Chapter 21
The Law of the Jungle
In Tarzan's camp, by dint of threats and promised rewards, the
ape-man had finally succeeded in getting the hull of a large skiff
almost completed. Much of the work he and Mugambi had done with
their own hands in addition to furnishing the camp with meat.
Schneider, the mate, had been doing considerable grumbling, and
had at last openly deserted the work and gone off into the jungle
with Schmidt to hunt. He said that he wanted a rest, and Tarzan,
rather than add to the unpleasantness which already made camp life
almost unendurable, had permitted the two men to depart without a
remonstrance.
Upon the following day, however, Schneider affected a feeling of
remorse for his action, and set to work with a will upon the skiff.
Schmidt also worked good-naturedly, and Lord Greystoke congratulated
himself that at last the men had awakened to the necessity for the
labour which was being asked of them and to their obligations to
the balance of the party.
It was with a feeling of greater relief than he had experienced for
many a day that he set out that noon to hunt deep in the jungle for
a herd of small deer which Schneider reported that he and Schmidt
had seen there the day before.
The direction in which Schneider had reported seeing the deer was
toward the south-west, and to that point the ape-man swung easily
through the tangled verdure of the forest.
And as he went there approached from the north a half-dozen
ill-featured men who went stealthily through the jungle as go men
bent upon the commission of a wicked act.
They thought that they travelled unseen; but behind them, almost
from the moment they quitted their own camp, a tall man crept upon
their trail. In the man's eyes were hate and fear, and a great
curiosity. Why went Kai Shang and Momulla and the others thus
stealthily toward the south? What did they expect to find there?
Gust shook his low-browed head in perplexity. But he would know.
He would follow them and learn their plans, and then if he could
thwart them he would--that went without question.
At first he had thought that they searched for him; but finally
his better judgment assured him that such could not be the case,
since they had accomplished all they really desired by chasing him
out of camp. Never would Kai Shang or Momulla go to such pains to
slay him or another unless it would put money into their pockets,
and as Gust had no money it was evident that they were searching
for someone else.
Presently the party he trailed came to a halt. Its members concealed
themselves in the foliage bordering the game trail along which they
had come. Gust, that he might the better observe, clambered into
the branches of a tree to the rear of them, being careful that the
leafy fronds hid him from the view of his erstwhile mates.
He had not long to wait before he saw a strange white man approach
carefully along the trail from the south.
At sight of the newcomer Momulla and Kai Shang arose from their
places of concealment and greeted him. Gust could not overhear
what passed between them. Then the man returned in the direction
from which he had come.
He was Schneider. Nearing his camp he circled to the opposite side
of it, and presently came running in breathlessly. Excitedly he
hastened to Mugambi.
"Quick!" he cried. "Those apes of yours have caught Schmidt and
will kill him if we do not hasten to his aid. You alone can call
them off. Take Jones and Sullivan--you may need help--and get to
him as quick as you can. Follow the game trail south for about
a mile. I will remain here. I am too spent with running to go
back with you," and the mate of the Kincaid threw himself upon the
ground, panting as though he was almost done for.
Mugambi hesitated. He had been left to guard the two women. He
did not know what to do, and then Jane Clayton, who had heard
Schneider's story, added her pleas to those of the mate.
"Do not delay," she urged. "We shall be all right here. Mr.
Schneider will remain with us. Go, Mugambi. The poor fellow must
be saved."
Schmidt, who lay hidden in a bush at the edge of the camp, grinned.
Mugambi, heeding the commands of his mistress, though still doubtful
of the wisdom of his action, started off toward the south, with
Jones and Sullivan at his heels.
No sooner had he disappeared than Schmidt rose and darted north
into the jungle, and a few minutes later the face of Kai Shang of
Fachan appeared at the edge of the clearing. Schneider saw the
Chinaman, and motioned to him that the coast was clear.
Jane Clayton and the Mosula woman were sitting at the opening of
the former's tent, their backs toward the approaching ruffians.
The first intimation that either had of the presence of strangers
in camp was the sudden appearance of a half-dozen ragged villains
about them.
"Come!" said Kai Shang, motioning that the two arise and follow
him.
Jane Clayton sprang to her feet and looked about for Schneider,
only to see him standing behind the newcomers, a grin upon his
face. At his side stood Schmidt. Instantly she saw that she had
been made the victim of a plot.
"What is the meaning of this?" she asked, addressing the mate.
"It means that we have found a ship and that we can now escape from
Jungle Island," replied the man.
"Why did you send Mugambi and the others into the jungle?" she
inquired.
"They are not coming with us--only you and I, and the Mosula woman."
"Come!" repeated Kai Shang, and seized Jane Clayton's wrist.
One of the Maoris grasped the black woman by the arm, and when she
would have screamed struck her across the mouth.
