golden links from about her throat, but Tarzan would not let her. Taking her hands in his, when she insisted upon it, he held them tightly to prevent her.
At last she desisted and with a little laugh raised the locket to her lips.
Tarzan did not know precisely what she meant, but he guessed correctly that it was her way of acknowledging the gift, and so he rose, and taking the locket in his hand, stooped gravely like some courtier of old, and pressed his lips upon it where hers had rested.
It was a stately and gallant little compliment performed with the grace and dignity of utter unconsciousness of self. It was the hall-mark of his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of fine breeding, an hereditary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate.
It was growing dark now, and so they ate again of the fruit which was both food and drink for them; then Tarzan rose, and leading Jane to the little bower he had erected, motioned her to go within.
For the first time in hours a feeling of fear swept over her, and Tarzan felt her draw away as though shrinking from him.
Contact with this girl for half a day had left a very diferent Tarzan from the one on whom the morning’s sun had risen.
Now, in every fiber of his being, heredity spoke louder than training.
He had not in one swift transition become a polished gentleman from a savage ape-man, but at last the instincts of the former predominated, and over all was the desire to please the woman he loved, and to appear well in her eyes.
So Tarzan of the Apes did the only thing he knew to assure Jane of her safety. He removed his hunting knife from its sheath and handed it to her hilt first, again motioning her into the bower.
The girl understood, and taking the long knife she entered and lay down upon the soft grasses while Tarzan of the Apes stretched himself upon the ground across the entrance.
And thus the rising sun found them in the morning.
When Jane awoke, she did not at first recall the strange events of the preceding day, and so she wondered at her odd surroundings–the little leafy bower, the soft grasses of her bed, the unfamiliar prospect from the opening at her feet.
Slowly the circumstances of her position crept one by one into her mind. And then a great wonderment arose in her heart–a mighty wave of thankfulness and gratitude that though she had been in such terrible danger, yet she was unharmed.
She moved to the entrance of the shelter to look for Tarzan. He was gone; but this time no fear assailed her for she knew that he would return.
In the grass at the entrance to her bower she saw the imprint of his body where he had lain all night to guard her. She knew that the fact that he had been there was all that had permitted her to sleep in such peaceful security.
With him near, who could entertain fear? She wondered if there was another man on earth with whom a girl could feel so safe in the heart of this savage African jungle. Even the lions and panthers had no fears for her now.
She looked up to see his lithe form drop softly from a near-by tree. As he caught her eyes upon him his face lighted with that frank and radiant smile that had won her confidence the day before.
As he approached her Jane’s heart beat faster and her eyes brightened as they had never done before at the approach of any man.
He had again been gathering fruit and this he laid at the entrance of her bower. Once more they sat down together to eat.
Jane commenced to wonder what his plans were. Would he take her back to the beach or would he keep her here? Suddenly she realized that the matter did not seem to give her much concern. Could it be that she did not care!
She began to comprehend, also, that she was entirely contented sitting here by the side of this smiling giant eating delicious fruit in a sylvan paradise far within the remote depths of an African jungle–that she was contented and very happy.
She could not understand it. Her reason told her that she should be torn by wild anxieties, weighted by dread fears, cast down by gloomy forebodings; but instead, her heart was singing and she was smiling into the answering face of the man beside her.
When they had finished their breakfast Tarzan went to her bower and recovered his knife. The girl had entirely forgotten it. She realized that it was because she had forgotten the fear that prompted her to accept it.
Motioning her to follow, Tarzan walked toward the trees at the edge of the arena, and taking her in one strong arm swung to the branches above.
The girl knew that he was taking her back to her people, and she could not understand the sudden feeling of loneliness and sorrow which crept over her.
For hours they swung slowly along.
Tarzan of the Apes did not hurry. He tried to draw out the sweet pleasure of that journey with those dear arms about his neck as long as possible, and so he went far south of the direct route to the beach.
Several times they halted for brief rests, which Tarzan did not need, and at noon they stopped for an hour at a little brook, where they quenched their thirst, and ate.
So it was nearly sunset when they came to the clearing, and Tarzan, dropping to the ground beside a great tree, parted the tall jungle grass and pointed out the little cabin to her.
She took him by the hand to lead him to it, that she might tell her father that this man had saved her from death and worse than death, that he had watched over her as carefully as a mother might have done.
But again the timidity of the wild thing in the face of human habitation swept over Tarzan of the Apes. He drew back, shaking his head.
The girl came close to him, looking up with pleading eyes. Somehow she could not bear the thought of his going back into the terrible jungle alone.
Still he shook his head, and finally he drew her to him very gently and stooped to kiss her, but first he looked into her eyes and waited to learn if she were pleased, or if she would repulse him.
Just an instant the girl hesitated, and then she realized the truth, and throwing her arms about his neck she drew his face to hers and kissed him–unashamed.
“I love you–I love you,” she murmured.
From far in the distance came the faint sound of many guns. Tarzan and Jane raised their heads.
From the cabin came Mr. Philander and Esmeralda.
From where Tarzan and the girl stood they could not see the two vessels lying at anchor in the harbor.
Tarzan pointed toward the sounds, touched his breast and pointed again. She understood. He was going, and something told her that it was because he thought her people were in danger.
Again he kissed her.
“Come back to me,” she whispered. “I shall wait for you–always.”
He was gone–and Jane turned to walk across the clearing to the cabin.
Mr. Philander was the first to see her. It was dusk and Mr. Philander was very near sighted.
“Quickly, Esmeralda!” he cried. “Let us seek safety within; it is a lioness. Bless me!”
Esmeralda did not bother to verify Mr. Philander’s vision. His tone was enough. She was within the cabin and had slammed and bolted the door before he had finished pronouncing her name. The “Bless me” was startled out of Mr. Philander by the discovery that Esmeralda, in the exuberance of her haste, had fastened him upon the same side of the door as was the close-approaching lioness.
He beat furiously upon the heavy portal.
“Esmeralda! Esmeralda!” he shrieked. “Let me in. I am being devoured by a lion.”
Esmeralda thought that the noise upon the door was made by the lioness in her attempts to pursue her, so, after her custom, she fainted.
Mr. Philander cast a frightened glance behind him.
Horrors! The thing was quite close now. He tried to scramble up the side of the cabin, and succeeded in catching a fleeting hold upon the thatched roof.
For a moment he hung there, clawing with his feet like a cat on a clothesline, but presently a piece of the thatch came away, and Mr. Philander, preceding it, was precipitated upon his back.
At the instant he fell a remarkable item of natural history leaped to his mind. If one feigns death lions and lionesses are supposed to ignore one, according to Mr. Philander’s faulty memory.
So Mr. Philander lay as he had fallen, frozen into the horrid semblance of death. As his arms and legs had been extended stiffly upward as he came to earth upon his back the attitude of death was anything but impressive.
Jane had been watching his antics in mild-eyed surprise. Now she laughed–a little choking gurgle of a laugh; but it was enough. Mr. Philander rolled over upon his side and peered about. At length he discovered her.
“Jane!” he cried. “Jane Porter. Bless me!”
He scrambled to his feet and rushed toward her. He could not believe that it was she, and alive.
“Bless me!” Where did you come from? Where in the world have you been? How–“
“Mercy, Mr. Philander,” interrupted the girl, “I can never remember so many questions.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Philander. “Bless me! I am so filled with surprise and exuberant delight at seeing you safe and well again that I scarcely know what I am saying, really. But come, tell me all that has happened to you.”
Chapter 21
The Village of Torture
As the little expedition of sailors toiled through the dense jungle searching for signs of Jane Porter, the futility of their venture became more and more apparent, but the grief of the old man and the hopeless eyes of the young Englishman prevented the kind hearted D’Arnot from turning back.
