16
Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani
Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far to the south tointercept the flight of his deserting lieutenant, Werper. Others hadspread out in various directions, so that a vast circle had been formedby them during the night, and now they were beating in toward thecenter.
Achmet and the two with him halted for a short rest just before noon.They squatted beneath the trees upon the southern edge of a clearing.The chief of the raiders was in ill humor. To have been outwitted byan unbeliever was bad enough; but to have, at the same time, lost thejewels upon which he had set his avaricious heart was altogether toomuch--Allah must, indeed be angry with his servant.
Well, he still had the woman. She would bring a fair price in thenorth, and there was, too, the buried treasure beside the ruins of theEnglishman's house.
A slight noise in the jungle upon the opposite side of the clearingbrought Achmet Zek to immediate and alert attention. He gathered hisrifle in readiness for instant use, at the same time motioning hisfollowers to silence and concealment. Crouching behind the bushes thethree waited, their eyes fastened upon the far side of the open space.
Presently the foliage parted and a woman's face appeared, glancingfearfully from side to side. A moment later, evidently satisfied thatno immediate danger lurked before her, she stepped out into theclearing in full view of the Arab.
Achmet Zek caught his breath with a muttered exclamation of incredulityand an imprecation. The woman was the prisoner he had thought safelyguarded at his camp!
Apparently she was alone, but Achmet Zek waited that he might make sureof it before seizing her. Slowly Jane Clayton started across theclearing. Twice already since she had quitted the village of theraiders had she barely escaped the fangs of carnivora, and once she hadalmost stumbled into the path of one of the searchers. Though she wasalmost despairing of ever reaching safety she still was determined tofight on, until death or success terminated her endeavors.
As the Arabs watched her from the safety of their concealment, andAchmet Zek noted with satisfaction that she was walking directly intohis clutches, another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scenefrom the foliage of an adjacent tree.
Puzzled, troubled eyes they were, for all their gray and savage glint,for their owner was struggling with an intangible suggestion of thefamiliarity of the face and figure of the woman below him.
A sudden crashing of the bushes at the point from which Jane Claytonhad emerged into the clearing brought her to a sudden stop andattracted the attention of the Arabs and the watcher in the tree to thesame point.
The woman wheeled about to see what new danger menaced her from behind,and as she did so a great, anthropoid ape waddled into view. Behindhim came another and another; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learnhow many more of the hideous creatures were so close upon her trail.
With a smothered scream she rushed toward the opposite jungle, and asshe reached the bushes there, Achmet Zek and his two henchmen rose upand seized her. At the same instant a naked, brown giant dropped fromthe branches of a tree at the right of the clearing.
Turning toward the astonished apes he gave voice to a short volley oflow gutturals, and without waiting to note the effect of his words uponthem, wheeled and charged for the Arabs.
Achmet Zek was dragging Jane Clayton toward his tethered horse. Histwo men were hastily unfastening all three mounts. The woman,struggling to escape the Arab, turned and saw the ape-man runningtoward her. A glad light of hope illuminated her face.
"John!" she cried. "Thank God that you have come in time."
Behind Tarzan came the great apes, wondering, but obedient to hissummons. The Arabs saw that they would not have time to mount and maketheir escape before the beasts and the man were upon them. Achmet Zekrecognized the latter as the redoubtable enemy of such as he, and hesaw, too, in the circumstance an opportunity to rid himself forever ofthe menace of the ape-man's presence.
Calling to his men to follow his example he raised his rifle andleveled it upon the charging giant. His followers, acting with no lessalacrity than himself, fired almost simultaneously, and with thereports of the rifles, Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairy henchmenpitched forward among the jungle grasses.
The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of the apes to awondering pause, and, taking advantage of their momentary distraction,Achmet Zek and his fellows leaped to their horses' backs and gallopedaway with the now hopeless and grief-stricken woman.
Back to the village they rode, and once again Lady Greystoke foundherself incarcerated in the filthy, little hut from which she hadthought to have escaped for good. But this time she was not onlyguarded by an additional sentry, but bound as well.
Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden out with Achmet Zekupon the trail of the Belgian, returned empty handed. With the reportof each the raider's rage and chagrin increased, until he was in such atransport of ferocious anger that none dared approach him. Threateningand cursing, Achmet Zek paced up and down the floor of his silken tent;but his temper served him naught--Werper was gone and with him thefortune in scintillating gems which had aroused the cupidity of hischief and placed the sentence of death upon the head of the lieutenant.