Mugambi raced through the jungle toward the south. Jones and
Sullivan trailed far behind. For a mile he continued upon his way
to the relief of Schmidt, but no signs saw he of the missing man
or of any of the apes of Akut.
At last he halted and called aloud the summons which he and Tarzan
had used to hail the great anthropoids. There was no response.
Jones and Sullivan came up with the black warrior as the latter
stood voicing his weird call. For another half-mile the black
searched, calling occasionally.
Finally the truth flashed upon him, and then, like a frightened
deer, he wheeled and dashed back toward camp. Arriving there, it
was but a moment before full confirmation of his fears was impressed
upon him. Lady Greystoke and the Mosula woman were gone. So,
likewise, was Schneider.
When Jones and Sullivan joined Mugambi he would have killed them
in his anger, thinking them parties to the plot; but they finally
succeeded in partially convincing him that they had known nothing
of it.
As they stood speculating upon the probable whereabouts of the
women and their abductor, and the purpose which Schneider had in
mind in taking them from camp, Tarzan of the Apes swung from the
branches of a tree and crossed the clearing toward them.
His keen eyes detected at once that something was radically wrong,
and when he had heard Mugambi's story his jaws clicked angrily
together as he knitted his brows in thought.
What could the mate hope to accomplish by taking Jane Clayton from
a camp upon a small island from which there was no escape from the
vengeance of Tarzan? The ape-man could not believe the fellow such
a fool, and then a slight realization of the truth dawned upon him.
Schneider would not have committed such an act unless he had been
reasonably sure that there was a way by which he could quit Jungle
Island with his prisoners. But why had he taken the black woman
as well? There must have been others, one of whom wanted the dusky
female.
"Come," said Tarzan, "there is but one thing to do now, and that
is to follow the trail."
As he finished speaking a tall, ungainly figure emerged from the
jungle north of the camp. He came straight toward the four men. He
was an entire stranger to all of them, not one of whom had dreamed
that another human being than those of their own camp dwelt upon
the unfriendly shores of Jungle Island.
It was Gust. He came directly to the point.
"Your women were stolen," he said. "If you want ever to see them
again, come quickly and follow me. If we do not hurry the Cowrie
will be standing out to sea by the time we reach her anchorage."
"Who are you?" asked Tarzan. "What do you know of the theft of my
wife and the black woman?"
"I heard Kai Shang and Momulla the Maori plot with two men of your
camp. They had chased me from our camp, and would have killed me.
Now I will get even with them. Come!"
Gust led the four men of the Kincaid's camp at a rapid trot through
the jungle toward the north. Would they come to the sea in time?
But a few more minutes would answer the question.
And when at last the little party did break through the last of the
screening foliage, and the harbour and the ocean lay before them,
they realized that fate had been most cruelly unkind, for the Cowrie
was already under sail and moving slowly out of the mouth of the
harbour into the open sea.
What were they to do? Tarzan's broad chest rose and fell to the
force of his pent emotions. The last blow seemed to have fallen,
and if ever in all his life Tarzan of the Apes had had occasion to
abandon hope it was now that he saw the ship bearing his wife to
some frightful fate moving gracefully over the rippling water, so
very near and yet so hideously far away.
In silence he stood watching the vessel. He saw it turn toward
the east and finally disappear around a headland on its way he knew
not whither. Then he dropped upon his haunches and buried his face
in his hands.
It was after dark that the five men returned to the camp on the
east shore. The night was hot and sultry. No slightest breeze
ruffled the foliage of the trees or rippled the mirror-like surface
of the ocean. Only a gentle swell rolled softly in upon the beach.
Never had Tarzan seen the great Atlantic so ominously at peace.
He was standing at the edge of the beach gazing out to sea
in the direction of the mainland, his mind filled with sorrow and
hopelessness, when from the jungle close behind the camp came the
uncanny wail of a panther.
There was a familiar note in the weird cry, and almost mechanically
Tarzan turned his head and answered. A moment later the tawny
figure of Sheeta slunk out into the half-light of the beach. There
was no moon, but the sky was brilliant with stars. Silently the
savage brute came to the side of the man. It had been long since
Tarzan had seen his old fighting companion, but the soft purr was
sufficient to assure him that the animal still recalled the bonds
which had united them in the past.
The ape-man let his fingers fall upon the beast's coat, and as
Sheeta pressed close against his leg he caressed and fondled the
wicked head while his eyes continued to search the blackness of
the waters.
Presently he started. What was that? He strained his eyes into
the night. Then he turned and called aloud to the men smoking
upon their blankets in the camp. They came running to his side;
but Gust hesitated when he saw the nature of Tarzan's companion.
