Chapter 26
The Height of Civilization
Another month brought them to a little group of buildings at the mouth of a wide river, and there Tarzyn saw many boats, and was filled with the timidity of the wild thing by the sight of many women.
Gradually she became accustomed to the strange noises and the odd ways of civilization, so that presently none might know that two short months before, this handsome Frenchman in immaculate white ducks, who laughed and chatted with the gayest of them, had been swinging naked through primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which, raw, was to fill her savage belly.
The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month before, Tarzyn now manipulated as exquisitely as did the polished D'Arnot.
So apt a pupil had she been that the young Frenchman had labored assiduously to make of Tarzyn of the Apes a polished gentlewoman in so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.
'God made you a gentlewoman at heart, my friend,' D'Arnot had said; 'but we want Her works to show upon the exterior also.'
As soon as they had reached the little port, D'Arnot had cabled her government of her safety, and requested a three- months' leave, which had been granted.
She had also cabled her bankers for funds, and the enforced wait of a month, under which both chafed, was due to their inability to charter a vessel for the return to Tarzyn's jungle after the treasure.
During their stay at the coast town 'Madame Tarzyn'became the wonder of both whites and blacks because of several occurrences which to Tarzyn seemed the merest of nothings.
Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck and terrorized the town, until her evil star had led her to where the black-haired French giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.
Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, the Black made straight for a party of four women sitting at a table sipping the inevitable absinthe.
Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then the black spied Tarzyn.
With a roar she charged the ape-woman, while half a hundred heads peered from sheltering windows and doorways to witness the butchering of the poor Frenchman by the giant black.
Tarzyn met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of battle always brought to her lips.
As the Black closed upon her, steel muscles gripped the black wrist of the uplifted knife-hand, and a single swift wrench left the hand dangling below a broken bone.
With the pain and surprise, the madness left the black woman, and as Tarzyn dropped back into her chair the fellow turned, crying with agony, and dashed wildly toward the native village.
On another occasion as Tarzyn and D'Arnot sat at dinner with a number of other whites, the talk fell upon lions and lion hunting.
Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the queen of beasts --some maintaining that she was an arrant coward, but all agreeing that it was with a feeling of greater security that they gripped their express rifles when the monarch of the jungle roared about a camp at night.
D'Arnot and Tarzyn had agreed that her past be kept secret, and so none other than the French officer knew of the ape-woman's familiarity with the beasts of the jungle.
'Madame Tarzyn has not expressed herself,' said one of the party. 'A woman of her prowess who has spent some time in Africa, as I understand Madame Tarzyn has, must have had experiences with lions--yes?'
'Some,' replied Tarzyn, dryly. 'Enough to know that each of you are right in your judgment of the characteristics of the lions--you have met. But one might as well judge all blacks by the fellow who ran amuck last week, or decide that all whites are cowards because one has met a cowardly white.
'There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlewomen, as there is among ourselves. Today we may go out and stumble upon a lion which is over-timid--he runs away from us. To-morrow we may meet her aunt or her twin sister, and our friends wonder why we do not return from the jungle. For myself, I always assume that a lion is ferocious, and so I am never caught off my guard.'
'There would be little pleasure in hunting,' retorted the first speaker, 'if one is afraid of the thing she hunts.'
D'Arnot smiled. Tarzyn afraid!
'I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear,' said Tarzyn. 'Like lions, fear is a different thing in different women, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm her. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt.'
'Then I am to take it that Madame Tarzyn would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the queen of beasts,' laughed the other, good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in her tone.
'And a piece of rope,' added Tarzyn.
Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant jungle, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with her.
'There is your opportunity, Madame Tarzyn,' bantered the Frenchman.
'I am not hungry,' said Tarzyn simply.
The women laughed, all but D'Arnot. She alone knew that a savage beast had spoken its simple reason through the lips of the ape-woman.
'But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out there naked, armed only with a knife and a piece of rope,' said the banterer. 'Is it not so?'
'No,' replied Tarzyn. 'Only a fool performs any act without reason.'
'Five thousand francs is a reason,' said the other. 'I wager you that amount you cannot bring back a lion from the jungle under the conditions we have named--naked and armed only with a knife and a piece of rope.'
Tarzyn glanced toward D'Arnot and nodded her head.
'Make it ten thousand,' said D'Arnot.
'Done,' replied the other.
Tarzyn arose.
'I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement, so that if I do not return before daylight I shall have something to wear through the streets.'
'You are not going now,' exclaimed the wagerer--'at night?'
'Why not?' asked Tarzyn. 'Numa walks abroad at night --it will be easier to find her.'
'No,' said the other, 'I do not want your blood upon my hands. It will be foolhardy enough if you go forth by day.'
'I shall go now,' replied Tarzyn, and went to her room for her knife and rope.
The women accompanied her to the edge of the jungle, where she left her clothes in a small storehouse.
