Chapter XXVI
The Height of Civilization
Another month brought them to a little group of buildings at the mouthof a wide river, and there Tarzan saw many boats, and was filled withthe timidity of the wild thing by the sight of many men.
Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises and the odd waysof civilization, so that presently none might know that two shortmonths before, this handsome Frenchman in immaculate white ducks, wholaughed and chatted with the gayest of them, had been swinging nakedthrough primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which, raw,was to fill his savage belly.
The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month before,Tarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did the polished D'Arnot.
So apt a pupil had he been that the young Frenchman had laboredassiduously to make of Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentleman in sofar as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.
"God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend," D'Arnot had said; "butwe want His works to show upon the exterior also."
As soon as they had reached the little port, D'Arnot had cabled hisgovernment of his safety, and requested a three-months' leave, whichhad been granted.
He had also cabled his bankers for funds, and the enforced wait of amonth, under which both chafed, was due to their inability to charter avessel for the return to Tarzan's jungle after the treasure.
During their stay at the coast town "Monsieur Tarzan" became the wonderof both whites and blacks because of several occurrences which toTarzan seemed the merest of nothings.
Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck and terrorized thetown, until his evil star had led him to where the black-haired Frenchgiant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.
Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, the Negro madestraight for a party of four men sitting at a table sipping theinevitable absinthe.
Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then the blackspied Tarzan.
With a roar he charged the ape-man, while half a hundred heads peeredfrom sheltering windows and doorways to witness the butchering of thepoor Frenchman by the giant black.
Tarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of battlealways brought to his lips.
As the Negro closed upon him, steel muscles gripped the black wrist ofthe uplifted knife-hand, and a single swift wrench left the handdangling below a broken bone.
With the pain and surprise, the madness left the black man, and asTarzan dropped back into his chair the fellow turned, crying withagony, and dashed wildly toward the native village.
On another occasion as Tarzan and D'Arnot sat at dinner with a numberof other whites, the talk fell upon lions and lion hunting.
Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the king of beasts--somemaintaining that he was an arrant coward, but all agreeing that it waswith a feeling of greater security that they gripped their expressrifles when the monarch of the jungle roared about a camp at night.
D'Arnot and Tarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret, and so noneother than the French officer knew of the ape-man's familiarity withthe beasts of the jungle.
"Monsieur Tarzan has not expressed himself," said one of the party. "Aman of his prowess who has spent some time in Africa, as I understandMonsieur Tarzan has, must have had experiences with lions--yes?"
"Some," replied Tarzan, dryly. "Enough to know that each of you areright in your judgment of the characteristics of the lions--you havemet. But one might as well judge all blacks by the fellow who ranamuck last week, or decide that all whites are cowards because one hasmet a cowardly white.
"There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlemen, asthere is among ourselves. Today we may go out and stumble upon a lionwhich is over-timid--he runs away from us. To-morrow we may meet hisuncle or his twin brother, and our friends wonder why we do not returnfrom the jungle. For myself, I always assume that a lion is ferocious,and so I am never caught off my guard."
"There would be little pleasure in hunting," retorted the firstspeaker, "if one is afraid of the thing he hunts."
D'Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!
"I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear," said Tarzan."Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me theonly pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing haspower to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with acouple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, tohunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and sothe pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to theincreased safety which I felt."
"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go nakedinto the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king ofbeasts," laughed the other, good naturedly, but with the merest touchof sarcasm in his tone.
"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan.
Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant jungle, asthough to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with him.
"There is your opportunity, Monsieur Tarzan," bantered the Frenchman.
"I am not hungry," said Tarzan simply.
The men laughed, all but D'Arnot. He alone knew that a savage beasthad spoken its simple reason through the lips of the ape-man.
"But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out there naked,armed only with a knife and a piece of rope," said the banterer. "Isit not so?"
"No," replied Tarzan. "Only a fool performs any act without reason."
"Five thousand francs is a reason," said the other. "I wager you thatamount you cannot bring back a lion from the jungle under theconditions we have named--naked and armed only with a knife and a pieceof rope."
Tarzan glanced toward D'Arnot and nodded his head.
"Make it ten thousand," said D'Arnot.
"Done," replied the other.
Tarzan arose.
"I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement, sothat if I do not return before daylight I shall have something to wearthrough the streets."
"You are not going now," exclaimed the wagerer--"at night?"
"Why not?" asked Tarzan. "Numa walks abroad at night--it will beeasier to find him."
"No," said the other, "I do not want your blood upon my hands. It willbe foolhardy enough if you go forth by day."
"I shall go now," replied Tarzan, and went to his room for his knifeand rope.
The men accompanied him to the edge of the jungle, where he left hisclothes in a small storehouse.
