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+<html>
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+Jungle Tales of Tarzan
+</H1>
+<BR>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+by
+</H3>
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Edgar Rice Burroughs
+</H2>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Contents
+</H2>
+<BR>
+<PRE>
+CHAPTER
+  <A HREF="#chap01">Tarzan's First Love</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap02">The Capture of Tarzan</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap03">The Fight for the Balu</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap04">The God of Tarzan</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap05">Tarzan and the Black Boy</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap06">The Witch-Doctor Seeks Vengeance</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap07">The End of Bukawai</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap08">The Lion</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap09">The Nightmare</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap10">The Battle for Teeka</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap11">A Jungle Joke</A>
+  <A HREF="#chap12">Tarzan Rescues the Moon</A>
+</PRE>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Tarzan's First Love
+</H3>
+<P>
+TEEKA, STRETCHED AT luxurious ease in the shade of the tropical forest,
+presented, unquestionably, a most alluring picture of young, feminine
+loveliness.  Or at least so thought Tarzan of the Apes, who squatted
+upon a low-swinging branch in a near-by tree and looked down upon her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just to have seen him there, lolling upon the swaying bough of the
+jungle-forest giant, his brown skin mottled by the brilliant equatorial
+sunlight which percolated through the leafy canopy of green above him,
+his clean-limbed body relaxed in graceful ease, his shapely head partly
+turned in contemplative absorption and his intelligent, gray eyes
+dreamily devouring the object of their devotion, you would have thought
+him the reincarnation of some demigod of old.
+</P>
+<P>
+You would not have guessed that in infancy he had suckled at the breast
+of a hideous, hairy she-ape, nor that in all his conscious past since
+his parents had passed away in the little cabin by the landlocked
+harbor at the jungle's verge, he had known no other associates than the
+sullen bulls and the snarling cows of the tribe of Kerchak, the great
+ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+Nor, could you have read the thoughts which passed through that active,
+healthy brain, the longings and desires and aspirations which the sight
+of Teeka inspired, would you have been any more inclined to give
+credence to the reality of the origin of the ape-man. For, from his
+thoughts alone, you could never have gleaned the truth&mdash;that he had
+been born to a gentle English lady or that his sire had been an English
+nobleman of time-honored lineage.
+</P>
+<P>
+Lost to Tarzan of the Apes was the truth of his origin.  That he was
+John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, with a seat in the House of Lords, he did
+not know, nor, knowing, would have understood.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yes, Teeka was indeed beautiful!
+</P>
+<P>
+Of course Kala had been beautiful&mdash;one's mother is always that&mdash;but
+Teeka was beautiful in a way all her own, an indescribable sort of way
+which Tarzan was just beginning to sense in a rather vague and hazy
+manner.
+</P>
+<P>
+For years had Tarzan and Teeka been play-fellows, and Teeka still
+continued to be playful while the young bulls of her own age were
+rapidly becoming surly and morose.  Tarzan, if he gave the matter much
+thought at all, probably reasoned that his growing attachment for the
+young female could be easily accounted for by the fact that of the
+former playmates she and he alone retained any desire to frolic as of
+old.
+</P>
+<P>
+But today, as he sat gazing upon her, he found himself noting the
+beauties of Teeka's form and features&mdash;something he never had done
+before, since none of them had aught to do with Teeka's ability to race
+nimbly through the lower terraces of the forest in the primitive games
+of tag and hide-and-go-seek which Tarzan's fertile brain evolved.
+Tarzan scratched his head, running his fingers deep into the shock of
+black hair which framed his shapely, boyish face&mdash;he scratched his head
+and sighed.  Teeka's new-found beauty became as suddenly his despair.
+He envied her the handsome coat of hair which covered her body.  His
+own smooth, brown hide he hated with a hatred born of disgust and
+contempt.  Years back he had harbored a hope that some day he, too,
+would be clothed in hair as were all his brothers and sisters; but of
+late he had been forced to abandon the delectable dream.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then there were Teeka's great teeth, not so large as the males, of
+course, but still mighty, handsome things by comparison with Tarzan's
+feeble white ones.  And her beetling brows, and broad, flat nose, and
+her mouth! Tarzan had often practiced making his mouth into a little
+round circle and then puffing out his cheeks while he winked his eyes
+rapidly; but he felt that he could never do it in the same cute and
+irresistible way in which Teeka did it.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as he watched her that afternoon, and wondered, a young bull ape
+who had been lazily foraging for food beneath the damp, matted carpet
+of decaying vegetation at the roots of a near-by tree lumbered
+awkwardly in Teeka's direction.  The other apes of the tribe of Kerchak
+moved listlessly about or lolled restfully in the midday heat of the
+equatorial jungle.  From time to time one or another of them had passed
+close to Teeka, and Tarzan had been uninterested.  Why was it then that
+his brows contracted and his muscles tensed as he saw Taug pause beside
+the young she and then squat down close to her?
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan always had liked Taug.  Since childhood they had romped
+together.  Side by side they had squatted near the water, their quick,
+strong fingers ready to leap forth and seize Pisah, the fish, should
+that wary denizen of the cool depths dart surfaceward to the lure of
+the insects Tarzan tossed upon the face of the pool.
+</P>
+<P>
+Together they had baited Tublat and teased Numa, the lion.  Why, then,
+should Tarzan feel the rise of the short hairs at the nape of his neck
+merely because Taug sat close to Teeka?
+</P>
+<P>
+It is true that Taug was no longer the frolicsome ape of yesterday.
+When his snarling-muscles bared his giant fangs no one could longer
+imagine that Taug was in as playful a mood as when he and Tarzan had
+rolled upon the turf in mimic battle.  The Taug of today was a huge,
+sullen bull ape, somber and forbidding.  Yet he and Tarzan never had
+quarreled.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a few minutes the young ape-man watched Taug press closer to Teeka.
+He saw the rough caress of the huge paw as it stroked the sleek
+shoulder of the she, and then Tarzan of the Apes slipped catlike to the
+ground and approached the two.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he came his upper lip curled into a snarl, exposing his fighting
+fangs, and a deep growl rumbled from his cavernous chest.  Taug looked
+up, batting his blood-shot eyes.  Teeka half raised herself and looked
+at Tarzan.  Did she guess the cause of his perturbation? Who may say?
+At any rate, she was feminine, and so she reached up and scratched Taug
+behind one of his small, flat ears.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan saw, and in the instant that he saw, Teeka was no longer the
+little playmate of an hour ago; instead she was a wondrous thing&mdash;the
+most wondrous in the world&mdash;and a possession for which Tarzan would
+fight to the death against Taug or any other who dared question his
+right of proprietorship.
+</P>
+<P>
+Stooped, his muscles rigid and one great shoulder turned toward the
+young bull, Tarzan of the Apes sidled nearer and nearer.  His face was
+partly averted, but his keen gray eyes never left those of Taug, and as
+he came, his growls increased in depth and volume.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug rose upon his short legs, bristling.  His fighting fangs were
+bared.  He, too, sidled, stiff-legged, and growled.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Teeka is Tarzan's," said the ape-man, in the low gutturals of the
+great anthropoids.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Teeka is Taug's," replied the bull ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thaka and Numgo and Gunto, disturbed by the growlings of the two young
+bulls, looked up half apathetic, half interested.  They were sleepy,
+but they sensed a fight.  It would break the monotony of the humdrum
+jungle life they led.
+</P>
+<P>
+Coiled about his shoulders was Tarzan's long grass rope, in his hand
+was the hunting knife of the long-dead father he had never known.  In
+Taug's little brain lay a great respect for the shiny bit of sharp
+metal which the ape-boy knew so well how to use.  With it had he slain
+Tublat, his fierce foster father, and Bolgani, the gorilla.  Taug knew
+these things, and so he came warily, circling about Tarzan in search of
+an opening.  The latter, made cautious because of his lesser bulk and
+the inferiority of his natural armament, followed similar tactics.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a time it seemed that the altercation would follow the way of the
+majority of such differences between members of the tribe and that one
+of them would finally lose interest and wander off to prosecute some
+other line of endeavor.  Such might have been the end of it had the
+CASUS BELLI been other than it was; but Teeka was flattered at the
+attention that was being drawn to her and by the fact that these two
+young bulls were contemplating battle on her account.  Such a thing
+never before had occurred in Teeka's brief life.  She had seen other
+bulls battling for other and older shes, and in the depth of her wild
+little heart she had longed for the day when the jungle grasses would
+be reddened with the blood of mortal combat for her fair sake.
+</P>
+<P>
+So now she squatted upon her haunches and insulted both her admirers
+impartially.  She hurled taunts at them for their cowardice, and called
+them vile names, such as Histah, the snake, and Dango, the hyena.  She
+threatened to call Mumga to chastise them with a stick&mdash;Mumga, who was
+so old that she could no longer climb and so toothless that she was
+forced to confine her diet almost exclusively to bananas and grub-worms.
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes who were watching heard and laughed.  Taug was infuriated.  He
+made a sudden lunge for Tarzan, but the ape-boy leaped nimbly to one
+side, eluding him, and with the quickness of a cat wheeled and leaped
+back again to close quarters.  His hunting knife was raised above his
+head as he came in, and he aimed a vicious blow at Taug's neck.  The
+ape wheeled to dodge the weapon so that the keen blade struck him but a
+glancing blow upon the shoulder.
+</P>
+<P>
+The spurt of red blood brought a shrill cry of delight from Teeka.  Ah,
+but this was something worth while!  She glanced about to see if others
+had witnessed this evidence of her popularity.  Helen of Troy was never
+one whit more proud than was Teeka at that moment.
+</P>
+<P>
+If Teeka had not been so absorbed in her own vaingloriousness she might
+have noted the rustling of leaves in the tree above her&mdash;a rustling
+which was not caused by any movement of the wind, since there was no
+wind.  And had she looked up she might have seen a sleek body crouching
+almost directly over her and wicked yellow eyes glaring hungrily down
+upon her, but Teeka did not look up.
+</P>
+<P>
+With his wound Taug had backed off growling horribly.  Tarzan had
+followed him, screaming insults at him, and menacing him with his
+brandishing blade.  Teeka moved from beneath the tree in an effort to
+keep close to the duelists.
+</P>
+<P>
+The branch above Teeka bent and swayed a trifle with the movement of
+the body of the watcher stretched along it.  Taug had halted now and
+was preparing to make a new stand.  His lips were flecked with foam,
+and saliva drooled from his jowls.  He stood with head lowered and arms
+outstretched, preparing for a sudden charge to close quarters.  Could
+he but lay his mighty hands upon that soft, brown skin the battle would
+be his.  Taug considered Tarzan's manner of fighting unfair.  He would
+not close.  Instead, he leaped nimbly just beyond the reach of Taug's
+muscular fingers.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-boy had as yet never come to a real trial of strength with a
+bull ape, other than in play, and so he was not at all sure that it
+would be safe to put his muscles to the test in a life and death
+struggle.  Not that he was afraid, for Tarzan knew nothing of fear.
+The instinct of self-preservation gave him caution&mdash;that was all.  He
+took risks only when it seemed necessary, and then he would hesitate at
+nothing.
+</P>
+<P>
+His own method of fighting seemed best fitted to his build and to his
+armament.  His teeth, while strong and sharp, were, as weapons of
+offense, pitifully inadequate by comparison with the mighty fighting
+fangs of the anthropoids.  By dancing about, just out of reach of an
+antagonist, Tarzan could do infinite injury with his long, sharp
+hunting knife, and at the same time escape many of the painful and
+dangerous wounds which would be sure to follow his falling into the
+clutches of a bull ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so Taug charged and bellowed like a bull, and Tarzan of the Apes
+danced lightly to this side and that, hurling jungle billingsgate at
+his foe, the while he nicked him now and again with his knife.
+</P>
+<P>
+There were lulls in the fighting when the two would stand panting for
+breath, facing each other, mustering their wits and their forces for a
+new onslaught.  It was during a pause such as this that Taug chanced to
+let his eyes rove beyond his foeman.  Instantly the entire aspect of
+the ape altered.  Rage left his countenance to be supplanted by an
+expression of fear.
+</P>
+<P>
+With a cry that every ape there recognized, Taug turned and fled.  No
+need to question him&mdash;his warning proclaimed the near presence of their
+ancient enemy.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan started to seek safety, as did the other members of the tribe,
+and as he did so he heard a panther's scream mingled with the
+frightened cry of a she-ape.  Taug heard, too; but he did not pause in
+his flight.
+</P>
+<P>
+With the ape-boy, however, it was different.  He looked back to see if
+any member of the tribe was close pressed by the beast of prey, and the
+sight that met his eyes filled them with an expression of horror.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka it was who cried out in terror as she fled across a little
+clearing toward the trees upon the opposite side, for after her leaped
+Sheeta, the panther, in easy, graceful bounds.  Sheeta appeared to be
+in no hurry.  His meat was assured, since even though the ape reached
+the trees ahead of him she could not climb beyond his clutches before
+he could be upon her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan saw that Teeka must die.  He cried to Taug and the other bulls
+to hasten to Teeka's assistance, and at the same time he ran toward the
+pursuing beast, taking down his rope as he came.  Tarzan knew that once
+the great bulls were aroused none of the jungle, not even Numa, the
+lion, was anxious to measure fangs with them, and that if all those of
+the tribe who chanced to be present today would charge, Sheeta, the
+great cat, would doubtless turn tail and run for his life.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug heard, as did the others, but no one came to Tarzan's assistance
+or Teeka's rescue, and Sheeta was rapidly closing up the distance
+between himself and his prey.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-boy, leaping after the panther, cried aloud to the beast in an
+effort to turn it from Teeka or otherwise distract its attention until
+the she-ape could gain the safety of the higher branches where Sheeta
+dared not go.  He called the panther every opprobrious name that fell
+to his tongue.  He dared him to stop and do battle with him; but Sheeta
+only loped on after the luscious titbit now almost within his reach.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan was not far behind and he was gaining, but the distance was so
+short that he scarce hoped to overhaul the carnivore before it had
+felled Teeka.  In his right hand the boy swung his grass rope above his
+head as he ran.  He hated to chance a miss, for the distance was much
+greater than he ever had cast before except in practice.  It was the
+full length of his grass rope which separated him from Sheeta, and yet
+there was no other thing to do.  He could not reach the brute's side
+before it overhauled Teeka.  He must chance a throw.
+</P>
+<P>
+And just as Teeka sprang for the lower limb of a great tree, and Sheeta
+rose behind her in a long, sinuous leap, the coils of the ape-boy's
+grass rope shot swiftly through the air, straightening into a long thin
+line as the open noose hovered for an instant above the savage head and
+the snarling jaws.  Then it settled&mdash;clean and true about the tawny
+neck it settled, and Tarzan, with a quick twist of his rope-hand, drew
+the noose taut, bracing himself for the shock when Sheeta should have
+taken up the slack.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just short of Teeka's glossy rump the cruel talons raked the air as the
+rope tightened and Sheeta was brought to a sudden stop&mdash;a stop that
+snapped the big beast over upon his back.  Instantly Sheeta was
+up&mdash;with glaring eyes, and lashing tail, and gaping jaws, from which
+issued hideous cries of rage and disappointment.
+</P>
+<P>
+He saw the ape-boy, the cause of his discomfiture, scarce forty feet
+before him, and Sheeta charged.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka was safe now; Tarzan saw to that by a quick glance into the tree
+whose safety she had gained not an instant too soon, and Sheeta was
+charging.  It was useless to risk his life in idle and unequal combat
+from which no good could come; but could he escape a battle with the
+enraged cat? And if he was forced to fight, what chance had he to
+survive? Tarzan was constrained to admit that his position was aught
+but a desirable one.  The trees were too far to hope to reach in time
+to elude the cat.  Tarzan could but stand facing that hideous charge.
+In his right hand he grasped his hunting knife&mdash;a puny, futile thing
+indeed by comparison with the great rows of mighty teeth which lined
+Sheeta's powerful jaws, and the sharp talons encased within his padded
+paws; yet the young Lord Greystoke faced it with the same courageous
+resignation with which some fearless ancestor went down to defeat and
+death on Senlac Hill by Hastings.
+</P>
+<P>
+From safety points in the trees the great apes watched, screaming
+hatred at Sheeta and advice at Tarzan, for the progenitors of man have,
+naturally, many human traits.  Teeka was frightened.  She screamed at
+the bulls to hasten to Tarzan's assistance; but the bulls were
+otherwise engaged&mdash;principally in giving advice and making faces.
+Anyway, Tarzan was not a real Mangani, so why should they risk their
+lives in an effort to protect him?
+</P>
+<P>
+And now Sheeta was almost upon the lithe, naked body, and&mdash;the body was
+not there.  Quick as was the great cat, the ape-boy was quicker.  He
+leaped to one side almost as the panther's talons were closing upon
+him, and as Sheeta went hurtling to the ground beyond, Tarzan was
+racing for the safety of the nearest tree.
+</P>
+<P>
+The panther recovered himself almost immediately and, wheeling, tore
+after his prey, the ape-boy's rope dragging along the ground behind
+him.  In doubling back after Tarzan, Sheeta had passed around a low
+bush.  It was a mere nothing in the path of any jungle creature of the
+size and weight of Sheeta&mdash;provided it had no trailing rope dangling
+behind.  But Sheeta was handicapped by such a rope, and as he leaped
+once again after Tarzan of the Apes the rope encircled the small bush,
+became tangled in it and brought the panther to a sudden stop.  An
+instant later Tarzan was safe among the higher branches of a small tree
+into which Sheeta could not follow him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Here he perched, hurling twigs and epithets at the raging feline
+beneath him.  The other members of the tribe now took up the
+bombardment, using such hard-shelled fruits and dead branches as came
+within their reach, until Sheeta, goaded to frenzy and snapping at the
+grass rope, finally succeeded in severing its strands.  For a moment
+the panther stood glaring first at one of his tormentors and then at
+another, until, with a final scream of rage, he turned and slunk off
+into the tangled mazes of the jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+A half hour later the tribe was again upon the ground, feeding as
+though naught had occurred to interrupt the somber dullness of their
+lives.  Tarzan had recovered the greater part of his rope and was busy
+fashioning a new noose, while Teeka squatted close behind him, in
+evident token that her choice was made.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug eyed them sullenly.  Once when he came close, Teeka bared her
+fangs and growled at him, and Tarzan showed his canines in an ugly
+snarl; but Taug did not provoke a quarrel.  He seemed to accept after
+the manner of his kind the decision of the she as an indication that he
+had been vanquished in his battle for her favors.
+</P>
+<P>
+Later in the day, his rope repaired, Tarzan took to the trees in search
+of game.  More than his fellows he required meat, and so, while they
+were satisfied with fruits and herbs and beetles, which could be
+discovered without much effort upon their part, Tarzan spent
+considerable time hunting the game animals whose flesh alone satisfied
+the cravings of his stomach and furnished sustenance and strength to
+the mighty thews which, day by day, were building beneath the soft,
+smooth texture of his brown hide.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug saw him depart, and then, quite casually, the big beast hunted
+closer and closer to Teeka in his search for food.  At last he was
+within a few feet of her, and when he shot a covert glance at her he
+saw that she was appraising him and that there was no evidence of anger
+upon her face.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug expanded his great chest and rolled about on his short legs,
+making strange growlings in his throat.  He raised his lips, baring his
+fangs.  My, but what great, beautiful fangs he had! Teeka could not but
+notice them.  She also let her eyes rest in admiration upon Taug's
+beetling brows and his short, powerful neck.  What a beautiful creature
+he was indeed!
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, flattered by the unconcealed admiration in her eyes, strutted
+about, as proud and as vain as a peacock.  Presently he began to
+inventory his assets, mentally, and shortly he found himself comparing
+them with those of his rival.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug grunted, for there was no comparison.  How could one compare his
+beautiful coat with the smooth and naked hideousness of Tarzan's bare
+hide? Who could see beauty in the stingy nose of the Tarmangani after
+looking at Taug's broad nostrils? And Tarzan's eyes! Hideous things,
+showing white about them, and entirely unrimmed with red.  Taug knew
+that his own blood-shot eyes were beautiful, for he had seen them
+reflected in the glassy surface of many a drinking pool.
+</P>
+<P>
+The bull drew nearer to Teeka, finally squatting close against her.
+When Tarzan returned from his hunting a short time later it was to see
+Teeka contentedly scratching the back of his rival.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan was disgusted.  Neither Taug nor Teeka saw him as he swung
+through the trees into the glade.  He paused a moment, looking at them;
+then, with a sorrowful grimace, he turned and faded away into the
+labyrinth of leafy boughs and festooned moss out of which he had come.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan wished to be as far away from the cause of his heartache as he
+could.  He was suffering the first pangs of blighted love, and he
+didn't quite know what was the matter with him.  He thought that he was
+angry with Taug, and so he couldn't understand why it was that he had
+run away instead of rushing into mortal combat with the destroyer of
+his happiness.
+</P>
+<P>
+He also thought that he was angry with Teeka, yet a vision of her many
+beauties persisted in haunting him, so that he could only see her in
+the light of love as the most desirable thing in the world.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-boy craved affection.  From babyhood until the time of her
+death, when the poisoned arrow of Kulonga had pierced her savage heart,
+Kala had represented to the English boy the sole object of love which
+he had known.
+</P>
+<P>
+In her wild, fierce way Kala had loved her adopted son, and Tarzan had
+returned that love, though the outward demonstrations of it were no
+greater than might have been expected from any other beast of the
+jungle.  It was not until he was bereft of her that the boy realized
+how deep had been his attachment for his mother, for as such he looked
+upon her.
+</P>
+<P>
+In Teeka he had seen within the past few hours a substitute for
+Kala&mdash;someone to fight for and to hunt for&mdash;someone to caress; but now
+his dream was shattered.  Something hurt within his breast.  He placed
+his hand over his heart and wondered what had happened to him.  Vaguely
+he attributed his pain to Teeka.  The more he thought of Teeka as he
+had last seen her, caressing Taug, the more the thing within his breast
+hurt him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan shook his head and growled; then on and on through the jungle he
+swung, and the farther he traveled and the more he thought upon his
+wrongs, the nearer he approached becoming an irreclaimable misogynist.
+</P>
+<P>
+Two days later he was still hunting alone&mdash;very morose and very
+unhappy; but he was determined never to return to the tribe.  He could
+not bear the thought of seeing Taug and Teeka always together.  As he
+swung upon a great limb Numa, the lion, and Sabor, the lioness, passed
+beneath him, side by side, and Sabor leaned against the lion and bit
+playfully at his cheek.  It was a half-caress. Tarzan sighed and hurled
+a nut at them.
+</P>
+<P>
+Later he came upon several of Mbonga's black warriors.  He was upon the
+point of dropping his noose about the neck of one of them, who was a
+little distance from his companions, when he became interested in the
+thing which occupied the savages.  They were building a cage in the
+trail and covering it with leafy branches.  When they had completed
+their work the structure was scarcely visible.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan wondered what the purpose of the thing might be, and why, when
+they had built it, they turned away and started back along the trail in
+the direction of their village.
+</P>
+<P>
+It had been some time since Tarzan had visited the blacks and looked
+down from the shelter of the great trees which overhung their palisade
+upon the activities of his enemies, from among whom had come the slayer
+of Kala.
+</P>
+<P>
+Although he hated them, Tarzan derived considerable entertainment in
+watching them at their daily life within the village, and especially at
+their dances, when the fires glared against their naked bodies as they
+leaped and turned and twisted in mimic warfare.  It was rather in the
+hope of witnessing something of the kind that he now followed the
+warriors back toward their village, but in this he was disappointed,
+for there was no dance that night.
+</P>
+<P>
+Instead, from the safe concealment of his tree, Tarzan saw little
+groups seated about tiny fires discussing the events of the day, and in
+the darker corners of the village he descried isolated couples talking
+and laughing together, and always one of each couple was a young man
+and the other a young woman.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan cocked his head upon one side and thought, and before he went to
+sleep that night, curled in the crotch of the great tree above the
+village, Teeka filled his mind, and afterward she filled his
+dreams&mdash;she and the young black men laughing and talking with the young
+black women.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, hunting alone, had wandered some distance from the balance of the
+tribe.  He was making his way slowly along an elephant path when he
+discovered that it was blocked with undergrowth.  Now Taug, come into
+maturity, was an evil-natured brute of an exceeding short temper.  When
+something thwarted him, his sole idea was to overcome it by brute
+strength and ferocity, and so now when he found his way blocked, he
+tore angrily into the leafy screen and an instant later found himself
+within a strange lair, his progress effectually blocked,
+notwithstanding his most violent efforts to forge ahead.
+</P>
+<P>
+Biting and striking at the barrier, Taug finally worked himself into a
+frightful rage, but all to no avail; and at last he became convinced
+that he must turn back.  But when he would have done so, what was his
+chagrin to discover that another barrier had dropped behind him while
+he fought to break down the one before him! Taug was trapped.  Until
+exhaustion overcame him he fought frantically for his freedom; but all
+for naught.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the morning a party of blacks set out from the village of Mbonga in
+the direction of the trap they had constructed the previous day, while
+among the branches of the trees above them hovered a naked young giant
+filled with the curiosity of the wild things.  Manu, the monkey,
+chattered and scolded as Tarzan passed, and though he was not afraid of
+the familiar figure of the ape-boy, he hugged closer to him the little
+brown body of his life's companion.  Tarzan laughed as he saw it; but
+the laugh was followed by a sudden clouding of his face and a deep sigh.
+</P>
+<P>
+A little farther on, a gaily feathered bird strutted about before the
+admiring eyes of his somber-hued mate.  It seemed to Tarzan that
+everything in the jungle was combining to remind him that he had lost
+Teeka; yet every day of his life he had seen these same things and
+thought nothing of them.
+</P>
+<P>
+When the blacks reached the trap, Taug set up a great commotion.
+Seizing the bars of his prison, he shook them frantically, and all the
+while he roared and growled terrifically.  The blacks were elated, for
+while they had not built their trap for this hairy tree man, they were
+delighted with their catch.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan pricked up his ears when he heard the voice of a great ape and,
+circling quickly until he was down wind from the trap, he sniffed at
+the air in search of the scent spoor of the prisoner.  Nor was it long
+before there came to those delicate nostrils the familiar odor that
+told Tarzan the identity of the captive as unerringly as though he had
+looked upon Taug with his eyes.  Yes, it was Taug, and he was alone.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan grinned as he approached to discover what the blacks would do to
+their prisoner.  Doubtless they would slay him at once.  Again Tarzan
+grinned.  Now he could have Teeka for his own, with none to dispute his
+right to her.  As he watched, he saw the black warriors strip the
+screen from about the cage, fasten ropes to it and drag it away along
+the trail in the direction of their village.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan watched until his rival passed out of sight, still beating upon
+the bars of his prison and growling out his anger and his threats.
+Then the ape-boy turned and swung rapidly off in search of the tribe,
+and Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+Once, upon the journey, he surprised Sheeta and his family in a little
+overgrown clearing.  The great cat lay stretched upon the ground, while
+his mate, one paw across her lord's savage face, licked at the soft
+white fur at his throat.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan increased his speed then until he fairly flew through the
+forest, nor was it long before he came upon the tribe.  He saw them
+before they saw him, for of all the jungle creatures, none passed more
+quietly than Tarzan of the Apes.  He saw Kamma and her mate feeding
+side by side, their hairy bodies rubbing against each other.  And he
+saw Teeka feeding by herself.  Not for long would she feed thus in
+loneliness, thought Tarzan, as with a bound he landed amongst them.
+</P>
+<P>
+There was a startled rush and a chorus of angry and frightened snarls,
+for Tarzan had surprised them; but there was more, too, than mere
+nervous shock to account for the bristling neck hair which remained
+standing long after the apes had discovered the identity of the
+newcomer.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan noticed this as he had noticed it many times in the past&mdash;that
+always his sudden coming among them left them nervous and unstrung for
+a considerable time, and that they one and all found it necessary to
+satisfy themselves that he was indeed Tarzan by smelling about him a
+half dozen or more times before they calmed down.
+</P>
+<P>
+Pushing through them, he made his way toward Teeka; but as he
+approached her the ape drew away.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Teeka," he said, "it is Tarzan.  You belong to Tarzan.  I have come
+for you."
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape drew closer, looking him over carefully.  Finally she sniffed
+at him, as though to make assurance doubly sure.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Where is Taug?" she asked.
+</P>
+<P>
+"The Gomangani have him," replied Tarzan.  "They will kill him."
+</P>
+<P>
+In the eyes of the she, Tarzan saw a wistful expression and a troubled
+look of sorrow as he told her of Taug's fate; but she came quite close
+and snuggled against him, and Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, put his arm about
+her.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he did so he noticed, with a start, the strange incongruity of that
+smooth, brown arm against the black and hairy coat of his lady-love. He
+recalled the paw of Sheeta's mate across Sheeta's face&mdash;no incongruity
+there.  He thought of little Manu hugging his she, and how the one
+seemed to belong to the other.  Even the proud male bird, with his gay
+plumage, bore a close resemblance to his quieter spouse, while Numa,
+but for his shaggy mane, was almost a counterpart of Sabor, the
+lioness.  The males and the females differed, it was true; but not with
+such differences as existed between Tarzan and Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan was puzzled.  There was something wrong.  His arm dropped from
+the shoulder of Teeka.  Very slowly he drew away from her.  She looked
+at him with her head cocked upon one side.  Tarzan rose to his full
+height and beat upon his breast with his fists.  He raised his head
+toward the heavens and opened his mouth.  From the depths of his lungs
+rose the fierce, weird challenge of the victorious bull ape.  The tribe
+turned curiously to eye him.  He had killed nothing, nor was there any
+antagonist to be goaded to madness by the savage scream.  No, there was
+no excuse for it, and they turned back to their feeding, but with an
+eye upon the ape-man lest he be preparing to suddenly run amuck.
+</P>
+<P>
+As they watched him they saw him swing into a near-by tree and
+disappear from sight.  Then they forgot him, even Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+Mbonga's black warriors, sweating beneath their strenuous task, and
+resting often, made slow progress toward their village.  Always the
+savage beast in the primitive cage growled and roared when they moved
+him.  He beat upon the bars and slavered at the mouth.  His noise was
+hideous.
+</P>
+<P>
+They had almost completed their journey and were making their final
+rest before forging ahead to gain the clearing in which lay their
+village.  A few more minutes would have taken them out of the forest,
+and then, doubtless, the thing would not have happened which did happen.
+</P>
+<P>
+A silent figure moved through the trees above them.  Keen eyes
+inspected the cage and counted the number of warriors.  An alert and
+daring brain figured upon the chances of success when a certain plan
+should be put to the test.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan watched the blacks lolling in the shade.  They were exhausted.
+Already several of them slept.  He crept closer, pausing just above
+them.  Not a leaf rustled before his stealthy advance.  He waited in
+the infinite patience of the beast of prey.  Presently but two of the
+warriors remained awake, and one of these was dozing.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan of the Apes gathered himself, and as he did so the black who did
+not sleep arose and passed around to the rear of the cage.  The ape-boy
+followed just above his head.  Taug was eyeing the warrior and emitting
+low growls.  Tarzan feared that the anthropoid would awaken the
+sleepers.
+</P>
+<P>
+In a whisper which was inaudible to the ears of the Negro, Tarzan
+whispered Taug's name, cautioning the ape to silence, and Taug's
+growling ceased.
+</P>
+<P>
+The black approached the rear of the cage and examined the fastenings
+of the door, and as he stood there the beast above him launched itself
+from the tree full upon his back.  Steel fingers circled his throat,
+choking the cry which sprang to the lips of the terrified man.  Strong
+teeth fastened themselves in his shoulder, and powerful legs wound
+themselves about his torso.
+</P>
+<P>
+The black in a frenzy of terror tried to dislodge the silent thing
+which clung to him.  He threw himself to the ground and rolled about;
+but still those mighty fingers closed more and more tightly their
+deadly grip.
+</P>
+<P>
+The man's mouth gaped wide, his swollen tongue protruded, his eyes
+started from their sockets; but the relentless fingers only increased
+their pressure.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug was a silent witness of the struggle.  In his fierce little brain
+he doubtless wondered what purpose prompted Tarzan to attack the black.
+Taug had not forgotten his recent battle with the ape-boy, nor the
+cause of it.  Now he saw the form of the Gomangani suddenly go limp.
+There was a convulsive shiver and the man lay still.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan sprang from his prey and ran to the door of the cage.  With
+nimble fingers he worked rapidly at the thongs which held the door in
+place.  Taug could only watch&mdash;he could not help.  Presently Tarzan
+pushed the thing up a couple of feet and Taug crawled out.  The ape
+would have turned upon the sleeping blacks that he might wreak his pent
+vengeance; but Tarzan would not permit it.
+</P>
+<P>
+Instead, the ape-boy dragged the body of the black within the cage and
+propped it against the side bars.  Then he lowered the door and made
+fast the thongs as they had been before.
+</P>
+<P>
+A happy smile lighted his features as he worked, for one of his
+principal diversions was the baiting of the blacks of Mbonga's village.
+He could imagine their terror when they awoke and found the dead body
+of their comrade fast in the cage where they had left the great ape
+safely secured but a few minutes before.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan and Taug took to the trees together, the shaggy coat of the
+fierce ape brushing the sleek skin of the English lordling as they
+passed through the primeval jungle side by side.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go back to Teeka," said Tarzan.  "She is yours.  Tarzan does not want
+her."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tarzan has found another she?" asked Taug.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-boy shrugged.
+</P>
+<P>
+"For the Gomangani there is another Gomangani," he said; "for Numa, the
+lion, there is Sabor, the lioness; for Sheeta there is a she of his own
+kind; for Bara, the deer; for Manu, the monkey; for all the beasts and
+the birds of the jungle is there a mate.  Only for Tarzan of the Apes
+is there none.  Taug is an ape.  Teeka is an ape.  Go back to Teeka.
+Tarzan is a man.  He will go alone."
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Capture of Tarzan
+</H3>
+<P>
+THE BLACK WARRIORS labored in the humid heat of the jungle's stifling
+shade.  With war spears they loosened the thick, black loam and the
+deep layers of rotting vegetation.  With heavy-nailed fingers they
+scooped away the disintegrated earth from the center of the age-old
+game trail.  Often they ceased their labors to squat, resting and
+gossiping, with much laughter, at the edge of the pit they were digging.
+</P>
+<P>
+Against the boles of near-by trees leaned their long, oval shields of
+thick buffalo hide, and the spears of those who were doing the
+scooping.  Sweat glistened upon their smooth, ebon skins, beneath which
+rolled rounded muscles, supple in the perfection of nature's
+uncontaminated health.
+</P>
+<P>
+A reed buck, stepping warily along the trail toward water, halted as a
+burst of laughter broke upon his startled ears.  For a moment he stood
+statuesque but for his sensitively dilating nostrils; then he wheeled
+and fled noiselessly from the terrifying presence of man.
+</P>
+<P>
+A hundred yards away, deep in the tangle of impenetrable jungle, Numa,
+the lion, raised his massive head.  Numa had dined well until almost
+daybreak and it had required much noise to awaken him.  Now he lifted
+his muzzle and sniffed the air, caught the acrid scent spoor of the
+reed buck and the heavy scent of man.  But Numa was well filled.  With
+a low, disgusted grunt he rose and slunk away.
+</P>
+<P>
+Brilliantly plumaged birds with raucous voices darted from tree to
+tree.  Little monkeys, chattering and scolding, swung through the
+swaying limbs above the black warriors.  Yet they were alone, for the
+teeming jungle with all its myriad life, like the swarming streets of a
+great metropolis, is one of the loneliest spots in God's great universe.
+</P>
+<P>
+But were they alone?
+</P>
+<P>
+Above them, lightly balanced upon a leafy tree limb, a gray-eyed youth
+watched with eager intentness their every move.  The fire of hate,
+restrained, smoldered beneath the lad's evident desire to know the
+purpose of the black men's labors.  Such a one as these it was who had
+slain his beloved Kala.  For them there could be naught but enmity, yet
+he liked well to watch them, avid as he was for greater knowledge of
+the ways of man.
+</P>
+<P>
+He saw the pit grow in depth until a great hole yawned the width of the
+trail&mdash;a hole which was amply large enough to hold at one time all of
+the six excavators.  Tarzan could not guess the purpose of so great a
+labor.  And when they cut long stakes, sharpened at their upper ends,
+and set them at intervals upright in the bottom of the pit, his
+wonderment but increased, nor was it satisfied with the placing of the
+light cross-poles over the pit, or the careful arrangement of leaves
+and earth which completely hid from view the work the black men had
+performed.
+</P>
+<P>
+When they were done they surveyed their handiwork with evident
+satisfaction, and Tarzan surveyed it, too.  Even to his practiced eye
+there remained scarce a vestige of evidence that the ancient game trail
+had been tampered with in any way.
+</P>
+<P>
+So absorbed was the ape-man in speculation as to the purpose of the
+covered pit that he permitted the blacks to depart in the direction of
+their village without the usual baiting which had rendered him the
+terror of Mbonga's people and had afforded Tarzan both a vehicle of
+revenge and a source of inexhaustible delight.
+</P>
+<P>
+Puzzle as he would, however, he could not solve the mystery of the
+concealed pit, for the ways of the blacks were still strange ways to
+Tarzan.  They had entered his jungle but a short time before&mdash;the first
+of their kind to encroach upon the age-old supremacy of the beasts
+which laired there.  To Numa, the lion, to Tantor, the elephant, to the
+great apes and the lesser apes, to each and all of the myriad creatures
+of this savage wild, the ways of man were new.  They had much to learn
+of these black, hairless creatures that walked erect upon their hind
+paws&mdash;and they were learning it slowly, and always to their sorrow.
+</P>
+<P>
+Shortly after the blacks had departed, Tarzan swung easily to the
+trail.  Sniffing suspiciously, he circled the edge of the pit.
+Squatting upon his haunches, he scraped away a little earth to expose
+one of the cross-bars. He sniffed at this, touched it, cocked his head
+upon one side, and contemplated it gravely for several minutes.  Then
+he carefully re-covered it, arranging the earth as neatly as had the
+blacks.  This done, he swung himself back among the branches of the
+trees and moved off in search of his hairy fellows, the great apes of
+the tribe of Kerchak.
+</P>
+<P>
+Once he crossed the trail of Numa, the lion, pausing for a moment to
+hurl a soft fruit at the snarling face of his enemy, and to taunt and
+insult him, calling him eater of carrion and brother of Dango, the
+hyena.  Numa, his yellow-green eyes round and burning with concentrated
+hate, glared up at the dancing figure above him.  Low growls vibrated
+his heavy jowls and his great rage transmitted to his sinuous tail a
+sharp, whiplike motion; but realizing from past experience the futility
+of long distance argument with the ape-man, he turned presently and
+struck off into the tangled vegetation which hid him from the view of
+his tormentor.  With a final scream of jungle invective and an apelike
+grimace at his departing foe, Tarzan continued along his way.
+</P>
+<P>
+Another mile and a shifting wind brought to his keen nostrils a
+familiar, pungent odor close at hand, and a moment later there loomed
+beneath him a huge, gray-black bulk forging steadily along the jungle
+trail.  Tarzan seized and broke a small tree limb, and at the sudden
+cracking sound the ponderous figure halted.  Great ears were thrown
+forward, and a long, supple trunk rose quickly to wave to and fro in
+search of the scent of an enemy, while two weak, little eyes peered
+suspiciously and futilely about in quest of the author of the noise
+which had disturbed his peaceful way.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan laughed aloud and came closer above the head of the pachyderm.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tantor! Tantor!" he cried.  "Bara, the deer, is less fearful than
+you&mdash;you, Tantor, the elephant, greatest of the jungle folk with the
+strength of as many Numas as I have toes upon my feet and fingers upon
+my hands.  Tantor, who can uproot great trees, trembles with fear at
+the sound of a broken twig."
+</P>
+<P>
+A rumbling noise, which might have been either a sign of contempt or a
+sigh of relief, was Tantor's only reply as the uplifted trunk and ears
+came down and the beast's tail dropped to normal; but his eyes still
+roved about in search of Tarzan.  He was not long kept in suspense,
+however, as to the whereabouts of the ape-man, for a second later the
+youth dropped lightly to the broad head of his old friend.  Then
+stretching himself at full length, he drummed with his bare toes upon
+the thick hide, and as his fingers scratched the more tender surfaces
+beneath the great ears, he talked to Tantor of the gossip of the jungle
+as though the great beast understood every word that he said.
+</P>
+<P>
+Much there was which Tarzan could make Tantor understand, and though
+the small talk of the wild was beyond the great, gray dreadnaught of
+the jungle, he stood with blinking eyes and gently swaying trunk as
+though drinking in every word of it with keenest appreciation.  As a
+matter of fact it was the pleasant, friendly voice and caressing hands
+behind his ears which he enjoyed, and the close proximity of him whom
+he had often borne upon his back since Tarzan, as a little child, had
+once fearlessly approached the great bull, assuming upon the part of
+the pachyderm the same friendliness which filled his own heart.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the years of their association Tarzan had discovered that he
+possessed an inexplicable power to govern and direct his mighty friend.
+At his bidding, Tantor would come from a great distance&mdash;as far as his
+keen ears could detect the shrill and piercing summons of the
+ape-man&mdash;and when Tarzan was squatted upon his head, Tantor would
+lumber through the jungle in any direction which his rider bade him go.
+It was the power of the man-mind over that of the brute and it was just
+as effective as though both fully understood its origin, though neither
+did.
+</P>
+<P>
+For half an hour Tarzan sprawled there upon Tantor's back.  Time had no
+meaning for either of them.  Life, as they saw it, consisted
+principally in keeping their stomachs filled.  To Tarzan this was a
+less arduous labor than to Tantor, for Tarzan's stomach was smaller,
+and being omnivorous, food was less difficult to obtain.  If one sort
+did not come readily to hand, there were always many others to satisfy
+his hunger.  He was less particular as to his diet than Tantor, who
+would eat only the bark of certain trees, and the wood of others, while
+a third appealed to him only through its leaves, and these, perhaps,
+just at certain seasons of the year.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tantor must needs spend the better part of his life in filling his
+immense stomach against the needs of his mighty thews.  It is thus with
+all the lower orders&mdash;their lives are so occupied either with searching
+for food or with the processes of digestion that they have little time
+for other considerations.  Doubtless it is this handicap which has kept
+them from advancing as rapidly as man, who has more time to give to
+thought upon other matters.
+</P>
+<P>
+However, these questions troubled Tarzan but little, and Tantor not at
+all.  What the former knew was that he was happy in the companionship
+of the elephant.  He did not know why.  He did not know that because he
+was a human being&mdash;a normal, healthy human being&mdash;he craved some living
+thing upon which to lavish his affection.  His childhood playmates
+among the apes of Kerchak were now great, sullen brutes.  They felt nor
+inspired but little affection.  The younger apes Tarzan still played
+with occasionally.  In his savage way he loved them; but they were far
+from satisfying or restful companions.  Tantor was a great mountain of
+calm, of poise, of stability.  It was restful and satisfying to sprawl
+upon his rough pate and pour one's vague hopes and aspirations into the
+great ears which flapped ponderously to and fro in apparent
+understanding.  Of all the jungle folk, Tantor commanded Tarzan's
+greatest love since Kala had been taken from him.  Sometimes Tarzan
+wondered if Tantor reciprocated his affection.  It was difficult to
+know.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was the call of the stomach&mdash;the most compelling and insistent call
+which the jungle knows&mdash;that took Tarzan finally back to the trees and
+off in search of food, while Tantor continued his interrupted journey
+in the opposite direction.
+</P>
+<P>
+For an hour the ape-man foraged.  A lofty nest yielded its fresh, warm
+harvest.  Fruits, berries, and tender plantain found a place upon his
+menu in the order that he happened upon them, for he did not seek such
+foods.  Meat, meat, meat! It was always meat that Tarzan of the Apes
+hunted; but sometimes meat eluded him, as today.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as he roamed the jungle his active mind busied itself not alone
+with his hunting, but with many other subjects.  He had a habit of
+recalling often the events of the preceding days and hours.  He lived
+over his visit with Tantor; he cogitated upon the digging blacks and
+the strange, covered pit they had left behind them.  He wondered again
+and again what its purpose might be.  He compared perceptions and
+arrived at judgments.  He compared judgments, reaching conclusions&mdash;not
+always correct ones, it is true, but at least he used his brain for the
+purpose God intended it, which was the less difficult because he was
+not handicapped by the second-hand, and usually erroneous, judgment of
+others.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as he puzzled over the covered pit, there loomed suddenly before
+his mental vision a huge, gray-black bulk which lumbered ponderously
+along a jungle trail.  Instantly Tarzan tensed to the shock of a sudden
+fear.  Decision and action usually occurred simultaneously in the life
+of the ape-man, and now he was away through the leafy branches ere the
+realization of the pit's purpose had scarce formed in his mind.
+</P>
+<P>
+Swinging from swaying limb to swaying limb, he raced through the middle
+terraces where the trees grew close together.  Again he dropped to the
+ground and sped, silently and light of foot, over the carpet of
+decaying vegetation, only to leap again into the trees where the
+tangled undergrowth precluded rapid advance upon the surface.
+</P>
+<P>
+In his anxiety he cast discretion to the winds.  The caution of the
+beast was lost in the loyalty of the man, and so it came that he
+entered a large clearing, denuded of trees, without a thought of what
+might lie there or upon the farther edge to dispute the way with him.
+</P>
+<P>
+He was half way across when directly in his path and but a few yards
+away there rose from a clump of tall grasses a half dozen chattering
+birds.  Instantly Tarzan turned aside, for he knew well enough what
+manner of creature the presence of these little sentinels proclaimed.
+Simultaneously Buto, the rhinoceros, scrambled to his short legs and
+charged furiously.  Haphazard charges Buto, the rhinoceros.  With his
+weak eyes he sees but poorly even at short distances, and whether his
+erratic rushes are due to the panic of fear as he attempts to escape,
+or to the irascible temper with which he is generally credited, it is
+difficult to determine.  Nor is the matter of little moment to one whom
+Buto charges, for if he be caught and tossed, the chances are that
+naught will interest him thereafter.
+</P>
+<P>
+And today it chanced that Buto bore down straight upon Tarzan, across
+the few yards of knee-deep grass which separated them.  Accident
+started him in the direction of the ape-man, and then his weak eyes
+discerned the enemy, and with a series of snorts he charged straight
+for him.  The little rhino birds fluttered and circled about their
+giant ward.  Among the branches of the trees at the edge of the
+clearing, a score or more monkeys chattered and scolded as the loud
+snorts of the angry beast sent them scurrying affrightedly to the upper
+terraces.  Tarzan alone appeared indifferent and serene.
+</P>
+<P>
+Directly in the path of the charge he stood.  There had been no time to
+seek safety in the trees beyond the clearing, nor had Tarzan any mind
+to delay his journey because of Buto.  He had met the stupid beast
+before and held him in fine contempt.
+</P>
+<P>
+And now Buto was upon him, the massive head lowered and the long, heavy
+horn inclined for the frightful work for which nature had designed it;
+but as he struck upward, his weapon raked only thin air, for the
+ape-man had sprung lightly aloft with a catlike leap that carried him
+above the threatening horn to the broad back of the rhinoceros.
+Another spring and he was on the ground behind the brute and racing
+like a deer for the trees.
