Chapter 11
"King of the Apes"
It was not yet dark when he reached the tribe, though he
stopped to exhume and devour the remains of the wild
boar he had cached the preceding day, and again to take
Kulonga's bow and arrows from the tree top in which he had
hidden them.
It was a well-laden Tarzan who dropped from the branches
into the midst of the tribe of Kerchak.
With swelling chest he narrated the glories of his adventure
and exhibited the spoils of conquest.
Kerchak grunted and turned away, for he was jealous of
this strange member of his band. In his little evil brain he
sought for some excuse to wreak his hatred upon Tarzan.
The next day Tarzan was practicing with his bow and arrows
at the first gleam of dawn. At first he lost nearly every
bolt he shot, but finally he learned to guide the little shafts
with fair accuracy, and ere a month had passed he was no
mean shot; but his proficiency had cost him nearly his entire
supply of arrows.
The tribe continued to find the hunting good in the vicinity
of the beach, and so Tarzan of the Apes varied his archery
practice with further investigation of his father's choice
though little store of books.
It was during this period that the young English Lord found
hidden in the back of one of the cupboards in the cabin a
small metal box. The key was in the lock, and a few moments
of investigation and experimentation were rewarded
with the successful opening of the receptacle.
In it he found a faded photograph of a smooth faced
young man, a golden locket studded with diamonds, linked to
a small gold chain, a few letters and a small book.
Tarzan examined these all minutely.
The photograph he liked most of all, for the eyes were
smiling, and the face was open and frank. It was his father.
The locket, too, took his fancy, and he placed the chain
about his neck in imitation of the ornamentation he had seen
to be so common among the black men he had visited. The
brilliant stones gleamed strangely against his smooth, brown hide.
The letters he could scarcely decipher for he had learned
little or nothing of script, so he put them back in the box
with the photograph and turned his attention to the book.
This was almost entirely filled with fine script, but while
the little bugs were all familiar to him, their arrangement and
the combinations in which they occurred were strange, and
entirely incomprehensible.
Tarzan had long since learned the use of the dictionary,
but much to his sorrow and perplexity it proved of no avail
to him in this emergency. Not a word of all that was writ in
the book could he find, and so he put it back in the metal
box, but with a determination to work out the mysteries of it
later on.
Little did he know that this book held between its covers
the key to his origin--the answer to the strange riddle of
his strange life. It was the diary of John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke--kept in French, as had always been his custom.
Tarzan replaced the box in the cupboard, but always thereafter
he carried the features of the strong, smiling face of his
father in his heart, and in his head a fixed determination to
solve the mystery of the strange words in the little black book.
At present he had more important business in hand, for his
supply of arrows was exhausted, and he must needs journey
to the black men's village and renew it.
Early the following morning he set out, and, traveling
rapidly, he came before midday to the clearing. Once more he
took up his position in the great tree, and, as before, he saw
the women in the fields and the village street, and the cauldron
of bubbling poison directly beneath him.
For hours he lay awaiting his opportunity to drop down
unseen and gather up the arrows for which he had come; but
nothing now occurred to call the villagers away from their
homes. The day wore on, and still Tarzan of the Apes
crouched above the unsuspecting woman at the cauldron.
Presently the workers in the fields returned. The hunting
warriors emerged from the forest, and when all were within
the palisade the gates were closed and barred.
Many cooking pots were now in evidence about the village.
Before each hut a woman presided over a boiling stew, while
little cakes of plantain, and cassava puddings were to be seen
on every hand.
Suddenly there came a hail from the edge of the clearing.
Tarzan looked.
It was a party of belated hunters returning from the north,
and among them they half led, half carried a struggling animal.
As they approached the village the gates were thrown open
to admit them, and then, as the people saw the victim of the
chase, a savage cry rose to the heavens, for the quarry was a man.
As he was dragged, still resisting, into the village street, the
women and children set upon him with sticks and stones, and
Tarzan of the Apes, young and savage beast of the jungle,
wondered at the cruel brutality of his own kind.
Sheeta, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured
his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and
merciful death to their victims.
Tarzan had learned from his books but scattered fragments
of the ways of human beings.
