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

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “I shall lie down now,” said the old man, “and try to sleep. Early tomorrow, so soon as it is light, I shall take what food I can carry and continue the search until I have found Jane. I will not return without her.”

  His companions did not reply at once. Each was immersed in his own sorrowful thoughts, and each knew, as did the old professor, what the last words meant — Professor Porter would never return from the jungle.

  At length Clayton arose and laid his hand gently upon Professor Porter’s bent old shoulder.

  “I shall go with you, of course,” he said. “Do not tell me that I need even have said so.”

  “I knew that you would offer — that you would wish to go, Mr. Clayton; but you must not. Jane is beyond human assistance now. I simply go that I may face my Maker with her, and know, too, that what was once my dear little girl lies not alone and friendless in the awful jungle.

  “The same vines and leaves will cover us, the same rains beat upon us; and when the spirit of her mother is abroad, it will find us together in death, as it has always found us in life.

  “No; it is I alone who may go, for she was my daughter — all that was left on earth for me to love.”

  “I shall go with you,” said Clayton simply.

  The old man looked up, regarding the strong, handsome face of William Cecil Clayton intently. Perhaps he read there the love that lay in the heart beneath — the love for his daughter.

  He had been too preoccupied with his own scholarly thoughts in the past to consider the little occurrences, the chance words, which would have indicated to a more practical man that these young people were being drawn more and more closely to one another. Now they came back to him, one by one.

  “As you wish,” he said.

  “You may count on me, also,” said Mr. Philander.

  “No, my dear old friend,” said Professor Porter. “We may not all go. It would be cruelly wicked to leave poor Esmeralda here alone, and three of us would be no more successful than one.

  “There be enough dead things in the cruel forest as it is. Come — let us try to sleep a little.”

  CHAPTER XIX. THE CALL OF THE PRIMITIVE

  FROM the time Tarzan left the tribe of great anthropoids in which he had been raised, it was torn by continual strife and discord. Terkoz proved a cruel and capricious king, so that, one by one, many of the older and weaker apes, upon whom he was particularly prone to vent his brutish nature, took their families and sought the quiet and safety of the far interior.

  But at last those who remained were driven to desperation by the continued truculence of Terkoz, and it so happened that one of them recalled the parting admonition of Tarzan:

  “If you have a chief who is cruel, do not do as the other apes do, and attempt, any one of you, to pit yourself against him alone. But, instead, let two or three or four of you attack him together. Then, if you will do this, no chief will dare to be other than he should be, for four of you can kill any chief who may ever be over you.” — And the ape who recalled this wise counsel repeated it to several of his fellows, so that when Terkoz returned to the tribe that day he found a warm reception awaiting him.

  There were no formalities. As Terkoz reached the group, five huge, hairy beasts sprang upon him.

  At heart he was an arrant coward, which is the way with bullies among apes as well as among men; so he did not remain to fight and die, but tore himself away from them as quickly as he could and fled into the sheltering boughs of the forest.

  Two more attempts he made to rejoin the tribe, but on each occasion he was set upon and driven away. At last he gave it up, and turned, foaming with rage and hatred, into the jungle.

  For several days he wandered aimlessly, nursing his spite and looking for some weak thing on which to vent his pent anger.

  It was in this state of mind that the horrible, man-like beast, swinging from tree to tree, came suddenly upon two women in the jungle.

  He was right above them when he discovered them. The first intimation Jane Porter had of his presence was when the great hairy body dropped to the earth beside her, and she saw the awful face and the snarling, hideous mouth thrust within a foot of her.

  One piercing scream escaped her lips as the brute hand clutched her arm. Then she was dragged toward those awful fangs which yawned at her throat. But ere they touched that fair skin another mood claimed the anthropoid.

  The tribe had kept his women. He must find others to replace them. This hairless white ape would be the first of his new household, and so he threw her roughly across his broad, hairy shoulders and leaped back into the trees, bearing Jane Porter away toward a fate a thousand times worse than death.

  Esmeralda’s scream of terror had mingled once with that of Jane Porter, and then, as was Esmeralda’s manner under stress of emergency which required presence of mind, she swooned.

  But Jane Porter did not once lose consciousness. It is true that that awful face, pressing close to hers, and the stench of the foul breath beating upon her nostrils, paralyzed her with terror; but her brain was clear, and she comprehended all that transpired.

  With what seemed to her marvelous rapidity the brute bore her through the forest, but still she did not cry out or struggle. The sudden advent of the ape had confused her to such an extent that she thought now that he was bearing her toward the beach.

  For this reason she conserved her energies and her voice until she could see that they had approached near enough to the camp to attract the succor she craved.

  Poor child! Could she but have known it, she was being borne farther and farther into the impenetrable jungle.

  The scream that had brought Clayton and the two older men stumbling through the undergrowth had led Tarzan of the Apes straight to where Esmeralda lay, but it was not Esmeralda in whom his interest centered, though pausing over her he saw that she was unhurt.

  For a moment he scrutinized the ground below and the trees above, until the ape that was in him by virtue of training and environment, combined with the intelligence that was his by right of birth, told his wondrous woodcraft the whole story as plainly as though he had seen the thing happen with his own eyes.

