a loincloth and copper
anklets, and, perchance, a ring in his nose, for he is to be reared
by men--a tribe of savage cannibals.
"I might have killed you, but that would have curtailed the full
measure of the punishment you have earned at my hands.
"Dead, you could not have suffered in the knowledge of your son's
plight; but living and in a place from which you may not escape to
seek or succour your child, you shall suffer worse than death for
all the years of your life in contemplation of the horrors of your
son's existence.
"This, then, is to be a part of your punishment for having dared
to pit yourself against
N. R.
"P.S.--The balance of your punishment has to do with what shall
presently befall your wife--that I shall leave to your imagination."
As he finished reading, a slight sound behind him brought him back
with a start to the world of present realities.
Instantly his senses awoke, and he was again Tarzan of the Apes.
As he wheeled about, it was a beast at bay, vibrant with the instinct
of self-preservation, that faced a huge bull-ape that was already
charging down upon him.
The two years that had elapsed since Tarzan had come out of the
savage forest with his rescued mate had witnessed slight diminution
of the mighty powers that had made him the invincible lord of the
jungle. His great estates in Uziri had claimed much of his time
and attention, and there he had found ample field for the practical
use and retention of his almost superhuman powers; but naked and
unarmed to do battle with the shaggy, bull-necked beast that now
confronted him was a test that the ape-man would scarce have welcomed
at any period of his wild existence.
But there was no alternative other than to meet the rage-maddened
creature with the weapons with which nature had endowed him.
Over the bull's shoulder Tarzan could see now the heads and shoulders
of perhaps a dozen more of these mighty fore-runners of primitive
man.
He knew, however, that there was little chance that they would attack
him, since it is not within the reasoning powers of the anthropoid
to be able to weigh or appreciate the value of concentrated action
against an enemy--otherwise they would long since have become
the dominant creatures of their haunts, so tremendous a power of
destruction lies in their mighty thews and savage fangs.
With a low snarl the beast now hurled himself at Tarzan, but the
ape-man had found, among other things in the haunts of civilized
man, certain methods of scientific warfare that are unknown to the
jungle folk.
Whereas, a few years since, he would have met the brute rush with
brute force, he now sidestepped his antagonist's headlong charge,
and as the brute hurtled past him swung a mighty right to the pit
of the ape's stomach.
With a howl of mingled rage and anguish the great anthropoid bent
double and sank to the ground, though almost instantly he was again
struggling to his feet.
Before he could regain them, however, his white-skinned foe had
wheeled and pounced upon him, and in the act there dropped from
the shoulders of the English lord the last shred of his superficial
mantle of civilization.
Once again he was the jungle beast revelling in bloody conflict
with his kind. Once again he was Tarzan, son of Kala the she-ape.
His strong, white teeth sank into the hairy throat of his enemy as
he sought the pulsing jugular.
Powerful fingers held the mighty fangs from his own flesh, or
clenched and beat with the power of a steam-hammer upon the snarling,
foam-flecked face of his adversary.
In a circle about them the balance of the tribe of apes stood
watching and enjoying the struggle. They muttered low gutturals
of approval as bits of white hide or hairy bloodstained skin were
torn from one contestant or the other. But they were silent in
amazement and expectation when they saw the mighty white ape wriggle
upon the back of their king, and, with steel muscles tensed beneath
the armpits of his antagonist, bear down mightily with his open
palms upon the back of the thick bullneck, so that the king ape
could but shriek in agony and flounder helplessly about upon the
thick mat of jungle grass.
As Tarzan had overcome the huge Terkoz that time years before when
he had been about to set out upon his quest for human beings of his
own kind and colour, so now he overcame this other great ape with
the same wrestling hold upon which he had stumbled by accident
during that other combat. The little audience of fierce anthropoids
heard the creaking of their king's neck mingling with his agonized
shrieks and hideous roaring.
Then there came a sudden crack, like the breaking of a stout limb
before the fury of the wind. The bullet-head crumpled forward
upon its flaccid neck against the great hairy chest--the roaring
and the shrieking ceased.
