3
The Call of the Jungle
Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the ape-man lay awake onenight in the little thorn boma that protected, in a way, his party fromthe depredations of the great carnivora of the jungle. A singlewarrior stood sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of thedarkness beyond the camp made imperative. The moans and the coughingof the big cats mingled with the myriad noises of the lesser denizensof the jungle to fan the savage flame in the breast of this savageEnglish lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses, sleepless, for anhour and then he rose, noiseless as a wraith, and while the Waziri'sback was turned, vaulted the boma wall in the face of the flaming eyes,swung silently into a great tree and was gone.
For a time in sheer exuberance of animal spirit he raced swiftlythrough the middle terrace, swinging perilously across wide spans fromone jungle giant to the next, and then he clambered upward to theswaying, lesser boughs of the upper terrace where the moon shone fullupon him and the air was stirred by little breezes and death lurkedready in each frail branch. Here he paused and raised his face toGoro, the moon. With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of the bull apequivering upon his lips, yet he remained silent lest he arouse hisfaithful Waziri who were all too familiar with the hideous challenge oftheir master.
And then he went on more slowly and with greater stealth and caution,for now Tarzan of the Apes was seeking a kill. Down to the ground hecame in the utter blackness of the close-set boles and the overhangingverdure of the jungle. He stooped from time to time and put his noseclose to earth. He sought and found a wide game trail and at last hisnostrils were rewarded with the scent of the fresh spoor of Bara, thedeer. Tarzan's mouth watered and a low growl escaped his patricianlips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige of artificial caste--onceagain he was the primeval hunter--the first man--the highest caste typeof the human race. Up wind he followed the elusive spoor with a senseof perception so transcending that of ordinary man as to beinconceivable to us. Through counter currents of the heavy stench ofmeat eaters he traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink ofHorta, the boar, could not drown his quarry's scent--the permeating,mellow musk of the deer's foot.
Presently the body scent of the deer told Tarzan that his prey wasclose at hand. It sent him into the trees again--into the lowerterrace where he could watch the ground below and catch with ears andnose the first intimation of actual contact with his quarry. Nor wasit long before the ape-man came upon Bara standing alert at the edge ofa moon-bathed clearing. Noiselessly Tarzan crept through the treesuntil he was directly over the deer. In the ape-man's right hand wasthe long hunting knife of his father and in his heart the blood lust ofthe carnivore. Just for an instant he poised above the unsuspectingBara and then he launched himself downward upon the sleek back. Theimpact of his weight carried the deer to its knees and before theanimal could regain its feet the knife had found its heart. As Tarzanrose upon the body of his kill to scream forth his hideous victory cryinto the face of the moon the wind carried to his nostrils somethingwhich froze him to statuesque immobility and silence. His savage eyesblazed into the direction from which the wind had borne down thewarning to him and a moment later the grasses at one side of theclearing parted and Numa, the lion, strode majestically into view. Hisyellow-green eyes were fastened upon Tarzan as he halted just withinthe clearing and glared enviously at the successful hunter, for Numahad had no luck this night.
From the lips of the ape-man broke a rumbling growl of warning. Numaanswered but he did not advance. Instead he stood waving his tailgently to and fro, and presently Tarzan squatted upon his kill and cuta generous portion from a hind quarter. Numa eyed him with growingresentment and rage as, between mouthfuls, the ape-man growled out hissavage warnings. Now this particular lion had never before come incontact with Tarzan of the Apes and he was much mystified. Here wasthe appearance and the scent of a man-thing and Numa had tasted ofhuman flesh and learned that though not the most palatable it wascertainly by far the easiest to secure, yet there was that in thebestial growls of the strange creature which reminded him of formidableantagonists and gave him pause, while his hunger and the odor of thehot flesh of Bara goaded him almost to madness. Always Tarzan watchedhim, guessing what was passing in the little brain of the carnivore andwell it was that he did watch him, for at last Numa could stand it nolonger. His tail shot suddenly erect and at the same instant the waryape-man, knowing all too well what the signal portended, grasped theremainder of the deer's hind quarter between his teeth and leaped intoa nearby tree as Numa charged him with all the speed and a sufficientsemblance of the weight of an express train.
Tarzan's retreat was no indication that he felt fear. Jungle life isordered along different lines than ours and different standardsprevail. Had Tarzan been famished he would, doubtless, have stood hisground and met the lion's charge. He had done the thing before uponmore than one occasion, just as in the past he had charged lionshimself; but tonight he was far from famished and in the hind quarterhe had carried off with him was more raw flesh than he could eat; yetit was with no equanimity that he looked down upon Numa rending theflesh of Tarzan's kill. The presumption of this strange Numa must bepunished! And forthwith Tarzan set out to make life miserable for thebig cat. Close by were many trees bearing large, hard fruits and toone of these the ape-man swung with the agility of a squirrel. Thencommenced a bombardment which brought forth earthshaking roars fromNuma. One after another as rapidly as he could gather and hurl them,Tarzan pelted the hard fruit down upon the lion. It was impossible forthe tawny cat to eat under that hail of missiles--he could but roar andgrowl and dodge and eventually he was driven away entirely from thecarcass of Bara, the deer. He went roaring and resentful; but in thevery center of the clearing his voice was suddenly hushed and Tarzansaw the great head lower and flatten out, the body crouch and the longtail quiver, as the beast slunk cautiously toward the trees upon theopposite side.
