Chapter 8
A year had passed since the two Swedes had been driven in terror fromthe savage country where The Sheik held sway. Little Meriem stillplayed with Geeka, lavishing all her childish love upon the now almosthopeless ruin of what had never, even in its palmiest days, possessedeven a slight degree of loveliness. But to Meriem, Geeka was all thatwas sweet and adorable. She carried to the deaf ears of the batteredivory head all her sorrows all her hopes and all her ambitions, foreven in the face of hopelessness, in the clutches of the dreadauthority from which there was no escape, little Meriem yet cherishedhopes and ambitions. It is true that her ambitions were rathernebulous in form, consisting chiefly of a desire to escape with Geekato some remote and unknown spot where there were no Sheiks, noMabunus--where El Adrea could find no entrance, and where she mightplay all day surrounded only by flowers and birds and the harmlesslittle monkeys playing in the tree tops.
The Sheik had been away for a long time, conducting a caravan of ivory,skins, and rubber far into the north. The interim had been one ofgreat peace for Meriem. It is true that Mabunu had still been withher, to pinch or beat her as the mood seized the villainous old hag;but Mabunu was only one. When The Sheik was there also there were twoof them, and The Sheik was stronger and more brutal even than Mabunu.Little Meriem often wondered why the grim old man hated her so. It istrue that he was cruel and unjust to all with whom he came in contact,but to Meriem he reserved his greatest cruelties, his most studiedinjustices.
Today Meriem was squatting at the foot of a large tree which grewinside the palisade close to the edge of the village. She wasfashioning a tent of leaves for Geeka. Before the tent were somepieces of wood and small leaves and a few stones. These were thehousehold utensils. Geeka was cooking dinner. As the little girlplayed she prattled continuously to her companion, propped in a sittingposition with a couple of twigs. She was totally absorbed in thedomestic duties of Geeka--so much so that she did not note the gentleswaying of the branches of the tree above her as they bent to the bodyof the creature that had entered them stealthily from the jungle.
In happy ignorance the little girl played on, while from above twosteady eyes looked down upon her--unblinking, unwavering. There wasnone other than the little girl in this part of the village, which hadbeen almost deserted since The Sheik had left long months before uponhis journey toward the north.
And out in the jungle, an hour's march from the village, The Sheik wasleading his returning caravan homeward.
A year had passed since the white men had fired upon the lad and drivenhim back into the jungle to take up his search for the only remainingcreatures to whom he might look for companionship--the great apes. Formonths the two had wandered eastward, deeper and deeper into thejungle. The year had done much for the boy--turning his already mightymuscles to thews of steel, developing his woodcraft to a point where itverged upon the uncanny, perfecting his arboreal instincts, andtraining him in the use of both natural and artificial weapons.
He had become at last a creature of marvelous physical powers andmental cunning. He was still but a boy, yet so great was his strengththat the powerful anthropoid with which he often engaged in mimicbattle was no match for him. Akut had taught him to fight as the bullape fights, nor ever was there a teacher better fitted to instruct inthe savage warfare of primordial man, or a pupil better equipped toprofit by the lessons of a master.
As the two searched for a band of the almost extinct species of ape towhich Akut belonged they lived upon the best the jungle afforded.Antelope and zebra fell to the boy's spear, or were dragged down by thetwo powerful beasts of prey who leaped upon them from some overhanginglimb or from the ambush of the undergrowth beside the trail to thewater hole or the ford.
The pelt of a leopard covered the nakedness of the youth; but thewearing of it had not been dictated by any prompting of modesty. Withthe rifle shots of the white men showering about him he had reverted tothe savagery of the beast that is inherent in each of us, but thatflamed more strongly in this boy whose father had been raised a beastof prey. He wore his leopard skin at first in response to a desire toparade a trophy of his prowess, for he had slain the leopard with hisknife in a hand-to-hand combat. He saw that the skin was beautiful,which appealed to his barbaric sense of ornamentation, and when itstiffened and later commenced to decompose because of his having noknowledge of how to cure or tan it was with sorrow and regret that hediscarded it. Later, when he chanced upon a lone, black warriorwearing the counterpart of it, soft and clinging and beautiful fromproper curing, it required but an instant to leap from above upon theshoulders of the unsuspecting black, sink a keen blade into his heartand possess the rightly preserved hide.
