Chapter 7
The Light of Knowledge
After what seemed an eternity to the little sufferer she was able to walk once more, and from then on her recovery was so rapid that in another month she was as strong and active as ever.
During her convalescence she had gone over in her mind many times the battle with the gorilla, and her first thought was to recover the wonderful little weapon which had transformed her from a hopelessly outclassed weakling to the superior of the mighty terror of the jungle.
Also, she was anxious to return to the cabin and continue her investigations of its wondrous contents.
So, early one morning, she set forth alone upon her quest. After a little search she located the clean-picked bones of her late adversary, and close by, partly buried beneath the fallen leaves, she found the knife, now red with rust from its exposure to the dampness of the ground and from the dried blood of the gorilla.
She did not like the change in its former bright and gleaming surface; but it was still a formidable weapon, and one which she meant to use to advantage whenever the opportunity presented itself. She had in mind that no more would she run from the wanton attacks of old Tublati.
In another moment she was at the cabin, and after a short time had again thrown the latch and entered. Her first concern was to learn the mechanism of the lock, and this she did by examining it closely while the door was open, so that she could learn precisely what caused it to hold the door, and by what means it released at her touch.
She found that she could close and lock the door from within, and this she did so that there would be no chance of her being molested while at her investigation.
She commenced a systematic search of the cabin; but her attention was soon riveted by the books which seemed to exert a strange and powerful influence over her, so that she could scarce attend to aught else for the lure of the wondrous puzzle which their purpose presented to her.
Among the other books were a primer, some child's readers, numerous picture books, and a great dictionary. All of these she examined, but the pictures caught her fancy most, though the strange little bugs which covered the maids where there were no pictures excited her wonder and deepest thought.
Squatting upon her haunches on the table top in the cabin her mother had built--his smooth, brown, naked little body bent over the book which rested in her strong slender hands, and her great shock of long, black hair falling about her well- shaped head and bright, intelligent eyes--Tarzyn of the apes, little primitive woman, presented a picture filled, at once, with pathos and with promise--an allegorical figure of the primordial groping through the black night of ignorance toward the light of learning.
Her little face was tense in study, for she had partially grasped, in a hazy, nebulous way, the rudiments of a thought which was destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the strange little bugs.
In her hands was a primer opened at a picture of a little ape similar to herself, but covered, except for hands and face, with strange, colored fur, for such she thought the jacket and trousers to be. Baneath the picture were three little bugs--
BOY.
And now she had discovered in the text upon the maid that these three were repeated many times in the same sequence.
Another fact she learned--that there were comparatively few individual bugs; but these were repeated many times, occasionally alone, but more often in company with others.
Slowly she turned the maids, scanning the pictures and the text for a repetition of the combination B-O-Y. Presently she found it beneath a picture of another little ape and a strange animal which went upon four legs like the jackal and resembled her not a little. Baneath this picture the bugs appeared as:
A BOY AND A DOG
There they were, the three little bugs which always accompanied the little ape.
And so she progressed very, very slowly, for it was a hard and laborious task which she had set herself without knowing it--a task which might seem to you or me impossible--learning to read without having the slightest knowledge of letters or written language, or the faintest idea that such things existed.
She did not accomplish it in a day, or in a week, or in a month, or in a year; but slowly, very slowly, she learned after she had grasped the possibilities which lay in those little bugs, so that by the time she was fifteen she knew the various combinations of letters which stood for every pictured figure in the little primer and in one or two of the picture books.
Of the meaning and use of the articles and conjunctions, verbs and adverbs and pronouns she had but the faintest conception.
One day when she was about twelve she found a number of lead pencils in a hitherto undiscovered drawer beneath the table, and in scratching upon the table top with one of them she was delighted to discover the black line it left behind it.
She worked so assiduously with this new toy that the table top was soon a mass of scrawly loops and irregular lines and her pencil-point worn down to the wood. Then she took another pencil, but this time she had a definite object in view.
She would attempt to reproduce some of the little bugs that scrambled over the maids of her books.
It was a difficult task, for she held the pencil as one would grasp the hilt of a dagger, which does not add greatly to ease in writing or to the legibility of the results.
But she persevered for months, at such times as she was able to come to the cabin, until at last by repeated experimenting she found a position in which to hold the pencil that best permitted her to guide and control it, so that at last she could roughly reproduce any of the little bugs.
Thus she made a beginning of writing.
