Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Esmeralda, the negress, was busy sorting her mistress’ baggage from the pile of bales and boxes beside the cabin, and Miss Porter had turned away to follow Clayton, when something caused her to turn again toward the sailor.

  And then three things happened almost simultaneously — the sailor jerked out his weapon and leveled it at Clayton’s back, Miss Porter screamed a warning, and a long, metal-shod spear shot like a bolt from above and passed entirely through the right shoulder of the rat-faced man.

  The revolver exploded harmlessly in the air, and the seaman crumpled up with a scream of pain and terror.

  Clayton turned and rushed back toward the scene. The sailors stood in a frightened group, with drawn weapons, peering into the jungle. The wounded man writhed and shrieked upon the ground.

  Clayton, unseen by any, picked up the fallen revolver and slipped it inside his shirt, then he joined the sailors in gazing, mystified, into the jungle.

  “Who could it have been?” whispered Jane Porter, and the young man turned to see her standing, wide-eyed and wondering, close beside him.

  “I dare say Tarzan of the Apes is watching us all right,” he answered, in a dubious tone. “I wonder, now, who that spear was intended for. If for Snipes, then our ape friend is a friend indeed.

  “By jove, where are your father and Mr. Philander? There’s some one or something in that jungle, and it’s armed, whatever it is. Ho! Professor! Mr. Philander!” young Clayton shouted. There was no response.

  “What’s to be done, Miss Porter?” continued the young man, his face clouded by a frown of worry and indecision.

  “I can’t leave you here alone with these cutthroats, and you certainly can’t venture into the jungle with me; yet some one must go in search of your father. He is more than apt to wandering off aimlessly, regardless of danger or direction, and Mr. Philander is only a trifle less impractical than he. You will pardon my bluntness, but our lives are all in jeopardy here, and when we get your father back something must be done to impress upon him the dangers to which he exposes you as well as himself by his absentmindedness.”

  “I quite agree with you,” replied the girl, “and I am not offended at all. Dear old papa would sacrifice his life for me without an instant’s hesitation, provided one could keep his mind on so frivolous a matter for an entire instant. There is only one way to keep him in safety, and that is to chain him to a tree. The poor dear is so impractical.”

  “I have it!” suddenly exclaimed Clayton. “You can use a revolver, can’t you?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I have one. With it you and Esmeralda will be comparatively safe in this cabin while I am searching for your father and MR. Philander. Come, call the woman and I will hurry on. They can’t have gone far.”

  Jane Porter did as he suggested and when he saw the door close safely behind them Clayton turned toward the jungle.

  Some of the sailors were drawing the spear from their wounded comrade and, as Clayton approached, he asked if he could borrow a revolver from one of them while he searched the jungle for the professor.

  The rat-faced one, finding he was not dead, had regained his composure, and with a volley of oaths directed at Clayton refused in the name of his fellows to allow the young man any firearms.

  This man, Snipes, had assumed the role of chief since he had killed their former leader, and so little time had elapsed that none of his companions had as yet questioned his authority.

  Clayton’s only response was a shrug of the shoulders, but as he left them he picked up the spear which had transfixed Snipes, and thus primitively armed, the son of the then Lord Greystoke strode into the dense jungle.

  Every few moments he called aloud the names of the wanderers. The watchers in the cabin by the beach heard the sound of his voice growing ever fainter and fainter, until at last it was swallowed up by the myriad noises of the primeval wood.

  When Professor Archimedes Q. Porter and his assistant, Samuel T. Philander, after much insistence on the part of the latter, had finally turned their steps toward camp, they were as completely lost in the wild and tangled labyrinth of the matted jungle as two human beings well could be, though they did not know it.

  It was by the merest caprice of fortune that they headed toward the west coast of Africa, instead of toward Zanzibar on the opposite side of the dark continent.

  When in a short time they reached the beach, only to find no camp in sight, Philander was positive that they were north of their proper destination, while, as a matter of fact they were about two hundred yards south of it.

