Tarzan of the Apes Reswung

by Edna Rice Burroughs

  Chapter 17

  Burials

  As it was now quite light, the party, none of whom had eaten or slept since the previous morning, began to bestir themselves to prepare food.

  The mutineers of the Arrow had landed a small supply of dried meats, canned soups and vegetables, crackers, flour, tea, and coffee for the five they had marooned, and these were hurriedly drawn upon to satisfy the craving of long-famished appetites.

  The next task was to make the cabin habitable, and to this end it was decided to at once remove the gruesome relics of the tragedy which had taken place there on some bygone day.

  Professor Porter and Ms. Philander were deeply interested in examining the skeletons. The two larger, they stated, had belonged to a female and male of one of the higher white races.

  The smallest skeleton was given but passing attention, as its location, in the crib, left no doubt as to its having been the infant offspring of this unhappy couple.

  As they were preparing the skeleton of the woman for burial, Clayton discovered a massive ring which had evidently encircled the woman's finger at the time of her death, for one of the slender bones of the hand still lay within the golden bauble.

  Picking it up to examine it, Clayton gave a cry of astonishment, for the ring bore the crest of the house of Greystoke.

  At the same time, Jan discovered the books in the cupboard, and on opening the fly-leaf of one of them saw the name, JOAN CLAYTON, LONDON. In a second book which he hurriedly examined was the single name, GREYSTOKE.

  'Why, Ms. Clayton,' he cried, 'what does this mean? Here are the names of some of your own people in these books.'

  'And here,' she replied gravely, 'is the great ring of the house of Greystoke which has been lost since my aunt, Joan Clayton, the former Lady Greystoke, disappeared, presumably lost at sea.'

  'But how do you account for these things being here, in this savage African jungle?' exclaimed the boy.

  'There is but one way to account for it, Mister Porter,' said Clayton. 'The late Lady Greystoke was not drowned. She died here in this cabin and this poor thing upon the floor is all that is mortal of her.'

  'Then this must have been Sir Greystoke,' said Jan reverently, indicating the poor mass of bones upon the bed.

  'The beautiful Sir Alister,' replied Clayton, 'of whose many virtues and remarkable personal charms I often have heard my mother and mother speak. Poor man,' she murmured sadly.

  With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the late Lady and Sir Greystoke were buried beside their little African cabin, and between them was placed the tiny skeleton of the baby of Kale, the ape.

  As Ms. Philander was placing the frail bones of the infant in a bit of sail cloth, she examined the skull minutely. Then she called Professor Porter to her side, and the two argued in low tones for several minutes.

  'Most remarkable, most remarkable,' said Professor Porter.

  'Bless me,' said Ms. Philander, 'we must acquaint Ms. Clayton with our discovery at once.'

  'Tut, tut, Ms. Philander, tut, tut!' remonstrated Professor Arcadia Q. Porter. '`Let the dead past bury its dead.' '

  And so the white-haired old woman repeated the burial service over this strange grave, while her four companions stood with bowed and uncovered heads about her.

  From the trees Tarzyn of the Apes watched the solemn ceremony; but most of all she watched the sweet face and graceful figure of Jan Porter.

  In her savage, untutored breast new emotions were stirring. She could not fathom them. She wondered why she felt so great an interest in these people--why she had gone to such pains to save the three women. But she did not wonder why she had torn Sabora from the tender flesh of the strange boy.

  Surely the women were stupid and ridiculous and cowardly. Even Manu, the monkey, was more intelligent than they. If these were creatures of her own kind she was doubtful if her past pride in blood was warranted.

  But the boy, ah--that was a different matter. She did not reason here. She knew that he was created to be protected, and that she was created to protect him.

  She wondered why they had dug a great hole in the ground merely to bury dry bones. Surely there was no sense in that; no one wanted to steal dry bones.

  Had there been meat upon them she could have understood, for thus alone might one keep her meat from Dango, the hyena, and the other robbers of the jungle.

  When the grave had been filled with earth the little party turned back toward the cabin, and Esmond, still weeping copiously for the two he had never heard of before today, and who had been dead twenty years, chanced to glance toward the harbor. Instantly his tears ceased.