+</P>
+<P>
+Buto, angered and mystified by the strange disappearance of his prey,
+wheeled and charged frantically in another direction, which chanced to
+be not the direction of Tarzan's flight, and so the ape-man came in
+safety to the trees and continued on his swift way through the forest.
+</P>
+<P>
+Some distance ahead of him Tantor moved steadily along the well-worn
+elephant trail, and ahead of Tantor a crouching, black warrior listened
+intently in the middle of the path.  Presently he heard the sound for
+which he had been hoping&mdash;the cracking, snapping sound which heralded
+the approach of an elephant.
+</P>
+<P>
+To his right and left in other parts of the jungle other warriors were
+watching.  A low signal, passed from one to another, apprised the most
+distant that the quarry was afoot.  Rapidly they converged toward the
+trail, taking positions in trees down wind from the point at which
+Tantor must pass them.  Silently they waited and presently were
+rewarded by the sight of a mighty tusker carrying an amount of ivory in
+his long tusks that set their greedy hearts to palpitating.
+</P>
+<P>
+No sooner had he passed their positions than the warriors clambered
+from their perches.  No longer were they silent, but instead clapped
+their hands and shouted as they reached the ground.  For an instant
+Tantor, the elephant, paused with upraised trunk and tail, with great
+ears up-pricked, and then he swung on along the trail at a rapid,
+shuffling pace&mdash;straight toward the covered pit with its sharpened
+stakes upstanding in the ground.
+</P>
+<P>
+Behind him came the yelling warriors, urging him on in the rapid flight
+which would not permit a careful examination of the ground before him.
+Tantor, the elephant, who could have turned and scattered his
+adversaries with a single charge, fled like a frightened deer&mdash;fled
+toward a hideous, torturing death.
+</P>
+<P>
+And behind them all came Tarzan of the Apes, racing through the jungle
+forest with the speed and agility of a squirrel, for he had heard the
+shouts of the warriors and had interpreted them correctly.  Once he
+uttered a piercing call that reverberated through the jungle; but
+Tantor, in the panic of terror, either failed to hear, or hearing,
+dared not pause to heed.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now the giant pachyderm was but a few yards from the hidden death
+lurking in his path, and the blacks, certain of success, were screaming
+and dancing in his wake, waving their war spears and celebrating in
+advance the acquisition of the splendid ivory carried by their prey and
+the surfeit of elephant meat which would be theirs this night.
+</P>
+<P>
+So intent were they upon their gratulations that they entirely failed
+to note the silent passage of the man-beast above their heads, nor did
+Tantor, either, see or hear him, even though Tarzan called to him to
+stop.
+</P>
+<P>
+A few more steps would precipitate Tantor upon the sharpened stakes;
+Tarzan fairly flew through the trees until he had come abreast of the
+fleeing animal and then had passed him.  At the pit's verge the ape-man
+dropped to the ground in the center of the trail.  Tantor was almost
+upon him before his weak eyes permitted him to recognize his old friend.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Stop!" cried Tarzan, and the great beast halted to the upraised hand.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan turned and kicked aside some of the brush which hid the pit.
+Instantly Tantor saw and understood.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Fight!" growled Tarzan.  "They are coming behind you." But Tantor, the
+elephant, is a huge bunch of nerves, and now he was half panic-stricken
+by terror.
+</P>
+<P>
+Before him yawned the pit, how far he did not know, but to right and
+left lay the primeval jungle untouched by man.  With a squeal the great
+beast turned suddenly at right angles and burst his noisy way through
+the solid wall of matted vegetation that would have stopped any but him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan, standing upon the edge of the pit, smiled as he watched
+Tantor's undignified flight.  Soon the blacks would come.  It was best
+that Tarzan of the Apes faded from the scene.  He essayed a step from
+the pit's edge, and as he threw the weight of his body upon his left
+foot, the earth crumbled away.  Tarzan made a single Herculean effort
+to throw himself forward, but it was too late.  Backward and downward
+he went toward the sharpened stakes in the bottom of the pit.
+</P>
+<P>
+When, a moment later, the blacks came they saw even from a distance
+that Tantor had eluded them, for the size of the hole in the pit
+covering was too small to have accommodated the huge bulk of an
+elephant.  At first they thought that their prey had put one great foot
+through the top and then, warned, drawn back; but when they had come to
+the pit's verge and peered over, their eyes went wide in astonishment,
+for, quiet and still, at the bottom lay the naked figure of a white
+giant.
+</P>
+<P>
+Some of them there had glimpsed this forest god before and they drew
+back in terror, awed by the presence which they had for some time
+believed to possess the miraculous powers of a demon; but others there
+were who pushed forward, thinking only of the capture of an enemy, and
+these leaped into the pit and lifted Tarzan out.
+</P>
+<P>
+There was no scar upon his body.  None of the sharpened stakes had
+pierced him&mdash;only a swollen spot at the base of the brain indicated the
+nature of his injury.  In the falling backward his head had struck upon
+the side of one of the stakes, rendering him unconscious.  The blacks
+were quick to discover this, and equally quick to bind their prisoner's
+arms and legs before he should regain consciousness, for they had
+learned to harbor a wholesome respect for this strange man-beast that
+consorted with the hairy tree folk.
+</P>
+<P>
+They had carried him but a short distance toward their village when the
+ape-man's eyelids quivered and raised.  He looked about him wonderingly
+for a moment, and then full consciousness returned and he realized the
+seriousness of his predicament.  Accustomed almost from birth to
+relying solely upon his own resources, he did not cast about for
+outside aid now, but devoted his mind to a consideration of the
+possibilities for escape which lay within himself and his own powers.
+</P>
+<P>
+He did not dare test the strength of his bonds while the blacks were
+carrying him, for fear they would become apprehensive and add to them.
+Presently his captors discovered that he was conscious, and as they had
+little stomach for carrying a heavy man through the jungle heat, they
+set him upon his feet and forced him forward among them, pricking him
+now and then with their spears, yet with every manifestation of the
+superstitious awe in which they held him.
+</P>
+<P>
+When they discovered that their prodding brought no outward evidence of
+suffering, their awe increased, so that they soon desisted, half
+believing that this strange white giant was a supernatural being and so
+was immune from pain.
+</P>
+<P>
+As they approached their village, they shouted aloud the victorious
+cries of successful warriors, so that by the time they reached the
+gate, dancing and waving their spears, a great crowd of men, women, and
+children were gathered there to greet them and hear the story of their
+adventure.
+</P>
+<P>
+As the eyes of the villagers fell upon the prisoner, they went wild,
+and heavy jaws fell open in astonishment and incredulity.  For months
+they had lived in perpetual terror of a weird, white demon whom but few
+had ever glimpsed and lived to describe.  Warriors had disappeared from
+the paths almost within sight of the village and from the midst of
+their companions as mysteriously and completely as though they had been
+swallowed by the earth, and later, at night, their dead bodies had
+fallen, as from the heavens, into the village street.
+</P>
+<P>
+This fearsome creature had appeared by night in the huts of the
+village, killed, and disappeared, leaving behind him in the huts with
+his dead, strange and terrifying evidences of an uncanny sense of humor.
+</P>
+<P>
+But now he was in their power! No longer could he terrorize them.
+Slowly the realization of this dawned upon them.  A woman, screaming,
+ran forward and struck the ape-man across the face.  Another and
+another followed her example, until Tarzan of the Apes was surrounded
+by a fighting, clawing, yelling mob of natives.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then Mbonga, the chief, came, and laying his spear heavily across
+the shoulders of his people, drove them from their prey.
+</P>
+<P>
+"We will save him until night," he said.
+</P>
+<P>
+Far out in the jungle Tantor, the elephant, his first panic of fear
+allayed, stood with up-pricked ears and undulating trunk.  What was
+passing through the convolutions of his savage brain? Could he be
+searching for Tarzan?  Could he recall and measure the service the
+ape-man had performed for him? Of that there can be no doubt.  But did
+he feel gratitude? Would he have risked his own life to have saved
+Tarzan could he have known of the danger which confronted his friend?
+You will doubt it.  Anyone at all familiar with elephants will doubt
+it.  Englishmen who have hunted much with elephants in India will tell
+you that they never have heard of an instance in which one of these
+animals has gone to the aid of a man in danger, even though the man had
+often befriended it.  And so it is to be doubted that Tantor would have
+attempted to overcome his instinctive fear of the black men in an
+effort to succor Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+The screams of the infuriated villagers came faintly to his sensitive
+ears, and he wheeled, as though in terror, contemplating flight; but
+something stayed him, and again he turned about, raised his trunk, and
+gave voice to a shrill cry.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then he stood listening.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the distant village where Mbonga had restored quiet and order, the
+voice of Tantor was scarcely audible to the blacks, but to the keen
+ears of Tarzan of the Apes it bore its message.
+</P>
+<P>
+His captors were leading him to a hut where he might be confined and
+guarded against the coming of the nocturnal orgy that would mark his
+torture-laden death.  He halted as he heard the notes of Tantor's call,
+and raising his head, gave vent to a terrifying scream that sent cold
+chills through the superstitious blacks and caused the warriors who
+guarded him to leap back even though their prisoner's arms were
+securely bound behind him.
+</P>
+<P>
+With raised spears they encircled him as for a moment longer he stood
+listening.  Faintly from the distance came another, an answering cry,
+and Tarzan of the Apes, satisfied, turned and quietly pursued his way
+toward the hut where he was to be imprisoned.
+</P>
+<P>
+The afternoon wore on.  From the surrounding village the ape-man heard
+the bustle of preparation for the feast.  Through the doorway of the
+hut he saw the women laying the cooking fires and filling their earthen
+caldrons with water; but above it all his ears were bent across the
+jungle in eager listening for the coming of Tantor.
+</P>
+<P>
+Even Tarzan but half believed that he would come.  He knew Tantor even
+better than Tantor knew himself.  He knew the timid heart which lay in
+the giant body.  He knew the panic of terror which the scent of the
+Gomangani inspired within that savage breast, and as night drew on,
+hope died within his heart and in the stoic calm of the wild beast
+which he was, he resigned himself to meet the fate which awaited him.
+</P>
+<P>
+All afternoon he had been working, working, working with the bonds that
+held his wrists.  Very slowly they were giving.  He might free his
+hands before they came to lead him out to be butchered, and if he
+did&mdash;Tarzan licked his lips in anticipation, and smiled a cold, grim
+smile.  He could imagine the feel of soft flesh beneath his fingers and
+the sinking of his white teeth into the throats of his foemen.  He
+would let them taste his wrath before they overpowered him!
+</P>
+<P>
+At last they came&mdash;painted, befeathered warriors&mdash;even more hideous
+than nature had intended them.  They came and pushed him into the open,
+where his appearance was greeted by wild shouts from the assembled
+villagers.
+</P>
+<P>
+To the stake they led him, and as they pushed him roughly against it
+preparatory to binding him there securely for the dance of death that
+would presently encircle him, Tarzan tensed his mighty thews and with a
+single, powerful wrench parted the loosened thongs which had secured
+his hands.  Like thought, for quickness, he leaped forward among the
+warriors nearest him.  A blow sent one to earth, as, growling and
+snarling, the beast-man leaped upon the breast of another.  His fangs
+were buried instantly in the jugular of his adversary and then a half
+hundred black men had leaped upon him and borne him to earth.
+</P>
+<P>
+Striking, clawing, and snapping, the ape-man fought&mdash;fought as his
+foster people had taught him to fight&mdash;fought like a wild beast
+cornered.  His strength, his agility, his courage, and his intelligence
+rendered him easily a match for half a dozen black men in a
+hand-to-hand struggle, but not even Tarzan of the Apes could hope to
+successfully cope with half a hundred.
+</P>
+<P>
+Slowly they were overpowering him, though a score of them bled from
+ugly wounds, and two lay very still beneath the trampling feet, and the
+rolling bodies of the contestants.
+</P>
+<P>
+Overpower him they might, but could they keep him overpowered while
+they bound him? A half hour of desperate endeavor convinced them that
+they could not, and so Mbonga, who, like all good rulers, had circled
+in the safety of the background, called to one to work his way in and
+spear the victim.  Gradually, through the milling, battling men, the
+warrior approached the object of his quest.
+</P>
+<P>
+He stood with poised spear above his head waiting for the instant that
+would expose a vulnerable part of the ape-man's body and still not
+endanger one of the blacks.  Closer and closer he edged about,
+following the movements of the twisting, scuffling combatants.  The
+growls of the ape-man sent cold chills up the warrior's spine, causing
+him to go carefully lest he miss at the first cast and lay himself open
+to an attack from those merciless teeth and mighty hands.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last he found an opening.  Higher he raised his spear, tensing his
+muscles, rolling beneath his glistening, ebon hide, and then from the
+jungle just beyond the palisade came a thunderous crashing.  The
+spear-hand paused, the black cast a quick glance in the direction of
+the disturbance, as did the others of the blacks who were not occupied
+with the subjugation of the ape-man.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the glare of the fires they saw a huge bulk topping the barrier.
+They saw the palisade belly and sway inward.  They saw it burst as
+though built of straws, and an instant later Tantor, the elephant,
+thundered down upon them.
+</P>
+<P>
+To right and left the blacks fled, screaming in terror.  Some who
+hovered upon the verge of the strife with Tarzan heard and made good
+their escape, but a half dozen there were so wrapt in the blood-madness
+of battle that they failed to note the approach of the giant tusker.
+</P>
+<P>
+Upon these Tantor charged, trumpeting furiously.  Above them he
+stopped, his sensitive trunk weaving among them, and there, at the
+bottom, he found Tarzan, bloody, but still battling.
+</P>
+<P>
+A warrior turned his eyes upward from the melee.  Above him towered the
+gigantic bulk of the pachyderm, the little eyes flashing with the
+reflected light of the fires&mdash;wicked, frightful, terrifying.  The
+warrior screamed, and as he screamed, the sinuous trunk encircled him,
+lifted him high above the ground, and hurled him far after the fleeing
+crowd.
+</P>
+<P>
+Another and another Tantor wrenched from the body of the ape-man,
+throwing them to right and to left, where they lay either moaning or
+very quiet, as death came slowly or at once.
+</P>
+<P>
+At a distance Mbonga rallied his warriors.  His greedy eyes had noted
+the great ivory tusks of the bull.  The first panic of terror relieved,
+he urged his men forward to attack with their heavy elephant spears;
+but as they came, Tantor swung Tarzan to his broad head, and, wheeling,
+lumbered off into the jungle through the great rent he had made in the
+palisade.
+</P>
+<P>
+Elephant hunters may be right when they aver that this animal would not
+have rendered such service to a man, but to Tantor, Tarzan was not a
+man&mdash;he was but a fellow jungle beast.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so it was that Tantor, the elephant, discharged an obligation to
+Tarzan of the Apes, cementing even more closely the friendship that had
+existed between them since Tarzan as a little, brown boy rode upon
+Tantor's huge back through the moonlit jungle beneath the equatorial
+stars.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Fight for the Balu
+</H3>
+<P>
+TEEKA HAD BECOME a mother.  Tarzan of the Apes was intensely
+interested, much more so, in fact, than Taug, the father.  Tarzan was
+very fond of Teeka.  Even the cares of prospective motherhood had not
+entirely quenched the fires of carefree youth, and Teeka had remained a
+good-natured playmate even at an age when other shes of the tribe of
+Kerchak had assumed the sullen dignity of maturity.  She yet retained
+her childish delight in the primitive games of tag and hide-and-go-seek
+which Tarzan's fertile man-mind had evolved.
+</P>
+<P>
+To play tag through the tree tops is an exciting and inspiring pastime.
+Tarzan delighted in it, but the bulls of his childhood had long since
+abandoned such childish practices.  Teeka, though, had been keen for it
+always until shortly before the baby came; but with the advent of her
+first-born, even Teeka changed.
+</P>
+<P>
+The evidence of the change surprised and hurt Tarzan immeasurably.  One
+morning he saw Teeka squatted upon a low branch hugging something very
+close to her hairy breast&mdash;a wee something which squirmed and wriggled.
+Tarzan approached filled with the curiosity which is common to all
+creatures endowed with brains which have progressed beyond the
+microscopic stage.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka rolled her eyes in his direction and strained the squirming mite
+still closer to her.  Tarzan came nearer.  Teeka drew away and bared
+her fangs.  Tarzan was nonplussed.  In all his experiences with Teeka,
+never before had she bared fangs at him other than in play; but today
+she did not look playful.  Tarzan ran his brown fingers through his
+thick, black hair, cocked his head upon one side, and stared.  Then he
+edged a bit nearer, craning his neck to have a better look at the thing
+which Teeka cuddled.
+</P>
+<P>
+Again Teeka drew back her upper lip in a warning snarl.  Tarzan reached
+forth a hand, cautiously, to touch the thing which Teeka held, and
+Teeka, with a hideous growl, turned suddenly upon him.  Her teeth sank
+into the flesh of his forearm before the ape-man could snatch it away,
+and she pursued him for a short distance as he retreated incontinently
+through the trees; but Teeka, carrying her baby, could not overtake
+him.  At a safe distance Tarzan stopped and turned to regard his
+erstwhile play-fellow in unconcealed astonishment.  What had happened
+to so alter the gentle Teeka? She had so covered the thing in her arms
+that Tarzan had not yet been able to recognize it for what it was; but
+now, as she turned from the pursuit of him, he saw it.  Through his
+pain and chagrin he smiled, for Tarzan had seen young ape mothers
+before.  In a few days she would be less suspicious.  Still Tarzan was
+hurt; it was not right that Teeka, of all others, should fear him.
+Why, not for the world would he harm her, or her balu, which is the ape
+word for baby.
+</P>
+<P>
+And now, above the pain of his injured arm and the hurt to his pride,
+rose a still stronger desire to come close and inspect the new-born son
+of Taug.  Possibly you will wonder that Tarzan of the Apes, mighty
+fighter that he was, should have fled before the irritable attack of a
+she, or that he should hesitate to return for the satisfaction of his
+curiosity when with ease he might have vanquished the weakened mother
+of the new-born cub; but you need not wonder.  Were you an ape, you
+would know that only a bull in the throes of madness will turn upon a
+female other than to gently chastise her, with the occasional exception
+of the individual whom we find exemplified among our own kind, and who
+delights in beating up his better half because she happens to be
+smaller and weaker than he.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan again came toward the young mother&mdash;warily and with his line of
+retreat safely open.  Again Teeka growled ferociously.  Tarzan
+expostulated.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tarzan of the Apes will not harm Teeka's balu," he said.  "Let me see
+it."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go away!" commanded Teeka.  "Go away, or I will kill you."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Let me see it," urged Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go away," reiterated the she-ape. "Here comes Taug.  He will make you
+go away.  Taug will kill you.  This is Taug's balu."
+</P>
+<P>
+A savage growl close behind him apprised Tarzan of the nearness of
+Taug, and the fact that the bull had heard the warnings and threats of
+his mate and was coming to her succor.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now Taug, as well as Teeka, had been Tarzan's play-fellow while the
+bull was still young enough to wish to play.  Once Tarzan had saved
+Taug's life; but the memory of an ape is not overlong, nor would
+gratitude rise above the parental instinct.  Tarzan and Taug had once
+measured strength, and Tarzan had been victorious.  That fact Taug
+could be depended upon still to remember; but even so, he might readily
+face another defeat for his first-born&mdash;if he chanced to be in the
+proper mood.
+</P>
+<P>
+From his hideous growls, which now rose in strength and volume, he
+seemed to be in quite the mood.  Now Tarzan felt no fear of Taug, nor
+did the unwritten law of the jungle demand that he should flee from
+battle with any male, unless he cared to from purely personal reasons.
+But Tarzan liked Taug.  He had no grudge against him, and his man-mind
+told him what the mind of an ape would never have deduced&mdash;that Taug's
+attitude in no sense indicated hatred.  It was but the instinctive urge
+of the male to protect its offspring and its mate.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan had no desire to battle with Taug, nor did the blood of his
+English ancestors relish the thought of flight, yet when the bull
+charged, Tarzan leaped nimbly to one side, and thus encouraged, Taug
+wheeled and rushed again madly to the attack.  Perhaps the memory of a
+past defeat at Tarzan's hands goaded him.  Perhaps the fact that Teeka
+sat there watching him aroused a desire to vanquish the ape-man before
+her eyes, for in the breast of every jungle male lurks a vast egotism
+which finds expression in the performance of deeds of derring-do before
+an audience of the opposite sex.
+</P>
+<P>
+At the ape-man's side swung his long grass rope&mdash;the play-thing of
+yesterday, the weapon of today&mdash;and as Taug charged the second time,
+Tarzan slipped the coils over his head and deftly shook out the sliding
+noose as he again nimbly eluded the ungainly beast.  Before the ape
+could turn again, Tarzan had fled far aloft among the branches of the
+upper terrace.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, now wrought to a frenzy of real rage, followed him.  Teeka peered
+upward at them.  It was difficult to say whether she was interested.
+Taug could not climb as rapidly as Tarzan, so the latter reached the
+high levels to which the heavy ape dared not follow before the former
+overtook him.  There he halted and looked down upon his pursuer, making
+faces at him and calling him such choice names as occurred to the
+fertile man-brain. Then, when he had worked Taug to such a pitch of
+foaming rage that the great bull fairly danced upon the bending limb
+beneath him, Tarzan's hand shot suddenly outward, a widening noose
+dropped swiftly through the air, there was a quick jerk as it settled
+about Taug, falling to his knees, a jerk that tightened it securely
+about the hairy legs of the anthropoid.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, slow of wit, realized too late the intention of his tormentor.
+He scrambled to escape, but the ape-man gave the rope a tremendous jerk
+that pulled Taug from his perch, and a moment later, growling
+hideously, the ape hung head downward thirty feet above the ground.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan secured the rope to a stout limb and descended to a point close
+to Taug.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Taug," he said, "you are as stupid as Buto, the rhinoceros.  Now you
+may hang here until you get a little sense in your thick head.  You may
+hang here and watch while I go and talk with Teeka."
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug blustered and threatened, but Tarzan only grinned at him as he
+dropped lightly to the lower levels.  Here he again approached Teeka
+only to be again greeted with bared fangs and menacing growls.  He
+sought to placate her; he urged his friendly intentions, and craned his
+neck to have a look at Teeka's balu; but the she-ape was not to be
+persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one.  Her
+motherhood was still so new that reason was yet subservient to instinct.
+</P>
+<P>
+Realizing the futility of attempting to catch and chastise Tarzan,
+Teeka sought to escape him.  She dropped to the ground and lumbered
+across the little clearing about which the apes of the tribe were
+disposed in rest or in the search of food, and presently Tarzan
+abandoned his attempts to persuade her to permit a close examination of
+the balu.  The ape-man would have liked to handle the tiny thing.  The
+very sight of it awakened in his breast a strange yearning.  He wished
+to cuddle and fondle the grotesque little ape-thing. It was Teeka's
+balu and Tarzan had once lavished his young affections upon Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+But now his attention was diverted by the voice of Taug.  The threats
+that had filled the ape's mouth had turned to pleas.  The tightening
+noose was stopping the circulation of the blood in his legs&mdash;he was
+beginning to suffer.  Several apes sat near him highly interested in
+his predicament.  They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each
+of them had felt the weight of Taug's mighty hands and the strength of
+his great jaws.  They were enjoying revenge.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka, seeing that Tarzan had turned back toward the trees, had halted
+in the center of the clearing, and there she sat hugging her balu and
+casting suspicious glances here and there.  With the coming of the
+balu, Teeka's care-free world had suddenly become peopled with
+innumerable enemies.  She saw an implacable foe in Tarzan, always
+heretofore her best friend.  Even poor old Mumga, half blind and almost
+entirely toothless, searching patiently for grubworms beneath a fallen
+log, represented to her a malignant spirit thirsting for the blood of
+little balus.
+</P>
+<P>
+And while Teeka guarded suspiciously against harm, where there was no
+harm, she failed to note two baleful, yellow-green eyes staring fixedly
+at her from behind a clump of bushes at the opposite side of the
+clearing.
+</P>
+<P>
+Hollow from hunger, Sheeta, the panther, glared greedily at the
+tempting meat so close at hand, but the sight of the great bulls beyond
+gave him pause.
+</P>
+<P>
+Ah, if the she-ape with her balu would but come just a trifle nearer! A
+quick spring and he would be upon them and away again with his meat
+before the bulls could prevent.
+</P>
+<P>
+The tip of his tawny tail moved in spasmodic little jerks; his lower
+jaw hung low, exposing a red tongue and yellow fangs.  But all this
+Teeka did not see, nor did any other of the apes who were feeding or
+resting about her.  Nor did Tarzan or the apes in the trees.
+</P>
+<P>
+Hearing the abuse which the bulls were pouring upon the helpless Taug,
+Tarzan clambered quickly among them.  One was edging closer and leaning
+far out in an effort to reach the dangling ape.  He had worked himself
+into quite a fury through recollection of the last occasion upon which
+Taug had mauled him, and now he was bent upon revenge.  Once he had
+grasped the swinging ape, he would quickly have drawn him within reach
+of his jaws.  Tarzan saw and was wroth.  He loved a fair fight, but the
+thing which this ape contemplated revolted him.  Already a hairy hand
+had clutched the helpless Taug when, with an angry growl of protest,
+Tarzan leaped to the branch at the attacking ape's side, and with a
+single mighty cuff, swept him from his perch.
+</P>
+<P>
+Surprised and enraged, the bull clutched madly for support as he
+toppled sidewise, and then with an agile movement succeeded in
+projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below.  Here he found
+a hand-hold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered upward
+to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was otherwise engaged and
+did not wish to be interrupted.  He was explaining again to Taug the
+depths of the latter's abysmal ignorance, and pointing out how much
+greater and mightier was Tarzan of the Apes than Taug or any other ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the end he would release Taug, but not until Taug was fully
+acquainted with his own inferiority.  And then the maddened bull came
+from beneath, and instantly Tarzan was transformed from a good-natured,
+teasing youth into a snarling, savage beast.  Along his scalp the hair
+bristled: his upper lip drew back that his fighting fangs might be
+uncovered and ready.  He did not wait for the bull to reach him, for
+something in the appearance or the voice of the attacker aroused within
+the ape-man a feeling of belligerent antagonism that would not be
+denied.  With a scream that carried no human note, Tarzan leaped
+straight at the throat of the attacker.
+</P>
+<P>
+The impetuosity of this act and the weight and momentum of his body
+carried the bull backward, clutching and clawing for support, down
+through the leafy branches of the tree.  For fifteen feet the two fell,
+Tarzan's teeth buried in the jugular of his opponent, when a stout
+branch stopped their descent.  The bull struck full upon the small of
+his back across the limb, hung there for a moment with the ape-man
+still upon his breast, and then toppled over toward the ground.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan had felt the instantaneous relaxation of the body beneath him
+after the heavy impact with the tree limb, and as the other turned
+completely over and started again upon its fall toward the ground, he
+reached forth a hand and caught the branch in time to stay his own
+descent, while the ape dropped like a plummet to the foot of the tree.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan looked downward for a moment upon the still form of his late
+antagonist, then he rose to his full height, swelled his deep chest,
+smote upon it with his clenched fist and roared out the uncanny
+challenge of the victorious bull ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+Even Sheeta, the panther, crouched for a spring at the edge of the
+little clearing, moved uneasily as the mighty voice sent its weird cry
+reverberating through the jungle.  To right and left, nervously,
+glanced Sheeta, as though assuring himself that the way of escape lay
+ready at hand.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I am Tarzan of the Apes," boasted the ape-man; "mighty hunter, mighty
+fighter! None in all the jungle so great as Tarzan."
+</P>
+<P>
+Then he made his way back in the direction of Taug.  Teeka had watched
+the happenings in the tree.  She had even placed her precious balu upon
+the soft grasses and come a little nearer that she might better witness
+all that was passing in the branches above her.  In her heart of hearts
+did she still esteem the smooth-skinned Tarzan?  Did her savage breast
+swell with pride as she witnessed his victory over the ape? You will
+have to ask Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+And Sheeta, the panther, saw that the she-ape had left her cub alone
+among the grasses.  He moved his tail again, as though this closest
+approximation of lashing in which he dared indulge might stimulate his
+momentarily waned courage.  The cry of the victorious ape-man still
+held his nerves beneath its spell.  It would be several minutes before
+he again could bring himself to the point of charging into view of the
+giant anthropoids.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as he regathered his forces, Tarzan reached Taug's side, and then
+clambering higher up to the point where the end of the grass rope was
+made fast, he unloosed it and lowered the ape slowly downward, swinging
+him in until the clutching hands fastened upon a limb.
+</P>
+<P>
+Quickly Taug drew himself to a position of safety and shook off the
+noose.  In his rage-maddened heart was no room for gratitude to the
+ape-man. He recalled only the fact that Tarzan had laid this painful
+indignity upon him.  He would be revenged, but just at present his legs
+were so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone the
+gratification of his vengeance.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan was coiling his rope the while he lectured Taug on the futility
+of pitting his poor powers, physical and intellectual, against those of
+his betters.  Teeka had come close beneath the tree and was peering
+upward.  Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his belly close
+to the ground.  In another moment he would be clear of the underbrush
+and ready for the rapid charge and the quick retreat that would end the
+brief existence of Teeka's balu.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then Tarzan chanced to look up and across the clearing.  Instantly his
+attitude of good-natured bantering and pompous boastfulness dropped
+from him.  Silently and swiftly he shot downward toward the ground.
+Teeka, seeing him coming, and thinking that he was after her or her
+balu, bristled and prepared to fight.  But Tarzan sped by her, and as
+he went, her eyes followed him and she saw the cause of his sudden
+descent and his rapid charge across the clearing.  There in full sight
+now was Sheeta, the panther, stalking slowly toward the tiny, wriggling
+balu which lay among the grasses many yards away.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka gave voice to a shrill scream of terror and of warning as she
+dashed after the ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan coming.  He saw the
+she-ape's cub before him, and he thought that this other was bent upon
+robbing him of his prey.  With an angry growl, he charged.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, warned by Teeka's cry, came lumbering down to her assistance.
+Several other bulls, growling and barking, closed in toward the
+clearing, but they were all much farther from the balu and the panther
+than was Tarzan of the Apes, so it was that Sheeta and the ape-man
+reached Teeka's little one almost simultaneously; and there they stood,
+one upon either side of it, baring their fangs and snarling at each
+other over the little creature.
+</P>
+<P>
+Sheeta was afraid to seize the balu, for thus he would give the ape-man
+an opening for attack; and for the same reason Tarzan hesitated to
+snatch the panther's prey out of harm's way, for had he stooped to
+accomplish this, the great beast would have been upon him in an
+instant.  Thus they stood while Teeka came across the clearing, going
+more slowly as she neared the panther, for even her mother love could
+scarce overcome her instinctive terror of this natural enemy of her
+kind.
+</P>
+<P>
+Behind her came Taug, warily and with many pauses and much bluster, and
+still behind him came other bulls, snarling ferociously and uttering
+their uncanny challenges.  Sheeta's yellow-green eyes glared terribly
+at Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes of
+Kerchak advancing upon him.  Discretion prompted him to turn and flee,
+but hunger and the close proximity of the tempting morsel in the grass
+before him urged him to remain.  He reached forth a paw toward Teeka's
+balu, and as he did so, with a savage guttural, Tarzan of the Apes was
+upon him.
+</P>
+<P>
+The panther reared to meet the ape-man's attack.  He swung a frightful
+raking blow for Tarzan that would have wiped his face away had it
+landed, but it did not land, for Tarzan ducked beneath it and closed,
+his long knife ready in one strong hand&mdash;the knife of his dead father,
+of the father he never had known.
+</P>
+<P>
+Instantly the balu was forgotten by Sheeta, the panther.  He now
+thought only of tearing to ribbons with his powerful talons the flesh
+of his antagonist, of burying his long, yellow fangs in the soft,
+smooth hide of the ape-man, but Tarzan had fought before with clawed
+creatures of the jungle.  Before now he had battled with fanged
+monsters, nor always had he come away unscathed.  He knew the risk that
+he ran, but Tarzan of the Apes, inured to the sight of suffering and
+death, shrank from neither, for he feared neither.
+</P>
+<P>
+The instant that he dodged beneath Sheeta's blow, he leaped to the
+beast's rear and then full upon the tawny back, burying his teeth in
+Sheeta's neck and the fingers of one hand in the fur at the throat, and
+with the other hand he drove his blade into Sheeta's side.
+</P>
+<P>
+Over and over upon the grass rolled Sheeta, growling and screaming,
+clawing and biting, in a mad effort to dislodge his antagonist or get
+some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan leaped to close quarters with the panther, Teeka had run
+quickly in and snatched up her balu.  Now she sat upon a high branch,
+safe out of harm's way, cuddling the little thing close to her hairy
+breast, the while her savage little eyes bored down upon the
+contestants in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged Taug and the
+other bulls to leap into the melee.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thus goaded the bulls came closer, redoubling their hideous clamor; but
+Sheeta was already sufficiently engaged&mdash;he did not even hear them.
+Once he succeeded in partially dislodging the ape-man from his back, so
+that Tarzan swung for an instant in front of those awful talons, and in
+the brief instant before he could regain his former hold, a raking blow
+from a hind paw laid open one leg from hip to knee.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+It was the sight and smell of this blood, possibly, which wrought upon
+the encircling apes; but it was Taug who really was responsible for the
+thing they did.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, but a moment before filled with rage toward Tarzan of the Apes,
+stood close to the battling pair, his red-rimmed, wicked little eyes
+glaring at them.  What was passing in his savage brain? Did he gloat
+over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did he long to
+see Sheeta's great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man? Or
+did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to
+rush to the rescue and imperil his life for Teeka's balu&mdash;for Taug's
+little balu? Is gratitude a possession of man only, or do the lower
+orders know it also?
+</P>
+<P>
+With the spilling of Tarzan's blood, Taug answered these questions.
+With all the weight of his great body he leaped, hideously growling,
+upon Sheeta.  His long fighting fangs buried themselves in the white
+throat.  His powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur until it
+flew upward in the jungle breeze.
+</P>
+<P>
+And with Taug's example before them the other bulls charged, burying
+Sheeta beneath rending fangs and filling all the forest with the wild
+din of their battle cries.
+</P>
+<P>
+Ah! but it was a wondrous and inspiring sight&mdash;this battle of the
+primordial apes and the great, white ape-man with their ancestral foe,
+Sheeta, the panther.
+</P>
+<P>
+In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly danced upon the limb which swayed
+beneath her great weight as she urged on the males of her people, and
+Thaka, and Mumga, and Kamma, with the other shes of the tribe of
+Kerchak, added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the pandemonium
+which now reigned within the jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bitten and biting, tearing and torn, Sheeta battled for his life; but
+the odds were against him.  Even Numa, the lion, would have hesitated
+to have attacked an equal number of the great bulls of the tribe of
+Kerchak, and now, a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the terrific
+battle, the king of beasts rose uneasily from his midday slumber and
+slunk off farther into the jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently Sheeta's torn and bloody body ceased its titanic struggles.
+It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and was still, yet the bulls
+continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn to shreds.
+At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from the
+tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as an arrow.
+</P>
+<P>
+He placed a foot upon the dead body of the panther, and lifting his
+blood-stained face to the blue of the equatorial heavens, gave voice to
+the horrid victory cry of the bull ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+One by one his hairy fellows of the tribe of Kerchak followed his
+example.  The shes came down from their perches of safety and struck
+and reviled the dead body of Sheeta.  The young apes refought the
+battle in mimicry of their mighty elders.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka was quite close to Tarzan.  He turned and saw her with the balu
+hugged close to her hairy breast, and put out his hands to take the
+little one, expecting that Teeka would bare her fangs and spring upon
+him; but instead she placed the balu in his arms, and coming nearer,
+licked his frightful wounds.
+</P>
+<P>
+And presently Taug, who had escaped with only a few scratches, came and
+squatted beside Tarzan and watched him as he played with the little
+balu, and at last he too leaned over and helped Teeka with the
+cleansing and the healing of the ape-man's hurts.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The God of Tarzan
+</H3>
+<P>
+AMONG THE BOOKS of his dead father in the little cabin by the
+land-locked harbor, Tarzan of the Apes found many things to puzzle his
+young head.  By much labor and through the medium of infinite patience
+as well, he had, without assistance, discovered the purpose of the
+little bugs which ran riot upon the printed pages.  He had learned that
+in the many combinations in which he found them they spoke in a silent
+language, spoke in a strange tongue, spoke of wonderful things which a
+little ape-boy could not by any chance fully understand, arousing his
+curiosity, stimulating his imagination and filling his soul with a
+mighty longing for further knowledge.
+</P>
+<P>
+A dictionary had proven itself a wonderful storehouse of information,
+when, after several years of tireless endeavor, he had solved the
+mystery of its purpose and the manner of its use.  He had learned to
+make a species of game out of it, following up the spoor of a new
+thought through the mazes of the many definitions which each new word
+required him to consult.  It was like following a quarry through the
+jungle&mdash;it was hunting, and Tarzan of the Apes was an indefatigable
+huntsman.
+</P>
+<P>
+There were, of course, certain words which aroused his curiosity to a
+greater extent than others, words which, for one reason or another,
+excited his imagination.  There was one, for example, the meaning of
+which was rather difficult to grasp.  It was the word GOD.  Tarzan
+first had been attracted to it by the fact that it was very short and
+that it commenced with a larger g-bug than those about it&mdash;a male g-bug
+it was to Tarzan, the lower-case letters being females.  Another fact
+which attracted him to this word was the number of he-bugs which
+figured in its definition&mdash;Supreme Deity, Creator or Upholder of the
+Universe.  This must be a very important word indeed, he would have to
+look into it, and he did, though it still baffled him after many months
+of thought and study.
+</P>
+<P>
+However, Tarzan counted no time wasted which he devoted to these
+strange hunting expeditions into the game preserves of knowledge, for
+each word and each definition led on and on into strange places, into
+new worlds where, with increasing frequency, he met old, familiar
+faces.  And always he added to his store of knowledge.
+</P>
+<P>
+But of the meaning of GOD he was yet in doubt.  Once he thought he had
+grasped it&mdash;that God was a mighty chieftain, king of all the Mangani.
+He was not quite sure, however, since that would mean that God was
+mightier than Tarzan&mdash;a point which Tarzan of the Apes, who
+acknowledged no equal in the jungle, was loath to concede.
+</P>
+<P>
+But in all the books he had there was no picture of God, though he
+found much to confirm his belief that God was a great, an all-powerful
+individual.  He saw pictures of places where God was worshiped; but
+never any sign of God.  Finally he began to wonder if God were not of a
+different form than he, and at last he determined to set out in search
+of Him.
+</P>
+<P>
+He commenced by questioning Mumga, who was very old and had seen many
+strange things in her long life; but Mumga, being an ape, had a faculty
+for recalling the trivial.  That time when Gunto mistook a sting-bug
+for an edible beetle had made more impression upon Mumga than all the
+innumerable manifestations of the greatness of God which she had
+witnessed, and which, of course, she had not understood.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numgo, overhearing Tarzan's questions, managed to wrest his attention
+long enough from the diversion of flea hunting to advance the theory
+that the power which made the lightning and the rain and the thunder
+came from Goro, the moon.  He knew this, he said, because the Dum-Dum
+always was danced in the light of Goro.  This reasoning, though
+entirely satisfactory to Numgo and Mumga, failed fully to convince
+Tarzan.  However, it gave him a basis for further investigation along a
+new line.  He would investigate the moon.
+</P>
+<P>
+That night he clambered to the loftiest pinnacle of the tallest jungle
+giant.  The moon was full, a great, glorious, equatorial moon.  The
+ape-man, upright upon a slender, swaying limb, raised his bronzed face
+to the silver orb.  Now that he had clambered to the highest point
+within his reach, he discovered, to his surprise, that Goro was as far
+away as when he viewed him from the ground.  He thought that Goro was
+attempting to elude him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Come, Goro!" he cried, "Tarzan of the Apes will not harm you!" But
+still the moon held aloof.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tell me," he continued, "if you be the great king who sends Ara, the
+lightning; who makes the great noise and the mighty winds, and sends
+the waters down upon the jungle people when the days are dark and it is
+cold.  Tell me, Goro, are you God?"
+</P>
+<P>
+Of course he did not pronounce God as you or I would pronounce His
+name, for Tarzan knew naught of the spoken language of his English
+forbears; but he had a name of his own invention for each of the little
+bugs which constituted the alphabet.  Unlike the apes he was not
+satisfied merely to have a mental picture of the things he knew, he
+must have a word descriptive of each.  In reading he grasped a word in
+its entirety; but when he spoke the words he had learned from the books
+of his father, he pronounced each according to the names he had given
+the various little bugs which occurred in it, usually giving the gender
+prefix for each.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thus it was an imposing word which Tarzan made of GOD.  The masculine
+prefix of the apes is BU, the feminine MU; g Tarzan had named LA, o he
+pronounced TU, and d was MO. So the word God evolved itself into
+BULAMUTUMUMO, or, in English, he-g-she-o-she-d.
+</P>
+<P>
+Similarly he had arrived at a strange and wonderful spelling of his own
+name.  Tarzan is derived from the two ape words TAR and ZAN, meaning
+white skin.  It was given him by his foster mother, Kala, the great
+she-ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of his own
+people he had not yet chanced upon either WHITE or SKIN in the
+dictionary; but in a primer he had seen the picture of a little white
+boy and so he wrote his name BUMUDE-MUTOMURO, or he-boy.
+</P>
+<P>
+To follow Tarzan's strange system of spelling would be laborious as
+well as futile, and so we shall in the future, as we have in the past,
+adhere to the more familiar forms of our grammar school copybooks.  It
+would tire you to remember that DO meant b, TU o, and RO y, and that to
+say he-boy you must prefix the ape masculine gender sound BU before the
+entire word and the feminine gender sound MU before each of the
+lower-case letters which go to make up boy&mdash;it would tire you and it
+would bring me to the nineteenth hole several strokes under par.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so Tarzan harangued the moon, and when Goro did not reply, Tarzan
+of the Apes waxed wroth.  He swelled his giant chest and bared his
+fighting fangs, and hurled into the teeth of the dead satellite the
+challenge of the bull ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+"You are not Bulamutumumo," he cried.  "You are not king of the jungle
+folk.  You are not so great as Tarzan, mighty fighter, mighty hunter.
+None there is so great as Tarzan.  If there be a Bulamutumumo, Tarzan
+can kill him.  Come down, Goro, great coward, and fight with Tarzan.
+Tarzan will kill you.  I am Tarzan, the killer."
+</P>
+<P>
+But the moon made no answer to the boasting of the ape-man, and when a
+cloud came and obscured her face, Tarzan thought that Goro was indeed
+afraid, and was hiding from him, so he came down out of the trees and
+awoke Numgo and told him how great was Tarzan&mdash;how he had frightened
+Goro out of the sky and made him tremble.  Tarzan spoke of the moon as
+HE, for all things large or awe inspiring are male to the ape folk.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numgo was not much impressed; but he was very sleepy, so he told Tarzan
+to go away and leave his betters alone.
+</P>
+<P>
+"But where shall I find God?" insisted Tarzan.  "You are very old; if
+there is a God you must have seen Him.  What does He look like? Where
+does He live?"
+</P>
+<P>
+"I am God," replied Numgo.  "Now sleep and disturb me no more."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan looked at Numgo steadily for several minutes, his shapely head
+sank just a trifle between his great shoulders, his square chin shot
+forward and his short upper lip drew back, exposing his white teeth.
+Then, with a low growl he leaped upon the ape and buried his fangs in
+the other's hairy shoulder, clutching the great neck in his mighty
+fingers.  Twice he shook the old ape, then he released his tooth-hold.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Are you God?" he demanded.
+</P>
+<P>
+"No," wailed Numgo.  "I am only a poor, old ape.  Leave me alone.  Go
+ask the Gomangani where God is.  They are hairless like yourself and
+very wise, too.  They should know."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan released Numgo and turned away.  The suggestion that he consult
+the blacks appealed to him, and though his relations with the people of
+Mbonga, the chief, were the antithesis of friendly, he could at least
+spy upon his hated enemies and discover if they had intercourse with
+God.
+</P>
+<P>
+So it was that Tarzan set forth through the trees toward the village of
+the blacks, all excitement at the prospect of discovering the Supreme
+Being, the Creator of all things.  As he traveled he reviewed,
+mentally, his armament&mdash;the condition of his hunting knife, the number
+of his arrows, the newness of the gut which strung his bow&mdash;he hefted
+the war spear which had once been the pride of some black warrior of
+Mbonga's tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+If he met God, Tarzan would be prepared.  One could never tell whether
+a grass rope, a war spear, or a poisoned arrow would be most
+efficacious against an unfamiliar foe.  Tarzan of the Apes was quite
+content&mdash;if God wished to fight, the ape-man had no doubt as to the
+outcome of the struggle.  There were many questions Tarzan wished to
+put to the Creator of the Universe and so he hoped that God would not
+prove a belligerent God; but his experience of life and the ways of
+living things had taught him that any creature with the means for
+offense and defense was quite likely to provoke attack if in the proper
+mood.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was dark when Tarzan came to the village of Mbonga.  As silently as
+the silent shadows of the night he sought his accustomed place among
+the branches of the great tree which overhung the palisade.  Below him,
+in the village street, he saw men and women.  The men were hideously
+painted&mdash;more hideously than usual.  Among them moved a weird and
+grotesque figure, a tall figure that went upon the two legs of a man
+and yet had the head of a buffalo.  A tail dangled to his ankles behind
+him, and in one hand he carried a zebra's tail while the other clutched
+a bunch of small arrows.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan was electrified.  Could it be that chance had given him thus
+early an opportunity to look upon God? Surely this thing was neither
+man nor beast, so what could it be then other than the Creator of the
+Universe! The ape-man watched the every move of the strange creature.
+He saw the black men and women fall back at its approach as though they
+stood in terror of its mysterious powers.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently he discovered that the deity was speaking and that all
+listened in silence to his words.  Tarzan was sure that none other than
+God could inspire such awe in the hearts of the Gomangani, or stop
+their mouths so effectually without recourse to arrows or spears.
+Tarzan had come to look with contempt upon the blacks, principally
+because of their garrulity.  The small apes talked a great deal and ran
+away from an enemy.  The big, old bulls of Kerchak talked but little
+and fought upon the slightest provocation.  Numa, the lion, was not
+given to loquacity, yet of all the jungle folk there were few who
+fought more often than he.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan witnessed strange things that night, none of which he
+understood, and, perhaps because they were strange, he thought that
+they must have to do with the God he could not understand.  He saw
+three youths receive their first war spears in a weird ceremony which
+the grotesque witch-doctor strove successfully to render uncanny and
+awesome.
+</P>
+<P>
+Hugely interested, he watched the slashing of the three brown arms and
+the exchange of blood with Mbonga, the chief, in the rites of the
+ceremony of blood brotherhood.  He saw the zebra's tail dipped into a
+caldron of water above which the witch-doctor had made magical passes
+the while he danced and leaped about it, and he saw the breasts and
+foreheads of each of the three novitiates sprinkled with the charmed
+liquid.  Could the ape-man have known the purpose of this act, that it
+was intended to render the recipient invulnerable to the attacks of his
+enemies and fearless in the face of any danger, he would doubtless have
+leaped into the village street and appropriated the zebra's tail and a
+portion of the contents of the caldron.