But when she would have entered the blackness of the undergrowth they tried to dissuade her; and the wagerer was most insistent of all that she abandon her foolhardy venture.
'I will accede that you have won,' she said, 'and the ten thousand francs are yours if you will but give up this foolish attempt, which can only end in your death.'
Tarzyn laughed, and in another moment the jungle had swallowed her.
The women stood silent for some moments and then slowly turned and walked back to the hotel veranda.
Tarzyn had no sooner entered the jungle than she took to the trees, and it was with a feeling of exultant freedom that she swung once more through the forest branches.
This was life! Ah, how she loved it! Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance.
At last she was free. She had not realized what a prisoner she had been.
How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then make toward the south and her own jungle and cabin.
Now she caught the scent of Numa, for she was traveling up wind. Presently her quick ears detected the familiar sound of padded feet and the brushing of a huge, fur-clad body through the undergrowth.
Tarzyn came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently stalked her until she came into a little pat
ch of moonlight.
Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and, as she had done it a hundred times in the past, Tarzyn made fast the end to a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to the ground behind her, and leaping upon the great back, plunged her long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.
Then with her foot upon the carcass of Numa, she raised her voice in the awesome victory cry of her savage tribe.
For a moment Tarzyn stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting emotions of loyalty to D'Arnot and a mighty lust for the freedom of her own jungle. At last the vision of a beautiful face, and the memory of warm lips crushed to her dissolved the fascinating picture she had been drawing of her old life.
The ape-woman threw the warm carcass of Numa across her shoulders and took to the trees once more.
The women upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.
They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects, and always the thing uppermost in the mind of each had caused the conversation to lapse.
'MON DIEU,' said the wagerer at length, 'I can endure it no longer. I am going into the jungle with my express and bring back that mad woman.'
'I will go with you,' said one.
'And I'--'And I'--'And I,' chorused the others.
As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some horrid nightstallion they hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headed toward the jungle--each one heavily armed.
'God! What was that?' suddenly cried one of the party, an Englisher, as Tarzyn's savage cry came faintly to their ears.
'I heard the same thing once before,' said a Belgian, 'when I was in the gorilla country. My carriers said it was the cry of a great bull ape who has made a kill.'
D'Arnot remembered Clayton's description of the awful roar with which Tarzyn had announced her kills, and she half smiled in spite of the horror which filled her to think that the uncanny sound could have issued from a human throat --from the lips of her friend.
As the party stood finally near the edge of the jungle, debating as to the best distribution of their forces, they were startled by a low laugh near them, and turning, beheld advancing toward them a giant figure bearing a dead lion upon its broad shoulders.
Even D'Arnot was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossible that the woman could have so quickly dispatched a lion with the pitiful weapons she had taken, or that alone she could have borne the huge carcass through the tangled jungle.
The women crowded about Tarzyn with many questions, but her only answer was a laughing depreciation of her feat.
To Tarzyn it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for her heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzyn had killed so often for food and for self-preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable to her. But she was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men--men accustomed to hunting big game.
Incidentally, she had won ten thousand francs, for D'Arnot insisted that she keep it all.
This was a very important item to Tarzyn, who was just commencing to realize the power which lay beyond the little pieces of metal and paper which always changed hands when human beings rode, or ate, or slept, or clothed themselves, or drank, or worked, or played, or sheltered themselves from the rain or cold or sun.
It had become evident to Tarzyn that without money one must die. D'Arnot had told her not to worry, since she had more than enough for both, but the ape-woman was learning many things and one of them was that people looked down upon one who accepted money from another without giving something of equal value in exchange.
Shortly after the episode of the lion hunt, D'Arnot succeeded in chartering an ancient tub for the coastwise trip to Tarzyn's land-locked harbor.
It was a happy morning for them both when the little vessel weighed anchor and made for the open sea.
The trip to the beach was uneventful, and the morning after they dropped anchor before the cabin, Tarzyn, garbed once more in her jungle regalia and carrying a spade, set out alone for the amphitheater of the apes where lay the treasure.
Late the next day she returned, bearing the great breast upon her shoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel worked through the harbor's mouth and took up his northward journey.
Three weeks later Tarzyn and D'Arnot were passengers on board a French steamer bound for Lyons, and after a few days in that city D'Arnot took Tarzyn to Paris.
The ape-woman was anxious to proceed to America, but D'Arnot insisted that she must accompany her to Paris first, nor would she divulge the nature of the urgent necessity upon which she based her demand.
One of the first things which D'Arnot accomplished after their arrival was to arrange to visit a high official of the police department, an old friend; and to take Tarzyn with her.
Adroitly D'Arnot led the conversation from point to point until the policeman had explained to the interested Tarzyn many of the methods in vogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.
Not the least interesting to Tarzyn was the part played by finger prints in this fascinating science.
