7
The End of Bukawai
WHEN TARZAN OF the Apes was still but a boy he had learned, among otherthings, to fashion pliant ropes of fibrous jungle grass. Strong andtough were the ropes of Tarzan, the little Tarmangani. Tublat, hisfoster father, would have told you this much and more. Had you temptedhim with a handful of fat caterpillars he even might have sufficientlyunbended to narrate to you a few stories of the many indignities whichTarzan had heaped upon him by means of his hated rope; but then Tublatalways worked himself into such a frightful rage when he devoted anyconsiderable thought either to the rope or to Tarzan, that it might nothave proved comfortable for you to have remained close enough to him tohear what he had to say.
So often had that snakelike noose settled unexpectedly over Tublat'shead, so often had he been jerked ridiculously and painfully from hisfeet when he was least looking for such an occurrence, that there islittle wonder he found scant space in his savage heart for love of hiswhite-skinned foster child, or the inventions thereof. There had beenother times, too, when Tublat had swung helplessly in midair, the noosetightening about his neck, death staring him in the face, and littleTarzan dancing upon a near-by limb, taunting him and making unseemlygrimaces.
Then there had been another occasion in which the rope had figuredprominently--an occasion, and the only one connected with the rope,which Tublat recalled with pleasure. Tarzan, as active in brain as hewas in body, was always inventing new ways in which to play. It wasthrough 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 thelearning of it, was a matter of great surprise to Tarzan, and the flyin the ointment, to Tublat.
The man-child had, in throwing his noose at a playmate in a tree abovehim, caught a projecting branch instead. When he tried to shake itloose it but drew the tighter. Then Tarzan started to climb the ropeto remove it from the branch. When he was part way up a frolicsomeplaymate seized that part of the rope which lay upon the ground and ranoff with it as far as he could go. When Tarzan screamed at him todesist, the young ape released the rope a little and then drew it tightagain. The result was to impart a swinging motion to Tarzan's bodywhich the ape-boy suddenly realized was a new and pleasurable form ofplay. He urged the ape to continue until Tarzan was swinging to andfro as far as the short length of rope would permit, but the distancewas not great enough, and, too, he was not far enough above the groundto give the necessary thrills which add so greatly to the pastimes ofthe young.
So he clambered to the branch where the noose was caught and afterremoving it carried the rope far aloft and out upon a long and powerfulbranch. Here he again made it fast, and taking the loose end in hishand, clambered quickly down among the branches as far as the ropewould permit him to go; then he swung out upon the end of it, hislithe, young body turning and twisting--a human bob upon a pendulum ofgrass--thirty feet above the ground.
Ah, how delectable! This was indeed a new play of the first magnitude.Tarzan was entranced. Soon he discovered that by wriggling his body injust the right way at the proper time he could diminish or acceleratehis oscillation, and, being a boy, he chose, naturally, to accelerate.Presently he was swinging far and wide, while below him, the apes ofthe tribe of Kerchak looked on in mild amaze.
Had it been you or I swinging there at the end of that grass rope, thething which presently happened would not have happened, for we couldnot have hung on so long as to have made it possible; but Tarzan wasquite as much at home swinging by his hands as he was standing upon hisfeet, or, at least, almost. At any rate he felt no fatigue long afterthe time that an ordinary mortal would have been numb with the strainof the physical exertion. And this was his undoing.
Tublat was watching him as were others of the tribe. Of all thecreatures of the wild, there was none Tublat so cordially hated as hedid this hideous, hairless, white-skinned, caricature of an ape. Butfor Tarzan's nimbleness, and the zealous watchfulness of savage Kala'smother love, Tublat would long since have rid himself of this stainupon his family escutcheon. So long had it been since Tarzan became amember of the tribe, that Tublat had forgotten the circumstancessurrounding the entrance of the jungle waif into his family, with theresult that he now imagined that Tarzan was his own offspring, addinggreatly to his chagrin.
Wide and far swung Tarzan of the Apes, until at last, as he reached thehighest point of the arc the rope, which rapidly had frayed on therough bark of the tree limb, parted suddenly. The watching apes sawthe smooth, brown body shoot outward, and down, plummet-like. Tublatleaped high in the air, emitting what in a human being would have beenan exclamation of delight. This would be the end of Tarzan and most ofTublat's troubles. From now on he could lead his life in peace andsecurity.
Tarzan fell quite forty feet, alighting on his back in a thick bush.Kala was the first to reach his side--ferocious, hideous, loving Kala.She had seen the life crushed from her own balu in just such a fallyears before. Was she to lose this one too in the same way? Tarzan waslying quite still when she found him, embedded deeply in the bush. Ittook Kala several minutes to disentangle him and drag him forth; but hewas not killed. He was not even badly injured. The bush had brokenthe force of the fall. A cut upon the back of his head showed where hehad struck the tough stem of the shrub and explained hisunconsciousness.