+</P>
+<P>
+But he did not know, and so he only wondered, not alone at what he saw
+but at the strange sensations which played up and down his naked spine,
+sensations induced, doubtless, by the same hypnotic influence which
+held the black spectators in tense awe upon the verge of a hysteric
+upheaval.
+</P>
+<P>
+The longer Tarzan watched, the more convinced he became that his eyes
+were upon God, and with the conviction came determination to have word
+with the deity.  With Tarzan of the Apes, to think was to act.
+</P>
+<P>
+The people of Mbonga were keyed to the highest pitch of hysterical
+excitement.  They needed little to release the accumulated pressure of
+static nerve force which the terrorizing mummery of the witch-doctor
+had induced.
+</P>
+<P>
+A lion roared, suddenly and loud, close without the palisade.  The
+blacks started nervously, dropping into utter silence as they listened
+for a repetition of that all-too-familiar and always terrorizing voice.
+Even the witch-doctor paused in the midst of an intricate step,
+remaining momentarily rigid and statuesque as he plumbed his cunning
+mind for a suggestion as how best he might take advantage of the
+condition of his audience and the timely interruption.
+</P>
+<P>
+Already the evening had been vastly profitable to him.  There would be
+three goats for the initiation of the three youths into full-fledged
+warriorship, and besides these he had received several gifts of grain
+and beads, together with a piece of copper wire from admiring and
+terrified members of his audience.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa's roar still reverberated along taut nerves when a woman's laugh,
+shrill and piercing, shattered the silence of the village.  It was this
+moment that Tarzan chose to drop lightly from his tree into the village
+street.  Fearless among his blood enemies he stood, taller by a full
+head than many of Mbonga's warriors, straight as their straightest
+arrow, muscled like Numa, the lion.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a moment Tarzan stood looking straight at the witch-doctor. Every
+eye was upon him, yet no one had moved&mdash;a paralysis of terror held
+them, to be broken a moment later as the ape-man, with a toss of head,
+stepped straight toward the hideous figure beneath the buffalo head.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then the nerves of the blacks could stand no more.  For months the
+terror of the strange, white, jungle god had been upon them.  Their
+arrows had been stolen from the very center of the village; their
+warriors had been silently slain upon the jungle trails and their dead
+bodies dropped mysteriously and by night into the village street as
+from the heavens above.
+</P>
+<P>
+One or two there were who had glimpsed the strange figure of the new
+demon and it was from their oft-repeated descriptions that the entire
+village now recognized Tarzan as the author of many of their ills.
+Upon another occasion and by daylight, the warriors would doubtless
+have leaped to attack him, but at night, and this night of all others,
+when they were wrought to such a pitch of nervous dread by the uncanny
+artistry of their witch-doctor, they were helpless with terror.  As one
+man they turned and fled, scattering for their huts, as Tarzan
+advanced.  For a moment one and one only held his ground.  It was the
+witch-doctor. More than half self-hypnotized into a belief in his own
+charlatanry he faced this new demon who threatened to undermine his
+ancient and lucrative profession.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+"Are you God?" asked Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+The witch-doctor, having no idea of the meaning of the other's words,
+danced a few strange steps, leaped high in the air, turning completely
+around and alighting in a stooping posture with feet far outspread and
+head thrust out toward the ape-man. Thus he remained for an instant
+before he uttered a loud "Boo!" which was evidently intended to
+frighten Tarzan away; but in reality had no such effect.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan did not pause.  He had set out to approach and examine God and
+nothing upon earth might now stay his feet.  Seeing that his antics had
+no potency with the visitor, the witch-doctor tried some new medicine.
+Spitting upon the zebra's tail, which he still clutched in one hand, he
+made circles above it with the arrows in the other hand, meanwhile
+backing cautiously away from Tarzan and speaking confidentially to the
+bushy end of the tail.
+</P>
+<P>
+This medicine must be short medicine, however, for the creature, god or
+demon, was steadily closing up the distance which had separated them.
+The circles therefore were few and rapid, and when they were completed,
+the witch-doctor struck an attitude which was intended to be awe
+inspiring and waving the zebra's tail before him, drew an imaginary
+line between himself and Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Beyond this line you cannot pass, for my medicine is strong medicine,"
+he cried.  "Stop, or you will fall dead as your foot touches this spot.
+My mother was a voodoo, my father was a snake; I live upon lions'
+hearts and the entrails of the panther; I eat young babies for
+breakfast and the demons of the jungle are my slaves.  I am the most
+powerful witch-doctor in the world; I fear nothing, for I cannot die.
+I&mdash;" But he got no further; instead he turned and fled as Tarzan of the
+Apes crossed the magical dead line and still lived.
+</P>
+<P>
+As the witch-doctor ran, Tarzan almost lost his temper.  This was no
+way for God to act, at least not in accordance with the conception
+Tarzan had come to have of God.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Come back!" he cried.  "Come back, God, I will not harm you." But the
+witch-doctor was in full retreat by this time, stepping high as he
+leaped over cooking pots and the smoldering embers of small fires that
+had burned before the huts of villagers.  Straight for his own hut ran
+the witch-doctor, terror-spurred to unwonted speed; but futile was his
+effort&mdash;the ape-man bore down upon him with the speed of Bara, the deer.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just at the entrance to his hut the witch-doctor was overhauled.  A
+heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him back.  It seized upon a
+portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from him.  It was a
+naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the hut's
+interior.
+</P>
+<P>
+So this was what he had thought was God! Tarzan's lip curled in an
+angry snarl as he leaped into the hut after the terror-stricken
+witch-doctor. In the blackness within he found the man huddled at the
+far side and dragged him forth into the comparative lightness of the
+moonlit night.
+</P>
+<P>
+The witch-doctor bit and scratched in an attempt to escape; but a few
+cuffs across the head brought him to a better realization of the
+futility of resistance.  Beneath the moon Tarzan held the cringing
+figure upon its shaking feet.
+</P>
+<P>
+"So you are God!" he cried.  "If you be God, then Tarzan is greater
+than God," and so the ape-man thought.  "I am Tarzan," he shouted into
+the ear of the black.  "In all the jungle, or above it, or upon the
+running waters, or the sleeping waters, or upon the big water, or the
+little water, there is none so great as Tarzan.  Tarzan is greater than
+the Mangani; he is greater than the Gomangani.  With his own hands he
+has slain Numa, the lion, and Sheeta, the panther; there is none so
+great as Tarzan.  Tarzan is greater than God.  See!" and with a sudden
+wrench he twisted the black's neck until the fellow shrieked in pain
+and then slumped to the earth in a swoon.
+</P>
+<P>
+Placing his foot upon the neck of the fallen witch-doctor, the ape-man
+raised his face to the moon and uttered the long, shrill scream of the
+victorious bull ape.  Then he stooped and snatched the zebra's tail
+from the nerveless fingers of the unconscious man and without a
+backward glance retraced his footsteps across the village.
+</P>
+<P>
+From several hut doorways frightened eyes watched him.  Mbonga, the
+chief, was one of those who had seen what passed before the hut of the
+witch-doctor. Mbonga was greatly concerned.  Wise old patriarch that he
+was, he never had more than half believed in witch-doctors, at least
+not since greater wisdom had come with age; but as a chief he was well
+convinced of the power of the witch-doctor as an arm of government, and
+often it was that Mbonga used the superstitious fears of his people to
+his own ends through the medium of the medicine-man.
+</P>
+<P>
+Mbonga and the witch-doctor had worked together and divided the spoils,
+and now the "face" of the witch-doctor would be lost forever if any saw
+what Mbonga had seen; nor would this generation again have as much
+faith in any future witch-doctor.
+</P>
+<P>
+Mbonga must do something to counteract the evil influence of the forest
+demon's victory over the witch-doctor. He raised his heavy spear and
+crept silently from his hut in the wake of the retreating ape-man. Down
+the village street walked Tarzan, as unconcerned and as deliberate as
+though only the friendly apes of Kerchak surrounded him instead of a
+village full of armed enemies.
+</P>
+<P>
+Seeming only was the indifference of Tarzan, for alert and watchful was
+every well-trained sense.  Mbonga, wily stalker of keen-eared jungle
+creatures, moved now in utter silence.  Not even Bara, the deer, with
+his great ears could have guessed from any sound that Mbonga was near;
+but the black was not stalking Bara; he was stalking man, and so he
+sought only to avoid noise.
+</P>
+<P>
+Closer and closer to the slowly moving ape-man he came.  Now he raised
+his war spear, throwing his spear-hand far back above his right
+shoulder.  Once and for all would Mbonga, the chief, rid himself and
+his people of the menace of this terrifying enemy.  He would make no
+poor cast; he would take pains, and he would hurl his weapon with such
+great force as would finish the demon forever.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Mbonga, sure as he thought himself, erred in his calculations.  He
+might believe that he was stalking a man&mdash;he did not know, however,
+that it was a man with the delicate sense perception of the lower
+orders.  Tarzan, when he had turned his back upon his enemies, had
+noted what Mbonga never would have thought of considering in the
+hunting of man&mdash;the wind.  It was blowing in the same direction that
+Tarzan was proceeding, carrying to his delicate nostrils the odors
+which arose behind him.  Thus it was that Tarzan knew that he was being
+followed, for even among the many stenches of an African village, the
+ape-man's uncanny faculty was equal to the task of differentiating one
+stench from another and locating with remarkable precision the source
+from whence it came.
+</P>
+<P>
+He knew that a man was following him and coming closer, and his
+judgment warned him of the purpose of the stalker.  When Mbonga,
+therefore, came within spear range of the ape-man, the latter suddenly
+wheeled upon him, so suddenly that the poised spear was shot a fraction
+of a second before Mbonga had intended.  It went a trifle high and
+Tarzan stooped to let it pass over his head; then he sprang toward the
+chief.  But Mbonga did not wait to receive him.  Instead, he turned and
+fled for the dark doorway of the nearest hut, calling as he went for
+his warriors to fall upon the stranger and slay him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Well indeed might Mbonga scream for help, for Tarzan, young and
+fleet-footed, covered the distance between them in great leaps, at the
+speed of a charging lion.  He was growling, too, not at all unlike Numa
+himself.  Mbonga heard and his blood ran cold.  He could feel the wool
+stiffen upon his pate and a prickly chill run up his spine, as though
+Death had come and run his cold finger along Mbonga's back.
+</P>
+<P>
+Others heard, too, and saw, from the darkness of their huts&mdash;bold
+warriors, hideously painted, grasping heavy war spears in nerveless
+fingers.  Against Numa, the lion, they would have charged fearlessly.
+Against many times their own number of black warriors would they have
+raced to the protection of their chief; but this weird jungle demon
+filled them with terror.  There was nothing human in the bestial growls
+that rumbled up from his deep chest; there was nothing human in the
+bared fangs, or the catlike leaps.
+</P>
+<P>
+Mbonga's warriors were terrified&mdash;too terrified to leave the seeming
+security of their huts while they watched the beast-man spring full
+upon the back of their old chieftain.
+</P>
+<P>
+Mbonga went down with a scream of terror.  He was too frightened even
+to attempt to defend himself.  He just lay beneath his antagonist in a
+paralysis of fear, screaming at the top of his lungs.  Tarzan half rose
+and kneeled above the black.  He turned Mbonga over and looked him in
+the face, exposing the man's throat, then he drew his long, keen knife,
+the knife that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, had brought from England
+many years before.  He raised it close above Mbonga's neck.  The old
+black whimpered with terror.  He pleaded for his life in a tongue which
+Tarzan could not understand.
+</P>
+<P>
+For the first time the ape-man had a close view of the chief.  He saw
+an old man, a very old man with scrawny neck and wrinkled face&mdash;a
+dried, parchment-like face which resembled some of the little monkeys
+Tarzan knew so well.  He saw the terror in the man's eyes&mdash;never before
+had Tarzan seen such terror in the eyes of any animal, or such a
+piteous appeal for mercy upon the face of any creature.
+</P>
+<P>
+Something stayed the ape-man's hand for an instant.  He wondered why it
+was that he hesitated to make the kill; never before had he thus
+delayed.  The old man seemed to wither and shrink to a bag of puny
+bones beneath his eyes.  So weak and helpless and terror-stricken he
+appeared that the ape-man was filled with a great contempt; but another
+sensation also claimed him&mdash;something new to Tarzan of the Apes in
+relation to an enemy.  It was pity&mdash;pity for a poor, frightened, old
+man.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan rose and turned away, leaving Mbonga, the chief, unharmed.
+</P>
+<P>
+With head held high the ape-man walked through the village, swung
+himself into the branches of the tree which overhung the palisade and
+disappeared from the sight of the villagers.
+</P>
+<P>
+All the way back to the stamping ground of the apes, Tarzan sought for
+an explanation of the strange power which had stayed his hand and
+prevented him from slaying Mbonga.  It was as though someone greater
+than he had commanded him to spare the life of the old man.  Tarzan
+could not understand, for he could conceive of nothing, or no one, with
+the authority to dictate to him what he should do, or what he should
+refrain from doing.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was late when Tarzan sought a swaying couch among the trees beneath
+which slept the apes of Kerchak, and he was still absorbed in the
+solution of his strange problem when he fell asleep.
+</P>
+<P>
+The sun was well up in the heavens when he awoke.  The apes were astir
+in search of food.  Tarzan watched them lazily from above as they
+scratched in the rotting loam for bugs and beetles and grubworms, or
+sought among the branches of the trees for eggs and young birds, or
+luscious caterpillars.
+</P>
+<P>
+An orchid, dangling close beside his head, opened slowly, unfolding its
+delicate petals to the warmth and light of the sun which but recently
+had penetrated to its shady retreat.  A thousand times had Tarzan of
+the Apes witnessed the beauteous miracle; but now it aroused a keener
+interest, for the ape-man was just commencing to ask himself questions
+about all the myriad wonders which heretofore he had but taken for
+granted.
+</P>
+<P>
+What made the flower open? What made it grow from a tiny bud to a
+full-blown bloom? Why was it at all? Why was he?  Where did Numa, the
+lion, come from? Who planted the first tree? How did Goro get way up
+into the darkness of the night sky to cast his welcome light upon the
+fearsome nocturnal jungle? And the sun! Did the sun merely happen there?
+</P>
+<P>
+Why were all the peoples of the jungle not trees? Why were the trees
+not something else? Why was Tarzan different from Taug, and Taug
+different from Bara, the deer, and Bara different from Sheeta, the
+panther, and why was not Sheeta like Buto, the rhinoceros? Where and
+how, anyway, did they all come from&mdash;the trees, the flowers, the
+insects, the countless creatures of the jungle?
+</P>
+<P>
+Quite unexpectedly an idea popped into Tarzan's head.  In following out
+the many ramifications of the dictionary definition of GOD he had come
+upon the word CREATE&mdash;"to cause to come into existence; to form out of
+nothing."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan almost had arrived at something tangible when a distant wail
+startled him from his preoccupation into sensibility of the present and
+the real.  The wail came from the jungle at some little distance from
+Tarzan's swaying couch.  It was the wail of a tiny balu.  Tarzan
+recognized it at once as the voice of Gazan, Teeka's baby.  They had
+called it Gazan because its soft, baby hair had been unusually red, and
+GAZAN in the language of the great apes, means red skin.
+</P>
+<P>
+The wail was immediately followed by a real scream of terror from the
+small lungs.  Tarzan was electrified into instant action.  Like an
+arrow from a bow he shot through the trees in the direction of the
+sound.  Ahead of him he heard the savage snarling of an adult she-ape.
+It was Teeka to the rescue.  The danger must be very real.  Tarzan
+could tell that by the note of rage mingled with fear in the voice of
+the she.
+</P>
+<P>
+Running along bending limbs, swinging from one tree to another, the
+ape-man raced through the middle terraces toward the sounds which now
+had risen in volume to deafening proportions.  From all directions the
+apes of Kerchak were hurrying in response to the appeal in the tones of
+the balu and its mother, and as they came, their roars reverberated
+through the forest.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Tarzan, swifter than his heavy fellows, distanced them all.  It was
+he who was first upon the scene.  What he saw sent a cold chill through
+his giant frame, for the enemy was the most hated and loathed of all
+the jungle creatures.
+</P>
+<P>
+Twined in a great tree was Histah, the snake&mdash;huge, ponderous,
+slimy&mdash;and in the folds of its deadly embrace was Teeka's little balu,
+Gazan.  Nothing in the jungle inspired within the breast of Tarzan so
+near a semblance to fear as did the hideous Histah.  The apes, too,
+loathed the terrifying reptile and feared him even more than they did
+Sheeta, the panther, or Numa, the lion.  Of all their enemies there was
+none they gave a wider berth than they gave Histah, the snake.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan knew that Teeka was peculiarly fearful of this silent, repulsive
+foe, and as the scene broke upon his vision, it was the action of Teeka
+which filled him with the greatest wonder, for at the moment that he
+saw her, the she-ape leaped upon the glistening body of the snake, and
+as the mighty folds encircled her as well as her offspring, she made no
+effort to escape, but instead grasped the writhing body in a futile
+effort to tear it from her screaming balu.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan knew all too well how deep-rooted was Teeka's terror of Histah.
+He scarce could believe the testimony of his own eyes then, when they
+told him that she had voluntarily rushed into that deadly embrace.  Nor
+was Teeka's innate dread of the monster much greater than Tarzan's own.
+Never, willingly, had he touched a snake.  Why, he could not say, for
+he would admit fear of nothing; nor was it fear, but rather an inherent
+repulsion bequeathed to him by many generations of civilized ancestors,
+and back of them, perhaps, by countless myriads of such as Teeka, in
+the breasts of each of which had lurked the same nameless terror of the
+slimy reptile.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yet Tarzan did not hesitate more than had Teeka, but leaped upon Histah
+with all the speed and impetuosity that he would have shown had he been
+springing upon Bara, the deer, to make a kill for food.  Thus beset the
+snake writhed and twisted horribly; but not for an instant did it loose
+its hold upon any of its intended victims, for it had included the
+ape-man in its cold embrace the minute that he had fallen upon it.
+</P>
+<P>
+Still clinging to the tree, the mighty reptile held the three as though
+they had been without weight, the while it sought to crush the life
+from them.  Tarzan had drawn his knife and this he now plunged rapidly
+into the body of the enemy; but the encircling folds promised to sap
+his life before he had inflicted a death wound upon the snake.  Yet on
+he fought, nor once did he seek to escape the horrid death that
+confronted him&mdash;his sole aim was to slay Histah and thus free Teeka and
+her balu.
+</P>
+<P>
+The great, wide-gaping jaws of the snake turned and hovered above him.
+The elastic maw, which could accommodate a rabbit or a horned buck with
+equal facility, yawned for him; but Histah, in turning his attention
+upon the ape-man, brought his head within reach of Tarzan's blade.
+Instantly a brown hand leaped forth and seized the mottled neck, and
+another drove the heavy hunting knife to the hilt into the little brain.
+</P>
+<P>
+Convulsively Histah shuddered and relaxed, tensed and relaxed again,
+whipping and striking with his great body; but no longer sentient or
+sensible.  Histah was dead, but in his death throes he might easily
+dispatch a dozen apes or men.
+</P>
+<P>
+Quickly Tarzan seized Teeka and dragged her from the loosened embrace,
+dropping her to the ground beneath, then he extricated the balu and
+tossed it to its mother.  Still Histah whipped about, clinging to the
+ape-man; but after a dozen efforts Tarzan succeeded in wriggling free
+and leaping to the ground out of range of the mighty battering of the
+dying snake.
+</P>
+<P>
+A circle of apes surrounded the scene of the battle; but the moment
+that Tarzan broke safely from the enemy they turned silently away to
+resume their interrupted feeding, and Teeka turned with them,
+apparently forgetful of all but her balu and the fact that when the
+interruption had occurred she just had discovered an ingeniously hidden
+nest containing three perfectly good eggs.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan, equally indifferent to a battle that was over, merely cast a
+parting glance at the still writhing body of Histah and wandered off
+toward the little pool which served to water the tribe at this point.
+Strangely, he did not give the victory cry over the vanquished Histah.
+Why, he could not have told you, other than that to him Histah was not
+an animal.  He differed in some peculiar way from the other denizens of
+the jungle.  Tarzan only knew that he hated him.
+</P>
+<P>
+At the pool Tarzan drank his fill and lay stretched upon the soft grass
+beneath the shade of a tree.  His mind reverted to the battle with
+Histah, the snake.  It seemed strange to him that Teeka should have
+placed herself within the folds of the horrid monster.  Why had she
+done it? Why, indeed, had he? Teeka did not belong to him, nor did
+Teeka's balu.  They were both Taug's. Why then had he done this thing?
+Histah was not food for him when he was dead.  There seemed to Tarzan,
+now that he gave the matter thought, no reason in the world why he
+should have done the thing he did, and presently it occurred to him
+that he had acted almost involuntarily, just as he had acted when he
+had released the old Gomangani the previous evening.
+</P>
+<P>
+What made him do such things? Somebody more powerful than he must force
+him to act at times.  "All-powerful," thought Tarzan.  "The little bugs
+say that God is all-powerful. It must be that God made me do these
+things, for I never did them by myself.  It was God who made Teeka rush
+upon Histah.  Teeka would never go near Histah of her own volition.  It
+was God who held my knife from the throat of the old Gomangani.  God
+accomplishes strange things for he is 'all-powerful.' I cannot see Him;
+but I know that it must be God who does these things.  No Mangani, no
+Gomangani, no Tarmangani could do them."
+</P>
+<P>
+And the flowers&mdash;who made them grow? Ah, now it was all explained&mdash;the
+flowers, the trees, the moon, the sun, himself, every living creature
+in the jungle&mdash;they were all made by God out of nothing.
+</P>
+<P>
+And what was God? What did God look like? Of that he had no conception;
+but he was sure that everything that was good came from God.  His good
+act in refraining from slaying the poor, defenseless old Gomangani;
+Teeka's love that had hurled her into the embrace of death; his own
+loyalty to Teeka which had jeopardized his life that she might live.
+The flowers and the trees were good and beautiful.  God had made them.
+He made the other creatures, too, that each might have food upon which
+to live.  He had made Sheeta, the panther, with his beautiful coat; and
+Numa, the lion, with his noble head and his shaggy mane.  He had made
+Bara, the deer, lovely and graceful.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yes, Tarzan had found God, and he spent the whole day in attributing to
+Him all of the good and beautiful things of nature; but there was one
+thing which troubled him.  He could not quite reconcile it to his
+conception of his new-found God.
+</P>
+<P>
+Who made Histah, the snake?
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Tarzan and the Black Boy
+</H3>
+<P>
+TARZAN OF THE Apes sat at the foot of a great tree braiding a new grass
+rope.  Beside him lay the frayed remnants of the old one, torn and
+severed by the fangs and talons of Sheeta, the panther.  Only half the
+original rope was there, the balance having been carried off by the
+angry cat as he bounded away through the jungle with the noose still
+about his savage neck and the loose end dragging among the underbrush.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan smiled as he recalled Sheeta's great rage, his frantic efforts
+to free himself from the entangling strands, his uncanny screams that
+were part hate, part anger, part terror.  He smiled in retrospection at
+the discomfiture of his enemy, and in anticipation of another day as he
+added an extra strand to his new rope.
+</P>
+<P>
+This would be the strongest, the heaviest rope that Tarzan of the Apes
+ever had fashioned.  Visions of Numa, the lion, straining futilely in
+its embrace thrilled the ape-man. He was quite content, for his hands
+and his brain were busy.  Content, too, were his fellows of the tribe
+of Kerchak, searching for food in the clearing and the surrounding
+trees about him.  No perplexing thoughts of the future burdened their
+minds, and only occasionally, dimly arose recollections of the near
+past.  They were stimulated to a species of brutal content by the
+delectable business of filling their bellies.  Afterward they would
+sleep&mdash;it was their life, and they enjoyed it as we enjoy ours, you and
+I&mdash;as Tarzan enjoyed his.  Possibly they enjoyed theirs more than we
+enjoy ours, for who shall say that the beasts of the jungle do not
+better fulfill the purposes for which they are created than does man
+with his many excursions into strange fields and his contraventions of
+the laws of nature? And what gives greater content and greater
+happiness than the fulfilling of a destiny?
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan worked, Gazan, Teeka's little balu, played about him while
+Teeka sought food upon the opposite side of the clearing.  No more did
+Teeka, the mother, or Taug, the sullen sire, harbor suspicions of
+Tarzan's intentions toward their first-born. Had he not courted death
+to save their Gazan from the fangs and talons of Sheeta? Did he not
+fondle and cuddle the little one with even as great a show of affection
+as Teeka herself displayed? Their fears were allayed and Tarzan now
+found himself often in the role of nursemaid to a tiny anthropoid&mdash;an
+avocation which he found by no means irksome, since Gazan was a
+never-failing fount of surprises and entertainment.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just now the apeling was developing those arboreal tendencies which
+were to stand him in such good stead during the years of his youth,
+when rapid flight into the upper terraces was of far more importance
+and value than his undeveloped muscles and untried fighting fangs.
+Backing off fifteen or twenty feet from the bole of the tree beneath
+the branches of which Tarzan worked upon his rope, Gazan scampered
+quickly forward, scrambling nimbly upward to the lower limbs.  Here he
+would squat for a moment or two, quite proud of his achievement, then
+clamber to the ground again and repeat.  Sometimes, quite often in
+fact, for he was an ape, his attention was distracted by other things,
+a beetle, a caterpillar, a tiny field mouse, and off he would go in
+pursuit; the caterpillars he always caught, and sometimes the beetles;
+but the field mice, never.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now he discovered the tail of the rope upon which Tarzan was working.
+Grasping it in one small hand he bounced away, for all the world like
+an animated rubber ball, snatching it from the ape-man's hand and
+running off across the clearing.  Tarzan leaped to his feet and was in
+pursuit in an instant, no trace of anger on his face or in his voice as
+he called to the roguish little balu to drop his rope.
+</P>
+<P>
+Straight toward his mother raced Gazan, and after him came Tarzan.
+Teeka looked up from her feeding, and in the first instant that she
+realized that Gazan was fleeing and that another was in pursuit, she
+bared her fangs and bristled; but when she saw that the pursuer was
+Tarzan she turned back to the business that had been occupying her
+attention.  At her very feet the ape-man overhauled the balu and,
+though the youngster squealed and fought when Tarzan seized him, Teeka
+only glanced casually in their direction.  No longer did she fear harm
+to her first-born at the hands of the ape-man. Had he not saved Gazan
+on two occasions?
+</P>
+<P>
+Rescuing his rope, Tarzan returned to his tree and resumed his labor;
+but thereafter it was necessary to watch carefully the playful balu,
+who was now possessed to steal it whenever he thought his great,
+smooth-skinned cousin was momentarily off his guard.
+</P>
+<P>
+But even under this handicap Tarzan finally completed the rope, a long,
+pliant weapon, stronger than any he ever had made before.  The
+discarded piece of his former one he gave to Gazan for a plaything, for
+Tarzan had it in his mind to instruct Teeka's balu after ideas of his
+own when the youngster should be old and strong enough to profit by his
+precepts.  At present the little ape's innate aptitude for mimicry
+would be sufficient to familiarize him with Tarzan's ways and weapons,
+and so the ape-man swung off into the jungle, his new rope coiled over
+one shoulder, while little Gazan hopped about the clearing dragging the
+old one after him in childish glee.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan traveled, dividing his quest for food with one for a
+sufficiently noble quarry whereupon to test his new weapon, his mind
+often was upon Gazan.  The ape-man had realized a deep affection for
+Teeka's balu almost from the first, partly because the child belonged
+to Teeka, his first love, and partly for the little ape's own sake, and
+Tarzan's human longing for some sentient creature upon which to expend
+those natural affections of the soul which are inherent to all normal
+members of the GENUS HOMO. Tarzan envied Teeka.  It was true that Gazan
+evidenced a considerable reciprocation of Tarzan's fondness for him,
+even preferring him to his own surly sire; but to Teeka the little one
+turned when in pain or terror, when tired or hungry.  Then it was that
+Tarzan felt quite alone in the world and longed desperately for one who
+should turn first to him for succor and protection.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug had Teeka; Teeka had Gazan; and nearly every other bull and cow of
+the tribe of Kerchak had one or more to love and by whom to be loved.
+Of course Tarzan could scarcely formulate the thought in precisely this
+way&mdash;he only knew that he craved something which was denied him;
+something which seemed to be represented by those relations which
+existed between Teeka and her balu, and so he envied Teeka and longed
+for a balu of his own.
+</P>
+<P>
+He saw Sheeta and his mate with their little family of three; and
+deeper inland toward the rocky hills, where one might lie up during the
+heat of the day, in the dense shade of a tangled thicket close under
+the cool face of an overhanging rock, Tarzan had found the lair of
+Numa, the lion, and of Sabor, the lioness.  Here he had watched them
+with their little balus&mdash;playful creatures, spotted leopard-like. And
+he had seen the young fawn with Bara, the deer, and with Buto, the
+rhinoceros, its ungainly little one.  Each of the creatures of the
+jungle had its own&mdash;except Tarzan.  It made the ape-man sad to think
+upon this thing, sad and lonely; but presently the scent of game
+cleared his young mind of all other considerations, as catlike he
+crawled far out upon a bending limb above the game trail which led down
+to the ancient watering place of the wild things of this wild world.
+</P>
+<P>
+How many thousands of times had this great, old limb bent to the savage
+form of some blood-thirsty hunter in the long years that it had spread
+its leafy branches above the deep-worn jungle path! Tarzan, the
+ape-man, Sheeta, the panther, and Histah, the snake, it knew well.
+They had worn smooth the bark upon its upper surface.
+</P>
+<P>
+Today it was Horta, the boar, which came down toward the watcher in the
+old tree&mdash;Horta, the boar, whose formidable tusks and diabolical temper
+preserved him from all but the most ferocious or most famished of the
+largest carnivora.
+</P>
+<P>
+But to Tarzan, meat was meat; naught that was edible or tasty might
+pass a hungry Tarzan unchallenged and unattacked.  In hunger, as in
+battle, the ape-man out-savaged the dreariest denizens of the jungle.
+He knew neither fear nor mercy, except upon rare occasions when some
+strange, inexplicable force stayed his hand&mdash;a force inexplicable to
+him, perhaps, because of his ignorance of his own origin and of all the
+forces of humanitarianism and civilization that were his rightful
+heritage because of that origin.
+</P>
+<P>
+So today, instead of staying his hand until a less formidable feast
+found its way toward him, Tarzan dropped his new noose about the neck
+of Horta, the boar.  It was an excellent test for the untried strands.
+The angered boar bolted this way and that; but each time the new rope
+held him where Tarzan had made it fast about the stem of the tree above
+the branch from which he had cast it.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Horta grunted and charged, slashing the sturdy jungle patriarch with
+his mighty tusks until the bark flew in every direction, Tarzan dropped
+to the ground behind him.  In the ape-man's hand was the long, keen
+blade that had been his constant companion since that distant day upon
+which chance had directed its point into the body of Bolgani, the
+gorilla, and saved the torn and bleeding man-child from what else had
+been certain death.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan walked in toward Horta, who swung now to face his enemy.  Mighty
+and muscled as was the young giant, it yet would have appeared but the
+maddest folly for him to face so formidable a creature as Horta, the
+boar, armed only with a slender hunting knife.  So it would have seemed
+to one who knew Horta even slightly and Tarzan not at all.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a moment Horta stood motionless facing the ape-man.  His wicked,
+deep-set eyes flashed angrily.  He shook his lowered head.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Mud-eater!" jeered the ape-man. "Wallower in filth.  Even your meat
+stinks, but it is juicy and makes Tarzan strong.  Today I shall eat
+your heart, O Lord of the Great Tusks, that it shall keep savage that
+which pounds against my own ribs."
+</P>
+<P>
+Horta, understanding nothing of what Tarzan said, was none the less
+enraged because of that.  He saw only a naked man-thing, hairless and
+futile, pitting his puny fangs and soft muscles against his own
+indomitable savagery, and he charged.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan of the Apes waited until the upcut of a wicked tusk would have
+laid open his thigh, then he moved&mdash;just the least bit to one side; but
+so quickly that lightning was a sluggard by comparison, and as he
+moved, he stooped low and with all the great power of his right arm
+drove the long blade of his father's hunting knife straight into the
+heart of Horta, the boar.  A quick leap carried him from the zone of
+the creature's death throes, and a moment later the hot and dripping
+heart of Horta was in his grasp.
+</P>
+<P>
+His hunger satisfied, Tarzan did not seek a lying-up place for sleep,
+as was sometimes his way, but continued on through the jungle more in
+search of adventure than of food, for today he was restless.  And so it
+came that he turned his footsteps toward the village of Mbonga, the
+black chief, whose people Tarzan had baited remorselessly since that
+day upon which Kulonga, the chief's son, had slain Kala.
+</P>
+<P>
+A river winds close beside the village of the black men.  Tarzan
+reached its side a little below the clearing where squat the thatched
+huts of the Negroes.  The river life was ever fascinating to the
+ape-man. He found pleasure in watching the ungainly antics of Duro, the
+hippopotamus, and keen sport in tormenting the sluggish crocodile,
+Gimla, as he basked in the sun.  Then, too, there were the shes and the
+balus of the black men of the Gomangani to frighten as they squatted by
+the river, the shes with their meager washing, the balus with their
+primitive toys.
+</P>
+<P>
+This day he came upon a woman and her child farther down stream than
+usual.  The former was searching for a species of shellfish which was
+to be found in the mud close to the river bank.  She was a young black
+woman of about thirty.  Her teeth were filed to sharp points, for her
+people ate the flesh of man.  Her under lip was slit that it might
+support a rude pendant of copper which she had worn for so many years
+that the lip had been dragged downward to prodigious lengths, exposing
+the teeth and gums of her lower jaw.  Her nose, too, was slit, and
+through the slit was a wooden skewer.  Metal ornaments dangled from her
+ears, and upon her forehead and cheeks; upon her chin and the bridge of
+her nose were tattooings in colors that were mellowed now by age.  She
+was naked except for a girdle of grasses about her waist.  Altogether
+she was very beautiful in her own estimation and even in the estimation
+of the men of Mbonga's tribe, though she was of another people&mdash;a
+trophy of war seized in her maidenhood by one of Mbonga's fighting men.
+</P>
+<P>
+Her child was a boy of ten, lithe, straight and, for a black, handsome.
+Tarzan looked upon the two from the concealing foliage of a near-by
+bush.  He was about to leap forth before them with a terrifying scream,
+that he might enjoy the spectacle of their terror and their incontinent
+flight; but of a sudden a new whim seized him.  Here was a balu
+fashioned as he himself was fashioned.  Of course this one's skin was
+black; but what of it?  Tarzan had never seen a white man.  In so far
+as he knew, he was the sole representative of that strange form of life
+upon the earth.  The black boy should make an excellent balu for
+Tarzan, since he had none of his own.  He would tend him carefully,
+feed him well, protect him as only Tarzan of the Apes could protect his
+own, and teach him out of his half human, half bestial lore the secrets
+of the jungle from its rotting surface vegetation to the high tossed
+pinnacles of the forest's upper terraces.
+</P>
+<P>
+* * *
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan uncoiled his rope, and shook out the noose.  The two before him,
+all ignorant of the near presence of that terrifying form, continued
+preoccupied in the search for shellfish, poking about in the mud with
+short sticks.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan stepped from the jungle behind them; his noose lay open upon the
+ground beside him.  There was a quick movement of the right arm and the
+noose rose gracefully into the air, hovered an instant above the head
+of the unsuspecting youth, then settled.  As it encompassed his body
+below the shoulders, Tarzan gave a quick jerk that tightened it about
+the boy's arms, pinioning them to his sides.  A scream of terror broke
+from the lad's lips, and as his mother turned, affrighted at his cry,
+she saw him being dragged quickly toward a great white giant who stood
+just beneath the shade of a near-by tree, scarcely a dozen long paces
+from her.
+</P>
+<P>
+With a savage cry of terror and rage, the woman leaped fearlessly
+toward the ape-man. In her mien Tarzan saw determination and courage
+which would shrink not even from death itself.  She was very hideous
+and frightful even when her face was in repose; but convulsed by
+passion, her expression became terrifyingly fiendish.  Even the ape-man
+drew back, but more in revulsion than fear&mdash;fear he knew not.
+</P>
+<P>
+Biting and kicking was the black she's balu as Tarzan tucked him
+beneath his arm and vanished into the branches hanging low above him,
+just as the infuriated mother dashed forward to seize and do battle
+with him.  And as he melted away into the depth of the jungle with his
+still struggling prize, he meditated upon the possibilities which might
+lie in the prowess of the Gomangani were the hes as formidable as the
+shes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Once at a safe distance from the despoiled mother and out of earshot of
+her screams and menaces, Tarzan paused to inspect his prize, now so
+thoroughly terrorized that he had ceased his struggles and his outcries.
+</P>
+<P>
+The frightened child rolled his eyes fearfully toward his captor, until
+the whites showed gleaming all about the irises.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I am Tarzan," said the ape-man, in the vernacular of the anthropoids.
+"I will not harm you.  You are to be Tarzan's balu.  Tarzan will
+protect you.  He will feed you.  The best in the jungle shall be for
+Tarzan's balu, for Tarzan is a mighty hunter.  None need you fear, not
+even Numa, the lion, for Tarzan is a mighty fighter.  None so great as
+Tarzan, son of Kala.  Do not fear."
+</P>
+<P>
+But the child only whimpered and trembled, for he did not understand
+the tongue of the great apes, and the voice of Tarzan sounded to him
+like the barking and growling of a beast.  Then, too, he had heard
+stories of this bad, white forest god.  It was he who had slain Kulonga
+and others of the warriors of Mbonga, the chief.  It was he who entered
+the village stealthily, by magic, in the darkness of the night, to
+steal arrows and poison, and frighten the women and the children and
+even the great warriors.  Doubtless this wicked god fed upon little
+boys.  Had his mother not said as much when he was naughty and she
+threatened to give him to the white god of the jungle if he were not
+good? Little black Tibo shook as with ague.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Are you cold, Go-bu-balu?" asked Tarzan, using the simian equivalent
+of black he-baby in lieu of a better name.  "The sun is hot; why do you
+shiver?"
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo could not understand; but he cried for his mamma and begged the
+great, white god to let him go, promising always to be a good boy
+thereafter if his plea were granted.  Tarzan shook his head.  Not a
+word could he understand.  This would never do! He must teach
+Go-bu-balu a language which sounded like talk.  It was quite certain to
+Tarzan that Go-bu-balu's speech was not talk at all.  It sounded quite
+as senseless as the chattering of the silly birds.  It would be best,
+thought the ape-man, quickly to get him among the tribe of Kerchak
+where he would hear the Mangani talking among themselves.  Thus he
+would soon learn an intelligible form of speech.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan rose to his feet upon the swaying branch where he had halted far
+above the ground, and motioned to the child to follow him; but Tibo
+only clung tightly to the bole of the tree and wept.  Being a boy, and
+a native African, he had, of course, climbed into trees many times
+before this; but the idea of racing off through the forest, leaping
+from one branch to another, as his captor, to his horror, had done when
+he had carried Tibo away from his mother, filled his childish heart
+with terror.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan sighed.  His newly acquired balu had much indeed to learn.  It
+was pitiful that a balu of his size and strength should be so backward.
+He tried to coax Tibo to follow him; but the child dared not, so Tarzan
+picked him up and carried him upon his back.  Tibo no longer scratched
+or bit.  Escape seemed impossible.  Even now, were he set upon the
+ground, the chance was remote, he knew, that he could find his way back
+to the village of Mbonga, the chief.  Even if he could, there were the
+lions and the leopards and the hyenas, any one of which, as Tibo was
+well aware, was particularly fond of the meat of little black boys.
+</P>
+<P>
+So far the terrible white god of the jungle had offered him no harm.
+He could not expect even this much consideration from the frightful,
+green-eyed man-eaters.  It would be the lesser of two evils, then, to
+let the white god carry him away without scratching and biting, as he
+had done at first.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan swung rapidly through the trees, little Tibo closed his eyes
+in terror rather than look longer down into the frightful abysses
+beneath.  Never before in all his life had Tibo been so frightened, yet
+as the white giant sped on with him through the forest there stole over
+the child an inexplicable sensation of security as he saw how true were
+the leaps of the ape-man, how unerring his grasp upon the swaying limbs
+which gave him hand-hold, and then, too, there was safety in the middle
+terraces of the forest, far above the reach of the dreaded lions.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so Tarzan came to the clearing where the tribe fed, dropping among
+them with his new balu clinging tightly to his shoulders.  He was
+fairly in the midst of them before Tibo spied a single one of the great
+hairy forms, or before the apes realized that Tarzan was not alone.
+When they saw the little Gomangani perched upon his back some of them
+came forward in curiosity with upcurled lips and snarling mien.
+</P>
+<P>
+An hour before little Tibo would have said that he knew the uttermost
+depths of fear; but now, as he saw these fearsome beasts surrounding
+him, he realized that all that had gone before was as nothing by
+comparison.  Why did the great white giant stand there so
+unconcernedly?  Why did he not flee before these horrid, hairy, tree
+men fell upon them both and tore them to pieces? And then there came to
+Tibo a numbing recollection.  It was none other than the story he had
+heard passed from mouth to mouth, fearfully, by the people of Mbonga,
+the chief, that this great white demon of the jungle was naught other
+than a hairless ape, for had not he been seen in company with these?
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo could only stare in wide-eyed horror at the approaching apes.  He
+saw their beetling brows, their great fangs, their wicked eyes.  He
+noted their mighty muscles rolling beneath their shaggy hides.  Their
+every attitude and expression was a menace.  Tarzan saw this, too.  He
+drew Tibo around in front of him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"This is Tarzan's Go-bu-balu," he said.  "Do not harm him, or Tarzan
+will kill you," and he bared his own fangs in the teeth of the nearest
+ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+"It is a Gomangani," replied the ape.  "Let me kill it.  It is a
+Gomangani.  The Gomangani are our enemies.  Let me kill it."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go away," snarled Tarzan.  "I tell you, Gunto, it is Tarzan's balu.
+Go away or Tarzan will kill you," and the ape-man took a step toward
+the advancing ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+The latter sidled off, quite stiff and haughty, after the manner of a
+dog which meets another and is too proud to fight and too fearful to
+turn his back and run.
+</P>
+<P>
+Next came Teeka, prompted by curiosity.  At her side skipped little
+Gazan.  They were filled with wonder like the others; but Teeka did not
+bare her fangs.  Tarzan saw this and motioned that she approach.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tarzan has a balu now," he said.  "He and Teeka's balu can play
+together."
+</P>
+<P>
+"It is a Gomangani," replied Teeka.  "It will kill my balu.  Take it
+away, Tarzan."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan laughed.  "It could not harm Pamba, the rat," he said.  "It is
+but a little balu and very frightened.  Let Gazan play with it."
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka still was fearful, for with all their mighty ferocity the great
+anthropoids are timid; but at last, assured by her great confidence in
+Tarzan, she pushed Gazan forward toward the little black boy.  The
+small ape, guided by instinct, drew back toward its mother, baring its
+small fangs and screaming in mingled fear and rage.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo, too, showed no signs of desiring a closer acquaintance with
+Gazan, so Tarzan gave up his efforts for the time.
+</P>
+<P>
+During the week which followed, Tarzan found his time much occupied.
+His balu was a greater responsibility than he had counted upon.  Not
+for a moment did he dare leave it, since of all the tribe, Teeka alone
+could have been depended upon to refrain from slaying the hapless black
+had it not been for Tarzan's constant watchfulness.  When the ape-man
+hunted, he must carry Go-bu-balu about with him.  It was irksome, and
+then the little black seemed so stupid and fearful to Tarzan.  It was
+quite helpless against even the lesser of the jungle creatures.  Tarzan
+wondered how it had survived at all.  He tried to teach it, and found a
+ray of hope in the fact that Go-bu-balu had mastered a few words of the
+language of the anthropoids, and that he could now cling to a
+high-tossed branch without screaming in fear; but there was something
+about the child which worried Tarzan.  He often had watched the blacks
+within their village.  He had seen the children playing, and always
+there had been much laughter; but little Go-bu-balu never laughed.  It
+was true that Tarzan himself never laughed.  Upon occasion he smiled,
+grimly, but to laughter he was a stranger.  The black, however, should
+have laughed, reasoned the ape-man.  It was the way of the Gomangani.
+</P>
+<P>
+Also, he saw that the little fellow often refused food and was growing
+thinner day by day.  At times he surprised the boy sobbing softly to
+himself.  Tarzan tried to comfort him, even as fierce Kala had
+comforted Tarzan when the ape-man was a balu, but all to no avail.
+Go-bu-balu merely no longer feared Tarzan&mdash;that was all.  He feared
+every other living thing within the jungle.  He feared the jungle days
+with their long excursions through the dizzy tree tops.  He feared the
+jungle nights with their swaying, perilous couches far above the
+ground, and the grunting and coughing of the great carnivora prowling
+beneath him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan did not know what to do.  His heritage of English blood rendered
+it a difficult thing even to consider a surrender of his project,
+though he was forced to admit to himself that his balu was not all that
+he had hoped.  Though he was faithful to his self-imposed task, and
+even found that he had grown to like Go-bu-balu, he could not deceive
+himself into believing that he felt for it that fierce heat of
+passionate affection which Teeka revealed for Gazan, and which the
+black mother had shown for Go-bu-balu.
+</P>
+<P>
+The little black boy from cringing terror at the sight of Tarzan passed
+by degrees into trustfulness and admiration.  Only kindness had he ever
+received at the hands of the great white devil-god, yet he had seen
+with what ferocity his kindly captor could deal with others.  He had
+seen him leap upon a certain he-ape which persisted in attempting to
+seize and slay Go-bu-balu. He had seen the strong, white teeth of the
+ape-man fastened in the neck of his adversary, and the mighty muscles
+tensed in battle.  He had heard the savage, bestial snarls and roars of
+combat, and he had realized with a shudder that he could not
+differentiate between those of his guardian and those of the hairy ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+He had seen Tarzan bring down a buck, just as Numa, the lion, might
+have done, leaping upon its back and fastening his fangs in the
+creature's neck.  Tibo had shuddered at the sight, but he had thrilled,
+too, and for the first time there entered his dull, Negroid mind a
+vague desire to emulate his savage foster parent.  But Tibo, the little
+black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the
+white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle.
+In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for
+super-intelligence.
+</P>
+<P>
+Imagination it is which builds bridges, and cities, and empires.  The
+beasts know it not, the blacks only a little, while to one in a hundred
+thousand of earth's dominant race it is given as a gift from heaven
+that man may not perish from the earth.
+</P>
+<P>
+While Tarzan pondered his problem concerning the future of his balu,
+Fate was arranging to take the matter out of his hands.  Momaya, Tibo's
+mother, grief-stricken at the loss of her boy, had consulted the tribal
+witch-doctor, but to no avail.  The medicine he made was not good
+medicine, for though Momaya paid him two goats for it, it did not bring
+back Tibo, nor even indicate where she might search for him with
+reasonable assurance of finding him.  Momaya, being of a short temper
+and of another people, had little respect for the witch-doctor of her
+husband's tribe, and so, when he suggested that a further payment of
+two more fat goats would doubtless enable him to make stronger
+medicine, she promptly loosed her shrewish tongue upon him, and with
+such good effect that he was glad to take himself off with his zebra's
+tail and his pot of magic.
