Fearing that he would again be irretrievably lost, he called aloud to the wild man ahead of him, and in a moment had the satisfaction of seeing him drop lightly to his side from the branches above.
For a moment Tarzan looked at the young man closely, as though undecided as to just what was best to do; then, stooping down before Clayton, he motioned him to grasp him about the neck, and, with the white man upon his back, Tarzan took to the trees.
The next few minutes the young Englishman never forgot. High into bending and swaying branches he was borne with what seemed to him incredible swiftness, while Tarzan chafed at the slowness of his progress.
From one lofty branch the agile creature swung with Clayton through a dizzy arc to a neighboring tree; then for a hundred yards maybe the sure feet threaded a maze of interwoven limbs, balancing like a tightrope walker high above the black depths of verdure beneath.
From the first sensation of chilling fear Clayton passed to one of keen admiration and envy of those giant muscles and that wondrous instinct or knowledge which guided this forest god through the inky blackness of the night as easily and safely as Clayton could have strolled a London street at high noon.
Occasionally they would enter a spot where the foliage above was less dense, and the bright rays of the moon lit up before Clayton’s wondering eyes the strange path they were traversing.
At such times the man fairly caught his breath at the sight of the horrid depths below them, for Tarzan took the easiest way, which often led over a hundred feet above the earth.
And yet with all his seeming speed, Tarzan was in reality feeling his way with comparative slowness, searching constantly for limbs of adequate strength for the maintenance of this double weight.
Presently they came to the clearing before the beach. Tarzan’s quick ears had heard the strange sounds of Sabor’s efforts to force her way through the lattice, and it seemed to Clayton that they dropped a straight hundred feet to earth, so quickly did Tarzan descend. Yet when they struck the ground it was with scarce ajar; and as Clayton released his hold on the ape-man he saw him dart like a squirrel for the opposite side of the cabin.
The Englishman sprang quickly after him just in time to see the hind quarters of some huge animal about to disappear through the window of the cabin.
As Jane opened her eyes to a realization of the imminent peril which threatened her, her brave young heart gave up at last its final vestige of hope. But then to her surprise she saw the huge animal being slowly drawn back through the window, and in the moonlight beyond she saw the heads and shoulders of two men.
As Clayton rounded the corner of the cabin to behold the animal disappearing within, it was also to see the ape-man seize the long tail in both hands, and, bracing himself with his feet against the side of the cabin, throw all his mighty strength into the effort to draw the beast out of the interior.
Clayton was quick to lend a hand, but the ape-man jabbered to him in a commanding and peremptory tone something which Clayton knew to be orders, though he could not understand them.
At last, under their combined efforts, the great body was slowly dragged farther and farther outside the window, and then there came to Clayton’s mind a dawning conception of the rash bravery of his companion’s act.
For a naked man to drag a shrieking, clawing man-eater forth from a window by the tail to save a strange white girl, was indeed the last word in heroism.
Insofar as Clayton was concerned it was a very different matter, since the girl was not only of his own kind and race, but was the one woman in all the world whom he loved.
Though he knew that the lioness would make short work of both of them, he pulled with a will to keep it from Jane Porter. And then he recalled the battle between this man and the great, black-maned lion which he had witnessed a short time before, and he commenced to feel more assurance.
Tarzan was still issuing orders which Clayton could not understand.
He was trying to tell the stupid white man to plunge his poisoned arrows into Sabor’s back and sides, and to reach the savage heart with the long, thin hunting knife that hung at Tarzan’s hip; but the man would not understand, and Tarzan did not dare release his hold to do the things himself, for he knew that the puny white man never could hold mighty Sabor alone, for an instant.
Slowly the lioness was emerging from the window. At last her shoulders were out.
And then Clayton saw an incredible thing. Tarzan, racking his brains for some means to cope single-handed with the infuriated beast, had suddenly recalled his battle with Terkoz; and as the great shoulders came clear of the window, so that the lioness hung upon the sill only by her forepaws, Tarzan suddenly released his hold upon the brute.
With the quickness of a striking rattler he launched himself full upon Sabor’s back, his strong young arms seeking and gaining a full-Nelson upon the beast, as he had learned it that other day during his bloody, wrestling victory over Terkoz.
With a roar the lioness turned completely over upon her back, falling full upon her enemy; but the black-haired giant only closed tighter his hold.
Pawing and tearing at earth and air, Sabor rolled and threw herself this way and that in an effort to dislodge this strange antagonist; but ever tighter and tighter drew the iron bands that were forcing her head lower and lower upon her tawny breast.
Higher crept the steel forearms of the ape-man about the back of Sabor’s neck. Weaker and weaker became the lioness’s efforts.
At last Clayton saw the immense muscles of Tarzan’s shoulders and biceps leap into corded knots beneath the silver moonlight. There was a long sustained and supreme effort on the ape-man’s part—and the vertebræ of Sabor’s neck parted with a sharp snap.
In an instant Tarzan was upon his feet, and for the second time that day Clayton heard the bull ape’s savage roar of victory. Then he heard Jane’s agonized cry:
“Cecil—Mr. Clayton! Oh, what is it? What is it?”