When he had followed Kulonga through the forest he had
expected to come to a city of strange houses on wheels,
puffing clouds of black smoke from a huge tree stuck in the
roof of one of them--or to a sea covered with mighty floating
buildings which he had learned were called, variously, ships
and boats and steamers and craft.
He had been sorely disappointed with the poor little village
of the blacks, hidden away in his own jungle, and with not a
single house as large as his own cabin upon the distant beach.
He saw that these people were more wicked than his own apes,
and as savage and cruel as Sabor, herself. Tarzan began
to hold his own kind in low esteem.
Now they had tied their poor victim to a great post near
the center of the village, directly before Mbonga's hut, and
here they formed a dancing, yelling circle of warriors about
him, alive with flashing knives and menacing spears.
In a larger circle squatted the women, yelling and beating
upon drums. It reminded Tarzan of the Dum-Dum, and so he
knew what to expect. He wondered if they would spring upon
their meat while it was still alive. The Apes did not do such
things as that.
The circle of warriors about the cringing captive drew closer
and closer to their prey as they danced in wild and savage
abandon to the maddening music of the drums. Presently
a spear reached out and pricked the victim. It was the signal
for fifty others.
Eyes, ears, arms and legs were pierced; every inch of the
poor writhing body that did not cover a vital organ became
the target of the cruel lancers.
The women and children shrieked their delight.
The warriors licked their hideous lips in anticipation of the
feast to come, and vied with one another in the savagery and
loathsomeness of the cruel indignities with which they tortured
the still conscious prisoner.
Then it was that Tarzan of the Apes saw his chance. All eyes
were fixed upon the thrilling spectacle at the stake. The
light of day had given place to the darkness of a moonless night,
and only the fires in the immediate vicinity of the orgy had
been kept alight to cast a restless glow upon the restless scene.
Gently the lithe boy dropped to the soft earth at the end of
the village street. Quickly he gathered up the arrows--all of
them this time, for he had brought a number of long fibers to
bind them into a bundle.
Without haste he wrapped them securely, and then, ere he
turned to leave, the devil of capriciousness entered his heart.
He looked about for some hint of a wild prank to play upon
these strange, grotesque creatures that they might be again
aware of his presence among them.
Dropping his bundle of arrows at the foot of the tree, Tarzan
crept among the shadows at the side of the street until he
came to the same hut he had entered on the occasion of his
first visit.
Inside all was darkness, but his groping hands soon found
the object for which he sought, and without further delay he
turned again toward the door.
He had taken but a step, however, ere his quick ear caught
the sound of approaching footsteps immediately without. In
another instant the figure of a woman darkened the entrance
of the hut.
Tarzan drew back silently to the far wall, and his hand
sought the long, keen hunting knife of his father. The woman
came quickly to the center of the hut. There she paused for
an instant feeling about with her hands for the thing she
sought. Evidently it was not in its accustomed place, for she
explored ever nearer and nearer the wall where Tarzan stood.
So close was she now that the ape-man felt the animal
warmth of her naked body. Up went the hunting knife, and
then the woman turned to one side and soon a guttural "ah"
proclaimed that her search had at last been successful.
Immediately she turned and left the hut, and as she passed
through the doorway Tarzan saw that she carried a cooking
pot in her hand.
He followed closely after her, and as he reconnoitered
from the shadows of the doorway he saw that all the women
of the village were hastening to and from the various huts
with pots and kettles. These they were filling with water and
placing over a number of fires near the stake where the dying
victim now hung, an inert and bloody mass of suffering.
Choosing a moment when none seemed near, Tarzan hastened
to his bundle of arrows beneath the great tree at
the end of the village street. As on the former occasion he
overthrew the cauldron before leaping, sinuous and catlike,
into the lower branches of the forest giant.
Silently he climbed to a great height until he found a point
where he could look through a leafy opening upon the scene
beneath him.
The women were now preparing the prisoner for their cooking
pots, while the men stood about resting after the fatigue of
their mad revel. Comparative quiet reigned in the village.
Tarzan raised aloft the thing he had pilfered from the hut,
and, with aim made true by years of fruit and coconut throwing,
launched it toward the group of savages.
