Chapter 17
Meriem returned slowly toward the tree in which she had left her
skirt, her shoes and her stockings. She was singing blithely; but
her song came to a sudden stop when she came within sight of the
tree, for there, disporting themselves with glee and pulling and
hauling upon her belongings, were a number of baboons. When they
saw her they showed no signs of terror. Instead they bared their
fangs and growled at her. What was there to fear in a single
she-Tarmangani? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
In the open plain beyond the forest the hunters were returning
from the day's sport. They were widely separated, hoping to raise
a wandering lion on the homeward journey across the plain. The Hon.
Morison Baynes rode closest to the forest. As his eyes wandered
back and forth across the undulating, shrub sprinkled ground they
fell upon the form of a creature close beside the thick jungle
where it terminated abruptly at the plain's edge.
He reined his mount in the direction of his discovery. It was yet
too far away for his untrained eyes to recognize it; but as he
came closer he saw that it was a horse, and was about to resume the
original direction of his way when he thought that he discerned a
saddle upon the beast's back. He rode a little closer. Yes, the
animal was saddled. The Hon. Morison approached yet nearer, and as
he did so his eyes expressed a pleasurable emotion of anticipation,
for they had now recognized the pony as the special favorite of
Meriem.
He galloped to the animal's side. Meriem must be within the wood.
The man shuddered a little at the thought of an unprotected girl
alone in the jungle that was still, to him, a fearful place of
terrors and stealthily stalking death. He dismounted and left his
horse beside Meriem's. On foot he entered the jungle. He knew
that she was probably safe enough and he wished to surprise her by
coming suddenly upon her.
He had gone but a short distance into the wood when he heard
a great jabbering in a near-by tree. Coming closer he saw a band
of baboons snarling over something. Looking intently he saw that
one of them held a woman's riding skirt and that others had boots
and stockings. His heart almost ceased to beat as he quite naturally
placed the most direful explanation upon the scene. The baboons
had killed Meriem and stripped this clothing from her body. Morison
shuddered.
He was about to call aloud in the hope that after all the girl still
lived when he saw her in a tree close beside that was occupied by
the baboons, and now he saw that they were snarling and jabbering
at her. To his amazement he saw the girl swing, ape-like, into
the tree below the huge beasts. He saw her pause upon a branch a
few feet from the nearest baboon. He was about to raise his rifle
and put a bullet through the hideous creature that seemed about
to leap upon her when he heard the girl speak. He almost dropped
his rifle from surprise as a strange jabbering, identical with that
of the apes, broke from Meriem's lips.
The baboons stopped their snarling and listened. It was quite
evident that they were as much surprised as the Hon. Morison Baynes.
Slowly and one by one they approached the girl. She gave not the
slightest evidence of fear of them. They quite surrounded her now
so that Baynes could not have fired without endangering the girl's
life; but he no longer desired to fire. He was consumed with
curiosity.
For several minutes the girl carried on what could be nothing less
than a conversation with the baboons, and then with seeming alacrity
every article of her apparel in their possession was handed over
to her. The baboons still crowded eagerly about her as she donned
them. They chattered to her and she chattered back. The Hon. Morison
Baynes sat down at the foot of a tree and mopped his perspiring
brow. Then he rose and made his way back to his mount.
When Meriem emerged from the forest a few minutes later she found
him there, and he eyed her with wide eyes in which were both wonder
and a sort of terror.
"I saw your horse here," he explained, "and thought that I would
wait and ride home with you--you do not mind?"
"Of course not," she replied. "It will be lovely."
As they made their way stirrup to stirrup across the plain the
Hon. Morison caught himself many times watching the girl's regular
profile and wondering if his eyes had deceived him or if, in truth,
he really had seen this lovely creature consorting with grotesque
baboons and conversing with them as fluently as she conversed with
him. The thing was uncanny--impossible; yet he had seen it with
his own eyes.
And as he watched her another thought persisted in obtruding
itself into his mind. She was most beautiful and very desirable;
but what did he know of her? Was she not altogether impossible?
Was the scene that he had but just witnessed not sufficient proof
of her impossibility? A woman who climbed trees and conversed with
the baboons of the jungle! It was quite horrible!
Again the Hon. Morison mopped his brow. Meriem glanced toward him.
"You are warm," she said. "Now that the sun is setting I find it
quite cool. Why do you perspire now?"
He had not intended to let her know that he had seen her with the
baboons; but quite suddenly, before he realized what he was saying,
he had blurted it out.
"I perspire from emotion," he said. "I went into the jungle when
I discovered your pony. I wanted to surprise you; but it was I
who was surprised. I saw you in the trees with the baboons."
"Yes?" she said quite unemotionally, as though it was a matter of
little moment that a young girl should be upon intimate terms with
savage jungle beasts.
"It was horrible!" ejaculated the Hon. Morison.
