TEEKA HAD BECOME a mother. Tarzan of the Apes was intensely interested, much more so, in fact, than Taug, the father. Tarzan was very fond of Teeka. Even the cares of prospective motherhood had not entirely quenched the fires of carefree youth, and Teeka had remained a good-natured playmate even at an age when other shes of the tribe of Kerchak had assumed the sullen dignity of maturity. She yet retained her childish delight in the primitive games of tag and hide-and-go-seek which Tarzan's fertile man-mind had evolved.
To play tag through the tree tops is an
exciting and inspiring pastime. Tarzan delighted in it, but the bulls of his
childhood had long since abandoned such childish practices. Teeka, though, had
been keen for it always until shortly before the baby came; but with the advent
of her first-born, even Teeka changed.
The evidence of the change surprised and
hurt Tarzan immeasurably. One morning he saw Teeka squatted upon a low branch
hugging something very close to her hairy breast-- a wee something which
squirmed and wriggled. Tarzan approached filled with the curiosity which is
common to all creatures endowed with brains which have progressed beyond the
microscopic stage.
Teeka rolled her eyes in his direction
and strained the squirming mite still closer to her. Tarzan came nearer. Teeka
drew away and bared her fangs. Tarzan was nonplussed. In all his experiences
with Teeka, never before had she bared fangs at him other than in play; but
today she did not look playful. Tarzan ran his brown fingers through his thick,
black hair, cocked his head upon one side, and stared. Then he edged a bit
nearer, craning his neck to have a better look at the thing which Teeka
cuddled.
Again Teeka drew back her upper lip in a
warning snarl. Tarzan reached forth a hand, cautiously, to touch the thing
which Teeka held, and Teeka, with a hideous growl, turned suddenly upon him.
Her teeth sank into the flesh of his forearm before the ape-man could snatch it
away, and she pursued him for a short distance as he retreated incontinently
through the trees; but Teeka, carrying her baby, could not overtake him. At a
safe distance Tarzan stopped and turned to regard his erstwhile play-fellow in
unconcealed astonishment. What had happened to so alter the gentle Teeka? She
had so covered the thing in her arms that Tarzan had not yet been able to
recognize it for what it was; but now, as she turned from the pursuit of him,
he saw it. Through his pain and chagrin he smiled, for Tarzan had seen young
ape mothers before. In a few days she would be less suspicious. Still Tarzan
was hurt; it was not right that Teeka, of all others, should fear him. Why, not
for the world would he harm her, or her balu, which is the ape word for baby.
And now, above the pain of his injured
arm and the hurt to his pride, rose a still stronger desire to come close and
inspect the new-born son of Taug. Possibly you will wonder that Tarzan of the
Apes, mighty fighter that he was, should have fled before the irritable attack
of a she, or that he should hesitate to return for the satisfaction of his
curiosity when with ease he might have vanquished the weakened mother of the
new-born cub; but you need not wonder. Were you an ape, you would know that
only a bull in the throes of madness will turn upon a female other than to
gently chastise her, with the occasional exception of the individual whom we
find exemplified among our own kind, and who delights in beating up his better
half because she happens to be smaller and weaker than he.
Tarzan again came toward the young
mother--warily and with his line of retreat safely open. Again Teeka growled
ferociously. Tarzan expostulated.
"Tarzan of the Apes will not harm
Teeka's balu," he said. "Let me see it."
"Go away!" commanded Teeka.
"Go away, or I will kill you."
"Let me see it," urged Tarzan.
"Go away," reiterated the
she-ape. "Here comes Taug. He will make you go away. Taug will kill you.
This is Taug's balu."
A savage growl close behind him apprised
Tarzan of the nearness of Taug, and the fact that the bull had heard the
warnings and threats of his mate and was coming to her succor.
Now Taug, as well as Teeka, had been
Tarzan's play-fellow while the bull was still young enough to wish to play.
Once Tarzan had saved Taug's life; but the memory of an ape is not overlong,
nor would gratitude rise above the parental instinct. Tarzan and Taug had once
measured strength, and Tarzan had been victorious. That fact Taug could be
depended upon still to remember; but even so, he might readily face another
defeat for his first-born--if he chanced to be in the proper mood.
From his hideous growls, which now rose
in strength and volume, he seemed to be in quite the mood. Now Tarzan felt no
fear of Taug, nor did the unwritten law of the jungle demand that he should
flee from battle with any male, unless he cared to from purely personal
reasons. But Tarzan liked Taug. He had no grudge against him, and his man-mind
told him what the mind of an ape would never have deduced-- that Taug's
attitude in no sense indicated hatred. It was but the instinctive urge of the
male to protect its offspring and its mate.
Tarzan had no desire to battle with
Taug, nor did the blood of his English ancestors relish the thought of flight,
yet when the bull charged, Tarzan leaped nimbly to one side, and thus
encouraged, Taug wheeled and rushed again madly to the attack. Perhaps the
memory of a past defeat at Tarzan's hands goaded him. Perhaps the fact that
Teeka sat there watching him aroused a desire to vanquish the ape-man before
her eyes, for in the breast of every jungle male lurks a vast egotism which
finds expression in the performance of deeds of derring-do before an audience
of the opposite sex.
At the ape-man's side swung his long grass
rope--the play-thing of yesterday, the weapon of today--and as Taug charged the
second time, Tarzan slipped the coils over his head and deftly shook out the
sliding noose as he again nimbly eluded the ungainly beast. Before the ape
could turn again, Tarzan had fled far aloft among the branches of the upper
terrace.
Taug, now wrought to a frenzy of real
rage, followed him. Teeka peered upward at them. It was difficult to say
whether she was interested. Taug could not climb as rapidly as Tarzan, so the latter
reached the high levels to which the heavy ape dared not follow before the
former overtook him. There he halted and looked down upon his pursuer, making
faces at him and calling him such choice names as occurred to the fertile
man-brain. Then, when he had worked Taug to such a pitch of foaming rage that
the great bull fairly danced upon the bending limb beneath him, Tarzan's hand
shot suddenly outward, a widening noose dropped swiftly through the air, there
was a quick jerk as it settled about Taug, falling to his knees, a jerk that
tightened it securely about the hairy legs of the anthropoid.
Taug, slow of wit, realized too late the
intention of his tormentor. He scrambled to escape, but the ape-man gave the
rope a tremendous jerk that pulled Taug from his perch, and a moment later,
growling hideously, the ape hung head downward thirty feet above the ground.
Tarzan secured the rope to a stout limb
and descended to a point close to Taug.
"Taug," he said, "you are
as stupid as Buto, the rhinoceros. Now you may hang here until you get a little
sense in your thick head. You may hang here and watch while I go and talk with
Teeka."
Taug blustered and threatened, but
Tarzan only grinned at him as he dropped lightly to the lower levels. Here he
again approached Teeka only to be again greeted with bared fangs and menacing
growls. He sought to placate her; he urged his friendly intentions, and craned
his neck to have a look at Teeka's balu; but the she-ape was not to be
persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one. Her motherhood was
still so new that reason was yet subservient to instinct.
Realizing the futility of attempting to
catch and chastise Tarzan, Teeka sought to escape him. She dropped to the
ground and lumbered across the little clearing about which the apes of the
tribe were disposed in rest or in the search of food, and presently Tarzan
abandoned his attempts to persuade her to permit a close examination of the
balu. The ape-man would have liked to handle the tiny thing. The very sight of
it awakened in his breast a strange yearning. He wished to cuddle and fondle
the grotesque little ape-thing. It was Teeka's balu and Tarzan had once
lavished his young affections upon Teeka.
But now his attention was diverted by
the voice of Taug. The threats that had filled the ape's mouth had turned to
pleas. The tightening noose was stopping the circulation of the blood in his
legs--he was beginning to suffer. Several apes sat near him highly interested
in his predicament. They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each of
them had felt the weight of Taug's mighty hands and the strength of his great
jaws. They were enjoying revenge.
Teeka, seeing that Tarzan had turned
back toward the trees, had halted in the center of the clearing, and there she
sat hugging her balu and casting suspicious glances here and there. With the
coming of the balu, Teeka's care-free world had suddenly become peopled with
innumerable enemies. She saw an implacable foe in Tarzan, always heretofore her
best friend. Even poor old Mumga, half blind and almost entirely toothless,
searching patiently for grubworms beneath a fallen log, represented to her a
malignant spirit thirsting for the blood of little balus.
And while Teeka guarded suspiciously
against harm, where there was no harm, she failed to note two baleful,
yellow-green eyes staring fixedly at her from behind a clump of bushes at the
opposite side of the clearing.
Hollow from hunger, Sheeta, the panther,
glared greedily at the tempting meat so close at hand, but the sight of the
great bulls beyond gave him pause.
Ah, if the she-ape with her balu would
but come just a trifle nearer! A quick spring and he would be upon them and
away again with his meat before the bulls could prevent.
The tip of his tawny tail moved in
spasmodic little jerks; his lower jaw hung low, exposing a red tongue and
yellow fangs. But all this Teeka did not see, nor did any other of the apes who
were feeding or resting about her. Nor did Tarzan or the apes in the trees.
Hearing the abuse which the bulls were
pouring upon the helpless Taug, Tarzan clambered quickly among them. One was
edging closer and leaning far out in an effort to reach the dangling ape. He
had worked himself into quite a fury through recollection of the last occasion
upon which Taug had mauled him, and now he was bent upon revenge. Once he had
grasped the swinging ape, he would quickly have drawn him within reach of his
jaws. Tarzan saw and was wroth. He loved a fair fight, but the thing which this
ape contemplated revolted him. Already a hairy hand had clutched the helpless
Taug when, with an angry growl of protest, Tarzan leaped to the branch at the
attacking ape's side, and with a single mighty cuff, swept him from his perch.
Surprised and enraged, the bull clutched
madly for support as he toppled sidewise, and then with an agile movement
succeeded in projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below. Here he
found a hand-hold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered upward to
be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was otherwise engaged and did not wish
to be interrupted. He was explaining again to Taug the depths of the latter's
abysmal ignorance, and pointing out how much greater and mightier was Tarzan of
the Apes than Taug or any other ape.
In the end he would release Taug, but
not until Taug was fully acquainted with his own inferiority. And then the
maddened bull came from beneath, and instantly Tarzan was transformed from a
good-natured, teasing youth into a snarling, savage beast. Along his scalp the
hair bristled: his upper lip drew back that his fighting fangs might be
uncovered and ready. He did not wait for the bull to reach him, for something
in the appearance or the voice of the attacker aroused within the ape-man a
feeling of belligerent antagonism that would not be denied. With a scream that
carried no human note, Tarzan leaped straight at the throat of the attacker.
The impetuosity of this act and the
weight and momentum of his body carried the bull backward, clutching and
clawing for support, down through the leafy branches of the tree. For fifteen
feet the two fell, Tarzan's teeth buried in the jugular of his opponent, when a
stout branch stopped their descent. The bull struck full upon the small of his
back across the limb, hung there for a moment with the ape-man still upon his
breast, and then toppled over toward the ground.