He thought that there might be a bare possibility of finding her body, or the remains of it, for he was positive that she had been devoured by some beast of prey. He deployed his men into a skirmish line from the point where Esmeralda had been found, and in this extended formation they pushed their way, sweating and panting, through the tangled vines and creepers. It was slow work. Noon found them but a few miles inland. They halted for a brief rest then, and after pushing on for a short distance further one of the men discovered a well-marked trail.
It was an old elephant track, and D’Arnot after consulting with Professor Porter and Clayton decided to follow it.
The path wound through the jungle in a northeasterly direction, and along it the column moved in single file.
Lieutenant D’Arnot was in the lead and moving at a quick pace, for the trail was comparatively open. Immediately behind him came Professor Porter, but as he could not keep pace with the younger man D’Arnot was a hundred yards in advance when suddenly a half dozen black warriors arose about him.
D’Arnot gave a warning shout to his column as the blacks closed on him, but before he could draw his revolver he had been pinioned and dragged into the jungle.
His cry had alarmed the sailors and a dozen of them sprang forward past Professor Porter, running up the trail to their officer’s aid.
They did not know the cause of his outcry, only that it was a warning of danger ahead. They had rushed past the spot where D’Arnot had been seized when a spear hurled from the jungle transfixed one of the men, and then a volley of arrows fell among them.
Raising their rifles they fired into the underbrush in the direction from which the missiles had come.
By this time the balance of the party had come up, and volley after volley was fired toward the concealed foe. It was these shots that Tarzan and Jane Porter had heard.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who had been bringing up the rear of the column, now came running to the scene, and on hearing the details of the ambush ordered the men to follow him, and plunged into the tangled vegetation.
In an instant they were in a hand-to-hand fight with some fifty black warriors of Mbonga’s village. Arrows and bullets flew thick and fast.
Queer African knives and French gun butts mingled for a moment in savage and bloody duels, but soon the natives fled into the jungle, leaving the Frenchmen to count their losses.
Four of the twenty were dead, a dozen others were wounded, and Lieutenant D’Arnot was missing. Night was falling rapidly, and their predicament was rendered doubly worse when they could not even find the elephant trail which they had been following.
There was but one thing to do, make camp where they were until daylight. Lieutenant Charpentier ordered a clearing made and a circular abatis of underbrush constructed about the camp.
This work was not completed until long after dark, the men building a huge fire in the center of the clearing to give them light to work by.
When all was safe as possible against attack of wild beasts and savage men, Lieutenant Charpentier placed sentries about the little camp and the tired and hungry men threw themselves upon the ground to sleep.
The groans of the wounded, mingled with the roaring and growling of the great beasts which the noise and firelight had attracted, kept sleep, except in its most fitful form, from the tired eyes. It was a sad and hungry party that lay through the long night praying for dawn.
The blacks who had seized D’Arnot had not waited to participate in the fight which followed, but instead had dragged their prisoner a little way through the jungle and then struck the trail further on beyond the scene of the fighting in which their fellows were engaged.
They hurried him along, the sounds of battle growing fainter and fainter as they drew away from the contestants until there suddenly broke upon D’Arnot’s vision a good-sized clearing at one end of which stood a thatched and palisaded village.
It was now dusk, but the watchers at the gate saw the approaching trio and distinguished one as a prisoner ere they reached the portals.
A cry went up within the palisade. A great throng of women and children rushed out to meet the party.
And then began for the French officer the most terrifying experience which man can encounter upon earth–the reception of a white prisoner into a village of African cannibals.
To add to the fiendishness of their cruel savagery was the poignant memory of still crueler barbarities practiced upon them and theirs by the white officers of that arch hypocrite, Leopold II of Belgium, because of whose atrocities they had fled the Congo Free State–a pitiful remnant of what once had been a mighty tribe.
They fell upon D’Arnot tooth and nail, beating him with sticks and stones and tearing at him with claw-like hands. Every vestige of clothing was torn from him, and the merciless blows fell upon his bare and quivering flesh. But not once did the Frenchman cry out in pain. He breathed a silent prayer that he be quickly delivered from his torture.
But the death he prayed for was not to be so easily had. Soon the warriors beat the women away from their prisoner. He was to be saved for nobler sport than this, and the first wave of their passion having subsided they contented themselves with crying out taunts and insults and spitting upon him.
Presently they reached the center of the village. There D’Arnot was bound securely to the great post from which no live man had ever been released.
A number of the women scattered to their several huts to fetch pots and water, while others built a row of fires on which portions of the feast were to be boiled while the balance would be slowly dried in strips for future use, as they expected the other warriors to return with many prisoners. The festivities were delayed awaiting the return of the warriors who had remained to engage in the skirmish with the white men, so that it was quite late when all were in the village, and the dance of death commenced to circle around the doomed officer.
Half fainting from pain and exhaustion, D’Arnot watched from beneath half-closed lids what seemed but the vagary of delirium, or some horrid nightmare from which he must soon awake.
The bestial faces, daubed with color–the huge mouths and flabby hanging lips–the yellow teeth, sharp filed–the rolling, demon eyes–the shining naked bodies–the cruel spears. Surely no such creatures really existed upon earth–he must indeed be dreaming.
The savage, whirling bodies circled nearer. Now a spear sprang forth and touched his arm. The sharp pain and the feel of hot, trickling blood assured him of the awful reality of his hopeless position.
Another spear and then another touched him. He closed his eyes and held his teeth firm set–he would not cry out.
He was a soldier of France, and he would teach these beasts how an officer and a gentleman died.
Tarzan of the Apes needed no interpreter to translate the story of those distant shots. With Jane Porter’s kisses still warm upon his lips he was swinging with incredible rapidity through the forest trees straight toward the village of Mbonga.
He was not interested in the location of the encounter, for he judged that that would soon be over. Those who were killed he could not aid, those who escaped would not need his assistance.
It was to those who had neither been killed or escaped that he hastened. And he knew that he would find them by the great post in the center of Mbonga village.
Many times had Tarzan seen Mbonga’s black raiding parties return from the northward with prisoners, and always were the same scenes enacted about that grim stake, beneath the flaring light of many fires.
He knew, too, that they seldom lost much time before consummating the fiendish purpose of their captures. He doubted that he would arrive in time to do more than avenge.
On he sped. Night had fallen and he traveled high along the upper terrace where the gorgeous tropic moon lighted the dizzy pathway through the gently undulating branches of the tree tops.
Presently he caught the reflection of a distant blaze. It lay to the right of his path. It must be the light from the camp fire the two men had built before they were attacked–Tarzan knew nothing of the presence of the sailors.
So sure was Tarzan of his jungle knowledge that he did not turn from his course, but passed the glare at a distance of a half mile. It was the camp fire of the Frenchmen.
In a few minutes more Tarzan swung into the trees above Mbonga’s village. Ah, he was not quite too late! Or, was he? He could not tell. The figure at the stake was very still, yet the black warriors were but pricking it.
Tarzan knew their customs. The death blow had not been struck. He could tell almost to a minute how far the dance had gone.
In another instant Mbonga’s knife would sever one of the victim’s ears–that would mark the beginning of the end, for very shortly after only a writhing mass of mutilated flesh would remain.
There would still be life in it, but death then would be the only charity it craved.
The stake stood forty feet from the nearest tree. Tarzan coiled his rope. Then there rose suddenly above the fiendish cries of the dancing demons the awful challenge of the ape-man.
The dancers halted as though turned to stone.
The rope sped with singing whir high above the heads of the blacks. It was quite invisible in the flaring lights of the camp fires.
D’Arnot opened his eyes. A huge black, standing directly before him, lunged backward as though felled by an invisible hand.