"Look!" cried Tarzan. "A light! A ship's light! It must be
the Cowrie. They are becalmed." And then with an exclamation of
renewed hope, "We can reach them! The skiff will carry us easily."
Gust demurred. "They are well armed," he warned. "We could not
take the ship--just five of us."
"There are six now," replied Tarzan, pointing to Sheeta, "and we
can have more still in a half-hour. Sheeta is the equivalent of
twenty men, and the few others I can bring will add full a hundred
to our fighting strength. You do not know them."
The ape-man turned and raised his head toward the jungle, while
there pealed from his lips, time after time, the fearsome cry of
the bull-ape who would summon his fellows.
Presently from the jungle came an answering cry, and then another
and another. Gust shuddered. Among what sort of creatures had
fate thrown him? Were not Kai Shang and Momulla to be preferred
to this great white giant who stroked a panther and called to the
beasts of the jungle?
In a few minutes the apes of Akut came crashing through the
underbrush and out upon the beach, while in the meantime the five
men had been struggling with the unwieldy bulk of the skiff's hull.
By dint of Herculean efforts they had managed to get it to the
water's edge. The oars from the two small boats of the Kincaid,
which had been washed away by an off-shore wind the very night
that the party had landed, had been in use to support the canvas of
the sailcloth tents. These were hastily requisitioned, and by the
time Akut and his followers came down to the water all was ready
for embarkation.
Once again the hideous crew entered the service of their master,
and without question took up their places in the skiff. The four
men, for Gust could not be prevailed upon to accompany the party,
fell to the oars, using them paddle-wise, while some of the apes
followed their example, and presently the ungainly skiff was moving
quietly out to sea in the direction of the light which rose and
fell gently with the swell.
A sleepy sailor kept a poor vigil upon the Cowrie's deck, while
in the cabin below Schneider paced up and down arguing with Jane
Clayton. The woman had found a revolver in a table drawer in the
room in which she had been locked, and now she kept the mate of
the Kincaid at bay with the weapon.
The Mosula woman kneeled behind her, while Schneider paced up and
down before the door, threatening and pleading and promising, but
all to no avail. Presently from the deck above came a shout of
warning and a shot. For an instant Jane Clayton relaxed her vigilance,
and turned her eyes toward the cabin skylight. Simultaneously
Schneider was upon her.
The first intimation the watch had that there was another craft
within a thousand miles of the Cowrie came when he saw the head
and shoulders of a man poked over the ship's side. Instantly
the fellow sprang to his feet with a cry and levelled his revolver
at the intruder. It was his cry and the subsequent report of the
revolver which threw Jane Clayton off her guard.
Upon deck the quiet of fancied security soon gave place to the
wildest pandemonium. The crew of the Cowrie rushed above armed
with revolvers, cutlasses, and the long knives that many of them
habitually wore; but the alarm had come too late. Already the
beasts of Tarzan were upon the ship's deck, with Tarzan and the
two men of the Kincaid's crew.
In the face of the frightful beasts the courage of the mutineers
wavered and broke. Those with revolvers fired a few scattering
shots and then raced for some place of supposed safety. Into the
shrouds went some; but the apes of Akut were more at home there
than they.
Screaming with terror the Maoris were dragged from their lofty
perches. The beasts, uncontrolled by Tarzan who had gone in search
of Jane, loosed in the full fury of their savage natures upon the
unhappy wretches who fell into their clutches.
Sheeta, in the meanwhile, had felt his great fangs sink into but a
singular jugular. For a moment he mauled the corpse, and then he
spied Kai Shang darting down the companionway toward his cabin.
With a shrill scream Sheeta was after him--a scream which awoke
an almost equally uncanny cry in the throat of the terror-stricken
Chinaman.
But Kai Shang reached his cabin a fraction of a second ahead of
the panther, and leaping within slammed the door--just too late.
Sheeta's great body hurtled against it before the catch engaged,
and a moment later Kai Shang was gibbering and shrieking in the
back of an upper berth.
Lightly Sheeta sprang after his victim, and presently the wicked
days of Kai Shang of Fachan were ended, and Sheeta was gorging
himself upon tough and stringy flesh.
A moment scarcely had elapsed after Schneider leaped upon Jane
Clayton and wrenched the revolver from her hand, when the door of
the cabin opened and a tall and half-naked white man stood framed
within the portal.
Silently he leaped across the cabin. Schneider felt sinewy fingers
at his throat. He turned his head to see who had attacked him,
and his eyes went wide when he saw the face of the ape-man close
above his own.
Grimly the fingers tightened upon the mate's throat. He tried to
scream, to plead, but no sound came forth. His eyes protruded as
he struggled for freedom, for breath, for life.
Jane Clayton seized her husband's hands and tried to drag them from
the throat of the dying man; but Tarzan only shook his head.
