17
By Jad-bal-lul
As Mo-sar carried Jane Clayton from the palace of Ko-tan, the king, thewoman struggled incessantly to regain her freedom. He tried to compelher to walk, but despite his threats and his abuse she would notvoluntarily take a single step in the direction in which he wished herto go. Instead she threw herself to the ground each time he sought toplace her upon her feet, and so of necessity he was compelled to carryher though at last he tied her hands and gagged her to save himselffrom further lacerations, for the beauty and slenderness of the womanbelied her strength and courage. When he came at last to where his menhad gathered he was glad indeed to turn her over to a couple ofstalwart warriors, but these too were forced to carry her sinceMo-sar's fear of the vengeance of Ko-tan's retainers would brook nodelays.
And thus they came down out of the hills from which A-lur is carved, tothe meadows that skirt the lower end of Jad-ben-lul, with Jane Claytoncarried between two of Mo-sar's men. At the edge of the lake lay afleet of strong canoes, hollowed from the trunks of trees, their bowsand sterns carved in the semblance of grotesque beasts or birds andvividly colored by some master in that primitive school of art, whichfortunately is not without its devotees today.
Into the stern of one of these canoes the warriors tossed their captiveat a sign from Mo-sar, who came and stood beside her as the warriorswere finding their places in the canoes and selecting their paddles.
"Come, Beautiful One," he said, "let us be friends and you shall not beharmed. You will find Mo-sar a kind master if you do his bidding," andthinking to make a good impression on her he removed the gag from hermouth and the thongs from her wrists, knowing well that she could notescape surrounded as she was by his warriors, and presently, when theywere out on the lake, she would be as safely imprisoned as though heheld her behind bars.
And so the fleet moved off to the accompaniment of the gentle splashingof a hundred paddles, to follow the windings of the rivers and lakesthrough which the waters of the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho empty into thegreat morass to the south. The warriors, resting upon one knee, facedthe bow and in the last canoe Mo-sar tiring of his fruitless attemptsto win responses from his sullen captive, squatted in the bottom of thecanoe with his back toward her and resting his head upon the gunwalesought sleep.
Thus they moved in silence between the verdure-clad banks of the littleriver through which the waters of Jad-ben-lul emptied--now in themoonlight, now in dense shadow where great trees overhung the stream,and at last out upon the waters of another lake, the black shores ofwhich seemed far away under the weird influence of a moonlight night.
Jane Clayton sat alert in the stern of the last canoe. For months shehad been under constant surveillance, the prisoner first of oneruthless race and now the prisoner of another. Since the long-gone daythat Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and his band of native German troops hadtreacherously wrought the Kaiser's work of rapine and destruction onthe Greystoke bungalow and carried her away to captivity she had notdrawn a free breath. That she had survived unharmed the countlessdangers through which she had passed she attributed solely to thebeneficence of a kind and watchful Providence.
At first she had been held on the orders of the German High Commandwith a view of her ultimate value as a hostage and during these monthsshe had been subjected to neither hardship nor oppression, but when theGermans had become hard pressed toward the close of their unsuccessfulcampaign in East Africa it had been determined to take her further intothe interior and now there was an element of revenge in their motives,since it must have been apparent that she could no longer be of anypossible military value.
Bitter indeed were the Germans against that half-savage mate of herswho had cunningly annoyed and harassed them with a fiendishness ofpersistence and ingenuity that had resulted in a noticeable loss inmorale in the sector he had chosen for his operations. They had tocharge against him the lives of certain officers that he haddeliberately taken with his own hands, and one entire section of trenchthat had made possible a disastrous turning movement by the British.Tarzan had out-generaled them at every point. He had met cunning withcunning and cruelty with cruelties until they feared and loathed hisvery name. The cunning trick that they had played upon him indestroying his home, murdering his retainers, and covering theabduction of his wife in such a way as to lead him to believe that shehad been killed, they had regretted a thousand times, for athousandfold had they paid the price for their senseless ruthlessness,and now, unable to wreak their vengeance directly upon him, they hadconceived the idea of inflicting further suffering upon his mate.
In sending her into the interior to avoid the path of the victoriousBritish, they had chosen as her escort Lieutenant Erich Obergatz whohad been second in command of Schneider's company, and who alone of itsofficers had escaped the consuming vengeance of the ape-man. For a longtime Obergatz had held her in a native village, the chief of which wasstill under the domination of his fear of the ruthless Germanoppressors. While here only hardships and discomforts assailed her,Obergatz himself being held in leash by the orders of his distantsuperior but as time went on the life in the village grew to be averitable hell of cruelties and oppressions practiced by the arrogantPrussian upon the villagers and the members of his native command--fortime hung heavily upon the hands of the lieutenant and with idlenesscombining with the personal discomforts he was compelled to endure, hisnone too agreeable temper found an outlet first in petty interferencewith the chiefs and later in the practice of absolute cruelties uponthem.