Struggling and shrieking, his body, rolling from side to side, moved quickly toward the shadows beneath the trees.
The blacks, their eyes protruding in horror, watched spellbound.
Once beneath the trees, the body rose straight into the air, and as it disappeared into the foliage above, the terrified negroes, screaming with fright, broke into a mad race for the village gate.
D’Arnot was left alone.
He was a brave man, but he had felt the short hairs bristle upon the nape of his neck when that uncanny cry rose upon the air.
As the writhing body of the black soared, as though by unearthly power, into the dense foliage of the forest, D’Arnot felt an icy shiver run along his spine, as though death had risen from a dark grave and laid a cold and clammy finger on his flesh.
As D’Arnot watched the spot where the body had entered the tree he heard the sounds of movement there.
The branches swayed as though under the weight of a man’s body–there was a crash and the black came sprawling to earth again,–to lie very quietly where he had fallen.
Immediately after him came a white body, but this one alighted erect.
D’Arnot saw a clean-limbed young giant emerge from the shadows into the firelight and come quickly toward him.
What could it mean? Who could it be? Some new creature of torture and destruction, doubtless.
D’Arnot waited. His eyes never left the face of the advancing man. Nor did the other’s frank, clear eyes waver beneath D’Arnot’s fixed gaze.
D’Arnot was reassured, but still without much hope, though he felt that that face could not mask a cruel heart.
Without a word Tarzan of the Apes cut the bonds which held the Frenchman. Weak from suffering and loss of blood, he would have fallen but for the strong arm that caught him.
He felt himself lifted from the ground. There was a sensation as of flying, and then he lost consciousness.
Chapter 22
The Search Party
When dawn broke upon the little camp of Frenchmen in the heart of the jungle it found a sad and disheartened group.
As soon as it was light enough to see their surroundings Lieutenant Charpentier sent men in groups of three in several directions to locate the trail, and in ten minutes it was found and the expedition was hurrying back toward the beach.
It was slow work, for they bore the bodies of six dead men, two more having succumbed during the night, and several of those who were wounded required support to move even very slowly.
Charpentier had decided to return to camp for reinforcements, and then make an attempt to track down the natives and rescue D’Arnot.
It was late in the afternoon when the exhausted men reached the clearing by the beach, but for two of them the return brought so great a happiness that all their suffering and heartbreaking grief was forgotten on the instant.
As the little party emerged from the jungle the first person that Professor Porter and Cecil Clayton saw was Jane, standing by the cabin door.
With a little cry of joy and relief she ran forward to greet them, throwing her arms about her father’s neck and bursting into tears for the first time since they had been cast upon this hideous and adventurous shore.
Professor Porter strove manfully to suppress his own emotions, but the strain upon his nerves and weakened vitality were too much for him, and at length, burying his old face in the girl’s shoulder, he sobbed quietly like a tired child.
Jane led him toward the cabin, and the Frenchmen turned toward the beach from which several of their fellows were advancing to meet them.
Clayton, wishing to leave father and daughter alone, joined the sailors and remained talking with the officers until their boat pulled away toward the cruiser whither Lieutenant Charpentier was bound to report the unhappy outcome of his adventure.
Then Clayton turned back slowly toward the cabin. His heart was filled with happiness. The woman he loved was safe.
He wondered by what manner of miracle she had been spared. To see her alive seemed almost unbelievable.
As he approached the cabin he saw Jane coming out. When she saw him she hurried forward to meet him.
“Jane!” he cried, “God has been good to us, indeed. Tell me how you escaped–what form Providence took to save you for–us.”
He had never before called her by her given name. Forty-eight hours before it would have suffused Jane with a soft glow of pleasure to have heard that name from Clayton’s lips–now it frightened her.
“Mr. Clayton,” she said quietly, extending her hand, “first let me thank you for your chivalrous loyalty to my dear father. He has told me how noble and self-sacrificing you have been. How can we repay you!”
Clayton noticed that she did not return his familiar salutation, but he felt no misgivings on that score. She had been through so much. This was no time to force his love upon her, he quickly realized.
“I am already repaid,” he said. “Just to see you and Professor Porter both safe, well, and together again. I do not think that I could much longer have endured the pathos of his quiet and uncomplaining grief.
“It was the saddest experience of my life, Miss Porter; and then, added to it, there was my own grief–the greatest I have ever known. But his was so hopeless–his was pitiful. It taught me that no love, not even that of a man for his wife may be so deep and terrible and self-sacrificing as the love of a father for his daughter.”
The girl bowed her head. There was a question she wanted to ask, but it seemed almost sacrilegious in the face of the love of these two men and the terrible suffering they had endured while she sat laughing and happy beside a godlike creature of the forest, eating delicious fruits and looking with eyes of love into answering eyes.
But love is a strange master, and human nature is still stranger, so she asked her question.
“Where is the forest man who went to rescue you? Why did he not return?”
“I do not understand,” said Clayton. “Whom do you mean?”
“He who has saved each of us–who saved me from the gorilla.”
“Oh,” cried Clayton, in surprise. “It was he who rescued you? You have not told me anything of your adventure, you know.”
“But the wood man,” she urged. “Have you not seen him? When we heard the shots in the jungle, very faint and far away, he left me. We had just reached the clearing, and he hurried off in the direction of the fighting. I know he went to aid you.”
Her tone was almost pleading–her manner tense with suppressed emotion. Clayton could not but notice it, and he wondered, vaguely, why she was so deeply moved–so anxious to know the whereabouts of this strange creature.
Yet a feeling of apprehension of some impending sorrow haunted him, and in his breast, unknown to himself, was implanted the first germ of jealousy and suspicion of the ape-man, to whom he owed his life.
“We did not see him,” he replied quietly. “He did not join us.” And then after a moment of thoughtful pause: “Possibly he joined his own tribe–the men who attacked us.” He did not know why he had said it, for he did not believe it.
The girl looked at him wide eyed for a moment.
“No!” she exclaimed vehemently, much too vehemently he thought. “It could not be. They were savages.”
Clayton looked puzzled.
“He is a strange, half-savage creature of the jungle, Miss Porter. We know nothing of him. He neither speaks nor understands any European tongue–and his ornaments and weapons are those of the West Coast savages.”
Clayton was speaking rapidly.
“There are no other human beings than savages within hundreds of miles, Miss Porter. He must belong to the tribes which attacked us, or to some other equally savage–he may even be a cannibal.”
Jane blanched.
“I will not believe it,” she half whispered. “It is not true. You shall see,” she said, addressing Clayton, “that he will come back and that he will prove that you are wrong. You do not know him as I do. I tell you that he is a gentleman.”
Clayton was a generous and chivalrous man, but something in the girl’s breathless defense of the forest man stirred him to unreasoning jealousy, so that for the instant he forgot all that they owed to this wild demi-god, and he answered her with a half sneer upon his lip.
“Possibly you are right, Miss Porter,” he said, “but I do not think that any of us need worry about our carrion-eating acquaintance. The chances are that he is some half-demented castaway who will forget us more quickly, but no more surely, than we shall forget him. He is only a beast of the jungle, Miss Porter.”
The girl did not answer, but she felt her heart shrivel within her.
She knew that Clayton spoke merely what he thought, and for the first time she began to analyze the structure which supported her newfound love, and to subject its object to a critical examination.
Slowly she turned and walked back to the cabin. She tried to imagine her wood-god by her side in the saloon of an ocean liner. She saw him eating with his hands, tearing his food like a beast of prey, and wiping his greasy fingers upon his thighs. She shuddered.
She saw him as she introduced him to her friends–uncouth, illiterate–a boor; and the girl winced.