  It never occurred to either of these impractical theorists to call aloud on the chance of attracting their friends’ attention. Instead, with all the assurance that deductive reasoning from a wrong premise induces in one, Mr. Samuel T. Philander grasped Professor Archimedes Q. Porter firmly by the arm and hurried the weakly protesting old gentleman off in the direction of Cape Town, fifteen hundred miles to the south.

  When Jane Porter and Esmeralda found themselves safely behind the cabin door the negress’s first thought was to barricade the portal from the inside. With this idea in mind she turned to search for some means of putting it into execution; but her first view of the interior of the cabin brought a shriek of terror to her lips, and like a frightened child the huge black ran to bury her face on her mistress’ shoulder.

  Jane Porter, turning at the cry, saw the cause of it lying prone upon the floor before them — the whitened skeleton of a man. A further glance revealed a second skeleton upon the bed.

  “What horrible place are we in?” murmured the awestruck girl. But there was no panic in her fright.

  At last, disengaging herself from the frantic clutch of the still shrieking Esmeralda, Jane Porter crossed the room to look into the little cradle, knowing what she should see there before ever the tiny skeleton disclosed itself in all its pitiful and pathetic frailty.

  What an awful tragedy these poor mute bones proclaimed! The girl shuddered at thought of the eventualities which might lie before herself and her friends in this ill-fated cabin; the haunt of mysterious, perhaps hostile, beings.

  Quickly, with an impatient stamp of her little foot, she endeavored to shake off the gloomy forebodings, and turning to Esmeralda bade her cease her wailing.

  “Stop, Esmeralda; stop it this minute!” she cried. “You are only making it worse. Why, I never saw such a big baby.”

  She ended lamely, a little quiver in her own voice as she thought of the three men, upon whom she depended for protection, wandering in the depth of that awful forest.

  Soon the girl found that the door was equipped with a heavy wooden bar upon the inside, and after several efforts the combined strength of the two enabled them to slip it into place, the first time in twenty years.

  Then they sat down upon a bench with their arms about one another, and waited.

  CHAPTER XIV. AT THE MERCY OF THE JUNGLE

  AFTER Clayton had plunged into the jungle, the sailors — mutineers of the Arrow — fell into a discussion of their next step; but on one point all were agreed — that they should hasten to put off to the anchored Arrow, where they could at least be safe from the spears of their unseen foe. And so, while Jane Porter and Esmeralda were barricading themselves within the cabin, the cowardly crew of cutthroats were pulling rapidly for their ship in the two boats that had brought them ashore.

  So much had Tarzan seen that day that his head was in a whirl of wonder. But the most wonderful sight of all, to him, was the face of the beautiful white girl.

  Here at last was one of his own kind; of that he was positive. And the young man and the two old men; they, too, were much as he had pictured’ his own people to be.

  But doubtless they were as ferocious and cruel as other men he had seen. The fact that they alone of all the party were unarmed might account for the fact that they had killed no one.

  They might be very different if provided with weapons.

  Tarzan had seen the young man pick up t
he fallen revolver of the wounded Snipes and hide it away in his breast; and he had also seen him slip it cautiously to the girl as she entered the cabin door.

  He did not understand anything of the motives behind all that he had seen; but, somehow, intuitively he liked the young man and the two old men, and for the girl he had a strange longing which he scarcely understood. As for the big black woman, she was evidently connected in some way to the girl, and so he liked her, also.

  For the sailors, and especially Snipes, he had developed a great hatred. He knew by their threatening gestures and by the expressions upon their evil faces that they were enemies of the others of the party, and so he decided to watch them closely.

  Tarzan wondered why the men had gone into the jungle, nor did it ever occur to him that one could become lost in that maze of undergrowth which to him was as simple as is the main street of your own home town to you.

