Chapter 8
The Dance of Death
Through the luxuriant, tangled vegetation of the Stygian jungle night agreat lithe body made its way sinuously and in utter silence upon itssoft padded feet. Only two blazing points of yellow-green flame shoneoccasionally with the reflected light of the equatorial moon that nowand again pierced the softly sighing roof rustling in the night wind.
Occasionally the beast would stop with high-held nose, sniffingsearchingly. At other times a quick, brief incursion into the branchesabove delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. Toits sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tenderfour-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger to the cruel,drooping jowl.
But steadfastly it kept on its way, strangely ignoring the cravings ofappetite that at another time would have sent the rolling, fur-cladmuscles flying at some soft throat.
All that night the creature pursued its lonely way, and the next day ithalted only to make a single kill, which it tore to fragments anddevoured with sullen, grumbling rumbles as though half famished forlack of food.
It was dusk when it approached the palisade that surrounded a largenative village. Like the shadow of a swift and silent death it circledthe village, nose to ground, halting at last close to the palisade,where it almost touched the backs of several huts. Here the beastsniffed for a moment, and then, turning its head upon one side,listened with up-pricked ears.
What it heard was no sound by the standards of human ears, yet to thehighly attuned and delicate organs of the beast a message seemed to beborne to the savage brain. A wondrous transformation was wrought inthe motionless mass of statuesque bone and muscle that had an instantbefore stood as though carved out of the living bronze.
As if it had been poised upon steel springs, suddenly released, it rosequickly and silently to the top of the palisade, disappearing,stealthily and cat-like, into the dark space between the wall and theback of an adjacent hut.
In the village street beyond women were preparing many little fires andfetching cooking-pots filled with water, for a great feast was to becelebrated ere the night was many hours older. About a stout stakenear the centre of the circling fires a little knot of black warriorsstood conversing, their bodies smeared with white and blue and ochre inbroad and grotesque bands. Great circles of colour were drawn abouttheir eyes and lips, their breasts and abdomens, and from theirclay-plastered coiffures rose gay feathers and bits of long, straightwire.
The village was preparing for the feast, while in a hut at one side ofthe scene of the coming orgy the bound victim of their bestialappetites lay waiting for the end. And such an end!
Tarzan of the Apes, tensing his mighty muscles, strained at the bondsthat pinioned him; but they had been re-enforced many times at theinstigation of the Russian, so that not even the ape-man's giant brawncould budge them.
Death!
Tarzan had looked the Hideous Hunter in the face many a time, andsmiled. And he would smile again tonight when he knew the end wascoming quickly; but now his thoughts were not of himself, but of thoseothers--the dear ones who must suffer most because of his passing.
Jane would never know the manner of it. For that he thanked Heaven;and he was thankful also that she at least was safe in the heart of theworld's greatest city. Safe among kind and loving friends who would dotheir best to lighten her misery.
But the boy!
Tarzan writhed at the thought of him. His son! And now he--the mightyLord of the Jungle--he, Tarzan, King of the Apes, the only one in allthe world fitted to find and save the child from the horrors thatRokoff's evil mind had planned--had been trapped like a silly, dumbcreature. He was to die in a few hours, and with him would go thechild's last chance of succour.
Rokoff had been in to see and revile and abuse him several times duringthe afternoon; but he had been able to wring no word of remonstrance ormurmur of pain from the lips of the giant captive.
So at last he had given up, reserving his particular bit of exquisitemental torture for the last moment, when, just before the savage spearsof the cannibals should for ever make the object of his hatred immuneto further suffering, the Russian planned to reveal to his enemy thetrue whereabouts of his wife whom he thought safe in England.
Dusk had fallen upon the village, and the ape-man could hear thepreparations going forward for the torture and the feast. The danceof death he could picture in his mind's eye--for he had seen the thingmany times in the past. Now he was to be the central figure, bound tothe stake.
The torture of the slow death as the circling warriors cut him to bitswith the fiendish skill, that mutilated without bringingunconsciousness, had no terrors for him. He was inured to sufferingand to the sight of blood and to cruel death; but the desire to livewas no less strong within him, and until the last spark of life shouldflicker and go out, his whole being would remain quick with hope anddetermination. Let them relax their watchfulness but for an instant,he knew that his cunning mind and giant muscles would find a way toescape--escape and revenge.
As he lay, thinking furiously on every possibility of self-salvation,there came to his sensitive nostrils a faint and a familiar scent.Instantly every faculty of his mind was upon the alert. Presently histrained ears caught the sound of the soundless presence without--behindthe hut wherein he lay. His lips moved, and though no sound cameforth that might have been appreciable to a human ear beyond the wallsof his prison, yet he realized that the one beyond would hear. Alreadyhe knew who that one was, for his nostrils had told him as plainly asyour eyes or mine tell us of the identity of an old friend whom we comeupon in broad daylight.