She had reached her room now, and as she sat upon the edge of her bed of ferns and grasses, with one hand resting upon her rising and falling bosom, she felt the hard outlines of the man’s locket.
She drew it out, holding it in the palm of her hand for a moment with tear-blurred eyes bent upon it. Then she raised it to her lips, and crushing it there buried her face in the soft ferns, sobbing.
“Beast?” she murmured. “Then God make me a beast; for, man or beast, I am yours.”
She did not see Clayton again that day. Esmeralda brought her supper to her, and she sent word to her father that she was suffering from the reaction following her adventure.
The next morning Clayton left early with the relief expedition in search of Lieutenant D’Arnot. There were two hundred armed men this time, with ten officers and two surgeons, and provisions for a week.
They carried bedding and hammocks, the latter for transporting their sick and wounded.
It was a determined and angry company–a punitive expedition as well as one of relief. They reached the sight of the skirmish of the previous expedition shortly after noon, for they were now traveling a known trail and no time was lost in exploring.
From there on the elephant-track led straight to Mbonga’s village. It was but two o’clock when the head of the column halted upon the edge of the clearing.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who was in command, immediately sent a portion of his force through the jungle to the opposite side of the village. Another detachment was dispatched to a point before the village gate, while he remained with the balance upon the south side of the clearing.
It was arranged that the party which was to take its position to the north, and which would be the last to gain its station should commence the assault, and that their opening volley should be the signal for a concerted rush from all sides in an attempt to carry the village by storm at the first charge.
For half an hour the men with Lieutenant Charpentier crouched in the dense foliage of the jungle, waiting the signal. To them it seemed like hours. They could see natives in the fields, and others moving in and out of the village gate.
At length the signal came–a sharp rattle of musketry, and like one man, an answering volley tore from the jungle to the west and to the south.
The natives in the field dropped their implements and broke madly for the palisade. The French bullets mowed them down, and the French sailors bounded over their prostrate bodies straight for the village gate.
So sudden and unexpected the assault had been that the whites reached the gates before the frightened natives could bar them, and in another minute the village street was filled with armed men fighting hand to hand in an inextricable tangle.
For a few moments the blacks held their ground within the entrance to the street, but the revolvers, rifles and cutlasses of the Frenchmen crumpled the native spearmen and struck down the black archers with their bows halfdrawn.
Soon the battle turned to a wild rout, and then to a grim massacre; for the French sailors had seen bits of D’Arnot’s uniform upon several of the black warriors who opposed them.
They spared the children and those of the women whom they were not forced to kill in self-defense, but when at length they stopped, parting, blood covered and sweating, it was because there lived to oppose them no single warrior of all the savage village of Mbonga.
Carefully they ransacked every hut and corner of the village, but no sign of D’Arnot could they find. They questioned the prisoners by signs, and finally one of the sailors who had served in the French Congo found that he could make them understand the bastard tongue that passes for language between the whites and the more degraded tribes of the coast, but even then they could learn nothing definite regarding the fate of D’Arnot.
Only excited gestures and expressions of fear could they obtain in response to their inquiries concerning their fellow; and at last they became convinced that these were but evidences of the guilt of these demons who had slaughtered and eaten their comrade two nights before.
At length all hope left them, and they prepared to camp for the night within the village. The prisoners were herded into three huts where they were heavily guarded. Sentries were posted at the barred gates, and finally the village was wrapped in the silence of slumber, except for the wailing of the native women for their dead.
The next morning they set out upon the return march. Their original intention had been to burn the village, but this idea was abandoned and the prisoners were left behind, weeping and moaning, but with roofs to cover them and a palisade for refuge from the beasts of the jungle.
Slowly the expedition retraced its steps of the preceding day. Ten loaded hammocks retarded its pace. In eight of them lay the more seriously wounded, while two swung beneath the weight of the dead.
Clayton and Lieutenant Charpentier brought up the rear of the column; the Englishman silent in respect for the other’s grief, for D’Arnot and Charpentier had been inseparable friends since boyhood.
Clayton could not but realize that the Frenchman felt his grief the more keenly because D’Arnot’s sacrifice had been so futile, since Jane had been rescued before D’Arnot had fallen into the hands of the savages, and again because the service in which he had lost his life had been outside his duty and for strangers and aliens; but when he spoke of it to Lieutenant Charpentier, the latter shook his head.
“No, Monsieur,” he said, “D’Arnot would have chosen to die thus. I only grieve that I could not have died for him, or at least with him. I wish that you could have known him better, Monsieur. He was indeed an officer and a gentleman–a title conferred on many, but deserved by so few.
“He did not die futilely, for his death in the cause of a strange American girl will make us, his comrades, face our ends the more bravely, however they may come to us.”
Clayton did not reply, but within him rose a new respect for Frenchmen which remained undimmed ever after.
It was quite late when they reached the cabin by the beach. A single shot before they emerged from the jungle had announced to those in camp as well as on the ship that the expedition had been too late–for it had been prearranged that when they came within a mile or two of camp one shot was to be fired to denote failure, or three for success, while two would have indicated that they had found no sign of either D’Arnot or his black captors.
So it was a solemn party that awaited their coming, and few words were spoken as the dead and wounded men were tenderly placed in boats and rowed silently toward the cruiser.
Clayton, exhausted from his five days of laborious marching through the jungle and from the effects of his two battles with the blacks, turned toward the cabin to seek a mouthful of food and then the comparative ease of his bed of grasses after two nights in the jungle.
By the cabin door stood Jane.
“The poor lieutenant?” she asked. “Did you find no trace of him?”
“We were too late, Miss Porter,” he replied sadly.
“Tell me. What had happened?” she asked.
“I cannot, Miss Porter, it is too horrible.”
“You do not mean that they had tortured him?” she whispered.
“We do not know what they did to him BEFORE they killed him,” he answered, his face drawn with fatigue and the sorrow he felt for poor D’Arnot and he emphasized the word before.
“BEFORE they killed him! What do you mean? They are not–? They are not–?”
She was thinking of what Clayton had said of the forest man’s probable relationship to this tribe and she could not frame the awful word.
“Yes, Miss Porter, they were–cannibals,” he said, almost bitterly, for to him too had suddenly come the thought of the forest man, and the strange, unaccountable jealousy he had felt two days before swept over him once more.
And then in sudden brutality that was as unlike Clayton as courteous consideration is unlike an ape, he blurted out:
“When your forest god left you he was doubtless hurrying to the feast.”
He was sorry ere the words were spoken though he did not know how cruelly they had cut the girl. His regret was for his baseless disloyalty to one who had saved the lives of every member of his party, and offered harm to none.
The girl’s head went high.
“There could be but one suitable reply to your assertion, Mr. Clayton,” she said icily, “and I regret that I am not a man, that I might make it.” She turned quickly and entered the cabin.
Clayton was an Englishman, so the girl had passed quite out of sight before he deduced what reply a man would have made.
“Upon my word,” he said ruefully, “she called me a liar. And I fancy I jolly well deserved it,” he added thoughtfully. “Clayton, my boy, I know you are tired out and unstrung, but that’s no reason why you should make an ass of yourself. You’d better go to bed.”
But before he did so he called gently to Jane upon the opposite side of the sailcloth partition, for he wished to apologize, but he might as well have addressed the Sphinx. Then he wrote upon a piece of paper and shoved it beneath the partition.
Jane saw the little note and ignored it, for she was very angry and hurt and mortified, but–she was a woman, and so eventually she picked it up and read it.
MY DEAR MISS PORTER:
I had no reason to insinuate what I did. My only excuse is that my nerves must be unstrung–which is no excuse at all.