But when he would have entered the blackness of the undergrowth theytried to dissuade him; and the wagerer was most insistent of all thathe abandon his foolhardy venture.
"I will accede that you have won," he said, "and the ten thousandfrancs are yours if you will but give up this foolish attempt, whichcan only end in your death."
Tarzan laughed, and in another moment the jungle had swallowed him.
The men stood silent for some moments and then slowly turned and walkedback to the hotel veranda.
Tarzan had no sooner entered the jungle than he took to the trees, andit was with a feeling of exultant freedom that he swung once morethrough the forest branches.
This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing likethis in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictionsand conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance.
At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been.
How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then make towardthe south and his own jungle and cabin.
Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling up wind.Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound of padded feet andthe brushing of a huge, fur-clad body through the undergrowth.
Tarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently stalkedhim until he came into a little patch of moonlight.
Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and,as he had
done it a hundred times in the past, Tarzan made fast the endto a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom,dropped to the ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back,plunged his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.
Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised his voice in theawesome victory cry of his savage tribe.
For a moment Tarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting emotions ofloyalty to D'Arnot and a mighty lust for the freedom of his own jungle.At last the vision of a beautiful face, and the memory of warm lipscrushed to his dissolved the fascinating picture he had been drawing ofhis old life.
The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across his shoulders andtook to the trees once more.
The men upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.
They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects, andalways the thing uppermost in the mind of each had caused theconversation to lapse.
"MON DIEU," said the wagerer at length, "I can endure it no longer. Iam going into the jungle with my express and bring back that mad man."
"I will go with you," said one.
"And I"--"And I"--"And I," chorused the others.
As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some horrid nightmarethey hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headedtoward the jungle--each one heavily armed.
"God! What was that?" suddenly cried one of the party, an Englishman,as Tarzan's savage cry came faintly to their ears.
"I heard the same thing once before," said a Belgian, "when I was inthe gorilla country. My carriers said it was the cry of a great bullape who has made a kill."
D'Arnot remembered Clayton's description of the awful roar with whichTarzan had announced his kills, and he half smiled in spite of thehorror which filled him to think that the uncanny sound could haveissued from a human throat--from the lips of his friend.
As the party stood finally near the edge of the jungle, debating as tothe best distribution of their forces, they were startled by a lowlaugh near them, and turning, beheld advancing toward them a giantfigure bearing a dead lion upon its broad shoulders.
Even D'Arnot was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossible that the mancould have so quickly dispatched a lion with the pitiful weapons he hadtaken, or that alone he could have borne the huge carcass through thetangled jungle.
The men crowded about Tarzan with many questions, but his only answerwas a laughing depreciation of his feat.
To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for hisheroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed so often for food andfor self-preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable tohim. But he was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men--men accustomedto hunting big game.
Incidentally, he had won ten thousand francs, for D'Arnot insisted thathe keep it all.
This was a very important item to Tarzan, who was just commencing torealize the power which lay beyond the little pieces of metal and paperwhich always changed hands when human beings rode, or ate, or slept, orclothed themselves, or drank, or worked, or played, or shelteredthemselves from the rain or cold or sun.
It had become evident to Tarzan that without money one must die.D'Arnot had told him not to worry, since he had more than enough forboth, but the ape-man was learning many things and one of them was thatpeople looked down upon one who accepted money from another withoutgiving something of equal value in exchange.
Shortly after the episode of the lion hunt, D'Arnot succeeded inchartering an ancient tub for the coastwise trip to Tarzan'sland-locked harbor.
It was a happy morning for them both when the little vessel weighedanchor and made for the open sea.
The trip to the beach was uneventful, and the morning after theydropped anchor before the cabin, Tarzan, garbed once more in his jungleregalia and carrying a spade, set out alone for the amphitheater of theapes where lay the treasure.
Late the next day he returned, bearing the great chest upon hisshoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel worked through the harbor'smouth and took up her northward journey.
Three weeks later Tarzan and D'Arnot were passengers on board a Frenchsteamer bound for Lyons, and after a few days in that city D'Arnot tookTarzan to Paris.
The ape-man was anxious to proceed to America, but D'Arnot insistedthat he must accompany him to Paris first, nor would he divulge thenature of the urgent necessity upon which he based his demand.
One of the first things which D'Arnot accomplished after their arrivalwas to arrange to visit a high official of the police department, anold friend; and to take Tarzan with him.
Adroitly D'Arnot led the conversation from point to point until thepoliceman had explained to the interested Tarzan many of the methods invogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.
Not the least interesting to Tarzan was the part played by fingerprints in this fascinating science.
"But of what value are these imprints," asked Tarzan, "when, after afew years the lines upon the fingers are entirely changed by thewearing out of the old tissue and the growth of new?"