Tarzan had felt the instantaneous
relaxation of the body beneath him after the heavy impact with the tree limb,
and as the other turned completely over and started again upon its fall toward
the ground, he reached forth a hand and caught the branch in time to stay his
own descent, while the ape dropped like a plummet to the foot of the tree.
Tarzan looked downward for a moment upon
the still form of his late antagonist, then he rose to his full height, swelled
his deep chest, smote upon it with his clenched fist and roared out the uncanny
challenge of the victorious bull ape.
Even Sheeta, the panther, crouched for a
spring at the edge of the little clearing, moved uneasily as the mighty voice
sent its weird cry reverberating through the jungle. To right and left,
nervously, glanced Sheeta, as though assuring himself that the way of escape
lay ready at hand.
"I am Tarzan of the Apes,"
boasted the ape-man; "mighty hunter, mighty fighter! None in all the
jungle so great as Tarzan."
Then he made his way back in the
direction of Taug. Teeka had watched the happenings in the tree. She had even
placed her precious balu upon the soft grasses and come a little nearer that
she might better witness all that was passing in the branches above her. In her
heart of hearts did she still esteem the smooth-skinned Tarzan? Did her savage
breast swell with pride as she witnessed his victory over the ape? You will
have to ask Teeka.
And Sheeta, the panther, saw that the
she-ape had left her cub alone among the grasses. He moved his tail again, as
though this closest approximation of lashing in which he dared indulge might
stimulate his momentarily waned courage. The cry of the victorious ape-man
still held his nerves beneath its spell. It would be several minutes before he
again could bring himself to the point of charging into view of the giant
anthropoids.
And as he regathered his forces, Tarzan
reached Taug's side, and then clambering higher up to the point where the end
of the grass rope was made fast, he unloosed it and lowered the ape slowly
downward, swinging him in until the clutching hands fastened upon a limb.
Quickly Taug drew himself to a position
of safety and shook off the noose. In his rage-maddened heart was no room for
gratitude to the ape-man. He recalled only the fact that Tarzan had laid this
painful indignity upon him. He would be revenged, but just at present his legs
were so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone the gratification of
his vengeance.
Tarzan was coiling his rope the while he
lectured Taug on the futility of pitting his poor powers, physical and
intellectual, against those of his betters. Teeka had come close beneath the
tree and was peering upward. Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his
belly close to the ground. In another moment he would be clear of the
underbrush and ready for the rapid charge and the quick retreat that would end
the brief existence of Teeka's balu.
Then Tarzan chanced to look up and
across the clearing. Instantly his attitude of good-natured bantering and
pompous boastfulness dropped from him. Silently and swiftly he shot downward
toward the ground. Teeka, seeing him coming, and thinking that he was after her
or her balu, bristled and prepared to fight. But Tarzan sped by her, and as he
went, her eyes followed him and she saw the cause of his sudden descent and his
rapid charge across the clearing. There in full sight now was Sheeta, the
panther, stalking slowly toward the tiny, wriggling balu which lay among the
grasses many yards away.
Teeka gave voice to a shrill scream of
terror and of warning as she dashed after the ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan
coming. He saw the she-ape's cub before him, and he thought that this other was
bent upon robbing him of his prey. With an angry growl, he charged.
Taug, warned by Teeka's cry, came
lumbering down to her assistance. Several other bulls, growling and barking,
closed in toward the clearing, but they were all much farther from the balu and
the panther than was Tarzan of the Apes, so it was that Sheeta and the ape-man
reached Teeka’s little one almost simultaneously; and there they stood, one
upon either side of it, baring their fangs and snarling at each other over the
little creature.
Sheeta was afraid to seize the balu, for
thus he would give the ape-man an opening for attack; and for the same reason
Tarzan hesitated to snatch the panther’s prey out of harm’s way, for had he
stooped to accomplish this, the great beast would have been upon him in an
instant. Thus they stood while Teeka came across the clearing, going more
slowly as she neared the panther, for even her mother love could scarce
overcome her instinctive terror of this natural enemy of her kind.
Behind her came Taug, warily and with
many pauses and much bluster, and still behind him came other bulls, snarling
ferociously and
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Instantly the balu was forgotten by
Sheeta, the panther. He now thought only of tearing to ribbons with his
powerful talons the flesh of his antagonist, of burying his long, yellow fangs
in the soft, smooth hide of the ape-man, but Tarzan had fought before with
clawed creatures of the jungle. Before now he had battled with fanged monsters,
nor always had he come away unscathed. He knew the risk that he ran, but Tarzan
of the Apes, inured to the sight of suffering and death, shrank from neither,
for he feared neither.
The instant that he dodged beneath
Sheeta’s blow, he leaped to the beast’s rear and then full upon the tawny back,
burying his teeth in Sheeta’s neck and the fingers of one hand in the fur at
the throat, and with the other hand he drove his blade into Sheeta’s side.
Over and over upon the grass rolled
Sheeta, growling and screaming, clawing and biting, in a
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mad effort to dislodge his antagonist or
get some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons.
As Tarzan leaped to close quarters with
the panther, Teeka had run quickly in and snatched up her balu. Now she sat
upon a high branch, safe out of harm’s way, cuddling the little thing close to
her hairy breast, the while her savage little eyes bored down upon the
contestants in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged Taug and the other
bulls to leap into the melee.
Thus goaded the bulls came closer, the
redoubling their hideous clamor; but Sheeta was already sufficiently
engaged--he did not even hear them. Once he succeeded in partially dislodging
the ape-man from his back, so that Tarzan swung for an instant in front of
those awful talons, and in the brief instant before he could regain his former
hold, a raking blow from a hind paw laid open one leg from hip to knee.
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It was the sight and smell of this blood,
possibly, which wrought upon the encircling apes; but it was Taug who really
was responsible for the thing they did.
Taug, but a moment before filled with
rage toward Tarzan of the Apes, stood close to the battling pair, his
red-rimmed, wicked little eyes glaring at them. What was passing in his savage
brain? Did he gloat over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did
he long to see Sheeta’s great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man?
Or did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to rush
to the rescue and imperil his life for Teeka’sbalu- -for Taug’s little balu? Is
gratitude a possession of man only, or do the lower orders know it also?
With the spilling of Tarzan’s blood,
Taug answered these questions. With all the weight of his great body he leaped,
hideously growling, upon Sheeta. His long fighting fangs buried
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themselves in the white throat. His
powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur until it flew upward in the jungle
breeze.
And with Taug’s example before them the
other bulls charged, burying Sheeta beneath rending fangs and filling all the
forest with the wild din of their battle cries.
Ah! but it was a wondrous and inspiring
sight--this battle of the primordial apes and the great, white ape-man with
their ancestral foe, Sheeta, the panther.
In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly
danced upon the limb which swayed beneath her great weight as she urged on the
males of her people, and Thaka, and Mumga, and Kamma, with the other shes of
the tribe of Kerchak, added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the
pandemonium which now reigned within the jungle.
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Bitten and biting, tearing and torn,
Sheeta battled for his life; but the odds were against him. Even Numa, the
lion, would have hesitated to have attacked an equal number of the great bulls
of the tribe of Kerchak, and now, a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the
terrific battle, the king of beasts rose uneasily from his midday slumber and
slunk off farther into the jungle.
Presently Sheeta’s torn and bloody body
ceased its titanic struggles. It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and was
still, yet the bulls continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn
to shreds. At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from
the tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as an arrow.
He placed a foot upon the dead body of
the panther, and lifting his blood-stained face to the blue of the equatorial
heavens, gave voice to the horrid victory cry of the bull ape.
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One by one his hairy fellows of the
tribe of Kerchak followed his example. The shes came down from their perches of
safety and struck and reviled the dead body of Sheeta. The young apes refought
the battle in mimicry of their mighty elders.
Teeka was quite close to Tarzan. He
turned and saw her with the balu hugged close to her hairy breast, and put out
his hands to take the little one, expecting that Teeka would bare her fangs and
spring upon him; but instead she placed the balu in his arms, and coming
nearer, licked his frightful wounds.
And presently Taug, who had escaped with
only a few scratches, came and squatted beside Tarzan and watched him as he
played with the little balu, and at last he too leaned over and helped Teeka
with the cleansing and the healing of the ape-man’s hurts.
4
108
The God of Tarzan
AMONG THE BOOKS of his dead father in
the little cabin by the land-locked harbor, Tarzan of the Apes found many
things to puzzle his young head. By much labor and through the medium of
infinite patience as well, he had, without assistance, discovered the purpose
of the little bugs which ran riot upon the printed pages. He had learned that
in the many combinations in which he found them they spoke in a silent
language, spoke in a strange tongue, spoke of wonderful things which a little
ape-boy could not by any chance fully understand, arousing his curiosity,
stimulating his imagination and filling his soul with a mighty longing for
further knowledge.
A dictionary had proven itself a
wonderful storehouse of information, when, after several years of tireless endeavor,
he had solved the mystery of its purpose and the manner of its use.
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He had learned to make a species of game
out of it, following up the spoor of a new thought through the mazes of the
many definitions which each new word required him to consult. It was like
following a quarry through the jungle-- it was hunting, and Tarzan of the Apes
was an indefatigable huntsman.
There were, of course, certain words
which aroused his curiosity to a greater extent than others, words which, for
one reason or another, excited his imagination. There was one, for example, the
meaning of which was rather difficult to grasp. It was the word GOD. Tarzan
first had been attracted to it by the fact that it was very short and that it
commenced with a larger g-bug than those about it--a male g-bug it was to
Tarzan, the lower-case letters being females. Another fact which attracted him
to this word was the number of he-bugs which figured in its definition--Supreme
Deity, Creator or Upholder of the Universe. This must be a very
110
important word indeed, he would have to
look into it, and he did, though it still baffled him after many months of
thought and study.
However, Tarzan counted no time wasted
which he devoted to these strange hunting expeditions into the game the game
preserves of knowledge, for each word and each definition led on and on into
strange places, into new worlds where, with increasing frequency, he met old,
familiar faces. And always he added to his store of knowledge.
But of the meaning of GOD he was yet in
doubt. Once he thought he had grasped it--that God was a mighty chieftain, king
of all the Mangani. He was not quite sure, however, since that would mean that
God was mightier than Tarzan--a point which Tarzan of the Apes, who
acknowledged no equal in the jungle, was loath to concede.
But in all the books he had there was no
111
picture of God, though he found much to
confirm his belief that God was a great, an all- powerful individual. He saw
pictures of places where God was worshiped; but never any sign of God. Finally
he began to wonder if God were not of a different form than he, and at last he
determined to set out in search of Him.
He commenced by questioning Mumga, who
was very old and had seen many strange things in her long life; but Mumga,
being an ape, had a faculty for recalling the trivial. That time when Gunto
mistook a sting-bug for an edible beetle had made more impression upon Mumga
than all the innumerable manifestations of the greatness of God which she had
witnessed, and which, of course, she had not understood.
