Tarzan the Untamed

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Chapter XX

  Came Tarzan

  Just before dark that evening, an almost exhausted flier enteredthe headquarters of Colonel Capell of the Second Rhodesians andsaluted.

  "Well, Thompson," asked the superior, "what luck? The others haveall returned. Never saw a thing of Oldwick or his plane. I guesswe shall have to give it up unless you were more successful."

  "I was," replied the young officer. "I found the plane."

  "No!" ejaculated Colonel Capell. "Where was it? Any sign of Oldwick?"

  "It is in the rottenest hole in the ground you ever saw, quite abit inland. Narrow gorge. Saw the plane all right but can't reachit. There was a regular devil of a lion wandering around it. Ilanded near the edge of the cliff and was going to climb down andtake a look at the plane. But this fellow hung around for an houror more and I finally had to give it up."

  "Do you think the lions got Oldwick?" asked the colonel.

  "I doubt it," replied Lieutenant Thompson, "from the fact that therewas no indication that the lion had fed anywhere about the plane.I arose after I found it was impossible to get down around theplane and reconnoitered up and down the gorge. Several miles to thesouth I found a small, wooded valley in the center of which--pleasedon't think me crazy, sir--is a regular city--streets, buildings,a central plaza with a lagoon, good-sized buildings with domes andminarets and all that sort of stuff."

  The elder officer looked at the younger compassionately. "You'reall wrought up, Thompson," he said. "Go and take a good sleep. Youhave been on this job now for a long while and it must have gottenon your nerves."

  The young man shook his head a bit irritably. "Pardon me, sir," hesaid, "but I am telling you the truth. I am not mistaken. I circledover the place several times. It may be that Oldwick has found hisway there--or has been captured by these people."

  "Were there people in the city?" asked the colonel.

  "Yes, I saw them in the streets."

  "Do you think cavalry could reach the valley?" asked the colonel.

  "No," replied Thompson, "the country is all cut up with thesedeep gorges. Even infantry would have a devil of a time of it, andthere is absolutely no water that I could discover for at least atwo days' march."

  It was at this juncture that a big Vauxhall drew up in front of theheadquarters of the Second Rhodesians and a moment later GeneralSmuts alighted and entered. Colonel Capell arose from his chair andsaluted his superior, and the young lieutenant saluted and stoodat attention.

  "I was passing," said the general, "and I thought I would stop fora chat. By the way, how is the search for Lieutenant Smith-Oldwickprogressing? I see Thompson here and I believe he was one of thosedetailed to the search."

  "Yes," said Capell, "he was. He is the last to come in. He found thelieutenant's ship," and then he repeated what Lieutenant Thompsonhad reported to him. The general sat down at the table with ColonelCapell, and together the two officers, with the assistance of theflier, marked the approximate location of the city which Thompsonhad reported he'd discovered.

  "It's a mighty rough country," remarked Smuts, "but we can't leavea stone unturned until we have exhausted every resource to findthat boy. We will send out a small force; a small one will be morelikely to succeed than a large one. About one company, Colonel,or say two, with sufficient motor lorries for transport of rationsand water. Put a good man in command and let him establish a baseas far to the west as the motors can travel. You can leave onecompany there and send the other forward. I am inclined to believeyou can establish your base within a day's march of the city andif such is the case the force you send ahead should have no troubleon the score of lack of water as there certainly must be waterin the valley where the city lies. Detail a couple of planes forreconnaissance and messenger service so that the base can keep intouch at all times with the advance party. When can your force moveout?"

  "We can load the lorries tonight," replied Capell, "and march aboutone o'clock tomorrow morning."

  "Good," said the general, "keep me advised," and returning theothers' salutes he departed.

  As Tarzan leaped for the vines he realized that the lion wasclose upon him and that his life depended upon the strength of thecreepers clinging to the city walls; but to his intense relief hefound the stems as large around as a man's arm, and the tendrilswhich had fastened themselves to the wall so firmly fixed, that hisweight upon the stem appeared to have no appreciable effect uponthem.

  He heard Numa's baffled roar as the lion slipped downward clawingfutilely at the leafy creepers, and then with the agility of theapes who had reared him, Tarzan bounded nimbly aloft to the summitof the wall.

  A few feet below him was the flat roof of the adjoining buildingand as he dropped to it his back was toward the niche from whichan embrasure looked out upon the gardens and the forest beyond, sothat he did not see the figure crouching there in the dark shadow.But if he did not see he was not long in ignorance of the fact thathe was not alone, for scarcely had his feet touched the roof whena heavy body leaped upon him from behind and brawny arms encircledhim about the waist.

  Taken at a disadvantage and lifted from his feet, the ape-man was,for the time being, helpless. Whatever the creature was that hadseized him, it apparently had a well-defined purpose in mind, forit walked directly toward the edge of the roof so that it was soonapparent to Tarzan that he was to be hurled to the pavement below--amost efficacious manner of disposing of an intruder. That he wouldbe either maimed or killed the ape-man was confident; but he hadno intention of permitting his assailant to carry out the plan.