"The lines never change," replied the official. "From infancy tosenility the fingerprints of an individual change only in size, exceptas injuries alter the loops and whorls. But if imprints have beentaken of the thumb and four fingers of both hands one must needs loseall entirely to escape identification."
"It is marvelous," exclaimed D'Arnot. "I wonder what the lines upon myown fingers may resemble."
"We can soon see," replied the police officer, and ringing a bell hesummoned an assistant to whom he issued a few directions.
The man left the room, but presently returned with a little hardwoodbox which he placed on his superior's desk.
"Now," said the officer, "you shall have your fingerprints in a second."
He drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a little tube ofthick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.
Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass, he spread it back and forthwith the rubber roller until the entire surface of the glass wascovered to his satisfaction with a very thin and uniform layer of ink.
"Place the four fingers of your right hand upon the glass, thus," hesaid to D'Arnot. "Now the thumb. That is right. Now place them injust the same position upon this card, here, no--a little to the right.We must leave room for the thumb and the fingers of the left hand.There, that's it. Now the same with the left."
"Come, Tarzan," cried D'Arnot, "let's see what your whorls look like."
Tarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the officer duringthe operation.
"Do fingerprints show racial characteristics?" he asked. "Could youdetermine, for example, solely from fingerprints whether the subjectwas Negro or Caucasian?"
"I think not," replied the officer.
"Could the finger prints of an ape be detected from those of a man?"
"Probably, because the ape's would be far simpler than those of thehigher organism."
"But a cross between an ape and a man might show the characteristics ofeither progenitor?" continued Tarzan.
"Yes, I should think likely," responded the official; "but the sciencehas not progressed sufficiently to render it exact enough in suchmatters. I should hate to trust its findings further than todifferentiate between individuals. There it is absolute. No twopeople born into the world probably have ever had identical lines uponall their digits. It is very doubtful if any single fingerprint willever be exactly duplicated by any finger other than the one whichoriginally made it."
"Does the comparison require much time or labor?" asked D'Arnot.
"Ordinarily but a few moments, if the impressions are distinct."
D'Arnot drew a little black book from his pocket and commenced turningthe pages.
Tarzan looked at the book in surprise. How did D'Arnot come to havehis book?
Presently D'Arnot stopped at a page on which were five tiny littlesmudges.
He handed the
open book to the policeman.
"Are these imprints similar to mine or Monsieur Tarzan's or can you saythat they are identical with either?" The officer drew a powerful glassfrom his desk and examined all three specimens carefully, makingnotations meanwhile upon a pad of paper.
Tarzan realized now what was the meaning of their visit to the policeofficer.
The answer to his life's riddle lay in these tiny marks.
With tense nerves he sat leaning forward in his chair, but suddenly herelaxed and dropped back, smiling.
D'Arnot looked at him in surprise.
"You forget that for twenty years the dead body of the child who madethose fingerprints lay in the cabin of his father, and that all my lifeI have seen it lying there," said Tarzan bitterly.
The policeman looked up in astonishment.
"Go ahead, captain, with your examination," said D'Arnot, "we will tellyou the story later--provided Monsieur Tarzan is agreeable."
Tarzan nodded his head.
"But you are mad, my dear D'Arnot," he insisted. "Those little fingersare buried on the west coast of Africa."
"I do not know as to that, Tarzan," replied D'Arnot. "It is possible,but if you are not the son of John Clayton then how in heaven's namedid you come into that God forsaken jungle where no white man otherthan John Clayton had ever set foot?"
"You forget--Kala," said Tarzan.
"I do not even consider her," replied D'Arnot.
The friends had walked to the broad window overlooking the boulevard asthey talked. For some time they stood there gazing out upon the busythrong beneath, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
"It takes some time to compare finger prints," thought D'Arnot, turningto look at the police officer.
To his astonishment he saw the official leaning back in his chairhastily scanning the contents of the little black diary.
D'Arnot coughed. The policeman looked up, and, catching his eye,raised his finger to admonish silence. D'Arnot turned back to thewindow, and presently the police officer spoke.
"Gentlemen," he said.
Both turned toward him.
"There is evidently a great deal at stake which must hinge to a greateror lesser extent upon the absolute correctness of this comparison. Itherefore ask that you leave the entire matter in my hands untilMonsieur Desquerc, our expert returns. It will be but a matter of afew days."
"I had hoped to know at once," said D'Arnot. "Monsieur Tarzan sailsfor America tomorrow."
"I will promise that you can cable him a report within two weeks,"replied the officer; "but what it will be I dare not say. There areresemblances, yet--well, we had better leave it for Monsieur Desquercto solve."