Numgo, overhearing Tarzan's questions,
managed to wrest his attention long enough from the diversion of flea hunting
to advance the theory that the power which made the
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lightning and the rain and the thunder
came from Goro, the moon. He knew this, he said, because the Dum-Dum always was
danced in the light of Goro. This reasoning, though entirely satisfactory to
Numgo and Mumga, failed fully to convince Tarzan. However, it gave him a basis
for further investigation along a new line. He would investigate the moon.
That night he clambered to the loftiest
pinnacle of the tallest jungle giant. The moon was full, a great, glorious,
equatorial moon. The ape-man, upright upon a slender, swaying limb, raised his
bronzed face to the silver orb. Now that he had clambered to the highest point
within his reach, he discovered, to his surprise, that Goro was as far away as
when he viewed him from the ground. He thought that Goro was attempting to
elude him.
“Come, Goro!” he cried, “Tarzan of the
Apes will not harm you!” But still the moon held aloof.
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“Tell me,” he continued, “if you be the
great king who sends Ara, the lightning; who makes the great noise and the
mighty winds, and sends the waters down upon the jungle people when the days
are dark and it is cold. Tell me, Goro, are you God?”
Of course he did not pronounce God as
you or I would pronounce His name, for Tarzan knew naught of the spoken
language of his English forbears; but he had a name of his own invention for
each of the little bugs which constituted the alphabet. Unlike the apes he was
not satisfied merely to have a mental picture of the things he knew, he must
have a word descriptive of each. In reading he grasped a word in its entirety;
but when he spoke the words he had learned from the books of his father, he
pronounced each according to the names he had given the various little bugs
which occurred in it, usually giving the gender prefix for each.
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Thus it was an imposing word which
Tarzan made of GOD. The masculine prefix of the apes is BU, the feminine MU; g
Tarzan had named LA, o he pronounced TU, and d was MO. So the God evolved
itself into word BULAMUTUMUMO, or, in English, he-g-she-o- she-d.
Similarly he had arrived at a strange
and wonderful spelling of his own name. Tarzan is derived from the two ape
words TAR and ZAN, meaning white skin. It was given him by his foster mother,
Kala, the great she-ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of
his own people he had not yet chanced upon either WHITE or SKIN in the
dictionary; but in a primer he had seen the picture of a little white boy and
so he wrote his name BUMUDE- MUTOMURO, or he-boy.
To follow Tarzan’s strange system of
spelling would be laborious as well as futile, and so we
115
Thus it was an imposing word which
Tarzan made of GOD. The masculine prefix of the apes is BU, the feminine MU; g
Tarzan had named LA, o he pronounced TU, and d was MO. So the God evolved
itself into word BULAMUTUMUMO, or, in English, he-g-she-o- she-d.
Similarly he had arrived at a strange
and wonderful spelling of his own name. Tarzan is derived from the two ape
words TAR and ZAN, meaning white skin. It was given him by his foster mother,
Kala, the great she-ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of
his own people he had not yet chanced upon either WHITE or SKIN in the
dictionary; but in a primer he had seen the picture of a little white boy and
so he wrote his name BUMUDE- MUTOMURO, or he-boy.
To follow Tarzan’s strange system of
spelling would be laborious as well as futile, and so we
116
Thus it was an imposing word which
Tarzan made of GOD. The masculine prefix of the apes is BU, the feminine MU; g
Tarzan had named LA, o he pronounced TU, and d was MO. So the God evolved
itself into word BULAMUTUMUMO, or, in English, he-g-she-o- she-d.
Similarly he had arrived at a strange
and wonderful spelling of his own name. Tarzan is derived from the two ape
words TAR and ZAN, meaning white skin. It was given him by his foster mother,
Kala, the great she-ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of
his own people he had not yet chanced upon either WHITE or SKIN in the
dictionary; but in a primer he had seen the picture of a little white boy and
so he wrote his name BUMUDE- MUTOMURO, or he-boy.
To follow Tarzan’s strange system of
spelling would be laborious as well as futile, and so we
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But the moon made no answer to the
boasting of the ape-man, and when a cloud came and obscured her face, Tarzan
thought that Goro was indeed afraid, and was hiding from him, so he came down
out of the trees and awoke Numgo and told him how great was Tarzan--how he had
frightened Goro out of the sky and made him tremble. Tarzan spoke of the moon
as HE, for all things large or awe inspiring are male to the ape folk.
Numgo was not much impressed; but he was
very sleepy, so he told Tarzan to go away and leave his betters alone.
“But where shall I find God?” insisted
Tarzan. “You are very old; if there is a God you must have seen Him. What does
He look like? Where does He live?”
“I am God,” replied Numgo. “Now sleep
and disturb me no more.”
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Tarzan looked at Numgo steadily for
several minutes, his shapely head sank just a trifle between his great
shoulders, his square chin shot forward and his short upper lip drew back,
exposing his white teeth. Then, with a low growl he leaped upon the ape and
buried his fangs in the other’s hairy shoulder, clutching the great neck in his
mighty fingers. Twice he shook the old ape, then he released his tooth-hold.
“Are you God?” he demanded.
“No,” wailed Numgo. “I am only a poor,
old ape. Leave me alone. Go ask the Gomangani where God is. They are hairless
like yourself and very wise, too. They should know.”
Tarzan released Numgo and turned away.
The suggestion that he consult the blacks appealed to him, and though his
relations with the people of Mbonga, the chief, were the antithesis of
friendly, he could at least spy upon his hated enemies and discover if they had
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intercourse with God.
So it was that Tarzan set forth through
the trees toward the village of the blacks, all excitement at the prospect of
discovering the Supreme Being, the Creator of all things. As he traveled he
reviewed, mentally, his armament-- the condition of his hunting knife, the
number of his arrows, the newness of the gut which strung his bow--he hefted
the war spear which had once been the pride of some black warrior of Mbonga’s
tribe.
If he met God, Tarzan would be prepared.
One could never tell whether a grass rope, a war spear, or a poisoned arrow
would be most efficacious against an unfamiliar foe. Tarzan of the Apes was
quite content--if God wished to fight, the ape-man had no doubt as to the
outcome of the struggle. There were many questions Tarzan wished to put to the
Creator of the Universe and so he hoped that God would
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not prove a belligerent God; but his
experience of life and the ways of living things had taught him that any
creature with the means for offense and defense was quite likely to provoke
attack if in the proper mood.
It was dark when Tarzan came to the
village of Mbonga. As silently as the silent shadows of the night he sought his
accustomed place among the branches of the great tree which overhung the
palisade. Below him, in the village street, he saw men and women. The men were
hideously painted--more hideously than usual. Among them moved a weird and
grotesque figure, a tall figure that went upon the two legs of a man and yet
had the head of a buffalo. A tail dangled to his ankles behind him, and in one
hand he carried a zebra’s tail while the other clutched a bunch of small
arrows.
Tarzan was electrified. Could it be that
chance had given him thus early an opportunity
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to look upon God? Surely this thing was
neither man nor beast, so what could it be then other than the Creator of the
Universe! The ape-man watched the every move of the strange creature. He saw
the black men and women fall back at its approach as though they stood in
terror of its mysterious powers.
Presently he discovered that the deity
was speaking and that all listened in silence to his words. Tarzan was sure
that none other than God could inspire such awe in the hearts of the Gomangani,
or stop their mouths so effectually without recourse to arrows or spears.
Tarzan had come to look with contempt upon the blacks, principally because of
their garrulity. The small apes talked a great deal and ran away from an enemy.
The big, old bulls of Kerchak talked but little and fought upon the slightest
provocation. Numa, the lion, was not given to loquacity, yet of all the jungle
folk there were few who fought more often than he.
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Tarzan witnessed strange things that
night, none of which he understood, and, perhaps because they were strange, he
thought that they must have to do with the God he could not understand. He saw
three youths receive their first war spears in a weird ceremony which the
grotesque witch-doctor strove successfully to render uncanny and awesome.
Hugely interested, he watched the
slashing of the three brown arms and the exchange of blood with Mbonga, the
chief, in the rites of the ceremony of blood brotherhood. He saw the zebra’s
tail dipped into a caldron of water above which the witch-doctor had made
magical passes the while he danced and leaped about it, and he saw the breasts
and foreheads of each of the three novitiates sprinkled with the charmed
liquid. Could the ape-man have known the purpose of this act, that it was
intended to render the recipient invulnerable to the attacks of his enemies and
fearless in the face of any
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danger, he would doubtless have leaped
into the village street and appropriated the zebra’s tail and a portion of the
contents of the caldron.
But he did not know, and so he only
wondered, not alone at what he saw but at the strange sensations which played
up and down his naked spine, sensations induced, doubtless, by the same
hypnotic influence which held the black spectators in tense awe upon the verge
of a hysteric upheaval.
The longer Tarzan watched, the more
convinced he became that his eyes were upon God, and with the conviction came
determination to have word with the deity. With Tarzan of the Apes, to think
was to act.
The people of Mbonga were keyed to the
highest pitch of hysterical excitement. They needed little to release the
accumulated pressure of static nerve force which the terrorizing mummery of the
witch-doctor had induced.
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A lion roared, suddenly and loud, close
without the palisade. The blacks started nervously, dropping into utter silence
as they listened for a repetition of that all-too-familiar and always
terrorizing voice. Even the witch- doctor paused in the midst of an intricate
step, remaining momentarily rigid and statuesque as he plumbed his cunning mind
for a suggestion as how best he might take advantage of the condition of his
audience and the timely interruption.
Already the evening had been vastly
profitable to him. There would be three goats for the initiation of the three
youths into full- fledged warriorship, and besides these he had received
several gifts of grain and beads, together with a piece of copper wire from
admiring and terrified members of his audience.
Numa’s roar still reverberated along
taut nerves when a woman’s laugh, shrill and
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piercing, shattered the silence of the
village. It was this moment that Tarzan chose to drop lightly from his tree
into the village street. Fearless among his blood enemies he stood, taller by a
full head than many of Mbonga’s warriors, straight as their straightest arrow,
muscled like Numa, the lion.
For a moment Tarzan stood looking
straight at the witch-doctor. Every eye was upon him, yet no one had moved--a
paralysis of terror held them, to be broken a moment later as the ape- man,
with a toss of head, stepped straight toward the hideous figure beneath the
buffalo head.
Then the nerves of the blacks could stand
no more. For months the terror of the strange, white, jungle god had been upon
them. Their arrows had been stolen from the very center of the village; their
warriors had been silently slain upon the jungle trails and their dead bodies
dropped mysteriously and by night into the
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village street as from the heavens
above.
One or two there were who had glimpsed
the strange figure of the new demon and it was from their oft-repeated
descriptions that the entire village now recognized Tarzan as the author of
many of their ills. Upon another occasion and by daylight, the warriors would
doubtless have leaped to attack him, but at night, and this night of all
others, when they were wrought to such a pitch of nervous dread by the uncanny
artistry of their witch-doctor, they were helpless with terror. As one man they
turned and fled, scattering for their huts, as Tarzan advanced. For a moment
one and one only held his ground. It was the witch-doctor. More than half self-
hypnotized into a belief in his own charlatanry he faced this new demon who
threatened to undermine his ancient and lucrative profession.