  Tarzan's arms and legs were free but he was in such a disadvantageousposition that he could not use them to any good effect. His onlyhope lay in throwing the creature off its balance, and to this endTarzan straightened his body and leaned as far back against hiscaptor as he could, and then suddenly lunged forward. The result wasas satisfactory as he could possibly have hoped. The great weightof the ape-man thrown suddenly out from an erect position causedthe other also to lunge violently forward with the result that tosave himself he involuntarily released his grasp. Catlike in hismovements, the ape-man had no sooner touched the roof than he wasupon his feet again, facing his adversary, a man almost as largeas himself and armed with a saber which he now whipped from itsscabbard. Tarzan, however, had no mind to allow the use of thisformidable weapon and so he dove for the other's legs beneath thevicious cut that was directed at him from the side, and as a footballplayer tackles an opposing runner, Tarzan tackled his antagonist,carrying him backward several yards and throwing him heavily tothe roof upon his back.

  No sooner had the man touched the roof than the ape-man was uponhis chest, one brawny hand sought and found the sword wrist andthe other the throat of the yellow-tunicked guardsman. Until thenthe fellow had fought in silence but just as Tarzan's fingerstouched his throat he emitted a single piercing shriek that thebrown fingers cut off almost instantly. The fellow struggled toescape the clutch of the naked creature upon his breast but equallyas well might he have fought to escape the talons of Numa, thelion.

  Gradually his struggles lessened, his pin-point eyes popped fromtheir sockets, rolling horribly upward, while from his foam-fleckedlips his swollen tongue protruded. As his struggles ceased Tarzanarose, and placing a foot upon the carcass of his kill, was uponthe point of screaming forth his victory cry when the thought thatthe work before him required the utmost caution sealed his lips.

  Walking to the edge of the roof he looked down into the narrow,winding street below. At intervals, apparently at each streetintersection, an oil flare sputtered dimly from brackets setin the walls a trifle higher than a man's head. For the most partthe winding alleys were in dense shadow and even in the immediatevicinity of the flares the illumination was far from brilliant.In the restricted area of his vision he could see that there werestill a few of the strange inhabitants moving about the narrowthoroughfares.

  To prosecute his search for the young officer and the girl he mustbe able to move about the c
ity as freely as possible, but to passbeneath one of the corner flares, naked as he was except for aloin cloth, and in every other respect markedly different from theinhabitants of the city, would be but to court almost immediatediscovery. As these thoughts flashed through his mind and he castabout for some feasible plan of action, his eyes fell upon thecorpse upon the roof near him, and immediately there occurred tohim the possibility of disguising himself in the raiment of hisconquered adversary.

  It required but a few moments for the ape-man to clothe himselfin the tights, sandals, and parrot emblazoned yellow tunic of thedead soldier. Around his waist he buckled the saber belt but beneaththe tunic he retained the hunting knife of his dead father. Hisother weapons he could not lightly discard, and so, in the hopethat he might eventually recover them, he carried them to the edgeof the wall and dropped them among the foliage at its base. At thelast moment he found it difficult to part with his rope, which,with his knife, was his most accustomed weapon, and one which hehad used for the greatest length of time. He found that by removingthe saber belt he could wind the rope about his waist beneath histunic, and then replacing the belt still retain it entirely concealedfrom chance observation.

  At last, satisfactorily disguised, and with even his shock of blackhair adding to the verisimilitude of his likeness to the nativesof the city, he sought for some means of reaching the street below.While he might have risked a drop from the eaves of the roof hefeared to do so lest he attract the attention of passers-by, andprobable discovery. The roofs of the buildings varied in height butas the ceilings were all low he found that he could easily travelalong the roof tops and this he did for some little distance, untilhe suddenly discovered just ahead of him several figures recliningupon the roof of a near-by building.

  He had noticed openings in each roof, evidently giving ingress tothe apartments below, and now, his advance cut off by those aheadof him, he decided to risk the chance of reaching the streetthrough the interior of one of the buildings. Approaching one ofthe openings he leaned over the black hole, and listened for soundsof life in the apartment below. Neither his ears nor his noseregistered evidence of the presence of any living creature in theimmediate vicinity, and so without further hesitation the ape-manlowered his body through the aperture and was about to dropwhen his foot came in contact with the rung of a ladder, which heimmediately took advantage of to descend to the floor of the roombelow.

  Here, all was almost total darkness until his eyes became accustomedto the interior, the darkness of which was slightly alleviatedby the reflected light from a distant street flare which shoneintermittently through the narrow windows fronting the thoroughfare.Finally, assured that the apartment was unoccupied, Tarzan soughtfor a stairway to the ground floor. This he found in a dark hallwayupon which the room opened--a flight of narrow stone steps leadingdownward toward the street. Chance favored him so that he reachedthe shadows of the arcade without encountering any of the inmatesof the house.

  Once on the street he was not at a loss as to the direction in whichhe wished to go, for he had tracked the two Europeans practicallyto the gate, which he felt assured must have given them entry tothe city. His keen sense of direction and location made it possiblefor him to judge with considerable accuracy the point within thecity where he might hope to pick up the spoor of those whom hesought.