Squarely among them it fell, striking one of the warriors
full upon the head and felling him to the ground. Then it
rolled among the women and stopped beside the half-butchered
thing they were preparing to feast upon.
All gazed in consternation at it for an instant, and then,
with one accord, broke and ran for their huts.
It was a grinning human skull which looked up at them from
the ground. The dropping of the thing out of the open sky
was a miracle well aimed to work upon their superstitious fears.
Thus Tarzan of the Apes left them filled with terror at this
new manifestation of the presence of some unseen and unearthly
evil power which lurked in the forest about their village.
Later, when they discovered the overturned cauldron, and
that once more their arrows had been pilfered, it commenced
to dawn upon them that they had offended some great god by
placing their village in this part of the jungle without
propitiating him. From then on an offering of food was daily
placed below the great tree from whence the arrows had
disappeared in an effort to conciliate the mighty one.
But the seed of fear was deep sown, and had he but known
it, Tarzan of the Apes had laid the foundation for much
future misery for himself and his tribe.
That night he slept in the forest not far from the village,
and early the next morning set out slowly on his homeward
march, hunting as he traveled. Only a few berries and an
occasional grub worm rewarded his search, and he was half
famished when, looking up from a log he had been rooting
beneath, he saw Sabor, the lioness, standing in the center
of the trail not twenty paces from him.
The great yellow eyes were fixed upon him with a wicked
and baleful gleam, and the red tongue licked the longing lips
as Sabor crouched, worming her stealthy way with belly
flattened against the earth.
Tarzan did not attempt to escape. He welcomed the
opportunity for which, in fact, he had been searching for
days past, now that he was armed with something more than a
rope of grass.
Quickly he unslung his bow and fitted a well-daubed arrow,
and as Sabor sprang, the tiny missile leaped to meet her
in mid-air. At the same instant Tarzan of the Apes jumped
to one side, and as the great cat struck the ground beyond
him another death-tipped arrow sunk deep into Sabor's loin.
With a mighty roar the beast turned and charged once
more, only to be met with a third arrow full in one eye; but
this time she was too close to the ape-man for the latter to
sidestep the onrushing body.
Tarzan of the Apes went down beneath the great body of
his enemy, but with gleaming knife drawn and striking home.
For a moment they lay there, and then Tarzan realized that
the inert mass lying upon him was beyond power ever again
to injure man or ape.
With difficulty he wriggled from beneath the great weight,
and as he stood erect and gazed down upon the trophy of his
skill, a mighty wave of exultation swept over him.
With swelling breast, he placed a foot upon the body of his
powerful enemy, and throwing back his fine young head,
roared out the awful challenge of the victorious bull ape.
The forest echoed to the savage and triumphant paean.
Birds fell still, and the larger animals and beasts of prey
slunk stealthily away, for few there were of all the jungle
who sought for trouble with the great anthropoids.
And in London another Lord Greystoke was speaking to
HIS kind in the House of Lords, but none trembled at the
sound of his soft voice.
Sabor proved unsavory eating even to Tarzan of the Apes,
but hunger served as a most efficacious disguise to toughness
and rank taste, and ere long, with well-filled stomach, the
ape-man was ready to sleep again. First, however, he must
remove the hide, for it was as much for this as for any other
purpose that he had desired to destroy Sabor.
Deftly he removed the great pelt, for he had practiced
often on smaller animals. When the task was finished he
carried his trophy to the fork of a high tree, and there,
curling himself securely in a crotch, he fell into deep and
dreamless slumber.
What with loss of sleep, arduous exercise, and a full belly,
Tarzan of the Apes slept the sun around, awakening about
noon of the following day. He straightway repaired to the
carcass of Sabor, but was angered to find the bones picked
clean by other hungry denizens of the jungle.
Half an hour's leisurely progress through the forest
brought to sight a young deer, and before the little creature
knew that an enemy was near a tiny arrow had lodged in its neck.
So quickly the virus worked that at the end of a dozen
leaps the deer plunged headlong into the undergrowth, dead.
Again did Tarzan feast well, but this time he did not sleep.
Instead, he hastened on toward the point where he had left
the tribe, and when he had found them proudly exhibited the
skin of Sabor, the lioness.