An instant later he heard the soft sound of a fur-clad body and paddedfeet scaling the outer wall behind the hut and then a tearing at thepoles which formed the wall. Presently through the hole thus madeslunk a great beast, pressing its cold muzzle close to his neck.
It was Sheeta, the panther.
The beast snuffed round the prostrate man, whining a little. There wasa limit to the interchange of ideas which could take place betweenthese two, and so Tarzan could not be sure that Sheeta understood allthat he attempted to communicate to him. That the man was tied andhelpless Sheeta could, of course, see; but that to the mind of thepanther this would carry any suggestion of harm in so far as his masterwas concerned, Tarzan could not guess.
What had brought the beast to him? The fact that he had come auguredwell for what he might accomplish; but when Tarzan tried to get Sheetato gnaw his bonds asunder the great animal could not seem to understandwhat was expected of him, and, instead, but licked the wrists and armsof the prisoner.
Presently there came an interruption. Some one was approaching thehut. Sheeta gave a low growl and slunk into the blackness of a farcorner. Evidently the visitor did not hear the warning sound, foralmost immediately he entered the hut--a tall, naked, savage warrior.
He came to Tarzan's side and pricked him with a spear. From the lipsof the ape-man came a weird, uncanny sound, and in answer to it thereleaped from the blackness of the hut's farthermost corner a bolt offur-clad death. Full upon the breast of the painted savage the greatbeast struck, burying sharp talons in the black flesh and sinking greatyellow fangs in the ebon throat.
There was a fearful scream of anguish and terror from the black, andmingled with it was the hideous challenge of the killing panther. Thencame silence--silence except for the rending of bloody flesh and thecrunching of human bones between mighty jaws.
The noise had brought sudden quiet to the village without. Then therecame the sound of voices in consultation.
High-pitched, fear-filled voices, and deep, low tones of authority, asthe chief spoke. Tarzan and the panther heard the approachingfootsteps of many men, and then, to Tarzan's surprise, the great catrose from across the body of its kill, and slunk noiselessly from thehut through the aperture through which it had entered.
The man heard the soft scraping of the body as it passed over the topof
the palisade, and then silence. From the opposite side of the huthe heard the savages approaching to investigate.
He had little hope that Sheeta would return, for had the great catintended to defend him against all comers it would have remained by hisside as it heard the approaching savages without.
Tarzan knew how strange were the workings of the brains of the mightycarnivora of the jungle--how fiendishly fearless they might be in theface of certain death, and again how timid upon the slightestprovocation. There was doubt in his mind that some note of theapproaching blacks vibrating with fear had struck an answering chord inthe nervous system of the panther, sending him slinking through thejungle, his tail between his legs.
The man shrugged. Well, what of it? He had expected to die, and,after all, what might Sheeta have done for him other than to maul acouple of his enemies before a rifle in the hands of one of the whitesshould have dispatched him!
If the cat could have released him! Ah! that would have resulted in avery different story; but it had proved beyond the understanding ofSheeta, and now the beast was gone and Tarzan must definitely abandonhope.
The natives were at the entrance to the hut now, peering fearfully intothe dark interior. Two in advance held lighted torches in their lefthands and ready spears in their right. They held back timorouslyagainst those behind, who were pushing them forward.
The shrieks of the panther's victim, mingled with those of the greatcat, had wrought mightily upon their poor nerves, and now the awfulsilence of the dark interior seemed even more terribly ominous than hadthe frightful screaming.
Presently one of those who was being forced unwillingly within hit upona happy scheme for learning first the precise nature of the dangerwhich menaced him from the silent interior. With a quick movement heflung his lighted torch into the centre of the hut. Instantly allwithin was illuminated for a brief second before the burning brand wasdashed out against the earth floor.
There was the figure of the white prisoner still securely bound as theyhad last seen him, and in the centre of the hut another figure equallyas motionless, its throat and breasts horribly torn and mangled.
The sight that met the eyes of the foremost savages inspired moreterror within their superstitious breasts than would the presence ofSheeta, for they saw only the result of a ferocious attack upon one oftheir fellows.
Not seeing the cause, their fear-ridden minds were free to attributethe ghastly work to supernatural causes, and with the thought theyturned, screaming, from the hut, bowling over those who stood directlybehind them in the exuberance of their terror.
For an hour Tarzan heard only the murmur of excited voices from the farend of the village. Evidently the savages were once more attempting towork up their flickering courage to a point that would permit them tomake another invasion of the hut, for now and then came a savage yell,such as the warriors give to bolster up their bravery upon the field ofbattle.