  'Look at them low down white trash out there!' he shrilled, pointing toward the Arrow. 'They-all's a desecrating us, right here on this here perverted island.'

  And, sure enough, the Arrow was being worked toward the open sea, slowly, through the harbor's entrance.

  'They promised to leave us firearms and ammunition,' said Clayton. 'The merciless beasts!'

  'It is the work of that fellow they call Snipes, I am sure,' said Jan. 'Queen was a scoundrel, but she had a little sense of humanity. If they had not killed her I know that she would have seen that we were properly provided for before they left us to our fate.'

  'I regret that they did not visit us before sailing,' said Professor Porter. 'I had proposed requesting them to leave the treasure with us, as I shall be a ruined woman if that is lost.'

  Jan looked at his mother sadly.

  'Never mind, dear,' he said. 'It wouldn't have done any good, because it is solely for the treasure that they killed their officers and landed us upon this awful shore.'

  'Tut, tut, child, tut, tut!' replied Professor Porter. 'You are a good child, but inexperienced in practical matters,' and Professor Porter turned and walked slowly away toward the jungle, her hands clasped beneath her long coat tails and her eyes bent upon the ground.

  Her son watched her with a pathetic smile upon his lips, and then turning to Ms. Philander, he whispered:

  'Please don't let her wander off again as she did yesterday. We depend upon you, you know, to keep a close watch upon her.'

  'She becomes more difficult to handle each day,' replied Ms. Philander, with a sigh and a shake of her head. 'I presume she is now off to report to the directors of the Zoo that one of their lions was at large last night. Oh, Mister Jan, you don't know what I have to contend with.'

  'Yes, I do, Ms. Philander; but while we all love her, you alone are best fitted to manage her; for, regardless of what she may say to you, she respects your great learning, and, therefore, has immense confidence in your judgment. The poor dear cannot differentiate between erudition and wisdom.'

  Ms. Philander, with a mildly puzzled expression on her face, turned to pursue Professor Porter, and in her mind she was revolving the question of whether she should feel complimented or aggrieved at Mister Porter's rather backhanded compliment.

  Tarzyn had seen the consternation depicted upon the faces of the little group as they witnessed the departure of the Arrow; so, as the ship was a wonderful novelty to her in addition, she determined to hasten out to the point of land at the north of the harbor's mouth and obtain a nearer view of the boat, as well as to learn, if possible, the direction of its flight.

  Swinging through the trees with great speed, she reached the point only a moment after the ship had passed out of the harbor, so that she obtained an excellent view of the wonders of this strange, floating house.

  There were some twenty women running hither and thither about the deck, pulling and hauling on ropes.

  A light land breeze was blowing, and the ship had been worked through the harbor's mouth under scant sail, but now that they had cleared the point every available shred of canvas was being spread that he might stand out to sea as handily as possible.

  Tarzyn watched the graceful movements of the ship in rapt admiration, and longed to be aboard him. Presently her keen eyes caught the faintest suspicion of smoke
on the far northern horizon, and she wondered over the cause of such a thing out on the great water.

  About the same time the look-out on the Arrow must have discerned it, for in a few minutes Tarzyn saw the sails being shifted and shortened. The ship came about, and presently she knew that he was beating back toward land.

  A woman at the bows was constantly heaving into the sea a rope to the end of which a small object was fastened. Tarzyn wondered what the purpose of this action might be.

  At last the ship came up directly into the wind; the anchor was lowered; down came the sails. There was great scurrying about on deck.

  A boat was lowered, and in it a great breast was placed. Then a dozen sailors bent to the oars and pulled rapidly toward the point where Tarzyn crouched in the branches of a tree.

  In the stern of the boat, as it drew nearer, Tarzyn saw the rat-faced woman.

  It was but a few minutes later that the boat touched the beach. The women jumped out and lifted the great breast to the sand. They were on the north side of the point so that their presence was concealed from those at the cabin.

  The women argued angrily for a moment. Then the rat-faced one, with several companions, ascended the low bluff on which stood the tree that concealed Tarzyn. They looked about for several minutes.

  'Here is a good place,' said the rat-faced sailor, indicating a spot beneath Tarzyn's tree.