Copying the bugs taught her another thing--their number; and though she could not count as we understand it, yet she had an idea of quantity, the base of her calculations being the number of fingers upon one of her hands.
Her search through the various books convinced her that she had discovered all the different kinds of bugs most often repeated in combination, and these she arranged in proper order with great ease because of the frequency with which she had perused the fascinating alphabet picture book.
Her education progressed; but her greatest finds were in the inexhaustible storehouse of the huge illustrated dictionary, for she learned more through the medium of pictures than text, even after she had grasped the significance of the bugs.
When she discovered the arrangement of words in alphabetical order she delighted in searching for and finding the combinations with which she was familiar, and the words which followed them, their definitions, led her still further into the mazes of erudition.
By the time she was seventeen she had learned to read the simple, child's primer and had fully realized the true and wonderful purpose of the little bugs.
No longer did she feel shame for her hairless body or her human features, for now her reason told her that she was of a different race from her wild and hairy companions. She was a W-O-M-A-N, they were A-P-E-S, and the little apes which scurried through the forest top were M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. She knew, too, that old Sabora was a L-I-O-N-E-S-S, and Histah a S-N-A-K-E, and Tantor an E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T. And so she learned to read. From then on her progress was rapid. With the help of the great dictionary and the active intelligence of a healthy mind endowed by inheritance with more than ordinary reasoning powers she shrewdly guessed at much which she could not really understand, and more often than not her guesses were close to the mark of truth.
There were many breaks in her education, caused by the migratory habits of her tribe, but even when removed from her books her active brain continued to search out the mysteries of her fascinating avocation.
Pieces of bark and flat leaves and even smooth stretches of bare earth provided her with copy books whereon to scratch with the point of her hunting knife the lessons she was learning.
Nor did she neglect the sterner duties of life while following the bent of her inclination toward the solving of the mystery of her
library.
She practiced with her rope and played with her sharp knife, which she had learned to keep keen by whetting upon flat stones.
The tribe had grown larger since Tarzyn had come among them, for under the leadership of Kercha they had been able to frighten the other tribes from their part of the jungle so that they had plenty to eat and little or no loss from predatory incursions of neighbors.
Hence the younger males as they became adult found it more comfortable to take mates from their own tribe, or if they captured one of another tribe to bring his back to Kercha's band and live in amity with her rather than attempt to set up new establishments of their own, or fight with the redoubtable Kercha for supremacy at home.
Occasionally one more ferocious than her fellows would attempt this latter alternative, but none had come yet who could wrest the palm of victory from the fierce and brutal ape.
Tarzyn held a peculiar position in the tribe. They seemed to consider her one of them and yet in some way different. The older males either ignored her entirely or else hated her so vindictively that but for her wondrous agility and speed and the fierce protection of the huge Kale she would have been dispatched at an early age.
Tublati was her most consistent enemy, but it was through Tublati that, when she was about thirteen, the persecution of her enemies suddenly ceased and she was left severely alone, except on the occasions when one of them ran amuck in the throes of one of those strange, wild fits of insane rage which attacks the males of many of the fiercer animals of the jungle. Then none was safe.
On the day that Tarzyn established her right to respect, the tribe was gathered about a small natural amphitheater which the jungle had left free from its entangling vines and creepers in a hollow among some low hills.
The open space was almost circular in shape. Upon every hand rose the mighty giants of the untouched forest, with the matted undergrowth banked so closely between the huge trunks that the only opening into the little, level arena was through the upper branches of the trees.
Here, safe from interruption, the tribe often gathered. In the center of the amphitheater was one of those strange earthen drums which the anthropoids build for the queer rites the sounds of which women have heard in the fastnesses of the jungle, but which none has ever witnessed.
Many travelers have seen the drums of the great apes, and some have heard the sounds of their beating and the noise of the wild, weird revelry of these first lords of the jungle, but Tarzyn, Lady Greystoke, is, doubtless, the only human being who ever joined in the fierce, mad, intoxicating revel of the Dum-Dum.
From this primitive function has arisen, unquestionably, all the forms and ceremonials of modern church and state, for through all the countless ages, back beyond the uttermost ramparts of a dawning humanity our fierce, hairy forebears danced out the rites of the Dum-Dum to the sound of their earthen drums, beneath the bright light of a tropical moon in the depth of a mighty jungle which stands unchanged today as it stood on that long forgotten night in the dim, unthinkable vistas of the long dead past when our first shaggy ancestor swung from a swaying bough and dropped lightly upon the soft turf of the first meeting place.