+</P>
+<P>
+When he had gone and Momaya had succeeded in partially subduing her
+anger, she gave herself over to thought, as she so often had done since
+the abduction of her Tibo, in the hope that she finally might discover
+some feasible means of locating him, or at least assuring herself as to
+whether he were alive or dead.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was known to the blacks that Tarzan did not eat the flesh of man,
+for he had slain more than one of their number, yet never tasted the
+flesh of any.  Too, the bodies always had been found, sometimes
+dropping as though from the clouds to alight in the center of the
+village.  As Tibo's body had not been found, Momaya argued that he
+still lived, but where?
+</P>
+<P>
+Then it was that there came to her mind a recollection of Bukawai, the
+unclean, who dwelt in a cave in the hillside to the north, and who it
+was well known entertained devils in his evil lair.  Few, if any, had
+the temerity to visit old Bukawai, firstly because of fear of his black
+magic and the two hyenas who dwelt with him and were commonly known to
+be devils masquerading, and secondly because of the loathsome disease
+which had caused Bukawai to be an outcast&mdash;a disease which was slowly
+eating away his face.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now it was that Momaya reasoned shrewdly that if any might know the
+whereabouts of her Tibo, it would be Bukawai, who was in friendly
+intercourse with gods and demons, since a demon or a god it was who had
+stolen her baby; but even her great mother love was sorely taxed to
+find the courage to send her forth into the black jungle toward the
+distant hills and the uncanny abode of Bukawai, the unclean, and his
+devils.
+</P>
+<P>
+Mother love, however, is one of the human passions which closely
+approximates to the dignity of an irresistible force.  It drives the
+frail flesh of weak women to deeds of heroic measure.  Momaya was
+neither frail nor weak, physically, but she was a woman, an ignorant,
+superstitious, African savage.  She believed in devils, in black magic,
+and in witchcraft.  To Momaya, the jungle was inhabited by far more
+terrifying things than lions and leopards&mdash;horrifying, nameless things
+which possessed the power of wreaking frightful harm under various
+innocent guises.
+</P>
+<P>
+From one of the warriors of the village, whom she knew to have once
+stumbled upon the lair of Bukawai, the mother of Tibo learned how she
+might find it&mdash;near a spring of water which rose in a small rocky canon
+between two hills, the easternmost of which was easily recognizable
+because of a huge granite boulder which rested upon its summit.  The
+westerly hill was lower than its companion, and was quite bare of
+vegetation except for a single mimosa tree which grew just a little
+below its summit.
+</P>
+<P>
+These two hills, the man assured her, could be seen for some distance
+before she reached them, and together formed an excellent guide to her
+destination.  He warned her, however, to abandon so foolish and
+dangerous an adventure, emphasizing what she already quite well knew,
+that if she escaped harm at the hands of Bukawai and his demons, the
+chances were that she would not be so fortunate with the great
+carnivora of the jungle through which she must pass going and returning.
+</P>
+<P>
+The warrior even went to Momaya's husband, who, in turn, having little
+authority over the vixenish lady of his choice, went to Mbonga, the
+chief.  The latter summoned Momaya, threatening her with the direst
+punishment should she venture forth upon so unholy an excursion.  The
+old chief's interest in the matter was due solely to that age-old
+alliance which exists between church and state.  The local
+witch-doctor, knowing his own medicine better than any other knew it,
+was jealous of all other pretenders to accomplishments in the black
+art.  He long had heard of the power of Bukawai, and feared lest,
+should he succeed in recovering Momaya's lost child, much of the tribal
+patronage and consequent fees would be diverted to the unclean one.  As
+Mbonga received, as chief, a certain proportion of the witch-doctor's
+fees and could expect nothing from Bukawai, his heart and soul were,
+quite naturally, wrapped up in the orthodox church.
+</P>
+<P>
+But if Momaya could view with intrepid heart an excursion into the
+jungle and a visit to the fear-haunted abode of Bukawai, she was not
+likely to be deterred by threats of future punishment at the hands of
+old Mbonga, whom she secretly despised.  Yet she appeared to accede to
+his injunctions, returning to her hut in silence.
+</P>
+<P>
+She would have preferred starting upon her quest by day-light, but this
+was now out of the question, since she must carry food and a weapon of
+some sort&mdash;things which she never could pass out of the village with by
+day without being subjected to curious questioning that surely would
+come immediately to the ears of Mbonga.
+</P>
+<P>
+So Momaya bided her time until night, and just before the gates of the
+village were closed, she slipped through into the darkness and the
+jungle.  She was much frightened, but she set her face resolutely
+toward the north, and though she paused often to listen, breathlessly,
+for the huge cats which, here, were her greatest terror, she
+nevertheless continued her way staunchly for several hours, until a low
+moan a little to her right and behind her brought her to a sudden stop.
+</P>
+<P>
+With palpitating heart the woman stood, scarce daring to breathe, and
+then, very faintly but unmistakable to her keen ears, came the stealthy
+crunching of twigs and grasses beneath padded feet.
+</P>
+<P>
+All about Momaya grew the giant trees of the tropical jungle, festooned
+with hanging vines and mosses.  She seized upon the nearest and started
+to clamber, apelike, to the branches above.  As she did so, there was a
+sudden rush of a great body behind her, a menacing roar that caused the
+earth to tremble, and something crashed into the very creepers to which
+she was clinging&mdash;but below her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya drew herself to safety among the leafy branches and thanked the
+foresight which had prompted her to bring along the dried human ear
+which hung from a cord about her neck.  She always had known that that
+ear was good medicine.  It had been given her, when a girl, by the
+witch-doctor of her town tribe, and was nothing like the poor, weak
+medicine of Mbonga's witch-doctor.
+</P>
+<P>
+All night Momaya clung to her perch, for although the lion sought other
+prey after a short time, she dared not descend into the darkness again,
+for fear she might encounter him or another of his kind; but at
+daylight she clambered down and resumed her way.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan of the Apes, finding that his balu never ceased to give evidence
+of terror in the presence of the apes of the tribe, and also that most
+of the adult apes were a constant menace to Go-bu-balu's life, so that
+Tarzan dared not leave him alone with them, took to hunting with the
+little black boy farther and farther from the stamping grounds of the
+anthropoids.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+Little by little his absences from the tribe grew in length as he
+wandered farther away from them, until finally he found himself a
+greater distance to the north than he ever before had hunted, and with
+water and ample game and fruit, he felt not at all inclined to return
+to the tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+Little Go-bu-balu gave evidences of a greater interest in life, an
+interest which varied in direct proportion to the distance he was from
+the apes of Kerchak.  He now trotted along behind Tarzan when the
+ape-man went upon the ground, and in the trees he even did his best to
+follow his mighty foster parent.  The boy was still sad and lonely.
+His thin, little body had grown steadily thinner since he had come
+among the apes, for while, as a young cannibal, he was not overnice in
+the matter of diet, he found it not always to his taste to stomach the
+weird things which tickled the palates of epicures among the apes.
+</P>
+<P>
+His large eyes were very large indeed now, his cheeks sunken, and every
+rib of his emaciated body plainly discernible to whomsoever should care
+to count them.  Constant terror, perhaps, had had as much to do with
+his physical condition as had improper food.  Tarzan noticed the change
+and was worried.  He had hoped to see his balu wax sturdy and strong.
+His disappointment was great.  In only one respect did Go-bu-balu seem
+to progress&mdash;he readily was mastering the language of the apes.  Even
+now he and Tarzan could converse in a fairly satisfactory manner by
+supplementing the meager ape speech with signs; but for the most part,
+Go-bu-balu was silent other than to answer questions put to him.  His
+great sorrow was yet too new and too poignant to be laid aside even
+momentarily.  Always he pined for Momaya&mdash;shrewish, hideous, repulsive,
+perhaps, she would have been to you or me, but to Tibo she was mamma,
+the personification of that one great love which knows no selfishness
+and which does not consume itself in its own fires.
+</P>
+<P>
+As the two hunted, or rather as Tarzan hunted and Go-bu-balu tagged
+along in his wake, the ape-man noticed many things and thought much.
+Once they came upon Sabor moaning in the tall grasses.  About her
+romped and played two little balls of fur, but her eyes were for one
+which lay between her great forepaws and did not romp, one who never
+would romp again.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan read aright the anguish and the suffering of the huge mother
+cat.  He had been minded to bait her.  It was to do this that he had
+sneaked silently through the trees until he had come almost above her,
+but something held the ape-man as he saw the lioness grieving over her
+dead cub.  With the acquisition of Go-bu-balu, Tarzan had come to
+realize the responsibilities and sorrows of parentage, without its
+joys.  His heart went out to Sabor as it might not have done a few
+weeks before.  As he watched her, there rose quite unbidden before him
+a vision of Momaya, the skewer through the septum of her nose, her
+pendulous under lip sagging beneath the weight which dragged it down.
+Tarzan saw not her unloveliness; he saw only the same anguish that was
+Sabor's, and he winced.  That strange functioning of the mind which
+sometimes is called association of ideas snapped Teeka and Gazan before
+the ape-man's mental vision.  What if one should come and take Gazan
+from Teeka.  Tarzan uttered a low and ominous growl as though Gazan
+were his own.  Go-bu-balu glanced here and there apprehensively,
+thinking that Tarzan had espied an enemy.  Sabor sprang suddenly to her
+feet, her yellow-green eyes blazing, her tail lashing as she cocked her
+ears, and raising her muzzle, sniffed the air for possible danger.  The
+two little cubs, which had been playing, scampered quickly to her, and
+standing beneath her, peered out from between her forelegs, their big
+ears upstanding, their little heads cocked first upon one side and then
+upon the other.
+</P>
+<P>
+With a shake of his black shock, Tarzan turned away and resumed his
+hunting in another direction; but all day there rose one after another,
+above the threshold of his objective mind, memory portraits of Sabor,
+of Momaya, and of Teeka&mdash;a lioness, a cannibal, and a she-ape, yet to
+the ape-man they were identical through motherhood.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was noon of the third day when Momaya came within sight of the cave
+of Bukawai, the unclean.  The old witch-doctor had rigged a framework
+of interlaced boughs to close the mouth of the cave from predatory
+beasts.  This was now set to one side, and the black cavern beyond
+yawned mysterious and repellent.  Momaya shivered as from a cold wind
+of the rainy season.  No sign of life appeared about the cave, yet
+Momaya experienced that uncanny sensation as of unseen eyes regarding
+her malevolently.  Again she shuddered.  She tried to force her
+unwilling feet onward toward the cave, when from its depths issued an
+uncanny sound that was neither brute nor human, a weird sound that was
+akin to mirthless laughter.
+</P>
+<P>
+With a stifled scream, Momaya turned and fled into the jungle.  For a
+hundred yards she ran before she could control her terror, and then she
+paused, listening.  Was all her labor, were all the terrors and dangers
+through which she had passed to go for naught? She tried to steel
+herself to return to the cave, but again fright overcame her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Saddened, disheartened, she turned slowly upon the back trail toward
+the village of Mbonga.  Her young shoulders now were drooped like those
+of an old woman who bears a great burden of many years with their
+accumulated pains and sorrows, and she walked with tired feet and a
+halting step.  The spring of youth was gone from Momaya.
+</P>
+<P>
+For another hundred yards she dragged her weary way, her brain half
+paralyzed from dumb terror and suffering, and then there came to her
+the memory of a little babe that suckled at her breast, and of a slim
+boy who romped, laughing, about her, and they were both Tibo&mdash;her Tibo!
+</P>
+<P>
+Her shoulders straightened.  She shook her savage head, and she turned
+about and walked boldly back to the mouth of the cave of Bukawai, the
+unclean&mdash;of Bukawai, the witch-doctor.
+</P>
+<P>
+Again, from the interior of the cave came the hideous laughter that was
+not laughter.  This time Momaya recognized it for what it was, the
+strange cry of a hyena.  No more did she shudder, but she held her
+spear ready and called aloud to Bukawai to come out.
+</P>
+<P>
+Instead of Bukawai came the repulsive head of a hyena.  Momaya poked at
+it with her spear, and the ugly, sullen brute drew back with an angry
+growl.  Again Momaya called Bukawai by name, and this time there came
+an answer in mumbling tones that were scarce more human than those of
+the beast.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Who comes to Bukawai?" queried the voice.
+</P>
+<P>
+"It is Momaya," replied the woman; "Momaya from the village of Mbonga,
+the chief.
+</P>
+<P>
+"What do you want?"
+</P>
+<P>
+"I want good medicine, better medicine than Mbonga's witch-doctor can
+make," replied Momaya.  "The great, white, jungle god has stolen my
+Tibo, and I want medicine to bring him back, or to find where he is
+hidden that I may go and get him."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Who is Tibo?" asked Bukawai.
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya told him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Bukawai's medicine is very strong," said the voice.  "Five goats and a
+new sleeping mat are scarce enough in exchange for Bukawai's medicine."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Two goats are enough," said Momaya, for the spirit of barter is strong
+in the breasts of the blacks.
+</P>
+<P>
+The pleasure of haggling over the price was a sufficiently potent lure
+to draw Bukawai to the mouth of the cave.  Momaya was sorry when she
+saw him that he had not remained within.  There are some things too
+horrible, too hideous, too repulsive for description&mdash;Bukawai's face
+was of these.  When Momaya saw him she understood why it was that he
+was almost inarticulate.
+</P>
+<P>
+Beside him were two hyenas, which rumor had said were his only and
+constant companions.  They made an excellent trio&mdash;the most repulsive
+of beasts with the most repulsive of humans.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Five goats and a new sleeping mat," mumbled Bukawai.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Two fat goats and a sleeping mat." Momaya raised her bid; but Bukawai
+was obdurate.  He stuck for the five goats and the sleeping mat for a
+matter of half an hour, while the hyenas sniffed and growled and
+laughed hideously.  Momaya was determined to give all that Bukawai
+asked if she could do no better, but haggling is second nature to black
+barterers, and in the end it partly repaid her, for a compromise
+finally was reached which included three fat goats, a new sleeping mat,
+and a piece of copper wire.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Come back tonight," said Bukawai, "when the moon is two hours in the
+sky.  Then will I make the strong medicine which shall bring Tibo back
+to you.  Bring with you the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and
+the piece of copper wire the length of a large man's forearm."
+</P>
+<P>
+"I cannot bring them," said Momaya.  "You will have to come after them.
+When you have restored Tibo to me, you shall have them all at the
+village of Mbonga."
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai shook his head.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I will make no medicine," he said, "until I have the goats and the mat
+and the copper wire."
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya pleaded and threatened, but all to no avail.  Finally, she
+turned away and started off through the jungle toward the village of
+Mbonga.  How she could get three goats and a sleeping mat out of the
+village and through the jungle to the cave of Bukawai, she did not
+know, but that she would do it somehow she was quite positive&mdash;she
+would do it or die.  Tibo must be restored to her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan coming lazily through the jungle with little Go-bu-balu, caught
+the scent of Bara, the deer.  Tarzan hungered for the flesh of Bara.
+Naught tickled his palate so greatly; but to stalk Bara with Go-bu-balu
+at his heels, was out of the question, so he hid the child in the
+crotch of a tree where the thick foliage screened him from view, and
+set off swiftly and silently upon the spoor of Bara.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo alone was more terrified than Tibo even among the apes.  Real and
+apparent dangers are less disconcerting than those which we imagine,
+and only the gods of his people knew how much Tibo imagined.
+</P>
+<P>
+He had been but a short time in his hiding place when he heard
+something approaching through the jungle.  He crouched closer to the
+limb upon which he lay and prayed that Tarzan would return quickly.
+His wide eyes searched the jungle in the direction of the moving
+creature.
+</P>
+<P>
+What if it was a leopard that had caught his scent! It would be upon
+him in a minute.  Hot tears flowed from the large eyes of little Tibo.
+The curtain of jungle foliage rustled close at hand.  The thing was but
+a few paces from his tree!  His eyes fairly popped from his black face
+as he watched for the appearance of the dread creature which presently
+would thrust a snarling countenance from between the vines and creepers.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then the curtain parted and a woman stepped into full view.  With a
+gasping cry, Tibo tumbled from his perch and raced toward her.  Momaya
+suddenly started back and raised her spear, but a second later she cast
+it aside and caught the thin body in her strong arms.
+</P>
+<P>
+Crushing it to her, she cried and laughed all at one and the same time,
+and hot tears of joy, mingled with the tears of Tibo, trickled down the
+crease between her naked breasts.
+</P>
+<P>
+Disturbed by the noise so close at hand, there arose from his sleep in
+a near-by thicket Numa, the lion.  He looked through the tangled
+underbrush and saw the black woman and her young.  He licked his chops
+and measured the distance between them and himself.  A short charge and
+a long leap would carry him upon them.  He flicked the end of his tail
+and sighed.
+</P>
+<P>
+A vagrant breeze, swirling suddenly in the wrong direction, carried the
+scent of Tarzan to the sensitive nostrils of Bara, the deer.  There was
+a startled tensing of muscles and cocking of ears, a sudden dash, and
+Tarzan's meat was gone.  The ape-man angrily shook his head and turned
+back toward the spot where he had left Go-bu-balu. He came softly, as
+was his way.  Before he reached the spot he heard strange sounds&mdash;the
+sound of a woman laughing and of a woman weeping, and the two which
+seemed to come from one throat were mingled with the convulsive sobbing
+of a child.  Tarzan hastened, and when Tarzan hastened, only the birds
+and the wind went faster.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as Tarzan approached the sounds, he heard another, a deep sigh.
+Momaya did not hear it, nor did Tibo; but the ears of Tarzan were as
+the ears of Bara, the deer.  He heard the sigh, and he knew, so he
+unloosed the heavy spear which dangled at his back.  Even as he sped
+through the branches of the trees, with the same ease that you or I
+might take out a pocket handkerchief as we strolled nonchalantly down a
+lazy country lane, Tarzan of the Apes took the spear from its thong
+that it might be ready against any emergency.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa, the lion, did not rush madly to attack.  He reasoned again, and
+reason told him that already the prey was his, so he pushed his great
+bulk through the foliage and stood eyeing his meat with baleful,
+glaring eyes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya saw him and shrieked, drawing Tibo closer to her breast.  To
+have found her child and to lose him, all in a moment!  She raised her
+spear, throwing her hand far back of her shoulder.  Numa roared and
+stepped slowly forward.  Momaya cast her weapon.  It grazed the tawny
+shoulder, inflicting a flesh wound which aroused all the terrific
+bestiality of the carnivore, and the lion charged.
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya tried to close her eyes, but could not.  She saw the flashing
+swiftness of the huge, oncoming death, and then she saw something else.
+She saw a mighty, naked white man drop as from the heavens into the
+path of the charging lion.  She saw the muscles of a great arm flash in
+the light of the equatorial sun as it filtered, dappling, through the
+foliage above.  She saw a heavy hunting spear hurtle through the air to
+meet the lion in midleap.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa brought up upon his haunches, roaring terribly and striking at the
+spear which protruded from his breast.  His great blows bent and
+twisted the weapon.  Tarzan, crouching and with hunting knife in hand,
+circled warily about the frenzied cat.  Momaya, wide-eyed, stood rooted
+to the spot, watching, fascinated.
+</P>
+<P>
+In sudden fury Numa hurled himself toward the ape-man, but the wiry
+creature eluded the blundering charge, side-stepping quickly only to
+rush in upon his foe.  Twice the hunting blade flashed in the air.
+Twice it fell upon the back of Numa, already weakening from the spear
+point so near his heart.  The second stroke of the blade pierced far
+into the beast's spine, and with a last convulsive sweep of the
+fore-paws, in a vain attempt to reach his tormentor, Numa sprawled upon
+the ground, paralyzed and dying.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai, fearful lest he should lose any recompense, followed Momaya
+with the intention of persuading her to part with her ornaments of
+copper and iron against her return with the price of the medicine&mdash;to
+pay, as it were, for an option on his services as one pays a retaining
+fee to an attorney, for, like an attorney, Bukawai knew the value of
+his medicine and that it was well to collect as much as possible in
+advance.
+</P>
+<P>
+The witch-doctor came upon the scene as Tarzan leaped to meet the
+lion's charge.  He saw it all and marveled, guessing immediately that
+this must be the strange white demon concerning whom he had heard vague
+rumors before Momaya came to him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya, now that the lion was past harming her or hers, gazed with new
+terror upon Tarzan.  It was he who had stolen her Tibo.  Doubtless he
+would attempt to steal him again.  Momaya hugged the boy close to her.
+She was determined to die this time rather than suffer Tibo to be taken
+from her again.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan eyed them in silence.  The sight of the boy clinging, sobbing,
+to his mother aroused within his savage breast a melancholy loneliness.
+There was none thus to cling to Tarzan, who yearned so for the love of
+someone, of something.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last Tibo looked up, because of the quiet that had fallen upon the
+jungle, and saw Tarzan.  He did not shrink.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tarzan," he said, in the speech of the great apes of the tribe of
+Kerchak, "do not take me from Momaya, my mother.  Do not take me again
+to the lair of the hairy, tree men, for I fear Taug and Gunto and the
+others.  Let me stay with Momaya, O Tarzan, God of the Jungle! Let me
+stay with Momaya, my mother, and to the end of our days we will bless
+you and put food before the gates of the village of Mbonga that you may
+never hunger."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan sighed.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go," he said, "back to the village of Mbonga, and Tarzan will follow
+to see that no harm befalls you."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo translated the words to his mother, and the two turned their backs
+upon the ape-man and started off toward home.  In the heart of Momaya
+was a great fear and a great exultation, for never before had she
+walked with God, and never had she been so happy.  She strained little
+Tibo to her, stroking his thin cheek.  Tarzan saw and sighed again.
+</P>
+<P>
+"For Teeka there is Teeka's balu," he soliloquized; "for Sabor there
+are balus, and for the she-Gomangani, and for Bara, and for Manu, and
+even for Pamba, the rat; but for Tarzan there can be none&mdash;neither a
+she nor a balu.  Tarzan of the Apes is a man, and it must be that man
+walks alone."
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai saw them go, and he mumbled through his rotting face, swearing
+a great oath that he would yet have the three fat goats, the new
+sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Witch-Doctor Seeks Vengeance
+</H3>
+<P>
+LORD GREYSTOKE was hunting, or, to be more accurate, he was shooting
+pheasants at Chamston-Hedding. Lord Greystoke was immaculately and
+appropriately garbed&mdash;to the minutest detail he was vogue.  To be sure,
+he was among the forward guns, not being considered a sporting shot,
+but what he lacked in skill he more than made up in appearance.  At the
+end of the day he would, doubtless, have many birds to his credit,
+since he had two guns and a smart loader&mdash;many more birds than he could
+eat in a year, even had he been hungry, which he was not, having but
+just arisen from the breakfast table.
+</P>
+<P>
+The beaters&mdash;there were twenty-three of them, in white smocks&mdash;had but
+just driven the birds into a patch of gorse, and were now circling to
+the opposite side that they might drive down toward the guns.  Lord
+Greystoke was quite as excited as he ever permitted himself to become.
+There was an exhilaration in the sport that would not be denied.  He
+felt his blood tingling through his veins as the beaters approached
+closer and closer to the birds.  In a vague and stupid sort of way Lord
+Greystoke felt, as he always felt upon such occasions, that he was
+experiencing a sensation somewhat akin to a reversion to a prehistoric
+type&mdash;that the blood of an ancient forbear was coursing hot through
+him, a hairy, half-naked forbear who had lived by the hunt.
+</P>
+<P>
+And far away in a matted equatorial jungle another Lord Greystoke, the
+real Lord Greystoke, hunted.  By the standards which he knew, he, too,
+was vogue&mdash;utterly vogue, as was the primal ancestor before the first
+eviction.  The day being sultry, the leopard skin had been left behind.
+The real Lord Greystoke had not two guns, to be sure, nor even one,
+neither did he have a smart loader; but he possessed something
+infinitely more efficacious than guns, or loaders, or even twenty-three
+beaters in white smocks&mdash;he possessed an appetite, an uncanny
+woodcraft, and muscles that were as steel springs.
+</P>
+<P>
+Later that day, in England, a Lord Greystoke ate bountifully of things
+he had not killed, and he drank other things which were uncorked to the
+accompaniment of much noise.  He patted his lips with snowy linen to
+remove the faint traces of his repast, quite ignorant of the fact that
+he was an impostor and that the rightful owner of his noble title was
+even then finishing his own dinner in far-off Africa.  He was not using
+snowy linen, though.  Instead he drew the back of a brown forearm and
+hand across his mouth and wiped his bloody fingers upon his thighs.
+Then he moved slowly through the jungle to the drinking place, where,
+upon all fours, he drank as drank his fellows, the other beasts of the
+jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he quenched his thirst, another denizen of the gloomy forest
+approached the stream along the path behind him.  It was Numa, the
+lion, tawny of body and black of mane, scowling and sinister, rumbling
+out low, coughing roars.  Tarzan of the Apes heard him long before he
+came within sight, but the ape-man went on with his drinking until he
+had had his fill; then he arose, slowly, with the easy grace of a
+creature of the wilds and all the quiet dignity that was his birthright.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa halted as he saw the man standing at the very spot where the king
+would drink.  His jaws were parted, and his cruel eyes gleamed.  He
+growled and advanced slowly.  The man growled, too, backing slowly to
+one side, and watching, not the lion's face, but its tail.  Should that
+commence to move from side to side in quick, nervous jerks, it would be
+well to be upon the alert, and should it rise suddenly erect, straight
+and stiff, then one might prepare to fight or flee; but it did neither,
+so Tarzan merely backed away and the lion came down and drank scarce
+fifty feet from where the man stood.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tomorrow they might be at one another's throats, but today there
+existed one of those strange and inexplicable truces which so often are
+seen among the savage ones of the jungle.  Before Numa had finished
+drinking, Tarzan had returned into the forest, and was swinging away in
+the direction of the village of Mbonga, the black chief.
+</P>
+<P>
+It had been at least a moon since the ape-man had called upon the
+Gomangani.  Not since he had restored little Tibo to his grief-stricken
+mother had the whim seized him to do so.  The incident of the adopted
+balu was a closed one to Tarzan.  He had sought to find something upon
+which to lavish such an affection as Teeka lavished upon her balu, but
+a short experience of the little black boy had made it quite plain to
+the ape-man that no such sentiment could exist between them.
+</P>
+<P>
+The fact that he had for a time treated the little black as he might
+have treated a real balu of his own had in no way altered the vengeful
+sentiments with which he considered the murderers of Kala.  The
+Gomangani were his deadly enemies, nor could they ever be aught else.
+Today he looked forward to some slight relief from the monotony of his
+existence in such excitement as he might derive from baiting the blacks.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was not yet dark when he reached the village and took his place in
+the great tree overhanging the palisade.  From beneath came a great
+wailing out of the depths of a near-by hut.  The noise fell
+disagreeably upon Tarzan's ears&mdash;it jarred and grated.  He did not like
+it, so he decided to go away for a while in the hopes that it might
+cease; but though he was gone for a couple of hours the wailing still
+continued when he returned.
+</P>
+<P>
+With the intention of putting a violent termination to the annoying
+sound, Tarzan slipped silently from the tree into the shadows beneath.
+Creeping stealthily and keeping well in the cover of other huts, he
+approached that from which rose the sounds of lamentation.  A fire
+burned brightly before the doorway as it did before other doorways in
+the village.  A few females squatted about, occasionally adding their
+own mournful howlings to those of the master artist within.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-man smiled a slow smile as he thought of the consternation
+which would follow the quick leap that would carry him among the
+females and into the full light of the fire.  Then he would dart into
+the hut during the excitement, throttle the chief screamer, and be gone
+into the jungle before the blacks could gather their scattered nerves
+for an assault.
+</P>
+<P>
+Many times had Tarzan behaved similarly in the village of Mbonga, the
+chief.  His mysterious and unexpected appearances always filled the
+breasts of the poor, superstitious blacks with the panic of terror;
+never, it seemed, could they accustom themselves to the sight of him.
+It was this terror which lent to the adventures the spice of interest
+and amusement which the human mind of the ape-man craved.  Merely to
+kill was not in itself sufficient.  Accustomed to the sight of death,
+Tarzan found no great pleasure in it.  Long since had he avenged the
+death of Kala, but in the accomplishment of it, he had learned the
+excitement and the pleasure to be derived from the baiting of the
+blacks.  Of this he never tired.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was just as he was about to spring forward with a savage roar that a
+figure appeared in the doorway of the hut.  It was the figure of the
+wailer whom he had come to still, the figure of a young woman with a
+wooden skewer through the split septum of her nose, with a heavy metal
+ornament depending from her lower lip, which it had dragged down to
+hideous and repulsive deformity, with strange tattooing upon forehead,
+cheeks, and breasts, and a wonderful coiffure built up with mud and
+wire.
+</P>
+<P>
+A sudden flare of the fire threw the grotesque figure into high relief,
+and Tarzan recognized her as Momaya, the mother of Tibo.  The fire also
+threw out a fitful flame which carried to the shadows where Tarzan
+lurked, picking out his light brown body from the surrounding darkness.
+Momaya saw him and knew him.  With a cry, she leaped forward and Tarzan
+came to meet her.  The other women, turning, saw him, too; but they did
+not come toward him.  Instead they rose as one, shrieked as one, fled
+as one.
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya threw herself at Tarzan's feet, raising supplicating hands
+toward him and pouring forth from her mutilated lips a perfect cataract
+of words, not one of which the ape-man comprehended.  For a moment he
+looked down upon the upturned, frightful face of the woman.  He had
+come to slay, but that overwhelming torrent of speech filled him with
+consternation and with awe.  He glanced about him apprehensively, then
+back at the woman.  A revulsion of feeling seized him.  He could not
+kill little Tibo's mother, nor could he stand and face this verbal
+geyser.  With a quick gesture of impatience at the spoiling of his
+evening's entertainment, he wheeled and leaped away into the darkness.
+A moment later he was swinging through the black jungle night, the
+cries and lamentations of Momaya growing fainter in the distance.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was with a sigh of relief that he finally reached a point from which
+he could no longer hear them, and finding a comfortable crotch high
+among the trees, composed himself for a night of dreamless slumber,
+while a prowling lion moaned and coughed beneath him, and in far-off
+England the other Lord Greystoke, with the assistance of a valet,
+disrobed and crawled between spotless sheets, swearing irritably as a
+cat meowed beneath his window.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan followed the fresh spoor of Horta, the boar, the following
+morning, he came upon the tracks of two Gomangani, a large one and a
+small one.  The ape-man, accustomed as he was to questioning closely
+all that fell to his perceptions, paused to read the story written in
+the soft mud of the game trail.  You or I would have seen little of
+interest there, even if, by chance, we could have seen aught.  Perhaps
+had one been there to point them out to us, we might have noted
+indentations in the mud, but there were countless indentations, one
+overlapping another into a confusion that would have been entirely
+meaningless to us.  To Tarzan each told its own story.  Tantor, the
+elephant, had passed that way as recently as three suns since.  Numa
+had hunted here the night just gone, and Horta, the boar, had walked
+slowly along the trail within an hour; but what held Tarzan's attention
+was the spoor tale of the Gomangani.  It told him that the day before
+an old man had gone toward the north in company with a little boy, and
+that with them had been two hyenas.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan scratched his head in puzzled incredulity.  He could see by the
+overlapping of the footprints that the beasts had not been following
+the two, for sometimes one was ahead of them and one behind, and again
+both were in advance, or both were in the rear.  It was very strange
+and quite inexplicable, especially where the spoor showed where the
+hyenas in the wider portions of the path had walked one on either side
+of the human pair, quite close to them.  Then Tarzan read in the spoor
+of the smaller Gomangani a shrinking terror of the beast that brushed
+his side, but in that of the old man was no sign of fear.
+</P>
+<P>
+At first Tarzan had been solely occupied by the remarkable
+juxtaposition of the spoor of Dango and Gomangani, but now his keen
+eyes caught something in the spoor of the little Gomangani which
+brought him to a sudden stop.  It was as though, finding a letter in
+the road, you suddenly had discovered in it the familiar handwriting of
+a friend.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go-bu-balu!" exclaimed the ape-man, and at once memory flashed upon
+the screen of recollection the supplicating attitude of Momaya as she
+had hurled herself before him in the village of Mbonga the night
+before.  Instantly all was explained&mdash;the wailing and lamentation, the
+pleading of the black mother, the sympathetic howling of the shes about
+the fire.  Little Go-bu-balu had been stolen again, and this time by
+another than Tarzan.  Doubtless the mother had thought that he was
+again in the power of Tarzan of the Apes, and she had been beseeching
+him to return her balu to her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yes, it was all quite plain now; but who could have stolen Go-bu-balu
+this time? Tarzan wondered, and he wondered, too, about the presence of
+Dango.  He would investigate.  The spoor was a day old and it ran
+toward the north.  Tarzan set out to follow it.  In places it was
+totally obliterated by the passage of many beasts, and where the way
+was rocky, even Tarzan of the Apes was almost baffled; but there was
+still the faint effluvium which clung to the human spoor, appreciable
+only to such highly trained perceptive powers as were Tarzan's.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+It had all happened to little Tibo very suddenly and unexpectedly
+within the brief span of two suns.  First had come Bukawai, the
+witch-doctor&mdash;Bukawai, the unclean&mdash;with the ragged bit of flesh which
+still clung to his rotting face.  He had come alone and by day to the
+place at the river where Momaya went daily to wash her body and that of
+Tibo, her little boy.  He had stepped out from behind a great bush
+quite close to Momaya, frightening little Tibo so that he ran screaming
+to his mother's protecting arms.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Momaya, though startled, had wheeled to face the fearsome thing
+with all the savage ferocity of a she-tiger at bay.  When she saw who
+it was, she breathed a sigh of partial relief, though she still clung
+tightly to Tibo.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I have come," said Bukawai without preliminary, "for the three fat
+goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire as long as a
+tall man's arm."
+</P>
+<P>
+"I have no goats for you," snapped Momaya, "nor a sleeping mat, nor any
+wire.  Your medicine was never made.  The white jungle god gave me back
+my Tibo.  You had nothing to do with it."
+</P>
+<P>
+"But I did," mumbled Bukawai through his fleshless jaws.  "It was I who
+commanded the white jungle god to give back your Tibo."
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya laughed in his face.  "Speaker of lies," she cried, "go back to
+your foul den and your hyenas.  Go back and hide your stinking face in
+the belly of the mountain, lest the sun, seeing it, cover his face with
+a black cloud."
+</P>
+<P>
+"I have come," reiterated Bukawai, "for the three fat goats, the new
+sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire the length of a tall man's
+arm, which you were to pay me for the return of your Tibo."
+</P>
+<P>
+"It was to be the length of a man's forearm," corrected Momaya, "but
+you shall have nothing, old thief.  You would not make medicine until I
+had brought the payment in advance, and when I was returning to my
+village the great, white jungle god gave me back my Tibo&mdash;gave him to
+me out of the jaws of Numa.  His medicine is true medicine&mdash;yours is
+the weak medicine of an old man with a hole in his face."
+</P>
+<P>
+"I have come," repeated Bukawai patiently, "for the three fat&mdash;" But
+Momaya had not waited to hear more of what she already knew by heart.
+Clasping Tibo close to her side, she was hurrying away toward the
+palisaded village of Mbonga, the chief.
+</P>
+<P>
+And the next day, when Momaya was working in the plantain field with
+others of the women of the tribe, and little Tibo had been playing at
+the edge of the jungle, casting a small spear in anticipation of the
+distant day when he should be a full-fledged warrior, Bukawai had come
+again.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo had seen a squirrel scampering up the bole of a great tree.  His
+childish mind had transformed it into the menacing figure of a hostile
+warrior.  Little Tibo had raised his tiny spear, his heart filled with
+the savage blood lust of his race, as he pictured the night's orgy when
+he should dance about the corpse of his human kill as the women of his
+tribe prepared the meat for the feast to follow.
+</P>
+<P>
+But when he cast the spear, he missed both squirrel and tree, losing
+his missile far among the tangled undergrowth of the jungle.  However,
+it could be but a few steps within the forbidden labyrinth.  The women
+were all about in the field.  There were warriors on guard within easy
+hail, and so little Tibo boldly ventured into the dark place.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just behind the screen of creepers and matted foliage lurked three
+horrid figures&mdash;an old, old man, black as the pit, with a face half
+eaten away by leprosy, his sharp-filed teeth, the teeth of a cannibal,
+showing yellow and repulsive through the great gaping hole where his
+mouth and nose had been.  And beside him, equally hideous, stood two
+powerful hyenas&mdash;carrion-eaters consorting with carrion.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tibo did not see them until, head down, he had forced his way through
+the thickly growing vines in search of his little spear, and then it
+was too late.  As he looked up into the face of Bukawai, the old
+witch-doctor seized him, muffling his screams with a palm across his
+mouth.  Tibo struggled futilely.
+</P>
+<P>
+A moment later he was being hustled away through the dark and terrible
+jungle, the frightful old man still muffling his screams, and the two
+hideous hyenas pacing now on either side, now before, now behind,
+always prowling, always growling, snapping, snarling, or, worst of all,
+laughing hideously.
+</P>
+<P>
+To little Tibo, who within his brief existence had passed through such
+experiences as are given to few to pass through in a lifetime, the
+northward journey was a nightmare of terror.  He thought now of the
+time that he had been with the great, white jungle god, and he prayed
+with all his little soul that he might be back again with the
+white-skinned giant who consorted with the hairy tree men.
+Terror-stricken he had been then, but his surroundings had been nothing
+by comparison with those which he now endured.
+</P>
+<P>
+The old man seldom addressed Tibo, though he kept up an almost
+continuous mumbling throughout the long day.  Tibo caught repeated
+references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire.
+"Ten fat goats, ten fat goats," the old Negro would croon over and over
+again.  By this little Tibo guessed that the price of his ransom had
+risen.  Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or
+thin ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor little boy?
+Mbonga would never let her have them, and Tibo knew that his father
+never had owned more than three goats at the same time in all his life.
+Ten fat goats! Tibo sniffled.  The putrid old man would kill him and
+eat him, for the goats would never be forthcoming.  Bukawai would throw
+his bones to the hyenas.  The little black boy shuddered and became so
+weak that he almost fell in his tracks.  Bukawai cuffed him on an ear
+and jerked him along.
+</P>
+<P>
+After what seemed an eternity to Tibo, they arrived at the mouth of a
+cave between two rocky hills.  The opening was low and narrow.  A few
+saplings bound together with strips of rawhide closed it against stray
+beasts.  Bukawai removed the primitive door and pushed Tibo within.
+The hyenas, snarling, rushed past him and were lost to view in the
+blackness of the interior.  Bukawai replaced the saplings and seizing
+Tibo roughly by the arm, dragged him along a narrow, rocky passage.
+The floor was comparatively smooth, for the dirt which lay thick upon
+it had been trodden and tramped by many feet until few inequalities
+remained.
+</P>
+<P>
+The passage was tortuous, and as it was very dark and the walls rough
+and rocky, Tibo was scratched and bruised from the many bumps he
+received.  Bukawai walked as rapidly through the winding gallery as one
+would traverse a familiar lane by daylight.  He knew every twist and
+turn as a mother knows the face of her child, and he seemed to be in a
+hurry.  He jerked poor little Tibo possibly a trifle more ruthlessly
+than necessary even at the pace Bukawai set; but the old witch-doctor,
+an outcast from the society of man, diseased, shunned, hated, feared,
+was far from possessing an angelic temper.  Nature had given him few of
+the kindlier characteristics of man, and these few Fate had eradicated
+entirely.  Shrewd, cunning, cruel, vindictive, was Bukawai, the
+witch-doctor.
+</P>
+<P>
+Frightful tales were whispered of the cruel tortures he inflicted upon
+his victims.  Children were frightened into obedience by the threat of
+his name.  Often had Tibo been thus frightened, and now he was reaping
+a grisly harvest of terror from the seeds his mother had innocently
+sown.  The darkness, the presence of the dreaded witch-doctor, the pain
+of the contusions, with a haunting premonition of the future, and the
+fear of the hyenas combined to almost paralyze the child.  He stumbled
+and reeled until Bukawai was dragging rather than leading him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently Tibo saw a faint lightness ahead of them, and a moment later
+they emerged into a roughly circular chamber to which a little daylight
+filtered through a rift in the rocky ceiling.  The hyenas were there
+ahead of them, waiting.  As Bukawai entered with Tibo, the beasts slunk
+toward them, baring yellow fangs.  They were hungry.  Toward Tibo they
+came, and one snapped at his naked legs.  Bukawai seized a stick from
+the floor of the chamber and struck a vicious blow at the beast, at the
+same time mumbling forth a volley of execrations.  The hyena dodged and
+ran to the side of the chamber, where he stood growling.  Bukawai took
+a step toward the creature, which bristled with rage at his approach.
+Fear and hatred shot from its evil eyes, but, fortunately for Bukawai,
+fear predominated.
+</P>
+<P>
+Seeing that he was unnoticed, the second beast made a short, quick rush
+for Tibo.  The child screamed and darted after the witch-doctor, who
+now turned his attention to the second hyena.  This one he reached with
+his heavy stick, striking it repeatedly and driving it to the wall.
+There the two carrion-eaters commenced to circle the chamber while the
+human carrion, their master, now in a perfect frenzy of demoniacal
+rage, ran to and fro in an effort to intercept them, striking out with
+his cudgel and lashing them with his tongue, calling down upon them the
+curses of whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and
+describing in lurid figures the ignominy of their ancestors.
+</P>
+<P>
+Several times one or the other of the beasts would turn to make a stand
+against the witch-doctor, and then Tibo would hold his breath in
+agonized terror, for never in his brief life had he seen such frightful
+hatred depicted upon the countenance of man or beast; but always fear
+overcame the rage of the savage creatures, so that they resumed their
+flight, snarling and bare-fanged, just at the moment that Tibo was
+certain they would spring at Bukawai's throat.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last the witch-doctor tired of the futile chase.  With a snarl quite
+as bestial as those of the beast, he turned toward Tibo.  "I go to
+collect the ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the two pieces of
+copper wire that your mother will pay for the medicine I shall make to
+bring you back to her," he said.  "You will stay here.  There," and he
+pointed toward the passage which they had followed to the chamber, "I
+will leave the hyenas.  If you try to escape, they will eat you."
+</P>
+<P>
+He cast aside the stick and called to the beasts.  They came, snarling
+and slinking, their tails between their legs.  Bukawai led them to the
+passage and drove them into it.  Then he dragged a rude lattice into
+place before the opening after he, himself, had left the chamber.
+"This will keep them from you," he said.  "If I do not get the ten fat
+goats and the other things, they shall at least have a few bones after
+I am through." And he left the boy to think over the meaning of his
+all-too-suggestive words.
+</P>
+<P>
+When he was gone, Tibo threw himself upon the earth floor and broke
+into childish sobs of terror and loneliness.  He knew that his mother
+had no ten fat goats to give and that when Bukawai returned, little
+Tibo would be killed and eaten.  How long he lay there he did not know,
+but presently he was aroused by the growling of the hyenas.  They had
+returned through the passage and were glaring at him from beyond the
+lattice.  He could see their yellow eyes blazing through the darkness.
+They reared up and clawed at the barrier.  Tibo shivered and withdrew
+to the opposite side of the chamber.  He saw the lattice sag and sway
+to the attacks of the beasts.  Momentarily he expected that it would
+fall inward, letting the creatures upon him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Wearily the horror-ridden hours dragged their slow way.  Night came,
+and for a time Tibo slept, but it seemed that the hungry beasts never
+slept.  Always they stood just beyond the lattice growling their
+hideous growls or laughing their hideous laughs.  Through the narrow
+rift in the rocky roof above him, Tibo could see a few stars, and once
+the moon crossed.  At last daylight came again.  Tibo was very hungry
+and thirsty, for he had not eaten since the morning before, and only
+once upon the long march had he been permitted to drink, but even
+hunger and thirst were almost forgotten in the terror of his position.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was after daylight that the child discovered a second opening in the
+walls of the subterranean chamber, almost opposite that at which the
+hyenas still stood glaring hungrily at him.  It was only a narrow slit
+in the rocky wall.  It might lead in but a few feet, or it might lead
+to freedom! Tibo approached it and looked within.  He could see
+nothing.  He extended his arm into the blackness, but he dared not
+venture farther.  Bukawai never would have left open a way of escape,
+Tibo reasoned, so this passage must lead either nowhere or to some
+still more hideous danger.
+</P>
+<P>
+To the boy's fear of the actual dangers which menaced him&mdash;Bukawai and
+the two hyenas&mdash;his superstition added countless others quite too
+horrible even to name, for in the lives of the blacks, through the
+shadows of the jungle day and the black horrors of the jungle night,
+flit strange, fantastic shapes peopling the already hideously peopled
+forests with menacing figures, as though the lion and the leopard, the
+snake and the hyena, and the countless poisonous insects were not quite
+sufficient to strike terror to the hearts of the poor, simple creatures
+whose lot is cast in earth's most fearsome spot.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+And so it was that little Tibo cringed not only from real menaces but
+from imaginary ones.  He was afraid even to venture upon a road that
+might lead to escape, lest Bukawai had set to watch it some frightful
+demon of the jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+But the real menaces suddenly drove the imaginary ones from the boy's
+mind, for with the coming of daylight the half-famished hyenas renewed
+their efforts to break down the frail barrier which kept them from
+their prey.  Rearing upon their hind feet they clawed and struck at the
+lattice.  With wide eyes Tibo saw it sag and rock.  Not for long, he
+knew, could it withstand the assaults of these two powerful and
+determined brutes.  Already one corner had been forced past the rocky
+protuberance of the entrance way which had held it in place.  A shaggy
+forearm protruded into the chamber.  Tibo trembled as with ague, for he
+knew that the end was near.
+</P>
+<P>
+Backing against the farther wall he stood flattened out as far from the
+beasts as he could get.  He saw the lattice give still more.  He saw a
+savage, snarling head forced past it, and grinning jaws snapping and
+gaping toward him.  In another instant the pitiful fabric would fall
+inward, and the two would be upon him, rending his flesh from his
+bones, gnawing the bones themselves, fighting for possession of his
+entrails.
+</P>
+<P>
+* * *
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai came upon Momaya outside the palisade of Mbonga, the chief.  At
+sight of him the woman drew back in revulsion, then she flew at him,
+tooth and nail; but Bukawai threatening her with a spear held her at a
+safe distance.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Where is my baby?" she cried.  "Where is my little Tibo?"
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai opened his eyes in well-simulated amazement.  "Your baby!" he
+exclaimed.  "What should I know of him, other than that I rescued him
+from the white god of the jungle and have not yet received my pay.  I
+come for the goats and the sleeping mat and the piece of copper wire
+the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder to the tips of his
+fingers." "Offal of a hyena!" shrieked Momaya.  "My child has been
+stolen, and you, rotting fragment of a man, have taken him.  Return him
+to me or I shall tear your eyes from your head and feed your heart to
+the wild hogs."
