Chapter 10
The Fear-Phantom
From a lofty perch Tarzyn viewed the village of thatched huts across the intervening plantation.
She saw that at one point the forest touched the village, and to this spot she made her way, lured by a fever of curiosity to behold animals of her own kind, and to learn more of their ways and view the strange lairs in which they lived.
Her savage life among the fierce wild brutes of the jungle left no opening for any thought that these could be aught else than enemies. Similarity of form led her into no erroneous conception of the welcome that would be accorded her should she be discovered by these, the first of her own kind she had ever seen.
Tarzyn of the Apes was no sentimentalist. She knew nothing of the sisterhood of woman. All things outside her own tribe were her deadly enemies, with the few exceptions of which Tantor, the elephant, was a marked example.
And she realized all thim without malice or hatred. To kill was the law of the wild world she knew. Few were her primitive pleasures, but the greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so she accorded to others the right to cherish the same desires as she, even though she herself might be the object of their hunt.
Her strange life had left her neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That she joyed in killing, and that she killed with a joyous laugh upon her handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. She killed for food most often, but, being a woman, she sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does; for it has remained for woman alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death.
And when she killed for revenge, or in self-defense, she did that also without hysteria, for it was a very businesslike proceeding which admitted of no levity.
So it was that now, as she cautiously approached the village of Mbonga, she was quite prepared either to kill or be killed should she be discovered. She proceeded with unwonted stealth, for Kulonga had taught her great respect for the little sharp splinters of wood which dealt death so swiftly and unerringly.
At length she came to a great tree, heavy laden with thick foliage and loaded with pendant loops of giant creepers. From this almost impenetrable bower above the village she crouched, looking down upon the scene below her, wondering over every feature of this new, strange life.
There were naked children running and playing in the village street. There were men grinding dried plantain in crude stone mortars, while others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flour. Out in the fields she could see still other men hoeing, weeding, or gathering.
All wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets. Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while several were further ornamented by huge nose rings.
Tarzyn of the Apes looked with growing wonder at these strange creatures. Dozing in the shade she saw several women, while at the extreme outskirts of the clearing she occasionally caught glimpses of armed warriors apparently guarding the village against surprise from an attacking enemy.
She noticed that the men alone worked. Nowhere was there evidence of a woman tilling the fields or performing any of the homely duties of the village.
Finally her eyes rested upon a man directly beneath her.
Before his was a small cauldron standing over a low fire and in it bubbled a thick, reddish, tarry mass. On one side of his lay a quantity of wooden arrows the points of which he dipped into the seething substance, then laying them upon a narrow rack of boughs which stood upon his other side.
Tarzyn of the Apes was fascinated. Here was the secret of the terrible destructiveness of The Archer's tiny missiles. She noted the extreme care which the man took that none of the matter should touch his hands, and once when a particle spattered upon one of his fingers she saw his plunge the member into a vessel of water and quickly rub the tiny stain away with a handful of leaves.
Tarzyn knew nothing of poison, but her shrewd reasoning told her that it was this deadly stuff that killed, and not the little arrow, which was merely the messenger that carried it into the body of its victim.
How she should like to have more of those little death-dealing slivers. If the man would only leave his work for an instant she could drop down, gather up a handful, and be back in the tree again before he drew three breaths.
As she was trying to think out some plan to distract his attention she heard a wild cry from across the clearing. She looked and saw a black warrior standing beneath the very tree in which she had killed the murderer of Kale an hour before.
The fellow was shouting and waving her spear above her head. Now and again she would point to something on the ground before her.
The village was in an uproar instantly. Armed women rushed from the interior of many a hut and raced madly across the clearing toward the excited sentry. After them trooped the old women, and the men and children until, in a moment, the village was deserted.
Tarzyn of the Apes knew that they had found the body of her victim, but that interested her far less than the fact that no one remained in the village to prevent her taking a supply of the arrows which lay below her.
Quickly and noiselessly she dropped to the ground beside the cauldron of poison. For a moment she stood motionless, her quick, bright eyes scanning the interior of the palisade.
No one was in sight. Her eyes rested upon the open doorway of a nearby hut. She would take a look within, thought Tarzyn, and so, cautiously, she approached the low thatched building.
For a moment she stood without, listening intently. There was no sound, and she glided into the semi-darkness of the interior.
Weapons hung against the walls--long spears, strangely shaped knives, a couple of narrow shields. In the center of the room was a cooking pot, and at the far end a litter of dry grasses covered by woven mats which evidently served the owners as beds and bedding. Several human skulls lay upon the floor.
Tarzyn of the Apes felt of each article, hefted the spears, smelled of them, for she 'saw'largely through her sensitive and highly trained nostrils. She determined to own one of these long, pointed sticks, but she could not take one on this trip because of the arrows she meant to carry.
As she took each article from the walls, she placed it in a pile in the center of the room. On top of all she placed the cooking pot, inverted, and on top of this she laid one of the grinning skulls, upon which she fastened the headdress of the dead Kulonga.
Then she stood back, surveyed her work, and grinned. Tarzyn of the Apes enjoyed a joke.
But now she heard, outside, the sounds of many voices, and long mournful howls, and mighty wailing. She was startled. Had she remained too long? Quickly she reached the doorway and peered down the village street toward the village gate.
The natives were not yet in sight, though she could plainly hear them approaching across the plantation. They must be very near.
Like a flash she sprang across the opening to the pile of arrows. Gathering up all she could carry under one arm, she overturned the seething cauldron with a kick, and disappeared into the foliage above just as the first of the returning natives entered the gate at the far end of the village street. Then she turned to watch the proceeding below, poised like some wild bird ready to take swift wing at the first sign of danger.
The natives filed up the street, four of them bearing the dead body of Kulonga. Behind trailed the men, uttering strange cries and weird lamentation. On they came to the portals of Kulonga's hut, the very one in which Tarzyn had wrought her depredations.
Scarcely had half a dozen entered the building ere they came rushing out in wild, jabbering confusion. The others hastened to gather about. There was much excited gesticulating, pointing, and chattering; then several of the warriors approached and peered within.
Finally an old fellow with many ornaments of metal about her arms and legs, and a necklace of dried human hands depending upon her breast, ent
ered the hut.
It was Mbonga, the queen, mother of Kulonga.
For a few moments all was silent. Then Mbonga emerged, a look of mingled wrath and superstitious fear writ upon her hideous countenance. She spoke a few words to the assembled warriors, and in an instant the women were flying through the little village searching minutely every hut and corner within the palisades.
Scarcely had the search commenced than the overturned cauldron was discovered, and with it the theft of the poisoned arrows. Nothing more they found, and it was a thoroughly awed and frightened group of savages which huddled around their queen a few moments later.
Mbonga could explain nothing of the strange events that had taken place. The finding of the still warm body of Kulonga--on the very verge of their fields and within easy earshot of the village--knifed and stripped at the door of her mother's home, was in itself sufficiently mysterious, but these last awesome discoveries within the village, within the dead Kulonga's own hut, filled their hearts with dismay, and conjured in their poor brains only the most frightful of superstitious explanations.
They stood in little groups, talking in low tones, and ever casting affrighted glances behind them from their great rolling eyes.
Tarzyn of the Apes watched them for a while from her lofty perch in the great tree. There was much in their demeanor which she could not understand, for of superstition she was ignorant, and of fear of any kind she had but a vague conception.
The sun was high in the heavens. Tarzyn had not broken fast this day, and it was many miles to where lay the toothsome remains of Horta the boar.
So she turned her back upon the village of Mbonga and melted away into the leafy fastness of the forest.
Tarzan of the Apes Reswung Page 10