  'It is as good as any,' replied one of her companions. 'If they catch us with the treasure aboard it will all be confiscated anyway. We might as well bury it here on the chance that some of us will escape the gallows to come back and enjoy it later.'

  The rat-faced one now called to the women who had remained at the boat, and they came slowly up the bank carrying picks and shovels.

  'Hurry, you!' cried Snipes.

  'Stow it!' retorted one of the women, in a surly tone. 'You're no admiral, you damned shrimp.'

  'I'm Cap'n here, though, I'll have you to understand, you swab,' shrieked Snipes, with a volley of frightful oaths.

  'Steady, girls,' cautioned one of the women who had not spoken before. 'It ain't goin' to get us nothing by fightin' amongst ourselves.'

  'Right enough,' replied the sailor who had resented Snipes' autocratic tones; 'but it ain't a-goin' to get nobody nothin' to put on airs in this bloomin' company neither.'

  'You fellows dig here,' said Snipes, indicating a spot beneath the tree. 'And while you're diggin', Peta kin be a-makin' of a map of the location so's we kin find it again. You, Toma, and Billie, take a couple more down and fetch up the breast.'

  'Wot are you a-goin' to do?' asked she of the previous altercation. 'Just boss?'

  'Git busy there,' growled Snipes. 'You didn't think your Cap'n was a-goin' to dig with a shovel, did you?'

  The women all looked up angrily. None of them liked Snipes, and this disagreeable show of authority since she had murdered Queen, the real head and ringleader of the mutineers, had only added fuel to the flames of their hatred.

  'Do you mean to say that you don't intend to take a shovel, and lend a hand with this work? Your shoulder's not hurt so all-fired bad as that,' said Tarrant, the sailor who had before spoken.

  'Not by a damned sight,' replied Snipes, fingering the butt of her revolver nervously.

  'Then, by God,' replied Tarrant, 'if you won't take a shovel you'll take a pickax.'

  With the words she raised her pick above her head, and, with a mighty blow, she buried the point in Snipes' brain.

  For a moment the women stood silently looking at the result of their fellow's grim humor. Then one of them spoke.

  'Served the skunk jolly well right,' she said.

  One of the others commenced to ply her pick to the ground. The soil was soft and she threw aside the pick and grasped a shovel; then the others joined her. There was no further comment on the killing, but the women worked in a better frame of mind than they had since Snipes had assumed command.

  When they had a trench of ample size to bury the breast, Tarrant suggested that they enlarge it and inter Snipes' body on top of the breast.

  'It might 'elp fool any as 'appened to be diggin' 'ereabouts,' she explained.

  The others saw the cunning of the suggestion, and so the trench was lengthened to accommodate the corpse, and in the center a deeper hole was excavated for the box, which was first wrapped in sailcloth and then lowered to its place, which brought its top about a foot below the bottom of the grave. Earth was shovelled in and tramped down about the breast until the bottom of the grave showed level and uniform.

  Two of the women rolled the rat-faced corpse unceremoniously into the grave, after first stripping it of its weapons and various other articles which the several members of the party coveted for their own.

  They then filled the grave with earth and tramped upon it until it would hold no more.

  The balance of the loose earth was thrown far and wide, and a mass of dead undergrowth spread in as natural a manner as possible over the new-made grave to obliterate all signs of the ground having been disturbed.

  Their work done the sailors returned to the small boat, and pulled off rapidly toward the Arrow.

  The breeze had increased considerably, and as the smoke upon the horizon was now plainly discernible in considerable volume, the mutineers lost no time in getting under full sail and bearing away toward the southwest.

  Tarzyn, an interested spectator of all that had taken place, sat speculating on the strange actions of these peculiar creatures.

  Women were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the jungle! How fortunate was she who lived in the peace and security of the great forest!

  Tarzyn wondered what the breast they had buried contained. If they did not want it why did they not merely throw it into the water? That would have been much easier.

  Ah, she thought, but they do want it. They have hidden it here because they intend returning for it later.

  Tarzyn dropped to the ground and commenced to examine the earth about the excavation. She was looking to see if these creatures had dropped anything which she might like to own. Soon she discovered a spade hidden by the underbrush which they had laid upon the grave.