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai shrugged his shoulders.  "What do I know about your child?" he
+asked.  "I have not taken him.  If he is stolen again, what should
+Bukawai know of the matter? Did Bukawai steal him before? No, the white
+jungle god stole him, and if he stole him once he would steal him
+again.  It is nothing to me.  I returned him to you before and I have
+come for my pay.  If he is gone and you would have him returned,
+Bukawai will return him&mdash;for ten fat goats, a new sleeping mat and two
+pieces of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder
+to the tips of his fingers, and Bukawai will say nothing more about the
+goats and the sleeping mat and the copper wire which you were to pay
+for the first medicine."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Ten fat goats!" screamed Momaya.  "I could not pay you ten fat goats
+in as many years.  Ten fat goats, indeed!"
+</P>
+<P>
+"Ten fat goats," repeated Bukawai.  "Ten fat goats, the new sleeping
+mat and two pieces of copper wire the length of&mdash;"
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya stopped him with an impatient gesture.  "Wait!" she cried.  "I
+have no goats.  You waste your breath.  Stay here while I go to my man.
+He has but three goats, yet something may be done.  Wait!"
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai sat down beneath a tree.  He felt quite content, for he knew
+that he should have either payment or revenge.  He did not fear harm at
+the hands of these people of another tribe, although he well knew that
+they must fear and hate him.  His leprosy alone would prevent their
+laying hands upon him, while his reputation as a witch-doctor rendered
+him doubly immune from attack.  He was planning upon compelling them to
+drive the ten goats to the mouth of his cave when Momaya returned.
+With her were three warriors&mdash;Mbonga, the chief, Rabba Kega, the
+village witch-doctor, and Ibeto, Tibo's father.  They were not pretty
+men even under ordinary circumstances, and now, with their faces marked
+by anger, they well might have inspired terror in the heart of anyone;
+but if Bukawai felt any fear, he did not betray it.  Instead he greeted
+them with an insolent stare, intended to awe them, as they came and
+squatted in a semi-circle before him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Where is Ibeto's son?" asked Mbonga.
+</P>
+<P>
+"How should I know?" returned Bukawai.  "Doubtless the white devil-god
+has him.  If I am paid I will make strong medicine and then we shall
+know where is Ibeto's son, and shall get him back again.  It was my
+medicine which got him back the last time, for which I got no pay."
+</P>
+<P>
+"I have my own witch-doctor to make medicine," replied Mbonga with
+dignity.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai sneered and rose to his feet.  "Very well," he said, "let him
+make his medicine and see if he can bring Ibeto's son back." He took a
+few steps away from them, and then he turned angrily back.  "His
+medicine will not bring the child back&mdash;that I know, and I also know
+that when you find him it will be too late for any medicine to bring
+him back, for he will be dead.  This have I just found out, the ghost
+of my father's sister but now came to me and told me."
+</P>
+<P>
+Now Mbonga and Rabba Kega might not take much stock in their own magic,
+and they might even be skeptical as to the magic of another; but there
+was always a chance of SOMETHING being in it, especially if it were not
+their own.  Was it not well known that old Bukawai had speech with the
+demons themselves and that two even lived with him in the forms of
+hyenas! Still they must not accede too hastily.  There was the price to
+be considered, and Mbonga had no intention of parting lightly with ten
+goats to obtain the return of a single little boy who might die of
+smallpox long before he reached a warrior's estate.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Wait," said Mbonga.  "Let us see some of your magic, that we may know
+if it be good magic.  Then we can talk about payment.  Rabba Kega will
+make some magic, too.  We will see who makes the best magic.  Sit down,
+Bukawai."
+</P>
+<P>
+"The payment will be ten goats&mdash;fat goats&mdash;a new sleeping mat and two
+pieces of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder
+to the ends of his fingers, and it will be made in advance, the goats
+being driven to my cave.  Then will I make the medicine, and on the
+second day the boy will be returned to his mother.  It cannot be done
+more quickly than that because it takes time to make such strong
+medicine."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Make us some medicine now," said Mbonga.  "Let us see what sort of
+medicine you make."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Bring me fire," replied Bukawai, "and I will make you a little magic."
+</P>
+<P>
+Momaya was dispatched for the fire, and while she was away Mbonga
+dickered with Bukawai about the price.  Ten goats, he said, was a high
+price for an able-bodied warrior.  He also called Bukawai's attention
+to the fact that he, Mbonga, was very poor, that his people were very
+poor, and that ten goats were at least eight too many, to say nothing
+of a new sleeping mat and the copper wire; but Bukawai was adamant.
+His medicine was very expensive and he would have to give at least five
+goats to the gods who helped him make it.  They were still arguing when
+Momaya returned with the fire.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai placed a little on the ground before him, took a pinch of
+powder from a pouch at his side and sprinkled it on the embers.  A
+cloud of smoke rose with a puff.  Bukawai closed his eyes and rocked
+back and forth.  Then he made a few passes in the air and pretended to
+swoon.  Mbonga and the others were much impressed.  Rabba Kega grew
+nervous.  He saw his reputation waning.  There was some fire left in
+the vessel which Momaya had brought.  He seized the vessel, dropped a
+handful of dry leaves into it while no one was watching and then
+uttered a frightful scream which drew the attention of Bukawai's
+audience to him.  It also brought Bukawai quite miraculously out of his
+swoon, but when the old witch-doctor saw the reason for the disturbance
+he quickly relapsed into unconsciousness before anyone discovered his
+FAUX PAS.
+</P>
+<P>
+Rabba Kega, seeing that he had the attention of Mbonga, Ibeto, and
+Momaya, blew suddenly into the vessel, with the result that the leaves
+commenced to smolder, and smoke issued from the mouth of the
+receptacle.  Rabba Kega was careful to hold it so that none might see
+the dry leaves.  Their eyes opened wide at this remarkable
+demonstration of the village witch-doctor's powers.  The latter,
+greatly elated, let himself out.  He shouted, jumped up and down, and
+made frightful grimaces; then he put his face close over the mouth of
+the vessel and appeared to be communing with the spirits within.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was while he was thus engaged that Bukawai came out of his trance,
+his curiosity finally having gotten the better of him.  No one was
+paying him the slightest attention.  He blinked his one eye angrily,
+then he, too, let out a loud roar, and when he was sure that Mbonga had
+turned toward him, he stiffened rigidly and made spasmodic movements
+with his arms and legs.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I see him!" he cried.  "He is far away.  The white devil-god did not
+get him.  He is alone and in great danger; but," he added, "if the ten
+fat goats and the other things are paid to me quickly there is yet time
+to save him."
+</P>
+<P>
+Rabba Kega had paused to listen.  Mbonga looked toward him.  The chief
+was in a quandary.  He did not know which medicine was the better.
+"What does your magic tell you?" he asked of Rabba Kega.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I, too, see him," screamed Rabba Kega; "but he is not where Bukawai
+says he is.  He is dead at the bottom of the river."
+</P>
+<P>
+At this Momaya commenced to howl loudly.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+Tarzan had followed the spoor of the old man, the two hyenas, and the
+little black boy to the mouth of the cave in the rocky canon between
+the two hills.  Here he paused a moment before the sapling barrier
+which Bukawai had set up, listening to the snarls and growls which came
+faintly from the far recesses of the cavern.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently, mingled with the beastly cries, there came faintly to the
+keen ears of the ape-man, the agonized moan of a child.  No longer did
+Tarzan hesitate.  Hurling the door aside, he sprang into the dark
+opening.  Narrow and black was the corridor; but long use of his eyes
+in the Stygian blackness of the jungle nights had given to the ape-man
+something of the nocturnal visionary powers of the wild things with
+which he had consorted since babyhood.
+</P>
+<P>
+He moved rapidly and yet with caution, for the place was dark,
+unfamiliar and winding.  As he advanced, he heard more and more loudly
+the savage snarls of the two hyenas, mingled with the scraping and
+scratching of their paws upon wood.  The moans of a child grew in
+volume, and Tarzan recognized in them the voice of the little black boy
+he once had sought to adopt as his balu.
+</P>
+<P>
+There was no hysteria in the ape-man's advance.  Too accustomed was he
+to the passing of life in the jungle to be greatly wrought even by the
+death of one whom he knew; but the lust for battle spurred him on.  He
+was only a wild beast at heart and his wild beast's heart beat high in
+anticipation of conflict.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the rocky chamber of the hill's center, little Tibo crouched low
+against the wall as far from the hunger-crazed beasts as he could drag
+himself.  He saw the lattice giving to the frantic clawing of the
+hyenas.  He knew that in a few minutes his little life would flicker
+out horribly beneath the rending, yellow fangs of these loathsome
+creatures.
+</P>
+<P>
+Beneath the buffetings of the powerful bodies, the lattice sagged
+inward, until, with a crash it gave way, letting the carnivora in upon
+the boy.  Tibo cast one affrighted glance toward them, then closed his
+eyes and buried his face in his arms, sobbing piteously.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a moment the hyenas paused, caution and cowardice holding them from
+their prey.  They stood thus glaring at the lad, then slowly,
+stealthily, crouching, they crept toward him.  It was thus that Tarzan
+came upon them, bursting into the chamber swiftly and silently; but not
+so silently that the keen-eared beasts did not note his coming.  With
+angry growls they turned from Tibo upon the ape-man, as, with a smile
+upon his lips, he ran toward them.  For an instant one of the animals
+stood its ground; but the ape-man did not deign even to draw his
+hunting knife against despised Dango.  Rushing in upon the brute he
+grasped it by the scruff of the neck, just as it attempted to dodge
+past him, and hurled it across the cavern after its fellow which
+already was slinking into the corridor, bent upon escape.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then Tarzan picked Tibo from the floor, and when the child felt human
+hands upon him instead of the paws and fangs of the hyenas, he rolled
+his eyes upward in surprise and incredulity, and as they fell upon
+Tarzan, sobs of relief broke from the childish lips and his hands
+clutched at his deliverer as though the white devil-god was not the
+most feared of jungle creatures.
+</P>
+<P>
+When Tarzan came to the cave mouth the hyenas were nowhere in sight,
+and after permitting Tibo to quench his thirst in the spring which rose
+near by, he lifted the boy to his shoulders and set off toward the
+jungle at a rapid trot, determined to still the annoying howlings of
+Momaya as quickly as possible, for he shrewdly had guessed that the
+absence of her balu was the cause of her lamentation.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+"He is not dead at the bottom of the river," cried Bukawai.  "What does
+this fellow know about making magic? Who is he, anyway, that he dare
+say Bukawai's magic is not good magic? Bukawai sees Momaya's son.  He
+is far away and alone and in great danger.  Hasten then with the ten
+fat goats, the&mdash;"
+</P>
+<P>
+But he got no further.  There was a sudden interruption from above,
+from the branches of the very tree beneath which they squatted, and as
+the five blacks looked up they almost swooned in fright as they saw the
+great, white devil-god looking down upon them; but before they could
+flee they saw another face, that of the lost little Tibo, and his face
+was laughing and very happy.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then Tarzan dropped fearlessly among them, the boy still upon his
+back, and deposited him before his mother.  Momaya, Ibeto, Rabba Kega,
+and Mbonga were all crowding around the lad trying to question him at
+the same time.  Suddenly Momaya turned ferociously to fall upon
+Bukawai, for the boy had told her all that he had suffered at the hands
+of the cruel old man; but Bukawai was no longer there&mdash;he had required
+no recourse to black art to assure him that the vicinity of Momaya
+would be no healthful place for him after Tibo had told his story, and
+now he was running through the jungle as fast as his old legs would
+carry him toward the distant lair where he knew no black would dare
+pursue him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan, too, had vanished, as he had a way of doing, to the
+mystification of the blacks.  Then Momaya's eyes lighted upon Rabba
+Kega.  The village witch-doctor saw something in those eyes of hers
+which boded no good to him, and backed away.
+</P>
+<P>
+"So my Tibo is dead at the bottom of the river, is he?" the woman
+shrieked.  "And he's far away and alone and in great danger, is he?
+Magic!" The scorn which Momaya crowded into that single word would have
+done credit to a Thespian of the first magnitude.  "Magic, indeed!" she
+screamed.  "Momaya will show you some magic of her own," and with that
+she seized upon a broken limb and struck Rabba Kega across the head.
+With a howl of pain, the man turned and fled, Momaya pursuing him and
+beating him across the shoulders, through the gateway and up the length
+of the village street, to the intense amusement of the warriors, the
+women, and the children who were so fortunate as to witness the
+spectacle, for one and all feared Rabba Kega, and to fear is to hate.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thus it was that to his host of passive enemies, Tarzan of the Apes
+added that day two active foes, both of whom remained awake long into
+the night planning means of revenge upon the white devil-god who had
+brought them into ridicule and disrepute, but with their most
+malevolent schemings was mingled a vein of real fear and awe that would
+not down.
+</P>
+<P>
+Young Lord Greystoke did not know that they planned against him, nor,
+knowing, would have cared.  He slept as well that night as he did on
+any other night, and though there was no roof above him, and no doors
+to lock against intruders, he slept much better than his noble relative
+in England, who had eaten altogether too much lobster and drank too
+much wine at dinner that night.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The End of Bukawai
+</H3>
+<P>
+WHEN TARZAN OF the Apes was still but a boy he had learned, among other
+things, to fashion pliant ropes of fibrous jungle grass.  Strong and
+tough were the ropes of Tarzan, the little Tarmangani.  Tublat, his
+foster father, would have told you this much and more.  Had you tempted
+him with a handful of fat caterpillars he even might have sufficiently
+unbended to narrate to you a few stories of the many indignities which
+Tarzan had heaped upon him by means of his hated rope; but then Tublat
+always worked himself into such a frightful rage when he devoted any
+considerable thought either to the rope or to Tarzan, that it might not
+have proved comfortable for you to have remained close enough to him to
+hear what he had to say.
+</P>
+<P>
+So often had that snakelike noose settled unexpectedly over Tublat's
+head, so often had he been jerked ridiculously and painfully from his
+feet when he was least looking for such an occurrence, that there is
+little wonder he found scant space in his savage heart for love of his
+white-skinned foster child, or the inventions thereof.  There had been
+other times, too, when Tublat had swung helplessly in midair, the noose
+tightening about his neck, death staring him in the face, and little
+Tarzan dancing upon a near-by limb, taunting him and making unseemly
+grimaces.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then there had been another occasion in which the rope had figured
+prominently&mdash;an occasion, and the only one connected with the rope,
+which Tublat recalled with pleasure.  Tarzan, as active in brain as he
+was in body, was always inventing new ways in which to play.  It was
+through the medium of play that he learned much during his childhood.
+This day he learned something, and that he did not lose his life in the
+learning of it, was a matter of great surprise to Tarzan, and the fly
+in the ointment, to Tublat.
+</P>
+<P>
+The man-child had, in throwing his noose at a playmate in a tree above
+him, caught a projecting branch instead.  When he tried to shake it
+loose it but drew the tighter.  Then Tarzan started to climb the rope
+to remove it from the branch.  When he was part way up a frolicsome
+playmate seized that part of the rope which lay upon the ground and ran
+off with it as far as he could go.  When Tarzan screamed at him to
+desist, the young ape released the rope a little and then drew it tight
+again.  The result was to impart a swinging motion to Tarzan's body
+which the ape-boy suddenly realized was a new and pleasurable form of
+play.  He urged the ape to continue until Tarzan was swinging to and
+fro as far as the short length of rope would permit, but the distance
+was not great enough, and, too, he was not far enough above the ground
+to give the necessary thrills which add so greatly to the pastimes of
+the young.
+</P>
+<P>
+So he clambered to the branch where the noose was caught and after
+removing it carried the rope far aloft and out upon a long and powerful
+branch.  Here he again made it fast, and taking the loose end in his
+hand, clambered quickly down among the branches as far as the rope
+would permit him to go; then he swung out upon the end of it, his
+lithe, young body turning and twisting&mdash;a human bob upon a pendulum of
+grass&mdash;thirty feet above the ground.
+</P>
+<P>
+Ah, how delectable! This was indeed a new play of the first magnitude.
+Tarzan was entranced.  Soon he discovered that by wriggling his body in
+just the right way at the proper time he could diminish or accelerate
+his oscillation, and, being a boy, he chose, naturally, to accelerate.
+Presently he was swinging far and wide, while below him, the apes of
+the tribe of Kerchak looked on in mild amaze.
+</P>
+<P>
+Had it been you or I swinging there at the end of that grass rope, the
+thing which presently happened would not have happened, for we could
+not have hung on so long as to have made it possible; but Tarzan was
+quite as much at home swinging by his hands as he was standing upon his
+feet, or, at least, almost.  At any rate he felt no fatigue long after
+the time that an ordinary mortal would have been numb with the strain
+of the physical exertion.  And this was his undoing.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tublat was watching him as were others of the tribe.  Of all the
+creatures of the wild, there was none Tublat so cordially hated as he
+did this hideous, hairless, white-skinned, caricature of an ape.  But
+for Tarzan's nimbleness, and the zealous watchfulness of savage Kala's
+mother love, Tublat would long since have rid himself of this stain
+upon his family escutcheon.  So long had it been since Tarzan became a
+member of the tribe, that Tublat had forgotten the circumstances
+surrounding the entrance of the jungle waif into his family, with the
+result that he now imagined that Tarzan was his own offspring, adding
+greatly to his chagrin.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+Wide and far swung Tarzan of the Apes, until at last, as he reached the
+highest point of the arc the rope, which rapidly had frayed on the
+rough bark of the tree limb, parted suddenly.  The watching apes saw
+the smooth, brown body shoot outward, and down, plummet-like. Tublat
+leaped high in the air, emitting what in a human being would have been
+an exclamation of delight.  This would be the end of Tarzan and most of
+Tublat's troubles.  From now on he could lead his life in peace and
+security.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan fell quite forty feet, alighting on his back in a thick bush.
+Kala was the first to reach his side&mdash;ferocious, hideous, loving Kala.
+She had seen the life crushed from her own balu in just such a fall
+years before.  Was she to lose this one too in the same way? Tarzan was
+lying quite still when she found him, embedded deeply in the bush.  It
+took Kala several minutes to disentangle him and drag him forth; but he
+was not killed.  He was not even badly injured.  The bush had broken
+the force of the fall.  A cut upon the back of his head showed where he
+had struck the tough stem of the shrub and explained his
+unconsciousness.
+</P>
+<P>
+In a few minutes he was as active as ever.  Tublat was furious.  In his
+rage he snapped at a fellow-ape without first discovering the identity
+of his victim, and was badly mauled for his ill temper, having chosen
+to vent his spite upon a husky and belligerent young bull in the full
+prime of his vigor.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Tarzan had learned something new.  He had learned that continued
+friction would wear through the strands of his rope, though it was many
+years before this knowledge did more for him than merely to keep him
+from swinging too long at a time, or too far above the ground at the
+end of his rope.
+</P>
+<P>
+The day came, however, when the very thing that had once all but killed
+him proved the means of saving his life.
+</P>
+<P>
+He was no longer a child, but a mighty jungle male.  There was none now
+to watch over him, solicitously, nor did he need such.  Kala was dead.
+Dead, too, was Tublat, and though with Kala passed the one creature
+that ever really had loved him, there were still many who hated him
+after Tublat departed unto the arms of his fathers.  It was not that he
+was more cruel or more savage than they that they hated him, for though
+he was both cruel and savage as were the beasts, his fellows, yet too
+was he often tender, which they never were.  No, the thing which
+brought Tarzan most into disrepute with those who did not like him, was
+the possession and practice of a characteristic which they had not and
+could not understand&mdash;the human sense of humor.  In Tarzan it was a
+trifle broad, perhaps, manifesting itself in rough and painful
+practical jokes upon his friends and cruel baiting of his enemies.
+</P>
+<P>
+But to neither of these did he owe the enmity of Bukawai, the
+witch-doctor, who dwelt in the cave between the two hills far to the
+north of the village of Mbonga, the chief.  Bukawai was jealous of
+Tarzan, and Bukawai it was who came near proving the undoing of the
+ape-man. For months Bukawai had nursed his hatred while revenge seemed
+remote indeed, since Tarzan of the Apes frequented another part of the
+jungle, miles away from the lair of Bukawai.  Only once had the black
+witch-doctor seen the devil-god, as he was most often called among the
+blacks, and upon that occasion Tarzan had robbed him of a fat fee, at
+the same time putting the lie in the mouth of Bukawai, and making his
+medicine seem poor medicine.  All this Bukawai never could forgive,
+though it seemed unlikely that the opportunity would come to be
+revenged.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yet it did come, and quite unexpectedly.  Tarzan was hunting far to the
+north.  He had wandered away from the tribe, as he did more and more
+often as he approached maturity, to hunt alone for a few days.  As a
+child he had enjoyed romping and playing with the young apes, his
+companions; but now these play-fellows of his had grown to surly,
+lowering bulls, or to touchy, suspicious mothers, jealously guarding
+helpless balus.  So Tarzan found in his own man-mind a greater and a
+truer companionship than any or all of the apes of Kerchak could afford
+him.
+</P>
+<P>
+This day, as Tarzan hunted, the sky slowly became overcast.  Torn
+clouds, whipped to ragged streamers, fled low above the tree tops.
+They reminded Tarzan of frightened antelope fleeing the charge of a
+hungry lion.  But though the light clouds raced so swiftly, the jungle
+was motionless.  Not a leaf quivered and the silence was a great, dead
+weight&mdash;insupportable.  Even the insects seemed stilled by apprehension
+of some frightful thing impending, and the larger things were
+soundless.  Such a forest, such a jungle might have stood there in the
+beginning of that unthinkably far-gone age before God peopled the world
+with life, when there were no sounds because there were no ears to hear.
+</P>
+<P>
+And over all lay a sickly, pallid ocher light through which the
+scourged clouds raced.  Tarzan had seen all these conditions many times
+before, yet he never could escape a strange feeling at each recurrence
+of them.  He knew no fear, but in the face of Nature's manifestations
+of her cruel, immeasurable powers, he felt very small&mdash;very small and
+very lonely.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now he heard a low moaning, far away.  "The lions seek their prey," he
+murmured to himself, looking up once again at the swift-flying clouds.
+The moaning rose to a great volume of sound.  "They come!" said Tarzan
+of the Apes, and sought the shelter of a thickly foliaged tree.  Quite
+suddenly the trees bent their tops simultaneously as though God had
+stretched a hand from the heavens and pressed His flat palm down upon
+the world.  "They pass!" whispered Tarzan.  "The lions pass." Then came
+a vivid flash of lightning, followed by deafening thunder.  "The lions
+have sprung," cried Tarzan, "and now they roar above the bodies of
+their kills."
+</P>
+<P>
+The trees were waving wildly in all directions now, a perfectly
+demoniacal wind threshed the jungle pitilessly.  In the midst of it the
+rain came&mdash;not as it comes upon us of the northlands, but in a sudden,
+choking, blinding deluge.  "The blood of the kill," thought Tarzan,
+huddling himself closer to the bole of the great tree beneath which he
+stood.
+</P>
+<P>
+He was close to the edge of the jungle, and at a little distance he had
+seen two hills before the storm broke; but now he could see nothing.
+It amused him to look out into the beating rain, searching for the two
+hills and imagining that the torrents from above had washed them away,
+yet he knew that presently the rain would cease, the sun come out again
+and all be as it was before, except where a few branches had fallen and
+here and there some old and rotted patriarch had crashed back to enrich
+the soil upon which he had fatted for, maybe, centuries.  All about him
+branches and leaves filled the air or fell to earth, torn away by the
+strength of the tornado and the weight of the water upon them.  A gaunt
+corpse toppled and fell a few yards away; but Tarzan was protected from
+all these dangers by the wide-spreading branches of the sturdy young
+giant beneath which his jungle craft had guided him.  Here there was
+but a single danger, and that a remote one.  Yet it came.  Without
+warning the tree above him was riven by lightning, and when the rain
+ceased and the sun came out Tarzan lay stretched as he had fallen, upon
+his face amidst the wreckage of the jungle giant that should have
+shielded him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai came to the entrance of his cave after the rain and the storm
+had passed and looked out upon the scene.  From his one eye Bukawai
+could see; but had he had a dozen eyes he could have found no beauty in
+the fresh sweetness of the revivified jungle, for to such things, in
+the chemistry of temperament, his brain failed to react; nor, even had
+he had a nose, which he had not for years, could he have found
+enjoyment or sweetness in the clean-washed air.
+</P>
+<P>
+At either side of the leper stood his sole and constant companions, the
+two hyenas, sniffing the air.  Presently one of them uttered a low
+growl and with flattened head started, sneaking and wary, toward the
+jungle.  The other followed.  Bukawai, his curiosity aroused, trailed
+after them, in his hand a heavy knob-stick.
+</P>
+<P>
+The hyenas halted a few yards from the prostrate Tarzan, sniffing and
+growling.  Then came Bukawai, and at first he could not believe the
+witness of his own eyes; but when he did and saw that it was indeed the
+devil-god his rage knew no bounds, for he thought him dead and himself
+cheated of the revenge he had so long dreamed upon.
+</P>
+<P>
+The hyenas approached the ape-man with bared fangs.  Bukawai, with an
+inarticulate scream, rushed upon them, striking cruel and heavy blows
+with his knob-stick, for there might still be life in the apparently
+lifeless form.  The beasts, snapping and snarling, half turned upon
+their master and their tormentor, but long fear still held them from
+his putrid throat.  They slunk away a few yards and squatted upon their
+haunches, hatred and baffled hunger gleaming from their savage eyes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai stooped and placed his ear above the ape-man's heart.  It still
+beat.  As well as his sloughed features could register pleasure they
+did so; but it was not a pretty sight.  At the ape-man's side lay his
+long, grass rope.  Quickly Bukawai bound the limp arms behind his
+prisoner's back, then he raised him to one of his shoulders, for,
+though Bukawai was old and diseased, he was still a strong man.  The
+hyenas fell in behind as the witch-doctor set off toward the cave, and
+through the long black corridors they followed as Bukawai bore his
+victim into the bowels of the hills.  Through subterranean chambers,
+connected by winding passageways, Bukawai staggered with his load.  At
+a sudden turning of the corridor, daylight flooded them and Bukawai
+stepped out into a small, circular basin in the hill, apparently the
+crater of an ancient volcano, one of those which never reached the
+dignity of a mountain and are little more than lava-rimmed pits closed
+to the earth's surface.
+</P>
+<P>
+Steep walls rimmed the cavity.  The only exit was through the
+passageway by which Bukawai had entered.  A few stunted trees grew upon
+the rocky floor.  A hundred feet above could be seen the ragged lips of
+this cold, dead mouth of hell.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai propped Tarzan against a tree and bound him there with his own
+grass rope, leaving his hands free but securing the knots in such a way
+that the ape-man could not reach them.  The hyenas slunk to and fro,
+growling.  Bukawai hated them and they hated him.  He knew that they
+but waited for the time when he should be helpless, or when their
+hatred should rise to such a height as to submerge their cringing fear
+of him.
+</P>
+<P>
+In his own heart was not a little fear of these repulsive creatures,
+and because of that fear, Bukawai always kept the beasts well fed,
+often hunting for them when their own forages for food failed, but ever
+was he cruel to them with the cruelty of a little brain, diseased,
+bestial, primitive.
+</P>
+<BR>
+<P>
+He had had them since they were puppies.  They had known no other life
+than that with him, and though they went abroad to hunt, always they
+returned.  Of late Bukawai had come to believe that they returned not
+so much from habit as from a fiendish patience which would submit to
+every indignity and pain rather than forego the final vengeance, and
+Bukawai needed but little imagination to picture what that vengeance
+would be.  Today he would see for himself what his end would be; but
+another should impersonate Bukawai.
+</P>
+<P>
+When he had trussed Tarzan securely, Bukawai went back into the
+corridor, driving the hyenas ahead of him, and pulling across the
+opening a lattice of laced branches, which shut the pit from the cave
+during the night that Bukawai might sleep in security, for then the
+hyenas were penned in the crater that they might not sneak upon a
+sleeping Bukawai in the darkness.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai returned to the outer cave mouth, filled a vessel with water at
+the spring which rose in the little canon close at hand and returned
+toward the pit.  The hyenas stood before the lattice looking hungrily
+toward Tarzan.  They had been fed in this manner before.
+</P>
+<P>
+With his water, the witch-doctor approached Tarzan and threw a portion
+of the contents of the vessel in the ape-man's face.  There was
+fluttering of the eyelids, and at the second application Tarzan opened
+his eyes and looked about.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Devil-god," cried Bukawai, "I am the great witch-doctor.  My medicine
+is strong.  Yours is weak.  If it is not, why do you stay tied here
+like a goat that is bait for lions?"
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan understood nothing the witch-doctor said, therefore he did not
+reply, but only stared straight at Bukawai with cold and level gaze.
+The hyenas crept up behind him.  He heard them growl; but he did not
+even turn his head.  He was a beast with a man's brain.  The beast in
+him refused to show fear in the face of a death which the man-mind
+already admitted to be inevitable.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai, not yet ready to give his victim to the beasts, rushed upon
+the hyenas with his knob-stick. There was a short scrimmage in which
+the brutes came off second best, as they always did.  Tarzan watched
+it.  He saw and realized the hatred which existed between the two
+animals and the hideous semblance of a man.
+</P>
+<P>
+With the hyenas subdued, Bukawai returned to the baiting of Tarzan; but
+finding that the ape-man understood nothing he said, the witch-doctor
+finally desisted.  Then he withdrew into the corridor and pulled the
+latticework barrier across the opening.  He went back into the cave and
+got a sleeping mat, which he brought to the opening, that he might lie
+down and watch the spectacle of his revenge in comfort.
+</P>
+<P>
+The hyenas were sneaking furtively around the ape-man.  Tarzan strained
+at his bonds for a moment, but soon realized that the rope he had
+braided to hold Numa, the lion, would hold him quite as successfully.
+He did not wish to die; but he could look death in the face now as he
+had many times before without a quaver.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he pulled upon the rope he felt it rub against the small tree about
+which it was passed.  Like a flash of the cinematograph upon the
+screen, a picture was flashed before his mind's eye from the storehouse
+of his memory.  He saw a lithe, boyish figure swinging high above the
+ground at the end of a rope.  He saw many apes watching from below, and
+then he saw the rope part and the boy hurtle downward toward the
+ground.  Tarzan smiled.  Immediately he commenced to draw the rope
+rapidly back and forth across the tree trunk.
+</P>
+<P>
+The hyenas, gaining courage, came closer.  They sniffed at his legs;
+but when he struck at them with his free arms they slunk off.  He knew
+that with the growth of hunger they would attack.  Coolly,
+methodically, without haste, Tarzan drew the rope back and forth
+against the rough trunk of the small tree.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the entrance to the cavern Bukawai fell asleep.  He thought it would
+be some time before the beasts gained sufficient courage or hunger to
+attack the captive.  Their growls and the cries of the victim would
+awaken him.  In the meantime he might as well rest, and he did.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thus the day wore on, for the hyenas were not famished, and the rope
+with which Tarzan was bound was a stronger one than that of his
+boyhood, which had parted so quickly to the chafing of the rough tree
+bark.  Yet, all the while hunger was growing upon the beasts and the
+strands of the grass rope were wearing thinner and thinner.  Bukawai
+slept.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was late afternoon before one of the beasts, irritated by the
+gnawing of appetite, made a quick, growling dash at the ape-man. The
+noise awoke Bukawai.  He sat up quickly and watched what went on within
+the crater.  He saw the hungry hyena charge the man, leaping for the
+unprotected throat.  He saw Tarzan reach out and seize the growling
+animal, and then he saw the second beast spring for the devil-god's
+shoulder.  There was a mighty heave of the great, smooth-skinned body.
+Rounded muscles shot into great, tensed piles beneath the brown
+hide&mdash;the ape-man surged forward with all his weight and all his great
+strength&mdash;the bonds parted, and the three were rolling upon the floor
+of the crater snarling, snapping, and rending.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai leaped to his feet.  Could it be that the devil-god was to
+prevail against his servants? Impossible! The creature was unarmed, and
+he was down with two hyenas on top of him; but Bukawai did not know
+Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-man fastened his fingers upon the throat of one of the hyenas
+and rose to one knee, though the other beast tore at him frantically in
+an effort to pull him down.  With a single hand Tarzan held the one,
+and with the other hand he reached forth and pulled toward him the
+second beast.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then Bukawai, seeing the battle going against his forces, rushed
+forward from the cavern brandishing his knob-stick.  Tarzan saw him
+coming, and rising now to both feet, a hyena in each hand, he hurled
+one of the foaming beasts straight at the witch-doctor's head.  Down
+went the two in a snarling, biting heap.  Tarzan tossed the second
+hyena across the crater, while the first gnawed at the rotting face of
+its master; but this did not suit the ape-man.  With a kick he sent the
+beast howling after its companion, and springing to the side of the
+prostrate witch-doctor, dragged him to his feet.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bukawai, still conscious, saw death, immediate and terrible, in the
+cold eyes of his captor, so he turned upon Tarzan with teeth and nails.
+The ape-man shuddered at the proximity of that raw face to his.  The
+hyenas had had enough and disappeared through the small aperture
+leading into the cave.  Tarzan had little difficulty in overpowering
+and binding Bukawai.  Then he led him to the very tree to which he had
+been bound; but in binding Bukawai, Tarzan saw to it that escape after
+the same fashion that he had escaped would be out of the question; then
+he left him.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he passed through the winding corridors and the subterranean
+apartments, Tarzan saw nothing of the hyenas.
+</P>
+<P>
+"They will return," he said to himself.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the crater between the towering walls Bukawai, cold with terror,
+trembled, trembled as with ague.
+</P>
+<P>
+"They will return!" he cried, his voice rising to a fright-filled
+shriek.
+</P>
+<P>
+And they did.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Lion
+</H3>
+<P>
+NUMA, THE LION, crouched behind a thorn bush close beside the drinking
+pool where the river eddied just below the bend.  There was a ford
+there and on either bank a well-worn trail, broadened far out at the
+river's brim, where, for countless centuries, the wild things of the
+jungle and of the plains beyond had come down to drink, the carnivora
+with bold and fearless majesty, the herbivora timorous, hesitating,
+fearful.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa, the lion, was hungry, he was very hungry, and so he was quite
+silent now.  On his way to the drinking place he had moaned often and
+roared not a little; but as he neared the spot where he would lie in
+wait for Bara, the deer, or Horta, the boar, or some other of the many
+luscious-fleshed creatures who came hither to drink, he was silent.  It
+was a grim, a terrible silence, shot through with yellow-green light of
+ferocious eyes, punctuated with undulating tremors of sinuous tail.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was Pacco, the zebra, who came first, and Numa, the lion, could
+scarce restrain a roar of anger, for of all the plains people, none are
+more wary than Pacco, the zebra.  Behind the black-striped stallion
+came a herd of thirty or forty of the plump and vicious little
+horselike beasts.  As he neared the river, the leader paused often,
+cocking his ears and raising his muzzle to sniff the gentle breeze for
+the tell-tale scent spoor of the dread flesh-eaters.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa shifted uneasily, drawing his hind quarters far beneath his tawny
+body, gathering himself for the sudden charge and the savage assault.
+His eyes shot hungry fire.  His great muscles quivered to the
+excitement of the moment.
+</P>
+<P>
+Pacco came a little nearer, halted, snorted, and wheeled.  There was a
+pattering of scurrying hoofs and the herd was gone; but Numa, the lion,
+moved not.  He was familiar with the ways of Pacco, the zebra.  He knew
+that he would return, though many times he might wheel and fly before
+he summoned the courage to lead his harem and his offspring to the
+water.  There was the chance that Pacco might be frightened off
+entirely.  Numa had seen this happen before, and so he became almost
+rigid lest he be the one to send them galloping, waterless, back to the
+plain.
+</P>
+<P>
+Again and again came Pacco and his family, and again and again did they
+turn and flee; but each time they came closer to the river, until at
+last the plump stallion dipped his velvet muzzle daintily into the
+water.  The others, stepping warily, approached their leader.  Numa
+selected a sleek, fat filly and his flaming eyes burned greedily as
+they feasted upon her, for Numa, the lion, loves scarce anything better
+than the meat of Pacco, perhaps because Pacco is, of all the
+grass-eaters, the most difficult to catch.
+</P>
+<P>
+Slowly the lion rose, and as he rose, a twig snapped beneath one of his
+great, padded paws.  Like a shot from a rifle he charged upon the
+filly; but the snapped twig had been enough to startle the timorous
+quarry, so that they were in instant flight simultaneously with Numa's
+charge.
+</P>
+<P>
+The stallion was last, and with a prodigious leap, the lion catapulted
+through the air to seize him; but the snapping twig had robbed Numa of
+his dinner, though his mighty talons raked the zebra's glossy rump,
+leaving four crimson bars across the beautiful coat.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was an angry Numa that quitted the river and prowled, fierce,
+dangerous, and hungry, into the jungle.  Far from particular now was
+his appetite.  Even Dango, the hyena, would have seemed a tidbit to
+that ravenous maw.  And in this temper it was that the lion came upon
+the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+One does not look for Numa, the lion, this late in the morning.  He
+should be lying up asleep beside his last night's kill by now; but Numa
+had made no kill last night.  He was still hunting, hungrier than ever.
+</P>
+<P>
+The anthropoids were idling about the clearing, the first keen desire
+of the morning's hunger having been satisfied.  Numa scented them long
+before he saw them.  Ordinarily he would have turned away in search of
+other game, for even Numa respected the mighty muscles and the sharp
+fangs of the great bulls of the tribe of Kerchak, but today he kept on
+steadily toward them, his bristled snout wrinkled into a savage snarl.
+</P>
+<P>
+Without an instant's hesitation, Numa charged the moment he reached a
+point from where the apes were visible to him.  There were a dozen or
+more of the hairy, manlike creatures upon the ground in a little glade.
+In a tree at one side sat a brown-skinned youth.  He saw Numa's swift
+charge; he saw the apes turn and flee, huge bulls trampling upon little
+balus; only a single she held her ground to meet the charge, a young
+she inspired by new motherhood to the great sacrifice that her balu
+might escape.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan leaped from his perch, screaming at the flying bulls beneath and
+at those who squatted in the safety of surrounding trees.  Had the
+bulls stood their ground, Numa would not have carried through that
+charge unless goaded by great rage or the gnawing pangs of starvation.
+Even then he would not have come off unscathed.
+</P>
+<P>
+If the bulls heard, they were too slow in responding, for Numa had
+seized the mother ape and dragged her into the jungle before the males
+had sufficiently collected their wits and their courage to rally in
+defense of their fellow.  Tarzan's angry voice aroused similar anger in
+the breasts of the apes.  Snarling and barking they followed Numa into
+the dense labyrinth of foliage wherein he sought to hide himself from
+them.  The ape-man was in the lead, moving rapidly and yet with
+caution, depending even more upon his ears and nose than upon his eyes
+for information of the lion's whereabouts.
+</P>
+<P>
+The spoor was easy to follow, for the dragged body of the victim left a
+plain trail, blood-spattered and scentful.  Even such dull creatures as
+you or I might easily have followed it.  To Tarzan and the apes of
+Kerchak it was as obvious as a cement sidewalk.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan knew that they were nearing the great cat even before he heard
+an angry growl of warning just ahead.  Calling to the apes to follow
+his example, he swung into a tree and a moment later Numa was
+surrounded by a ring of growling beasts, well out of reach of his fangs
+and talons but within plain sight of him.  The carnivore crouched with
+his fore-quarters upon the she-ape. Tarzan could see that the latter
+was already dead; but something within him made it seem quite necessary
+to rescue the useless body from the clutches of the enemy and to punish
+him.
+</P>
+<P>
+He shrieked taunts and insults at Numa, and tearing dead branches from
+the tree in which he danced, hurled them at the lion.  The apes
+followed his example.  Numa roared out in rage and vexation.  He was
+hungry, but under such conditions he could not feed.
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes, if they had been left to themselves, would doubtless soon
+have left the lion to peaceful enjoyment of his feast, for was not the
+she dead? They could not restore her to life by throwing sticks at
+Numa, and they might even now be feeding in quiet themselves; but
+Tarzan was of a different mind.  Numa must be punished and driven away.
+He must be taught that even though he killed a Mangani, he would not be
+permitted to feed upon his kill.  The man-mind looked into the future,
+while the apes perceived only the immediate present.  They would be
+content to escape today the menace of Numa, while Tarzan saw the
+necessity, and the means as well, of safeguarding the days to come.
+</P>
+<P>
+So he urged the great anthropoids on until Numa was showered with
+missiles that kept his head dodging and his voice pealing forth its
+savage protest; but still he clung desperately to his kill.
+</P>
+<P>
+The twigs and branches hurled at Numa, Tarzan soon realized, did not
+hurt him greatly even when they struck him, and did not injure him at
+all, so the ape-man looked about for more effective missiles, nor did
+he have to look long.  An out-cropping of decomposed granite not far
+from Numa suggested ammunition of a much more painful nature.  Calling
+to the apes to watch him, Tarzan slipped to the ground and gathered a
+handful of small fragments.  He knew that when once they had seen him
+carry out his idea they would be much quicker to follow his lead than
+to obey his instructions, were he to command them to procure pieces of
+rock and hurl them at Numa, for Tarzan was not then king of the apes of
+the tribe of Kerchak.  That came in later years.  Now he was but a
+youth, though one who already had wrested for himself a place in the
+councils of the savage beasts among whom a strange fate had cast him.
+The sullen bulls of the older generation still hated him as beasts hate
+those of whom they are suspicious, whose scent characteristic is the
+scent characteristic of an alien order and, therefore, of an enemy
+order.  The younger bulls, those who had grown up through childhood as
+his playmates, were as accustomed to Tarzan's scent as to that of any
+other member of the tribe.  They felt no greater suspicion of him than
+of any other bull of their acquaintance; yet they did not love him, for
+they loved none outside the mating season, and the animosities aroused
+by other bulls during that season lasted well over until the next.
+They were a morose and peevish band at best, though here and there were
+those among them in whom germinated the primal seeds of
+humanity&mdash;reversions to type, these, doubtless; reversions to the
+ancient progenitor who took the first step out of ape-hood toward
+humanness, when he walked more often upon his hind feet and discovered
+other things for idle hands to do.
+</P>
+<P>
+So now Tarzan led where he could not yet command.  He had long since
+discovered the apish propensity for mimicry and learned to make use of
+it.  Having filled his arms with fragments of rotted granite, he
+clambered again into a tree, and it pleased him to see that the apes
+had followed his example.
+</P>
+<P>
+During the brief respite while they were gathering their ammunition,
+Numa had settled himself to feed; but scarce had he arranged himself
+and his kill when a sharp piece of rock hurled by the practiced hand of
+the ape-man struck him upon the cheek.  His sudden roar of pain and
+rage was smothered by a volley from the apes, who had seen Tarzan's
+act.  Numa shook his massive head and glared upward at his tormentors.
+For a half hour they pursued him with rocks and broken branches, and
+though he dragged his kill into densest thickets, yet they always found
+a way to reach him with their missiles, giving him no opportunity to
+feed, and driving him on and on.
+</P>
+<P>
+The hairless ape-thing with the man scent was worst of all, for he had
+even the temerity to advance upon the ground to within a few yards of
+the Lord of the Jungle, that he might with greater accuracy and force
+hurl the sharp bits of granite and the heavy sticks at him.  Time and
+again did Numa charge&mdash;sudden, vicious charges&mdash;but the lithe, active
+tormentor always managed to elude him and with such insolent ease that
+the lion forgot even his great hunger in the consuming passion of his
+rage, leaving his meat for considerable spaces of time in vain efforts
+to catch his enemy.
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes and Tarzan pursued the great beast to a natural clearing,
+where Numa evidently determined to make a last stand, taking up his
+position in the center of the open space, which was far enough from any
+tree to render him practically immune from the rather erratic throwing
+of the apes, though Tarzan still found him with most persistent and
+aggravating frequency.
+</P>
+<P>
+This, however, did not suit the ape-man, since Numa now suffered an
+occasional missile with no more than a snarl, while he settled himself
+to partake of his delayed feast.  Tarzan scratched his head, pondering
+some more effective method of offense, for he had determined to prevent
+Numa from profiting in any way through his attack upon the tribe.  The
+man-mind reasoned against the future, while the shaggy apes thought
+only of their present hatred of this ancestral enemy.  Tarzan guessed
+that should Numa find it an easy thing to snatch a meal from the tribe
+of Kerchak, it would be but a short time before their existence would
+be one living nightmare of hideous watchfulness and dread.  Numa must
+be taught that the killing of an ape brought immediate punishment and
+no rewards.  It would take but a few lessons to insure the former
+safety of the tribe.  This must be some old lion whose failing strength
+and agility had forced him to any prey that he could catch; but even a
+single lion, undisputed, could exterminate the tribe, or at least make
+its existence so precarious and so terrifying that life would no longer
+be a pleasant condition.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Let him hunt among the Gomangani," thought Tarzan.  "He will find them
+easier prey.  I will teach ferocious Numa that he may not hunt the
+Mangani."
+</P>
+<P>
+But how to wrest the body of his victim from the feeding lion was the
+first question to be solved.  At last Tarzan hit upon a plan.  To
+anyone but Tarzan of the Apes it might have seemed rather a risky plan,
+and perhaps it did even to him; but Tarzan rather liked things that
+contained a considerable element of danger.  At any rate, I rather
+doubt that you or I would have chosen a similar plan for foiling an
+angry and a hungry lion.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan required assistance in the scheme he had hit upon and his
+assistant must be equally as brave and almost as active as he.  The
+ape-man's eyes fell upon Taug, the playmate of his childhood, the rival
+in his first love and now, of all the bulls of the tribe, the only one
+that might be thought to hold in his savage brain any such feeling
+toward Tarzan as we describe among ourselves as friendship.  At least,
+Tarzan knew, Taug was courageous, and he was young and agile and
+wonderfully muscled.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Taug!" cried the ape-man. The great ape looked up from a dead limb he
+was attempting to tear from a lightning-blasted tree.  "Go close to
+Numa and worry him," said Tarzan.  "Worry him until he charges.  Lead
+him away from the body of Mamka.  Keep him away as long as you can."
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug nodded.  He was across the clearing from Tarzan.  Wresting the
+limb at last from the tree he dropped to the ground and advanced toward
+Numa, growling and barking out his insults.  The worried lion looked up
+and rose to his feet.  His tail went stiffly erect and Taug turned in
+flight, for he knew that warming signal of the charge.
+</P>
+<P>
+From behind the lion, Tarzan ran quickly toward the center of the
+clearing and the body of Mamka.  Numa, all his eyes for Taug, did not
+see the ape-man. Instead he shot forward after the fleeing bull, who
+had turned in flight not an instant too soon, since he reached the
+nearest tree but a yard or two ahead of the pursuing demon.  Like a cat
+the heavy anthropoid scampered up the bole of his sanctuary.  Numa's
+talons missed him by little more than inches.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a moment the lion paused beneath the tree, glaring up at the ape
+and roaring until the earth trembled, then he turned back again toward
+his kill, and as he did so, his tail shot once more to rigid erectness
+and he charged back even more ferociously than he had come, for what he
+saw was the naked man-thing running toward the farther trees with the
+bloody carcass of his prey across a giant shoulder.