What the self-sufficient German could not see was plain to JaneClayton--that the sympathies of Obergatz' native soldiers lay with thevillagers and that all were so heartily sickened by his abuse that itneeded now but the slightest spark to detonate the mine of revenge andhatred that the pig-headed Hun had been assiduously fabricating beneathhis own person.
And at last it came, but from an unexpected source in the form of aGerman native deserter from the theater of war. Footsore, weary, andspent, he dragged himself into the village late one afternoon, andbefore Obergatz was even aware of his presence the whole village knewthat the power of Germany in Africa was at an end. It did not take longfor the lieutenant's native soldiers to realize that the authority thatheld them in service no longer existed and that with it had gone thepower to pay them their miserable wage. Or at least, so they reasoned.To them Obergatz no longer represented aught else than a powerless andhated foreigner, and short indeed would have been his shrift had not anative woman who had conceived a doglike affection for Jane Claytonhurried to her with word of the murderous plan, for the fate of theinnocent white woman lay in the balance beside that of the guiltyTeuton.
"Already they are quarreling as to which one shall possess you," shetold Jane.
"When will they come for us?" asked Jane. "Did you hear them say?"
"Tonight," replied the woman, "for even now that he has none to fightfor him they still fear the white man. And so they will come at nightand kill him while he sleeps."
Jane thanked the woman and sent her away lest the suspicion of herfellows be aroused against her when they discovered that the two whiteshad learned of their intentions. The woman went at once to the hutoccupied by Obergatz. She had never gone there before and the Germanlooked up in surprise as he saw who his visitor was.
Briefly she told him what she had heard. At first he was inclined tobluster arrogantly, with a great display of bravado but she silencedhim peremptorily.
"Such talk is useless," she said shortly. "You have brought uponyourself the just hatred of these people. Regardless of the truth orfalsity of the report which has been brought to them, they believe init and there is nothing now between you and your Maker other thanflight. We shall both be dead before morning if we are unable to escapefrom the village unseen. If you go to them now with your sillyprotestations of authority you will be dead a little sooner, that isall."
"You think it is as bad as that?" he said, a noticeable alteration inhis tone and manner.
"It is precisely as I have told you," she replied. "They will cometonight and kill you while you sleep. Find me pistols and a rifle andammunition and we will pretend that we go into the jungle to hunt. Thatyou have done often. Perhaps it will arouse suspicion that I accompanyyou but that we must chance. And be sure my dear Herr Lieutenant tobluster and curse and abuse your servants unless they note a change inyour manner and realizing your fear know that you suspect theirintention. If all goes well then we can go out into the jungle to huntand we need not return.
"But first and now you must swear never to harm me, or otherwise itwould be better that I called the chief and turned you over to him andthen put a bullet into my own head, for unless you swear as I haveasked I were no better alone in the jungle with you than here at themercies of these degraded blacks."
"I swear," he replied solemnly, "in the names of my God and my Kaiserthat no harm shall befall you at my hands, Lady Greystoke."
"Very well," she said, "we will make this pact to assist each other toreturn to civilization, but let it be understood that there is andnever can be any semblance even of respect for you upon my part. I amdrowning and you are the straw. Carry that always in your mind, German."
If Obergatz had held any doubt as to the sincerity of her word it wouldhave been wholly dissipated by the scathing contempt of her tone. Andso Obergatz, without further parley, got pistols and an extra rifle forJane, as well as bandoleers of cartridges. In his usual arrogant anddisagreeable manner he called his servants, telling them that he andthe white kali were going out into the brush to hunt. The beaters wouldgo north as far as the little hill and then circle back to the east andin toward the village. The gun carriers he directed to take the extrapieces and precede himself and Jane slowly toward the east, waiting forthem at the ford about half a mile distant. The blacks responded withgreater alacrity than usual and it was noticeable to both Jane andObergatz that they left the village whispering and laughing.
"The swine think it is a great joke," growled Obergatz, "that theafternoon before I die I go out and hunt meat for them."
As soon as the gun bearers disappeared in the jungle beyond the villagethe two Europeans followed along the same trail, nor was there anyattempt upon the part of Obergatz' native soldiers, or the warriors ofthe chief to detain them, for they too doubtless were more than willingthat the whites should bring them in one more mess of meat before theykilled them.