“Are you God?” asked Tarzan.
The witch-doctor, having no idea of the
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meaning of the other’s words, danced a
few strange steps, leaped high in the air, turning completely around and
alighting in a stooping posture with feet far outspread and head thrust out
toward the ape-man. Thus he remained for an instant before he uttered a loud
“Boo!” which was evidently intended to frighten Tarzan away; but in reality had
no such effect.
Tarzan did not pause. He had set out to
approach and examine God and nothing upon earth might now stay his feet. Seeing
that his antics had no potency with the visitor, the witch- doctor tried some
new medicine. Spitting upon the zebra’s tail, which he still clutched in one
hand, he made circles above it with the arrows in the other hand, meanwhile
backing cautiously away from Tarzan and speaking confidentially to the bushy
end of the tail.
This medicine must be short medicine,
however, for the creature, god or demon, was
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steadily closing up the distance which
had separated them. The circles therefore were few and rapid, and when they
were completed, the witch-doctor struck an attitude which was intended to be
awe inspiring and waving the zebra’s tail before him, drew an imaginary line
between himself and Tarzan.
“Beyond this line you cannot pass, for
my medicine is strong medicine,” he cried. “Stop, or you will fall dead as your
foot touches this spot. My mother was a voodoo, my father was a snake; I live
upon lions’ hearts and the entrails of the panther; I eat young babies for
breakfast and the demons of the jungle are my slaves. I am the most powerful
witch-doctor in the world; I fear nothing, for I cannot die. I--” But he got no
further; instead he turned and fled as Tarzan of the Apes crossed the magical
dead line and still lived.
As the witch-doctor ran, Tarzan almost
lost
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his temper. This was no way for God to
act, at least not in accordance with the conception Tarzan had come to have of
God.
“Come back!” he cried. “Come back, God,
I will not harm you.” But the witch-doctor was in full retreat by this time,
stepping high as he leaped over cooking pots and the smoldering embers of small
fires that had burned before the huts of villagers. Straight for his own hut
ran the witch- doctor, terror-spurred to unwonted speed; but futile was his
effort--the ape-man bore down upon him with the speed of Bara, the deer.
Just at the entrance to his hut the
witch- doctor was overhauled. A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him
back. It seized upon a portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from
him. It was a naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the
hut’s interior.
So this was what he had thought was God!
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his temper. This was no way for God to
act, at least not in accordance with the conception Tarzan had come to have of
God.
“Come back!” he cried. “Come back, God, I will
not harm you.” But the witch-doctor was in full retreat by this time, stepping
high as he leaped over cooking pots and the smoldering embers of small fires
that had burned before the huts of villagers. Straight for his own hut ran the
witch- doctor, terror-spurred to unwonted speed; but futile was his effort--the
ape-man bore down upon him with the speed of Bara, the deer.
Just at the entrance to his hut the
witch- doctor was overhauled. A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him
back. It seized upon a portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from
him. It was a naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the
hut’s interior.
So this was what he had thought was God!
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his temper. This was no way for God to
act, at least not in accordance with the conception Tarzan had come to have of
God.
“Come back!” he cried. “Come back, God,
I will not harm you.” But the witch-doctor was in full retreat by this time,
stepping high as he leaped over cooking pots and the smoldering embers of small
fires that had burned before the huts of villagers. Straight for his own hut
ran the witch- doctor, terror-spurred to unwonted speed; but futile was his
effort--the ape-man bore down upon him with the speed of Bara, the deer.
Just at the entrance to his hut the
witch- doctor was overhauled. A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him
back. It seized upon a portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from
him. It was a naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the
hut’s interior.
So this was what he had thought was God!
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Placing his foot upon the neck of the
fallen witch-doctor, the ape-man raised his face to the moon and uttered the
long, shrill scream of the victorious bull ape. Then he stooped and snatched
the zebra’s tail from the nerveless fingers of the unconscious man and without
a backward glance retraced his footsteps across the village.
From several hut doorways frightened
eyes watched him. Mbonga, the chief, was one of those who had seen what passed
before the hut of the witch-doctor. Mbonga was greatly concerned. Wise old
patriarch that he was, he never had more than half believed in witch- doctors,
at least not since greater wisdom had come with age; but as a chief he was well
convinced of the power of the witch-doctor as an arm of government, and often
it was that Mbonga used the superstitious fears of his people to his own ends
through the medium of
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the medicine-man.
Mbonga and the witch-doctor had worked
together and divided the spoils, and now the “face” of the witch-doctor would
be lost forever if any saw what Mbonga had seen; nor would this generation
again have as much faith in any future witch-doctor.
Mbonga must do something to counteract
the evil influence of the forest demon’s victory over the witch-doctor. He
raised his heavy spear and crept silently from his hut in the wake of the
retreating ape-man. Down the village street walked Tarzan, as unconcerned and
as deliberate as though only the friendly apes of Kerchak surrounded him
instead of a village full of armed enemies.
Seeming only was the indifference of
Tarzan, for alert and watchful was every well-trained sense. Mbonga, wily
stalker of keen-eared jungle creatures, moved now in utter silence. Not even
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Bara, the deer, with his great ears
could have guessed from any sound that Mbonga was near; but the black was not
stalking Bara; he was stalking man, and so he sought only to avoid noise.
Closer and closer to the slowly moving
ape- man he came. Now he raised his war spear, throwing his spear-hand far back
above his right shoulder. Once and for all would Mbonga, the chief, rid himself
and his people of the menace of this terrifying enemy. He would make no poor
cast; he would take pains, and he would hurl his weapon with such great force
as would finish the demon forever.
But Mbonga, sure as he thought himself,
erred in his calculations. He might believe that he was stalking a man--he did
not know, however, that it was a man with the delicate sense perception of the
lower orders. Tarzan, when he had turned his back upon his enemies,
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had noted what Mbonga never would have
thought of considering in the hunting of man-- the wind. It was blowing in the
same direction that Tarzan was proceeding, carrying to his delicate nostrils
the odors which arose behind him. Thus it was that Tarzan knew that he was
being followed, for even among the many stenches of an African village, the
ape-man’s uncanny faculty was equal to the task of differentiating one stench
from another and locating with remarkable precision the source from whence it
came.
He knew that a man was following him and
coming closer, and his judgment warned him of the purpose of the stalker. When
Mbonga, therefore, came within spear range of the ape- man, the latter suddenly
wheeled upon him, so suddenly that the poised spear was shot a fraction of a
second before Mbonga had intended. It went a trifle high and Tarzan stooped to
let it pass over his head; then he
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sprang toward the chief. But Mbonga did
not wait to receive him. Instead, he turned and fled for the dark doorway of
the nearest hut, calling as he went for his warriors to fall upon the stranger
and slay him.
Well indeed might Mbonga scream for
help, for Tarzan, young and fleet-footed, covered the distance between them in
great leaps, at the speed of a charging lion. He was growling, too, not at all
unlike Numa himself. Mbonga heard and his blood ran cold. He could feel the
wool stiffen upon his pate and a prickly chill run up his spine, as though
Death had come and run his cold finger along Mbonga’s back.
Others heard, too, and saw, from the
darkness of their huts--bold warriors, hideously painted, grasping heavy war spears
in nerveless fingers. Against Numa, the lion, they would have charged
fearlessly. Against many times their own number of black warriors would they
have
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raced to the protection of their chief;
but this weird jungle demon filled them with terror. There was nothing human in
the bestial growls that rumbled up from his deep chest; there was nothing human
in the bared fangs, or the catlike leaps.
Mbonga’s warriors were terrified--too
terrified to leave the seeming security of their huts while they watched the
beast-man spring full upon the back of their old chieftain.
Mbonga went down with a scream of
terror. He was too frightened even to attempt to defend himself. He just lay
beneath his antagonist in a paralysis of fear, screaming at the top of his
lungs. Tarzan half rose and kneeled above the black. He turned Mbonga over and
looked him in the face, exposing the man’s throat, then he drew his long, keen
knife, the knife that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, had brought from England
many years before. He raised it close above
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Mbonga’s neck. The old black whimpered
with terror. He pleaded for his life in a tongue which Tarzan could not
understand.
For the first time the ape-man had a
close view of the chief. He saw an old man, a very old man with scrawny neck
and wrinkled face--a dried, parchment-like face which resembled some of the
little monkeys Tarzan knew so well. He saw the terror in the man’s eyes--never
before had Tarzan seen such terror in the eyes of any animal, or such a piteous
appeal for mercy upon the face of any creature.
Something stayed the ape-man’s hand for
an instant. He wondered why it was that he hesitated to make the kill; never
before had he thus delayed. The old man seemed to wither and shrink to a bag of
puny bones beneath his eyes. So weak and helpless and terror-stricken he
appeared that the ape-man was filled with a great contempt; but another
sensation also claimed
139
him--something new to Tarzan of the Apes
in relation to an enemy. It was pity--pity for a poor, frightened, old man.
Tarzan rose and turned away, leaving
Mbonga, the chief, unharmed.
With head held high the ape-man walked
through the village, swung himself into the branches of the tree which overhung
the palisade and disappeared from the sight of the villagers.
All the way back to the stamping ground
of the apes, Tarzan sought for an explanation of the strange power which had
stayed his hand and prevented him from slaying Mbonga. It was as though someone
greater than he had commanded him to spare the life of the old man. Tarzan
could not understand, for he could conceive of nothing, or no one, with the
authority to dictate to him what he should do, or what he should refrain from
doing.
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It was late when Tarzan sought a swaying
couch among the trees beneath which slept the apes of Kerchak, and he was still
absorbed in the solution of his strange problem when he fell asleep.
The sun was well up in the heavens when
he awoke. The apes were astir in search of food. Tarzan watched them lazily
from above as they scratched in the rotting loam for bugs and beetles and
grubworms, or sought among the branches of the trees for eggs and young birds,
or luscious caterpillars.
An orchid, dangling close beside his
head, opened slowly, unfolding its delicate petals to the warmth and light of
the sun which but recently had penetrated to its shady retreat. A thousand
times had Tarzan of the Apes witnessed the beauteous miracle; but now it
aroused a keener interest, for the ape-man was just commencing to ask himself
questions about
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all the myriad wonders which heretofore
he had but taken for granted.
What made the flower open? What made it
grow from a tiny bud to a full-blown bloom? Why was it at all? Why was he?
Where did Numa, the lion, come from? Who planted the first tree? How did Goro
get way up into the darkness of the night sky to cast his welcome light upon
the fearsome nocturnal jungle? And the sun! Did the sun merely happen there?
Why were all the peoples of the jungle
not trees? Why were the trees not something else? Why was Tarzan different from
Taug, and Taug different from Bara, the deer, and Bara different from Sheeta,
the panther, and why was not Sheeta like Buto, the rhinoceros? Where and how,
anyway, did they all come from--the trees, the flowers, the insects, the
countless creatures of the jungle?