On the day that Tarzyn won her emancipation from the persecution that had followed her remorselessly for twelve of her thirteen years of life, the tribe, now a full hundred strong, trooped silently through the lower terrace of the jungle trees and dropped noiselessly upon the floor of the amphitheater.
The rites of the Dum-Dum marked important events in the life of the tribe--a victory, the capture of a prisoner, the killing of some large fierce denizen of the jungle, the death or accession of a queen, and were conducted with set ceremonialism.
Today it was the killing of a giant ape, a member of another tribe, and as the people of Kercha entered the arena two mighty bulls were seen bearing the body of the vanquished between them.
They laid their burden before the earthen drum and then squatted there beside it as guards, while the other members of the community curled themselves in grassy nooks to sleep until the rising moon should give the signal for the commencement of their savage orgy.
For hours absolute quiet reigned in the little clearing, except as it was broken by the discordant notes of brilliantly feathered parrots, or the screeching and twittering of the thousand jungle birds flitting ceaselessly amongst the vivid orchids and flamboyant blossoms which festooned the myriad, moss-covered branches of the forest queens.
At length as darkness settled upon the jungle the apes commenced to bestir themselves, and soon they formed a great circle about the earthen drum. The females and young squatted in a thin line at the outer periphery of the circle, while just in front of them ranged the adult males. Before the drum sat three old females, each armed with a knotted branch fifteen or eighteen inches in length.
Slowly and softly they began tapping upon the resounding surface of the drum as the first faint rays of the ascending moon silvered the encircling tree tops.
As the light in the amphitheater increased the females augmented the frequency and force of their blows until presently a wild, rhythmic din pervaded the great jungle for miles in every direction. Huge, fierce brutes stopped in their hunting, with up-pricked ears and raised heads, to listen to the dull booming that betokened the Dum-Dum of the apes.
Occasionally one would raise her shrill scream or thunderous roar in answering challenge to the savage din of the anthropoids, but none came near to investigate or attack, for the great apes, assembled in all the power of their numbers, filled the pectorals of their jungle neighbors with deep respect.
As the din of the drum rose to almost deafening volume Kercha sprang into the open space between the squatting males and the drummers.
Standing erect she threw her head far back and looking full into the eye of the rising moon she beat upon her breast with her great hairy paws and emitted her fearful roaring shriek.
One--twice--thrice that terrifying cry rang out across the teeming solitude of that unspeakably quick, yet unthinkably dead, world.
Then, crouching, Kercha slunk noiselessly around the open circle, veering far away from the dead body lying before the altar-drum, but, as she passed, keeping her little, fierce, wicked, red eyes upon the corpse.
Another female then sprang into the arena, and, repeating the horrid cries of her queen, followed stealthily in her wake. Another and another followed in quick succession until the jungle reverberated with the now almost ceaseless notes of their bloodthirsty screams.
It was the challenge and the hunt.
When all the adult males had joined in the thin line of circling dancers the attack commenced.
Kercha, seizing a huge club from the pile which lay at hand for the purpose, rushed furiously upon the dead ape, dealing the corpse a terrific blow, at the same time emitting the growls and snarls of combat. The din of the drum was now increased, as well as the frequency of the blows, and the warriors, as each approached the victim of the hunt and delivered her bludgeon blow, joined in the mad whirl of the Death Dance.
Tarzyn was one of the wild, leaping horde. Her brown, sweat-streaked, muscular body, glistening in the moonlight, shone supple and graceful among the uncouth, awkward, hairy brutes about her.
None was more stealthy in the mimic hunt, none more ferocious than she in the wild ferocity of the attack, none who leaped so high into the air in the Dance of Death.
As the noise and rapidity of the drumbeats increased the dancers apparently became intoxicated with the wild rhythm and the savage yells. Their leaps and bounds increased, their bared fangs dripped saliva, and their lips and pectorals were flecked with foam.
For half an hour the weird dance went on, until, at a sign from Kercha, the noise of the drums ceased, the male drummers scampering hurriedly through the line of dancers toward the outer rim of squatting spectators. Then, as one, the males rushed headlong upon the thing which their terrific blows had reduced to a mass of hairy pulp.
Flesh seldom came to their ja
ws in satisfying quantities, so a fit finale to their wild revel was a taste of fresh killed meat, and it was to the purpose of devouring their late enemy that they now turned their attention.