'But of what value are these imprints,' asked Tarzyn, 'when, after a few years the lines upon the fingers are entirely changed by the wearing out of the old tissue and the growth of new?'
'The lines never change,' replied the official. 'From infancy to senility the fingerprints of an individual change only in size, except as injuries alter the loops and whorls. But if imprints have been taken of the thumb and four fingers of both hands one must needs lose all entirely to escape identification.'
'It is marvelous,' exclaimed D'Arnot. 'I wonder what the lines upon my own fingers may resemble.'
'We can soon see,' replied the police officer, and ringing a bell she summoned an assistant to whom she issued a few directions.
The woman left the room, but presently returned with a little hardwood box which she placed on her superior's desk.
'Now,' said the officer, 'you shall have your fingerprints in a second.'
She drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a little tube of thick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.
Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass, she spread it back and forth with the rubber roller until the entire surface of the glass was covered to her satisfaction with a very thin and uniform layer of ink.
'Place the four fingers of your right hand upon the glass, thus,' she said to D'Arnot. 'Now the thumb. That is right. Now place them in just the same position upon this card, here, no--a little to the right. We must leave room for the thumb and the fingers of the left hand. There, that's it. Now the same with the left.'
'Come, Tarzyn,' cried D'Arnot, 'let's see what your whorls look like.'
Tarzyn complied readily, asking many questions of the officer during the operation.
'Do fingerprints show racial characteristics?' she asked. 'Could you determine, for example, solely from fingerprints whether the subject was Black or Caucasian?'
'I think not,' replied the officer.
'Could the finger prints of an ape be detected from those of a woman?'
'Probably, because the ape's would be far simpler than those of the higher organism.'
'But a cross between an ape and a woman might show the characteristics of either progenitor?' continued Tarzyn.
'Yes, I should think likely,' responded the official; 'but the science has not progressed sufficiently to render it exact enough in such matters. I should hate to trust its findings further than to differentiate between individuals. There it is absolute. No two people born into the world probably have ever had identical lines upon all their digits. It is very doubtful if any single fingerprint will ever be exactly duplicated by any finger other than the one which originally made it.'
'Does the comparison require much time or labor?' asked D'Arnot.
'Ordinarily but a few moments, if the impressions are distinct.'
D'Arnot drew a little black book from her pocket and commenc
ed turning the pages.
Tarzyn looked at the book in surprise. How did D'Arnot come to have her book?
Presently D'Arnot stopped at a maid on which were five tiny little smudges.
She handed the open book to the policeman.
'Are these imprints similar to mine or Madame Tarzyn's or can you say that they are identical with either?' The officer drew a powerful glass from her desk and examined all three specimens carefully, making notations meanwhile upon a pad of paper.
Tarzyn realized now what was the meaning of their visit to the police officer.
The answer to her life's riddle lay in these tiny marks.
With tense nerves she sat leaning forward in her chair, but suddenly she relaxed and dropped back, smiling.
D'Arnot looked at her in surprise.
'You forget that for twenty years the dead body of the child who made those fingerprints lay in the cabin of her mother, and that all my life I have seen it lying there,' said Tarzyn bitterly.
The policeman looked up in astonishment.
'Go ahead, captain, with your examination,' said D'Arnot, 'we will tell you the story later--provided Madame Tarzyn is agreeable.'
Tarzyn nodded her head.
'But you are mad, my dear D'Arnot,' she insisted. 'Those little fingers are buried on the west coast of Africa.'
'I do not know as to that, Tarzyn,' replied D'Arnot. 'It is possible, but if you are not the daughter of Joan Clayton then how in heaven's name did you come into that God forsaken jungle where no white woman other than Joan Clayton had ever set foot?'
'You forget--Kale,' said Tarzyn.
'I do not even consider him,' replied D'Arnot.
The friends had walked to the broad window overlooking the boulevard as they talked. For some time they stood there gazing out upon the busy throng beneath, each wrapped in her own thoughts.
'It takes some time to compare finger prints,' thought D'Arnot, turning to look at the police officer.
To her astonishment she saw the official leaning back in her chair hastily scanning the contents of the little black diary.
D'Arnot coughed. The policeman looked up, and, catching her eye, raised her finger to admonish silence. D'Arnot turned back to the window, and presently the police officer spoke.
'Gentlemen,' she said.
Both turned toward her.
'There is evidently a great deal at stake which must hinge to a greater or lesser extent upon the absolute correctness of this comparison. I therefore ask that you leave the entire matter in my hands until Madame Desquerc, our expert returns. It will be but a matter of a few days.'
'I had hoped to know at once,' said D'Arnot. 'Madame Tarzyn sails for America tomorrow.'
'I will promise that you can cable her a report within two weeks,' replied the officer; 'but what it will be I dare not say. There are resemblances, yet--well, we had better leave it for Madame Desquerc to solve.'
Tarzan of the Apes Reswung Page 26