Quite unexpectedly an idea popped into
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Tarzan’s head. In following out the many
ramifications of the dictionary definition of GOD he had come upon the word
CREATE--”to cause to come into existence; to form out of nothing.”
Tarzan almost had arrived at something
tangible when a distant wail startled him from his preoccupation into
sensibility of the present and the real. The wail came from the jungle at some
little distance from Tarzan’s swaying couch. It was the wail of a tiny balu.
Tarzan recognized it at once as the voice of Gazan, Teeka’s baby. They had
called it Gazan because its soft, baby hair had been unusually red, and GAZAN
in the language of the great apes, means red skin.
The wail was immediately followed by a
real scream of terror from the small lungs. Tarzan was electrified into instant
action. Like an arrow from a bow he shot through the trees in the
143
direction of the sound. Ahead of him he
heard the savage snarling of an adult she-ape. It was Teeka to the rescue. The
danger must be very real. Tarzan could tell that by the note of rage mingled
with fear in the voice of the she.
Running along bending limbs, swinging
from one tree to another, the ape-man raced through the middle terraces toward
the sounds which now had risen in volume to deafening proportions. From all
directions the apes of Kerchak were hurrying in response to the appeal in the
tones of the balu and its mother, and as they came, their roars reverberated
through the forest.
But Tarzan, swifter than his heavy
fellows, distanced them all. It was he who was first upon the scene. What he
saw sent a cold chill through his giant frame, for the enemy was the most hated
and loathed of all the jungle creatures.
Twined in a great tree was Histah, the
snake--
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huge, ponderous, slimy--and in the folds
of its deadly embrace was Teeka’s little balu, Gazan. Nothing in the jungle
inspired within the breast of Tarzan so near a semblance to fear as did the
hideous Histah. The apes, too, loathed the terrifying reptile and feared him
even more than they did Sheeta, the panther, or Numa, the lion. Of all their
enemies there was none they gave a wider berth than they gave Histah, the
snake.
Tarzan knew that Teeka was peculiarly
fearful of this silent, repulsive foe, and as the scene broke upon his vision,
it was the action of Teeka which filled him with the greatest wonder, for at
the moment that he saw her, the she-ape leaped upon the glistening body of the
snake, and as the mighty folds encircled her as well as her offspring, she made
no effort to escape, but instead grasped the writhing body in a futile effort
to tear it from her screaming balu.
Tarzan knew all too well how deep-rooted
was
145
huge, ponderous, slimy--and in the folds
of its deadly embrace was Teeka’s little balu, Gazan. Nothing in the jungle
inspired within the breast of Tarzan so near a semblance to fear as did the
hideous Histah. The apes, too, loathed the terrifying reptile and feared him
even more than they did Sheeta, the panther, or Numa, the lion. Of all their
enemies there was none they gave a wider berth than they gave Histah, the
snake.
Tarzan knew that Teeka was peculiarly
fearful of this silent, repulsive foe, and as the scene broke upon his vision,
it was the action of Teeka which filled him with the greatest wonder, for at
the moment that he saw her, the she-ape leaped upon the glistening body of the
snake, and as the mighty folds encircled her as well as her offspring, she made
no effort to escape, but instead grasped the writhing body in a futile effort
to tear it from her screaming balu.
Tarzan knew all too well how deep-rooted
was
146
huge, ponderous, slimy--and in the folds
of its deadly embrace was Teeka’s little balu, Gazan. Nothing in the jungle
inspired within the breast of Tarzan so near a semblance to fear as did the
hideous Histah. The apes, too, loathed the terrifying reptile and feared him
even more than they did Sheeta, the panther, or Numa, the lion. Of all their
enemies there was none they gave a wider berth than they gave Histah, the
snake.
Tarzan knew that Teeka was peculiarly
fearful of this silent, repulsive foe, and as the scene broke upon his vision,
it was the action of Teeka which filled him with the greatest wonder, for at
the moment that he saw her, the she-ape leaped upon the glistening body of the
snake, and as the mighty folds encircled her as well as her offspring, she made
no effort to escape, but instead grasped the writhing body in a futile effort
to tear it from her screaming balu.
Tarzan knew all too well how deep-rooted
was
147
Still clinging to the tree, the mighty
reptile held the three as though they had been without weight, the while it
sought to crush the life from them. Tarzan had drawn his knife and this he now
plunged rapidly into the body of the enemy; but the encircling folds promised
to sap his life before he had inflicted a death wound upon the snake. Yet on he
fought, nor once did he seek to escape the horrid death that confronted him--
his sole aim was to slay Histah and thus free Teeka and her balu.
The great, wide-gaping jaws of the snake
turned and hovered above him. The elastic maw, which could accommodate a rabbit
or a horned buck with equal facility, yawned for him; but Histah, in turning
his attention upon the ape- man, brought his head within reach of Tarzan’s
blade. Instantly a brown hand leaped forth and seized the mottled neck, and
another drove the heavy hunting knife to the hilt into the little
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brain.
Convulsively Histah shuddered and
relaxed, tensed and relaxed again, whipping and striking with his great body;
but no longer sentient or sensible. Histah was dead, but in his death throes he
might easily dispatch a dozen apes or men.
Quickly Tarzan seized Teeka and dragged
her from the loosened embrace, dropping her to the ground beneath, then he
extricated the balu and tossed it to its mother. Still Histah whipped about,
clinging to the ape-man; but after a dozen efforts Tarzan succeeded in
wriggling free and leaping to the ground out of range of the mighty battering
of the dying snake.
A circle of apes surrounded the scene of
the battle; but the moment that Tarzan broke safely from the enemy they turned
silently away to resume their interrupted feeding, and Teeka turned with them,
apparently forgetful of all but her balu and the fact that when the
interruption
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had occurred she just had discovered an
ingeniously hidden nest containing three perfectly good eggs.
Tarzan, equally indifferent to a battle
that was over, merely cast a parting glance at the still writhing body of
Histah and wandered off toward the little pool which served to water the tribe
at this point. Strangely, he did not give the victory cry over the vanquished
Histah. Why, he could not have told you, other than that to him Histah was not
an animal. He differed in some peculiar way from the other denizens of the
jungle. Tarzan only knew that he hated him.
At the pool Tarzan drank his fill and
lay stretched upon the soft grass beneath the shade of a tree. His mind
reverted to the battle with Histah, the snake. It seemed strange to him that
Teeka should have placed herself within the folds of the horrid monster. Why
had she done it? Why, indeed, had he? Teeka did not belong to
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him, nor did
Teeka’sbalu. They were both Taug’s. Why then had he done this thing? Histah was
not food for him when he was dead. There seemed to Tarzan, now that he gave the
matter thought, no reason in the world why he should have done the thing he
did, and presently it occurred to him that he had acted almost involuntarily,
just as he had acted when he had released the old Gomangani the previous
evening.
What made him do such
things? Somebody more powerful than he must force him to act at times.
“All-powerful, thought Tarzan. “The little bugs say that God is all-powerful.
It must be that God made me do these things, for I never did them by myself. It
was God who made Teeka rush upon Histah. Teeka would never go near Histah of
her own volition. It was God who held my knife from the throat of the old
Gomangani. God accomplishes strange things for he is ‘all- powerful! I cannot
see Him; but I know that it
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must be God who does
these things. No Mangani, no Gomangani, no Tarmangani could do them.”
And the flowers--who
made them grow? Ah, now it was all explained--the flowers, the trees, the moon,
the sun, himself, every living creature in the jungle--they were all made by
God out of nothing.
And what was God? What
did God look like? Of that he had no conception; but he was sure that
everything that was good came from God. His good act in refraining from slaying
the poor, defenseless old Gomangani; Teeka’s love that had hurled her into the
embrace of death; his own loyalty to Teeka which had jeopardized his life that
she might live. The flowers and the trees were good and beautiful. God had made
them. He made the other creatures, too, that each might have food upon which to
live. He had made Sheeta, the panther, with his beautiful coat; and Numa, the
lion, with his noble head
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and his shaggy mane. He
had made Bara, the deer, lovely and graceful.
Yes, Tarzan had found
God, and he spent the whole day in attributing to Him all of the good and
beautiful things of nature; but there was one thing which troubled him. He
could not quite reconcile it to his conception of his new-found God.
Who made Histah,
5
the snake?
Tarzan and the Black
Boy
TARZAN OF THE Apes sat
at the foot of a great tree braiding a new grass rope. Beside him lay the
frayed remnants of the old one, torn and severed by the fangs and talons of
Sheeta, the panther. Only half the original rope was there, the balance having
been carried off by the angry cat as he bounded away through the jungle with
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the noose still about his
savage neck and the loose end dragging among the underbrush.
Tarzan smiled as he
recalled Sheeta’s great rage, his frantic efforts to free himself from the
entangling strands, his uncanny screams that were part hate, part anger, part
terror. He smiled in retrospection at the discomfiture of his enemy, and in
anticipation of another day as he added an extra strand to his new rope.
This would be the
strongest, the heaviest rope that Tarzan of the Apes ever had fashioned.
Visions of Numa, the lion, straining futilely in its embrace thrilled the
ape-man. He was quite content, for his hands and his brain were busy. Content,
too, were his fellows of the tribe of Kerchak, searching for food in the
clearing and the surrounding trees about him. No perplexing thoughts of the
future burdened their minds, and only occasionally, dimly arose recollections
of the near past. They were stimulated to a
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species of brutal
content by the delectable business of filling their bellies. Afterward they would
sleep--it was their life, and they enjoyed it as we enjoy ours, you and I--as
Tarzan enjoyed his. Possibly they enjoyed theirs more than we enjoy ours, for
who shall say that the beasts of the jungle do not better fulfill the purposes
for which they are created than does man with his many excursions into strange
fields and his contraventions of the laws of nature? And what gives greater
content and greater happiness than the fulfilling of a destiny?
As Tarzan worked,
Gazan, Teeka’s little balu, played about him while Teeka sought food upon the
opposite side of the clearing. No more did Teeka, the mother, or Taug, the
sullen sire, harbor suspicions of Tarzan’s intentions toward their first-born.
Had he not courted death to save their Gazan from the fangs and talons of
Sheeta? Did he not fondle and cuddle the little one with even as great a show
of affection as
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Teeka herself
displayed? Their fears were allayed and Tarzan now found himself often in the
role of nursemaid to a tiny anthropoid--an avocation which he found by no means
irksome, since Gazan was a never-failing fount of surprises and entertainment.
Just now the apeling
was developing those arboreal tendencies which were to stand him in such good
stead during the years of his youth, when rapid flight into the upper terraces
was of far more importance and value than his undeveloped muscles and untried
fighting fangs. Backing off fifteen or twenty feet from the bole of the tree
beneath the branches of which Tarzan worked upon his rope, Gazan scampered
quickly forward, scrambling nimbly upward to the lower limbs. Here he would
squat for a moment or two, quite proud of his achievement, then clamber to the
ground again and repeat. Sometimes, quite often in fact, for he was an ape, his
attention was distracted by other
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things, a beetle, a
caterpillar, a tiny field mouse, and off he would go in pursuit; the
caterpillars he always caught, and sometimes the beetles; but the field mice,
never.
