7
Jungle Craft
Presently he looked up and at Pan-at-lee. "Can you cross the gorge
through the trees very rapidly?" he questioned.
"Alone?" she asked.
"No," replied Tarzan.
"I can follow wherever you can lead," she said then.
"Across and back again?"
"Yes."
"Then come, and do exactly as I bid." He started back again through the
trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following
a zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the
difficulties of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest,
where fallen trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the
creature below them; but all to no avail. When they reached the
opposite side of the gorge the gryf was with them.
"Back again," said Tarzan, and, turning, the two retraced their
high-flung way through the upper terraces of the ancient forest
of Kor-ul-gryf. But the result was the same--no, not quite; it was
worse, for another gryf had joined the first and now two waited
beneath the tree in which they stopped.
The cliff looming high above them with its innumerable cave mouths
seemed to beckon and to taunt them. It was so near, yet eternity
yawned between. The body of the Tor-o-don lay at the cliff's foot
where it had fallen. It was in plain view of the two in the tree.
One of the gryfs walked over and sniffed about it, but did not
offer to devour it. Tarzan had examined it casually as he had passed
earlier in the morning. He guessed that it represented either a
very high order of ape or a very low order of man--something akin
to the Java man, perhaps; a truer example of the pithecanthropi than
either the Ho-don or the Waz-don; possibly the precursor of them
both. As his eyes wandered idly over the scene below his active
brain was working out the details of the plan that he had made
to permit Pan-at-lee's escape from the gorge. His thoughts were
interrupted by a strange cry from above them in the gorge.
"Whee-oo! Whee-oo!" it sounded, coming closer.
The gryfs below raised their heads and looked in the direction of
the interruption. One of them made a low, rumbling sound in its
throat. It was not a bellow and it did not indicate anger. Immediately
the "Whee-oo!" responded. The gryfs repeated the rumbling and at
intervals the "Whee-oo!" was repeated, coming ever closer.
Tarzan looked at Pan-at-lee. "What is it?" he asked.
"I do not know," she replied. "Perhaps a strange bird, or another
horrid beast that dwells in this frightful place."
"Ah," exclaimed Tarzan; "there it is. Look!"
Pan-at-lee voiced a cry of despair. "A Tor-o-don!"
The creature, walking erect and carrying a stick in one hand,
advanced at a slow, lumbering gait. It walked directly toward the
gryfs who moved aside, as though afraid. Tarzan watched intently.
The Tor-o-don was now quite close to one of the triceratops. It
swung its head and snapped at him viciously. Instantly the Tor-o-don
sprang in and commenced to belabor the huge beast across the face
with his stick. To the ape-man's amazement the gryf, that might
have annihilated the comparatively puny Tor-o-don instantly in any
of a dozen ways, cringed like a whipped cur.
"Whee-oo! Whee-oo!" shouted the Tor-o-don and the gryf came slowly
toward him. A whack on the median horn brought it to a stop. Then
the Tor-o-don walked around behind it, clambered up its tail and
seated himself astraddle of the huge back. "Whee-oo!" he shouted
and prodded the beast with a sharp point of his stick. The gryf
commenced to move off.
So rapt had Tarzan been in the scene below him that he had given
no thought to escape, for he realized that for him and Pan-at-lee
time had in these brief moments turned back countless ages to
spread before their eyes a page of the dim and distant past. They
two had looked upon the first man and his primitive beasts of
burden.
And now the ridden gryf halted and looked up at them, bellowing.
It was sufficient. The creature had warned its master of their
presence. Instantly the Tor-o-don urged the beast close beneath
the tree which held them, at the same time leaping to his feet upon
the horny back. Tarzan saw the bestial face, the great fangs, the
mighty muscles. From the loins of such had sprung the human race--and
only from such could it have sprung, for only such as this might
have survived the horrid dangers of the age that was theirs.
The Tor-o-don beat upon his breast and growled horribly--hideous,
uncouth, beastly. Tarzan rose to his full height upon a swaying
branch--straight and beautiful as a demigod--unspoiled by the
taint of civilization--a perfect specimen of what the human race
might have been had the laws of man not interfered with the laws
of nature.
The Present fitted an arrow to his bow and drew the shaft far back.