Please try and think that I did not say it. I am very sorry. I would not have hurt YOU, above all others in the world. Say that you forgive me.
WM. CECIL CLAYTON.
“He did think it or he never would have said it,” reasoned the girl, “but it cannot be true–oh, I know it is not true!”
One sentence in the letter frightened her: “I would not have hurt YOU above all others in the world.”
A week ago that sentence would have filled her with delight, now it depressed her.
She wished she had never met Clayton. She was sorry that she had ever seen the forest god. No, she was glad. And there was that other note she had found in the grass before the cabin the day after her return from the jungle, the love note signed by Tarzan of the Apes.
Who could be this new suitor? If he were another of the wild denizens of this terrible forest what might he not do to claim her?
“Esmeralda! Wake up,” she cried.
“You make me so irritable, sleeping there peacefully when you know perfectly well that the world is filled with sorrow.”
“Gaberelle!” screamed Esmeralda, sitting up. “What is it now? A hipponocerous? Where is he, Miss Jane?”
“Nonsense, Esmeralda, there is nothing. Go back to sleep. You are bad enough asleep, but you are infinitely worse awake.”
“Yes honey, but what’s the matter with you, precious? You acts sort of disgranulated this evening.”
“Oh, Esmeralda, I’m just plain ugly to-night,” said the girl. “Don’t pay any attention to me–that’s a dear.”
“Yes, honey; now you go right to sleep. Your nerves are all on edge. What with all these ripotamuses and man eating geniuses that Mister Philander been telling about–Lord, it ain’t no wonder we all get nervous prosecution.”
Jane crossed the little room, laughing, and kissing the faithful woman, bid Esmeralda good night.
Chapter 23
Brother Men.
When D’Arnot regained consciousness, he found himself lying upon a bed of soft ferns and grasses beneath a little “A” shaped shelter of boughs.
At his feet an opening looked out upon a green sward, and at a little distance beyond was the dense wall of jungle and forest.
He was very lame and sore and weak, and as full consciousness returned he felt the sharp torture of many cruel wounds and the dull aching of every bone and muscle in his body as a result of the hideous beating he had received.
Even the turning of his head caused him such excruciating agony that he lay still with closed eyes for a long time.
He tried to piece out the details of his adventure prior to the time he lost consciousness to see if they would explain his present whereabouts–he wondered if he were among friends or foes.
At length he recollected the whole hideous scene at the stake, and finally recalled the strange white figure in whose arms he had sunk into oblivion.
D’Arnot wondered what fate lay in store for him now. He could neither see nor hear any signs of life about him.
The incessant hum of the jungle–the rustling of millions of leaves–the buzz of insects–the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as a blurred echo.
At length he fell into a quiet slumber, nor did he awake again until afternoon.
Once more he experienced the strange sense of utter bewilderment that had marked his earlier awakening, but soon he recalled the recent past, and looking through the opening at his feet he saw the figure of a man squatting on his haunches.
The broad, muscular back was turned toward him, but, tanned though it was, D’Arnot saw that it was the back of a white man, and he thanked God.
The Frenchman called faintly. The man turned, and rising, came toward the shelter. His face was very handsome–the handsomest, thought D’Arnot, that he had ever seen.
Stooping, he crawled into the shelter beside the wounded officer, and placed a cool hand upon his forehead.
D’Arnot spoke to him in French, but the man only shook his head–sadly, it seemed to the Frenchman.
Then D’Arnot tried English, but still the man shook his head. Italian, Spanish and German brought similar discouragement.
D’Arnot knew a few words of Norwegian, Russian, Greek, and also had a smattering of the language of one of the West Coast negro tribes–the man denied them all.
After examining D’Arnot’s wounds the man left the shelter and disappeared. In half an hour he was back with fruit and a hollow gourd-like vegetable filled with water.
D’Arnot drank and ate a little. He was surprised that he had no fever. Again he tried to converse with his strange nurse, but the attempt was useless.
Suddenly the man hastened from the shelter only to return a few minutes later with several pieces of bark and–wonder of wonders–a lead pencil.
Squatting beside D’Arnot he wrote for a minute on the smooth inner surface of the bark; then he handed it to the Frenchman.
D’Arnot was astonished to see, in plain print-like characters, a message in English:
I am Tarzan of the Apes. Who are you? Can you read this language?
D’Arnot seized the pencil–then he stopped. This strange man wrote English–evidently he was an Englishman.
“Yes,” said D’Arnot, “I read English. I speak it also. Now we may talk. First let me thank you for all that you have done for me.”
The man only shook his head and pointed to the pencil and the bark.
“MON DIEU!” cried D’Arnot. “If you are English why is it then that you cannot speak English?”
And then in a flash it came to him–the man was a mute, possibly a deaf mute.
So D’Arnot wrote a message on the bark, in English.
I am Paul d’Arnot, Lieutenant in the navy of France. I thank you for what you have done for me. You have saved my life, and all that I have is yours. May I ask how it is that one who writes English does not speak it?
Tarzan’s reply filled D’Arnot with still greater wonder:
I speak only the language of my tribe–the great apes who were Kerchak’s; and a little of the languages of Tantor, the elephant, and Numa, the lion, and of the other folks of the jungle I understand. With a human being I have never spoken, except once with Jane Porter, by signs. This is the first time I have spoken with another of my kind through written words.
D’Arnot was mystified. It seemed incredible that there lived upon earth a full-grown man who had never spoken with a fellow man, and still more preposterous that such a one could read and write.
He looked again at Tarzan’s message–“except once, with Jane Porter.” That was the American girl who had been carried into the jungle by a gorilla.
A sudden light commenced to dawn on D’Arnot–this then was the “gorilla.” He seized the pencil and wrote:
Where is Jane Porter?
And Tarzan replied, below:
Back with her people in the cabin of Tarzan of the Apes.
She is not dead then? Where was she? What happened to her?
She is not dead. She was taken by Terkoz to be his wife; but Tarzan of the Apes took her away from Terkoz and killed him before he could harm her.
None in all the jungle may face Tarzan of the Apes in battle, and live. I am Tarzan of the Apes–mighty fighter.
D’Arnot wrote:
I am glad she is safe. It pains me to write, I will rest a while.
And then Tarzan:
Yes, rest. When you are well I shall take you back to your people.
For many days D’Arnot lay upon his bed of soft ferns. The second day a fever had come and D’Arnot thought that it meant infection and he knew that he would die.
An idea came to him. He wondered why he had not thought of it before.
He called Tarzan and indicated by signs that he would write, and when Tarzan had fetched the bark and pencil, D’Arnot wrote:
Can you go to my people and lead them here? I will write a message that you may take to them, and they will follow you.
Tarzan shook his head and taking the bark, wrote:
I had thought of that–the first day; but I dared not. The great apes come often to this spot, and if they found you here, wounded and alone, they would kill you.
D’Arnot turned on his side and closed his eyes. He did not wish to die; but he felt that he was going, for the fever was mounting higher and higher. That night he lost consciousness.
For three days he was in delirium, and Tarzan sat beside him and bathed his head and hands and washed his wounds.
On the fourth day the fever broke as suddenly as it had come, but it left D’Arnot a shadow of his former self, and very weak. Tarzan had to lift him that he might drink from the gourd.
The fever had not been the result of infection, as D’Arnot had thought, but one of those that commonly attack whites in the jungles of Africa, and either kill or leave them as suddenly as D’Arnot’s had left him.
Two days later, D’Arnot was tottering about the amphitheater, Tarzan’s strong arm about him to keep him from falling.
They sat beneath the shade of a great tree, and Tarzan found some smooth bark that they might converse.
D’Arnot wrote the first message:
What can I do to repay you for all that you have done for me?
And Tarzan, in reply:
Teach me to speak the language of men.