In a few minutes he was as active as ever. Tublat was furious. In hisrage he snapped at a fellow-ape without first discovering the identityof his victim, and was badly mauled for his ill temper, having chosento vent his spite upon a husky and belligerent young bull in the fullprime of his vigor.
But Tarzan had learned something new. He had learned that continuedfriction would wear through the strands of his rope, though it was manyyears before this knowledge did more for him than merely to keep himfrom swinging too long at a time, or too far above the ground at theend of his rope.
The day came, however, when the very thing that had once all but killedhim proved the means of saving his life.
He was no longer a child, but a mighty jungle male. There was none nowto watch over him, solicitously, nor did he need such. Kala was dead.Dead, too, was Tublat, and though with Kala passed the one creaturethat ever really had loved him, there were still many who hated himafter Tublat departed unto the arms of his fathers. It was not that hewas more cruel or more savage than they that they hated him, for thoughhe was both cruel and savage as were the beasts, his fellows, yet toowas he often tender, which they never were. No, the thing whichbrought Tarzan most into disrepute with those who did not like him, wasthe possession and practice of a characteristic which they had not andcould not understand--the human sense of humor. In Tarzan it was atrifle broad, perhaps, manifesting itself in rough and painfulpractical jokes upon his friends and cruel baiting of his enemies.
But to neither of these did he owe the enmity of Bukawai, thewitch-doctor, who dwelt in the cave between the two hills far to thenorth of the village of Mbonga, the chief. Bukawai was jealous ofTarzan, and Bukawai it was who came near proving the undoing of theape-man. For months Bukawai had nursed his hatred while revenge seemedremote indeed, since Tarzan of the Apes frequented another part of thejungle, miles away from the lair of Bukawai. Only once had the blackwitch-doctor seen the devil-god, as he was most often called among theblacks, and upon that occasion Tarzan had robbed him of a fat fee, atthe same time putting the lie in the mouth of Bukawai, and making hismedicine seem poor medicine. All this Bukawai never could forgive,though it seemed unlikely that the opportunity would come to berevenged.
Yet it did come, and quite unexpectedly. Tarzan was hunting far to thenorth. He had wandered away from the tribe, as he did more and moreoften as he approached maturity, to hunt alone for a few days. As achild he had enjoyed romping and playing with the young apes, hiscompanions; but now these play-fellows of his had grown to surly,lowering bulls, or to touchy, suspicious mothers, jealously guardinghelpless balus. So
Tarzan found in his own man-mind a greater and atruer companionship than any or all of the apes of Kerchak could affordhim.
This day, as Tarzan hunted, the sky slowly became overcast. Tornclouds, whipped to ragged streamers, fled low above the tree tops.They reminded Tarzan of frightened antelope fleeing the charge of ahungry lion. But though the light clouds raced so swiftly, the junglewas motionless. Not a leaf quivered and the silence was a great, deadweight--insupportable. Even the insects seemed stilled by apprehensionof some frightful thing impending, and the larger things weresoundless. Such a forest, such a jungle might have stood there in thebeginning of that unthinkably far-gone age before God peopled the worldwith life, when there were no sounds because there were no ears to hear.
And over all lay a sickly, pallid ocher light through which thescourged clouds raced. Tarzan had seen all these conditions many timesbefore, yet he never could escape a strange feeling at each recurrenceof them. He knew no fear, but in the face of Nature's manifestationsof her cruel, immeasurable powers, he felt very small--very small andvery lonely.
Now he heard a low moaning, far away. "The lions seek their prey," hemurmured to himself, looking up once again at the swift-flying clouds.The moaning rose to a great volume of sound. "They come!" said Tarzanof the Apes, and sought the shelter of a thickly foliaged tree. Quitesuddenly the trees bent their tops simultaneously as though God hadstretched a hand from the heavens and pressed His flat palm down uponthe world. "They pass!" whispered Tarzan. "The lions pass." Then camea vivid flash of lightning, followed by deafening thunder. "The lionshave sprung," cried Tarzan, "and now they roar above the bodies oftheir kills."
The trees were waving wildly in all directions now, a perfectlydemoniacal wind threshed the jungle pitilessly. In the midst of it therain came--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 hestood.