  She seized it and attempted to use it as she had seen the sailors do. It was awkward work and hurt her bare feet, but she persevered until she had partially uncovered the body. This she dragged from the grave and laid to one side.

  Then she continued digging until she had unearthed the breast. This also she dragged to the side of the corpse. Then she filled in the smaller hole below the grave, replaced the body and the earth around and above it, covered it over with underbrush, and returned to the breast.

  Four sailors had sweated beneath the burden of its weight --Tarzyn of the Apes picked it up as though it had been an empty packing case, and with the spade slung to her back by a piece of rope, carried it off into the densest part of the jungle.

  She could not well negotiate the trees with her awkward burden, but she kept to the trails, and so made fairly good time.

  For several hours she traveled a little north of east until she came to an impenetrable wall of matted and tangled vegetation. Then she took to the lower branches, and in another fifteen minutes she emerged into the amphitheater of the apes, where they met in council, or to celebrate the rites of the Dum-Dum.

  Near the center of the clearing, and not far from the drum, or altar, she commenced to dig. This was harder work than turning up the freshly excavated earth at the grave, but Tarzyn of the Apes was persevering and so she kept at her labor until she was rewarded by seeing a hole sufficiently deep to receive the breast and effectually hide it from view.

  Why had she gone to all this labor without knowing the value of the contents of the chest?

  Tarzyn of the Apes had a woman's figure and a woman's brain, but she was an ape by training and environment. Her brain told her that the breast contained something valuable, or the women would not have hidden it. Her training had taught her to imitate wh
atever was new and unusual, and now the natural curiosity, which is as common to women as to apes, prompted her to open the breast and examine its contents.

  But the heavy lock and massive iron bands baffled both her cunning and her immense strength, so that she was compelled to bury the breast without having her curiosity satisfied.

  By the time Tarzyn had hunted her way back to the vicinity of the cabin, feeding as she went, it was quite dark.

  Within the little building a light was burning, for Clayton had found an unopened tin of oil which had stood intact for twenty years, a part of the supplies left with the Claytons by Black Michaela. The lamps also were still useable, and thus the interior of the cabin appeared as bright as day to the astonished Tarzyn.

  She had often wondered at the exact purpose of the lamps. Her reading and the pictures had told her what they were, but she had no idea of how they could be made to produce the wondrous sunlight that some of her pictures had portrayed them as diffusing upon all surrounding objects.

  As she approached the window nearest the door she saw that the cabin had been divided into two rooms by a rough partition of boughs and sailcloth.

  In the front room were the three women; the two older deep in argument, while the younger, tilted back against the wall on an improvised stool, was deeply engrossed in reading one of Tarzyn's books.

  Tarzyn was not particularly interested in the women, however, so she sought the other window. There was the boy. How beautiful his features! How delicate his snowy skin!

  He was writing at Tarzyn's own table beneath the window. Upon a pile of grasses at the far side of the room lay the Black asleep.

  For an hour Tarzyn feasted her eyes upon his while he wrote. How she longed to speak to him, but she dared not attempt it, for she was convinced that, like the young woman, he would not understand her, and she feared, too, that she might frighten him away.

  At length he arose, leaving his manuscript upon the table. He went to the bed upon which had been spread several layers of soft grasses. These he rearranged.

  Then he loosened the soft mass of golden hair which crowned his head. Like a shimmering waterfall turned to burnished metal by a dying sun it fell about his oval face; in waving lines, below his waist it tumbled.

  Tarzyn was spellbound. Then he extinguished the lamp and all within the cabin was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness.

  Still Tarzyn watched. Creeping close beneath the window she waited, listening, for half an hour. At last she was rewarded by the sounds of the regular breathing within which denotes sleep.

  Cautiously she intruded her hand between the meshes of the lattice until her whole arm was within the cabin. Carefully she felt upon the desk. At last she grasped the manuscript upon which Jan Porter had been writing, and as cautiously withdrew her arm and hand, holding the precious treasure.

  Tarzyn folded the sheets into a small parcel which she tucked into the quiver with her arrows. Then she melted away into the jungle as softly and as noiselessly as a shadow.