"Look!" he cried, "Apes of Kerchak. See what Tarzan, the
mighty killer, has done. Who else among you has ever killed
one of Numa's people? Tarzan is mightiest amongst you for
Tarzan is no ape. Tarzan is--" But here he stopped, for in the
language of the anthropoids there was no word for man, and
Tarzan could only write the word in English; he could not
pronounce it.
The tribe had gathered about to look upon the proof of his
wondrous prowess, and to listen to his words.
Only Kerchak hung back, nursing his hatred and his rage.
Suddenly something snapped in the wicked little brain of
the anthropoid. With a frightful roar the great beast sprang
among the assemblage.
Biting, and striking with his huge hands, he killed and
maimed a dozen ere the balance could escape to the upper
terraces of the forest.
Frothing and shrieking in the insanity of his fury, Kerchak
looked about for the object of his greatest hatred, and there,
upon a near-by limb, he saw him sitting.
"Come down, Tarzan, great killer," cried Kerchak. "Come
down and feel the fangs of a greater! Do mighty fighters fly
to the trees at the first approach of danger?" And then Kerchak
emitted the volleying challenge of his kind.
Quietly Tarzan dropped to the ground. Breathlessly the
tribe watched from their lofty perches as Kerchak, still
roaring, charged the relatively puny figure.
Nearly seven feet stood Kerchak on his short legs. His
enormous shoulders were bunched and rounded with huge
muscles. The back of his short neck was as a single lump of
iron sinew which bulged beyond the base of his skull, so that
his head seemed like a small ball protruding from a huge
mountain of flesh.
His back-drawn, snarling lips exposed his great fighting
fangs, and his little, wicked, blood-shot eyes gleamed in
horrid reflection of his madness.
Awaiting him stood Tarzan, himself a mighty muscled animal,
but his six feet of height and his great rolling sinews
seemed pitifully inadequate to the ordeal which awaited them.
His bow and arrows lay some distance away where he had
dropped them while showing Sabor's hide to his fellow apes,
so that he confronted Kerchak now with only his hunting
knife and his superior intellect to offset the ferocious
strength of his enemy.
As his antagonist came roaring toward him, Lord Greystoke
tore his long knife from its sheath, and with an answering
challenge as horrid and bloodcurdling as that of the beast
he faced, rushed swiftly to meet the attack. He was too
shrewd to allow those long hairy arms to encircle him, and
just as their bodies were about to crash together, Tarzan of
the Apes grasped one of the huge wrists of his assailant, and,
springing lightly to one side, drove his knife to the hilt into
Kerchak's body, below the heart.
Before he could wrench the blade free again, the bull's
quick lunge to seize him in those awful arms had torn the
weapon from Tarzan's grasp.
Kerchak aimed a terrific blow at the ape-man's head with the
flat of his hand, a blow which, had it landed, might easily
have crushed in the side of Tarzan's skull.
The man was too quick, and, ducking beneath it, himself
delivered a mighty one, with clenched fist, in the pit of
Kerchak's stomach.
The ape was staggered, and what with the mortal wound in
his side had almost collapsed, when, with one mighty effort
he rallied for an instant--just long enough to enable him to
wrest his arm free from Tarzan's grasp and close in a terrific
clinch with his wiry opponent.
Straining the ape-man close to him, his great jaws sought
Tarzan's throat, but the young lord's sinewy fingers were at
Kerchak's own before the cruel fangs could close on the sleek
brown skin.
Thus they struggled, the one to crush out his opponent's
life with those awful teeth, the other to close forever the
windpipe beneath his strong grasp while he held the snarling
mouth from him.
The greater strength of the ape was slowly prevailing, and
the teeth of the straining beast were scarce an inch from
Tarzan's throat when, with a shuddering tremor, the great body
stiffened for an instant and then sank limply to the ground.
Kerchak was dead.
Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him
master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the
Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy,
and once again, loud through the forest rang the fierce, wild
cry of the conqueror.
And thus came the young Lord Greystoke into the kingship of the Apes.
Tarzan of the Apes Chapter 10 ...
Tarzan of the Apes Chapter 12