But in the end it was two of the whites who first entered, carryingtorches and guns. Tarzan was not surprised to discover that neither ofthem was Rokoff. He would have wagered his soul that no power on earthcould have tempted that great coward to face the unknown menace of thehut.
When the natives saw that the white men were not attacked they, too,crowded into the interior, their voices hushed with terror as theylooked upon the mutilated corpse of their comrade. The whites triedin vain to elicit an explanation from Tarzan; but to all their querieshe but shook his head, a grim and knowing smile curving his lips.
At last Rokoff came.
His face grew very white as his eyes rested upon the bloody thinggrinning up at him from the floor, the face set in a death mask ofexcruciating horror.
"Come!" he said to the chief. "Let us get to work and finish thisdemon before he has an opportunity to repeat this thing upon more ofyour people."
The chief gave orders that Tarzan should be lifted and carried to thestake; but it was several minutes before he could prevail upon any ofhis men to touch the prisoner.
At last, however, four of the younger warriors dragged Tarzan roughlyfrom the hut, and once outside the pall of terror seemed lifted fromthe savage hearts.
A score of howling blacks pushed and buffeted the prisoner down thevillage street and bound him to the post in the centre of the circle oflittle fires and boiling cooking-pots.
When at last he was made fast and seemed quite helpless and beyond thefaintest hope of succour, Rokoff's shrivelled wart of courage swelledto its usual proportions when danger was not present.
He stepped close to the ape-man, and, seizing a spear from the hands ofone of the savages, was the first to prod the helpless victim. Alittle stream of blood trickled down the giant's smooth skin from thewound in his side; but no murmur of pain passed his lips.
The smile of contempt upon his face seemed to infuriate the Russian.With a volley of oaths he leaped at the helpless captive, beating himupon the face with his clenched fists and kicking him mercilessly aboutthe legs.
Then he raised the heavy spear to drive it through the mighty heart,and still Tarzan of the Apes smiled contemptuously upon him.
Before Rokoff could drive the weapon home the chief sprang upon him anddragged him away from his intended victim.
"Stop, white man!" he cried. "Rob us of this prisoner and ourdeath-dance, and you yourself may have to take his place."
The threat proved most effective in keeping the Russian from furtherassaults upon the prisoner, though he continued to stand a little apartand hurl taunts at his enemy. He told Tarzan that he himself was goingto eat the ape-man's heart. He enlarged upon the horrors of thefuture life of Tarzan's son, and intimated that his vengeance wouldreach as well to Jane Clayton.
"You think your wife safe in England," said Rokoff. "Poor fool! Sheis even now in the hands of one not even of decent birth, and far fromthe safety of London and the protection of her friends. I had notmeant to tell you this until I could bring to you upon Jungle Islandproof of her fate.
"Now that you are about to die the most unthinkably horrid death thatit is given a white man to die--let this word of the plight of yourwife add to the torments that you must suffer before the last savagespear-thrust releases you from your torture."
The dance had commenced now, and the yells of the circling warriorsdrowned Rokoff's further attempts to distress his victim.
The leaping savages, the flickering firelight playing upon theirpainted bodies, circled about the victim at the stake.
To Tarzan's memory came a similar scene, when he had rescued D'Arnotfrom a like predicament at the last moment before the finalspear-thrust should have ended his sufferings. Who was there now torescue him? In all the world there was none able to save him from thetorture and the death.
The thought that these human fiends would devour him when the dance wasdone caused him not a single qualm of horror or disgust. It did notadd to his sufferings as it would have to those of an ordinary whiteman, for all his life Tarzan had seen the beasts of the jungle devourthe flesh of their kills.
Had he not himself battled for the grisly forearm of a great ape atthat long-gone Dum-Dum, when he had slain the fierce Tublat and won hisniche in the respect of the Apes of Kerchak?
The dancers were leaping more closely to him now. The spears werecommencing to find his body in the first torturing pricks that prefacedthe more serious thrusts.
It would not be long now. The ape-man longed for the last savage lungethat would end his misery.
And then, far out in the mazes of the weird jungle, rose a shrillscream.
For an instant the dancers paused, and in the silence of the intervalthere rose from the lips of the fast-bound white man an answeringshriek, more fearsome and more terrible than that of the jungle-beastthat had roused it.
For several minutes the blacks hesitated; then, at the urging of Rokoffand their chief, they leaped in to finish the dance and the victim; butere ever another spear touched the brown hide a tawny streak ofgreen-eyed ha
te and ferocity bounded from the door of the hut in whichTarzan had been imprisoned, and Sheeta, the panther, stood snarlingbeside his master.
For an instant the blacks and the whites stood transfixed with terror.Their eyes were riveted upon the bared fangs of the jungle cat.
Only Tarzan of the Apes saw what else there was emerging from the darkinterior of the hut.