Now he discovered the
tail of the rope upon which Tarzan was working. Grasping it in one small hand
he bounced away, for all the world like an animated rubber ball, snatching it
from the ape-man’s hand and running off across the clearing. Tarzan leaped to
his feet and was in pursuit in an instant, no trace of anger on his face or in
his voice as he called to the roguish little balu to drop his rope.
Straight toward his
mother raced Gazan, and after him came Tarzan. Teeka looked up from her
feeding, and in the first instant that she realized that Gazan was fleeing and
that another was in pursuit, she bared her fangs and bristled; but when she saw
that the pursuer was Tarzan she turned back to the business that had been
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occupying her
attention. At her very feet the ape-man overhauled the balu and, though the
youngster squealed and fought when Tarzan seized him, Teeka only glanced
casually in their direction. No longer did she fear harm to her first-born at
the hands of the ape-man. Had he not saved Gazan on two occasions?
Rescuing his rope,
Tarzan returned to his tree and resumed his labor; but thereafter it was
necessary to watch carefully the playful balu, who was now possessed to steal
it whenever he thought his great, smooth-skinned cousin was momentarily off his
guard.
But even under this
handicap Tarzan finally completed the rope, a long, pliant weapon, stronger
than any he ever had made before. The discarded piece of his former one he gave
to Gazan for a plaything, for Tarzan had it in his mind to instruct Teeka’sbalu
after ideas of his own when the youngster should be old and
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strong enough to profit
by his precepts. At present the little ape’s innate aptitude for mimicry would
be sufficient to familiarize him with Tarzan’s ways and weapons, and so the
ape- man swung off into the jungle, his new rope coiled over one shoulder,
while little Gazan hopped about the clearing dragging the old one after him in
childish glee.
As Tarzan traveled,
dividing his quest for food with one for a sufficiently noble quarry whereupon
to test his new weapon, his mind often was upon Gazan. The ape-man had realized
a deep affection for Teeka’sbalu almost from the first, partly because the
child belonged to Teeka, his first love, and partly for the little ape’s own
sake, and Tarzan’s human longing for some sentient creature upon which to
expend those natural affections of the soul which are inherent to all normal
members of the GENUS HOMO. Tarzan envied Teeka. It was true that Gazan
evidenced a considerable reciprocation of
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Tarzan’s fondness for
him, even preferring him to his own surly sire; but to Teeka the little one
turned when in pain or terror, when tired or hungry. Then it was that Tarzan
felt quite alone in the world and longed desperately for one who should turn
first to him for succor and protection.
Taug had Teeka; Teeka
had Gazan; and nearly every other bull and cow of the tribe of Kerchak had one
or more to love and by whom to be loved. Of course Tarzan could scarcely
formulate the thought in precisely this way--he only knew that he craved
something which was denied him; something which seemed to be represented by
those relations which existed between Teeka and her balu, and so he envied
Teeka and longed for a balu of his own.
He saw Sheeta and his
mate with their little family of three; and deeper inland toward the rocky
hills, where one might lie up during the
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Tarzan’s fondness for
him, even preferring him to his own surly sire; but to Teeka the little one
turned when in pain or terror, when tired or hungry. Then it was that Tarzan
felt quite alone in the world and longed desperately for one who should turn
first to him for succor and protection.
Taug had Teeka; Teeka
had Gazan; and nearly every other bull and cow of the tribe of Kerchak had one
or more to love and by whom to be loved. Of course Tarzan could scarcely
formulate the thought in precisely this way--he only knew that he craved
something which was denied him; something which seemed to be represented by
those relations which existed between Teeka and her balu, and so he envied
Teeka and longed for a balu of his own.
He saw Sheeta and his
mate with their little family of three; and deeper inland toward the rocky
hills, where one might lie up during the
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How many thousands of
times had this great, old limb bent to the savage form of some blood- thirsty
hunter in the long years that it had spread its leafy branches above the
deep-worn jungle path! Tarzan, the ape-man, Sheeta, the panther, and Histah,
the snake, it knew well. They had worn smooth the bark upon its upper surface.
Today it was Horta, the
boar, which came down toward the watcher in the old tree--Horta, the boar,
whose formidable tusks and diabolical temper preserved him from all but the
most ferocious or most famished of the largest carnivora.
But to Tarzan, meat was
meat; naught that was edible or tasty might pass a hungry Tarzan unchallenged
and unattacked. In hunger, as in battle, the ape-man out-savaged the dreariest
denizens of the jungle. He knew neither fear nor mercy, except upon rare
occasions when some
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strange, inexplicable
force stayed his hand--a force inexplicable to him, perhaps, because of his
ignorance of his own origin and of all the forces of humanitarianism and
civilization that were his rightful heritage because of that origin.
So today, instead of staying
his hand until a less formidable feast found its way toward him, Tarzan dropped
his new noose about the neck of Horta, the boar. It was an excellent test for
the untried strands. The angered boar bolted this way and that; but each time
the new rope held him where Tarzan had made it fast about the stem of the tree
above the branch from which he had cast it.
As Horta grunted and
charged, slashing the sturdy jungle patriarch with his mighty tusks until the
bark flew in every direction, Tarzan dropped to the ground behind him. In the
ape- man’s hand was the long, keen blade that had been his constant companion
since that distant
163
day upon which chance
had directed its point into the body of Bolgani, the gorilla, and saved the
torn and bleeding man-child from what else had been certain death.
Tarzan walked in toward
Horta, who swung now to face his enemy. Mighty and muscled as was the young
giant, it yet would have appeared but the maddest folly for him to face so
formidable a creature as Horta, the boar, armed only with a slender hunting
knife. So it would have seemed to one who knew Horta even slightly and Tarzan
not at all.
For a moment Horta
stood motionless facing the ape-man. His wicked, deep-set eyes flashed angrily.
He shook his lowered head.
“Mud-eater!” jeered the
ape-man. “Wallower in filth. Even your meat stinks, but it is juicy and makes
Tarzan strong. Today I shall eat your heart, O Lord of the Great Tusks, that it
shall keep savage that which pounds against my own
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ribs.”
Horta, understanding
nothing of what Tarzan said, was none the less enraged because of that. He saw
only a naked man-thing, hairless and futile, pitting his puny fangs and soft
muscles against his own indomitable savagery, and he charged.
Tarzan of the Apes
waited until the upcut of a wicked tusk would have laid open his thigh, then he
moved--just the least bit to one side; but so quickly that lightning was a
sluggard by comparison, and as he moved, he stooped low and with all the great
power of his right arm drove the long blade of his father’s hunting knife
straight into the heart of Horta, the boar. A quick leap carried him from the
zone of the creature’s death throes, and a moment later the hot and dripping
heart of Horta was in his grasp.
His hunger satisfied,
Tarzan did not seek a lying-up place for sleep, as was sometimes his
165
way, but continued on
through the jungle more in search of adventure than of food, for today he was
restless. And so it came that he turned his footsteps toward the village of
Mbonga, the black chief, whose people Tarzan had baited remorselessly since
that day upon which Kulonga, the chief’s son, had slain Kala.
A river winds close
beside the village of the black men. Tarzan reached its side a little below the
clearing where squat the thatched huts of the Negroes. The river life was ever
fascinating to the ape-man. He found pleasure in watching the ungainly antics
of Duro, the hippopotamus, and keen sport in tormenting the sluggish crocodile,
Gimla, as he basked in the sun. Then, too, there were the shes and the balus of
the black men of the Gomangani to frighten as they squatted by the river, the
shes with their meager washing, thebalus with their primitive toys.
This day he came upon a
woman and her
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child farther down
stream than usual. The former was searching for a species of shellfish which
was to be found in the mud close to the river bank. She was a young black woman
of about thirty. Her teeth were filed to sharp points, for her people ate the
flesh of man. Her under lip was slit that it might support a rude pendant of
copper which she had worn for so many years that the lip had been dragged
downward to prodigious lengths, exposing the teeth and gums of her lower jaw.
Her nose, too, was slit, and through the slit was a wooden skewer. Metal
ornaments dangled from her ears, and upon her forehead and cheeks; upon her
chin and the bridge of her nose were tattooings in colors that were mellowed
now by age. She was naked except for a girdle of grasses about her waist.
Altogether she was very beautiful in her own estimation and even in the
estimation of the men of Mbonga’s tribe, though she was of another people--a
trophy of war seized in her maidenhood by one
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ofMbonga’s fighting
men.
Her child was a boy of
ten, lithe, straight and, for a black, handsome. Tarzan looked upon the two
from the concealing foliage of a near-by bush. He was about to leap forth
before them with a terrifying scream, that he might enjoy the spectacle of
their terror and their incontinent flight; but of a sudden a new whim seized
him. Here was a balu fashioned as he himself was fashioned. Of course this
one’s skin was black; but what of it? Tarzan had never seen a white man. In so
far as he knew, he was the sole representative of that strange form of life
upon the earth. The black boy should make an excellent balu for Tarzan, since
he had none of his own. He would tend him carefully, feed him well, protect him
as only Tarzan of the Apes could protect his own, and teach him out of his half
human, half bestial lore the secrets of the jungle from its rotting surface
vegetation to the high tossed pinnacles of the forest’s upper
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terraces. ***
Tarzan uncoiled his
rope, and shook out the noose. The two before him, all ignorant of the near
presence of that terrifying form, continued preoccupied in the search for
shellfish, poking about in the mud with short sticks.
Tarzan stepped from the
jungle behind them; his noose lay open upon the ground beside him. There was a
quick movement of the right arm and the noose rose gracefully into the air,
hovered an instant above the head of the unsuspecting youth, then settled. As
it encompassed his body below the shoulders, Tarzan gave a quick jerk that
tightened it about the boy’s arms, pinioning them to his sides. A scream of
terror broke from the lad’s lips, and as his mother turned, affrighted at his
cry, she saw him being dragged quickly toward a great white giant who stood
just beneath the shade of a near-
169
by tree, scarcely a
dozen long paces from her.
With a savage cry of
terror and rage, the woman leaped fearlessly toward the ape-man. In her mien
Tarzan saw determination and courage which would shrink not even from death
itself. She was very hideous and frightful even when her face was in repose;
but convulsed by passion, her expression became terrifyingly fiendish. Even the
ape-man drew back, but more in revulsion than fear--fear he knew not.
Biting and kicking was
the black she’s balu as Tarzan tucked him beneath his arm and vanished into the
branches hanging low above him, just as the infuriated mother dashed forward to
seize and do battle with him. And as he melted away into the depth of the
jungle with his still struggling prize, he meditated upon the possibilities
which might lie in the prowess of the Gomangani were the hes as formidable as
the shes.