And so D’Arnot commenced at once, pointing out familiar objects and repeating their names in French, for he thought that it would be easier to teach this man his own language, since he understood it himself best of all.
It meant nothing to Tarzan, of course, for he could not tell one language from another, so when he pointed to the word man which he had printed upon a piece of bark he learned from D’Arnot that it was pronounced HOMME, and in the same way he was taught to pronounce ape, SINGE and tree, ARBRE.
He was a most eager student, and in two more days had mastered so much French that he could speak little sentences such as: “That is a tree,” “this is grass,” “I am hungry,” and the like, but D’Arnot found that it was difficult to teach him the French construction upon a foundation of English.
The Frenchman wrote little lessons for him in English and had Tarzan repeat them in French, but as a literal translation was usually very poor French Tarzan was often confused.
D’Arnot realized now that he had made a mistake, but it seemed too late to go back and do it all over again and force Tarzan to unlearn all that he had learned, especially as they were rapidly approaching a point where they would be able to converse.
On the third day after the fever broke Tarzan wrote a message asking D’Arnot if he felt strong enough to be carried back to the cabin. Tarzan was as anxious to go as D’Arnot, for he longed to see Jane again.
It had been hard for him to remain with the Frenchman all these days for that very reason, and that he had unselfishly done so spoke more glowingly of his nobility of character than even did his rescuing the French officer from Mbonga’s clutches.
D’Arnot, only too willing to attempt the journey, wrote:
But you cannot carry me all the distance through this tangled forest.
Tarzan laughed.
“MAIS OUI,” he said, and D’Arnot laughed aloud to hear the phrase that he used so often glide from Tarzan’s tongue.
So they set out, D’Arnot marveling as had Clayton and Jane at the wondrous strength and agility of the apeman.
Mid-afternoon brought them to the clearing, and as Tarzan dropped to earth from the branches of the last tree his heart leaped and bounded against his ribs in anticipation of seeing Jane so soon again.
No one was in sight outside the cabin, and D’Arnot was perplexed to note that neither the cruiser nor the Arrow was at anchor in the bay.
An atmosphere of loneliness pervaded the spot, which caught suddenly at both men as they strode toward the cabin.
Neither spoke, yet both knew before they opened the closed door what they would find beyond.
Tarzan lifted the latch and pushed the great door in upon its wooden hinges. It was as they had feared. The cabin was deserted.
The men turned and looked at one another. D’Arnot knew that his people thought him dead; but Tarzan thought only of the woman who had kissed him in love and now had fled from him while he was serving one of her people.
A great bitterness rose in his heart. He would go away, far into the jungle and join his tribe. Never would he see one of his own kind again, nor could he bear the thought of returning to the cabin. He would leave that forever behind him with the great hopes he had nursed there of finding his own race and becoming a man among men.
And the Frenchman? D’Arnot? What of him? He could get along as Tarzan had. Tarzan did not want to see him more. He wanted to get away from everything that might remind him of Jane.
As Tarzan stood upon the threshold brooding, D’Arnot had entered the cabin. Many comforts he saw that had been left behind. He recognized numerous articles from the cruiser –a camp oven, some kitchen utensils, a rifle and many rounds of ammunition, canned foods, blankets, two chairs and a cot–and several books and periodicals, mostly American.
“They must intend returning,” thought D’Arnot.
He walked over to the table that John Clayton had built so many years before to serve as a desk, and on it he saw two notes addressed to Tarzan of the Apes.
One was in a strong masculine hand and was unsealed. The other, in a woman’s hand, was sealed.
“Here are two messages for you, Tarzan of the Apes,” cried D’Arnot, turning toward the door; but his companion was not there.
D’Arnot walked to the door and looked out. Tarzan was nowhere in sight. He called aloud but there was no response.
“MON DIEU!” exclaimed D’Arnot, “he has left me. I feel it. He has gone back into his jungle and left me here alone.”
And then he remembered the look on Tarzan’s face when they had discovered that the cabin was empty–such a look as the hunter sees in the eyes of the wounded deer he has wantonly brought down.
The man had been hard hit–D’Arnot realized it now– but why? He could not understand.
The Frenchman looked about him. The loneliness and the horror of the place commenced to get on his nerves–already weakened by the ordeal of suffering and sickness he had passed through.
To be left here alone beside this awful jungle–never to hear a human voice or see a human face–in constant dread of savage beasts and more terribly savage men–a prey to solitude and hopelessness. It was awful.
And far to the east Tarzan of the Apes was speeding through the middle terrace back to his tribe. Never had he traveled with such reckless speed. He felt that he was running away from himself–that by hurtling through the forest like a frightened squirrel he was escaping from his own thoughts. But no matter how fast he went he found them always with him.
He passed above the sinuous body of Sabor, the lioness, going in the opposite direction–toward the cabin, thought Tarzan.
What could D’Arnot do against Sabor–or if Bolgani, the gorilla, should come upon him–or Numa, the lion, or cruel Sheeta?
Tarzan paused in his flight.
“What are you, Tarzan?” he asked aloud. “An ape or a man?”
“If you are an ape you will do as the apes would do– leave one of your kind to die in the jungle if it suited your whim to go elsewhere.
“If you are a man, you will return to protect your kind. You will not run away from one of your own people, because one of them has run away from you.”
D’Arnot closed the cabin door. He was very nervous. Even brave men, and D’Arnot was a brave man, are sometimes frightened by solitude.
He loaded one of the rifles and placed it within easy reach. Then he went to the desk and took up the unsealed letter addressed to Tarzan.
Possibly it contained word that his people had but left the beach temporarily. He felt that it would be no breach of ethics to read this letter, so he took the enclosure from the envelope and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
We thank you for the use of your cabin, and are sorry that you did not permit us the pleasure of seeing and thanking you in person.
We have harmed nothing, but have left many things for you which may add to your comfort and safety here in your lonely home.
If you know the strange white man who saved our lives so many times, and brought us food, and if you can converse with him, thank him, also, for his kindness.
We sail within the hour, never to return; but we wish you and that other jungle friend to know that we shall always thank you for what you did for strangers on your shore, and that we should have done infinitely more to reward you both had you given us the opportunity.
Very respectfully,
WM. CECIL CLAYTON.
“`Never to return,'” muttered D’Arnot, and threw himself face downward upon the cot.
An hour later he started up listening. Something was at the door trying to enter.
D’Arnot reached for the loaded rifle and placed it to his shoulder.
Dusk was falling, and the interior of the cabin was very dark; but the man could see the latch moving from its place.
He felt his hair rising upon his scalp.
Gently the door opened until a thin crack showed something standing just beyond.
D’Arnot sighted along the blue barrel at the crack of the door–and then he pulled the trigger.
Chapter 24
Lost Treasure
When the expedition returned, following their fruitless endeavor to succor D’Arnot, Captain Dufranne was anxious to steam away as quickly as possible, and all save Jane had acquiesced.
“No,” she said, determinedly, “I shall not go, nor should you, for there are two friends in that jungle who will come out of it some day expecting to find us awaiting them.
“Your officer, Captain Dufranne, is one of them, and the forest man who has saved the lives of every member of my father’s party is the other.
“He left me at the edge of the jungle two days ago to hasten to the aid of my father and Mr. Clayton, as he thought, and he has stayed to rescue Lieutenant D’Arnot; of that you may be sure.
“Had he been too late to be of service to the lieutenant he would have been back before now–the fact that he is not back is sufficient proof to me that he is delayed because Lieutenant D’Arnot is wounded, or he has had to follow his captors further than the village which your sailors attacked.”
“But poor D’Arnot’s uniform and all his belongings were found in that village, Miss Porter,” argued the captain, “and the natives showed great excitement when questioned as to the white man’s fate.”
