The Son of Tarzan

  Chapter 3

  As the trainer, with raised lash, hesitated an instant at the entranceto the box where the boy and the ape confronted him, a tallbroad-shouldered man pushed past him and entered. As his eyes fellupon the newcomer a slight flush mounted the boy's cheeks.

  "Father!" he exclaimed.

  The ape gave one look at the English lord, and then leaped toward him,calling out in excited jabbering. The man, his eyes going wide inastonishment, stopped as though turned to stone.

  "Akut!" he cried.

  The boy looked, bewildered, from the ape to his father, and from hisfather to the ape. The trainer's jaw dropped as he listened to whatfollowed, for from the lips of the Englishman flowed the gutturals ofan ape that were answered in kind by the huge anthropoid that now clungto him.

  And from the wings a hideously bent and disfigured old man watched thetableau in the box, his pock-marked features working spasmodically invarying expressions that might have marked every sensation in the gamutfrom pleasure to terror.

  "Long have I looked for you, Tarzan," said Akut. "Now that I havefound you I shall come to your jungle and live there always."

  The man stroked the beast's head. Through his mind there was runningrapidly a train of recollection that carried him far into the depths ofthe primeval African forest where this huge, man-like beast had foughtshoulder to shoulder with him years before. He saw the black Mugambiwielding his deadly knob-stick, and beside them, with bared fangs andbristling whiskers, Sheeta the terrible; and pressing close behind thesavage and the savage panther, the hideous apes of Akut. The mansighed. Strong within him surged the jungle lust that he had thoughtdead. Ah! if he could go back even for a brief month of it, to feelagain the brush of leafy branches against his naked hide; to smell themusty rot of dead vegetation--frankincense and myrrh to the jungleborn; to sense the noiseless coming of the great carnivora upon histrail; to hunt and to be hunted; to kill! The picture was alluring.And then came another picture--a sweet-faced woman, still young andbeautiful; friends; a home; a son. He shrugged his giant shoulders.

  "It cannot be, Akut," he said; "but if you would return, I shall seethat it is done. You could not be happy here--I may not be happythere."

  The trainer stepped forward. The ape bared his fangs, growling.

  "Go with him, Akut," said Tarzan of the Apes. "I will come and see youtomorrow."

  The beast moved sullenly to the trainer's side. The latter, at JohnClayton's request, told where they might be found. Tarzan turnedtoward his son.

  "Come!" he said, and the two left the theater. Neither spoke forseveral minutes after they had entered the limousine. It was the boywho broke the silence.

  "The ape knew you," he said, "and you spoke together in the ape'stongue. How did the ape know you, and how did you learn his language?"

  And then, briefly and for the first time, Tarzan of the Apes told hisson of his early life--of the birth in the jungle, of the death of hisparents, and of how Kala, the great she ape had suckled and raised himfrom infancy almost to manhood. He told him, too, of the dangers andthe horrors of the jungle; of the great beasts that stalked one by dayand by night; of the periods of drought, and of the cataclysmic rains;of hunger; of cold; of intense heat; of nakedness and fear andsuffering. He told him of all those things that seem most horrible tothe creature of civilization in the hope that the knowledge of themmight expunge from the lad's mind any inherent desire for the jungle.Yet they were the very things that made the memory of the jungle whatit was to Tarzan--that made up the composite jungle life he loved. Andin the telling he forgot one thing--the principal thing--that the boyat his side, listening with eager ears, was the son of Tarzan of theApes.

  After the boy had been tucked away in bed--and without the threatenedpunishment--John Clayton told his wife of the events of the evening,and that he had at last acquainted the boy with the facts of his junglelife. The mother, who had long foreseen that her son must some timeknow of those frightful years during which his father had roamed thejungle, a naked, savage beast of prey, only shook her head, hopingagainst hope that the lure she knew was still strong in the father'sbreast had not been transmitted to his son.

  Tarzan visited Akut the following day, but though Jack begged to beallowed to accompany him he was refused. This time Tarzan saw thepock-marked old owner of the ape, whom he did not recognize as the wilyPaulvitch of former days. Tarzan, influenced by Akut's pleadings,broached the question of the ape's purchase; but Paulvitch would notname any price, saying that he would consider the matter.