There were no after-qualms of conscience. In the jungle might isright, nor does it take long to inculcate this axiom in the mind of ajungle dweller, regardless of what his past training may have been.That the black would have killed him had he had the chance the boy knewfull well. Neither he nor the black were any more sacred than thelion, or the buffalo, the zebra or the deer, or any other of thecountless creatures who roamed, or slunk, or flew, or wriggled throughthe dark mazes of the forest. Each had but a single life, which wassought by many. The greater number of enemies slain the better chanceto prolong that life. So the boy smiled and donned the finery of thevanquished, and went his way with Akut, searching, always searching forthe elusive anthropoids who were to welcome them with open arms. Andat last they found them. Deep in the jungle, buried far from sight ofman, they came upon such another little natural arena as had witnessedthe wild ceremony of the Dum-Dum in which the boy's father had takenpart long years before.
First, at a great distance, they heard the beating of the drum of thegreat apes. They were sleeping in the safety of a huge tree when thebooming sound smote upon their ears. Both awoke at once. Akut was thefirst to interpret the strange cadence.
"The great apes!" he growled. "They dance the Dum-Dum. Come, Korak,son of Tarzan, let us go to our people."
Months before Akut had given the boy a name of his own choosing, sincehe could not master the man given name of Jack. Korak is as near as itmay be interpreted into human speech. In the language of the apes itmeans Killer. Now the Killer rose upon the branch of the great treewhere he had been sleeping with his back braced against the stem. Hestretched his lithe young muscles, the moonlight filtering through thefoliage from above dappling his brown skin with little patches of light.
The ape, too, stood up, half squatting after the manner of his kind.Low growls rumbled from the bottom of his deep chest--growls of excitedanticipation. The boy growled in harmony with the ape. Then theanthropoid slid softly to the ground. Close by, in the direction ofthe booming drum, lay a clearing which they must cross. The moonflooded it with silvery light. Half-erect, the great ape shuffled intothe full glare of the moon. At his side, swinging gracefully along inmarked contrast to the awkwardness of his companion, strode the boy,the dark, shaggy coat of the one brushing against the smooth, clearhide of the other. The lad was humming now, a music hall air that hadfound its way to the forms of the great English public school that wasto see him no more. He was happy and expectant. The moment he hadlooked forward to for so long was about to be realized. He was cominginto his own. He was coming home. As the months had dragged or flownalong, retarded or spurred on as privation or adventure predominated,thoughts of his own home, while oft recurring, had become less vivid.The old life had grown to seem more like a dream than a reality, andthe balking of his determination to reach the coast and return toLondon had finally thrown the hope of realization so remotely into thefuture that it too now seemed little more than a pleasant but hopelessdream.
Now all thoughts of London and civilization were crowded so far intothe background of his brain that they might as well have beennon-existent. Except for form and mental development he was as much anape as the great, fierce creature at his side.
In the exuberance of his joy he slapped his c
ompanion roughly on theside of the head. Half in anger, half in play the anthropoid turnedupon him, his fangs bared and glistening. Long, hairy arms reached outto seize him, and, as they had done a thousand times before, the twoclinched in mimic battle, rolling upon the sward, striking, growlingand biting, though never closing their teeth in more than a roughpinch. It was wondrous practice for them both. The boy brought intoplay wrestling tricks that he had learned at school, and many of theseAkut learned to use and to foil. And from the ape the boy learned themethods that had been handed down to Akut from some common ancestor ofthem both, who had roamed the teeming earth when ferns were trees andcrocodiles were birds.
But there was one art the boy possessed which Akut could not master,though he did achieve fair proficiency in it for an ape--boxing. Tohave his bull-like charges stopped and crumpled with a suddenly plantedfist upon the end of his snout, or a painful jolt in the short ribs,always surprised Akut. It angered him too, and at such times hismighty jaws came nearer to closing in the soft flesh of his friend thanat any other, for he was still an ape, with an ape's short temper andbrutal instincts; but the difficulty was in catching his tormentorwhile his rage lasted, for when he lost his head and rushed madly intoclose quarters with the boy he discovered that the stinging hail ofblows released upon him always found their mark and effectually stoppedhim--effectually and painfully. Then he would withdraw growlingviciously, backing away with grinning jaws distended, to sulk for anhour or so.
