There—as though to give my prophecy the weight of his endorsement—he has grabbed my pen in his chubby fists and with his inkbegrimmed little fingers bas placed the seal of his tiny fingerprints upon the page.
And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred imprints of four wee fingers and the outer half of the thumb.
When D’Arnot had finished the diary the two men sat in silence for some minutes.
“Well! Tarzan of the Apes, what think you?” asked D’Arnot. “Does not this little book clear up the mystery of your parentage?
“Why, man, you are Lord Greystoke.”
Tarzan shook his head.
“The book speaks of but one child,” he replied. “Its little skeleton lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment, from the first time I entered the cabin until Professor Porter’s party buried it, with its father and mother, beside the cabin.
“No, that was the babe the book speaks of—and the mystery of my origin is deeper than before, for I have thought much of late of the possibility of that cabin having been my birthplace. I am afraid that Kala spoke the truth,” he concluded sadly.
D’Arnot shook his head. He was unconvinced, and in his mind had sprung the determination to prove the correctness of his theory, for he had discovered the key which alone could unlock the mystery, or consign it forever to the realms of the unfathomable.
A week later the two men came suddenly upon a clearing in the forest.
In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a strong palisade. Between them and the enclosure stretched a cultivated field in which a number of negroes were working.
The two halted at the edge of the jungle.
Tarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but D’Arnot placed a hand upon his arm.
“What would you do, Tarzan?” he asked.
“They will try to kill us if they see us,” replied Tarzan. “I prefer to be the killer.”
“Maybe they are friends,” suggested D’Arnot.
“They are black,” was Tarzan’s only reply.
And again he drew back his shaft.
“You must not, Tarzan!” cried D’Arnot. “White men do not kill wantonly. Mon Dieu! but you have much to learn.
“I pity the ruffian who crosses you, my wild man, when I take you to Paris. I will have my hands full keeping your neck from beneath the guillotine.”
Tarzan lowered his bow and smiled.
“I do not know why I should kill the blacks back there in my jungle, yet not kill them here. Suppose Numa, the lion, should spring out upon us, I should say, then, I presume: Good morning, Monsieur Numa, how is Madame Numa; eh?”
“Wait until the blacks spring upon you,” replied D’Arnot, “then you may kill them. Do not assume that men are your enemies until they prove it.”
“Come,” said Tarzan, “let us go and present ourselves to be killed,” and he started straight across the field, his head high held and the tropical sun beating upon his smooth, brown skin.
Behind him came D’Arnot, clothed in some garments which had been discarded at the cabin by Clayton when the officers of the French cruiser had fitted him out in more presentable fashion.
Presently one of the blacks looked up, and beholding Tarzan, turned, shrieking, toward the palisade.
In an instant the air was filled with cries of terror from the fleeing gardeners, but before any had reached the palisade a white man emerged from the enclosure, rifle in hand, to discover the cause of the commotion.
What he saw brought his rifle to his shoulder, and Tarzan of the Apes would have felt cold lead once again had not D’Arnot cried loudly to the man with the leveled gun:
“Do not fire! We are friends!”
“Halt, then!” was the reply.
“Stop, Tarzan!” cried D’Arnot. “He thinks we are enemies.”
Tarzan dropped into a walk, and together he and D’Arnot advanced toward the white man by the gate.
The latter eyed them in puzzled bewilderment.
“What manner of men are you?” he asked, in French.
“White men,” replied D’Arnot. “We have been lost in the jungle for a long time.”
The man had lowered his rifle and now advanced with outstretched hand.
“I am Father Constantine of the French Mission here,” he said, “and I am glad to welcome you.”
“This is Monsieur Tarzan, Father Constantine,” replied D‘Arnot, indicating the ape-man; and as the priest extended his hand to Tarzan, D’Arnot added: “and I am Paul d’Arnot, of the French Navy.”
Father Constantine took the hand which Tarzan extended in imitation of the priest’s act, while the latter took in the superb physique and handsome face in one quick, keen glance.
And thus came Tarzan of the Apes to the first outpost of civilization.
For a week they remained there, and the ape-man, keenly observant, learned much of the ways of men; meanwhile black women sewed white duck garments for himself and D’Arnot so that they might continue their journey properly clothed.
XXVI
The Height of Civilization
Another month brought them to a little group of buildings at the mouth of a wide river, and there Tarzan saw many boats, and was filled with the old timidity of the wild thing by the sight of many men.
Gradually he 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 his savage belly.
The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month before, Tarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did the polished D’Arnot.
So apt a pupil had he been that the young Frenchman had labored assiduously to make of Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentleman in so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.
“God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend,” D’Arnot had said; “but we want His works to show upon the exterior also.”
As soon as they had reached the little port, D’Arnot had cabled his government of his safety, and requested a three-months’ leave, which had been granted.
He had also cabled his 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 Tarzan’s jungle after the treasure.
During their stay at the coast town “Monsieur Tarzan” became the wonder of both whites and blacks because of several occurrences which to Tarzan seemed the merest of nothings.
Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck and terrorized the town, until his evil star had led him to where the black-haired French giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.
Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, the Negro made straight for a party of four men sitting at a table sipping the inevitable absinthe.n
Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then the black spied Tarzan.
With a roar he charged the ape-man, while half a hundred heads peered from sheltering windows and doorways to witness the butchering of the poor Frenchman by the giant black.
Tarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of battle always brought to his lips.
As the Negro closed upon him, 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 man, and as Tarzan dropped back into his chair the fellow turned, crying with agony, and dashed wildly toward the native village.
On another occasion as Tarzan 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 king of beasts—some maintaining that he was an arrant coward, but all agreeing that it was with a feeling of greater security that the
y gripped their express rifleso when the monarch of the jungle roared about a camp at night.
D’Arnot and Tarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret, and so none other than the French officer knew of the ape-man’s familiarity with the beasts of the jungle.
“Monsieur Tarzan has not expressed himself,” said one of the party. “A man of his prowess who has spent some time in Africa, as I understand Monsieur Tarzan has, must have had experiences with lions—yes?”
“Some,” replied Tarzan, 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, gentlemen, 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 his uncle or his twin brother, 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 he hunts.”
D’Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!
“I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear,” said Tarzan. “Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, 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 him. 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 Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts,” laughed the other good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.
“And a piece of rope,” added Tarzan.
Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant jungle, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with him.
“There is your opportunity. Monsieur Tarzan,” bantered the Frenchman.
“I am not hungry,” said Tarzan simply.
The men laughed, all but D’Arnot. He alone knew that a savage beast had spoken its simple reason through the lips of the ape-man.
“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 Tarzan. “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.”
Tarzan glanced toward D’Arnot and nodded his head.
“Make it ten thousand,” said D’Arnot.
“Done,” replied the other.
Tarzan 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 Tarzan. “Numa walks abroad at night—it will be easier to find him.”
“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 Tarzan, and went to his room for his knife and rope.
The men accompanied him to the edge of the jungle, where he left his clothes in a small storehouse.
But when he would have entered the blackness of the undergrowth they tried to dissuade him; and the wagerer was most insistent of all that he abandon his foolhardy venture.
“I will accede that you have won,” he said, “and the ten thousand francs are yours if you will but give up this foolish attempt, which can only end in your death.”
Tarzan laughed, and in another moment the jungle had swallowed him.
The men stood silent for some moments and then slowly turned and walked back to the hotel veranda.
Tarzan had no sooner entered the jungle than he took to the trees, and it was with a feeling of exultant freedom that he swung once more through the forest branches.
This was life! Ah, how he 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 he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been.
How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then make toward the south and his own jungle and cabin.
Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling up wind. Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound of padded feet and the brushing of a huge, fur-clad body through the undergrowth.
Tarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently stalked him until he came into a little patch of moonlight.
Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and, as he had done it a hundred times in the past, Tarzan made fast the end to a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to the ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back, plunged his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.
Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised his voice in the awesome victory cry of his savage tribe.
For a moment Tarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting emotions of loyalty to D’Arnot and a mighty lust for the freedom of his own jungle. At last the vision of a beautiful face, and the memory of warm lips crushed to his dissolved the fascinating picture he had been drawing of his old life.
The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across his shoulders and took to the trees once more.
The men 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 man.”
“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 nightmare they hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headed toward the jungle—each man heavily armed.
“God! What was that?” suddenly cried one of the party, an Englishman, as Tarzan’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 Tarzan had announced his kills, and he half smiled in spite of the horror which filled him to think that the uncanny sound could have issued from a human throat—from the lips of his 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 man could have so quickly dispatched a lion with the pitiful weapons he had taken, or that alone he could have borne the huge carcass through the tangled jungle.
The men crowded about Tarzan with many questions, but his only answer was a laughing depreciation of his feat.
To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for his heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed so often for food and for self-preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable
to him. But he was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men—men accustomed to hunting big game.
Incidentally, he had won ten thousand francs, for D’Arnot insisted that he keep it all.
This was a very important item to Tarzan, who was just commencing to realize the power which lay behind 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 Tarzan that without money one must die. D’Arnot had told him not to worry, since he had more than enough for both, but the ape-man 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 Tarzan’s landlocked 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, Tarzan, garbed once more in his jungle regalia and carrying a spade, set out alone for the amphitheater of the apes where lay the treasure.
Late the next day he returned, bearing the great chest upon his shoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel worked through the harbor’s mouth and took up her northward journey.
Three weeks later Tarzan and D‘Arnot were passengers on board a French steamer bound for Lyons, and after a few days in that city D’Arnot took Tarzan to Paris.
The ape-man was anxious to proceed to America, but D’Arnot insisted that he must accompany him to Paris first, nor would he divulge the nature of the urgent necessity upon which he based his 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 Tarzan with him.
Adroitly D’Arnot led the conversation from point to point until the policeman had explained to the interested Tarzan many of the methods in vogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.
Tarzan of the Apes (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 27