  When Tarzan returned home Jack was all excitement to hear the detailsof his visit, and finally suggested that his father buy the ape andbring it home. Lady Greystoke was horrified at the suggestion. Theboy was insistent. Tarzan explained that he had wished to purchaseAkut and return him to his jungle home, and to this the motherassented. Jack asked to be allowed to visit the ape, but again he wasmet with flat refusal. He had the address, however, which the trainerhad given his father, and two days later he found the opportunity toelude his new tutor--who had replaced the terrified Mr. Moore--andafter a considerable search through a section of London which he hadnever before visited, he found the smelly little quarters of thepock-marked old man. The old fellow himself replied to his knocking,and when he stated that he had come to see Ajax, opened the door andadmitted him to the little room which he and the great ape occupied.In former years Paulvitch had been a fastidious scoundrel; but tenyears of hideous life among the cannibals of Africa had eradicated thelast vestige of niceness from his habits. His apparel was wrinkled andsoiled. His hands were unwashed, his few straggling locks uncombed.His room was a jumble of filthy disorder. As the boy entered he sawthe great ape squatting upon the bed, the coverlets of which were atangled wad of filthy blankets and ill-smelling quilts. At sight ofthe youth the ape leaped to the floor and shuffled forward. The man,not recognizing his visitor and fearing that the ape meant mischief,stepped between them, ordering the ape back to the bed.

  "He will not hurt me," cried the boy. "We are friends, and before, hewas my father's friend. They knew one another in the jungle. Myfather is Lord Greystoke. He does not know that I have come here. Mymother forbid my coming; but I wished to see Ajax, and I will pay youif you will let me come here often and see him."

  At the mention of the boy's identity Paulvitch's eyes narrowed. Sincehe had first seen Tarzan again from the wings of the theater there hadbeen forming in his deadened brain the beginnings of a desire forrevenge. It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attributeto others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness,and so now it was that Alexis Paulvitch was slowly recalling the eventsof his past life and as he did so laying at the door of the man whom heand Rokoff had so assiduously attempted to ruin and murder all themisfortunes that had befallen him in the failure of their variousschemes against their intended victim.

  He saw at first no way in which he could, with safety to himself, wreakvengeance upon Tarzan through the medium of Tarzan's son; but thatgreat possibilities for revenge lay in the boy was apparent to him, andso he determined to cultivate the lad in the hope that fate would playinto his hands in some way in the future. He told the boy all that heknew of his father's past life in the jungle and when he found that theboy had been kept in ignorance of all these things for so many years,and that he had been forbidden visiting the zoological gardens; that hehad had to bind and gag his tutor to find an opportunity to come to themusic hall and see Ajax, he guessed immediately the nature of the greatfear that lay in the hearts of the boy's parents--that he might cravethe jungle as his father had craved it.

  And so Paulvitch encouraged the boy to come and see him often, andalways he played upon the lad's craving for tales of the savage worldwith which Paulvitch was all too familiar. He left him alone with Akutmuch, and it was not long until he was surprised to learn that the boycould make the great beast understand him--that he had actually learnedmany of the words of the p
rimitive language of the anthropoids.

  During this period Tarzan came several times to visit Paulvitch. Heseemed anxious to purchase Ajax, and at last he told the man franklythat he was prompted not only by a desire upon his part to return thebeast to the liberty of his native jungle; but also because his wifefeared that in some way her son might learn the whereabouts of the apeand through his attachment for the beast become imbued with the rovinginstinct which, as Tarzan explained to Paulvitch, had so influenced hisown life.

  The Russian could scarce repress a smile as he listened to LordGreystoke's words, since scarce a half hour had passed since the timethe future Lord Greystoke had been sitting upon the disordered bedjabbering away to Ajax with all the fluency of a born ape.