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Once at a safe distance
from the despoiled mother and out of earshot of her screams and menaces, Tarzan
paused to inspect his prize, now so thoroughly terrorized that he had ceased
his struggles and his outcries.
The frightened child
rolled his eyes fearfully toward his captor, until the whites showed gleaming
all about the irises.
“I am Tarzan,” said the
ape-man, in the vernacular of the anthropoids. “I will not harm you. You are to
be Tarzan’s balu. Tarzan will protect you. He will feed you. The best in the
jungle shall be for Tarzan’s balu, for Tarzan is a mighty hunter. None need you
fear, not even Numa, the lion, for Tarzan is a mighty fighter. None so great as
Tarzan, son of Kala. Do not fear.”
But the child only
whimpered and trembled, for he did not understand the tongue of the great apes,
and the voice of Tarzan sounded to him like the barking and growling of a
beast. Then, too,
171
he had heard stories of
this bad, white forest god. It was he who had slain Kulonga and others of the
warriors of Mbonga, the chief. It was he who entered the village stealthily, by
magic, in the darkness of the night, to steal arrows and poison, and frighten
the women and the children and even the great warriors. Doubtless this wicked
god fed upon little boys. Had his mother not said as much when he was naughty
and she threatened to give him to the white god of the jungle if he were not
good? Little black Tibo shook as with ague.
“Are you cold,
Go-bu-balu?” asked Tarzan, using the simian equivalent of black he-baby in lieu
of a better name. “The sun is hot; why do you shiver?”
Tibo could not
understand; but he cried for his mamma and begged the great, white god to let
him go, promising always to be a good boy thereafter if his plea were granted.
Tarzan shook
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his head. Not a word
could he understand. This would never do! He must teach Go-bu-balu a language
which sounded like talk. It was quite certain to Tarzan that Go-bu-balu’s
speech was not talk at all. It sounded quite as senseless as the chattering of
the silly birds. It would be best, thought the ape-man, quickly to get him
among the tribe of Kerchak where he would hear the Mangani talking among
themselves. Thus he would soon learn an intelligible form of speech.
Tarzan rose to his feet
upon the swaying branch where he had halted far above the ground, and motioned
to the child to follow him; but Tibo only clung tightly to the bole of the tree
and wept. Being a boy, and a native African, he had, of course, climbed into
trees many times before this; but the idea of racing off through the forest,
leaping from one branch to another, as his captor, to his horror, had done when
he had carried Tibo away from his mother, filled his childish heart with
terror.
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Tarzan sighed. His
newly acquired balu had much indeed to learn. It was pitiful that a balu of his
size and strength should be so backward. He tried to coax Tibo to follow him;
but the child dared not, so Tarzan picked him up and carried him upon his back.
Tibo no longer scratched or bit. Escape seemed impossible. Even now, were he
set upon the ground, the chance was remote, he knew, that he could find his way
back to the village of Mbonga, the chief. Even if he could, there were the
lions and the leopards and the hyenas, any one of which, as Tibo was well
aware, was particularly fond of the meat of little black boys.
So far the terrible
white god of the jungle had offered him no harm. He could not expect even this
much consideration from the frightful, green-eyed man-eaters. It would be the
lesser of two evils, then, to let the white god carry him away without
scratching and biting, as he had done at first.
174
Tarzan sighed. His
newly acquired balu had much indeed to learn. It was pitiful that a balu of his
size and strength should be so backward. He tried to coax Tibo to follow him;
but the child dared not, so Tarzan picked him up and carried him upon his back.
Tibo no longer scratched or bit. Escape seemed impossible. Even now, were he
set upon the ground, the chance was remote, he knew, that he could find his way
back to the village of Mbonga, the chief. Even if he could, there were the
lions and the leopards and the hyenas, any one of which, as Tibo was well
aware, was particularly fond of the meat of little black boys.
So far the terrible
white god of the jungle had offered him no harm. He could not expect even this
much consideration from the frightful, green-eyed man-eaters. It would be the
lesser of two evils, then, to let the white god carry him away without
scratching and biting, as he had done at first.
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And so Tarzan came to
the clearing where the tribe fed, dropping among them with his new balu
clinging tightly to his shoulders. He was fairly in the midst of them before
Tibo spied a single one of the great hairy forms, or before the apes realized
that Tarzan was not alone. When they saw the little Gomangani perched upon his
back some of them came forward in curiosity with upcurled lips and snarling
mien.
An hour before little
Tibo would have said that he knew the uttermost depths of fear; but now, as he
saw these fearsome beasts surrounding him, he realized that all that had gone
before was as nothing by comparison. Why did the great white giant stand there
so unconcernedly? Why did he not flee before these horrid, hairy, tree men fell
upon them both and tore them to pieces? And then there came to Tibo a numbing
recollection. It was none other than the story he had heard passed from mouth
to
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mouth, fearfully, by
the people of Mbonga, the chief, that this great white demon of the jungle was
naught other than a hairless ape, for had not he been seen in company with
these?
Tibo could only stare
in wide-eyed horror at the approaching apes. He saw their beetling brows, their
great fangs, their wicked eyes. He noted their mighty muscles rolling beneath
their shaggy hides. Their every attitude and expression was a menace. Tarzan
saw this, too. He drew Tibo around in front of him.
"This is Tarzan's
Go-bu-balu," he said. "Do not harm him, or Tarzan will kill
you," and he bared his own fangs in the teeth of the nearest ape.
"It is a
Gomangani," replied the ape. "Let me kill it. It is a Gomangani. The
Gomangani are our enemies. Let me kill it."
"Go away,"
snarled Tarzan."I tell you, Gunto, it is Tarzan's balu. Go away or Tarzan
will kill
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you,” and the ape-man
took a step toward the advancing ape.
The latter sidled off,
quite stiff and haughty, after the manner of a dog which meets another and is
too proud to fight and too fearful to turn his back and run.
Next came Teeka,
prompted by curiosity. At her side skipped little Gazan. They were filled with
wonder like the others; but Teeka did not bare her fangs. Tarzan saw this and
motioned that she approach.
“Tarzan has a balu
now,” he said. “He and Teeka’sbalu can play together.”
“It is a Gomangani,”
replied Teeka. “It will kill my balu. Take it away, Tarzan.
Tarzan laughed. “It
could not harm Pamba, the rat,” he said. “It is but a little balu and very
frightened. Let Gazan play with it.”
178
Teeka still was
fearful, for with all their mighty ferocity the great anthropoids are timid;
but at last, assured by her great confidence in Tarzan, she pushed Gazan
forward toward the little black boy. The small ape, guided by instinct, drew
back toward its mother, baring its small fangs and screaming in mingled fear
and rage.
Tibo, too, showed no
signs of desiring a closer acquaintance with Gazan, so Tarzan gave up his
efforts for the time.
During the week which
followed, Tarzan found his time much occupied. His balu was a greater
responsibility than he had counted upon. Not for a moment did he dare leave it,
since of all the tribe, Teeka alone could have been depended upon to refrain
from slaying the hapless black had it not been for Tarzan’s constant
watchfulness. When the ape-man hunted, he must carry Go-bu-balu about with him.
It was
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irksome, and then the
little black seemed so stupid and fearful to Tarzan. It was quite helpless
against even the lesser of the jungle creatures. Tarzan wondered how it had
survived at all. He tried to teach it, and found a ray of hope in the fact that
Go-bu-balu had mastered a few words of the language of the anthropoids, and
that he could now cling to a high-tossed branch without screaming in fear; but
there was something about the child which worried Tarzan. He often had watched
the blacks within their village. He had seen the children playing, and always
there had been much laughter; but little Go-bu-balu never laughed. It was true
that Tarzan himself never laughed. Upon occasion he smiled, grimly, but to
laughter he was a stranger. The black, however, should have laughed, reasoned
the ape- man. It was the way of the Gomangani.
Also, he saw that the
little fellow often refused food and was growing thinner day by day. At times
he surprised the boy sobbing softly
180
to himself. Tarzan
tried to comfort him, even as fierce Kala had comforted Tarzan when the ape-
man was a balu, but all to no avail. Go-bu-balu merely no longer feared
Tarzan--that was all. He feared every other living thing within the jungle. He
feared the jungle days with their long excursions through the dizzy tree tops.
He feared the jungle nights with their swaying, perilous couches far above the
ground, and the grunting and coughing of the great carnivora prowling beneath
him.
Tarzan did not know
what to do. His heritage of English blood rendered it a difficult thing even to
consider a surrender of his project, though he was forced to admit to himself
that his balu was not all that he had hoped. Though he was faithful to his
self-imposed task, and even found that he had grown to like Go-bu-balu, he
could not deceive himself into believing that he felt for it that fierce heat
of passionate affection which Teeka revealed for Gazan, and which the
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black mother had shown
for Go-bu-balu. The little black boy from cringing terror at the sight of
Tarzan passed by degrees into trustfulness and admiration. Only kindness had he
ever received at the hands of the great white devil-god, yet he had seen with
what ferocity his kindly captor could deal with others. He had seen him leap
upon a certain he-ape which persisted in attempting to seize and slay
Go-bu-balu. He had seen the strong, white teeth of the ape-man fastened in the
neck of his adversary, and the mighty muscles tensed in battle. He had heard
the savage, bestial snarls and roars of combat, and he had realized with a
shudder that he could not differentiate between those of his guardian and those
of the hairy ape.
He had seen Tarzan
bring down a buck, just as Numa, the lion, might have done, leaping upon its
back and fastening his fangs in the creature’s neck. Tibo had shuddered at the
sight,
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but he had thrilled,
too, and for the first time there entered his dull, Negroid mind a vague desire
to emulate his savage foster parent. But Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the
divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the white boy, to benefit by his
training in the ways of the fierce jungle. In imagination he was wanting, and
imagination is but another name for super- intelligence.
Imagination it is which
builds bridges, and cities, and empires. The beasts know it not, the blacks
only a little, while to one in a hundred thousand of earth’s dominant race it
is given as a gift from heaven that man may not perish from the earth.
While Tarzan pondered
his problem concerning the future of his balu, Fate was arranging to take the
matter out of his hands. Momaya, Tibo’s mother, grief-stricken at the loss of
her boy, had consulted the tribal witch-
183
doctor, but to no
avail. The medicine he made was not good medicine, for though Momaya paid him
two goats for it, it did not bring back Tibo, nor even indicate where she might
search for him with reasonable assurance of finding him. Momaya, being of a
short temper and of another people, had little respect for the witch-doctor of
her husband’s tribe, and so, when he suggested that a further payment of two
more fat goats would doubtless enable him to make stronger medicine, she
promptly loosed her shrewish tongue upon him, and with such good effect that he
was glad to take himself off with his zebra’s tail and his pot of magic.
When he had gone and
Momaya had succeeded in partially subduing her anger, she gave herself over to
thought, as she so often had done since the abduction of her Tibo, in the hope
that she finally might discover some feasible means of locating him, or at
least assuring herself as to whether he were alive or dead.