"Not again," he said quietly. "Before have I permitted scoundrels
to live, only to suffer and to have you suffer for my mercy. This
time we shall make sure of one scoundrel--sure that he will never
again harm us or another," and with a sudden wrench he twisted the
neck of the perfidious mate until there was a sharp crack, and the
man's body lay limp and motionless in the ape-man's grasp. With a
gesture of disgust Tarzan tossed the corpse aside. Then he returned
to the deck, followed by Jane and the Mosula woman.
The battle there was over. Schmidt and Momulla and two others
alone remained alive of all the company of the Cowrie, for they had
found sanctuary in the forecastle. The others had died, horribly,
and as they deserved, beneath the fangs and talons of the beasts
of Tarzan, and in the morning the sun rose on a grisly sight upon
the deck of the unhappy Cowrie; but this time the blood which
stained her white planking was the blood of the guilty and not of
the innocent.
Tarzan brought forth the men who had hidden in the forecastle, and
without promises of immunity from punishment forced them to help
work the vessel--the only alternative was immediate death.
A stiff breeze had risen with the sun, and with canvas spread the
Cowrie set in toward Jungle Island, where a few hours later, Tarzan
picked up Gust and bid farewell to Sheeta and the apes of Akut, for
here he set the beasts ashore to pursue the wild and natural life
they loved so well; nor did they lose a moment's time in disappearing
into the cool depths of their beloved jungle.
That they knew that Tarzan was to leave them may be doubted--except
possibly in the case of the more intelligent Akut, who alone of
all the others remained upon the beach as the small boat drew away
toward the schooner, carrying his savage lord and master from him.
And as long as their eyes could span the distance, Jane and Tarzan,
standing upon the deck, saw the lonely figure of the shaggy anthropoid
motionless upon the surf-beaten sands of Jungle Island.
It was three days later that the Cowrie fell in with H.M. sloop-of-war
Shorewater, through whose wireless Lord Greystoke soon got in
communication with London. Thus he learned that which filled his
and his wife's heart with joy and thanksgiving--little Jack was
safe at Lord Greystoke's town house.
It was not until they reached London that they learned the details
of the remarkable chain of circumstances that had preserved the
infant unharmed.
It developed that Rokoff, fearing to take the child aboard the
Kincaid by day, had hidden it in a low den where nameless infants
were harboured, intending to carry it to the steamer after dark.
His confederate and chief lieutenant, Paulvitch, true to the long
years of teaching of his wily master, had at last succumbed to
the treachery and greed that had always marked his superior, and,
lured by the thoughts of the immense ransom that he might win
by returning the child unharmed, had divulged the secret of its
parentage to the woman who maintained the foundling asylum. Through
her he had arranged for the substitution of another infant, knowing
full well that never until it was too late would Rokoff suspect
the trick that had been played upon him.
The woman had promised to keep the child until Paulvitch returned
to England; but she, in turn, had been tempted to betray her trust
by the lure of gold, and so had opened negotiations with Lord
Greystoke's solicitors for the return of the child.
Esmeralda, the old Negro nurse whose absence on a vacation in America
at the time of the abduction of little Jack had been attributed
by her as the cause of the calamity, had returned and positively
identified the infant.
The ransom had been paid, and within ten days of the date of
his kidnapping the future Lord Greystoke, none the worse for his
experience, had been returned to his father's home.
And so that last and greatest of Nikolas Rokoff's many rascalities
had not only miserably miscarried through the treachery he had
taught his only friend, but it had resulted in the arch-villain's
death, and given to Lord and Lady Greystoke a peace of mind that
neither could ever have felt so long as the vital spark remained in
the body of the Russian and his malign mind was free to formulate
new atrocities against them.
Rokoff was dead, and while the fate of Paulvitch was unknown, they
had every reason to believe that he had succumbed to the dangers
of the jungle where last they had seen him--the malicious tool of
his master.
And thus, in so far as they might know, they were to be freed for
ever from the menace of these two men--the only enemies which Tarzan
of the Apes ever had had occasion to fear, because they struck at
him cowardly blows, through those he loved.
It was a happy family party that were reunited in Greystoke House
the day that Lord Greystoke and his lady landed upon English soil
from the deck of the Shorewater.
Accompanying them were Mugambi and the Mosula woman whom he had
found in the bottom of the canoe that night upon the bank of the
little tributary of the Ugambi.
The woman had preferred to cling to her new lord and master rather
than return to the marriage she had tried to escape.
Tarzan had proposed to them that they might find a home upon his
vast African estates in the land of the Waziri, where they were to
be sent as soon as opportunity presented itself.
Possibly we shall see them all there amid the savage romance of
the grim jungle and the great plains where Tarzan of the Apes loves
best to be.
Who knows?