Immediately Tarzan was alert. He lifted his head and sniffed the slow,jungle breeze. What was it that had attracted Numa's attention andtaken him soft-footed and silent away from the scene of hisdiscomfiture? Just as the lion disappeared among the trees beyond theclearing Tarzan caught upon the down-coming wind the explanation of hisnew interest--the scent spoor of man was wafted strongly to thesensitive nostrils. Caching the remainder of the deer's hind quarterin the crotch of a tree the ape-man wiped his greasy palms upon hisnaked thighs and swung off in pursuit of Numa. A broad, well-beatenelephant path led into the forest from the clearing. Parallel to thisslunk Numa, while above him Tarzan moved through the trees, the shadowof a wraith. The savage cat and the savage man saw Numa's quarryalmost simultaneously, though both had known before it came within thevision of their eyes that it was a black man. Their sensitive nostrilshad told them this much and Tarzan's had told him that the scent spoorwas that of a stranger--old and a male, for race and sex and age eachhas its own distinctive scent. It was an old man that made his wayalone through the gloomy jungle, a wrinkled, dried up, little old manhideously scarred and tattooed and strangely garbed, with the skin of ahyena about his shoulders and the dried head mounted upon his greypate. Tarzan recognized the ear-marks of the witch-doctor and awaitedNuma's charge with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation, for theape-man had no love for witch-doctors; but in the instant that Numa didcharge, the white man suddenly recalled that the lion had stolen hiskill a few minutes before and that revenge is sweet.
The first intimation the black man had that he was in danger was thecrash of twigs as Numa charged through the bushes into the game trailnot twenty yards behind him. Then he turned to see a huge, black-manedlion racing toward him and even as he turned, Numa seized him. At thesame instant the ape-man dropped from an overhanging limb full upon thelion's back and as he alighted he plunged his knife into the tawny sidebehind the left shoulder, tangled the fingers of his right hand in thelong mane, buried his teeth in Numa's neck and wound his powerful legsabout t
he beast's torso. With a roar of pain and rage, Numa reared upand fell backward upon the ape-man; but still the mighty man-thingclung to his hold and repeatedly the long knife plunged rapidly intohis side. Over and over rolled Numa, the lion, clawing and biting atthe air, roaring and growling horribly in savage attempt to reach thething upon its back. More than once was Tarzan almost brushed from hishold. He was battered and bruised and covered with blood from Numa anddirt from the trail, yet not for an instant did he lessen the ferocityof his mad attack nor his grim hold upon the back of his antagonist.To have loosened for an instant his grip there, would have been tobring him within reach of those tearing talons or rending fangs, andhave ended forever the grim career of this jungle-bred English lord.Where he had fallen beneath the spring of the lion the witch-doctorlay, torn and bleeding, unable to drag himself away and watched theterrific battle between these two lords of the jungle. His sunken eyesglittered and his wrinkled lips moved over toothless gums as he mumbledweird incantations to the demons of his cult.
For a time he felt no doubt as to the outcome--the strange white manmust certainly succumb to terrible Simba--whoever heard of a lone manarmed only with a knife slaying so mighty a beast! Yet presently theold black man's eyes went wider and he commenced to have his doubts andmisgivings. What wonderful sort of creature was this that battled withSimba and held his own despite the mighty muscles of the king of beastsand slowly there dawned in those sunken eyes, gleaming so brightly fromthe scarred and wrinkled face, the light of a dawning recollection.Gropingly backward into the past reached the fingers of memory, untilat last they seized upon a faint picture, faded and yellow with thepassing years. It was the picture of a lithe, white-skinned youthswinging through the trees in company with a band of huge apes, and theold eyes blinked and a great fear came into them--the superstitiousfear of one who believes in ghosts and spirits and demons.
And came the time once more when the witch-doctor no longer doubted theoutcome of the duel, yet his first judgment was reversed, for now heknew that the jungle god would slay Simba and the old black was evenmore terrified of his own impending fate at the hands of the victorthan he had been by the sure and sudden death which the triumphant lionwould have meted out to him. He saw the lion weaken from loss ofblood. He saw the mighty limbs tremble and stagger and at last he sawthe beast sink down to rise no more. He saw the forest god or demonrise from the vanquished foe, and placing a foot upon the stillquivering carcass, raise his face to the moon and bay out a hideous crythat froze the ebbing blood in the veins of the witch-doctor.