184
It was known to the
blacks that Tarzan did not eat the flesh of man, for he had slain more than one
of their number, yet never tasted the flesh of any. Too, the bodies always had
been found, sometimes dropping as though from the clouds to alight in the
center of the village. As Tibo's body had not been found, Momaya argued
that he still lived, but where?
Then it was that there
came to her mind a recollection of Bukawai, the unclean, who dwelt in a cave in
the hillside to the north, and who it was well known entertained devils in his
evil lair. Few, if any, had the temerity to visit old Bukawai, firstly because
of fear of his black magic and the two hyenas who dwelt with him and were
commonly known to be devils masquerading, and secondly because of the loathsome
disease which had caused Bukawai to be an outcast--a disease which was slowly
eating away his face. 185
Now it was that Momaya
reasoned shrewdly that if any might know the whereabouts of her Tibo, it would
be Bukawai, who was in friendly intercourse with gods and demons, since a demon
or a god it was who had stolen her baby; but even her great mother love was
sorely taxed to find the courage to send her forth into the black jungle toward
the distant hills and the uncanny abode of Bukawai, the unclean, and his
devils.
Mother love, however,
is one of the human passions which closely approximates to the dignity of an
irresistible force. It drives the frail flesh of weak women to deeds of heroic
measure. Momaya was neither frail nor weak, physically, but she was a woman, an
ignorant, superstitious, African savage. She believed in devils, in black
magic, and in witchcraft. To Momaya, the jungle was inhabited by far more
terrifying things than lions and leopards--horrifying, nameless things which
possessed the power of wreaking frightful
186
harm under various
innocent guises.
From one of the
warriors of the village, whom she knew to have once stumbled upon the lair of
Bukawai, the mother of Tibo learned how she might find it--near a spring of
water which rose in a small rocky canon between two hills, the easternmost of
which was easily recognizable because of a huge granite boulder which rested
upon its summit. The westerly hill was lower than its companion, and was quite
bare of vegetation except for a single mimosa tree which grew just a little
below its summit.
These two hills, the
man assured her, could be seen for some distance before she reached them, and
together formed an excellent guide to her destination. He warned her, however,
to abandon so foolish and dangerous an adventure, emphasizing what she already
quite well knew, that if she escaped harm at the hands of Bukawai and his
demons, the chances were that she would
187
not be so fortunate
with the great carnivora of the jungle through which she must pass going and
returning. The warrior even went to
Momaya’s husband, who, in turn, having little authority over the vixenish lady
of his choice, went to Mbonga, the chief. The latter summoned Momaya, threatening
her with the direst punishment should she venture forth upon so unholy an
excursion. The old chief’s interest in the matter was due solely to that
age-old alliance which exists between church and state. The local witch-
doctor, knowing his own medicine better than any other knew it, was jealous of
all other pretenders to accomplishments in the black art. He long had heard of
the power of Bukawai, and feared lest, should he succeed in recovering Momaya’s
lost child, much of the tribal patronage and consequent fees would be diverted
to the unclean one. As Mbonga received, as chief, a certain proportion of the
188
She would have
preferred starting upon her quest by day-light, but this was now out of the
question, since she must carry food and a weapon of some sort--things which she
never could pass out of the village with by day without being subjected to
curious questioning that surely would come immediately to the ears of Mbonga.
So Momaya bided her
time until night, and just before the gates of the village were closed, she
slipped through into the darkness and the jungle. She was much frightened, but
she set her face resolutely toward the north, and though she paused often to
listen, breathlessly, for the huge cats which, here, were her greatest terror,
she nevertheless continued her way staunchly for several hours, until a low
moan a little to her right and behind her brought her to a sudden stop.
With palpitating heart
the woman stood,
190
scarce daring to
breathe, and then, very faintly but unmistakable to her keen ears, came the
stealthy crunching of twigs and grasses beneath padded feet.
All about Momaya grew
the giant trees of the tropical jungle, festooned with hanging vines and
mosses. She seized upon the nearest and started to clamber, apelike, to the
branches above. As she did so, there was a sudden rush of a great body behind
her, a menacing roar that caused the earth to tremble, and something crashed
into the very creepers to which she was clinging--but below her.
Momaya drew herself to
safety among the leafy branches and thanked the foresight which had prompted
her to bring along the dried human ear which hung from a cord about her neck.
She always had known that that ear was good medicine. It had been given her,
when a girl, by the witch-doctor of her town tribe, and
191
was nothing like the
poor, weak medicine of Mbonga’s witch-doctor.
All night Momaya clung
to her perch, for although the lion sought other prey after a short time, she
dared not descend into the darkness again, for fear she might encounter him or
another of his kind; but at daylight she clambered down and resumed her
way. Tarzan of the Apes, finding that
his balu never ceased to give evidence of terror in the presence of the apes of
the tribe, and also that most of the adult apes were a constant menace to
Go-bu-balu’s life, so that Tarzan dared not leave him alone with them, took to
hunting with the little black boy farther and farther from the stamping grounds
of the anthropoids.
Little by little his
absences from the tribe grew in length as he wandered farther away from them,
until finally he found himself a greater distance to the north than he ever
before had
192
hunted, and with water
and ample game and fruit, he felt not at all inclined to return to the tribe.
Little Go-bu-balu gave evidences of a greater interest in life, an interest
which varied in direct proportion to the distance he was from the apes of
Kerchak. He now trotted along behind Tarzan when the ape-man went upon the
ground, and in the trees he even did his best to follow his mighty foster
parent. The boy was still sad and lonely. His thin, little body had grown
steadily thinner since he had come among the apes, for while, as a young
cannibal, he was not overnice in the matter of diet, he found it not always to
his taste to stomach the weird things which tickled the palates of epicures
among the apes.
His large eyes were
very large indeed now, his cheeks sunken, and every rib of his emaciated body
plainly discernible to whomsoever should care to count them. Constant terror,
perhaps,
193
had had as much to do
with his physical condition as had improper food. Tarzan noticed the change and
was worried. He had hoped to see his balu wax sturdy and strong. His
disappointment was great. In only one respect did Go-bu-balu seem to
progress--he readily was mastering the language of the apes. Even now he and
Tarzan could converse in a fairly satisfactory manner by supplementing the
meager ape speech with signs; but for the most part, Go-bu-balu was silent
other than to answer questions put to him. His great sorrow was yet too new and
too poignant to be laid aside even momentarily. Always he pined for Momaya--
shrewish, hideous, repulsive, perhaps, she would have been to you or me, but to
Tibo she was mamma, the personification of that one great love which knows no
selfishness and which does not consume itself in its own fires.
As the two hunted, or
rather as Tarzan hunted and Go-bu-balu tagged along in his wake,
194
the ape-man noticed
many things and thought much. Once they came upon Sabor moaning in the tall
grasses. About her romped and played two little balls of fur, but her eyes were
for one which lay between her great forepaws and did not romp, one who never
would romp again.
Tarzan read aright the
anguish and the suffering of the huge mother cat. He had been minded to bait
her. It was to do this that he had sneaked silently through the trees until he
had come almost above her, but something held the ape-man as he saw the lioness
grieving over her dead cub. With the acquisition of Go-bu-balu, Tarzan had come
to realize the responsibilities and sorrows of parentage, without its joys. His
heart went out to Sabor as it might not have done a few weeks before. As he
watched her, there rose quite unbidden before him a vision of Momaya, the
skewer through the septum of her nose, her pendulous under lip sagging beneath
the weight which dragged it down. Tarzan saw not her
195
unloveliness; he saw
only the same anguish that was Sabor’s, and he winced. That strange functioning
of the mind which sometimes is called association of ideas snapped Teeka and
Gazan before the ape-man’s mental vision. What if one should come and take
Gazan from Teeka. Tarzan uttered a low and ominous growl as though Gazan were
his own. Go-bu-balu glanced here and there apprehensively, thinking that Tarzan
had espied an enemy. Sabor sprang suddenly to her feet, her yellow-green eyes
blazing, her tail lashing as she cocked her ears, and raising her muzzle,
sniffed the air for possible danger. The two little cubs, which had been
playing, scampered quickly to her, and standing beneath her, peered out from
between her forelegs, their big ears upstanding, their little heads cocked
first upon one side and then upon the other.
With a shake of his black shock, Tarzan turned away and resumed his
hunting in 196
another direction; but
all day there rose one after another, above the threshold of his objective
mind, memory portraits of Sabor, of Momaya, and of Teeka--a lioness, a
cannibal, and a she-ape, yet to the ape-man they were identical through
motherhood.
It was noon of the
third day when Momaya came within sight of the cave of Bukawai, the unclean.
The old witch-doctor had rigged a framework of interlaced boughs to close the
mouth of the cave from predatory beasts. This was now set to one side, and the
black cavern beyond yawned mysterious and repellent. Momaya shivered as from a
cold wind of the rainy season. No sign of life appeared about the cave, yet
Momaya experienced that uncanny sensation as of unseen eyes regarding her
malevolently. Again she shuddered. She tried to force her unwilling feet onward
toward the cave, when from its depths issued an uncanny sound that was neither
brute nor human, a weird sound
197
that was akin to
mirthless laughter.
With a stifled scream,
Momaya turned and fled into the jungle. For a hundred yards she ran before she
could control her terror, and then she paused, listening. Was all her labor,
were all the terrors and dangers through which she had passed to go for naught?
She tried to steel herself to return to the cave, but again fright overcame
her.
Saddened, disheartened,
she turned slowly upon the back trail toward the village of Mbonga. Her young
shoulders now were drooped like those of an old woman who bears a great burden
of many years with their accumulated pains and sorrows, and she walked with
tired feet and a halting step. The spring of youth was gone from Momaya.
For another hundred
yards she dragged her weary way, her brain half paralyzed from dumb terror and
suffering, and then there came to her
198
the memory of a little
babe that suckled at her breast, and of a slim boy who romped, laughing, about
her, and they were both Tibo--her Tibo!
Her shoulders
straightened. She shook her savage head, and she turned about and walked boldly
back to the mouth of the cave of Bukawai, the unclean--of Bukawai, the
witch-doctor.
Again, from the
interior of the cave came the hideous laughter that was not laughter. This time
Momaya recognized it for what it was, the strange cry of a hyena. No more did
she shudder, but she held her spear ready and called aloud to Bukawai to come
out.
199
"Who comes to
Bukawai?" queried the voice.
"It is Momaya,"
replied the woman; "Momaya from the village of Mbonga, the chief.
"What do you
want?"
"I want good
medicine, better medicine than Mbonga's witch-doctor can make," replied
Momaya. "The great, white, jungle god has stolen my Tibo, and I want
medicine to bring him back, or to find where he is hidden that I may go and get
him."
"Who is
Tibo?" asked Bukawai.
Momaya told him.
"Bukawai's
medicine is very strong," said the voice. "Five goats and a new
sleeping mat are scarce enough in exchange for Bukawai's medicine."
"Two goats are
enough," said Momaya, for the
200