  It was during this interview that a plan occurred to Paulvitch, and asa result of it he agreed to accept a certain fabulous sum for the ape,and upon receipt of the money to deliver the beast to a vessel that wassailing south from Dover for Africa two days later. He had a doublepurpose in accepting Clayton's offer. Primarily, the moneyconsideration influenced him strongly, as the ape was no longer asource of revenue to him, having consistently refused to perform uponthe stage after having discovered Tarzan. It was as though the beasthad suffered himself to be brought from his jungle home and exhibitedbefore thousands of curious spectators for the sole purpose ofsearching out his long lost friend and master, and, having found him,considered further mingling with the common herd of humans unnecessary.However that may be, the fact remained that no amount of persuasioncould influence him even to show himself upon the music hall stage, andupon the single occasion that the trainer attempted force the resultswere such that the unfortunate man considered himself lucky to haveescaped with his life. All that saved him was the accidental presenceof Jack Clayton, who had been permitted to visit the animal in thedressing room reserved for him at the music hall, and had immediatelyinterfered when he saw that the savage beast meant serious mischief.

  And after the money consideration, strong in the heart of the Russianwas the desire for revenge, which had been growing with constantbrooding over the failures and miseries of his life, which heattributed to Tarzan; the latest, and by no means the least, of whichwas Ajax's refusal to longer earn money for him. The ape's refusal hetraced directly to Tarzan, finally convincing himself that the ape manhad instructed the great anthropoid to refuse to go upon the stage.

  Paulvitch's naturally malign disposition was aggravated by theweakening and warping of his mental and physical faculties throughtorture and privation. From cold, calculating, highly intelligentperversity it had deteriorated into the indiscriminating, dangerousmenace of the mentally defective. His plan, however, was sufficientlycunning to at least cast a doubt upon the assertion that his mentalitywas wandering. It assured him first of the competence which LordGreystoke had promised to pay him for the deportation of the ape, andthen of revenge upon his benefactor through the son he idolized. Thatpart of his scheme was crude and brutal--it lacked the refinement oftorture that had marked the master strokes of the Paulvitch of old,when he had worked with that virtuoso of villainy, Nikolas Rokoff--butit at least assured Paulvitch of immunity from responsibility, placingthat upon the ape, who would thus also be punished for his refusallonger to support the Russian.

  Everything played with fiendish unanimity into Paulvitch's hands. Aschance would have it, Tarzan's son overheard his father relating to theboy's mother the steps he was taking to return Akut safely to hisjungle home, and having overheard he begged them to bring the ape homethat he might have him for a play-fellow. Tarzan would not have beenaverse to this plan; but Lady Greystoke was horrified at the verythought of it. Jack pleaded with his mother; but all unavailingly.She was obdurate, and at last the lad appeared to acquiesce in hismother's decision that the ape must be returned to Africa and the boyto school, from which he had been absent on vacation.

  He did not attempt to visit Paulvitch's room again that day, butinstead busied himself in other ways. He had always been well suppliedwith money, so that when necessity demanded he had no difficulty incollecting several hundred pounds. Some of this money he invested invarious strange purchases which he managed to smuggle into the house,undetected, when he returned late in the afternoon.

  The next morning, after giving his father time to precede him andconclude his business with Paulvitch, the lad hastened to the Russian'sroom. Knowing nothing of the man's true character the boy dared nottake him fully into his confidence for fear that the old fellow wouldnot only refuse to aid him, but would report the whole affair to hisfather. Instead, he simply asked permission to take Ajax to Dover. Heexplained that it would relieve the old man of a tiresome journey, aswell as placing a number of pounds in his pocket, for the lad purposedpaying the Russian well.

  "You see," he went on, "there will be no danger of detection since I amsupposed to be leaving on an afternoon train for school. Instead Iwill come here after they have left me on board the train. Then I cantake Ajax to Dover, you see, and arrive at school only a day late. Noone will be the wiser, no harm will be done, and I shall have had anextra day with Ajax before I lose him forever."

  The plan fitted perfectly with that which Paulvitch had in mind. Hadhe known what further the boy contemplated he would doubtless haveentirely abandoned his own scheme of revenge and aided the boy wholeheartedly in the consummation of the lad's, which would have beenbetter for Paulvitch, could he have but read the future but a few shorthours ahead.