“Yes, Captain, but they did not admit that he was dead and as for his clothes and accouterments being in their possession–why more civilized peoples than these poor savage negroes strip their prisoners of every article of value whether they intend killing them or not.
“Even the soldiers of my own dear South looted not only the living but the dead. It is strong circumstantial evidence, I will admit, but it is not positive proof.”
“Possibly your forest man, himself was captured or killed by the savages,” suggested Captain Dufranne.
The girl laughed.
“You do not know him,” she replied, a little thrill of pride setting her nerves a-tingle at the thought that she spoke of her own.
“I admit that he would be worth waiting for, this superman of yours,” laughed the captain. “I most certainly should like to see him.”
“Then wait for him, my dear captain,” urged the girl, “for I intend doing so.”
The Frenchman would have been a very much surprised man could he have interpreted the true meaning of the girl’s words.
They had been walking from the beach toward the cabin as they talked, and now they joined a little group sitting on camp stools in the shade of a great tree beside the cabin.
Professor Porter was there, and Mr. Philander and Clayton, with Lieutenant Charpentier and two of his brother officers, while Esmeralda hovered in the background, ever and anon venturing opinions and comments with the freedom of an old and much-indulged family servant.
The officers arose and saluted as their superior approached, and Clayton surrendered his camp stool to Jane.
“We were just discussing poor Paul’s fate,” said Captain Dufranne. “Miss Porter insists that we have no absolute proof of his death–nor have we. And on the other hand she maintains that the continued absence of your omnipotent jungle friend indicates that D’Arnot is still in need of his services, either because he is wounded, or still is a prisoner in a more distant native village.”
“It has been suggested,” ventured Lieutenant Charpentier, “that the wild man may have been a member of the tribe of blacks who attacked our party–that he was hastening to aid THEM–his own people.”
Jane shot a quick glance at Clayton.
“It seems vastly more reasonable,” said Professor Porter.
“I do not agree with you,” objected Mr. Philander. “He had ample opportunity to harm us himself, or to lead his people against us. Instead, during our long residence here, he has been uniformly consistent in his role of protector and provider.”
“That is true,” interjected Clayton, “yet we must not overlook the fact that except for himself the only human beings within hundreds of miles are savage cannibals. He was armed precisely as are they, which indicates that he has maintained relations of some nature with them, and the fact that he is but one against possibly thousands suggests that these relations could scarcely have been other than friendly.”
“It seems improbable then that he is not connected with them,” remarked the captain; “possibly a member of this tribe.”
“Otherwise,” added another of the officers, “how could he have lived a sufficient length of time among the savage denizens of the jungle, brute and human, to have become proficient in woodcraft, or in the use of African weapons.”
“You are judging him according to your own standards, gentlemen,” said Jane. “An ordinary white man such as any of you–pardon me, I did not mean just that–rather, a white man above the ordinary in physique and intelligence could never, I grant you, have lived a year alone and naked in this tropical jungle; but this man not only surpasses the average white man in strength and agility, but as far transcends our trained athletes and `strong men’ as they surpass a day-old babe; and his courage and ferocity in battle are those of the wild beast.”
“He has certainly won a loyal champion, Miss Porter,” said Captain Dufranne, laughing. “I am sure that there be none of us here but would willingly face death a hundred times in its most terrifying forms to deserve the tributes of one even half so loyal–or so beautiful.”
“You would not wonder that I defend him,” said the girl, “could you have seen him as I saw him, battling in my behalf with that huge hairy brute.
“Could you have seen him charge the monster as a bull might charge a grizzly–absolutely without sign of fear or hesitation–you would have believed him more than human.
“Could you have seen those mighty muscles knotting under the brown skin–could you have seen them force back those awful fangs–you too would have thought him invincible.
“And could you have seen the chivalrous treatment which he accorded a strange girl of a strange race, you would feel the same absolute confidence in him that I feel.”
“You have won your suit, my fair pleader,” cried the captain. “This court finds the defendant not guilty, and the cruiser shall wait a few days longer that he may have an opportunity to come and thank the divine Portia.”
“For the Lord’s sake honey,” cried Esmeralda. “You all don’t mean to tell ME that you’re going to stay right here in this here land of carnivable animals when you all got the opportunity to escapade on that boat? Don’t you tell me THAT, honey.”
“Why, Esmeralda! You should be ashamed of yourself,” cried Jane. “Is this any way to show your gratitude to the man who saved your life twice?”
“Well, Miss Jane, that’s all jest as you say; but that there forest man never did save us to stay here. He done save us so we all could get AWAY from here. I expect he be mighty peevish when he find we ain’t got no more sense than to stay right here after he done give us the chance to get away.
“I hoped I’d never have to sleep in this here geological garden another night and listen to all them lonesome noises that come out of that jumble after dark.”
“I don’t blame you a bit, Esmeralda,” said Clayton, “and you certainly did hit it off right when you called them `lonesome’ noises. I never have been able to find the right word for them but that’s it, don’t you know, lonesome noises.”
“You and Esmeralda had better go and live on the cruiser,” said Jane, in fine scorn. “What would you think if you HAD to live all of your life in that jungle as our forest man has done?”
“I’m afraid I’d be a blooming bounder as a wild man,” laughed Clayton, ruefully. “Those noises at night make the hair on my head bristle. I suppose that I should be ashamed to admit it, but it’s the truth.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Lieutenant Charpentier. “I never thought much about fear and that sort of thing–never tried to determine whether I was a coward or brave man; but the other night as we lay in the jungle there after poor D’Arnot was taken, and those jungle noises rose and fell around us I began to think that I was a coward indeed. It was not the roaring and growling of the big beasts that affected me so much as it was the stealthy noises–the ones that you heard suddenly close by and then listened vainly for a repetition of–the unaccountable sounds as of a great body moving almost noiselessly, and the knowledge that you didn’t KNOW how close it was, or whether it were creeping closer after you ceased to hear it? It was those noises–and the eyes.
“MON DIEU! I shall see them in the dark forever–the eyes that you see, and those that you don’t see, but feel–ah, they are the worst.”
All were silent for a moment, and then Jane spoke.
“And he is out there,” she said, in an awe-hushed whisper. “Those eyes will be glaring at him to-night, and at your comrade Lieutenant D’Arnot. Can you leave them, gentlemen, without at least rendering them the passive succor which remaining here a few days longer might insure them?”
“Tut, tut, child,” said Professor Porter. “Captain Dufranne is willing to remain, and for my part I am perfectly willing, perfectly willing–as I always have been to humor your childish whims.”
“We can utilize the morrow in recovering the chest, Professor,” suggested Mr. Philander.
“Quite so, quite so, Mr. Philander, I had almost forgotten the treasure,” exclaimed Professor Porter. “Possibly we can borrow some men from Captain Dufranne to assist us, and one of the prisoners to point out the location of the chest.”
“Most assuredly, my dear Professor, we are all yours to command,” said the captain.
And so it was arranged that on the next day Lieutenant Charpentier was to take a detail of ten men, and one of the mutineers of the Arrow as a guide, and unearth the treasure; and that the cruiser would remain for a full week in the little harbor. At the end of that time it was to be assumed that D’Arnot was truly dead, and that the forest man would not return while they remained. Then the two vessels were to leave with all the party.
Professor Porter did not accompany the treasure-seekers on the following day, but when he saw them returning empty-handed toward noon, he hastened forward to meet them –his usual preoccupied indifference entirely vanished, and in its place a nervous and excited manner.
“Where is the treasure?” he cried to Clayton, while yet a hundred feet separated them.
Clayton shook his head.