With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turned their attentionto their fallen comrades. One was dead, but another and the greatwhite ape still breathed. The hairy monsters gathered about these two,grumbling and muttering after the fashion of their kind.
Tarzan was the first to regain consciousness. Sitting up, he lookedabout him. Blood was flowing from a wound in his shoulder. The shockhad thrown him down and dazed him; but he was far from dead. Risingslowly to his feet he let his eyes wander toward the spot where last hehad seen the she, who had aroused within his savage breast such strangeemotions.
"Where is she?" he asked.
"The Tarmangani took her away," replied one of the apes. "Who are youwho speak the language of the Mangani?"
"I am Tarzan," replied the ape-man; "mighty hunter, greatest offighters. When I roar, the jungle is silent and trembles with terror.I am Tarzan of the Apes. I have been away; but now I have come back tomy people."
"Yes," spoke up an old ape, "he is Tarzan. I know him. It is wellthat he has come back. Now we shall have good hunting."
The other apes came closer and sniffed at the ape-man. Tarzan stoodvery still, his fangs half bared, and his muscles tense and ready foraction; but there was none there to question his right to be with them,and presently, the inspection satisfactorily concluded, the apes againreturned their attention to the other survivor.
He too was but slightly wounded, a bullet, grazing his skull, havingstunned him, so that when he regained consciousness he was apparentlyas fit as ever.
The apes told Tarzan that they had been traveling toward the east whenthe scent spoor of the she had attracted them and they had stalked her.Now they wished to continue upon their interrupted march; but Tarzanpreferred to follow the Arabs and take the woman from them. After aconsiderable argument it was decided that they should first hunt towardthe east for a few days and then return and search for the Arabs, andas time is of little moment to the ape folk, Tarzan acceded to theirdemands, he, himself, having reverted to a mental state but littlesuperior to their own.
Another circumstance which decided him to postpone pursuit of the Arabswas the painfulness of his wound. It would be better to wait untilthat had healed before he pitted himself again against the guns of theTarmangani.
And so, as Jane Clayton was pushed into her prison hut and her handsand feet securely bound, her natural protector roamed off toward theeast in company with a score of hairy monsters, with whom he rubbedshoulders as familiarly as a few months before he had mingled with hisimmaculate fellow-members of one of London's most select and exclusiveclubs.
But all the time there lurked in the back of his injured brain atroublesome conviction that he had no business where he wa
s--that heshould be, for some unaccountable reason, elsewhere and among anothersort of creature. Also, there was the compelling urge to be upon thescent of the Arabs, undertaking the rescue of the woman who hadappealed so strongly to his savage sentiments; though the thought-wordwhich naturally occurred to him in the contemplation of the venture,was "capture," rather than "rescue."
To him she was as any other jungle she, and he had set his heart uponher as his mate. For an instant, as he had approached closer to her inthe clearing where the Arabs had seized her, the subtle aroma which hadfirst aroused his desires in the hut that had imprisoned her had fallenupon his nostrils, and told him that he had found the creature for whomhe had developed so sudden and inexplicable a passion.
The matter of the pouch of jewels also occupied his thoughts to someextent, so that he found a double urge for his return to the camp ofthe raiders. He would obtain possession of both his pretty pebbles andthe she. Then he would return to the great apes with his new mate andhis baubles, and leading his hairy companions into a far wildernessbeyond the ken of man, live out his life, hunting and battling amongthe lower orders after the only manner which he now recollected.
He spoke to his fellow-apes upon the matter, in an attempt to persuadethem to accompany him; but all except Taglat and Chulk refused. Thelatter was young and strong, endowed with a greater intelligence thanhis fellows, and therefore the possessor of better developed powers ofimagination. To him the expedition savored of adventure, and soappealed, strongly. With Taglat there was another incentive--a secretand sinister incentive, which, had Tarzan of the Apes had knowledge ofit, would have sent him at the other's throat in jealous rage.
Taglat was no longer young; but he was still a formidable beast,mightily muscled, cruel, and, because of his greater experience, craftyand cunning. Too, he was of giant proportions, the very weight of hishuge bulk serving ofttimes to discount in his favor the superioragility of a younger antagonist.
He was of a morose and sullen disposition that marked him even amonghis frowning fellows, where such characteristics are the rule ratherthan the exception, and, though Tarzan did not guess it, he hated theape-man with a ferocity that he was able to hide only because thedominant spirit of the nobler creature had inspired within him aspecies of dread which was as powerful as it was inexplicable to him.