The little pig-eyes of the onlookers wandered from the still form
of their leader to that of the white ape that was rising to its
feet beside the vanquished, then back to their king as though in
wonder that he did not arise and slay this presumptuous stranger.
They saw the new-comer place a foot upon the neck of the quiet
figure at his feet and, throwing back his head, give vent to the
wild, uncanny challenge of the bull-ape that has made a kill. Then
they knew that their king was dead.
Across the jungle rolled the horrid notes of the victory cry.
The little monkeys in the tree-tops ceased their chattering. The
harsh-voiced, brilliant-plumed birds were still. From afar came
the answering wail of a leopard and the deep roar of a lion.
It was the old Tarzan who turned questioning eyes upon the little
knot of apes before him. It was the old Tarzan who shook his head
as though to toss back a heavy mane that had fallen before his
face--an old habit dating from the days that his great shock of
thick, black hair had fallen about his shoulders, and often tumbled
before his eyes when it had meant life or death to him to have his
vision unobstructed.
The ape-man knew that he might expect an immediate attack on the
part of that particular surviving bull-ape who felt himself best
fitted to contend for the kingship of the tribe. Among his own
apes he knew that it was not unusual for an entire stranger to
enter a community and, after having dispatched the king, assume the
leadership of the tribe himself, together with the fallen monarch's
mates.
On the other hand, if he made no attempt to follow them, they might
move slowly away from him, later to fight among themselves for the
supremacy. That he could be king of them, if he so chose, he was
confident; but he was not sure he cared to assume the sometimes
irksome duties of that position, for he could see no particular
advantage to be gained thereby.
One of the younger apes, a huge, splendidly muscled brute, was edging
threateningly closer to the ape-man. Through his bared fighting
fangs there issued a low, sullen growl.
Tarzan watched his every move, standing rigid as a statue. To
have fallen back a step would have been to precipitate an immediate
charge; to have rushed forward to meet the other might have had the
same result, or it might have put the bellicose one to flight--it
all depended upon the young bull's stock of courage.
To stand perfectly still, waiting, was the middle course. In this
event the bull would, according to custom, approach quite close to
the object of his attention, growling hideously and baring slavering
fangs. Slowly he would circle about the other, as though with a
chip upon his shoulder; and this he did, even as Tarzan had foreseen.
It might be a bluff royal, or, on the other hand, so unstable is
the mind of an ape, a passing impulse might hurl the hairy mass,
tearing and rending, upon the man without an instant's warning.
As the brute circled him Tarzan turned slowly, keeping his eyes
ever upon the eyes of his antagonist. He had appraised the young
bull as one who had never quite felt equal to the task of overthrowing
his former king, but who one day would have done so. Tarzan saw
that the beast was of wondrous proportions, standing over seven
feet upon his short, bowed legs.
His great, hairy arms reached almost to the ground even when he
stood erect, and his fighting fangs, now quite close to Tarzan's
face, were exceptionally long and sharp. Like the others of his
tribe, he differed in several minor essentials from the apes of
Tarzan's boyhood.
At first the ape-man had experienced a thrill of hope at sight of
the shaggy bodies of the anthropoids--a hope that by some strange
freak of fate he had been again returned to his own tribe; but a
closer inspection had convinced him that these were another species.
As the threatening bull continued his stiff and jerky circling of
the ape-man, much after the manner that you have noted among dogs
when a strange canine comes among them, it occurred to Tarzan to
discover if the language of his own tribe was identical with that
of this other family, and so he addressed the brute in the language
of the tribe of Kerchak.
"Who are you," he asked, "who threatens Tarzan of the Apes?"
The hairy brute looked his surprise.
"I am Akut," replied the other in the same simple, primal tongue
which is so low in the scale of spoken languages that, as Tarzan
had surmised, it was identical with that of the tribe in which the
first twenty years of his life had been spent.
"I am Akut," said the ape. "Molak is dead. I am king. Go away
or I shall kill you!"
"You saw how easily I killed Molak," replied Tarzan. "So I could
kill you if I cared to be king. But Tarzan of the Apes would not
be king of the tribe of Akut. All he wishes is to live in peace
in this country. Let us be friends. Tarzan of the Apes can help
you, and you can help Tarzan of the Apes."