Running quickly to the cabin door, Clayton called out that all was right, and shouted to her to open the door. As quickly as she could she raised the great bar and fairly dragged Clayton within.
“What was that awful noise?” she whispered, shrinking close to him.
“It was the cry of the kill from the throat of the man who has just saved your life, Miss Porter. Wait, I will fetch him so you may thank him.”
The frightened girl would not be left alone, so she accompanied Clayton to the side of the cabin where lay the dead body of the lioness.
Tarzan of the Apes was gone.
Clayton called several times, but there was no reply, and so the two returned to the greater safety of the interior.
“What a frightful sound!” cried Jane, “I shudder at the mere thought of it. Do not tell me that a human throat voiced that hideous and fearsome shriek.”
“But it did, Miss Porter,” replied Clayton; “or at least if not a human throat that of a forest god.”
And then he told her of his experiences with this strange creature—of how twice the wild man had saved his life—of the wondrous strength, and agility, and bravery—of the brown skin and the handsome face.
“I cannot make it out at all,” he concluded. “At first I thought he might be Tarzan of the Apes; but he neither speaks nor understands English, so that theory is untenable.”
“Well, whatever he may be,” cried the girl, “we owe him our lives, and may God bless him and keep him in safety in his wild and savage jungle!”
“Amen,” said Clayton, fervently.
“For the good Lord’s sake, ain’t I dead?”
The two turned to see Esmeralda sitting upright upon the floor, her great eyes rolling from side to side as though she could not believe their testimony as to her whereabouts.
And now, for Jane Porter the reaction came, and she threw herself upon the bench, sobbing with hysterical laughter.
XVI
“Most Remarkable”
Several miles south of the cabin, upon a strip of
sandy beach, stood two old men, arguing.
Before them stretched the broad Atlantic. At their backs was the Dark Continent.i Close around them loomed the impenetrable blackness of the jungle.
Savage beasts roared and growled; noises, hideous and weird, asailed their ears. They had wandered for miles in search of their camp, but always in the wrong direction. They were as hopelessly lost as though they suddenly had been transported to another world.
At such a time, indeed, every fiber of their combined intellects must have been concentrated upon the vital question of the minute—the life-and-death question to them of retracing their steps to camp.
Samuel T. Philander was speaking.
“But, my dear professor,” he was saying, “I still maintain that but for the victories of Ferdinand and Isabella over the fifteenth-century Moors in Spain the world would be today a thousand years in advance of where we now find ourselves. The Moors were essentially a tolerant, broad-minded, liberal race of agriculturists, artisans and merchants—the very type of people that has made possible such civilization as we find today in America and Europe—while the Spaniards—”
“Tut, tut, dear Mr. Philander,” interrupted Professor Porter; “their religion positively precluded the possibilities you suggest. Moslemism was, is, and always will be, a blight on that scientific progress which has marked—”
“Bless me! Professor,” interjected Mr. Philander, who had turned his gaze toward the jungle, “there seems to be someone approaching.”
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter turned in the direction indicated by the nearsighted Mr. Philander.
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander” he chided. “How often must I urge you to seek that absolute concentration of your mental faculties which alone may permit you to bring to bear the highest powers of intellectuality upon the momentous problems which naturally fall to the lot of great minds? And now I find you guilty of a most flagrant breach of courtesy in interrupting my learned discourse to call attention to a mere quadruped of the genus Felis. As I was saying, Mr.—”
“Heavens, Professor, a lion?” cried Mr. Philander, straining his weak eyes toward the dim figure outlined against the dark tropical underbrush.
“Yes, yes, Mr. Philander, if you insist upon employing slang in your discourse, a ‘lion.’ But as I was saying—”
“Bless me, Professor,” again interrupted Mr. Philander; “permit me to suggest that doubtless the Moors who were conquered in the fifteenth century will continue in that most regrettable condition for the time being at least, even though we postpone discussion of that world calamity until we may attain the enchanting view of yon Felis carnivora which distance proverbially is credited with lending.”
In the meantime the lion had approached with quiet dignity to within ten paces of the two men, where he stood curiously watching them.
The moonlight flooded the beach, and the strange group stood out in bold relief against the yellow sand.
“Most reprehensible, most reprehensible,” exclaimed Professor Porter, with a faint trace of irritation in his voice. “Never Mr. Philander, never before in my life have I known one of these animals to be permitted to roam at large from its cage. I shall most certainly report this outrageous breach of ethics to the directors of the adjacent zoological garden.”
“Quite right, Professor,” agreed Mr. Philander, “and the sooner it is done the better. Let us start now.”
Seizing the professor by the arm, Mr. Philander set off in the direction that would put the greatest distance between themselves and the lion.
They had proceeded but a short distance when a backward glance revealed to the horrified gaze of Mr. Philander that the lion was following them. He tightened his grip upon the protesting professor and increased his speed.
“As I was saying, Mr. Philander,” repeated Professor Porter.
Mr. Philander took another hasty glance rearward. The lion also had quickened his gait, and was doggedly maintaining an unvarying distance behind them.
“He is following us!” gasped Mr. Philander, breaking into a run.