  The first need, however, was to discover a street paralleling thenorthern wall along which he could make his way in the direction ofthe gate he had seen from the forest. Realizing that his greatesthope of success lay in the boldness of his operations he moved offin the direction of the nearest street flare without making anyother attempt at concealment than keeping in the shadows of thearcade, which he judged would draw no particular attention to himin that he saw other pedestrians doing likewise. The few he passedgave him no heed, and he had almost reached the nearest intersectionwhen he saw several men wearing yellow tunics identical to thatwhich he had taken from his prisoner.

  They were coming directly toward him and the ape-man saw that shouldhe continue on he would meet them directly at the intersectionof the two streets in the full light of the flare. His firstinclination was to go steadily on, for personally he had no objectionto chancing a scrimmage with them; but a sudden recollection of thegirl, possibly a helpless prisoner in the hands of these people,caused him to seek some other and less hazardous plan of action.

  He had almost emerged from the shadow of the arcade into the fulllight of the flare and the approaching men were but a few yardsfrom him, when he suddenly kneeled and pretended to adjust thewrappings of his sandals--wrappings, which, by the way, he wasnot at all sure that he had adjusted as their makers had intendedthem to be adjusted. He was still kneeling when the soldiers cameabreast of him. Like the others he had passed they paid no attentionto him and the moment they were behind him he continued upon hisway, turning to the right at the intersection of the two streets.

  The street he now took was, at this point, so extremely windingthat, for the most part, it received no benefit from the flares ateither corner, so that he was forced practically to grope his wayin the dense shadows of the arcade. The street became a littlestraighter just before he reached the next flare, and as he camewithin sight of it he saw silhouetted against a patch of light thefigure of a lion. The beast was coming slowly down the street inTarzan's direction.

  A woman crossed the way directly in front of it and the lion paidno attention to her, nor she to the lion. An instant later a littlechild ran after the woman and so close did he run before the lionthat the beast was forced to turn out of its way a step to avoidcolliding with the little one. The ape-man grinned and crossedquickly to the opposite side of the street, for his delicate sensesindicated that at this point the breeze stirring through the citystreets and deflected by the opposite wall would now blow from thelion toward him as the beast passed, whereas if he remained uponthe side of the street upon which he had been walking when hediscovered the carnivore, his scent would have been borne to thenostrils of the animal, and Tarzan was sufficiently jungle-wiseto realize that while he might deceive the eyes of man and beasthe could not so easily disguise from the nostrils of one of thegreat cats that he was a creature of a different species from theinhabitants of the city, the only human beings, possibly, that Numawas familiar with. In him the cat would recognize a stranger, and,therefore, an enemy, and Tarzan had no desire to be delayed by anencounter with a savage lion. His ruse worked successfully, thelion passing him with not more than a side glance in his direction.

  He had proceeded for some little distance and had about reached apoint where he judged he would find the street which led up fromthe city gate when, at an intersection of two streets, his nostrilscaught the scent spoor of the girl. Out of a maze of other scentspoors the ape-man picked the familiar odor of the girl and, a secondlater, that of Smith-Oldwick. He had been forced to accomplishit, however, by bending very low at each street intersection inrepeated attention to his sandal wrappings, bringing his nostrilsas close to the pavement as possible.

  As he advanced along the street through which the two had beenconducted earlier in the day he noted, as had they, the changein the type of buildings as he passed from a residence districtinto that portion occupied by shops and bazaars. Here the numberof flares was increased so that they appeared not only at streetintersections but midway between as well, and there were manymore people abroad. The shops were open and lighted, for with thesetting of the sun the intense heat of the day had given place toa pleasant coolness. Here also the number of lions, roaming loosethrough the thoroughfares, increased, and also for the first timeTarzan noted the idiosyncrasies of the people.

  Once he was nearly upset by a naked man running rapidly throughthe street screaming at the top of his voice. And again he nearlystumbled over a woman who was making her way in the shadows of oneof the arcades upon all fours. At first the ape-man thought she washunting for something she had dropped, but as he drew to one sideto watch her, he saw that she was doing nothing of
the kind--thatshe had merely elected to walk upon her hands and knees ratherthan erect upon her feet. In another block he saw two creaturesstruggling upon the roof of an adjacent building until finally oneof them, wrenching himself free from the grasp of the other, gavehis adversary a mighty push which hurled him to the pavement below,where he lay motionless upon the dusty road. For an instant a wildshriek re-echoed through the city from the lungs of the victor andthen, without an instant's hesitation, the fellow leaped headfirstto the street beside the body of his victim. A lion moved out fromthe dense shadows of a doorway and approached the two bloody andlifeless things before him. Tarzan wondered what effect the odorof blood would have upon the beast and was surprised to see thatthe animal only sniffed at the corpses and the hot red blood andthen lay down beside the two dead men.

  He had passed the lion but a short distance when his attention wascalled to the figure of a man lowering himself laboriously from theroof of a building upon the east side of the thoroughfare. Tarzan'scuriosity was aroused.