"You cannot kill Akut," replied the other. "None is so great as
Akut. Had you not killed Molak, Akut would have done so, for Akut
was ready to be king."
For answer the ape-man hurled himself upon the great brute who
during the conversation had slightly relaxed his vigilance.
In the twinkling of an eye the man had seized the wrist of the
great ape, and before the other could grapple with him had whirled
him about and leaped upon his broad back.
Down they went together, but so well had Tarzan's plan worked out
that before ever they touched the ground he had gained the same
hold upon Akut that had broken Molak's neck.
Slowly he brought the pressure to bear, and then as in days gone
by he had given Kerchak the chance to surrender and live, so now
he gave to Akut--in whom he saw a possible ally of great strength
and resource--the option of living in amity with him or dying as
he had just seen his savage and heretofore invincible king die.
"Ka-Goda?" whispered Tarzan to the ape beneath him.
It was the same question that he had whispered to Kerchak, and in
the language of the apes it means, broadly, "Do you surrender?"
Akut thought of the creaking sound he had heard just before Molak's
thick neck had snapped, and he shuddered.
He hated to give up the kingship, though, so again he struggled
to free himself; but a sudden torturing pressure upon his vertebra
brought an agonized "ka-goda!" from his lips.
Tarzan relaxed his grip a trifle.
"You may still be king, Akut," he said. "Tarzan told you that he
did not wish to be king. If any question your right, Tarzan of
the Apes will help you in your battles."
The ape-man rose, and Akut came slowly to his feet. Shaking his
bullet head and growling angrily, he waddled toward his tribe,
looking first at one and then at another of the larger bulls who
might be expected to challenge his leadership.
But none did so; instead, they drew away as he approached, and
presently the whole pack moved off into the jungle, and Tarzan was
left alone once more upon the beach.
The ape-man was sore from the wounds that Molak had inflicted upon
him, but he was inured to physical suffering and endured it with
the calm and fortitude of the wild beasts that had taught him to
lead the jungle life after the manner of all those that are born
to it.
His first need, he realized, was for weapons of offence and defence,
for his encounter with the apes, and the distant notes of the savage
voices of Numa the lion, and Sheeta, the panther, warned him that
his was to be no life of indolent ease and security.
It was but a return to the old existence of constant bloodshed and
danger--to the hunting and the being hunted. Grim beasts would
stalk him, as they had stalked him in the past, and never would
there be a moment, by savage day or by cruel night, that he might
not have instant need of such crude weapons as he could fashion
from the materials at hand.
Upon the shore he found an out-cropping of brittle, igneous rock.
By dint of much labour he managed to chip off a narrow sliver some
twelve inches long by a quarter of an inch thick. One edge was
quite thin for a few inches near the tip. It was the rudiment of
a knife.
With it he went into the jungle, searching until he found a fallen
tree of a certain species of hardwood with which he was familiar.
From this he cut a small straight branch, which he pointed at one
end.
Then he scooped a small, round hole in the surface of the prostrate
trunk. Into this he crumbled a few bits of dry bark, minutely
shredded, after which he inserted the tip of his pointed stick,
and, sitting astride the bole of the tree, spun the slender rod
rapidly between his palms.
After a time a thin smoke rose from the little mass of tinder, and
a moment later the whole broke into flame. Heaping some larger
twigs and sticks upon the tiny fire, Tarzan soon had quite a
respectable blaze roaring in the enlarging cavity of the dead tree.
Into this he thrust the blade of his stone knife, and as it became
superheated he would withdraw it, touching a spot near the thin
edge with a drop of moisture. Beneath the wetted area a little
flake of the glassy material would crack and scale away.
Thus, very slowly, the ape-man commenced the tedious operation of
putting a thin edge upon his primitive hunting-knife.
He did not attempt to accomplish the feat all in one sitting.
At first he was content to achieve a cutting edge of a couple of
inches, with which he cut a long, pliable bow, a handle for his
knife, a stout cudgel, and a goodly supply of arrows.