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes, watching the grim race from the safety of the trees, screamed
+taunts at Numa and warnings to Tarzan.  The high sun, hot and
+brilliant, fell like a spotlight upon the actors in the little
+clearing, portraying them in glaring relief to the audience in the
+leafy shadows of the surrounding trees.  The light-brown body of the
+naked youth, all but hidden by the shaggy carcass of the killed ape,
+the red blood streaking his smooth hide, his muscles rolling, velvety,
+beneath.  Behind him the black-maned lion, head flattened, tail
+extended, racing, a jungle thoroughbred, across the sunlit clearing.
+</P>
+<P>
+Ah, but this was life! With death at his heels, Tarzan thrilled with
+the joy of such living as this; but would he reach the trees ahead of
+the rampant death so close behind?
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto swung from a limb in a tree before him.  Gunto was screaming
+warnings and advice.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Catch me!" cried Tarzan, and with his heavy burden leaped straight for
+the big bull hanging there by his hind feet and one forepaw.  And Gunto
+caught them&mdash;the big ape-man and the dead weight of the slain
+she-ape&mdash;caught them with one great, hairy paw and whirled them upward
+until Tarzan's fingers closed upon a near-by branch.
+</P>
+<P>
+Beneath, Numa leaped; but Gunto, heavy and awkward as he may have
+appeared, was as quick as Manu, the monkey, so that the lion's talons
+but barely grazed him, scratching a bloody streak beneath one hairy arm.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan carried Mamka's corpse to a high crotch, where even Sheeta, the
+panther, could not get it.  Numa paced angrily back and forth beneath
+the tree, roaring frightfully.  He had been robbed of his kill and his
+revenge also.  He was very savage indeed; but his despoilers were well
+out of his reach, and after hurling a few taunts and missiles at him
+they swung away through the trees, fiercely reviling him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan thought much upon the little adventure of that day.  He foresaw
+what might happen should the great carnivora of the jungle turn their
+serious attention upon the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape, but equally
+he thought upon the wild scramble of the apes for safety when Numa
+first charged among them.  There is little humor in the jungle that is
+not grim and awful.  The beasts have little or no conception of humor;
+but the young Englishman saw humor in many things which presented no
+humorous angle to his associates.
+</P>
+<P>
+Since earliest childhood he had been a searcher after fun, much to the
+sorrow of his fellow-apes, and now he saw the humor of the frightened
+panic of the apes and the baffled rage of Numa even in this grim jungle
+adventure which had robbed Mamka of life, and jeopardized that of many
+members of the tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was but a few weeks later that Sheeta, the panther, made a sudden
+rush among the tribe and snatched a little balu from a tree where it
+had been hidden while its mother sought food.  Sheeta got away with his
+small prize unmolested.  Tarzan was very wroth.  He spoke to the bulls
+of the ease with which Numa and Sheeta, in a single moon, had slain two
+members of the tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+"They will take us all for food," he cried.  "We hunt as we will
+through the jungle, paying no heed to approaching enemies.  Even Manu,
+the monkey, does not so.  He keeps two or three always watching for
+enemies.  Pacco, the zebra, and Wappi, the antelope, have those about
+the herd who keep watch while the others feed, while we, the great
+Mangani, let Numa, and Sabor, and Sheeta come when they will and carry
+us off to feed their balus.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Gr-r-rmph," said Numgo.
+</P>
+<P>
+"What are we to do?" asked Taug.
+</P>
+<P>
+"We, too, should have two or three always watching for the approach of
+Numa, and Sabor, and Sheeta," replied Tarzan.  "No others need we fear,
+except Histah, the snake, and if we watch for the others we will see
+Histah if he comes, though gliding ever so silently."
+</P>
+<P>
+And so it was that the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak posted
+sentries thereafter, who watched upon three sides while the tribe
+hunted, scattered less than had been their wont.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Tarzan went abroad alone, for Tarzan was a man-thing and sought
+amusement and adventure and such humor as the grim and terrible jungle
+offers to those who know it and do not fear it&mdash;a weird humor shot with
+blazing eyes and dappled with the crimson of lifeblood.  While others
+sought only food and love, Tarzan of the Apes sought food and joy.
+</P>
+<P>
+One day he hovered above the palisaded village of Mbonga, the chief,
+the jet cannibal of the jungle primeval.  He saw, as he had seen many
+times before, the witch-doctor, Rabba Kega, decked out in the head and
+hide of Gorgo, the buffalo.  It amused Tarzan to see a Gomangani
+parading as Gorgo; but it suggested nothing in particular to him until
+he chanced to see stretched against the side of Mbonga's hut the skin
+of a lion with the head still on.  Then a broad grin widened the
+handsome face of the savage beast-youth.
+</P>
+<P>
+Back into the jungle he went until chance, agility, strength, and
+cunning backed by his marvelous powers of perception, gave him an easy
+meal.  If Tarzan felt that the world owed him a living he also realized
+that it was for him to collect it, nor was there ever a better
+collector than this son of an English lord, who knew even less of the
+ways of his forbears than he did of the forbears themselves, which was
+nothing.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was quite dark when Tarzan returned to the village of Mbonga and
+took his now polished perch in the tree which overhangs the palisade
+upon one side of the walled enclosure.  As there was nothing in
+particular to feast upon in the village there was little life in the
+single street, for only an orgy of flesh and native beer could draw out
+the people of Mbonga.  Tonight they sat gossiping about their cooking
+fires, the older members of the tribe; or, if they were young, paired
+off in the shadows cast by the palm-thatched huts.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan dropped lightly into the village, and sneaking stealthily in the
+concealment of the denser shadows, approached the hut of the chief,
+Mbonga.  Here he found that which he sought.  There were warriors all
+about him; but they did not know that the feared devil-god slunk
+noiselessly so near them, nor did they see him possess himself of that
+which he coveted and depart from their village as noiselessly as he had
+come.
+</P>
+<P>
+Later that night, as Tarzan curled himself for sleep, he lay for a long
+time looking up at the burning planets and the twinkling stars and at
+Goro the moon, and he smiled.  He recalled how ludicrous the great
+bulls had appeared in their mad scramble for safety that day when Numa
+had charged among them and seized Mamka, and yet he knew them to be
+fierce and courageous.  It was the sudden shock of surprise that always
+sent them into a panic; but of this Tarzan was not as yet fully aware.
+That was something he was to learn in the near future.
+</P>
+<P>
+He fell asleep with a broad grin upon his face.
+</P>
+<P>
+Manu, the monkey, awoke him in the morning by dropping discarded bean
+pods upon his upturned face from a branch a short distance above him.
+Tarzan looked up and smiled.  He had been awakened thus before many
+times.  He and Manu were fairly good friends, their friendship
+operating upon a reciprocal basis.  Sometimes Manu would come running
+early in the morning to awaken Tarzan and tell him that Bara, the deer,
+was feeding close at hand, or that Horta, the boar, was asleep in a
+mudhole hard by, and in return Tarzan broke open the shells of the
+harder nuts and fruits for Manu, or frightened away Histah, the snake,
+and Sheeta, the panther.
+</P>
+<P>
+The sun had been up for some time, and the tribe had already wandered
+off in search of food.  Manu indicated the direction they had taken
+with a wave of his hand and a few piping notes of his squeaky little
+voice.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Come, Manu," said Tarzan, "and you will see that which shall make you
+dance for joy and squeal your wrinkled little head off.  Come, follow
+Tarzan of the Apes."
+</P>
+<P>
+With that he set off in the direction Manu had indicated and above him,
+chattering, scolding and squealing, skipped Manu, the monkey.  Across
+Tarzan's shoulders was the thing he had stolen from the village of
+Mbonga, the chief, the evening before.
+</P>
+<P>
+The tribe was feeding in the forest beside the clearing where Gunto,
+and Taug, and Tarzan had so harassed Numa and finally taken away from
+him the fruit of his kill.  Some of them were in the clearing itself.
+In peace and content they fed, for were there not three sentries, each
+watching upon a different side of the herd? Tarzan had taught them
+this, and though he had been away for several days hunting alone, as he
+often did, or visiting at the cabin by the sea, they had not as yet
+forgotten his admonitions, and if they continued for a short time
+longer to post sentries, it would become a habit of their tribal life
+and thus be perpetuated indefinitely.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Tarzan, who knew them better than they knew themselves, was
+confident that they had ceased to place the watchers about them the
+moment that he had left them, and now he planned not only to have a
+little fun at their expense but to teach them a lesson in preparedness,
+which, by the way, is even a more vital issue in the jungle than in
+civilized places.  That you and I exist today must be due to the
+preparedness of some shaggy anthropoid of the Oligocene.  Of course the
+apes of Kerchak were always prepared, after their own way&mdash;Tarzan had
+merely suggested a new and additional safeguard.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto was posted today to the north of the clearing.  He squatted in
+the fork of a tree from where he might view the jungle for quite a
+distance about him.  It was he who first discovered the enemy.  A
+rustling in the undergrowth attracted his attention, and a moment later
+he had a partial view of a shaggy mane and tawny yellow back.  Just a
+glimpse it was through the matted foliage beneath him; but it brought
+from Gunto's leathern lungs a shrill "Kreeg-ah!" which is the ape for
+beware, or danger.
+</P>
+<P>
+Instantly the tribe took up the cry until "Kreeg-ahs!" rang through the
+jungle about the clearing as apes swung quickly to places of safety
+among the lower branches of the trees and the great bulls hastened in
+the direction of Gunto.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then into the clearing strode Numa, the lion&mdash;majestic and mighty,
+and from a deep chest issued the moan and the cough and the rumbling
+roar that set stiff hairs to bristling from shaggy craniums down the
+length of mighty spines.
+</P>
+<P>
+Inside the clearing, Numa paused and on the instant there fell upon him
+from the trees near by a shower of broken rock and dead limbs torn from
+age-old trees.  A dozen times he was hit, and then the apes ran down
+and gathered other rocks, pelting him unmercifully.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa turned to flee, but his way was barred by a fusilade of
+sharp-cornered missiles, and then, upon the edge of the clearing, great
+Taug met him with a huge fragment of rock as large as a man's head, and
+down went the Lord of the Jungle beneath the stunning blow.
+</P>
+<P>
+With shrieks and roars and loud barkings the great apes of the tribe of
+Kerchak rushed upon the fallen lion.  Sticks and stones and yellow
+fangs menaced the still form.  In another moment, before he could
+regain consciousness, Numa would be battered and torn until only a
+bloody mass of broken bones and matted hair remained of what had once
+been the most dreaded of jungle creatures.
+</P>
+<P>
+But even as the sticks and stones were raised above him and the great
+fangs bared to tear him, there descended like a plummet from the trees
+above a diminutive figure with long, white whiskers and a wrinkled
+face.  Square upon the body of Numa it alighted and there it danced and
+screamed and shrieked out its challenge against the bulls of Kerchak.
+</P>
+<P>
+For an instant they paused, paralyzed by the wonder of the thing.  It
+was Manu, the monkey, Manu, the little coward, and here he was daring
+the ferocity of the great Mangani, hopping about upon the carcass of
+Numa, the lion, and crying out that they must not strike it again.
+</P>
+<P>
+And when the bulls paused, Manu reached down and seized a tawny ear.
+With all his little might he tugged upon the heavy head until slowly it
+turned back, revealing the tousled, black head and clean-cut profile of
+Tarzan of the Apes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Some of the older apes were for finishing what they had commenced; but
+Taug, sullen, mighty Taug, sprang quickly to the ape-man's side and
+straddling the unconscious form warned back those who would have struck
+his childhood playmate.  And Teeka, his mate, came too, taking her
+place with bared fangs at Taug's side.  Others followed their example,
+until at last Tarzan was surrounded by a ring of hairy champions who
+would permit no enemy to approach him.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was a surprised and chastened Tarzan who opened his eyes to
+consciousness a few minutes later.  He looked about him at the
+surrounding apes and slowly there returned to him a realization of what
+had occurred.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gradually a broad grin illuminated his features.  His bruises were many
+and they hurt; but the good that had come from his adventure was worth
+all that it had cost.  He had learned, for instance, that the apes of
+Kerchak had heeded his teaching, and he had learned that he had good
+friends among the sullen beasts whom he had thought without sentiment.
+He had discovered that Manu, the monkey&mdash;even little, cowardly
+Manu&mdash;had risked his life in his defense.
+</P>
+<P>
+It made Tarzan very glad to know these things; but at the other lesson
+he had been taught he reddened.  He had always been a joker, the only
+joker in the grim and terrible company; but now as he lay there half
+dead from his hurts, he almost swore a solemn oath forever to forego
+practical joking&mdash;almost; but not quite.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Nightmare
+</H3>
+<P>
+THE BLACKS OF the village of Mbonga, the chief, were feasting, while
+above them in a large tree sat Tarzan of the Apes&mdash;grim, terrible,
+empty, and envious.  Hunting had proved poor that day, for there are
+lean days as well as fat ones for even the greatest of the jungle
+hunters.  Oftentimes Tarzan went empty for more than a full sun, and he
+had passed through entire moons during which he had been but barely
+able to stave off starvation; but such times were infrequent.
+</P>
+<P>
+There once had been a period of sickness among the grass-eaters which
+had left the plains almost bare of game for several years, and again
+the great cats had increased so rapidly and so overrun the country that
+their prey, which was also Tarzan's, had been frightened off for a
+considerable time.
+</P>
+<P>
+But for the most part Tarzan had fed well always.  Today, though, he
+had gone empty, one misfortune following another as rapidly as he
+raised new quarry, so that now, as he sat perched in the tree above the
+feasting blacks, he experienced all the pangs of famine and his hatred
+for his lifelong enemies waxed strong in his breast.  It was
+tantalizing, indeed, to sit there hungry while these Gomangani filled
+themselves so full of food that their stomachs seemed almost upon the
+point of bursting, and with elephant steaks at that!
+</P>
+<P>
+It was true that Tarzan and Tantor were the best of friends, and that
+Tarzan never yet had tasted of the flesh of the elephant; but the
+Gomangani evidently had slain one, and as they were eating of the flesh
+of their kill, Tarzan was assailed by no doubts as to the ethics of his
+doing likewise, should he have the opportunity.  Had he known that the
+elephant had died of sickness several days before the blacks discovered
+the carcass, he might not have been so keen to partake of the feast,
+for Tarzan of the Apes was no carrion-eater. Hunger, however, may blunt
+the most epicurean taste, and Tarzan was not exactly an epicure.
+</P>
+<P>
+What he was at this moment was a very hungry wild beast whom caution
+was holding in leash, for the great cooking pot in the center of the
+village was surrounded by black warriors, through whom not even Tarzan
+of the Apes might hope to pass unharmed.  It would be necessary,
+therefore, for the watcher to remain there hungry until the blacks had
+gorged themselves to stupor, and then, if they had left any scraps, to
+make the best meal he could from such; but to the impatient Tarzan it
+seemed that the greedy Gomangani would rather burst than leave the
+feast before the last morsel had been devoured.  For a time they broke
+the monotony of eating by executing portions of a hunting dance, a
+maneuver which sufficiently stimulated digestion to permit them to fall
+to once more with renewed vigor; but with the consumption of appalling
+quantities of elephant meat and native beer they presently became too
+loggy for physical exertion of any sort, some reaching a stage where
+they no longer could rise from the ground, but lay conveniently close
+to the great cooking pot, stuffing themselves into unconsciousness.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was well past midnight before Tarzan even could begin to see the end
+of the orgy.  The blacks were now falling asleep rapidly; but a few
+still persisted.  From before their condition Tarzan had no doubt but
+that he easily could enter the village and snatch a handful of meat
+from before their noses; but a handful was not what he wanted.  Nothing
+less than a stomachful would allay the gnawing craving of that great
+emptiness.  He must therefore have ample time to forage in peace.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last but a single warrior remained true to his ideals&mdash;an old
+fellow whose once wrinkled belly was now as smooth and as tight as the
+head of a drum.  With evidences of great discomfort, and even pain, he
+would crawl toward the pot and drag himself slowly to his knees, from
+which position he could reach into the receptacle and seize a piece of
+meat.  Then he would roll over on his back with a loud groan and lie
+there while he slowly forced the food between his teeth and down into
+his gorged stomach.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was evident to Tarzan that the old fellow would eat until he died,
+or until there was no more meat.  The ape-man shook his head in
+disgust.  What foul creatures were these Gomangani? Yet of all the
+jungle folk they alone resembled Tarzan closely in form.  Tarzan was a
+man, and they, too, must be some manner of men, just as the little
+monkeys, and the great apes, and Bolgani, the gorilla, were quite
+evidently of one great family, though differing in size and appearance
+and customs.  Tarzan was ashamed, for of all the beasts of the jungle,
+then, man was the most disgusting&mdash;man and Dango, the hyena.  Only man
+and Dango ate until they swelled up like a dead rat.  Tarzan had seen
+Dango eat his way into the carcass of a dead elephant and then continue
+to eat so much that he had been unable to get out of the hole through
+which he had entered.  Now he could readily believe that man, given the
+opportunity, would do the same.  Man, too, was the most unlovely of
+creatures&mdash;with his skinny legs and his big stomach, his filed teeth,
+and his thick, red lips.  Man was disgusting.  Tarzan's gaze was
+riveted upon the hideous old warrior wallowing in filth beneath him.
+</P>
+<P>
+There! the thing was struggling to its knees to reach for another
+morsel of flesh.  It groaned aloud in pain and yet it persisted in
+eating, eating, ever eating.  Tarzan could endure it no longer&mdash;neither
+his hunger nor his disgust.  Silently he slipped to the ground with the
+bole of the great tree between himself and the feaster.
+</P>
+<P>
+The man was still kneeling, bent almost double in agony, before the
+cooking pot.  His back was toward the ape-man.  Swiftly and noiselessly
+Tarzan approached him.  There was no sound as steel fingers closed
+about the black throat.  The struggle was short, for the man was old
+and already half stupefied from the effects of the gorging and the beer.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan dropped the inert mass and scooped several large pieces of meat
+from the cooking pot&mdash;enough to satisfy even his great hunger&mdash;then he
+raised the body of the feaster and shoved it into the vessel.  When the
+other blacks awoke they would have something to think about! Tarzan
+grinned.  As he turned toward the tree with his meat, he picked up a
+vessel containing beer and raised it to his lips, but at the first
+taste he spat the stuff from his mouth and tossed the primitive tankard
+aside.  He was quite sure that even Dango would draw the line at such
+filthy tasting drink as that, and his contempt for man increased with
+the conviction.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan swung off into the jungle some half mile or so before he paused
+to partake of his stolen food.  He noticed that it gave forth a strange
+and unpleasant odor, but assumed that this was due to the fact that it
+had stood in a vessel of water above a fire.  Tarzan was, of course,
+unaccustomed to cooked food.  He did not like it; but he was very
+hungry and had eaten a considerable portion of his haul before it was
+really borne in upon him that the stuff was nauseating.  It required
+far less than he had imagined it would to satisfy his appetite.
+</P>
+<P>
+Throwing the balance to the ground he curled up in a convenient crotch
+and sought slumber; but slumber seemed difficult to woo.  Ordinarily
+Tarzan of the Apes was asleep as quickly as a dog after it curls itself
+upon a hearthrug before a roaring blaze; but tonight he squirmed and
+twisted, for at the pit of his stomach was a peculiar feeling that
+resembled nothing more closely than an attempt upon the part of the
+fragments of elephant meat reposing there to come out into the night
+and search for their elephant; but Tarzan was adamant.  He gritted his
+teeth and held them back.  He was not to be robbed of his meal after
+waiting so long to obtain it.
+</P>
+<P>
+He had succeeded in dozing when the roaring of a lion awoke him.  He
+sat up to discover that it was broad daylight.  Tarzan rubbed his eyes.
+Could it be that he had really slept? He did not feel particularly
+refreshed as he should have after a good sleep.  A noise attracted his
+attention, and he looked down to see a lion standing at the foot of the
+tree gazing hungrily at him.  Tarzan made a face at the king of beasts,
+whereat Numa, greatly to the ape-man's surprise, started to climb up
+into the branches toward him.  Now, never before had Tarzan seen a lion
+climb a tree, yet, for some unaccountable reason, he was not greatly
+surprised that this particular lion should do so.
+</P>
+<P>
+As the lion climbed slowly toward him, Tarzan sought higher branches;
+but to his chagrin, he discovered that it was with the utmost
+difficulty that he could climb at all.  Again and again he slipped
+back, losing all that he had gained, while the lion kept steadily at
+his climbing, coming ever closer and closer to the ape-man. Tarzan
+could see the hungry light in the yellow-green eyes.  He could see the
+slaver on the drooping jowls, and the great fangs agape to seize and
+destroy him.  Clawing desperately, the ape-man at last succeeded in
+gaining a little upon his pursuer.  He reached the more slender
+branches far aloft where he well knew no lion could follow; yet on and
+on came devil-faced Numa.  It was incredible; but it was true.  Yet
+what most amazed Tarzan was that though he realized the incredibility
+of it all, he at the same time accepted it as a matter of course, first
+that a lion should climb at all and second that he should enter the
+upper terraces where even Sheeta, the panther, dared not venture.
+</P>
+<P>
+To the very top of a tall tree the ape-man clawed his awkward way and
+after him came Numa, the lion, moaning dismally.  At last Tarzan stood
+balanced upon the very utmost pinnacle of a swaying branch, high above
+the forest.  He could go no farther.  Below him the lion came steadily
+upward, and Tarzan of the Apes realized that at last the end had come.
+He could not do battle upon a tiny branch with Numa, the lion,
+especially with such a Numa, to which swaying branches two hundred feet
+above the ground provided as substantial footing as the ground itself.
+</P>
+<P>
+Nearer and nearer came the lion.  Another moment and he could reach up
+with one great paw and drag the ape-man downward to those awful jaws.
+A whirring noise above his head caused Tarzan to glance apprehensively
+upward.  A great bird was circling close above him.  He never had seen
+so large a bird in all his life, yet he recognized it immediately, for
+had he not seen it hundreds of times in one of the books in the little
+cabin by the land-locked bay&mdash;the moss-grown cabin that with its
+contents was the sole heritage left by his dead and unknown father to
+the young Lord Greystoke?
+</P>
+<P>
+In the picture-book the great bird was shown flying far above the
+ground with a small child in its talons while, beneath, a distracted
+mother stood with uplifted hands.  The lion was already reaching forth
+a taloned paw to seize him when the bird swooped and buried no less
+formidable talons in Tarzan's back.  The pain was numbing; but it was
+with a sense of relief that the ape-man felt himself snatched from the
+clutches of Numa.
+</P>
+<P>
+With a great whirring of wings the bird rose rapidly until the forest
+lay far below.  It made Tarzan sick and dizzy to look down upon it from
+so great a height, so he closed his eyes tight and held his breath.
+Higher and higher climbed the huge bird.  Tarzan opened his eyes.  The
+jungle was so far away that he could see only a dim, green blur below
+him, but just above and quite close was the sun.  Tarzan reached out
+his hands and warmed them, for they were very cold.  Then a sudden
+madness seized him.  Where was the bird taking him? Was he to submit
+thus passively to a feathered creature however enormous? Was he, Tarzan
+of the Apes, mighty fighter, to die without striking a blow in his own
+defense? Never!
+</P>
+<P>
+He snatched the hunting blade from his gee-string and thrusting upward
+drove it once, twice, thrice into the breast above him.  The mighty
+wings fluttered a few more times, spasmodically, the talons relaxed
+their hold, and Tarzan of the Apes fell hurtling downward toward the
+distant jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+It seemed to the ape-man that he fell for many minutes before he
+crashed through the leafy verdure of the tree tops.  The smaller
+branches broke his fall, so that he came to rest for an instant upon
+the very branch upon which he had sought slumber the previous night.
+For an instant he toppled there in a frantic attempt to regain his
+equilibrium; but at last he rolled off, yet, clutching wildly, he
+succeeded in grasping the branch and hanging on.
+</P>
+<P>
+Once more he opened his eyes, which he had closed during the fall.
+Again it was night.  With all his old agility he clambered back to the
+crotch from which he had toppled.  Below him a lion roared, and,
+looking downward, Tarzan could see the yellow-green eyes shining in the
+moonlight as they bored hungrily upward through the darkness of the
+jungle night toward him.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-man gasped for breath.  Cold sweat stood out from every pore,
+there was a great sickness at the pit of Tarzan's stomach.  Tarzan of
+the Apes had dreamed his first dream.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a long time he sat watching for Numa to climb into the tree after
+him, and listening for the sound of the great wings from above, for to
+Tarzan of the Apes his dream was a reality.
+</P>
+<P>
+He could not believe what he had seen and yet, having seen even these
+incredible things, he could not disbelieve the evidence of his own
+perceptions.  Never in all his life had Tarzan's senses deceived him
+badly, and so, naturally, he had great faith in them.  Each perception
+which ever had been transmitted to Tarzan's brain had been, with
+varying accuracy, a true perception.  He could not conceive of the
+possibility of apparently having passed through such a weird adventure
+in which there was no grain of truth.  That a stomach, disordered by
+decayed elephant flesh, a lion roaring in the jungle, a picture-book,
+and sleep could have so truly portrayed all the clear-cut details of
+what he had seemingly experienced was quite beyond his knowledge; yet
+he knew that Numa could not climb a tree, he knew that there existed in
+the jungle no such bird as he had seen, and he knew, too, that he could
+not have fallen a tiny fraction of the distance he had hurtled
+downward, and lived.
+</P>
+<P>
+To say the least, he was a very puzzled Tarzan as he tried to compose
+himself once more for slumber&mdash;a very puzzled and a very nauseated
+Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he thought deeply upon the strange occurrences of the night, he
+witnessed another remarkable happening.  It was indeed quite
+preposterous, yet he saw it all with his own eyes&mdash;it was nothing less
+than Histah, the snake, wreathing his sinuous and slimy way up the bole
+of the tree below him&mdash;Histah, with the head of the old man Tarzan had
+shoved into the cooking pot&mdash;the head and the round, tight, black,
+distended stomach.  As the old man's frightful face, with upturned
+eyes, set and glassy, came close to Tarzan, the jaws opened to seize
+him.  The ape-man struck furiously at the hideous face, and as he
+struck the apparition disappeared.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan sat straight up upon his branch trembling in every limb,
+wide-eyed and panting.  He looked all around him with his keen,
+jungle-trained eyes, but he saw naught of the old man with the body of
+Histah, the snake, but on his naked thigh the ape-man saw a
+caterpillar, dropped from a branch above him.  With a grimace he
+flicked it off into the darkness beneath.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so the night wore on, dream following dream, nightmare following
+nightmare, until the distracted ape-man started like a frightened deer
+at the rustling of the wind in the trees about him, or leaped to his
+feet as the uncanny laugh of a hyena burst suddenly upon a momentary
+jungle silence.  But at last the tardy morning broke and a sick and
+feverish Tarzan wound sluggishly through the dank and gloomy mazes of
+the forest in search of water.  His whole body seemed on fire, a great
+sickness surged upward to his throat.  He saw a tangle of almost
+impenetrable thicket, and, like the wild beast he was, he crawled into
+it to die alone and unseen, safe from the attacks of predatory
+carnivora.
+</P>
+<P>
+But he did not die.  For a long time he wanted to; but presently nature
+and an outraged stomach relieved themselves in their own therapeutic
+manner, the ape-man broke into a violent perspiration and then fell
+into a normal and untroubled sleep which persisted well into the
+afternoon.  When he awoke he found himself weak but no longer sick.
+</P>
+<P>
+Once more he sought water, and after drinking deeply, took his way
+slowly toward the cabin by the sea.  In times of loneliness and trouble
+it had long been his custom to seek there the quiet and restfulness
+which he could find nowhere else.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he approached the cabin and raised the crude latch which his father
+had fashioned so many years before, two small, blood-shot eyes watched
+him from the concealing foliage of the jungle close by.  From beneath
+shaggy, beetling brows they glared maliciously upon him, maliciously
+and with a keen curiosity; then Tarzan entered the cabin and closed the
+door after him.  Here, with all the world shut out from him, he could
+dream without fear of interruption.  He could curl up and look at the
+pictures in the strange things which were books, he could puzzle out
+the printed word he had learned to read without knowledge of the spoken
+language it represented, he could live in a wonderful world of which he
+had no knowledge beyond the covers of his beloved books.  Numa and
+Sabor might prowl about close to him, the elements might rage in all
+their fury; but here at least, Tarzan might be entirely off his guard
+in a delightful relaxation which gave him all his faculties for the
+uninterrupted pursuit of this greatest of all his pleasures.
+</P>
+<P>
+Today he turned to the picture of the huge bird which bore off the
+little Tarmangani in its talons.  Tarzan puckered his brows as he
+examined the colored print.  Yes, this was the very bird that had
+carried him off the day before, for to Tarzan the dream had been so
+great a reality that he still thought another day and a night had
+passed since he had lain down in the tree to sleep.
+</P>
+<P>
+But the more he thought upon the matter the less positive he was as to
+the verity of the seeming adventure through which he had passed, yet
+where the real had ceased and the unreal commenced he was quite unable
+to determine.  Had he really then been to the village of the blacks at
+all, had he killed the old Gomangani, had he eaten of the elephant
+meat, had he been sick? Tarzan scratched his tousled black head and
+wondered.  It was all very strange, yet he knew that he never had seen
+Numa climb a tree, or Histah with the head and belly of an old black
+man whom Tarzan already had slain.
+</P>
+<P>
+Finally, with a sigh he gave up trying to fathom the unfathomable, yet
+in his heart of hearts he knew that something had come into his life
+that he never before had experienced, another life which existed when
+he slept and the consciousness of which was carried over into his
+waking hours.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then he commenced to wonder if some of these strange creatures which he
+met in his sleep might not slay him, for at such times Tarzan of the
+Apes seemed to be a different Tarzan, sluggish, helpless and
+timid&mdash;wishing to flee his enemies as fled Bara, the deer, most fearful
+of creatures.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thus, with a dream, came the first faint tinge of a knowledge of fear,
+a knowledge which Tarzan, awake, had never experienced, and perhaps he
+was experiencing what his early forbears passed through and transmitted
+to posterity in the form of superstition first and religion later; for
+they, as Tarzan, had seen things at night which they could not explain
+by the daylight standards of sense perception or of reason, and so had
+built for themselves a weird explanation which included grotesque
+shapes, possessed of strange and uncanny powers, to whom they finally
+came to attribute all those inexplicable phenomena of nature which with
+each recurrence filled them with awe, with wonder, or with terror.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as Tarzan concentrated his mind on the little bugs upon the printed
+page before him, the active recollection of the strange adventures
+presently merged into the text of that which he was reading&mdash;a story of
+Bolgani, the gorilla, in captivity.  There was a more or less lifelike
+illustration of Bolgani in colors and in a cage, with many remarkable
+looking Tarmangani standing against a rail and peering curiously at the
+snarling brute.  Tarzan wondered not a little, as he always did, at the
+odd and seemingly useless array of colored plumage which covered the
+bodies of the Tarmangani.  It always caused him to grin a trifle when
+he looked at these strange creatures.  He wondered if they so covered
+their bodies from shame of their hairlessness or because they thought
+the odd things they wore added any to the beauty of their appearance.
+Particularly was Tarzan amused by the grotesque headdresses of the
+pictured people.  He wondered how some of the shes succeeded in
+balancing theirs in an upright position, and he came as near to
+laughing aloud as he ever had, as he contemplated the funny little
+round things upon the heads of the hes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Slowly the ape-man picked out the meaning of the various combinations
+of letters on the printed page, and as he read, the little bugs, for as
+such he always thought of the letters, commenced to run about in a most
+confusing manner, blurring his vision and befuddling his thoughts.
+Twice he brushed the back of a hand smartly across his eyes; but only
+for a moment could he bring the bugs back to coherent and intelligible
+form.  He had slept ill the night before and now he was exhausted from
+loss of sleep, from sickness, and from the slight fever he had had, so
+that it became more and more difficult to fix his attention, or to keep
+his eyes open.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan realized that he was falling asleep, and just as the realization
+was borne in upon him and he had decided to relinquish himself to an
+inclination which had assumed almost the proportions of a physical
+pain, he was aroused by the opening of the cabin door.  Turning quickly
+toward the interruption Tarzan was amazed, for a moment, to see bulking
+large in the doorway the huge and hairy form of Bolgani, the gorilla.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now there was scarcely a denizen of the great jungle with whom Tarzan
+would rather not have been cooped up inside the small cabin than
+Bolgani, the gorilla, yet he felt no fear, even though his quick eye
+noted that Bolgani was in the throes of that jungle madness which
+seizes upon so many of the fiercer males.  Ordinarily the huge gorillas
+avoid conflict, hide themselves from the other jungle folk, and are
+generally the best of neighbors; but when they are attacked, or the
+madness seizes them, there is no jungle denizen so bold and fierce as
+to deliberately seek a quarrel with them.
+</P>
+<P>
+But for Tarzan there was no escape.  Bolgani was glowering at him from
+red-rimmed, wicked eyes.  In a moment he would rush in and seize the
+ape-man. Tarzan reached for the hunting knife where he had lain it on
+the table beside him; but as his fingers did not immediately locate the
+weapon, he turned a quick glance in search of it.  As he did so his
+eyes fell upon the book he had been looking at which still lay open at
+the picture of Bolgani.  Tarzan found his knife, but he merely fingered
+it idly and grinned in the direction of the advancing gorilla.
+</P>
+<P>
+Not again would he be fooled by empty things which came while he slept!
+In a moment, no doubt, Bolgani would turn into Pamba, the rat, with the
+head of Tantor, the elephant.  Tarzan had seen enough of such strange
+happenings recently to have some idea as to what he might expect; but
+this time Bolgani did not alter his form as he came slowly toward the
+young ape-man.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan was a bit puzzled, too, that he felt no desire to rush
+frantically to some place of safety, as had been the sensation most
+conspicuous in the other of his new and remarkable adventures.  He was
+just himself now, ready to fight, if necessary; but still sure that no
+flesh and blood gorilla stood before him.
+</P>
+<P>
+The thing should be fading away into thin air by now, thought Tarzan,
+or changing into something else; yet it did not.  Instead it loomed
+clear-cut and real as Bolgani himself, the magnificent dark coat
+glistening with life and health in a bar of sunlight which shot across
+the cabin through the high window behind the young Lord Greystoke.
+This was quite the most realistic of his sleep adventures, thought
+Tarzan, as he passively awaited the next amusing incident.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then the gorilla charged.  Two mighty, calloused hands seized upon
+the ape-man, great fangs were bared close to his face, a hideous growl
+burst from the cavernous throat and hot breath fanned Tarzan's cheek,
+and still he sat grinning at the apparition.  Tarzan might be fooled
+once or twice, but not for so many times in succession!  He knew that
+this Bolgani was no real Bolgani, for had he been he never could have
+gained entrance to the cabin, since only Tarzan knew how to operate the
+latch.
+</P>
+<P>
+The gorilla seemed puzzled by the strange passivity of the hairless
+ape.  He paused an instant with his jaws snarling close to the other's
+throat, then he seemed suddenly to come to some decision.  Whirling the
+ape-man across a hairy shoulder, as easily as you or I might lift a
+babe in arms, Bolgani turned and dashed out into the open, racing
+toward the great trees.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now, indeed, was Tarzan sure that this was a sleep adventure, and so
+grinned largely as the giant gorilla bore him, unresisting, away.
+Presently, reasoned Tarzan, he would awaken and find himself back in
+the cabin where he had fallen asleep.  He glanced back at the thought
+and saw the cabin door standing wide open.  This would never do! Always
+had he been careful to close and latch it against wild intruders.
+Manu, the monkey, would make sad havoc there among Tarzan's treasures
+should he have access to the interior for even a few minutes.  The
+question which arose in Tarzan's mind was a baffling one.  Where did
+sleep adventures end and reality commence? How was he to be sure that
+the cabin door was not really open?  Everything about him appeared
+quite normal&mdash;there were none of the grotesque exaggerations of his
+former sleep adventures.  It would be better then to be upon the safe
+side and make sure that the cabin door was closed&mdash;it would do no harm
+even if all that seemed to be happening were not happening at all.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan essayed to slip from Bolgani's shoulder; but the great beast
+only growled ominously and gripped him tighter.  With a mighty effort
+the ape-man wrenched himself loose, and as he slid to the ground, the
+dream gorilla turned ferociously upon him, seized him once more and
+buried great fangs in a sleek, brown shoulder.
+</P>
+<P>
+The grin of derision faded from Tarzan's lips as the pain and the hot
+blood aroused his fighting instincts.  Asleep or awake, this thing was
+no longer a joke! Biting, tearing, and snarling, the two rolled over
+upon the ground.  The gorilla now was frantic with insane rage.  Again
+and again he loosed his hold upon the ape-man's shoulder in an attempt
+to seize the jugular; but Tarzan of the Apes had fought before with
+creatures who struck first for the vital vein, and each time he
+wriggled out of harm's way as he strove to get his fingers upon his
+adversary's throat.  At last he succeeded&mdash;his great muscles tensed and
+knotted beneath his smooth hide as he forced with every ounce of his
+mighty strength to push the hairy torso from him.  And as he choked
+Bolgani and strained him away, his other hand crept slowly upward
+between them until the point of the hunting knife rested over the
+savage heart&mdash;there was a quick movement of the steel-thewed wrist and
+the blade plunged to its goal.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bolgani, the gorilla, voiced a single frightful shriek, tore himself
+loose from the grasp of the ape-man, rose to his feet, staggered a few
+steps and then plunged to earth.  There were a few spasmodic movements
+of the limbs and the brute was still.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan of the Apes stood looking down upon his kill, and as he stood
+there he ran his fingers through his thick, black shock of hair.
+Presently he stooped and touched the dead body.  Some of the red
+life-blood of the gorilla crimsoned his fingers.  He raised them to his
+nose and sniffed.  Then he shook his head and turned toward the cabin.
+The door was still open.  He closed it and fastened the latch.
+Returning toward the body of his kill he again paused and scratched his
+head.
+</P>
+<P>
+If this was a sleep adventure, what then was reality? How was he to
+know the one from the other? How much of all that had happened in his
+life had been real and how much unreal?
+</P>
+<P>
+He placed a foot upon the prostrate form and raising his face to the
+heavens gave voice to the kill cry of the bull ape.  Far in the
+distance a lion answered.  It was very real and, yet, he did not know.
+Puzzled, he turned away into the jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+No, he did not know what was real and what was not; but there was one
+thing that he did know&mdash;never again would he eat of the flesh of
+Tantor, the elephant.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Battle for Teeka
+</H3>
+<P>
+THE DAY WAS perfect.  A cool breeze tempered the heat of the equatorial
+sun.  Peace had reigned within the tribe for weeks and no alien enemy
+had trespassed upon its preserves from without.  To the ape-mind all
+this was sufficient evidence that the future would be identical with
+the immediate past&mdash;that Utopia would persist.
+</P>
+<P>
+The sentinels, now from habit become a fixed tribal custom, either
+relaxed their vigilance or entirely deserted their posts, as the whim
+seized them.  The tribe was far scattered in search of food.  Thus may
+peace and prosperity undermine the safety of the most primitive
+community even as it does that of the most cultured.
+</P>
+<P>
+Even the individuals became less watchful and alert, so that one might
+have thought Numa and Sabor and Sheeta entirely deleted from the scheme
+of things.  The shes and the balus roamed unguarded through the sullen
+jungle, while the greedy males foraged far afield, and thus it was that
+Teeka and Gazan, her balu, hunted upon the extreme southern edge of the
+tribe with no great male near them.
+</P>
+<P>
+Still farther south there moved through the forest a sinister figure&mdash;a
+huge bull ape, maddened by solitude and defeat.  A week before he had
+contended for the kingship of a tribe far distant, and now battered,
+and still sore, he roamed the wilderness an outcast.  Later he might
+return to his own tribe and submit to the will of the hairy brute he
+had attempted to dethrone; but for the time being he dared not do so,
+since he had sought not only the crown but the wives, as well, of his
+lord and master.  It would require an entire moon at least to bring
+forgetfulness to him he had wronged, and so Toog wandered a strange
+jungle, grim, terrible, hate-filled.
+</P>
+<P>
+It was in this mental state that Toog came unexpectedly upon a young
+she feeding alone in the jungle&mdash;a stranger she, lithe and strong and
+beautiful beyond compare.  Toog caught his breath and slunk quickly to
+one side of the trail where the dense foliage of the tropical
+underbrush concealed him from Teeka while permitting him to feast his
+eyes upon her loveliness.
+</P>
+<P>
+But not alone were they concerned with Teeka&mdash;they roved the
+surrounding jungle in search of the bulls and cows and balus of her
+tribe, though principally for the bulls.  When one covets a she of an
+alien tribe one must take into consideration the great, fierce, hairy
+guardians who seldom wander far from their wards and who will fight a
+stranger to the death in protection of the mate or offspring of a
+fellow, precisely as they would fight for their own.
+</P>
+<P>
+Toog could see no sign of any ape other than the strange she and a
+young balu playing near by.  His wicked, blood-shot eyes half closed as
+they rested upon the charms of the former&mdash;as for the balu, one snap of
+those great jaws upon the back of its little neck would prevent it from
+raising any unnecessary alarm.
+</P>
+<P>
+Toog was a fine, big male, resembling in many ways Teeka's mate, Taug.
+Each was in his prime, and each was wonderfully muscled, perfectly
+fanged and as horrifyingly ferocious as the most exacting and
+particular she could wish.  Had Toog been of her own tribe, Teeka might
+as readily have yielded to him as to Taug when her mating time arrived;
+but now she was Taug's and no other male could claim her without first
+defeating Taug in personal combat.  And even then Teeka retained some
+rights in the matter.  If she did not favor a correspondent, she could
+enter the lists with her rightful mate and do her part toward
+discouraging his advances, a part, too, which would prove no mean
+assistance to her lord and master, for Teeka, even though her fangs
+were smaller than a male's, could use them to excellent effect.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just now Teeka was occupied in a fascinating search for beetles, to the
+exclusion of all else.  She did not realize how far she and Gazan had
+become separated from the balance of the tribe, nor were her defensive
+senses upon the alert as they should have been.  Months of immunity
+from danger under the protecting watchfulness of the sentries, which
+Tarzan had taught the tribe to post, had lulled them all into a sense
+of peaceful security based on that fallacy which has wrecked many
+enlightened communities in the past and will continue to wreck others
+in the future&mdash;that because they have not been attacked they never will
+be.
+</P>
+<P>
+Toog, having satisfied himself that only the she and her balu were in
+the immediate vicinity, crept stealthily forward.  Teeka's back was
+toward him when he finally rushed upon her; but her senses were at last
+awakened to the presence of danger and she wheeled to face the strange
+bull just before he reached her.  Toog halted a few paces from her.
+His anger had fled before the seductive feminine charms of the
+stranger.  He made conciliatory noises&mdash;a species of clucking sound
+with his broad, flat lips&mdash;that were, too, not greatly dissimilar to
+that which might be produced in an osculatory solo.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Teeka only bared her fangs and growled.  Little Gazan started to
+run toward his mother, but she warned him away with a quick "Kreeg-ah!"
+telling him to run high into a tall tree.  Evidently Teeka was not
+favorably impressed by her new suitor.  Toog realized this and altered
+his methods accordingly.  He swelled his giant chest, beat upon it with
+his calloused knuckles and swaggered to and fro before her.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I am Toog," he boasted.  "Look at my fighting fangs.  Look at my great
+arms and my mighty legs.  With one bite I can slay your biggest bull.
+Alone have I slain Sheeta.  I am Toog.  Toog wants you." Then he waited
+for the effect, nor did he have long to wait.  Teeka turned with a
+swiftness which belied her great weight and bolted in the opposite
+direction.  Toog, with an angry growl, leaped in pursuit; but the
+smaller, lighter female was too fleet for him.  He chased her for a few
+yards and then, foaming and barking, he halted and beat upon the ground
+with his hard fists.
+</P>
+<P>
+From the tree above him little Gazan looked down and witnessed the
+stranger bull's discomfiture.  Being young, and thinking himself safe
+above the reach of the heavy male, Gazan screamed an ill-timed insult
+at their tormentor.  Toog looked up.  Teeka had halted at a little
+distance&mdash;she would not go far from her balu; that Toog quickly
+realized and as quickly determined to take advantage of.  He saw that
+the tree in which the young ape squatted was isolated and that Gazan
+could not reach another without coming to earth.  He would obtain the
+mother through her love for her young.
+</P>
+<P>
+He swung himself into the lower branches of the tree.  Little Gazan
+ceased to insult him; his expression of deviltry changed to one of
+apprehension, which was quickly followed by fear as Toog commenced to
+ascend toward him.  Teeka screamed to Gazan to climb higher, and the
+little fellow scampered upward among the tiny branches which would not
+support the weight of the great bull; but nevertheless Toog kept on
+climbing.  Teeka was not fearful.  She knew that he could not ascend
+far enough to reach Gazan, so she sat at a little distance from the
+tree and applied jungle opprobrium to him.  Being a female, she was a
+past master of the art.
+</P>
+<P>
+But she did not know the malevolent cunning of Toog's little brain.
+She took it for granted that the bull would climb as high as he could
+toward Gazan and then, finding that he could not reach him, resume his
+pursuit of her, which she knew would prove equally fruitless.  So sure
+was she of the safety of her balu and her own ability to take care of
+herself that she did not voice the cry for help which would soon have
+brought the other members of the tribe flocking to her side.
+</P>
+<P>
+Toog slowly reached the limit to which he dared risk his great weight
+to the slender branches.  Gazan was still fifteen feet above him.  The
+bull braced himself and seized the main branch in his powerful hands,
+then he commenced shaking it vigorously.  Teeka was appalled.
+Instantly she realized what the bull purposed.  Gazan clung far out
+upon a swaying limb.  At the first shake he lost his balance, though he
+did not quite fall, clinging still with his four hands; but Toog
+redoubled his efforts; the shaking produced a violent snapping of the
+limb to which the young ape clung.  Teeka saw all too plainly what the
+outcome must be and forgetting her own danger in the depth of her
+mother love, rushed forward to ascend the tree and give battle to the
+fearsome creature that menaced the life of her little one.
+</P>
+<P>
+But before ever she reached the bole, Toog had succeeded, by violent
+shaking of the branch, to loosen Gazan's hold.  With a cry the little
+fellow plunged down through the foliage, clutching futilely for a new
+hold, and alighted with a sickening thud at his mother's feet, where he
+lay silent and motionless.  Moaning, Teeka stooped to lift the still
+form in her arms; but at the same instant Toog was upon her.
+</P>
+<P>
+Struggling and biting she fought to free herself; but the giant muscles
+of the great bull were too much for her lesser strength.  Toog struck
+and choked her repeatedly until finally, half unconscious, she lapsed
+into quasi submission.  Then the bull lifted her to his shoulder and
+turned back to the trail toward the south from whence he had come.
+</P>
+<P>
+Upon the ground lay the quiet form of little Gazan.  He did not moan.
+He did not move.  The sun rose slowly toward meridian.  A mangy thing,
+lifting its nose to scent the jungle breeze, crept through the
+underbrush.  It was Dango, the hyena.  Presently its ugly muzzle broke
+through some near-by foliage and its cruel eyes fastened upon Gazan.