Tonight they did not box. Just for a moment or two they wrestledplayfully, until the scent of Sheeta, the panther, brought them totheir feet, alert and wary. The great cat was passing through thejungle in front of them. For a moment it paused, listening. The boyand the ape growled menacingly in chorus and the carnivore moved on.
Then the two took up their journey toward the sound of the Dum-Dum.Louder and louder came the beating of the drum. Now, at last, theycould hear the growling of the dancing apes, and strong to theirnostrils came the scent of their kind. The lad trembled withexcitement. The hair down Akut's spine stiffened--the symptoms ofhappiness and anger are often similar.
Silently they crept through the jungle as they neared the meeting placeof the apes. Now they were in the trees, worming their way forward,alert for sentinels. Presently through a break in the foliage thescene burst upon the eager eyes of the boy. To Akut it was a familiarone; but to Korak it was all new. His nerves tingled at the savagesight. The great bulls were dancing in the moonlight, leaping in anirregular circle about the flat-topped earthen drum about which threeold females sat beating its resounding top with sticks worn smooth bylong years of use.
Akut, knowing the temper and customs of his kind, was too wise to maketheir presence known until the frenzy of the dance had passed. Afterthe drum was quiet and the bellies of the tribe well-filled he wouldhail them. Then would come a parley, after which he and Korak would beaccepted into membership by the community. There might be those whowould object; but such could be overcome by brute force, of which heand the lad had an ample surplus. For weeks, possibly months, theirpresence might cause ever decreasing suspicion among others of thetribe; but eventually they would become as born brothers to thesestrange apes.
He hoped that they had been among those who had known Tarzan, for thatwould help in the introduction of the lad and in the consummation ofAkut's dearest wish, that Korak should become king of the apes. It waswith difficulty, however, that Akut kept the boy from rushing into themidst of the dancing anthropoids--an act that would have meant theinstant extermination of them both, since the hysterical frenzy intowhich the great apes work themselves during the performance of theirstrange rites is of such a nature that even the most ferocious of thecarnivora give them a wide berth at such times.
As the moon declined slowly toward the lofty, foliaged horizon of theamphitheater the booming of the drum decreased and lessened were theexertions of the dancers, until, at last, the final note was struck andthe huge beasts turned to fall upon the feast they had dragged hitherfor the orgy.
From what he had seen and heard Akut was able to explain to Korak thatthe rites proclaimed the choosing of a new king, and he pointed out tothe boy the massive figure of the shaggy monarch, come into hiskingship, no doubt, as many human rulers have come into theirs--by themurder of his predecessor.
When the apes had filled their bellies and many of them had sought thebases of the trees to curl up in sleep Akut plucked Korak by the arm.
"Come," he whispered. "Come slowly. Follow me. Do as Akut does."
Then he advanced slowly through the trees until he stood upon a boughoverhanging one side of the amphitheater. Here he stood in silence fora moment. Then he uttered a low growl. Instantly a score of apesleaped to their feet. Their savage little eyes sped quickly around theperiphery of the clearing. The king ape was the first to see the twofigures upon the branch. He gave voice to an ominous growl. Then hetook a few lumbering steps in the direction of the intruders. His hairwas bristling. His legs were stiff, imparting a halting, jerky motionto his gait. Behind him pressed a number of bulls.
He stopped just a little before he came beneath the two--just farenough to be beyond their spring. Wary king! Here he stood rockinghimself to and fro upon his short legs, baring his fangs in hideousgrinnings, rumbling out an ever increasing volume of growls, which wereslowly but steadily increasing to the proportions of roars. Akut knewthat he was planning an attack upon them. The old ape did not wish tofight. He had come with the boy to cast his lot with the tribe.
"I am Akut," he said. "This is Korak. Korak is the son of Tarzan whowas king of the apes. I, too, was king of the apes who dwelt in themidst of the great waters. We have come to hunt with you, to fightwith you. We are great hunters. We are mighty fighters. Let us comein peace."