A quarter of a mile from the village, Obergatz turned toward the southfrom the trail that led to the ford and hurrying onward the two put asgreat a distance as possible between them and the village before nightfell. They knew from the habits of their erstwhile hosts that there waslittle danger of pursuit by night since the villagers held Numa, thelion, in too great respect to venture needlessly beyond their stockadeduring the hours that the king of beasts was prone to choose forhunting.
And thus began a seemingly endless sequence of frightful days andhorror-laden nights as the two fought their way toward the south in theface of almost inconceivable hardships, privations, and dangers. Theeast coast was nearer but Obergatz positively refused to chancethrowing himself into the hands of the British by returning to theterritory which they now controlled, insisting instead upon attemptingto make his way through an unknown wilderness to South Africa where,among the Boers, he was convinced he would find willing sympathizerswho would find some way to return him in safety to Germany, and thewoman was perforce compelled to accompany him.
And so they had crossed the great thorny, waterless steppe and come atlast to the edge of the morass before Pal-ul-don. They had reached thispoint just before the rainy season when the waters of the morass wereat their lowest ebb. At this time a hard crust is baked upon the driedsurface of the marsh and there is only the open water at the center tomaterially impede progress. It is a condition that exists perhaps notmore than a few weeks, or even days at the termination of long periodsof drought, and so the two crossed the otherwise almost impassablebarrier without realizing its latent terrors. Even the open water inthe center chanced to be deserted at the time by its frightful denizenswhich the drought and the receding waters had driven southward towardthe mouth of Pal-ul-don's largest river which carries the waters out ofthe Valley of Jad-ben-Otho.
Their wanderings carried them across the mountains and into the Valleyof Jad-ben-Otho at the source of one of the larger streams which bearsthe mountain waters down into the valley to empty them into the mainriver just below The Great Lake on whose northern shore lies A-lur. Asthey had come down out of the mountains they had been surprised by aparty of Ho-don hunters. Obergatz had escaped while Jane had beentaken prisoner and brought to A-lur. She had neither seen nor heardaught of the German since that time and she did not know whether he hadperished in this strange land, or succeeded in successfully eluding itssavage denizens and making his way at last into South Africa.
For her part, she had been incarcerated alternately in the palace andthe temple as either Ko-tan or Lu-don succeeded in wresting hertemporarily from the other by various strokes of cunning and intrigue.And now at last she was in the power of a new captor, one whom she knewfrom the gossip of the temple and the palace to be cruel and degraded.And she was in the stern of the last canoe, and every enemy back wastoward her, while almost at her feet Mo-sar's loud snores gave ampleevidence of his unconsciousness to his immediate surroundings.
The dark shore loomed closer to the south as Jane Clayton, LadyGreystoke, slid quietly over the stern of the canoe into the chillwaters of the lake. She scarcely moved other than to keep her nostrilsabove the surface while the canoe was yet discernible in the last raysof the declining moon. Then she struck out toward the southern shore.
Alone, unarmed, all but naked, in a country overrun by savage beastsand hostile men, she yet felt for the first time in many months asensation of elation and relief. She was free! What if the next momentbrought death, she knew again, at least a brief instant of absolutefreedom. Her blood tingled to the almost forgotten sensation and it waswith difficulty that she restrained a glad triumphant cry as sheclambered from the quiet waters and stood upon the silent beach.
Before her loomed a forest, darkly, and from its depths came thosenameless sounds that are a part of the night life of the jungle--therustling of leaves in the wind, the rubbing together of contiguousbranches, the scurrying of a rodent, all magnified by the darkness tosinister and awe-inspiring proportions; the hoot of an owl, the distantscream of a great cat, the barking of wild dogs, attested the presenceof the myriad life she could not see--the savage life, the free life ofwhich she was now a part. And then there came to her, possibly for thefirst time since the giant ape-man had come into her life, a fullerrealization of what the jungle meant to him, for though alone andunprotected from its hideous dangers she yet felt its lure upon her andan exaltation that she had not dared hope to feel again.
Ah, if that mighty mate of hers were but by her side! What utter joyand bliss would be hers! She longed for no more than this. The paradeof cities, the comforts and luxuries of civilization held forth noallure half as insistent as the glorious freedom of the jungle.