+</P>
+<P>
+Early that morning, Tarzan of the Apes had gone to the cabin by the
+sea, where he passed many an hour at such times as the tribe was
+ranging in the vicinity.  On the floor lay the skeleton of a man&mdash;all
+that remained of the former Lord Greystoke&mdash;lay as it had fallen some
+twenty years before when Kerchak, the great ape, had thrown it,
+lifeless, there.  Long since had the termites and the small rodents
+picked clean the sturdy English bones.  For years Tarzan had seen it
+lying there, giving it no more attention than he gave the countless
+thousand bones that strewed his jungle haunts.  On the bed another,
+smaller, skeleton reposed and the youth ignored it as he ignored the
+other.  How could he know that the one had been his father, the other
+his mother? The little pile of bones in the rude cradle, fashioned with
+such loving care by the former Lord Greystoke, meant nothing to
+him&mdash;that one day that little skull was to help prove his right to a
+proud title was as far beyond his ken as the satellites of the suns of
+Orion.  To Tarzan they were bones&mdash;just bones.  He did not need them,
+for there was no meat left upon them, and they were not in his way, for
+he knew no necessity for a bed, and the skeleton upon the floor he
+easily could step over.
+</P>
+<P>
+Today he was restless.  He turned the pages first of one book and then
+of another.  He glanced at pictures which he knew by heart, and tossed
+the books aside.  He rummaged for the thousandth time in the cupboard.
+He took out a bag which contained several small, round pieces of metal.
+He had played with them many times in the years gone by; but always he
+replaced them carefully in the bag, and the bag in the cupboard, upon
+the very shelf where first he had discovered it.  In strange ways did
+heredity manifest itself in the ape-man. Come of an orderly race, he
+himself was orderly without knowing why.  The apes dropped things
+wherever their interest in them waned&mdash;in the tall grass or from the
+high-flung branches of the trees.  What they dropped they sometimes
+found again, by accident; but not so the ways of Tarzan.  For his few
+belongings he had a place and scrupulously he returned each thing to
+its proper place when he was done with it.  The round pieces of metal
+in the little bag always interested him.  Raised pictures were upon
+either side, the meaning of which he did not quite understand.  The
+pieces were bright and shiny.  It amused him to arrange them in various
+figures upon the table.  Hundreds of times had he played thus.  Today,
+while so engaged, he dropped a lovely yellow piece&mdash;an English
+sovereign&mdash;which rolled beneath the bed where lay all that was mortal
+of the once beautiful Lady Alice.
+</P>
+<P>
+True to form, Tarzan at once dropped to his hands and knees and
+searched beneath the bed for the lost gold piece.  Strange as it might
+appear, he had never before looked beneath the bed.  He found the gold
+piece, and something else he found, too&mdash;a small wooden box with a
+loose cover.  Bringing them both out he returned the sovereign to its
+bag and the bag to its shelf within the cupboard; then he investigated
+the box.  It contained a quantity of cylindrical bits of metal,
+cone-shaped at one end and flat at the other, with a projecting rim.
+They were all quite green and dull, coated with years of verdigris.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan removed a handful of them from the box and examined them.  He
+rubbed one upon another and discovered that the green came off, leaving
+a shiny surface for two-thirds of their length and a dull gray over the
+cone-shaped end.  Finding a bit of wood he rubbed one of the cylinders
+rapidly and was rewarded by a lustrous sheen which pleased him.
+</P>
+<P>
+At his side hung a pocket pouch taken from the body of one of the
+numerous black warriors he had slain.  Into this pouch he put a handful
+of the new playthings, thinking to polish them at his leisure; then he
+replaced the box beneath the bed, and finding nothing more to amuse
+him, left the cabin and started back in the direction of the tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+Shortly before he reached them he heard a great commotion ahead of
+him&mdash;the loud screams of shes and balus, the savage, angry barking and
+growling of the great bulls.  Instantly he increased his speed, for the
+"Kreeg-ahs" that came to his ears warned him that something was amiss
+with his fellows.
+</P>
+<P>
+While Tarzan had been occupied with his own devices in the cabin of his
+dead sire, Taug, Teeka's mighty mate, had been hunting a mile to the
+north of the tribe.  At last, his belly filled, he had turned lazily
+back toward the clearing where he had last seen the tribe and presently
+commenced passing its members scattered alone or in twos or threes.
+Nowhere did he see Teeka or Gazan, and soon he began inquiring of the
+other apes where they might be; but none had seen them recently.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now the lower orders are not highly imaginative.  They do not, as you
+and I, paint vivid mental pictures of things which might have occurred,
+and so Taug did not now apprehend that any misfortune had overtaken his
+mate and their off-spring&mdash;he merely knew that he wished to find Teeka
+that he might lie down in the shade and have her scratch his back while
+his breakfast digested; but though he called to her and searched for
+her and asked each whom he met, he could find no trace of Teeka, nor of
+Gazan either.
+</P>
+<P>
+He was beginning to become peeved and had about made up his mind to
+chastise Teeka for wandering so far afield when he wanted her.  He was
+moving south along a game trail, his calloused soles and knuckles
+giving forth no sound, when he came upon Dango at the opposite side of
+a small clearing.  The eater of carrion did not see Taug, for all his
+eyes were for something which lay in the grass beneath a
+tree&mdash;something upon which he was sneaking with the cautious stealth of
+his breed.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug, always cautious himself, as it behooves one to be who fares up
+and down the jungle and desires to survive, swung noiselessly into a
+tree, where he could have a better view of the clearing.  He did not
+fear Dango; but he wanted to see what it was that Dango stalked.  In a
+way, possibly, he was actuated as much by curiosity as by caution.
+</P>
+<P>
+And when Taug reached a place in the branches from which he could have
+an unobstructed view of the clearing he saw Dango already sniffing at
+something directly beneath him&mdash;something which Taug instantly
+recognized as the lifeless form of his little Gazan.
+</P>
+<P>
+With a cry so frightful, so bestial, that it momentarily paralyzed the
+startled Dango, the great ape launched his mighty bulk upon the
+surprised hyena.  With a cry and a snarl, Dango, crushed to earth,
+turned to tear at his assailant; but as effectively might a sparrow
+turn upon a hawk.  Taug's great, gnarled fingers closed upon the
+hyena's throat and back, his jaws snapped once on the mangy neck,
+crushing the vertebrae, and then he hurled the dead body contemptuously
+aside.
+</P>
+<P>
+Again he raised his voice in the call of the bull ape to its mate, but
+there was no reply; then he leaned down to sniff at the body of Gazan.
+In the breast of this savage, hideous beast there beat a heart which
+was moved, however slightly, by the same emotions of paternal love
+which affect us.  Even had we no actual evidence of this, we must know
+it still, since only thus might be explained the survival of the human
+race in which the jealousy and selfishness of the bulls would, in the
+earliest stages of the race, have wiped out the young as rapidly as
+they were brought into the world had not God implanted in the savage
+bosom that paternal love which evidences itself most strongly in the
+protective instinct of the male.
+</P>
+<P>
+In Taug the protective instinct was not alone highly developed; but
+affection for his offspring as well, for Taug was an unusually
+intelligent specimen of these great, manlike apes which the natives of
+the Gobi speak of in whispers; but which no white man ever had seen,
+or, if seeing, lived to tell of until Tarzan of the Apes came among
+them.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so Taug felt sorrow as any other father might feel sorrow at the
+loss of a little child.  To you little Gazan might have seemed a
+hideous and repulsive creature, but to Taug and Teeka he was as
+beautiful and as cute as is your little Mary or Johnnie or Elizabeth
+Ann to you, and he was their firstborn, their only balu, and a
+he&mdash;three things which might make a young ape the apple of any fond
+father's eye.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a moment Taug sniffed at the quiet little form.  With his muzzle
+and his tongue he smoothed and caressed the rumpled coat.  From his
+savage lips broke a low moan; but quickly upon the heels of sorrow came
+the overmastering desire for revenge.
+</P>
+<P>
+Leaping to his feet he screamed out a volley of "Kreegahs," punctuated
+from time to time by the blood-freezing cry of an angry, challenging
+bull&mdash;a rage-mad bull with the blood lust strong upon him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Answering his cries came the cries of the tribe as they swung through
+the trees toward him.  It was these that Tarzan heard on his return
+from his cabin, and in reply to them he raised his own voice and
+hurried forward with increased speed until he fairly flew through the
+middle terraces of the forest.
+</P>
+<P>
+When at last he came upon the tribe he saw their members gathered about
+Taug and something which lay quietly upon the ground.  Dropping among
+them, Tarzan approached the center of the group.  Taug was still
+roaring out his challenges; but when he saw Tarzan he ceased and
+stooping picked up Gazan in his arms and held him out for Tarzan to
+see.  Of all the bulls of the tribe, Taug held affection for Tarzan
+only.  Tarzan he trusted and looked up to as one wiser and more
+cunning.  To Tarzan he came now&mdash;to the playmate of his balu days, the
+companion of innumerable battles of his maturity.
+</P>
+<P>
+When Tarzan saw the still form in Taug's arms, a low growl broke from
+his lips, for he too loved Teeka's little balu.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Who did it?" he asked.  "Where is Teeka?"
+</P>
+<P>
+"I do not know," replied Taug.  "I found him lying here with Dango
+about to feed upon him; but it was not Dango that did it&mdash;there are no
+fang marks upon him."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan came closer and placed an ear against Gazan's breast.  "He is
+not dead," he said.  "Maybe he will not die." He pressed through the
+crowd of apes and circled once about them, examining the ground step by
+step.  Suddenly he stopped and placing his nose close to the earth
+sniffed.  Then he sprang to his feet, giving a peculiar cry.  Taug and
+the others pressed forward, for the sound told them that the hunter had
+found the spoor of his quarry.
+</P>
+<P>
+"A stranger bull has been here," said Tarzan.  "It was he that hurt
+Gazan.  He has carried off Teeka."
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug and the other bulls commenced to roar and threaten; but they did
+nothing.  Had the stranger bull been within sight they would have torn
+him to pieces; but it did not occur to them to follow him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"If the three bulls had been watching around the tribe this would not
+have happened," said Tarzan.  "Such things will happen as long as you
+do not keep the three bulls watching for an enemy.  The jungle is full
+of enemies, and yet you let your shes and your balus feed where they
+will, alone and unprotected.  Tarzan goes now&mdash;he goes to find Teeka
+and bring her back to the tribe."
+</P>
+<P>
+The idea appealed to the other bulls.  "We will all go," they cried.
+</P>
+<P>
+"No," said Tarzan, "you will not all go.  We cannot take shes and balus
+when we go out to hunt and fight.  You must remain to guard them or you
+will lose them all."
+</P>
+<P>
+They scratched their heads.  The wisdom of his advice was dawning upon
+them, but at first they had been carried away by the new idea&mdash;the idea
+of following up an enemy offender to wrest his prize from him and
+punish him.  The community instinct was ingrained in their characters
+through ages of custom.  They did not know why they had not thought to
+pursue and punish the offender&mdash;they could not know that it was because
+they had as yet not reached a mental plane which would permit them to
+work as individuals.  In times of stress, the community instinct sent
+them huddling into a compact herd where the great bulls, by the weight
+of their combined strength and ferocity, could best protect them from
+an enemy.  The idea of separating to do battle with a foe had not yet
+occurred to them&mdash;it was too foreign to custom, too inimical to
+community interests; but to Tarzan it was the first and most natural
+thought.  His senses told him that there was but a single bull
+connected with the attack upon Teeka and Gazan.  A single enemy did not
+require the entire tribe for his punishment.  Two swift bulls could
+quickly overhaul him and rescue Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the past no one ever had thought to go forth in search of the shes
+that were occasionally stolen from the tribe.  If Numa, Sabor, Sheeta
+or a wandering bull ape from another tribe chanced to carry off a maid
+or a matron while no one was looking, that was the end of it&mdash;she was
+gone, that was all.  The bereaved husband, if the victim chanced to
+have been mated, growled around for a day or two and then, if he were
+strong enough, took another mate within the tribe, and if not, wandered
+far into the jungle on the chance of stealing one from another
+community.
+</P>
+<P>
+In the past Tarzan of the Apes had condoned this practice for the
+reason that he had had no interest in those who had been stolen; but
+Teeka had been his first love and Teeka's balu held a place in his
+heart such as a balu of his own would have held.  Just once before had
+Tarzan wished to follow and revenge.  That had been years before when
+Kulonga, the son of Mbonga, the chief, had slain Kala.  Then,
+single-handed, Tarzan had pursued and avenged.  Now, though to a lesser
+degree, he was moved by the same passion.
+</P>
+<P>
+He turned toward Taug.  "Leave Gazan with Mumga," he said.  "She is old
+and her fangs are broken and she is no good; but she can take care of
+Gazan until we return with Teeka, and if Gazan is dead when we come
+back," he turned to address Mumga, "I will kill you, too."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Where are we going?" asked Taug.
+</P>
+<P>
+"We are going to get Teeka," replied the ape-man, "and kill the bull
+who has stolen her.  Come!"
+</P>
+<P>
+He turned again to the spoor of the stranger bull, which showed plainly
+to his trained senses, nor did he glance back to note if Taug followed.
+The latter laid Gazan in Mumga's arms with a parting: "If he dies
+Tarzan will kill you," and he followed after the brown-skinned figure
+that already was moving at a slow trot along the jungle trail.
+</P>
+<P>
+No other bull of the tribe of Kerchak was so good a trailer as Tarzan,
+for his trained senses were aided by a high order of intelligence.  His
+judgment told him the natural trail for a quarry to follow, so that he
+need but note the most apparent marks upon the way, and today the trail
+of Toog was as plain to him as type upon a printed page to you or me.
+</P>
+<P>
+Following close behind the lithe figure of the ape-man came the huge
+and shaggy bull ape.  No words passed between them.  They moved as
+silently as two shadows among the myriad shadows of the forest.  Alert
+as his eyes and ears, was Tarzan's patrician nose.  The spoor was
+fresh, and now that they had passed from the range of the strong ape
+odor of the tribe he had little difficulty in following Toog and Teeka
+by scent alone.  Teeka's familiar scent spoor told both Tarzan and Taug
+that they were upon her trail, and soon the scent of Toog became as
+familiar as the other.
+</P>
+<P>
+They were progressing rapidly when suddenly dense clouds overcast the
+sun.  Tarzan accelerated his pace.  Now he fairly flew along the jungle
+trail, or, where Toog had taken to the trees, followed nimbly as a
+squirrel along the bending, undulating pathway of the foliage branches,
+swinging from tree to tree as Toog had swung before them; but more
+rapidly because they were not handicapped by a burden such as Toog's.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan felt that they must be almost upon the quarry, for the scent
+spoor was becoming stronger and stronger, when the jungle was suddenly
+shot by livid lightning, and a deafening roar of thunder reverberated
+through the heavens and the forest until the earth trembled and shook.
+Then came the rain&mdash;not as it comes to us of the temperate zones, but
+as a mighty avalanche of water&mdash;a deluge which spills tons instead of
+drops upon the bending forest giants and the terrified creatures which
+haunt their shade.
+</P>
+<P>
+And the rain did what Tarzan knew that it would do&mdash;it wiped the spoor
+of the quarry from the face of the earth.  For a half hour the torrents
+fell&mdash;then the sun burst forth, jeweling the forest with a million
+scintillant gems; but today the ape-man, usually alert to the changing
+wonders of the jungle, saw them not.  Only the fact that the spoor of
+Teeka and her abductor was obliterated found lodgment in his thoughts.
+</P>
+<P>
+Even among the branches of the trees there are well-worn trails, just
+as there are trails upon the surface of the ground; but in the trees
+they branch and cross more often, since the way is more open than among
+the dense undergrowth at the surface.  Along one of these well-marked
+trails Tarzan and Taug continued after the rain had ceased, because the
+ape-man knew that this was the most logical path for the thief to
+follow; but when they came to a fork, they were at a loss.  Here they
+halted, while Tarzan examined every branch and leaf which might have
+been touched by the fleeing ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+He sniffed the bole of the tree, and with his keen eyes he sought to
+find upon the bark some sign of the way the quarry had taken.  It was
+slow work and all the time, Tarzan knew, the bull of the alien tribe
+was forging steadily away from them&mdash;gaining precious minutes that
+might carry him to safety before they could catch up with him.
+</P>
+<P>
+First along one fork he went, and then another, applying every test
+that his wonderful junglecraft was cognizant of; but again and again he
+was baffled, for the scent had been washed away by the heavy downpour,
+in every exposed place.  For a half hour Tarzan and Taug searched,
+until at last, upon the bottom of a broad leaf, Tarzan's keen nose
+caught the faint trace of the scent spoor of Toog, where the leaf had
+brushed a hairy shoulder as the great ape passed through the foliage.
+</P>
+<P>
+Once again the two took up the trail, but it was slow work now and
+there were many discouraging delays when the spoor seemed lost beyond
+recovery.  To you or me there would have been no spoor, even before the
+coming of the rain, except, possibly, where Toog had come to earth and
+followed a game trail.  In such places the imprint of a huge handlike
+foot and the knuckles of one great hand were sometimes plain enough for
+an ordinary mortal to read.  Tarzan knew from these and other
+indications that the ape was yet carrying Teeka.  The depth of the
+imprint of his feet indicated a much greater weight than that of any of
+the larger bulls, for they were made under the combined weight of Toog
+and Teeka, while the fact that the knuckles of but one hand touched the
+ground at any time showed that the other hand was occupied in some
+other business&mdash;the business of holding the prisoner to a hairy
+shoulder.  Tarzan could follow, in sheltered places, the changing of
+the burden from one shoulder to another, as indicated by the deepening
+of the foot imprint upon the side of the load, and the changing of the
+knuckle imprints from one side of the trail to the other.
+</P>
+<P>
+There were stretches along the surface paths where the ape had gone for
+considerable distances entirely erect upon his hind feet&mdash;walking as a
+man walks; but the same might have been true of any of the great
+anthropoids of the same species, for, unlike the chimpanzee and the
+gorilla, they walk without the aid of their hands quite as readily as
+with.  It was such things, however, which helped to identify to Tarzan
+and to Taug the appearance of the abductor, and with his individual
+scent characteristic already indelibly impressed upon their memories,
+they were in a far better position to know him when they came upon him,
+even should he have disposed of Teeka before, than is a modern sleuth
+with his photographs and Bertillon measurements, equipped to recognize
+a fugitive from civilized justice.
+</P>
+<P>
+But with all their high-strung and delicately attuned perceptive
+faculties the two bulls of the tribe of Kerchak were often sore pressed
+to follow the trail at all, and at best were so delayed that in the
+afternoon of the second day, they still had not overhauled the
+fugitive.  The scent was now strong, for it had been made since the
+rain, and Tarzan knew that it would not be long before they came upon
+the thief and his loot.  Above them, as they crept stealthily forward,
+chattered Manu, the monkey, and his thousand fellows; squawked and
+screamed the brazen-throated birds of plumage; buzzed and hummed the
+countless insects amid the rustling of the forest leaves, and, as they
+passed, a little gray-beard, squeaking and scolding upon a swaying
+branch, looked down and saw them.  Instantly the scolding and squeaking
+ceased, and off tore the long-tailed mite as though Sheeta, the
+panther, had been endowed with wings and was in close pursuit of him.
+To all appearances he was only a very much frightened little monkey,
+fleeing for his life&mdash;there seemed nothing sinister about him.
+</P>
+<P>
+And what of Teeka during all this time? Was she at last resigned to her
+fate and accompanying her new mate in the proper humility of a loving
+and tractable spouse?  A single glance at the pair would have answered
+these questions to the utter satisfaction of the most captious.  She
+was torn and bleeding from many wounds, inflicted by the sullen Toog in
+his vain efforts to subdue her to his will, and Toog too was disfigured
+and mutilated; but with stubborn ferocity, he still clung to his now
+useless prize.
+</P>
+<P>
+On through the jungle he forced his way in the direction of the
+stamping ground of his tribe.  He hoped that his king would have
+forgotten his treason; but if not he was still resigned to his
+fate&mdash;any fate would be better than suffering longer the sole
+companionship of this frightful she, and then, too, he wished to
+exhibit his captive to his fellows.  Maybe he could wish her on the
+king&mdash;it is possible that such a thought urged him on.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last they came upon two bulls feeding in a parklike grove&mdash;a
+beautiful grove dotted with huge boulders half embedded in the rich
+loam&mdash;mute monuments, possibly, to a forgotten age when mighty glaciers
+rolled their slow course where now a torrid sun beats down upon a
+tropic jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+The two bulls looked up, baring long fighting fangs, as Toog appeared
+in the distance.  The latter recognized the two as friends.  "It is
+Toog," he growled.  "Toog has come back with a new she."
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes waited his nearer approach.  Teeka turned a snarling, fanged
+face toward them.  She was not pretty to look upon, yet through the
+blood and hatred upon her countenance they realized that she was
+beautiful, and they envied Toog&mdash;alas! they did not know Teeka.
+</P>
+<P>
+As they squatted looking at one another there raced through the trees
+toward them a long-tailed little monkey with gray whiskers.  He was a
+very excited little monkey when he came to a halt upon the limb of a
+tree directly overhead.  "Two strange bulls come," he cried.  "One is a
+Mangani, the other a hideous ape without hair upon his body.  They
+follow the spoor of Toog.  I saw them."
+</P>
+<P>
+The four apes turned their eyes backward along the trail Toog had just
+come; then they looked at one another for a minute.  "Come," said the
+larger of Toog's two friends, "we will wait for the strangers in the
+thick bushes beyond the clearing."
+</P>
+<P>
+He turned and waddled away across the open place, the others following
+him.  The little monkey danced about, all excitement.  His chief
+diversion in life was to bring about bloody encounters between the
+larger denizens of the forest, that he might sit in the safety of the
+trees and witness the spectacles.  He was a glutton for gore, was this
+little, whiskered, gray monkey, so long as it was the gore of others&mdash;a
+typical fight fan was the graybeard.
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes hid themselves in the shrubbery beside the trail along which
+the two stranger bulls would pass.  Teeka trembled with excitement.
+She had heard the words of Manu, and she knew that the hairless ape
+must be Tarzan, while the other was, doubtless, Taug.  Never, in her
+wildest hopes, had she expected succor of this sort.  Her one thought
+had been to escape and find her way back to the tribe of Kerchak; but
+even this had appeared to her practically impossible, so closely did
+Toog watch her.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Taug and Tarzan reached the grove where Toog had come upon his
+friends, the ape scent became so strong that both knew the quarry was
+but a short distance ahead.  And so they went even more cautiously, for
+they wished to come upon the thief from behind if they could and charge
+him before he was aware of their presence.  That a little
+gray-whiskered monkey had forestalled them they did not know, nor that
+three pairs of savage eyes were already watching their every move and
+waiting for them to come within reach of itching paws and slavering
+jowls.
+</P>
+<P>
+On they came across the grove, and as they entered the path leading
+into the dense jungle beyond, a sudden "Kreeg-ah!" shrilled out close
+before them&mdash;a "Kreeg-ah" in the familiar voice of Teeka.  The small
+brains of Toog and his companions had not been able to foresee that
+Teeka might betray them, and now that she had, they went wild with
+rage.  Toog struck the she a mighty blow that felled her, and then the
+three rushed forth to do battle with Tarzan and Taug.  The little
+monkey danced upon his perch and screamed with delight.
+</P>
+<P>
+And indeed he might well be delighted, for it was a lovely fight.
+There were no preliminaries, no formalities, no introductions&mdash;the five
+bulls merely charged and clinched.  They rolled in the narrow trail and
+into the thick verdure beside it.  They bit and clawed and scratched
+and struck, and all the while they kept up the most frightful chorus of
+growlings and barkings and roarings.  In five minutes they were torn
+and bleeding, and the little graybeard leaped high, shrilling his
+primitive bravos; but always his attitude was "thumbs down." He wanted
+to see something killed.  He did not care whether it were friend or
+foe.  It was blood he wanted&mdash;blood and death.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug had been set upon by Toog and another of the apes, while Tarzan
+had the third&mdash;a huge brute with the strength of a buffalo.  Never
+before had Tarzan's assailant beheld so strange a creature as this
+slippery, hairless bull with which he battled.  Sweat and blood covered
+Tarzan's sleek, brown hide.  Again and again he slipped from the
+clutches of the great bull, and all the while he struggled to free his
+hunting knife from the scabbard in which it had stuck.
+</P>
+<P>
+At length he succeeded&mdash;a brown hand shot out and clutched a hairy
+throat, another flew upward clutching the sharp blade.  Three swift,
+powerful strokes and the bull relaxed with a groan, falling limp
+beneath his antagonist.  Instantly Tarzan broke from the clutches of
+the dying bull and sprang to Taug's assistance.  Toog saw him coming
+and wheeled to meet him.  In the impact of the charge, Tarzan's knife
+was wrenched from his hand and then Toog closed with him.  Now was the
+battle even&mdash;two against two&mdash;while on the verge, Teeka, now recovered
+from the blow that had felled her, slunk waiting for an opportunity to
+aid.  She saw Tarzan's knife and picked it up.  She never had used it,
+but knew how Tarzan used it.  Always had she been afraid of the thing
+which dealt death to the mightiest of the jungle people with the ease
+that Tantor's great tusks deal death to Tantor's enemies.
+</P>
+<P>
+She saw Tarzan's pocket pouch torn from his side, and with the
+curiosity of an ape, that even danger and excitement cannot entirely
+dispel, she picked this up, too.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now the bulls were standing&mdash;the clinches had been broken.  Blood
+streamed down their sides&mdash;their faces were crimsoned with it.  Little
+graybeard was so fascinated that at last he had even forgotten to
+scream and dance; but sat rigid with delight in the enjoyment of the
+spectacle.
+</P>
+<P>
+Back across the grove Tarzan and Taug forced their adversaries.  Teeka
+followed slowly.  She scarce knew what to do.  She was lame and sore
+and exhausted from the frightful ordeal through which she had passed,
+and she had the confidence of her sex in the prowess of her mate and
+the other bull of her tribe&mdash;they would not need the help of a she in
+their battle with these two strangers.
+</P>
+<P>
+The roars and screams of the fighters reverberated through the jungle,
+awakening the echoes in the distant hills.  From the throat of Tarzan's
+antagonist had come a score of "Kreeg-ahs!" and now from behind came
+the reply he had awaited.  Into the grove, barking and growling, came a
+score of huge bull apes&mdash;the fighting men of Toog's tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka saw them first and screamed a warning to Tarzan and Taug.  Then
+she fled past the fighters toward the opposite side of the clearing,
+fear for a moment claiming her.  Nor can one censure her after the
+frightful ordeal from which she was still suffering.
+</P>
+<P>
+Down upon them came the great apes.  In a moment Tarzan and Taug would
+be torn to shreds that would later form the <i>pièce de résistance</i> of the
+savage orgy of a Dum-Dum.  Teeka turned to glance back.  She saw the
+impending fate of her defenders and there sprung to life in her savage
+bosom the spark of martyrdom, that some common forbear had transmitted
+alike to Teeka, the wild ape, and the glorious women of a higher order
+who have invited death for their men.  With a shrill scream she ran
+toward the battlers who were rolling in a great mass at the foot of one
+of the huge boulders which dotted the grove; but what could she do? The
+knife she held she could not use to advantage because of her lesser
+strength.  She had seen Tarzan throw missiles, and she had learned this
+with many other things from her childhood playmate.  She sought for
+something to throw and at last her fingers touched upon the hard
+objects in the pouch that had been torn from the ape-man. Tearing the
+receptacle open, she gathered a handful of shiny cylinders&mdash;heavy for
+their size, they seemed to her, and good missiles.  With all her
+strength she hurled them at the apes battling in front of the granite
+boulder.
+</P>
+<P>
+The result surprised Teeka quite as much as it did the apes.  There was
+a loud explosion, which deafened the fighters, and a puff of acrid
+smoke.  Never before had one there heard such a frightful noise.
+Screaming with terror, the stranger bulls leaped to their feet and fled
+back toward the stamping ground of their tribe, while Taug and Tarzan
+slowly gathered themselves together and arose, lame and bleeding, to
+their feet.  They, too, would have fled had they not seen Teeka
+standing there before them, the knife and the pocket pouch in her hands.
+</P>
+<P>
+"What was it?" asked Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+Teeka shook her head.  "I hurled these at the stranger bulls," and she
+held forth another handful of the shiny metal cylinders with the dull
+gray, cone-shaped ends.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan looked at them and scratched his head.
+</P>
+<P>
+"What are they?" asked Taug.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I do not know," said Tarzan.  "I found them."
+</P>
+<P>
+The little monkey with the gray beard halted among the trees a mile
+away and huddled, terrified, against a branch.  He did not know that
+the dead father of Tarzan of the Apes, reaching back out of the past
+across a span of twenty years, had saved his son's life.
+</P>
+<P>
+Nor did Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, know it either.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A Jungle Joke
+</H3>
+<P>
+TIME SELDOM HUNG heavily upon Tarzan's hands.  Even where there is
+sameness there cannot be monotony if most of the sameness consists in
+dodging death first in one form and then in another; or in inflicting
+death upon others.  There is a spice to such an existence; but even
+this Tarzan of the Apes varied in activities of his own invention.
+</P>
+<P>
+He was full grown now, with the grace of a Greek god and the thews of a
+bull, and, by all the tenets of apedom, should have been sullen,
+morose, and brooding; but he was not.  His spirits seemed not to age at
+all&mdash;he was still a playful child, much to the discomfiture of his
+fellow-apes. They could not understand him or his ways, for with
+maturity they quickly forgot their youth and its pastimes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Nor could Tarzan quite understand them.  It seemed strange to him that
+a few moons since, he had roped Taug about an ankle and dragged him
+screaming through the tall jungle grasses, and then rolled and tumbled
+in good-natured mimic battle when the young ape had freed himself, and
+that today when he had come up behind the same Taug and pulled him over
+backward upon the turf, instead of the playful young ape, a great,
+snarling beast had whirled and leaped for his throat.
+</P>
+<P>
+Easily Tarzan eluded the charge and quickly Taug's anger vanished,
+though it was not replaced with playfulness; yet the ape-man realized
+that Taug was not amused nor was he amusing.  The big bull ape seemed
+to have lost whatever sense of humor he once may have possessed.  With
+a grunt of disappointment, young Lord Greystoke turned to other fields
+of endeavor.  A strand of black hair fell across one eye.  He brushed
+it aside with the palm of a hand and a toss of his head.  It suggested
+something to do, so he sought his quiver which lay cached in the hollow
+bole of a lightning-riven tree.  Removing the arrows he turned the
+quiver upside down, emptying upon the ground the contents of its
+bottom&mdash;his few treasures.  Among them was a flat bit of stone and a
+shell which he had picked up from the beach near his father's cabin.
+</P>
+<P>
+With great care he rubbed the edge of the shell back and forth upon the
+flat stone until the soft edge was quite fine and sharp.  He worked
+much as a barber does who hones a razor, and with every evidence of
+similar practice; but his proficiency was the result of years of
+painstaking effort.  Unaided he had worked out a method of his own for
+putting an edge upon the shell&mdash;he even tested it with the ball of his
+thumb&mdash;and when it met with his approval he grasped a wisp of hair
+which fell across his eyes, grasped it between the thumb and first
+finger of his left hand and sawed upon it with the sharpened shell
+until it was severed.  All around his head he went until his black
+shock was rudely bobbed with a ragged bang in front.  For the
+appearance of it he cared nothing; but in the matter of safety and
+comfort it meant everything.  A lock of hair falling in one's eyes at
+the wrong moment might mean all the difference between life and death,
+while straggly strands, hanging down one's back were most
+uncomfortable, especially when wet with dew or rain or perspiration.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan labored at his tonsorial task, his active mind was busy with
+many things.  He recalled his recent battle with Bolgani, the gorilla,
+the wounds of which were but just healed.  He pondered the strange
+sleep adventures of his first dreams, and he smiled at the painful
+outcome of his last practical joke upon the tribe, when, dressed in the
+hide of Numa, the lion, he had come roaring upon them, only to be
+leaped upon and almost killed by the great bulls whom he had taught how
+to defend themselves from an attack of their ancient enemy.
+</P>
+<P>
+His hair lopped off to his entire satisfaction, and seeing no
+possibility of pleasure in the company of the tribe, Tarzan swung
+leisurely into the trees and set off in the direction of his cabin; but
+when part way there his attention was attracted by a strong scent spoor
+coming from the north.  It was the scent of the Gomangani.
+</P>
+<P>
+Curiosity, that best-developed, common heritage of man and ape, always
+prompted Tarzan to investigate where the Gomangani were concerned.
+There was that about them which aroused his imagination.  Possibly it
+was because of the diversity of their activities and interests.  The
+apes lived to eat and sleep and propagate.  The same was true of all
+the other denizens of the jungle, save the Gomangani.
+</P>
+<P>
+These black fellows danced and sang, scratched around in the earth from
+which they had cleared the trees and underbrush; they watched things
+grow, and when they had ripened, they cut them down and put them in
+straw-thatched huts.  They made bows and spears and arrows, poison,
+cooking pots, things of metal to wear around their arms and legs.  If
+it hadn't been for their black faces, their hideously disfigured
+features, and the fact that one of them had slain Kala, Tarzan might
+have wished to be one of them.  At least he sometimes thought so, but
+always at the thought there rose within him a strange revulsion of
+feeling, which he could not interpret or understand&mdash;he simply knew
+that he hated the Gomangani, and that he would rather be Histah, the
+snake, than one of these.
+</P>
+<P>
+But their ways were interesting, and Tarzan never tired of spying upon
+them, and from them he learned much more than he realized, though
+always his principal thought was of some new way in which he could
+render their lives miserable.  The baiting of the blacks was Tarzan's
+chief divertissement.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan realized now that the blacks were very near and that there were
+many of them, so he went silently and with great caution.  Noiselessly
+he moved through the lush grasses of the open spaces, and where the
+forest was dense, swung from one swaying branch to another, or leaped
+lightly over tangled masses of fallen trees where there was no way
+through the lower terraces, and the ground was choked and impassable.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so presently he came within sight of the black warriors of Mbonga,
+the chief.  They were engaged in a pursuit with which Tarzan was more
+or less familiar, having watched them at it upon other occasions.  They
+were placing and baiting a trap for Numa, the lion.  In a cage upon
+wheels they were tying a kid, so fastening it that when Numa seized the
+unfortunate creature, the door of the cage would drop behind him,
+making him a prisoner.
+</P>
+<P>
+These things the blacks had learned in their old home, before they
+escaped through the untracked jungle to their new village.  Formerly
+they had dwelt in the Belgian Congo until the cruelties of their
+heartless oppressors had driven them to seek the safety of unexplored
+solitudes beyond the boundaries of Leopold's domain.
+</P>
+<P>
+In their old life they often had trapped animals for the agents of
+European dealers, and had learned from them certain tricks, such as
+this one, which permitted them to capture even Numa without injuring
+him, and to transport him in safety and with comparative ease to their
+village.
+</P>
+<P>
+No longer was there a white market for their savage wares; but there
+was still a sufficient incentive for the taking of Numa&mdash;alive. First
+was the necessity for ridding the jungle of man-eaters, and it was only
+after depredations by these grim and terrible scourges that a lion hunt
+was organized.  Secondarily was the excuse for an orgy of celebration
+was the hunt successful, and the fact that such fetes were rendered
+doubly pleasurable by the presence of a live creature that might be put
+to death by torture.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan had witnessed these cruel rites in the past.  Being himself more
+savage than the savage warriors of the Gomangani, he was not so shocked
+by the cruelty of them as he should have been, yet they did shock him.
+He could not understand the strange feeling of revulsion which
+possessed him at such times.  He had no love for Numa, the lion, yet he
+bristled with rage when the blacks inflicted upon his enemy such
+indignities and cruelties as only the mind of the one creature molded
+in the image of God can conceive.
+</P>
+<P>
+Upon two occasions he had freed Numa from the trap before the blacks
+had returned to discover the success or failure of their venture.  He
+would do the same today&mdash;that he decided immediately he realized the
+nature of their intentions.
+</P>
+<P>
+Leaving the trap in the center of a broad elephant trail near the
+drinking hole, the warriors turned back toward their village.  On the
+morrow they would come again.  Tarzan looked after them, upon his lips
+an unconscious sneer&mdash;the heritage of unguessed caste.  He saw them
+file along the broad trail, beneath the overhanging verdure of leafy
+branch and looped and festooned creepers, brushing ebon shoulders
+against gorgeous blooms which inscrutable Nature has seen fit to lavish
+most profusely farthest from the eye of man.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan watched, through narrowed lids, the last of the warriors
+disappear beyond a turn in the trail, his expression altered to the
+urge of a newborn thought.  A slow, grim smile touched his lips.  He
+looked down upon the frightened, bleating kid, advertising, in its fear
+and its innocence, its presence and its helplessness.
+</P>
+<P>
+Dropping to the ground, Tarzan approached the trap and entered.
+Without disturbing the fiber cord, which was adjusted to drop the door
+at the proper time, he loosened the living bait, tucked it under an arm
+and stepped out of the cage.
+</P>
+<P>
+With his hunting knife he quieted the frightened animal, severing its
+jugular; then he dragged it, bleeding, along the trail down to the
+drinking hole, the half smile persisting upon his ordinarily grave
+face.  At the water's edge the ape-man stooped and with hunting knife
+and quick strong fingers deftly removed the dead kid's viscera.
+Scraping a hole in the mud, he buried these parts which he did not eat,
+and swinging the body to his shoulder took to the trees.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a short distance he pursued his way in the wake of the black
+warriors, coming down presently to bury the meat of his kill where it
+would be safe from the depredations of Dango, the hyena, or the other
+meat-eating beasts and birds of the jungle.  He was hungry.  Had he
+been all beast he would have eaten; but his man-mind could entertain
+urges even more potent than those of the belly, and now he was
+concerned with an idea which kept a smile upon his lips and his eyes
+sparkling in anticipation.  An idea, it was, which permitted him to
+forget that he was hungry.
+</P>
+<P>
+The meat safely cached, Tarzan trotted along the elephant trail after
+the Gomangani.  Two or three miles from the cage he overtook them and
+then he swung into the trees and followed above and behind
+them&mdash;waiting his chance.
+</P>
+<P>
+Among the blacks was Rabba Kega, the witch-doctor. Tarzan hated them
+all; but Rabba Kega he especially hated.  As the blacks filed along the
+winding path, Rabba Kega, being lazy, dropped behind.  This Tarzan
+noted, and it filled him with satisfaction&mdash;his being radiated a grim
+and terrible content.  Like an angel of death he hovered above the
+unsuspecting black.
+</P>
+<P>
+Rabba Kega, knowing that the village was but a short distance ahead,
+sat down to rest.  Rest well, O Rabba Kega! It is thy last opportunity.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan crept stealthily among the branches of the tree above the
+well-fed, self-satisfied witch-doctor.  He made no noise that the dull
+ears of man could hear above the soughing of the gentle jungle breeze
+among the undulating foliage of the upper terraces, and when he came
+close above the black man he halted, well concealed by leafy branch and
+heavy creeper.
+</P>
+<P>
+Rabba Kega sat with his back against the bole of a tree, facing Tarzan.
+The position was not such as the waiting beast of prey desired, and so,
+with the infinite patience of the wild hunter, the ape-man crouched
+motionless and silent as a graven image until the fruit should be ripe
+for the plucking.  A poisonous insect buzzed angrily out of space.  It
+loitered, circling, close to Tarzan's face.  The ape-man saw and
+recognized it.  The virus of its sting spelled death for lesser things
+than he&mdash;for him it would mean days of anguish.  He did not move.  His
+glittering eyes remained fixed upon Rabba Kega after acknowledging the
+presence of the winged torture by a single glance.  He heard and
+followed the movements of the insect with his keen ears, and then he
+felt it alight upon his forehead.  No muscle twitched, for the muscles
+of such as he are the servants of the brain.  Down across his face
+crept the horrid thing&mdash;over nose and lips and chin.  Upon his throat
+it paused, and turning, retraced its steps.  Tarzan watched Rabba Kega.
+Now not even his eyes moved.  So motionless he crouched that only death
+might counterpart his movelessness.  The insect crawled upward over the
+nut-brown cheek and stopped with its antennae brushing the lashes of
+his lower lid.  You or I would have started back, closing our eyes and
+striking at the thing; but you and I are the slaves, not the masters of
+our nerves.  Had the thing crawled upon the eyeball of the ape-man, it
+is believable that he could yet have remained wide-eyed and rigid; but
+it did not.  For a moment it loitered there close to the lower lid,
+then it rose and buzzed away.
+</P>
+<P>
+Down toward Rabba Kega it buzzed and the black man heard it, saw it,
+struck at it, and was stung upon the cheek before he killed it.  Then
+he rose with a howl of pain and anger, and as he turned up the trail
+toward the village of Mbonga, the chief, his broad, black back was
+exposed to the silent thing waiting above him.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as Rabba Kega turned, a lithe figure shot outward and downward from
+the tree above upon his broad shoulders.  The impact of the springing
+creature carried Rabba Kega to the ground.  He felt strong jaws close
+upon his neck, and when he tried to scream, steel fingers throttled his
+throat.  The powerful black warrior struggled to free himself; but he
+was as a child in the grip of his adversary.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently Tarzan released his grip upon the other's throat; but each
+time that Rabba Kega essayed a scream, the cruel fingers choked him
+painfully.  At last the warrior desisted.  Then Tarzan half rose and
+kneeled upon his victim's back, and when Rabba Kega struggled to arise,
+the ape-man pushed his face down into the dirt of the trail.  With a
+bit of the rope that had secured the kid, Tarzan made Rabba Kega's
+wrists secure behind his back, then he rose and jerked his prisoner to
+his feet, faced him back along the trail and pushed him on ahead.
+</P>
+<P>
+Not until he came to his feet did Rabba Kega obtain a square look at
+his assailant.  When he saw that it was the white devil-god his heart
+sank within him and his knees trembled; but as he walked along the
+trail ahead of his captor and was neither injured nor molested his
+spirits slowly rose, so that he took heart again.  Possibly the
+devil-god did not intend to kill him after all.  Had he not had little
+Tibo in his power for days without harming him, and had he not spared
+Momaya, Tibo's mother, when he easily might have slain her?
+</P>
+<P>
+And then they came upon the cage which Rabba Kega, with the other black
+warriors of the village of Mbonga, the chief, had placed and baited for
+Numa.  Rabba Kega saw that the bait was gone, though there was no lion
+within the cage, nor was the door dropped.  He saw and he was filled
+with wonder not unmixed with apprehension.  It entered his dull brain
+that in some way this combination of circumstances had a connection
+with his presence there as the prisoner of the white devil-god.
+</P>
+<P>
+Nor was he wrong.  Tarzan pushed him roughly into the cage, and in
+another moment Rabba Kega understood.  Cold sweat broke from every pore
+of his body&mdash;he trembled as with ague&mdash;for the ape-man was binding him
+securely in the very spot the kid had previously occupied.  The
+witch-doctor pleaded, first for his life, and then for a death less
+cruel; but he might as well have saved his pleas for Numa, since
+already they were directed toward a wild beast who understood no word
+of what he said.
+</P>
+<P>
+But his constant jabbering not only annoyed Tarzan, who worked in
+silence, but suggested that later the black might raise his voice in
+cries for succor, so he stepped out of the cage, gathered a handful of
+grass and a small stick and returning, jammed the grass into Rabba
+Kega's mouth, laid the stick crosswise between his teeth and fastened
+it there with the thong from Rabba Kega's loin cloth.  Now could the
+witch-doctor but roll his eyes and sweat.  Thus Tarzan left him.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-man went first to the spot where he had cached the body of the
+kid.  Digging it up, he ascended into a tree and proceeded to satisfy
+his hunger.  What remained he again buried; then he swung away through
+the trees to the water hole, and going to the spot where fresh, cold
+water bubbled from between two rocks, he drank deeply.  The other
+beasts might wade in and drink stagnant water; but not Tarzan of the
+Apes.  In such matters he was fastidious.  From his hands he washed
+every trace of the repugnant scent of the Gomangani, and from his face
+the blood of the kid.  Rising, he stretched himself not unlike some
+huge, lazy cat, climbed into a near-by tree and fell asleep.
+</P>
+<P>
+When he awoke it was dark, though a faint luminosity still tinged the
+western heavens.  A lion moaned and coughed as it strode through the
+jungle toward water.  It was approaching the drinking hole.  Tarzan
+grinned sleepily, changed his position and fell asleep again.
+</P>
+<P>
+When the blacks of Mbonga, the chief, reached their village they
+discovered that Rabba Kega was not among them.  When several hours had
+elapsed they decided that something had happened to him, and it was the
+hope of the majority of the tribe that whatever had happened to him
+might prove fatal.  They did not love the witch-doctor. Love and fear
+seldom are playmates; but a warrior is a warrior, and so Mbonga
+organized a searching party.  That his own grief was not unassuagable
+might have been gathered from the fact that he remained at home and
+went to sleep.  The young warriors whom he sent out remained steadfast
+to their purpose for fully half an hour, when, unfortunately for Rabba
+Kega&mdash;upon so slight a thing may the fate of a man rest&mdash;a honey bird
+attracted the attention of the searchers and led them off for the
+delicious store it previously had marked down for betrayal, and Rabba
+Kega's doom was sealed.
+</P>
+<P>
+When the searchers returned empty handed, Mbonga was wroth; but when he
+saw the great store of honey they brought with them his rage subsided.
+Already Tubuto, young, agile and evil-minded, with face hideously
+painted, was practicing the black art upon a sick infant in the fond
+hope of succeeding to the office and perquisites of Rabba Kega.
+Tonight the women of the old witch-doctor would moan and howl.
+Tomorrow he would be forgotten.  Such is life, such is fame, such is
+power&mdash;in the center of the world's highest civilization, or in the
+depths of the black, primeval jungle.  Always, everywhere, man is man,
+nor has he altered greatly beneath his veneer since he scurried into a
+hole between two rocks to escape the tyrannosaurus six million years
+ago.
+</P>
+<P>
+The morning following the disappearance of Rabba Kega, the warriors set
+out with Mbonga, the chief, to examine the trap they had set for Numa.
+Long before they reached the cage, they heard the roaring of a great
+lion and guessed that they had made a successful bag, so it was with
+shouts of joy that they approached the spot where they should find
+their captive.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yes! There he was, a great, magnificent specimen&mdash;a huge, black-maned
+lion.  The warriors were frantic with delight.  They leaped into the
+air and uttered savage cries&mdash;hoarse victory cries, and then they came
+closer, and the cries died upon their lips, and their eyes went wide so
+that the whites showed all around their irises, and their pendulous
+lower lips drooped with their drooping jaws.  They drew back in terror
+at the sight within the cage&mdash;the mauled and mutilated corpse of what
+had, yesterday, been Rabba Kega, the witch-doctor.
+</P>
+<P>
+The captured lion had been too angry and frightened to feed upon the
+body of his kill; but he had vented upon it much of his rage, until it
+was a frightful thing to behold.
+</P>
+<P>
+From his perch in a near-by tree Tarzan of the Apes, Lord Greystoke,
+looked down upon the black warriors and grinned.  Once again his
+self-pride in his ability as a practical joker asserted itself.  It had
+lain dormant for some time following the painful mauling he had
+received that time he leaped among the apes of Kerchak clothed in the
+skin of Numa; but this joke was a decided success.