The king ceased his rocking. He eyed the pair from beneath hisbeetling brows. His bloodshot eyes were savage and crafty. Hiskingship was very new and he was jealous of it. He feared theencroachments of two strange apes. The sleek, brown, hairless body ofthe lad spelled "man," and man he feared and hated.
"Go away!" he growled. "Go away, or I will kill you."
The eager lad, standing behind the great Akut, had been pulsing withanticipation and happiness. He wanted to leap down among these hairymonsters and show them that he was their friend, that he was one ofthem. He had expected that they would receive him with open arms, andnow the words of the king ape filled him with indignation and sorrow.The blacks had set upon him and driven him away. Then he had turned tothe white men--to those of his own kind--only to hear the ping ofbullets where he had expected words of cordial welcome. The great apeshad remained his final hope. To them he looked for the companionshipman had denied him. Suddenly rage overwhelmed him.
The king ape was almost directly beneath him. The others were formedin a half circle several yards behind the king. They were watchingevents interestedly. Before Akut could guess his intention, orprevent, the boy leaped to the ground directly in the path of the king,who had now succeeded in stimulating himself to a frenzy of fury.
"I am Korak!" shouted the boy. "I am the Killer. I came to live amongyou as a friend. You want to drive me away. Very well, then, I shallgo; but before I go I shall show you that the son of Tarzan is yourmaster, as his father was before him--that he is not afraid of yourking or you."
For an instant the king ape had stood motionless with surprise. He hadexpected no such rash action upon the part of either of the intruders.Akut was equally surprised. Now he shouted excitedly for Korak to comeback, for he knew that in the sacred arena the other bulls might beexpected to come to the assistance of their king against an outsider,though there was small likelihood that the king would need assistance.Once those mighty jaws closed upon the boy's soft neck the end wouldcome quickly. To leap to his rescue would mean death for Akut, too;but the brave old ape never hesitated. Bristling and growling, hedropped to the sward just as the king ape charged.
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bsp; The beast's hands clutched for their hold as the animal sprang upon thelad. The fierce jaws were wide distended to bury the yellow fangsdeeply in the brown hide. Korak, too, leaped forward to meet theattack; but leaped crouching, beneath the outstretched arms. At theinstant of contact the lad pivoted on one foot, and with all the weightof his body and the strength of his trained muscles drove a clenchedfist into the bull's stomach. With a gasping shriek the king apecollapsed, clutching futilely for the agile, naked creature nimblysidestepping from his grasp.
Howls of rage and dismay broke from the bull apes behind the fallenking, as with murder in their savage little hearts they rushed forwardupon Korak and Akut; but the old ape was too wise to court any suchunequal encounter. To have counseled the boy to retreat now would havebeen futile, and Akut knew it. To delay even a second in argumentwould have sealed the death warrants of them both. There was but asingle hope and Akut seized it. Grasping the lad around the waist helifted him bodily from the ground, and turning ran swiftly towardanother tree which swung low branches above the arena. Close upontheir heels swarmed the hideous mob; but Akut, old though he was andburdened by the weight of the struggling Korak, was still fleeter thanhis pursuers.
With a bound he grasped a low limb, and with the agility of a littlemonkey swung himself and the boy to temporary safety. Nor did hehesitate even here; but raced on through the jungle night, bearing hisburden to safety. For a time the bulls pursued; but presently, as theswifter outdistanced the slower and found themselves separated fromtheir fellows they abandoned the chase, standing roaring and screaminguntil the jungle reverberated to their hideous noises. Then theyturned and retraced their way to the amphitheater.
When Akut felt assured that they were no longer pursued he stopped andreleased Korak. The boy was furious.
"Why did you drag me away?" he cried. "I would have taught them! Iwould have taught them all! Now they will think that I am afraid ofthem."
"What they think cannot harm you," said Akut. "You are alive. If Ihad not brought you away you would be dead now and so would I. Do younot know that even Numa slinks from the path of the great apes whenthere are many of them and they are mad?"
The Son of Tarzan Page 8