  When he saw the sailors row away toward the ship, and knew that the girl and her companion were safe in his cabin, Tarzan decided to follow the young man into the jungle and learn what his errand might be. He swung off rapidly in the direction taken by Clayton, and in a short time heard faintly in the distance the now only occasional calls of the Englishman to his friends.

  Presently Tarzan came up with the white man, who, almost fagged, was leaning against a tree wiping the perspiration from his forehead. The ape-man, hiding safe behind a screen of foliage, sat watching this new specimen of his own race intently.

  At intervals Clayton called aloud and finally it came to Tarzan that he was searching for the old man.

  Tarzan was on the point of going off to look for them himself, when he caught the yellow glint of a sleek hide moving cautiously through the jungle toward Clayton.

  It was Sheeta, the leopard. Now, Tarzan heard the soft bending of grasses and wondered why the young white man was not warned. Could it be he had failed to note the loud warning? Never before had Tarzan known Sheeta to be so clumsy.

  No, the white man did not hear. Sheeta was crouching for the spring, and then, shrill and horrible, there rose upon the stillness of the jungle the awful cry of the challenging ape, and Sheeta turned, crashing into the underbrush.

  Clayton came to his feet with a start. His blood ran cold. Never in all his life had so fearful a sound smote upon his ears. He was no coward; but if ever man felt the icy fingers of fear upon his heart, William Cecil Clayton, eldest son of Lord Greystoke of England, did that day in the fastness of the African jungle.

  The noise of some great body crashing through the underbrush so close beside him, and the sound of that blood-curdling shriek from above, tested Clayton’s courage to the limit; but he could not know that it was to that very voice he owed his life, nor that the creature who hurled it forth was his own cousin — the real Lord Greystoke. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and Clayton, disheartened and discouraged, was in a terrible quandary as to the proper course to pursue; whether to keep on in search of Professor Porter, at the almost certain risk of his own death in the jungle by night, or to return to the cabin where he might at least serve to protect Jane Porter from the perils which confronted her on all sides.

  He disliked to return to camp without her father; still more, he shrank from the thought of leaving her alone and unprotected in the hands of the mutineers of the Arrow, or to the hundred unknown dangers of the jungle.

  Possibly, too, he thought, ere this the professor and Philander had returned to camp. Yes, that was more than likely. At least he would return and see, before he continued what bade fare to be a most fruitless quest. And so he started, stumbling back through the thick and matted underbrush in the direction that he thought the cabin lay.

  To Tarzan’s surprise the young man was heading further into the jungle in the general direction of Mbonga’s village, and the shrewd young ape-man was convinced that he was lost.

  To Tarzan this was scarcely comprehensible; but his judgment told him that no man would venture toward the village of the cruel blacks armed only with a spear which, from the awkward way in which he carried it, was evidently an unaccustomed weapon to this white man. Nor was he following the trail of the old men. That, they had crossed and left long since, though it had been fresh and plain before Tarzan’s eyes.

  Tarzan was perplexed. The fierce jungle would make easy prey of this unprotected stranger in a very short time if he were not guided quickly to the beach.

  Yes, there was Numa, the lion, even now, stalking the white man a dozen paces to the right.

  Clayton heard the great body paralleling his course, and now there rose upon the evening air the beast’s thunderous roar. The man stopped with upraised spear and faced the brush from which issued the awful sound. The shadows were deepening, darkness was settling in.

  God! To die here alone, beneath the fangs of wild beasts; to be torn and rended; to feel the hot breath of the brute on his face as the great paw crushed down upon his breast!

  For a moment all was still. Clayton stood rigid, with raised spear. Presently a faint rustling of the bush apprised him of the stealthy creeping of the thing behind. It was gathering for the spring. At last he saw it, not twenty feet away — the long, lithe, muscular body and tawny head of a huge black-maned lion.

  The beast was upon its belly, moving forward very slowly. As its eyes met Clayton’s it stopped, and deliberately, cautiously gathered its hind quarters beneath it.

  In agony the man watched; fearful to launch his spear; powerless to fly.