"Horrible?" repeated Meriem, puckering her brows in bewilderment.
"What was horrible about it? They are my friends. Is it horrible
to talk with one's friends?"
"You were really talking with them, then?" cried the Hon. Morison.
"You understood them and they understood you?"
"Certainly."
"But they are hideous creatures--degraded beasts of a lower order.
How could you speak the language of beasts?"
"They are not hideous, and they are not degraded," replied Meriem.
"Friends are never that. I lived among them for years before
Bwana found me and brought me here. I scarce knew any other tongue
than that of the mangani. Should I refuse to know them now simply
because I happen, for the present, to live among humans?"
"For the present!" ejaculated the Hon. Morison. "You cannot mean
that you expect to return to live among them? Come, come, what
foolishness are we talking! The very idea! You are spoofing me,
Miss Meriem. You have been kind to these baboons here and they know
you and do not molest you; but that you once lived among them--no,
that is preposterous."
"But I did, though," insisted the girl, seeing the real horror that
the man felt in the presence of such an idea reflected in his tone
and manner, and rather enjoying baiting him still further. "Yes,
I lived, almost naked, among the great apes and the lesser apes. I
dwelt among the branches of the trees. I pounced upon the smaller
prey and devoured it--raw. With Korak and A'ht I hunted the antelope
and the boar, and I sat upon a tree limb and made faces at Numa,
the lion, and threw sticks at him and annoyed him until he roared
so terribly in his rage that the earth shook.
"And Korak built me a lair high among the branches of a mighty
tree. He brought me fruits and flesh. He fought for me and was
kind to me--until I came to Bwana and My Dear I do not recall that
any other than Korak was ever kind to me." There was a wistful
note in the girl's voice now and she had forgotten that she was
bantering the Hon. Morison. She was thinking of Korak. She had
not thought of him a great deal of late.
For a time both were silently absorbed in their own reflections
as they rode on toward the bungalow of their host. The girl was
thinking of a god-like figure, a leopard skin half concealing his
smooth, brown hide as he leaped nimbly through the trees to lay an
offering of food before her on his return from a successful hunt.
Behind him, shaggy and powerful, swung a huge anthropoid ape,
while she, Meriem, laughing and shouting her welcome, swung upon
a swaying limb before the entrance to her sylvan bower. It was a
pretty picture as she recalled it. The other side seldom obtruded
itself upon her memory--the long, black nights--the chill,
terrible jungle nights--the cold and damp and discomfort of the
rainy season--the hideous mouthings of the savage carnivora as they
prowled through the Stygian darkness beneath--the constant menace
of Sheeta, the panther, and Histah, the snake--the stinging
insects--the loathesome vermin. For, in truth, all these had been
outweighed by the happiness of the sunny days, the freedom of it
all, and, most, the companionship of Korak.
The man's thoughts were rather jumbled. He had suddenly realized
that he had come mighty near falling in love with this girl of
whom he had known nothing up to the previous moment when she had
voluntarily revealed a portion of her past to him. The more he
thought upon the matter the more evident it became to him that he
had given her his love--that he had been upon the verge of offering
her his honorable name. He trembled a little at the narrowness of
his escape. Yet, he still loved her. There was no objection to
that according to the ethics of the Hon. Morison Baynes and his
kind. She was a meaner clay than he. He could no more have taken
her in marriage than he could have taken one of her baboon friends,
nor would she, of course, expect such an offer from him. To have
his love would be sufficient honor for her--his name he would,
naturally, bestow upon one in his own elevated social sphere.
A girl who had consorted with apes, who, according to her own admission,
had lived almost naked among them, could have no considerable sense
of the finer qualities of virtue. The love that he would offer
her, then, would, far from offending her, probably cover all that
she might desire or expect.
The more the Hon. Morison Baynes thought upon the subject the more
fully convinced he became that he was contemplating a most chivalrous
and unselfish act. Europeans will better understand his point of
view than Americans, poor, benighted provincials, who are denied
a true appreciation of caste and of the fact that "the king can do
no wrong." He did not even have to argue the point that she would
be much happier amidst the luxuries of a London apartment, fortified
as she would be by both his love and his bank account, than lawfully
wed to such a one as her social position warranted. There was
one question however, which he wished to have definitely answered
before he committed himself even to the program he was considering.
"Who were Korak and A'ht?" he asked.
"A'ht was a Mangani," replied Meriem, "and Korak a Tarmangani."
"And what, pray, might a Mangani be, and a Tarmangani?"
The girl laughed.
"You are a Tarmangani," she replied. "The Mangani are covered with
hair--you would call them apes."
"Then Korak was a white man?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And he was--ah--your--er--your--?" He paused, for he found it
rather difficult to go on with that line of questioning while the
girl's clear, beautiful eyes were looking straight into his.
"My what?" insisted Meriem, far too unsophisticated in her unspoiled
innocence to guess what the Hon. Morison was driving at.