+</P>
+<P>
+After a few moments of terror, the blacks came closer to the cage, rage
+taking the place of fear&mdash;rage and curiosity.  How had Rabba Kega
+happened to be in the cage? Where was the kid? There was no sign nor
+remnant of the original bait.  They looked closely and they saw, to
+their horror, that the corpse of their erstwhile fellow was bound with
+the very cord with which they had secured the kid.  Who could have done
+this thing? They looked at one another.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tubuto was the first to speak.  He had come hopefully out with the
+expedition that morning.  Somewhere he might find evidence of the death
+of Rabba Kega.  Now he had found it, and he was the first to find an
+explanation.
+</P>
+<P>
+"The white devil-god," he whispered.  "It is the work of the white
+devil-god!"
+</P>
+<P>
+No one contradicted Tubuto, for, indeed, who else could it have been
+but the great, hairless ape they all so feared? And so their hatred of
+Tarzan increased again with an increased fear of him.  And Tarzan sat
+in his tree and hugged himself.
+</P>
+<P>
+No one there felt sorrow because of the death of Rabba Kega; but each
+of the blacks experienced a personal fear of the ingenious mind which
+might discover for any of them a death equally horrible to that which
+the witch-doctor had suffered.  It was a subdued and thoughtful company
+which dragged the captive lion along the broad elephant path back to
+the village of Mbonga, the chief.
+</P>
+<P>
+And it was with a sigh of relief that they finally rolled it into the
+village and closed the gates behind them.  Each had experienced the
+sensation of being spied upon from the moment they left the spot where
+the trap had been set, though none had seen or heard aught to give
+tangible food to his fears.
+</P>
+<P>
+At the sight of the body within the cage with the lion, the women and
+children of the village set up a most frightful lamentation, working
+themselves into a joyous hysteria which far transcended the happy
+misery derived by their more civilized prototypes who make a business
+of dividing their time between the movies and the neighborhood funerals
+of friends and strangers&mdash;especially strangers.
+</P>
+<P>
+From a tree overhanging the palisade, Tarzan watched all that passed
+within the village.  He saw the frenzied women tantalizing the great
+lion with sticks and stones.  The cruelty of the blacks toward a
+captive always induced in Tarzan a feeling of angry contempt for the
+Gomangani.  Had he attempted to analyze this feeling he would have
+found it difficult, for during all his life he had been accustomed to
+sights of suffering and cruelty.  He, himself, was cruel.  All the
+beasts of the jungle were cruel; but the cruelty of the blacks was of a
+different order.  It was the cruelty of wanton torture of the helpless,
+while the cruelty of Tarzan and the other beasts was the cruelty of
+necessity or of passion.
+</P>
+<P>
+Perhaps, had he known it, he might have credited this feeling of
+repugnance at the sight of unnecessary suffering to heredity&mdash;to the
+germ of British love of fair play which had been bequeathed to him by
+his father and his mother; but, of course, he did not know, since he
+still believed that his mother had been Kala, the great ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+And just in proportion as his anger rose against the Gomangani his
+savage sympathy went out to Numa, the lion, for, though Numa was his
+lifetime enemy, there was neither bitterness nor contempt in Tarzan's
+sentiments toward him.  In the ape-man's mind, therefore, the
+determination formed to thwart the blacks and liberate the lion; but he
+must accomplish this in some way which would cause the Gomangani the
+greatest chagrin and discomfiture.
+</P>
+<P>
+As he squatted there watching the proceeding beneath him, he saw the
+warriors seize upon the cage once more and drag it between two huts.
+Tarzan knew that it would remain there now until evening, and that the
+blacks were planning a feast and orgy in celebration of their capture.
+When he saw that two warriors were placed beside the cage, and that
+these drove off the women and children and young men who would have
+eventually tortured Numa to death, he knew that the lion would be safe
+until he was needed for the evening's entertainment, when he would be
+more cruelly and scientifically tortured for the edification of the
+entire tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now Tarzan preferred to bait the blacks in as theatric a manner as his
+fertile imagination could evolve.  He had some half-formed conception
+of their superstitious fears and of their especial dread of night, and
+so he decided to wait until darkness fell and the blacks partially
+worked to hysteria by their dancing and religious rites before he took
+any steps toward the freeing of Numa.  In the meantime, he hoped, an
+idea adequate to the possibilities of the various factors at hand would
+occur to him.  Nor was it long before one did.
+</P>
+<P>
+He had swung off through the jungle to search for food when the plan
+came to him.  At first it made him smile a little and then look
+dubious, for he still retained a vivid memory of the dire results that
+had followed the carrying out of a very wonderful idea along almost
+identical lines, yet he did not abandon his intention, and a moment
+later, food temporarily forgotten, he was swinging through the middle
+terraces in rapid flight toward the stamping ground of the tribe of
+Kerchak, the great ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+As was his wont, he alighted in the midst of the little band without
+announcing his approach save by a hideous scream just as he sprang from
+a branch above them.  Fortunate are the apes of Kerchak that their kind
+is not subject to heart failure, for the methods of Tarzan subjected
+them to one severe shock after another, nor could they ever accustom
+themselves to the ape-man's peculiar style of humor.
+</P>
+<P>
+Now, when they saw who it was they merely snarled and grumbled angrily
+for a moment and then resumed their feeding or their napping which he
+had interrupted, and he, having had his little joke, made his way to
+the hollow tree where he kept his treasures hid from the inquisitive
+eyes and fingers of his fellows and the mischievous little manus.  Here
+he withdrew a closely rolled hide&mdash;the hide of Numa with the head on; a
+clever bit of primitive curing and mounting, which had once been the
+property of the witch-doctor, Rabba Kega, until Tarzan had stolen it
+from the village.
+</P>
+<P>
+With this he made his way back through the jungle toward the village of
+the blacks, stopping to hunt and feed upon the way, and, in the
+afternoon, even napping for an hour, so that it was already dusk when
+he entered the great tree which overhung the palisade and gave him a
+view of the entire village.  He saw that Numa was still alive and that
+the guards were even dozing beside the cage.  A lion is no great
+novelty to a black man in the lion country, and the first keen edge of
+their desire to worry the brute having worn off, the villagers paid
+little or no attention to the great cat, preferring now to await the
+grand event of the night.
+</P>
+<P>
+Nor was it long after dark before the festivities commenced.  To the
+beating of tom-toms, a lone warrior, crouched half doubled, leaped into
+the firelight in the center of a great circle of other warriors, behind
+whom stood or squatted the women and the children.  The dancer was
+painted and armed for the hunt and his movements and gestures suggested
+the search for the spoor of game.  Bending low, sometimes resting for a
+moment on one knee, he searched the ground for signs of the quarry;
+again he poised, statuesque, listening.  The warrior was young and
+lithe and graceful; he was full-muscled and arrow-straight. The
+firelight glistened upon his ebon body and brought out into bold relief
+the grotesque designs painted upon his face, breasts, and abdomen.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently he bent low to the earth, then leaped high in air.  Every
+line of face and body showed that he had struck the scent.  Immediately
+he leaped toward the circle of warriors about him, telling them of his
+find and summoning them to the hunt.  It was all in pantomime; but so
+truly done that even Tarzan could follow it all to the least detail.
+</P>
+<P>
+He saw the other warriors grasp their hunting spears and leap to their
+feet to join in the graceful, stealthy "stalking dance." It was very
+interesting; but Tarzan realized that if he was to carry his design to
+a successful conclusion he must act quickly.  He had seen these dances
+before and knew that after the stalk would come the game at bay and
+then the kill, during which Numa would be surrounded by warriors, and
+unapproachable.
+</P>
+<P>
+With the lion's skin under one arm the ape-man dropped to the ground in
+the dense shadows beneath the tree and then circled behind the huts
+until he came out directly in the rear of the cage, in which Numa paced
+nervously to and fro.  The cage was now unguarded, the two warriors
+having left it to take their places among the other dancers.
+</P>
+<P>
+Behind the cage Tarzan adjusted the lion's skin about him, just as he
+had upon that memorable occasion when the apes of Kerchak, failing to
+pierce his disguise, had all but slain him.  Then, on hands and knees,
+he crept forward, emerged from between the two huts and stood a few
+paces back of the dusky audience, whose whole attention was centered
+upon the dancers before them.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan saw that the blacks had now worked themselves to a proper pitch
+of nervous excitement to be ripe for the lion.  In a moment the ring of
+spectators would break at a point nearest the caged lion and the victim
+would be rolled into the center of the circle.  It was for this moment
+that Tarzan waited.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last it came.  A signal was given by Mbonga, the chief, at which the
+women and children immediately in front of Tarzan rose and moved to one
+side, leaving a broad path opening toward the caged lion.  At the same
+instant Tarzan gave voice to the low, coughing roar of an angry lion
+and slunk slowly forward through the open lane toward the frenzied
+dancers.
+</P>
+<P>
+A woman saw him first and screamed.  Instantly there was a panic in the
+immediate vicinity of the ape-man. The strong light from the fire fell
+full upon the lion head and the blacks leaped to the conclusion, as
+Tarzan had known they would, that their captive had escaped his cage.
+</P>
+<P>
+With another roar, Tarzan moved forward.  The dancing warriors paused
+but an instant.  They had been hunting a lion securely housed within a
+strong cage, and now that he was at liberty among them, an entirely
+different aspect was placed upon the matter.  Their nerves were not
+attuned to this emergency.  The women and children already had fled to
+the questionable safety of the nearest huts, and the warriors were not
+long in following their example, so that presently Tarzan was left in
+sole possession of the village street.
+</P>
+<P>
+But not for long.  Nor did he wish to be left thus long alone.  It
+would not comport with his scheme.  Presently a head peered forth from
+a near-by hut, and then another and another until a score or more of
+warriors were looking out upon him, waiting for his next move&mdash;waiting
+for the lion to charge or to attempt to escape from the village.
+</P>
+<P>
+Their spears were ready in their hands against either a charge or a
+bolt for freedom, and then the lion rose erect upon its hind legs, the
+tawny skin dropped from it and there stood revealed before them in the
+firelight the straight young figure of the white devil-god.
+</P>
+<P>
+For an instant the blacks were too astonished to act.  They feared this
+apparition fully as much as they did Numa, yet they would gladly have
+slain the thing could they quickly enough have gathered together their
+wits; but fear and superstition and a natural mental density held them
+paralyzed while the ape-man stooped and gathered up the lion skin.
+They saw him turn then and walk back into the shadows at the far end of
+the village.  Not until then did they gain courage to pursue him, and
+when they had come in force, with brandished spears and loud war cries,
+the quarry was gone.
+</P>
+<P>
+Not an instant did Tarzan pause in the tree.  Throwing the skin over a
+branch he leaped again into the village upon the opposite side of the
+great bole, and diving into the shadow of a hut, ran quickly to where
+lay the caged lion.  Springing to the top of the cage he pulled upon
+the cord which raised the door, and a moment later a great lion in the
+prime of his strength and vigor leaped out into the village.
+</P>
+<P>
+The warriors, returning from a futile search for Tarzan, saw him step
+into the firelight.  Ah! there was the devil-god again, up to his old
+trick.  Did he think he could twice fool the men of Mbonga, the chief,
+the same way in so short a time? They would show him!  For long they
+had waited for such an opportunity to rid themselves forever of this
+fearsome jungle demon.  As one they rushed forward with raised spears.
+</P>
+<P>
+The women and the children came from the huts to witness the slaying of
+the devil-god. The lion turned blazing eyes upon them and then swung
+about toward the advancing warriors.
+</P>
+<P>
+With shouts of savage joy and triumph they came toward him, menacing
+him with their spears.  The devil-god was theirs!
+</P>
+<P>
+And then, with a frightful roar, Numa, the lion, charged.
+</P>
+<P>
+The men of Mbonga, the chief, met Numa with ready spears and screams of
+raillery.  In a solid mass of muscled ebony they waited the coming of
+the devil-god; yet beneath their brave exteriors lurked a haunting fear
+that all might not be quite well with them&mdash;that this strange creature
+could yet prove invulnerable to their weapons and inflict upon them
+full punishment for their effrontery.  The charging lion was all too
+lifelike&mdash;they saw that in the brief instant of the charge; but beneath
+the tawny hide they knew was hid the soft flesh of the white man, and
+how could that withstand the assault of many war spears?
+</P>
+<P>
+In their forefront stood a huge young warrior in the full arrogance of
+his might and his youth.  Afraid? Not he! He laughed as Numa bore down
+upon him; he laughed and couched his spear, setting the point for the
+broad breast.  And then the lion was upon him.  A great paw swept away
+the heavy war spear, splintering it as the hand of man might splinter a
+dry twig.
+</P>
+<P>
+Down went the black, his skull crushed by another blow.  And then the
+lion was in the midst of the warriors, clawing and tearing to right and
+left.  Not for long did they stand their ground; but a dozen men were
+mauled before the others made good their escape from those frightful
+talons and gleaming fangs.
+</P>
+<P>
+In terror the villagers fled hither and thither.  No hut seemed a
+sufficiently secure asylum with Numa ranging within the palisade.  From
+one to another fled the frightened blacks, while in the center of the
+village Numa stood glaring and growling above his kills.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last a tribesman flung wide the gates of the village and sought
+safety amid the branches of the forest trees beyond.  Like sheep his
+fellows followed him, until the lion and his dead remained alone in the
+village.
+</P>
+<P>
+From the nearer trees the men of Mbonga saw the lion lower his great
+head and seize one of his victims by the shoulder and then with slow
+and stately tread move down the village street past the open gates and
+on into the jungle.  They saw and shuddered, and from another tree
+Tarzan of the Apes saw and smiled.
+</P>
+<P>
+A full hour elapsed after the lion had disappeared with his feast
+before the blacks ventured down from the trees and returned to their
+village.  Wide eyes rolled from side to side, and naked flesh
+contracted more to the chill of fear than to the chill of the jungle
+night.
+</P>
+<P>
+"It was he all the time," murmured one.  "It was the devil-god."
+</P>
+<P>
+"He changed himself from a lion to a man, and back again into a lion,"
+whispered another.
+</P>
+<P>
+"And he dragged Mweeza into the forest and is eating him," said a
+third, shuddering.
+</P>
+<P>
+"We are no longer safe here," wailed a fourth.  "Let us take our
+belongings and search for another village site far from the haunts of
+the wicked devil-god."
+</P>
+<P>
+But with morning came renewed courage, so that the experiences of the
+preceding evening had little other effect than to increase their fear
+of Tarzan and strengthen their belief in his supernatural origin.
+</P>
+<P>
+And thus waxed the fame and the power of the ape-man in the mysterious
+haunts of the savage jungle where he ranged, mightiest of beasts
+because of the man-mind which directed his giant muscles and his
+flawless courage.
+</P>
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+</H3>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Tarzan Rescues the Moon
+</H3>
+<P>THE MOON SHONE down out of a cloudless sky&mdash;a huge, swollen moon that
+seemed so close to earth that one might wonder that she did not brush
+the crooning tree tops.  It was night, and Tarzan was abroad in the
+jungle&mdash;Tarzan, the ape-man; mighty fighter, mighty hunter.  Why he
+swung through the dark shadows of the somber forest he could not have
+told you.  It was not that he was hungry&mdash;he had fed well this day, and
+in a safe cache were the remains of his kill, ready against the coming
+of a new appetite.  Perhaps it was the very joy of living that urged
+him from his arboreal couch to pit his muscles and his senses against
+the jungle night, and then, too, Tarzan always was goaded by an intense
+desire to know.
+</P>
+<P>
+The jungle which is presided over by Kudu, the sun, is a very different
+jungle from that of Goro, the moon.  The diurnal jungle has its own
+aspect&mdash;its own lights and shades, its own birds, its own blooms, its
+own beasts; its noises are the noises of the day.  The lights and
+shades of the nocturnal jungle are as different as one might imagine
+the lights and shades of another world to differ from those of our
+world; its beasts, its blooms, and its birds are not those of the
+jungle of Kudu, the sun.
+</P>
+<P>
+Because of these differences Tarzan loved to investigate the jungle by
+night.  Not only was the life another life; but it was richer in
+numbers and in romance; it was richer in dangers, too, and to Tarzan of
+the Apes danger was the spice of life.  And the noises of the jungle
+night&mdash;the roar of the lion, the scream of the leopard, the hideous
+laughter of Dango, the hyena, were music to the ears of the ape-man.
+</P>
+<P>
+The soft padding of unseen feet, the rustling of leaves and grasses to
+the passage of fierce beasts, the sheen of opalesque eyes flaming
+through the dark, the million sounds which proclaimed the teeming life
+that one might hear and scent, though seldom see, constituted the
+appeal of the nocturnal jungle to Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tonight he had swung a wide circle&mdash;toward the east first and then
+toward the south, and now he was rounding back again into the north.
+His eyes, his ears and his keen nostrils were ever on the alert.
+Mingled with the sounds he knew, there were strange sounds&mdash;weird
+sounds which he never heard until after Kudu had sought his lair below
+the far edge of the big water&mdash;sounds which belonged to Goro, the
+moon&mdash;and to the mysterious period of Goro's supremacy.  These sounds
+often caused Tarzan profound speculation.  They baffled him because he
+thought that he knew his jungle so well that there could be nothing
+within it unfamiliar to him.  Sometimes he thought that as colors and
+forms appeared to differ by night from their familiar daylight aspects,
+so sounds altered with the passage of Kudu and the coming of Goro, and
+these thoughts roused within his brain a vague conjecture that perhaps
+Goro and Kudu influenced these changes.  And what more natural that
+eventually he came to attribute to the sun and the moon personalities
+as real as his own? The sun was a living creature and ruled the day.
+The moon, endowed with brains and miraculous powers, ruled the night.
+</P>
+<P>
+Thus functioned the untrained man-mind groping through the dark night
+of ignorance for an explanation of the things he could not touch or
+smell or hear and of the great, unknown powers of nature which he could
+not see.
+</P>
+<P>
+As Tarzan swung north again upon his wide circle the scent of the
+Gomangani came to his nostrils, mixed with the acrid odor of wood
+smoke.  The ape-man moved quickly in the direction from which the scent
+was borne down to him upon the gentle night wind.  Presently the ruddy
+sheen of a great fire filtered through the foliage to him ahead, and
+when Tarzan came to a halt in the trees near it, he saw a party of half
+a dozen black warriors huddled close to the blaze.  It was evidently a
+hunting party from the village of Mbonga, the chief, caught out in the
+jungle after dark.  In a rude circle about them they had constructed a
+thorn boma which, with the aid of the fire, they apparently hoped would
+discourage the advances of the larger carnivora.
+</P>
+<P>
+That hope was not conviction was evidenced by the very palpable terror
+in which they crouched, wide-eyed and trembling, for already Numa and
+Sabor were moaning through the jungle toward them.  There were other
+creatures, too, in the shadows beyond the firelight.  Tarzan could see
+their yellow eyes flaming there.  The blacks saw them and shivered.
+Then one arose and grasping a burning branch from the fire hurled it at
+the eyes, which immediately disappeared.  The black sat down again.
+Tarzan watched and saw that it was several minutes before the eyes
+began to reappear in twos and fours.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then came Numa, the lion, and Sabor, his mate.  The other eyes
+scattered to right and left before the menacing growls of the great
+cats, and then the huge orbs of the man-eaters flamed alone out of the
+darkness.  Some of the blacks threw themselves upon their faces and
+moaned; but he who before had hurled the burning branch now hurled
+another straight at the faces of the hungry lions, and they, too,
+disappeared as had the lesser lights before them.  Tarzan was much
+interested.  He saw a new reason for the nightly fires maintained by
+the blacks&mdash;a reason in addition to those connected with warmth and
+light and cooking.  The beasts of the jungle feared fire, and so fire
+was, in a measure, a protection from them.  Tarzan himself knew a
+certain awe of fire.  Once he had, in investigating an abandoned fire
+in the village of the blacks, picked up a live coal.  Since then he had
+maintained a respectful distance from such fires as he had seen.  One
+experience had sufficed.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a few minutes after the black hurled the firebrand no eyes
+appeared, though Tarzan could hear the soft padding of feet all about
+him.  Then flashed once more the twin fire spots that marked the return
+of the lord of the jungle and a moment later, upon a slightly lower
+level, there appeared those of Sabor, his mate.
+</P>
+<P>
+For some time they remained fixed and unwavering&mdash;a constellation of
+fierce stars in the jungle night&mdash;then the male lion advanced slowly
+toward the boma, where all but a single black still crouched in
+trembling terror.  When this lone guardian saw that Numa was again
+approaching, he threw another firebrand, and, as before, Numa retreated
+and with him Sabor, the lioness; but not so far, this time, nor for so
+long.  Almost instantly they turned and began circling the boma, their
+eyes turning constantly toward the firelight, while low, throaty growls
+evidenced their increasing displeasure.  Beyond the lions glowed the
+flaming eyes of the lesser satellites, until the black jungle was shot
+all around the black men's camp with little spots of fire.
+</P>
+<P>
+Again and again the black warrior hurled his puny brands at the two big
+cats; but Tarzan noticed that Numa paid little or no attention to them
+after the first few retreats.  The ape-man knew by Numa's voice that
+the lion was hungry and surmised that he had made up his mind to feed
+upon a Gomangani; but would he dare a closer approach to the dreaded
+flames?
+</P>
+<P>
+Even as the thought was passing in Tarzan's mind, Numa stopped his
+restless pacing and faced the boma.  For a moment he stood motionless,
+except for the quick, nervous upcurving of his tail, then he walked
+deliberately forward, while Sabor moved restlessly to and fro where he
+had left her.  The black man called to his comrades that the lion was
+coming, but they were too far gone in fear to do more than huddle
+closer together and moan more loudly than before.
+</P>
+<P>
+Seizing a blazing branch the man cast it straight into the face of the
+lion.  There was an angry roar, followed by a swift charge.  With a
+single bound the savage beast cleared the boma wall as, with almost
+equal agility, the warrior cleared it upon the opposite side and,
+chancing the dangers lurking in the darkness, bolted for the nearest
+tree.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa was out of the boma almost as soon as he was inside it; but as he
+went back over the low thorn wall, he took a screaming negro with him.
+Dragging his victim along the ground he walked back toward Sabor, the
+lioness, who joined him, and the two continued into the blackness,
+their savage growls mingling with the piercing shrieks of the doomed
+and terrified man.
+</P>
+<P>
+At a little distance from the blaze the lions halted, there ensued a
+short succession of unusually vicious growls and roars, during which
+the cries and moans of the black man ceased&mdash;forever.
+</P>
+<P>
+Presently Numa reappeared in the firelight.  He made a second trip into
+the boma and the former grisly tragedy was reenacted with another
+howling victim.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan rose and stretched lazily.  The entertainment was beginning to
+bore him.  He yawned and turned upon his way toward the clearing where
+the tribe would be sleeping in the encircling trees.
+</P>
+<P>
+Yet even when he had found his familiar crotch and curled himself for
+slumber, he felt no desire to sleep.  For a long time he lay awake
+thinking and dreaming.  He looked up into the heavens and watched the
+moon and the stars.  He wondered what they were and what power kept
+them from falling.  His was an inquisitive mind.  Always he had been
+full of questions concerning all that passed around him; but there
+never had been one to answer his questions.  In childhood he had wanted
+to KNOW, and, denied almost all knowledge, he still, in manhood, was
+filled with the great, unsatisfied curiosity of a child.
+</P>
+<P>
+He was never quite content merely to perceive that things happened&mdash;he
+desired to know WHY they happened.  He wanted to know what made things
+go.  The secret of life interested him immensely.  The miracle of death
+he could not quite fathom.  Upon innumerable occasions he had
+investigated the internal mechanism of his kills, and once or twice he
+had opened the chest cavity of victims in time to see the heart still
+pumping.
+</P>
+<P>
+He had learned from experience that a knife thrust through this organ
+brought immediate death nine times out of ten, while he might stab an
+antagonist innumerable times in other places without even disabling
+him.  And so he had come to think of the heart, or, as he called it,
+"the red thing that breathes," as the seat and origin of life.
+</P>
+<P>
+The brain and its functionings he did not comprehend at all.  That his
+sense perceptions were transmitted to his brain and there translated,
+classified, and labeled was something quite beyond him.  He thought
+that his fingers knew when they touched something, that his eyes knew
+when they saw, his ears when they heard, his nose when it scented.
+</P>
+<P>
+He considered his throat, epidermis, and the hairs of his head as the
+three principal seats of emotion.  When Kala had been slain a peculiar
+choking sensation had possessed his throat; contact with Histah, the
+snake, imparted an unpleasant sensation to the skin of his whole body;
+while the approach of an enemy made the hairs on his scalp stand erect.
+</P>
+<P>
+Imagine, if you can, a child filled with the wonders of nature,
+bursting with queries and surrounded only by beasts of the jungle to
+whom his questionings were as strange as Sanskrit would have been.  If
+he asked Gunto what made it rain, the big old ape would but gaze at him
+in dumb astonishment for an instant and then return to his interesting
+and edifying search for fleas; and when he questioned Mumga, who was
+very old and should have been very wise, but wasn't, as to the reason
+for the closing of certain flowers after Kudu had deserted the sky, and
+the opening of others during the night, he was surprised to discover
+that Mumga had never noticed these interesting facts, though she could
+tell to an inch just where the fattest grubworm should be hiding.
+</P>
+<P>
+To Tarzan these things were wonders.  They appealed to his intellect
+and to his imagination.  He saw the flowers close and open; he saw
+certain blooms which turned their faces always toward the sun; he saw
+leaves which moved when there was no breeze; he saw vines crawl like
+living things up the boles and over the branches of great trees; and to
+Tarzan of the Apes the flowers and the vines and the trees were living
+creatures.  He often talked to them, as he talked to Goro, the moon,
+and Kudu, the sun, and always was he disappointed that they did not
+reply.  He asked them questions; but they could not answer, though he
+knew that the whispering of the leaves was the language of the
+leaves&mdash;they talked with one another.
+</P>
+<P>
+The wind he attributed to the trees and grasses.  He thought that they
+swayed themselves to and fro, creating the wind.  In no other way could
+he account for this phenomenon.  The rain he finally attributed to the
+stars, the moon, and the sun; but his hypothesis was entirely unlovely
+and unpoetical.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tonight as Tarzan lay thinking, there sprang to his fertile imagination
+an explanation of the stars and the moon.  He became quite excited
+about it.  Taug was sleeping in a nearby crotch.  Tarzan swung over
+beside him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Taug!" he cried.  Instantly the great bull was awake and bristling,
+sensing danger from the nocturnal summons.  "Look, Taug!" exclaimed
+Tarzan, pointing toward the stars.  "See the eyes of Numa and Sabor, of
+Sheeta and Dango.  They wait around Goro to leap in upon him for their
+kill.  See the eyes and the nose and the mouth of Goro.  And the light
+that shines upon his face is the light of the great fire he has built
+to frighten away Numa and Sabor and Dango and Sheeta.
+</P>
+<P>
+"All about him are the eyes, Taug, you can see them! But they do not
+come very close to the fire&mdash;there are few eyes close to Goro.  They
+fear the fire! It is the fire that saves Goro from Numa.  Do you see
+them, Taug? Some night Numa will be very hungry and very angry&mdash;then he
+will leap over the thorn bushes which encircle Goro and we will have no
+more light after Kudu seeks his lair&mdash;the night will be black with the
+blackness that comes when Goro is lazy and sleeps late into the night,
+or when he wanders through the skies by day, forgetting the jungle and
+its people."
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug looked stupidly at the heavens and then at Tarzan.  A meteor fell,
+blazing a flaming way through the sky.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Look!" cried Tarzan.  "Goro has thrown a burning branch at Numa."
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug grumbled.  "Numa is down below," he said.  "Numa does not hunt
+above the trees." But he looked curiously and a little fearfully at the
+bright stars above him, as though he saw them for the first time, and
+doubtless it was the first time that Taug ever had seen the stars,
+though they had been in the sky above him every night of his life.  To
+Taug they were as the gorgeous jungle blooms&mdash;he could not eat them and
+so he ignored them.
+</P>
+<P>
+Taug fidgeted and was nervous.  For a long time he lay sleepless,
+watching the stars&mdash;the flaming eyes of the beasts of prey surrounding
+Goro, the moon&mdash;Goro, by whose light the apes danced to the beating of
+their earthen drums.  If Goro should be eaten by Numa there could be no
+more Dum-Dums. Taug was overwhelmed by the thought.  He glanced at
+Tarzan half fearfully.  Why was his friend so different from the others
+of the tribe? No one else whom Taug ever had known had had such queer
+thoughts as Tarzan.  The ape scratched his head and wondered, dimly, if
+Tarzan was a safe companion, and then he recalled slowly, and by a
+laborious mental process, that Tarzan had served him better than any
+other of the apes, even the strong and wise bulls of the tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan it was who had freed him from the blacks at the very time that
+Taug had thought Tarzan wanted Teeka.  It was Tarzan who had saved
+Taug's little balu from death.  It was Tarzan who had conceived and
+carried out the plan to pursue Teeka's abductor and rescue the stolen
+one.  Tarzan had fought and bled in Taug's service so many times that
+Taug, although only a brutal ape, had had impressed upon his mind a
+fierce loyalty which nothing now could swerve&mdash;his friendship for
+Tarzan had become a habit, a tradition almost, which would endure while
+Taug endured.  He never showed any outward demonstration of
+affection&mdash;he growled at Tarzan as he growled at the other bulls who
+came too close while he was feeding&mdash;but he would have died for Tarzan.
+He knew it and Tarzan knew it; but of such things apes do not
+speak&mdash;their vocabulary, for the finer instincts, consisting more of
+actions than words.  But now Taug was worried, and he fell asleep again
+still thinking of the strange words of his fellow.
+</P>
+<P>
+The following day he thought of them again, and without any intention
+of disloyalty he mentioned to Gunto what Tarzan had suggested about the
+eyes surrounding Goro, and the possibility that sooner or later Numa
+would charge the moon and devour him.  To the apes all large things in
+nature are male, and so Goro, being the largest creature in the heavens
+by night, was, to them, a bull.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto bit a sliver from a horny finger and recalled the fact that
+Tarzan had once said that the trees talked to one another, and Gozan
+recounted having seen the ape-man dancing alone in the moonlight with
+Sheeta, the panther.  They did not know that Tarzan had roped the
+savage beast and tied him to a tree before he came to earth and leaped
+about before the rearing cat, to tantalize him.
+</P>
+<P>
+Others told of seeing Tarzan ride upon the back of Tantor, the
+elephant; of his bringing the black boy, Tibo, to the tribe, and of
+mysterious things with which he communed in the strange lair by the
+sea.  They had never understood his books, and after he had shown them
+to one or two of the tribe and discovered that even the pictures
+carried no impression to their brains, he had desisted.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tarzan is not an ape," said Gunto.  "He will bring Numa to eat us, as
+he is bringing him to eat Goro.  We should kill him."
+</P>
+<P>
+Immediately Taug bristled.  Kill Tarzan! "First you will kill Taug," he
+said, and lumbered away to search for food.
+</P>
+<P>
+But others joined the plotters.  They thought of many things which
+Tarzan had done&mdash;things which apes did not do and could not understand.
+Again Gunto voiced the opinion that the Tarmangani, the white ape,
+should be slain, and the others, filled with terror about the stories
+they had heard, and thinking Tarzan was planning to slay Goro, greeted
+the proposal with growls of accord.
+</P>
+<P>
+Among them was Teeka, listening with all her ears; but her voice was
+not raised in furtherance of the plan.  Instead she bristled, showing
+her fangs, and afterward she went away in search of Tarzan; but she
+could not find him, as he was roaming far afield in search of meat.
+She found Taug, though, and told him what the others were planning, and
+the great bull stamped upon the ground and roared.  His bloodshot eyes
+blazed with wrath, his upper lip curled up to expose his fighting
+fangs, and the hair upon his spine stood erect, and then a rodent
+scurried across the open and Taug sprang to seize it.  In an instant he
+seemed to have forgotten his rage against the enemies of his friend;
+but such is the mind of an ape.
+</P>
+<P>
+Several miles away Tarzan of the Apes lolled upon the broad head of
+Tantor, the elephant.  He scratched beneath the great ears with the
+point of a sharp stick, and he talked to the huge pachyderm of
+everything which filled his black-thatched head.  Little, or nothing,
+of what he said did Tantor understand; but Tantor is a good listener.
+Swaying from side to side he stood there enjoying the companionship of
+his friend, the friend he loved, and absorbing the delicious sensations
+of the scratching.
+</P>
+<P>
+Numa, the lion, caught the scent of man, and warily stalked it until he
+came within sight of his prey upon the head of the mighty tusker; then
+he turned, growling and muttering, away in search of more propitious
+hunting grounds.
+</P>
+<P>
+The elephant caught the scent of the lion, borne to him by an eddying
+breeze, and lifting his trunk trumpeted loudly.  Tarzan stretched back
+luxuriously, lying supine at full length along the rough hide.  Flies
+swarmed about his face; but with a leafy branch torn from a tree he
+lazily brushed them away.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tantor," he said, "it is good to be alive.  It is good to lie in the
+cool shadows.  It is good to look upon the green trees and the bright
+colors of the flowers&mdash;upon everything which Bulamutumumo has put here
+for us.  He is very good to us, Tantor; He has given you tender leaves
+and bark, and rich grasses to eat; to me He has given Bara and Horta
+and Pisah, the fruits and the nuts and the roots.  He provides for each
+the food that each likes best.  All that He asks is that we be strong
+enough or cunning enough to go forth and take it.  Yes, Tantor, it is
+good to live.  I should hate to die."
+</P>
+<P>
+Tantor made a little sound in his throat and curled his trunk upward
+that he might caress the ape-man's cheek with the finger at its tip.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tantor," said Tarzan presently, "turn and feed in the direction of the
+tribe of Kerchak, the great ape, that Tarzan may ride home upon your
+head without walking."
+</P>
+<P>
+The tusker turned and moved slowly off along a broad, tree-arched
+trail, pausing occasionally to pluck a tender branch, or strip the
+edible bark from an adjacent tree.  Tarzan sprawled face downward upon
+the beast's head and back, his legs hanging on either side, his head
+supported by his open palms, his elbows resting on the broad cranium.
+And thus they made their leisurely way toward the gathering place of
+the tribe.
+</P>
+<P>
+Just before they arrived at the clearing from the north there reached
+it from the south another figure&mdash;that of a well-knit black warrior,
+who stepped cautiously through the jungle, every sense upon the alert
+against the many dangers which might lurk anywhere along the way.  Yet
+he passed beneath the southernmost sentry that was posted in a great
+tree commanding the trail from the south.  The ape permitted the
+Gomangani to pass unmolested, for he saw that he was alone; but the
+moment that the warrior had entered the clearing a loud "Kreeg-ah!"
+rang out from behind him, immediately followed by a chorus of replies
+from different directions, as the great bulls crashed through the trees
+in answer to the summons of their fellow.
+</P>
+<P>
+The black man halted at the first cry and looked about him.  He could
+see nothing, but he knew the voice of the hairy tree men whom he and
+his kind feared, not alone because of the strength and ferocity of the
+savage beings, but as well through a superstitious terror engendered by
+the manlike appearance of the apes.
+</P>
+<P>
+But Bulabantu was no coward.  He heard the apes all about him; he knew
+that escape was probably impossible, so he stood his ground, his spear
+ready in his hand and a war cry trembling on his lips.  He would sell
+his life dearly, would Bulabantu, under-chief of the village of Mbonga,
+the chief.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan and Tantor were but a short distance away when the first cry of
+the sentry rang out through the quiet jungle.  Like a flash the ape-man
+leaped from the elephant's back to a near-by tree and was swinging
+rapidly in the direction of the clearing before the echoes of the first
+"Kreeg-ah" had died away.  When he arrived he saw a dozen bulls
+circling a single Gomangani.  With a blood-curdling scream Tarzan
+sprang to the attack.  He hated the blacks even more than did the apes,
+and here was an opportunity for a kill in the open.  What had the
+Gomangani done? Had he slain one of the tribe?
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan asked the nearest ape.  No, the Gomangani had harmed none.
+Gozan, being on watch, had seen him coming through the forest and had
+warned the tribe&mdash;that was all.  The ape-man pushed through the circle
+of bulls, none of which as yet had worked himself into sufficient
+frenzy for a charge, and came where he had a full and close view of the
+black.  He recognized the man instantly.  Only the night before he had
+seen him facing the eyes in the dark, while his fellows groveled in the
+dirt at his feet, too terrified even to defend themselves.  Here was a
+brave man, and Tarzan had deep admiration for bravery.  Even his hatred
+of the blacks was not so strong a passion as his love of courage.  He
+would have joyed in battling with a black warrior at almost any time;
+but this one he did not wish to kill&mdash;he felt, vaguely, that the man
+had earned his life by his brave defense of it on the preceding night,
+nor did he fancy the odds that were pitted against the lone warrior.
+</P>
+<P>
+He turned to the apes.  "Go back to your feeding," he said, "and let
+this Gomangani go his way in peace.  He has not harmed us, and last
+night I saw him fighting Numa and Sabor with fire, alone in the jungle.
+He is brave.  Why should we kill one who is brave and who has not
+attacked us? Let him go."
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes growled.  They were displeased.  "Kill the Gomangani!" cried
+one.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Yes," roared another, "kill the Gomangani and the Tarmangani as well."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Kill the white ape!" screamed Gozan, "he is no ape at all; but a
+Gomangani with his skin off."
+</P>
+<P>
+"Kill Tarzan!" bellowed Gunto.  "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
+</P>
+<P>
+The bulls were now indeed working themselves into the frenzy of
+slaughter; but against Tarzan rather than the black man.  A shaggy form
+charged through them, hurling those it came in contact with to one side
+as a strong man might scatter children.  It was Taug&mdash;great, savage
+Taug.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Who says 'kill Tarzan'?" he demanded.  "Who kills Tarzan must kill
+Taug, too.  Who can kill Taug? Taug will tear your insides from you and
+feed them to Dango."
+</P>
+<P>
+"We can kill you all," replied Gunto.  "There are many of us and few of
+you," and he was right.  Tarzan knew that he was right.  Taug knew it;
+but neither would admit such a possibility.  It is not the way of bull
+apes.
+</P>
+<P>
+"I am Tarzan," cried the ape-man. "I am Tarzan.  Mighty hunter; mighty
+fighter.  In all the jungle none so great as Tarzan."
+</P>
+<P>
+Then, one by one, the opposing bulls recounted their virtues and their
+prowess.  And all the time the combatants came closer and closer to one
+another.  Thus do the bulls work themselves to the proper pitch before
+engaging in battle.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto came, stiff-legged, close to Tarzan and sniffed at him, with
+bared fangs.  Tarzan rumbled forth a low, menacing growl.  They might
+repeat these tactics a dozen times; but sooner or later one bull would
+close with another and then the whole hideous pack would be tearing and
+rending at their prey.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bulabantu, the black man, had stood wide-eyed in wonder from the moment
+he had seen Tarzan approaching through the apes.  He had heard much of
+this devil-god who ran with the hairy tree people; but never before had
+he seen him in full daylight.  He knew him well enough from the
+description of those who had seen him and from the glimpses he had had
+of the marauder upon several occasions when the ape-man had entered the
+village of Mbonga, the chief, by night, in the perpetration of one of
+his numerous ghastly jokes.
+</P>
+<P>
+Bulabantu could not, of course, understand anything which passed
+between Tarzan and the apes; but he saw that the ape-man and one of the
+larger bulls were in argument with the others.  He saw that these two
+were standing with their back toward him and between him and the
+balance of the tribe, and he guessed, though it seemed improbable, that
+they might be defending him.  He knew that Tarzan had once spared the
+life of Mbonga, the chief, and that he had succored Tibo, and Tibo's
+mother, Momaya.  So it was not impossible that he would help Bulabantu;
+but how he could accomplish it Bulabantu could not guess; nor as a
+matter of fact could Tarzan, for the odds against him were too great.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto and the others were slowly forcing Tarzan and Taug back toward
+Bulabantu.  The ape-man thought of his words with Tantor just a short
+time before: "Yes, Tantor, it is good to live.  I should hate to die."
+And now he knew that he was about to die, for the temper of the great
+bulls was mounting rapidly against him.  Always had many of them hated
+him, and all were suspicious of him.  They knew he was different.
+Tarzan knew it too; but he was glad that he was&mdash;he was a MAN; that he
+had learned from his picture-books, and he was very proud of the
+distinction.  Presently, though, he would be a dead man.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto was preparing to charge.  Tarzan knew the signs.  He knew that
+the balance of the bulls would charge with Gunto.  Then it would soon
+be over.  Something moved among the verdure at the opposite side of the
+clearing.  Tarzan saw it just as Gunto, with the terrifying cry of a
+challenging ape, sprang forward.  Tarzan voiced a peculiar call and
+then crouched to meet the assault.  Taug crouched, too, and Bulabantu,
+assured now that these two were fighting upon his side, couched his
+spear and sprang between them to receive the first charge of the enemy.
+</P>
+<P>
+Simultaneously a huge bulk broke into the clearing from the jungle
+behind the charging bulls.  The trumpeting of a mad tusker rose shrill
+above the cries of the anthropoids, as Tantor, the elephant, dashed
+swiftly across the clearing to the aid of his friend.
+</P>
+<P>
+Gunto never closed upon the ape-man, nor did a fang enter flesh upon
+either side.  The terrific reverberation of Tantor's challenge sent the
+bulls scurrying to the trees, jabbering and scolding.  Taug raced off
+with them.  Only Tarzan and Bulabantu remained.  The latter stood his
+ground because he saw that the devil-god did not run, and because the
+black had the courage to face a certain and horrible death beside one
+who had quite evidently dared death for him.
+</P>
+<P>
+But it was a surprised Gomangani who saw the mighty elephant come to a
+sudden halt in front of the ape-man and caress him with his long,
+sinuous trunk.
+</P>
+<P>
+Tarzan turned toward the black man.  "Go!" he said in the language of
+the apes, and pointed in the direction of the village of Mbonga.
+Bulabantu understood the gesture, if not the word, nor did he lose time
+in obeying.  Tarzan stood watching him until he had disappeared.  He
+knew that the apes would not follow.  Then he said to the elephant:
+"Pick me up!" and the tusker swung him lightly to his head.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Tarzan goes to his lair by the big water," shouted the ape-man to the
+apes in the trees.  "All of you are more foolish than Manu, except Taug
+and Teeka.  Taug and Teeka may come to see Tarzan; but the others must
+keep away.  Tarzan is done with the tribe of Kerchak."
+</P>
+<P>
+He prodded Tantor with a calloused toe and the big beast swung off
+across the clearing, the apes watching them until they were swallowed
+up by the jungle.
+</P>
+<P>
+Before the night fell Taug killed Gunto, picking a quarrel with him
+over his attack upon Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+For a moon the tribe saw nothing of Tarzan of the Apes.  Many of them
+probably never gave him a thought; but there were those who missed him
+more than Tarzan imagined.  Taug and Teeka often wished that he was
+back, and Taug determined a dozen times to go and visit Tarzan in his
+seaside lair; but first one thing and then another interfered.
+</P>
+<P>
+One night when Taug lay sleepless looking up at the starry heavens he
+recalled the strange things that Tarzan once had suggested to him&mdash;that
+the bright spots were the eyes of the meat-eaters waiting in the dark
+of the jungle sky to leap upon Goro, the moon, and devour him.  The
+more he thought about this matter the more perturbed he became.
+</P>
+<P>
+And then a strange thing happened.  Even as Taug looked at Goro, he saw
+a portion of one edge disappear, precisely as though something was
+gnawing upon it.  Larger and larger became the hole in the side of
+Goro.  With a scream, Taug leaped to his feet.  His frenzied
+"Kreeg-ahs!" brought the terrified tribe screaming and chattering
+toward him.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Look!" cried Taug, pointing at the moon.  "Look! It is as Tarzan said.
+Numa has sprung through the fires and is devouring Goro.  You called
+Tarzan names and drove him from the tribe; now see how wise he was.
+Let one of you who hated Tarzan go to Goro's aid.  See the eyes in the
+dark jungle all about Goro.  He is in danger and none can help
+him&mdash;none except Tarzan.  Soon Goro will be devoured by Numa and we
+shall have no more light after Kudu seeks his lair.  How shall we dance
+the Dum-Dum without the light of Goro?"
+</P>
+<P>
+The apes trembled and whimpered.  Any manifestation of the powers of
+nature always filled them with terror, for they could not understand.
+</P>
+<P>
+"Go and bring Tarzan," cried one, and then they all took up the cry of
+"Tarzan!" "Bring Tarzan!" "He will save Goro." But who was to travel
+the dark jungle by night to fetch him?
+</P>
+<P>
+"I will go," volunteered Taug, and an instant later he was off through
+the Stygian gloom toward the little land-locked harbor by the sea.
+</P>
+<P>
+And as the tribe waited they watched the slow devouring of the moon.
+Already Numa had eaten out a great semicircular piece.  At that rate
+Goro would be entirely gone before Kudu came again.  The apes trembled
+at the thought of perpetual darkness by night.  They could not sleep.
+Restlessly they moved here and there among the branches of trees,
+watching Numa of the skies at his deadly feast, and listening for the
+coming of Taug with Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+Goro was nearly gone when the apes heard the sounds of the approach
+through the trees of the two they awaited, and presently Tarzan,
+followed by Taug, swung into a nearby tree.
+</P>
+<P>
+The ape-man wasted no time in idle words.  In his hand was his long bow
+and at his back hung a quiver full of arrows, poisoned arrows that he
+had stolen from the village of the blacks; just as he had stolen the
+bow.  Up into a great tree he clambered, higher and higher until he
+stood swaying upon a small limb which bent low beneath his weight.
+Here he had a clear and unobstructed view of the heavens.  He saw Goro
+and the inroads which the hungry Numa had made into his shining surface.
+</P>
+<P>
+Raising his face to the moon, Tarzan shrilled forth his hideous
+challenge.  Faintly and from afar came the roar of an answering lion.
+The apes shivered.  Numa of the skies had answered Tarzan.
+</P>
+<P>
+Then the ape-man fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing the shaft far
+back, aimed its point at the heart of Numa where he lay in the heavens
+devouring Goro.  There was a loud twang as the released bolt shot into
+the dark heavens.  Again and again did Tarzan of the Apes launch his
+arrows at Numa, and all the while the apes of the tribe of Kerchak
+huddled together in terror.
+</P>
+<P>
+At last came a cry from Taug.  "Look! Look!" he screamed.  "Numa is
+killed.  Tarzan has killed Numa.  See! Goro is emerging from the belly
+of Numa," and, sure enough, the moon was gradually emerging from
+whatever had devoured her, whether it was Numa, the lion, or the shadow
+of the earth; but were you to try to convince an ape of the tribe of
+Kerchak that it was aught but Numa who so nearly devoured Goro that
+night, or that another than Tarzan preserved the brilliant god of their
+savage and mysterious rites from a frightful death, you would have
+difficulty&mdash;and a fight on your hands.
+</P>
+<P>
+And so Tarzan of the Apes came back to the tribe of Kerchak, and in his
+coming he took a long stride toward the kingship, which he ultimately
+won, for now the apes looked up to him as a superior being.
+</P>
+<P>
+In all the tribe there was but one who was at all skeptical about the
+plausibility of Tarzan's remarkable rescue of Goro, and that one,
+strange as it may seem, was Tarzan of the Apes.
+</P>
+</html>