  He heard a noise in the tree above him. Some new danger, he thought, but he dared not take his eyes from the yellow green orbs before him. There was a sharp twang as of a broken banjo-string, and at the same instant an arrow appeared in the yellow hide of the crouching lion.

  With a roar of pain and anger the beast sprang; but, somehow, Clayton stumbled to one side, and as he turned again to face the infuriated king of beasts, he was appalled at the sight which confronted him. Almost simultaneously with the lion’s turning to renew the attack a naked giant dropped from the tree above squarely on the brute’s back.

  With lightning speed an arm that was banded layers of iron muscle encircled the huge neck, and the great beast was raised from behind, roaring and pawing the air — raised as easily as Clayton would have lifted a pet dog.

  The scene he witnessed there in the twilight depths of the African jungle was burned forever into the Englishman’s brain.

  The man before him was the embodiment of physical perfection and giant strength, yet it was not upon these he depended in his battle with the great cat, for, mighty as were his muscles, they were as nothing by comparison with Numa’s. To his agility, to his brain and to his long keen knife he owed his supremacy.

  His right arm encircled the lion’s neck, while the left hand plunged the knife time and again into the unprotected side behind the left shoulder. The infuriated beast, pulled up and backwards until he stood upon his hind legs, struggled impotently in this unnatural position.

  Had the battle been of a few seconds’ longer duration the outcome might have been different, but it was all accomplished so quickly that the lion had scarce time to recover from the confusion of its surprise ere it sank lifeless to the ground.

  Then the strange figure which had vanquished it stood erect upon the carcass, and throwing back the wild and handsome head, gave out the fearsome cry which a few moments earlier had so startled Clayton.

  Before him he saw the figure of a young many naked except for a loin cloth and a few barbaric ornaments about arms and legs; on the breast a priceless diamond locket gleaming against a smooth brown skin.

  The hunting-knife had been returned to its homely sheath, and the man was gathering up his bow and quiver from where he had tossed them, when he leaped to attack’ the lion.

  Clayton spoke to the stranger in English, thanking him for his brave rescue and complimenting him on the wondrous strength and dexterity he had displayed, but the only answer was a steady stare and a faint shrug of the might
y shoulders, which might betoken either disparagement of service rendered, or ignorance of Clayton’s language.

  When the bow and quiver had been slung to his back the wild man, for such Clayton now thought him, once more drew his knife and deftly carved a dozen large strips of meat from the lion’s carcass. Then, squatting upon his haunches, he proceeded to eat, first motioning Clayton to join him.

  The strong white teeth sank into the raw and dripping flesh in apparent relish of the meal, but Clayton could not bring himself to share the uncooked meat with his strange host; instead he watched him, and presently there dawned upon him the conviction that this was Tarzan of the Apes, whose notice he had seen posted upon the cabin door that morning.

  If so, he must speak English.

  Again Clayton essayed speech with the ape-man; but the replies, now vocal, were in a strange tongue, which resembled the chattering of monkeys mingled with the growling of some wild beast No, this could not be Tarzan of the Apes, for it was very evident that he was an utter stranger to English.

  When Tarzan had completed his repast he rose and, pointing in a very different direction from that which Clayton had been pursuing, started off through the jungle toward the point he had indicated.

  Clayton, bewildered and confused hesitated to follow him, for he thought he was but being led more deeply into the mazes of the forest; but the ape-man, seeing him disinclined to follow, returned, and, grasping him by the coat, dragged him along until he was convinced that Clayton understood what was required of him. Then he left him to follow voluntarily.

  The Englishman, finally concluding that he was a prisoner, saw no alternative open but to accompany his captor, and thus they traveled slowly through the jungle while the sable mantle of the impenetrable forest night fell about them, and the stealthy footfalls of padded paws mingled with the breaking of twigs and the wild calls of the savage life that Clayton felt closing in upon him.

  Suddenly Clayton heard the faint report of a firearm — a single shot, and then silence.