The Past basing its claims upon brute strength sought to reach the
other and drag him down; but the loosed arrow sank deep into the
savage heart and the Past sank back into the oblivion that had
claimed his kind.
"Tarzan-jad-guru!" murmured Pan-at-lee, unknowingly giving him out
of the fullness of her admiration the same title that the warriors
of her tribe had bestowed upon him.
The ape-man turned to her. "Pan-at-lee," he said, "these beasts may
keep us treed here indefinitely. I doubt if we can escape together,
but I have a plan. You remain here, hiding yourself in the foliage,
while I start back across the gorge in sight of them and yelling
to attract their attention. Unless they have more brains than I
suspect they will follow me. When they are gone you make for the
cliff. Wait for me in the cave not longer than today. If I do not
come by tomorrow's sun you will have to start back for Kor-ul-ja
alone. Here is a joint of deer meat for you." He had severed one
of the deer's hind legs and this he passed up to her.
"I cannot desert you," she said simply; "it is not the way of my
people to desert a friend and ally. Om-at would never forgive me."
"Tell Om-at that I commanded you to go," replied Tarzan.
"It is a command?" she asked.
"It is! Good-bye, Pan-at-lee. Hasten back to Om-at--you are a fitting
mate for the chief of Kor-ul-ja." He moved off slowly through the
trees.
"Good-bye, Tarzan-jad-guru!" she called after him. "Fortunate are
my Om-at and his Pan-at-lee in owning such a friend."
Tarzan, shouting aloud, continued upon his way and the great gryfs,
lured by his voice, followed beneath. His ruse was evidently proving
successful and he was filled with elation as he led the bellowing
beasts farther and farther from Pan-at-lee. He hoped that she would
take advantage of the opportunity afforded her for escape, yet at
the same time he was filled with concern as to her ability to survive
the dangers which lay between Kor-ul-gryf and Kor-ul-ja. There
were lions and Tor-o-dons and the unfriendly tribe of Kor-ul-lul
to hinder her progress, though the distance in itself to the cliffs
of her people was not great.
He realized her bravery and understood the resourcefulness that
she must share in common with all primitive people who, day by day,
must contend face to face with nature's law of the survival of the
fittest, unaided by any of the numerous artificial protections that
civilization has thrown around its brood of weaklings.
Several times during this crossing of the gorge Tarzan endeavored
to outwit his keen pursuers, but all to no avail. Double as he
would he could not throw them off his track and ever as he changed
his course they changed theirs to conform. Along the verge of the
forest upon the southeastern side of the gorge he sought some point
at which the trees touched some negotiable portion of the cliff,
but though he traveled far both up and down the gorge he discovered
no such easy avenue of escape. The ape-man finally commenced to
entertain an idea of the hopelessness of his case and to realize
to the full why the Kor-ul-gryf had been religiously abjured by
the races of Pal-ul-don for all these many ages.
Night was falling and though since early morning he had sought
diligently a way out of this cul-de-sac he was no nearer to liberty
than at the moment the first bellowing gryf had charged him as he
stooped over the carcass of his kill: but with the falling of night
came renewed hope for, in common with the great cats, Tarzan was,
to a greater or lesser extent, a nocturnal beast. It is true he
could not see by night as well as they, but that lack was largely
recompensed for by the keenness of his scent and the highly developed
sensitiveness of his other organs of perception. As the blind follow
and interpret their Braille characters with deft fingers, so Tarzan
reads the book of the jungle with feet and hands and eyes and ears
and nose; each contributing its share to the quick and accurate
translation of the text.
But again he was doomed to be thwarted by one vital weakness--he
did not know the gryf, and before the night was over he wondered if
the things never slept, for wheresoever he moved they moved also,
and always they barred his road to liberty. Finally, just before
dawn, he relinquished his immediate effort and sought rest in a
friendly tree crotch in the safety of the middle terrace.
Once again was the sun high when Tarzan awoke, rested and refreshed.
Keen to the necessities of the moment he made no effort to locate
his jailers lest in the act he might apprise them of his movements.
Instead he sought cautiously and silently to melt away among the
foliage of the trees. His first move, however, was heralded by a
deep bellow from below.