These two, then, were to be Tarzan's companions upon his return to thevillage of Achmet Zek. As they set off, the balance of the tribevouchsafed them but a parting stare, and then resumed the seriousbusiness of feeding.
Tarzan found difficulty in keeping the minds of his fellows set uponthe purpose of their adventure, for the mind of an ape lacks the powerof long-sustained concentration. To set out upon a long journey, witha definite destination in view, is one thing, to remember that purposeand keep it uppermost in one's mind continually is quite another.There are so many things to distract one's attention along the way.
Chulk was, at first, for rushing rapidly ahead as though the village ofthe raiders lay but an hour's march before them instead of severaldays; but within a few minutes a fallen tree attracted his attentionwith its suggestion of rich and succulent forage beneath, and whenTarzan, missing him, returned in search, he found Chulk squattingbeside the rotting bole, from beneath which he was assiduously engagedin digging out the grubs and beetles, whose kind form a considerableproportion of the diet of the apes.
Unless Tarzan desired to fight there was nothing to do but wait untilChulk had exhausted the storehouse, and this he did, only to discoverthat Taglat was now missing. After a considerable search, he foundthat worthy gentleman contemplating the sufferings of an injured rodenthe had pounced upon. He would sit in apparent indifference, gazing inanother direction, while the crippled creature wriggled slowly andpainfully away from him, and then, just as his victim felt assured ofescape, he would reach out a giant palm and slam it down upon thefugitive. Again and again he repeated this operation, until, tiring ofthe sport, he ended the sufferings of his plaything by devouring it.
Such were the exasperating causes of delay which retarded Tarzan'sreturn journey toward the village of Achmet Zek; but the ape-man waspatient, for in his mind was a plan which necessitated the presence ofChulk and Taglat when he should have arrived at his destination.
It was not always an easy thing to maintain in the vacillating minds ofthe anthropoids a sustained interest in their venture. Chulk waswearying of the continued marching and the infrequency and shortduration of the rests. He would gladly have abandoned this search foradventure had not Tarzan continually filled his mind with alluringpictures of the great stores of food which were to be found in thevillage of Tarmangani.
Taglat nursed his secret purpose to better advantage than might havebeen expected of an ape, yet there were times when he, too, would haveabandoned the adventure had not Tarzan cajoled him on.
It was mid-afternoon of a sultry, tropical day when the keen senses ofthe three warned them of the proximity of the Arab camp. Stealthilythey approached, keeping to the dense tangle of growing things whichmade concealment easy to their uncanny jungle craft.
First came the giant ape-man, his smooth, brown skin glistening withthe sweat of exertion in the close, hot confines of the jungle. Behindhim crept Chulk and Taglat, grotesque and shaggy caricatures of theirgodlike leader.
Silently they made their way to the edge of the clearing whichsurrounded the palisade, and here they clambered into the lowerbranches of a large tree overlooking the village occupied by the enemy,the better to spy upon his goings and comings.
A horseman, white burnoosed, rode out through the gateway of thevillage. Tarzan, whispering to Chulk and Taglat to remain where theywere, swung, monkey-like, through the trees in the direction of thetrail the Arab was riding. From one jungle giant to the next he spedwith the rapidity of a squirrel and the silence of a ghost.
The Arab rode slowly onward, unconscious of the danger hovering in thetrees behind him. The ape-man made a slight detour and increased hisspeed until he had reached a point upon the trail in advance of thehorseman. Here he halted upon a leafy bough which overhung the narrow,jungle trail. On came the victim, humming a wild air of the greatdesert land of the north. Above him poised the savage brute that wastoday bent upon the destruction of a human life--the same creature whoa few months before, had occupied his seat in the House of Lords atLondon, a respected and distinguished member of that august body.
The Arab passed beneath the overhanging bough, there was a slightrustling of the leaves above, the horse snorted and plunged as abrown-skinned creature dropped upon its rump. A pair of mighty armsencircled the Arab and he was dragged from his saddle to the trail.
Ten minutes later the ape-man, carrying the outer garments of an Arabbundled beneath an arm, rejoined his companions. He exhibited histrophies to them, explaining in low gutturals the details of hisexploit. Chulk and Taglat fingered the fabrics, smelled of them, and,placing them to their ears, tried to listen to them.
Then Tarzan led them back through the jungle to the trail, where thethree hid themselves and waited. Nor had they long to wait before twoof Achmet Zek's blacks, clothed in habiliments similar to theirmaster's, came down the trail on foot, returning to the camp.