"Why--ah--your brother?" he stumbled.
"No, Korak was not my brother," she replied.
"Was he your husband, then?" he finally blurted.
Far from taking offense, Meriem broke into a merry laugh.
"My husband!" she cried. "Why how old do you think I am? I am
too young to have a husband. I had never thought of such a thing.
Korak was--why--," and now she hesitated, too, for she never before
had attempted to analyse the relationship that existed between
herself and Korak--"why, Korak was just Korak," and again she broke
into a gay laugh as she realized the illuminating quality of her
description.
Looking at her and listening to her the man beside her could not
believe that depravity of any sort or degree entered into the girl's
nature, yet he wanted to believe that she had not been virtuous,
for otherwise his task was less a sinecure--the Hon. Morison was
not entirely without conscience.
For several days the Hon. Morison made no appreciable progress
toward the consummation of his scheme. Sometimes he almost abandoned
it for he found himself time and again wondering how slight might
be the provocation necessary to trick him into making a bona-fide
offer of marriage to Meriem if he permitted himself to fall more
deeply in love with her, and it was difficult to see her daily and
not love her. There was a quality about her which, all unknown
to the Hon. Morison, was making his task an extremely difficult
one--it was that quality of innate goodness and cleanness which
is a good girl's stoutest bulwark and protection--an impregnable
barrier that only degeneracy has the effrontery to assail. The
Hon. Morison Baynes would never be considered a degenerate.
He was sitting with Meriem upon the verandah one evening after the
others had retired. Earlier they had been playing tennis--a game
in which the Hon. Morison shone to advantage, as, in truth, he did
in most all manly sports. He was telling Meriem stories of London
and Paris, of balls and banquets, of the wonderful women and their
wonderful gowns, of the pleasures and pastimes of the rich and
powerful. The Hon. Morison was a past master in the art of insidious
boasting. His egotism was never flagrant or tiresome--he was never
crude in it, for crudeness was a plebeianism that the Hon. Morison
studiously avoided, yet the impression derived by a listener to the
Hon. Morison was one that was not at all calculated to detract from
the glory of the house of Baynes, or from that of its representative.
Meriem was entranced. His tales were like fairy stories to this
little jungle maid. The Hon. Morison loomed large and wonderful
and magnificent in her mind's eye. He fascinated her, and when
he drew closer to her after a short silence and took her hand she
thrilled as one might thrill beneath the touch of a deity--a thrill
of exaltation not unmixed with fear.
He bent his lips close to her ear.
"Meriem!" he whispered. "My little Meriem! May I hope to have
the right to call you `my little Meriem'?"
The girl turned wide eyes upward to his face; but it was in shadow.
She trembled but she did not draw away. The man put an arm about
her and drew her closer.
"I love you!" he whispered.
She did not reply. She did not know what to say. She knew nothing
of love. She had never given it a thought; but she did know that
it was very nice to be loved, whatever it meant. It was nice to
have people kind to one. She had known so little of kindness or
affection.
"Tell me," he said, "that you return my love."
His lips came steadily closer to hers. They had almost touched
when a vision of Korak sprang like a miracle before her eyes. She
saw Korak's face close to hers, she felt his lips hot against hers,
and then for the first time in her life she guessed what love meant.
She drew away, gently.
"I am not sure," she said, "that I love you. Let us wait. There
is plenty of time. I am too young to marry yet, and I am not sure
that I should be happy in London or Paris--they rather frighten
me."
How easily and naturally she had connected his avowal of love with
the idea of marriage! The Hon. Morison was perfectly sure that he
had not mentioned marriage--he had been particularly careful not to
do so. And then she was not sure that she loved him! That, too,
came rather in the nature of a shock to his vanity. It seemed
incredible that this little barbarian should have any doubts whatever
as to the desirability of the Hon. Morison Baynes.
The first flush of passion cooled, the Hon. Morison was enabled
to reason more logically. The start had been all wrong. It would
be better now to wait and prepare her mind gradually for the only
proposition which his exalted estate would permit him to offer her.
He would go slow. He glanced down at the girl's profile. It was
bathed in the silvery light of the great tropic moon. The Hon.
Morison Baynes wondered if it were to be so easy a matter to "go
slow." She was most alluring.
Meriem rose. The vision of Korak was still before her.
"Good night," she said. "It is almost too beautiful to leave," she
waved her hand in a comprehensive gesture which took in the starry
heavens, the great moon, the broad, silvered plain, and the dense
shadows in the distance, that marked the jungle. "Oh, how I love
it!"
"You would love London more," he said earnestly. "And London would
love you. You would be a famous beauty in any capital of Europe.
You would have the world at your feet, Meriem."
"Good night!" she repeated, and left him.
The Hon. Morison selected a cigarette from his crested case, lighted
it, blew a thin line of blue smoke toward the moon, and smiled.