“Gone,” he said, as he neared the professor.
“Gone! It cannot be. Who could have taken it?” cried Professor Porter.
“God only knows, Professor,” replied Clayton. “We might have thought the fellow who guided us was lying about the location, but his surprise and consternation on finding no chest beneath the body of the murdered Snipes were too real to be feigned. And then our spades showed us that SOMETHING had been buried beneath the corpse, for a hole had been there and it had been filled with loose earth.”
“But who could have taken it?” repeated Professor Porter.
“Suspicion might naturally fall on the men of the cruiser,” said Lieutenant Charpentier, “but for the fact that sub-lieutenant Janviers here assures me that no men have had shore leave–that none has been on shore since we anchored here except under command of an officer. I do not know that you would suspect our men, but I am glad that there is now no chance for suspicion to fall on them,” he concluded.
“It would never have occurred to me to suspect the men to whom we owe so much,” replied Professor Porter, graciously. “I would as soon suspect my dear Clayton here, or Mr. Philander.”
The Frenchmen smiled, both officers and sailors. It was plain to see that a burden had been lifted from their minds.
“The treasure has been gone for some time,” continued Clayton. “In fact the body fell apart as we lifted it, which indicates that whoever removed the treasure did so while the corpse was still fresh, for it was intact when we first uncovered it.”
“There must have been several in the party,” said Jane, who had joined them. “You remember that it took four men to carry it.”
“By jove!” cried Clayton. “That’s right. It must have been done by a party of blacks. Probably one of them saw the men bury the chest and then returned immediately after with a party of his friends, and carried it off.”
“Speculation is futile,” said Professor Porter sadly. “The chest is gone. We shall never see it again, nor the treasure that was in it.”
Only Jane knew what the loss meant to her father, and none there knew what it meant to her.
Six days later Captain Dufranne announced that they would sail early on the morrow.
Jane would have begged for a further reprieve, had it not been that she too had begun to believe that her forest lover would return no more.
In spite of herself she began to entertain doubts and fears. The reasonableness of the arguments of these disinterested French officers commenced to convince her against her will.
That he was a cannibal she would not believe, but that he was an adopted member of some savage tribe at length seemed possible to her.
She would not admit that he could be dead. It was impossible to believe that that perfect body, so filled with triumphant life, could ever cease to harbor the vital spark–as soon believe that immortality were dust.
As Jane permitted herself to harbor these thoughts, others equally unwelcome forced themselves upon her.
If he belonged to some savage tribe he had a savage wife –a dozen of them perhaps–and wild, half-caste children. The girl shuddered, and when they told her that the cruiser would sail on the morrow she was almost glad.
It was she, though, who suggested that arms, ammunition, supplies and comforts be left behind in the cabin, ostensibly for that intangible personality who had signed himself Tarzan of the Apes, and for D’Arnot should he still be living, but really, she hoped, for her forest god–even though his feet should prove of clay.
And at the last minute she left a message for him, to be transmitted by Tarzan of the Apes.
She was the last to leave the cabin, returning on some trivial pretext after the others had started for the boat.
She kneeled down beside the bed in which she had spent so many nights, and offered up a prayer for the safety of her primeval man, and crushing his locket to her lips she murmured:
“I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you–forever.”
Chapter 25
The Outpost of the World
With the report of his gun D’Arnot saw the door fly open and the figure of a man pitch headlong within onto the cabin floor.
The Frenchman in his panic raised his gun to fire again into the prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the open door he saw that the man was white and in another instant realized that he had shot his friend and protector, Tarzan of the Apes.
With a cry of anguish D’Arnot sprang to the ape-man’s side, and kneeling, lifted the latter’s head in his arms–calling Tarzan’s name aloud.
There was no response, and then D’Arnot placed his ear above the man’s heart. To his joy he heard its steady beating beneath.
Carefully he lifted Tarzan to the cot, and then, after closing and bolting the door, he lighted one of the lamps and examined the wound.
The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull. There was an ugly flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of the skull.
D’Arnot breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing the blood from Tarzan’s face.
Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened his eyes to look in questioning surprise at D’Arnot.
The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and as he saw that Tarzan had regained consciousness he arose and going to the table wrote a message, which he handed to the ape-man, explaining the terrible mistake he had made and how thankful he was that the wound was not more serious.
Tarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the couch and laughed.
“It is nothing,” he said in French, and then, his vocabulary failing him, he wrote:
You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Kerchak, and Terkoz, before I killed them–then you would laugh at such a little scratch.
D’Arnot handed Tarzan the two messages that had been left for him.
Tarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on his face. The second one he turned over and over, searching for an opening–he had never seen a sealed envelope before. At length he handed it to D’Arnot.
The Frenchman had been watching him, and knew that Tarzan was puzzled over the envelope. How strange it seemed that to a full-grown white man an envelope was a mystery. D’Arnot opened it and handed the letter back to Tarzan.
Sitting on a camp stool the ape-man spread the written sheet before him and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Mr. Clayton for the kindness you have shown in permitting us the use of your cabin.
That you never came to make friends with us has been a great regret to us. We should have liked so much to have seen and thanked our host.
There is another I should like to thank also, but he did not come back, though I cannot believe that he is dead.
I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who wore the diamond locket upon his breast.
If you know him and can speak his language carry my thanks to him, and tell him that I waited seven days for him to return.
Tell him, also, that in my home in America, in the city of Baltimore, there will always be a welcome for him if he cares to come.
I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath a tree near the cabin. I do not know how you learned to love me, who have never spoken to me, and I am very sorry if it is true, for I have already given my heart to another.
But know that I am always your friend, JANE PORTER.
Tarzan sat with gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an hour. It was evident to him from the notes that they did not know that he and Tarzan of the Apes were one and the same.
“I have given my heart to another,” he repeated over and over again to himself.
Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended love, and raised him to such a pinnacle of hope only to cast him down to such utter depths of despair!
Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did he know, who knew nothing of the customs of human beings?
Suddenly he arose, and, bidding D’Arnot good night as he had learned to do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that had been Jane Porter’s.
D’Arnot extinguished the lamp, and lay down upon the cot.
For a week they did little but rest, D’Arnot coaching Tarzan in French. At the end of that time the two men could converse quite easily.
One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before retiring, Tarzan turned to D’Arnot.
“Where is America?” he said.
D’Arnot pointed toward the northwest.
“Many thousands of miles across the ocean,” he replied. “Why?”
“I am going there.”
D’Arnot shook his head.
“It is impossible, my friend,” he said.
Tarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned with a well-thumbed geography.
Turning to a map of the world, he said:
“I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please.”
When D’Arnot had done so, showing him that the blue represented all the water on the earth, and the bits of other colors the continents and islands, Tarzan asked him to point out the spot where they now were.
D’Arnot did so.
“Now point out America,” said Tarzan.
And as D’Arnot placed his finger upon North America, Tarzan smiled and laid his palm upon the page, spanning the great ocean that lay between the two continents.
“You see it is not so very far,” he said; “scarce the width of my hand.”
D’Arnot laughed. How could he make the man understand?
Then he took a pencil and made a tiny point upon the shore of Africa.
“This little mark,” he said, “is many times larger upon this map than your cabin is upon the earth. Do you see now how very far it is?”
Tarzan thought for a long time.
“Do any white men live in Africa?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Where are the nearest?”
D’Arnot pointed out a spot on the shore just north of them.
“So close?” asked Tarzan, in surprise.
“Yes,” said D’Arnot; “but it is not close.”
“Have they big boats to cross the ocean?”
“Yes.”
“We shall go there to-morrow,” announced Tarzan.
Again D’Arnot smiled and shook his head.
“It is too far. We should die long before we reached them.”