A lion moaned in the blackness to her right, eliciting deliciousthrills that crept along her spine. The hair at the back of her headseemed to stand erect--yet she was unafraid. The muscles bequeathed herby some primordial ancestor reacted instinctively to the presence of anancient enemy--that was all. The woman moved slowly and deliberatelytoward the wood. Again the lion moaned; this time nearer. She sought alow-hanging branch and finding it swung easily into the friendlyshelter of the tree. The long and perilous journey with Obergatz hadtrained her muscles and her nerves to such unaccustomed habits. Shefound a safe resting place such as Tarzan had taught her was best andthere she curled herself, thirty feet above the ground, for a night'srest. She was cold and uncomfortable and yet she slept, for her heartwas warm with renewed hope and her tired brain had found temporarysurcease from worry.
She slept until the heat of the sun, high in the heavens,
awakened her.She was rested and now her body was well as her heart was warm. Asensation of ease and comfort and happiness pervaded her being. Sherose upon her gently swaying couch and stretched luxuriously, her nakedlimbs and lithe body mottled by the sunlight filtering through thefoliage above combined with the lazy gesture to impart to herappearance something of the leopard. With careful eye she scrutinizedthe ground below and with attentive ear she listened for any warningsound that might suggest the near presence of enemies, either man orbeast. Satisfied at last that there was nothing close of which sheneed have fear she clambered to the ground. She wished to bathe but thelake was too exposed and just a bit too far from the safety of thetrees for her to risk it until she became more familiar with hersurroundings. She wandered aimlessly through the forest searching forfood which she found in abundance. She ate and rested, for she had noobjective as yet. Her freedom was too new to be spoiled by planningsfor the future. The haunts of civilized man seemed to her now as vagueand unattainable as the half-forgotten substance of a dream. If shecould but live on here in peace, waiting, waiting for--HIM. It was theold hope revived. She knew that he would come some day, if he lived.She had always known that, though recently she had believed that hewould come too late. If he lived! Yes, he would come if he lived, andif he did not live she were as well off here as elsewhere, for thennothing mattered, only to wait for the end as patiently as might be.
Her wanderings brought her to a crystal brook and there she drank andbathed beneath an overhanging tree that offered her quick asylum in theevent of danger. It was a quiet and beautiful spot and she loved itfrom the first. The bottom of the brook was paved with pretty stonesand bits of glassy obsidian. As she gathered a handful of the pebblesand held them up to look at them she noticed that one of her fingerswas bleeding from a clean, straight cut. She fell to searching for thecause and presently discovered it in one of the fragments of volcanicglass which revealed an edge that was almost razor-like. Jane Claytonwas elated. Here, God-given to her hands, was the first beginning withwhich she might eventually arrive at both weapons and tools--a cuttingedge. Everything was possible to him who possessed it--nothing without.
She sought until she had collected many of the precious bits ofstone--until the pouch that hung at her right side was almost filled.Then she climbed into the great tree to examine them at leisure. Therewere some that looked like knife blades, and some that could easily befashioned into spear heads, and many smaller ones that nature seemed tohave intended for the tips of savage arrows.
The spear she would essay first--that would be easiest. There was ahollow in the bole of the tree in a great crotch high above the ground.Here she cached all of her treasure except a single knifelike sliver.With this she descended to the ground and searching out a slendersapling that grew arrow-straight she hacked and sawed until she couldbreak it off without splitting the wood. It was just the right diameterfor the shaft of a spear--a hunting spear such as her beloved Wazirihad liked best. How often had she watched them fashioning them, andthey had taught her how to use them, too--them and the heavy warspears--laughing and clapping their hands as her proficiency increased.
She knew the arborescent grasses that yielded the longest and toughestfibers and these she sought and carried to her tree with the spearshaft that was to be. Clambering to her crotch she bent to her work,humming softly a little tune. She caught herself and smiled--it was thefirst time in all these bitter months that song had passed her lips orsuch a smile.
"I feel," she sighed, "I almost feel that John is near--my John--myTarzan!"
She cut the spear shaft to the proper length and removed the twigs andbranches and the bark, whittling and scraping at the nubs until thesurface was all smooth and straight. Then she split one end andinserted a spear point, shaping the wood until it fitted perfectly.This done she laid the shaft aside and fell to splitting the thickgrass stems and pounding and twisting them until she had separated andpartially cleaned the fibers. These she took down to the brook andwashed and brought back again and wound tightly around the cleft end ofthe shaft, which she had notched to receive them, and the upper part ofthe spear head which she had also notched slightly with a bit of stone.It was a crude spear but the best that she could attain in so short atime. Later, she promised herself, she should have others--many ofthem--and they would be spears of which even the greatest of the Wazirispear-men might be proud.