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” remonstrated the professor, “this unseemly haste is most unbecoming to men of letters. What will our friends think of us, who may chance to be upon the street and witness our frivolous antics? Pray let us proceed with more decorum.”
Mr. Philander stole another observation astern.
The lion was bounding along in easy leaps scarce five paces behind.
Mr. Philander dropped the professor’s arm, and broke into a mad orgy of speed that would have done credit to any varsity track team.
“As I was saying, Mr. Philander—” screamed Professor Porter, as, metaphorically speaking, he himself “threw her into high.” He, too, had caught a fleeting backward glimpse of cruel yellow eyes and half open mouth within startling proximity of his person.
With streaming coat tails and shiny silk hat Professor Archimedes Q. Porter fled through the moonlight close upon the heels of Mr. Samuel T. Philander.
Before them a point of the jungle ran out toward a narrow promontory, and it was for the haven of the trees he saw there that Mr. Samuel T. Philander directed his prodigious leaps and bounds; while from the shadows of this same spot peered two keen eyes in interested appreciation of the race.
It was Tarzan of the Apes who watched, with face a-grin, this odd game of follow-the-leader.
He knew the two men were safe enough from attack in so far as the lion was concerned. The very fact that Numa had foregone such easy prey at all convinced the wise forest craft of Tarzan that Numa’s belly already was full.
The lion might stalk them until hungry again; but the chances were that if not angered he would soon tire of the sport, and slink away to his jungle lair.
Really, the one great danger was that one of the men might stumble and fall, and then the yellow devil would be upon him in a moment and the joy of the kill would be too great a temptation to withstand.
So Tarzan swung quickly to a lower limb in line with the approaching fugitives; and as Mr. Samuel T. Philander came panting and blowing beneath him, already too spent to struggle up to the safety of the limb, Tarzan reached down and, grasping him by the collar of his coat, yanked him to the limb by his side.
Another moment brought the professor within the sphere of the friendly grip, and he, too, was drawn upward to safety just as the baffled Numa, with a roar, leaped to recover his vanishing quarry.
For a moment the two men clung panting to the great branch, while Tarzan squatted with his back to the stem of the tree, watching them with mingled curiosity and amusement.
It was the professor who first broke the silence.
“I am deeply pained, Mr. Philander, that you should have evinced such a paucity of manly courage in the presence of one of the lower orders, and by your crass timidity have caused me to exert myself to such an unaccustomed degree in order that I might resume my discourse. As I was saying, Mr. Philander when you interrupted me, the Moors—”
“Professor Archimedes Q. Porter,” broke in Mr. Philander, in icy tones, “the time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in the mantle of virtue. You have accused me of cowardice. You have insinuated that you ran only to overtake me, not to escape the clutches of the lion. Have a care, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter! I am a desperate man. Goaded by long-suffering patience the worm will turn.”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander tut, tut!” cautioned Professor Porter; “you forget yourself.”
“I forget nothing as yet, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter; but, believe me, sir, I am tottering on the verge of forgetfulness as to your exalted position in the world of science, and your gray hairs.”
The professor sat in silence for a few minutes, and the darkness hid the grim smile that wreathed his wrinkled countenance. Presently he spoke.
“Look here, Skinny Philander,” he said, in belligerent tones, “if you are lookin’ for a scrap, peel off your coat and come on down on the ground, and I’ll
punch your head just as I did sixty years ago in the alley back of Porky Evans’ barn.”
“Ark!” gasped the astonished Mr. Philander. “Lordy, how good that sounds! When you’re human, Ark, I love you; but somehow it seems as though you had forgotten how to be human for the last twenty years.”
The professor reached out a thin, trembling old hand through the darkness until it found his old friend’s shoulder.
“Forgive me, Skinny,” he said, softly. “It hasn’t been quite twenty years, and God alone knows how hard I have tried to be ‘human’ for Jane’s sake, and yours, too, since He took my other Jane away.”
Another old hand stole up from Mr. Philander’s side to clasp the one that lay upon his shoulder, and no other message could better have translated the one heart to the other.
They did not speak for some minutes. The lion below them paced nervously back and forth. The third figure in the tree was hidden by the dense shadows near the stem. He, too, was silent—motionless as a graven image.
“You certainly pulled me up into this tree just in time,” said the professor at last. “I want to thank you. You saved my life.”
“But I didn’t pull you up here, Professor,” said Mr. Philander. “Bless me! The excitement of the moment quite caused me to forget that I myself was drawn up here by some outside agency—there must be someone or something in this tree with us.”
“Eh?” ejaculated Professor Porter. “Are you quite positive, Mr. Philander?”
“Most positive, Professor,” replied Mr. Philander, “and,” he added, “I think we should thank the party. He may be sitting right next to you now, Professor.”
“Eh? What’s that? Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!” said Professor Porter, edging cautiously nearer to Mr. Philander.
Just then it occurred to Tarzan of the Apes that Numa had loitered beneath the tree for a sufficient length of time, so he raised his young head toward the heavens, and there rang out upon the terrified ears of the two old men the awful warning challenge of the anthropoid.