He was close to the edge of the jungle, and at a little distance he hadseen 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 twohills and imagining that the torrents from above had washed them away,yet he knew that presently the rain would cease, the sun come out againand all be as it was before, except where a few branches had fallen andhere and there some old and rotted patriarch had crashed back to enrichthe soil upon which he had fatted for, maybe, centuries. All about himbranches and leaves filled the air or fell to earth, torn away by thestrength of the tornado and the weight of the water upon them. A gauntcorpse toppled and fell a few yards away; but Tarzan was protected fromall these dangers by the wide-spreading branches of the sturdy younggiant beneath which his jungle craft had guided him. Here there wasbut a single danger, and that a remote one. Yet it came. Withoutwarning the tree above him was riven by lightning, and when the rainceased and the sun came out Tarzan lay stretched as he had fallen, uponhis face amidst the wreckage of the jungle giant that should haveshielded him.
Bukawai came to the entrance of his cave after the rain and the stormhad passed and looked out upon the scene. From his one eye Bukawaicould see; but had he had a dozen eyes he could have found no beauty inthe fresh sweetness of the revivified jungle, for to such things, inthe chemistry of temperament, his brain failed to react; nor, even hadhe had a nose, which he had not for years, could he have foundenjoyment or sweetness in the clean-washed air.
At either side of the leper stood his sole and constant companions, thetwo hyenas, sniffing the air. Presently one of them uttered a lowgrowl and with flattened head started, sneaking and wary, toward thejungle. The other followed. Bukawai, his curiosity aroused, trailedafter them, in his hand a heavy knob-stick.
The hyenas halted a few yards from the prostrate Tarzan, sniffing andgrowling. Then came Bukawai, and at first he could not believe thewitness of his own eyes; but when he did and saw that it was indeed thedevil-god his rage knew no bounds, for he thought him dead and himselfcheated of the revenge he had so long dreamed upon.
The hyenas approached the ape-man with bared fangs. Bukawai, with aninarticulate scream, rushed upon them, striking cruel and heavy blowswith his knob-stick, for there might still be life in the apparentlylifeless form. The beasts, snapping and snarling, half turned upontheir master and their tormentor, but long fear still held them fromhis putrid throat. They slunk away a few yards and squatted upon theirhaunches, hatred and baffled hunger gleaming from their savage eyes.
Bukawai stooped and placed his ear above the ape-man's heart. It stillbeat. As well as his sloughed features could register pleasure theydid so; but it was not a pretty sight. At the ape-man's side lay hislong, grass rope. Quickly Bukawai bound the limp arms behind hisprisoner's back, then he raised him to one of his shoulders, for,though Bukawai was old and diseased, he was still a strong man. Thehyenas fell in behind as the witch-doctor set off toward the cave, andthrough the long black corridors they followed as Bukawai bore hisvictim into the bowels of the hills. Through subterranean chambers,connected by winding passageways, Bukawai staggered with his load. Ata sudden turning of the corridor, daylight flooded them and Bukawaistepped out into a small, circular basin in the hill, apparently thecrater of an ancient volcano, one of those which never reached thedignity of a mountain and are little more than lava-rimmed pits closedto the earth's surface.
Steep walls rimmed the cavity. The only exit was through thepassageway by which Bukawai had entered. A few stunted trees grew uponthe rocky floor. A hundred feet above could be seen the ragged lips ofthis cold, dead mouth of hell.
Bukawai propped Tarzan against a tree and bound him there with his owngrass rope, leaving his hands free but securing the knots in such a waythat the ape-man could not reach them. The hyenas slunk to and fro,growling. Bukawai hated them and they hated him. He knew that theybut waited for the time when he should be helpless, or when theirhatred should rise to such a height as to submerge their cringing fearof him.
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 everwas he cruel to them with the cruelty of a little brain, diseased,bestial, primitive.
He had had them since they were puppies. They had known no other lifethan that with him, and though they went abroad to hunt, always theyreturned. Of late Bukawai had come to believe that they returned notso much from habit as from a fiendish patience which would submit toevery indignity and pain rather than forego the final vengeance, andBukawai needed but little imagination to picture what that vengeancewould be. Today he would see for himself what his end would be; butanother should impersonate Bukawai.
When he had trussed Tarzan securely, Bukawai went back into thecorridor, driving the hyenas ahead of him, and pulling across theopening a lattice of laced branches, which shut the pit from the caveduring the night that Bukawai might sleep in security, for then thehyenas were penned in the crater that they might not sneak upon asleeping Bukawai in the darkness.
Bukawai returned to the outer cave mouth, filled a vessel with water atthe spring which rose in the little canyon close at hand and returnedtoward the pit. The hyenas stood before the lattice looking hungrilytoward Tarzan. They had been fed in this manner before.
With his water, the witch-doctor approached Tarzan and threw a portionof the contents of the vessel in the ape-man's face. There wasfluttering of the eyelids, and at the second application Tarzan openedhis eyes and looked about.