Among the numerous refinements of civilization that Tarzan had
failed to acquire was that of profanity, and possibly it is to be
regretted since there are circumstances under which it is at least
a relief to pent emotion. And it may be that in effect Tarzan
resorted to profanity if there can be physical as well as vocal
swearing, since immediately the bellow announced that his hopes
had been again frustrated, he turned quickly and seeing the hideous
face of the gryf below him seized a large fruit from a nearby
branch and hurled it viciously at the horned snout. The missile
struck full between the creature's eyes, resulting in a reaction
that surprised the ape-man; it did not arouse the beast to a show
of revengeful rage as Tarzan had expected and hoped; instead the
creature gave a single vicious side snap at the fruit as it bounded
from his skull and then turned sulkily away, walking off a few
steps.
There was that in the act that recalled immediately to Tarzan's mind
similar action on the preceding day when the Tor-o-don had struck
one of the creatures across the face with his staff, and instantly
there sprung to the cunning and courageous brain a plan of escape
from his predicament that might have blanched the cheek of the most
heroic.
The gambling instinct is not strong among creatures of the wild;
the chances of their daily life are sufficient stimuli for the
beneficial excitement of their nerve centers. It has remained for
civilized man, protected in a measure from the natural dangers of
existence, to invent artificial stimulants in the form of cards
and dice and roulette wheels. Yet when necessity bids there are
no greater gamblers than the savage denizens of the jungle, the
forest, and the hills, for as lightly as you roll the ivory cubes
upon the green cloth they will gamble with death--their own lives
the stake.
And so Tarzan would gamble now, pitting the seemingly wild deductions
of his shrewd brain against all the proofs of the bestial ferocity
of his antagonists that his experience of them had adduced--against
all the age-old folklore and legend that had been handed down for
countless generations and passed on to him through the lips of
Pan-at-lee.
Yet as he worked in preparation for the greatest play that man can
make in the game of life, he smiled; nor was there any indication
of haste or excitement or nervousness in his demeanor.
First he selected a long, straight branch about two inches in
diameter at its base. This he cut from the tree with his knife,
removed the smaller branches and twigs until he had fashioned
a pole about ten feet in length. This he sharpened at the smaller
end. The staff finished to his satisfaction he looked down upon
the triceratops.
"Whee-oo!" he cried.
Instantly the beasts raised their heads and looked at him. From
the throat of one of them came faintly a low rumbling sound.
"Whee-oo!" repeated Tarzan and hurled the balance of the carcass
of the deer to them.
Instantly the gryfs fell upon it with much bellowing, one of them
attempting to seize it and keep it from the other: but finally
the second obtained a hold and an instant later it had been torn
asunder and greedily devoured. Once again they looked up at the
ape-man and this time they saw him descending to the ground.
One of them started toward him. Again Tarzan repeated the weird cry
of the Tor-o-don. The gryf halted in his track, apparently puzzled,
while Tarzan slipped lightly to the earth and advanced toward
the nearer beast, his staff raised menacingly and the call of the
first-man upon his lips.
Would the cry be answered by the low rumbling of the beast of
burden or the horrid bellow of the man-eater? Upon the answer to
this question hung the fate of the ape-man.
Pan-at-lee was listening intently to the sounds of the departing
gryfs as Tarzan led them cunningly from her, and when she was sure
that they were far enough away to insure her safe retreat she dropped
swiftly from the branches to the ground and sped like a frightened
deer across the open space to the foot of the cliff, stepped over
the body of the Tor-o-don who had attacked her the night before and
was soon climbing rapidly up the ancient stone pegs of the deserted
cliff village. In the mouth of the cave near that which she had
occupied she kindled a fire and cooked the haunch of venison that
Tarzan had left her, and from one of the trickling streams that
ran down the face of the escarpment she obtained water to satisfy
her thirst.
All day she waited, hearing in the distance, and sometimes close at
hand, the bellowing of the gryfs which pursued the strange creature
that had dropped so miraculously into her life. For him she felt
the same keen, almost fanatical loyalty that many another had
experienced for Tarzan of the Apes. Beast and human, he had held
them to him with bonds that were stronger than steel--those of them
that were clean and courageous, and the weak and the helpless; but
never could Tarzan claim among his admirers the coward, the ingrate
or the scoundrel; from such, both man and beast, he had won fear
and hatred.