  That afternoon Lord and Lady Greystoke bid their son good-bye and sawhim safely settled in a first-class compartment of the railway carriagethat would set him down at school in a few hours. No sooner had theyleft him, however, than he gathered his bags together, descended fromthe compartment and sought a cab stand outside the station. Here heengaged a cabby to take him to the Russian's address. It was dusk whenhe arrived. He found Paulvitch awaiting him. The man was pacing thefloor nervously. The ape was tied with a stout cord to the bed. Itwas the first time that Jack had ever seen Ajax thus secured. Helooked questioningly at Paulvitch. The man, mumbling, explained thathe believed the animal had guessed that he was to be sent away and hefeared he would attempt to escape.

  Paulvitch carried another piece of cord in his hand. There was a noosein one end of it which he was continually playing with. He walked backand forth, up and down the room. His pock-marked features were workinghorribly as he talked silent to himself. The boy had never seen himthus--it made him uneasy. At last Paulvitch stopped on the oppositeside of the room, far from the ape.

  "Come here," he said to the lad. "I will show you how to secure theape should he show signs of rebellion during the trip."

  The lad laughed. "It will not be necessary," he replied. "Ajax willdo whatever I tell him to do."

  The old man stamped his foot angrily. "Come here, as I tell you," herepeated. "If you do not do as I say you shall not accompany the apeto Dover--I will take no chances upon his escaping."

  Still smiling, the lad crossed the room and stood before the Russ.

  "Turn around, with your back toward me," directed the latter, "that Imay show you how to bind him quickly."

  The boy did as he was bid, placing his hands behind him when Paulvitchtold him to do so. Instantly the old man slipped the running nooseover one of the lad's wrists, took a couple of half hitches about hisother wrist, and knotted the cord.

  The moment that the boy was secured the attitude of the man changed.With an angry oath he wheeled his prisoner about, tripped him andhurled him violently to the floor, leaping upon his breast as he fell.From the bed the ape growled and struggled with his bonds. The boy didnot cry out--a trait inherited from his savage sire whom long years inthe jungle following the death of his foster mother, Kala the greatape, had taught that there was none to come to the succor of the fallen.

  Paulvitch's fingers sought the lad's throat. He grinned down horriblyinto the face of his victim.

  "Your father ruined me," he mumble
d. "This will pay him. He will thinkthat the ape did it. I will tell him that the ape did it. That I lefthim alone for a few minutes, and that you sneaked in and the ape killedyou. I will throw your body upon the bed after I have choked the lifefrom you, and when I bring your father he will see the ape squattingover it," and the twisted fiend cackled in gloating laughter. Hisfingers closed upon the boy's throat.

  Behind them the growling of the maddened beast reverberated against thewalls of the little room. The boy paled, but no other sign of fear orpanic showed upon his countenance. He was the son of Tarzan. Thefingers tightened their grip upon his throat. It was with difficultythat he breathed, gaspingly. The ape lunged against the stout cordthat held him. Turning, he wrapped the cord about his hands, as a manmight have done, and surged heavily backward. The great muscles stoodout beneath his shaggy hide. There was a rending as of splinteredwood--the cord held, but a portion of the footboard of the bed cameaway.

  At the sound Paulvitch looked up. His hideous face went white withterror--the ape was free.

  With a single bound the creature was upon him. The man shrieked. Thebrute wrenched him from the body of the boy. Great fingers sunk intothe man's flesh. Yellow fangs gaped close to his throat--he struggled,futilely--and when they closed, the soul of Alexis Paulvitch passedinto the keeping of the demons who had long been awaiting it.

  The boy struggled to his feet, assisted by Akut. For two hours underthe instructions of the former the ape worked upon the knots thatsecured his friend's wrists. Finally they gave up their secret, andthe boy was free. Then he opened one of his bags and drew forth somegarments. His plans had been well made. He did not consult the beast,which did all that he directed. Together they slunk from the house,but no casual observer might have noted that one of them was an ape.