"Devil-god," cried Bukawai, "I am the great witch-doctor. My medicineis strong. Yours is weak. If it is not, why do you stay tied herelike a goat that is bait for lions?"
Tarzan understood nothing the witch-doctor said, therefore he did notreply, but only stared straight at Bukawai with cold and level gaze.The hyenas crept up behind him. He heard them growl; but he did noteven turn his head. He was a beast with
a man's brain. The beast inhim refused to show fear in the face of a death which the man-mindalready admitted to be inevitable.
Bukawai, not yet ready to give his victim to the beasts, rushed uponthe hyenas with his knob-stick. There was a short scrimmage in whichthe brutes came off second best, as they always did. Tarzan watchedit. He saw and realized the hatred which existed between the twoanimals and the hideous semblance of a man.
With the hyenas subdued, Bukawai returned to the baiting of Tarzan; butfinding that the ape-man understood nothing he said, the witch-doctorfinally desisted. Then he withdrew into the corridor and pulled thelatticework barrier across the opening. He went back into the cave andgot a sleeping mat, which he brought to the opening, that he might liedown and watch the spectacle of his revenge in comfort.
The hyenas were sneaking furtively around the ape-man. Tarzan strainedat his bonds for a moment, but soon realized that the rope he hadbraided 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 hehad many times before without a quaver.
As he pulled upon the rope he felt it rub against the small tree aboutwhich it was passed. Like a flash of the cinematograph upon thescreen, a picture was flashed before his mind's eye from the storehouseof his memory. He saw a lithe, boyish figure swinging high above theground at the end of a rope. He saw many apes watching from below, andthen he saw the rope part and the boy hurtle downward toward theground. Tarzan smiled. Immediately he commenced to draw the roperapidly back and forth across the tree trunk.
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 knewthat with the growth of hunger they would attack. Coolly,methodically, without haste, Tarzan drew the rope back and forthagainst the rough trunk of the small tree.
In the entrance to the cavern Bukawai fell asleep. He thought it wouldbe some time before the beasts gained sufficient courage or hunger toattack the captive. Their growls and the cries of the victim wouldawaken him. In the meantime he might as well rest, and he did.
Thus the day wore on, for the hyenas were not famished, and the ropewith which Tarzan was bound was a stronger one than that of hisboyhood, which had parted so quickly to the chafing of the rough treebark. Yet, all the while hunger was growing upon the beasts and thestrands of the grass rope were wearing thinner and thinner. Bukawaislept.
It was late afternoon before one of the beasts, irritated by thegnawing of appetite, made a quick, growling dash at the ape-man. Thenoise awoke Bukawai. He sat up quickly and watched what went on withinthe crater. He saw the hungry hyena charge the man, leaping for theunprotected throat. He saw Tarzan reach out and seize the growlinganimal, and then he saw the second beast spring for the devil-god'sshoulder. There was a mighty heave of the great, smooth-skinned body.Rounded muscles shot into great, tensed piles beneath the brownhide--the ape-man surged forward with all his weight and all his greatstrength--the bonds parted, and the three were rolling upon the floorof the crater snarling, snapping, and rending.
Bukawai leaped to his feet. Could it be that the devil-god was toprevail against his servants? Impossible! The creature was unarmed, andhe was down with two hyenas on top of him; but Bukawai did not knowTarzan.
The ape-man fastened his fingers upon the throat of one of the hyenasand rose to one knee, though the other beast tore at him frantically inan 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 thesecond beast.
And then Bukawai, seeing the battle going against his forces, rushedforward from the cavern brandishing his knob-stick. Tarzan saw himcoming, and rising now to both feet, a hyena in each hand, he hurledone of the foaming beasts straight at the witch-doctor's head. Downwent the two in a snarling, biting heap. Tarzan tossed the secondhyena across the crater, while the first gnawed at the rotting face ofits master; but this did not suit the ape-man. With a kick he sent thebeast howling after its companion, and springing to the side of theprostrate witch-doctor, dragged him to his feet.
Bukawai, still conscious, saw death, immediate and terrible, in thecold 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. Thehyenas had had enough and disappeared through the small apertureleading into the cave. Tarzan had little difficulty in overpoweringand binding Bukawai. Then he led him to the very tree to which he hadbeen bound; but in binding Bukawai, Tarzan saw to it that escape afterthe same fashion that he had escaped would be out of the question; thenhe left him.
As he passed through the winding corridors and the subterraneanapartments, Tarzan saw nothing of the hyenas.
"They will return," he said to himself.
In the crater between the towering walls Bukawai, cold with terror,trembled, trembled as with ague.
"They will return!" he cried, his voice rising to a fright-filledshriek.
And they did.