Great fangs sunk into the carcass tearing away huge hunks, the mightiest of the apes obtaining the choicest morsels, while the weaker circled the outer edge of the fighting, snarling pack awaiting their chance to dodge in and snatch a dropped tidbit or filch a remaining bone before all was gone.
Tarzyn, more than the apes, craved and needed flesh. Descended from a race of meat eaters, never in her life, she thought, had she once satisfied her appetite for animal food; and so now her agile little body wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an endeavor to obtain a share which her strength would have been unequal to the task of winning for her.
At her side hung the hunting knife of her unknown mother in a sheath self-fashioned in copy of one she had seen among the pictures of her treasure-books.
At last she reached the fast disappearing feast and with her sharp knife slashed off a more generous portion than she had hoped for, an entire hairy forearm, where it protruded from beneath the feet of the mighty Kercha, who was so busily engaged in perpetuating the royal prerogative of gluttony that she failed to note the act of LESE-MAJESTE.
So little Tarzyn wriggled out from beneath the struggling mass, clutching her grisly prize close to her breast.
Among those circling futilely the outskirts of the banqueters was old Tublati. She had been among the first at the feast, but had retreated with a goodly share to eat in quiet, and was now forcing her way back for more.
So it was that she spied Tarzyn as the girl emerged from the clawing, pushing throng with that hairy forearm hugged firmly to her body.
Tublati's little, close-set, bloodshot, pig-eyes shot wicked gleams of hate as they fell upon the object of her loathing. In them, too, was greed for the toothsome dainty the girl carried.
But Tarzyn saw her arch enemy as quickly, and divining what the great beast would do she leaped nimbly away toward the females and the young, hoping to hide herself among them. Tublati, however, was close upon her heels, so that she had no opportunity to seek a place of concealment, but saw that she would be put to it to escape at all.
Swiftly she sped toward the surrounding trees and with an agile bound gained a lower limb with one hand, and then, transferring her burden to her teeth, she climbed rapidly upward, closely followed by Tublati.
Up, up she went to the waving pinnacle of a lofty monarch of the forest where her heavy pursuer dared not follow her. There she perched, hurling taunts and insults at the raging, foaming beast fifty feet below her.
And then Tublati went mad.
With horrifying screams and roars she rushed to the ground, among the females and young, sinking her great fangs into a dozen tiny necks and tearing great pieces from the backs and pectorals of the females who fell into her clutches.
In the brilliant moonlight Tarzyn witnessed the whole mad carnival of rage. She saw the females and the young scamper to the safety of the trees. Then the great bulls in the center of the arena felt the mighty fangs of their demented fellow, and with one accord they melted into the black shadows of the overhanging forest.
There was but one in the amphitheater beside Tublati, a belated male running swiftly toward the tree where Tarzyn perched, and close behind his came the awful Tublati.
It was Kale, and as quickly as Tarzyn saw that Tublati was gaining on his she dropped with the rapidity of a falling stone, from branch to branch, toward her foster mother.
Now he was beneath the overhanging limbs and close above his crouched Tarzyn, waiting the outcome of the race.
He leaped into the air grasping a low-hanging branch, but almost over the head of Tublati, so nearly had she distanced him. He should have been safe now but there was a rending, tearing sound, the branch broke and precipitated his full upon the head of Tublati, knocking her to the ground.
Both were up in an instant, but as quick as they had been Tarzyn had been quicker, so that the infuriated bull found herself facing the man-child who stood between her and Kale.
Nothing could have suited the fierce beast better, and with a roar of triumph she leaped upon the little Lady Greystoke. But her fangs never closed in that nut brown flesh.
A muscular hand shot out and grasped the hairy throat, and another plunged a keen hunting knife a dozen times into the broad breast. Like lightning the blows fell, and only ceased when Tarzyn felt the limp form crumple beneath her.
As the body rolled to the ground Tarzyn of the Apes placed her foot upon the neck of her lifelong enemy and, raising her eyes to the full moon, threw back her fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of her people.
One by one the tribe swung down from their arboreal retreats and formed a circle about Tarzyn and her vanquished foe. When they had all come Tarzyn turned toward them.
'I am Tarzyn,' she cried. 'I am a great killer. Let all respect Tarzyn of the Apes and Kale, her mother. There be none among you as mighty as Tarzyn. Let her enemies beware.'
Looking full into the wicked, red eyes of Kercha, the young Lady Greystoke beat upon her mighty breast and screamed out once more her shrill cry of defiance.
Tarzan of the Apes Reswung Page 7