  And then he was gone again into the swaying trees, following the high-flung spoor which no other human eye could have detected, much less translated.

  At boughs’ ends, where the anthropoid swings from one tree to another, there is most to mark the trail, but least to point the direction of the quarry, for there the pressure is downward always, toward the small end of the branch, whether the ape be leaving or entering a tree; but nearer the center of the tree, where the signs’ of passage are fainter, the direction is plainly marked.

  Here, on this branch, a caterpillar has been crushed by the fugitive’s great foot, and Tarzan knows instinctively where that same foot would touch in the next stride. Here he looks to find a tiny particle of the demolished larva, oft-times not more than a speck of moisture.

  Again, a minute bit of bark has been upturned by the scraping hand, and the direction of the break indicates the direction of the passage. Or some great limb, or the stem of the tree itself has been brushed by the hairy body, and a tiny shred of hair tells him by the direction from which it is wedged beneath the bark that he is on the right trail.

  Nor does he need to check his speed to catch these seemingly faint records of the fleeing beast.

  To Tarzan they stand out boldly against all the myriad other scars and bruises and signs upon the leafy way. But strongest of all is the scent, for Tarzan is pursuing up the wind, and his trained nostrils are as sensitive as a hound’s.

  There are those who believe that the lower orders are specially endowed by nature with better olfactory nerves than man, but it is merely a matter of development.

  Man’s survival does not hinge so greatly upon the perfection of his senses. His power to reason has relieved them of many of their duties, and so they have, to some extent, atrophied, as have the muscles which move the ears and scalp, merely from d
isuse.

  The muscles are there, about your ears and beneath your scalp, and so are the nerves which transmit sensations to your brain, but they are under-developed in you because you do not need them.

  Not so with Tarzan of the Apes. From early infancy his survival had depended upon acuteness of eyesight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste far more than upon the more slowly developed organ of reason.

  The least developed of all, in Tarzan, was the sense of taste, for he could eat luscious fruits, or raw flesh, long buried, with almost equal appreciation; but in that he differed but slightly from more civilized epicures.

  Almost silently the ape-man sped on in the track of Terkoz and his prey, but the sound of his approach reached the ears of the fleeing beast and spurred it on to greater speed.

  Three miles were covered before Tarzan overtook them, and then Terkoz, seeing that further flight was futile, dropped to the ground in a small open glade, that he might turn and fight for his prize, or be free to escape unhampered if he saw that the pursuer was more than a match for him.

  He still grasped Jane Porter in one great arm as Tarzan bounded like a leopard into the arena, which nature had provided for this primeval-like battle.

  When Terkoz saw that it was Tarzan who pursued him, he jumped to the conclusion that this was Tarzan’s woman, since they were of the same kind — white and hairless — and so he rejoiced at this opportunity for double revenge upon his hated enemy.

  To Jane Porter the strange apparition of this god-like man was as wine to sick nerves.

  From the description which Clayton and her father and Mr. Philander had given her, she knew that it must be the same wonderful creature who had saved them, and she saw in him only a protector and a friend.

  But as Terkoz pushed her roughly aside to meet Tarzan’s charge, and she saw the great proportions of the ape and the mighty muscles and the fierce fangs, her heart quailed. How could any animal vanquish such a mighty antagonist?

  Like two charging bulls they came together, and like two wolves sought each other’s throat. Against the long canines of the ape was pitted the thin blade of the man’s knife.

  Jane Porter — her lithe, young form flattened against the trunk of a great tree, her hands tight pressed against her rising and falling bosom, and her eyes wide with mingled horror, fascination, fear, and admiration — watched the primordial ape battle with the primeval man for possession of a woman — for her.

  As the great muscles of the man’s back and shoulders knotted beneath the tension of his efforts, and the huge biceps and forearm held at bay those mighty tusks, the veil of centuries of civilization and culture was swept from the blurred vision of the Baltimore girl.

  When the long knife drank deep a dozen times of Terkoz’ heart’s blood, and the great carcass rolled lifeless upon the ground, it was a primeval woman who sprang forward with outstretched arms toward the primeval man who had fought for her and won her.

  And Tarzan?

  He did what no red-blooded man needs lessons in doing. He took his woman in his arms and smothered her upturned, panting lips with kisses.

  For a moment Jane Porter lay there with halfclosed eyes. For a moment — the first in her young life — she knew the meaning of love.

  But as suddenly as the veil had been withdrawn it dropped again, and an outraged conscience suffused her face with its scarlet mantle, and a mortified woman thrust Tarzan of the Apes from her and buried her face in her hands.

  Tarzan had been surprised when he had found the girl he had learned to love after a vague and abstract manner a willing prisoner in his arms. Now he was surprised that she repulsed him.

  He came close to her once more and took hold of her arm. She turned upon him like a tigress, striking his great breast with her tiny hands.

  Tarzan could not understand it.

  A moment ago and it had been his intention to hasten Jane Porter back to her people, but that little moment was lost now in the dim and distant past of things which were but can never be again, and with it the good intention had gone to join the impossible.