One moment they were laughing and talking together--the next they laystretched in death upon the trail, three mighty engines of destructionbending over them. Tarzan removed their outer garments as he hadremoved those of his first victim, and again retired with Chulk andTaglat to the greater seclusion of the tree they had first selected.
Here the ape-man arranged the garments upon his shaggy fellows andhimself, until, at a distance, it might have appeared that threewhite-robed Arabs squatted silently among the branches of the forest.
Until dark they remained where they were, for from his point ofvantage, Tarzan could view the enclosure within the palisade. Hemarked the position of the hut in which he had first discovered thescent spoor of the she he sought. He saw the two sentries standingbefore
its doorway, and he located the habitation of Achmet Zek, wheresomething told him he would most likely find the missing pouch andpebbles.
Chulk and Taglat were, at first, greatly interested in their wonderfulraiment. They fingered the fabric, smelled of it, and regarded eachother intently with every mark of satisfaction and pride. Chulk, ahumorist in his way, stretched forth a long and hairy arm, and graspingthe hood of Taglat's burnoose pulled it down over the latter's eyes,extinguishing him, snuffer-like, as it were.
The older ape, pessimistic by nature, recognized no such thing ashumor. Creatures laid their paws upon him for but two things--tosearch for fleas and to attack. The pulling of the Tarmangani-scentedthing about his head and eyes could not be for the performance of theformer act; therefore it must be the latter. He was attacked! Chulkhad attacked him.
With a snarl he was at the other's throat, not even waiting to lift thewoolen veil which obscured his vision. Tarzan leaped upon the two, andswaying and toppling upon their insecure perch the three great beaststussled and snapped at one another until the ape-man finally succeededin separating the enraged anthropoids.
As apology is unknown to these savage progenitors of man, andexplanation a laborious and usually futile process, Tarzan bridged thedangerous gulf by distracting their attention from their altercation toa consideration of their plans for the immediate future. Accustomed tofrequent arguments in which more hair than blood is wasted, the apesspeedily forget such trivial encounters, and presently Chulk and Taglatwere again squatting in close proximity to each other and peacefulrepose, awaiting the moment when the ape-man should lead them into thevillage of the Tarmangani.
It was long after darkness had fallen, that Tarzan led his companionsfrom their hiding place in the tree to the ground and around thepalisade to the far side of the village.
Gathering the skirts of his burnoose, beneath one arm, that his legsmight have free action, the ape-man took a short running start, andscrambled to the top of the barrier. Fearing lest the apes should rendtheir garments to shreds in a similar attempt, he had directed them towait below for him, and himself securely perched upon the summit of thepalisade he unslung his spear and lowered one end of it to Chulk.
The ape seized it, and while Tarzan held tightly to the upper end, theanthropoid climbed quickly up the shaft until with one paw he graspedthe top of the wall. To scramble then to Tarzan's side was the work ofbut an instant. In like manner Taglat was conducted to their sides,and a moment later the three dropped silently within the enclosure.
Tarzan led them first to the rear of the hut in which Jane Clayton wasconfined, where, through the roughly repaired aperture in the wall, hesought with his sensitive nostrils for proof that the she he had comefor was within.
Chulk and Taglat, their hairy faces pressed close to that of thepatrician, sniffed with him. Each caught the scent spoor of the womanwithin, and each reacted according to his temperament and his habits ofthought.
It left Chulk indifferent. The she was for Tarzan--all that he desiredwas to bury his snout in the foodstuffs of the Tarmangani. He had cometo eat his fill without labor--Tarzan had told him that that should behis reward, and he was satisfied.
But Taglat's wicked, bloodshot eyes, narrowed to the realization of thenearing fulfillment of his carefully nursed plan. It is true thatsometimes during the several days that had elapsed since they had setout upon their expedition it had been difficult for Taglat to hold hisidea uppermost in his mind, and on several occasions he had completelyforgotten it, until Tarzan, by a chance word, had recalled it to him,but, for an ape, Taglat had done well.
Now, he licked his chops, and he made a sickening, sucking noise withhis flabby lips as he drew in his breath.
Satisfied that the she was where he had hoped to find her, Tarzan ledhis apes toward the tent of Achmet Zek. A passing Arab and two slavessaw them, but the night was dark and the white burnooses hid the hairylimbs of the apes and the giant figure of their leader, so that thethree, by squatting down as though in conversation, were passed by,unsuspected. To the rear of the tent they made their way. Within,Achmet Zek conversed with several of his lieutenants. Without, Tarzanlistened.