To Pan-at-lee he was all that was brave and noble and heroic and,
too, he was Om-at's friend--the friend of the man she loved. For
any one of these reasons Pan-at-lee would have died for Tarzan,
for such is the loyalty of the simple-minded children of nature.
It has remained for civilization to teach us to weigh the relative
rewards of loyalty and its antithesis. The loyalty of the primitive
is spontaneous, unreasoning, unselfish and such was the loyalty of
Pan-at-lee for the Tarmangani.
And so it was that she waited that day and night, hoping that he
would return that she might accompany him back to Om-at, for her
experience had taught her that in the face of danger two have a
better chance than one. But Tarzan-jad-guru had not come, and so
upon the following morning Pan-at-lee set out upon her return to
Kor-ul-ja.
She knew the dangers and yet she faced them with the stolid indifference
of her race. When they directly confronted and menaced her would
be time enough to experience fear or excitement or confidence. In
the meantime it was unnecessary to waste nerve energy by anticipating
them. She moved therefore through her savage land with no greater
show of concern than might mark your sauntering to a corner drug-store
for a sundae. But this is your life and that is Pan-at-lee's and
even now as you read this Pan-at-lee may be sitting upon the edge
of the recess of Om-at's cave while the ja and jato roar from the
gorge below and from the ridge above, and the Kor-ul-lul threaten
upon the south and the Ho-don from the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho far
below, for Pan-at-lee still lives and preens her silky coat of jet
beneath the tropical moonlight of Pal-ul-don.
But she was not to reach Kor-ul-ja this day, nor the next, nor for
many days after though the danger that threatened her was neither
Waz-don enemy nor savage beast.
She came without misadventure to the Kor-ul-lul and after descending
its rocky southern wall without catching the slightest glimpse of
the hereditary enemies of her people, she experienced a renewal of
confidence that was little short of practical assurance that she
would successfully terminate her venture and be restored once more
to her own people and the lover she had not seen for so many long
and weary moons.
She was almost across the gorge now and moving with an extreme caution
abated no wit by her confidence, for wariness is an instinctive
trait of the primitive, something which cannot be laid aside even
momentarily if one would survive. And so she came to the trail that
follows the windings of Kor-ul-lul from its uppermost reaches down
into the broad and fertile Valley of Jad-ben-Otho.
And as she stepped into the trail there arose on either side of her
from out of the bushes that border the path, as though materialized
from thin air, a score of tall, white warriors of the Ho-don. Like
a frightened deer Pan-at-lee cast a single startled look at these
menacers of her freedom and leaped quickly toward the bushes in
an effort to escape; but the warriors were too close at hand. They
closed upon her from every side and then, drawing her knife she
turned at bay, metamorphosed by the fires of fear and hate from a
startled deer to a raging tiger-cat. They did not try to kill her,
but only to subdue and capture her; and so it was that more than a
single Ho-don warrior felt the keen edge of her blade in his flesh
before they had succeeded in overpowering her by numbers. And still
she fought and scratched and bit after they had taken the knife from
her until it was necessary to tie her hands and fasten a piece of
wood between her teeth by means of thongs passed behind her head.
At first she refused to walk when they started off in the direction
of the valley but after two of them had seized her by the hair and
dragged her for a number of yards she thought better of her original
decision and came along with them, though still as defiant as her
bound wrists and gagged mouth would permit.
Near the entrance to Kor-ul-lul they came upon another body of
their warriors with which were several Waz-don prisoners from the
tribe of Kor-ul-lul. It was a raiding party come up from a Ho-don
city of the valley after slaves. This Pan-at-lee knew for the
occurrence was by no means unusual. During her lifetime the tribe
to which she belonged had been sufficiently fortunate, or powerful,
to withstand successfully the majority of such raids made upon
them, but yet Pan-at-lee had known of friends and relatives who had
been carried into slavery by the Ho-don and she knew, too, another
thing which gave her hope, as doubtless it did to each of the other
captives--that occasionally the prisoners escaped from the cities
of the hairless whites.
After they had joined the other party the entire band set forth
into the valley and presently, from the conversation of her captors,
Pan-at-lee knew that she was headed for A-lur, the City of Light;
while in the cave of his ancestors, Om-at, chief of the Kor-ul-ja,
bemoaned the loss of both his friend and she that was to have been
his mate.