  Since then Tarzan of the Apes had felt a warm, lithe form close pressed to his. Hot, sweet breath against his cheek and mouth had fanned a new flame to life within his breast, and perfect lips had clung to his in burning kisses that had seared a deep brand into his soul — a brand which marked a new Tarzan.

  Again he laid his hand upon her arm. Again she repulsed him. And then Tarzan of the Apes did just what his first ancestor would have done.

  He took his woman in his arms and carried her into the jungle.

  Early the following morning the four within the little cabin by the beach were awakened by the booming of a cannon. Clayton was the first to rush out, and there, beyond the harbor’s mouth, he saw two vessels lying at anchor.

  One was the Arrow and the other a small French cruiser. The sides of the latter were crowded with men gazing shoreward, and it was evident to Clayton, as to the others who had now joined him, that the gun which they had heard had been fired to attract their attention if they still remained at the cabin.

  Both vessels lay at a considerable distance from shore, and it was doubtful if their glasses would locate the waving hats of the little party far in between the harbor’s points.

  Esmeralda had removed her red apron and was waving it frantically above her head; but Clayton, still fearing that even this might not be seen, hurried off toward the northern point where lay his signal pyre ready for the match.

  It seemed an age to him, as to those who waited breathlessly behind, ere he reached the great pile of dry branches and underbrush.

  As he broke from the dense wood and came in sight of the vessels again, he was filled with consternation to see that the Arrow was making sail and that the cruiser was already under way.

  Quickly lighting the pyre in a dozen places, he hurried to the extreme point of the promontory, where he stripped off his shirt, and, tying it to a fallen branch, stood waving it back and forth above him.

  But still the vessels continued to stand out; and he had given up all hope, when the great column of smoke, arising above the forest in one dense vertical shaft, attracted the attention of a lookout aboard the cruiser, and instantly a dozen glasses were leveled on the beach.

  Presently Clayton saw the two ships come about again; and while the Arrow lav drifting quietly on the ocean, the cruiser steamed slowly back toward shore.

  At some distance away she stopped, and a boat was lowered and dispatched toward the beach.

  As it was drawn up a young officer stepped out.

  “Monsieur Clayton, I presume?” he asked.

  “Thank God, you have come!” was Clayton’s reply. “And it may be that it is not too late even now.”

  “What do you mean, Monsieur?” asked the officer.

  Clayton told of the abduction of Jane Porter and the need of armed men to aid in the search for her.

  “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the officer, sadly. “Yesterday and it would not have been too late. Today and it may be better that the poor lady were never found. It is horrible, Monsieur. It is too horrible.”

  Other boats had now put off from the cruiser, and Clayton, having pointed out the harbor’s entrance to the officer, entered the boat with him and its nose was turned toward the little landlocked bay, into which the other craft followed.

  Soon the entire party had landed where stood Professor Porter, Mr. Philander and the weeping Esmeralda.

  Among the officers in the last boats to put off from the cruiser was the commander of the vessel; and when he had heard the story of Jane Porter’s abduction, he generously called for volunteers to accompany Professor Porter and Clayton in their search.

  Not an officer or a man was there of those brave and sympathetic Frenchmen who did not quickly beg leave to be one of the expedition.

  The commander selected twenty men and two officers, Lieutenant d’Arnot and Lieutenant Charpentier. A boat was dispatched to the cruiser for provisions, ammunition,
and carbines; the men were already armed with revolvers.

  Then, to Clayton’s inquiries as to how they had happened to anchor off shore and fire a signal gun, the commander, Captain Dufranne, explained that a month before they had sighted the Arrow bearing southwest under considerable canvas, and that when they had signaled her to come about she had but crowded on more sail.

  They had kept her hull-up until sunset, firing several shots after her, but the next morning she was nowhere to be seen. They had then continued to cruise up and down the coast for several weeks, and had about forgotten the incident of the recent chase, when, early one morning a few days before, the lookout had descried a vessel laboring in the trough of a heavy sea and evidently entirely from under control.

  As they steamed nearer to the derelict they were surprised to note that it was the same vessel that had run from them a few weeks earlier. Her fore-stay-sail and mizzen-spanker were set as though an effort had been made to hold her head up into the wind, but the sheets had parted, and the sails were tearing to ribbons in the half gale of wind.

  In the high sea that was running it was a difficult and dangerous task to attempt to put a prize crew aboard her; and as no signs of life had been seen above deck, it was decided to stand by until the wind and sea abated; but just then a figure was seen clinging to the rail and feebly waving a mute signal of despair toward them.

  Immediately a boat’s crew was ordered out and an attempt was successfully made to board the Arrow. The sight that met the Frenchmen’s eyes as they clambered over the ship’s side was appalling.

  A dozen dead and dying men rolled hither and thither upon the pitching deck, the living intermingled with the dead. Two of the corpses appeared to have been partially devoured as though by wolves.

  The prize crew soon had the vessel under proper sail once more and the living members of the ill-starred company carried below to their hammocks.