These he cached in a tall tree beside a little stream, and here also
he constructed a platform with a roof of palm-leaves above it.
When all these things had been finished it was growing dusk, and
Tarzan felt a strong desire to eat.
He had noted during the brief incursion he had made into the forest
that a short distance up-stream from his tree there was a much-used
watering place, where, from the trampled mud of either bank, it
was evident beasts of all sorts and in great numbers came to drink.
To this spot the hungry ape-man made his silent way.
Through the upper terrace of the tree-tops he swung with the grace
and ease of a monkey. But for the heavy burden upon his heart he
would have been happy in this return to the old free life of his
boyhood.
Yet even with that burden he fell into the little habits and
manners of his early life that were in reality more a part of him
than the thin veneer of civilization that the past three years of
his association with the white men of the outer world had spread
lightly over him--a veneer that only hid the crudities of the beast
that Tarzan of the Apes had been.
Could his fellow-peers of the House of Lords have seen him then
they would have held up their noble hands in holy horror.
Silently he crouched in the lower branches of a great forest giant
that overhung the trail, his keen eyes and sensitive ears strained
into the distant jungle, from which he knew his dinner would
presently emerge.
Nor had he long to wait.
Scarce had he settled himself to a comfortable position, his lithe,
muscular legs drawn well up beneath him as the panther draws his
hindquarters in preparation for the spring, than Bara, the deer,
came daintily down to drink.
But more than Bara was coming. Behind the graceful buck came another
which the deer could neither see nor scent, but whose movements were
apparent to Tarzan of the Apes because of the elevated position of
the ape-man's ambush.
He knew not yet exactly the nature of the thing that moved so
stealthily through the jungle a few hundred yards behind the deer;
but he was convinced that it was some great beast of prey stalking
Bara for the selfsame purpose as that which prompted him to await
the fleet animal. Numa, perhaps, or Sheeta, the panther.
In any event, Tarzan could see his repast slipping from his grasp
unless Bara moved more rapidly toward the ford than at present.
Even as these thoughts passed through his mind some noise of the
stalker in his rear must have come to the buck, for with a sudden
start he paused for an instant, trembling, in his tracks, and then
with a swift bound dashed straight for the river and Tarzan. It
was his intention to flee through the shallow ford and escape upon
the opposite side of the river.
Not a hundred yards behind him came Numa.
Tarzan could see him quite plainly now. Below the ape-man Bara
was about to pass. Could he do it? But even as he asked himself
the question the hungry man launched himself from his perch full
upon the back of the startled buck.
In another instant Numa would be upon them both, so if the ape-man
were to dine that night, or ever again, he must act quickly.
Scarcely had he touched the sleek hide of the deer with a momentum
that sent the animal to its knees than he had grasped a horn in
either hand, and with a single quick wrench twisted the animal's
neck completely round, until he felt the vertebrae snap beneath
his grip.
The lion was roaring in rage close behind him as he swung the deer
across his shoulder, and, grasping a foreleg between his strong
teeth, leaped for the nearest of the lower branches that swung
above his head.
With both hands he grasped the limb, and, at the instant that Numa
sprang, drew himself and his prey out of reach of the animal's
cruel talons.
There was a thud below him as the baffled cat fell back to earth,
and then Tarzan of the Apes, drawing his dinner farther up to the
safety of a higher limb, looked down with grinning face into the
gleaming yellow eyes of the other wild beast that glared up at him
from beneath, and with taunting insults flaunted the tender carcass
of his kill in the face of him whom he had cheated of it.
With his crude stone knife he cut a juicy steak from the hindquarters,
and while the great lion paced, growling, back and forth below him,
Lord Greystoke filled his savage belly, nor ever in the choicest
of his exclusive London clubs had a meal tasted more palatable.
The warm blood of his kill smeared his hands and face and filled
his nostrils with the scent that the savage carnivora love best.
And when he had finished he left the balance of the carcass in
a high fork of the tree where he had dined, and with Numa trailing
below him, still keen for revenge, he made his way back to his tree-top
shelter, where he slept until the sun was high the following morning.
