19

Tarzan the Terrible

by Edgar R. Burroughs

19, TARZAN THE TERRIBLE by Edgar R. Burroughs
An eText from LiteratureClassics.com.

Please see the eText readme for important copyright information (available from the options menu above if you are browsing online or as a separate file in the archive if you are browsing offline.)



Diana of the Jungle

JANE had made her first kill and she was very proud of it. It
was not a very formidable animal--only a hare; but it marked an
epoch in her existence. Just as in the dim past the first hunter
had shaped the destinies of mankind so it seemed that this event
might shape hers in some new mold. No longer was she dependent
upon the wild fruits and vegetables for sustenance. Now she might
command meat, the giver of the strength and endurance she would
require successfully to cope with the necessities of her
primitive existence.

The next step was fire. She might learn to eat raw flesh as had
her lord and master; but she shrank from that. The thought even
was repulsive. She had, however, a plan for fire. She had given
the matter thought, but had been too busy to put it into
execution so long as fire could be of no immediate use to her.
Now it was different--she had something to cook and her mouth
watered for the flesh of her kill. She would grill it above
glowing embers. Jane hastened to her tree. Among the treasures
she had gathered in the bed of the stream were several pieces of
volcanic glass, clear as crystal. She sought until she had found
the one in mind, which was convex. Then she hurried to the ground
and gathered a little pile of powdered bark that was very dry,
and some dead leaves and grasses that had lain long in the hot
sun. Near at hand she arranged a supply of dead twigs and
branches--small and large.

Vibrant with suppressed excitement she held the bit of glass
above the tinder, moving it slowly until she had focused the
sun's rays upon a tiny spot. She waited breathlessly. How slow it
was! Were her high hopes to be dashed in spite of all her clever
planning? No! A thin thread of smoke rose gracefully into the
quiet air. Presently the tinder glowed and broke suddenly into
flame. Jane clasped her hands beneath her chin with a little
gurgling exclamation of delight. She had achieved fire!

She piled on twigs and then larger branches and at last dragged a
small log to the flames and pushed an end of it into the fire
which was crackling merrily. It was the sweetest sound that she
had heard for many a month. But she could not wait for the mass
of embers that would be required to cook her hare. As quickly as
might be she skinned and cleaned her kill, burying the hide and
entrails. That she had learned from Tarzan. It served two
purposes. One was the necessity for keeping a sanitary camp and
the other the obliteration of the scent that most quickly
attracts the man-eaters.

Then she ran a stick through the carcass and held it above the
flames. By turning it often she prevented burning and at the same
time permitted the meat to cook thoroughly all the way through.
When it was done she scampered high into the safety of her tree
to enjoy her meal in quiet and peace. Never, thought Lady
Greystoke, had aught more delicious passed her lips. She patted
her spear affectionately. It had brought her this toothsome
dainty and with it a feeling of greater confidence and safety
than she had enjoyed since that frightful day that she and
Obergatz had spent their last cartridge. She would never forget
that day--it had seemed one hideous succession of frightful beast
after frightful beast. They had not been long in this strange
country, yet they thought that they were hardened to dangers, for
daily they had had encounters with ferocious creatures; but this
day--she shuddered when she thought of it. And with her last
cartridge she had killed a black and yellow striped lion-thing
with great saber teeth just as it was about to spring upon
Obergatz who had futilely emptied his rifle into it--the last
shot--his final cartridge. For another day they had carried the
now useless rifles; but at last they had discarded them and
thrown away the cumbersome bandoleers, as well. How they had
managed to survive during the ensuing week she could never quite
understand, and then the Ho-don had come upon them and captured
her. Obergatz had escaped--she was living it all over again.
Doubtless he was dead unless he had been able to reach this side
of the valley which was quite evidently less overrun with savage
beasts.

Jane's days were very full ones now, and the daylight hours
seemed all too short in which to accomplish the many things she
had determined upon, since she had concluded that this spot
presented as ideal a place as she could find to live until she
could fashion the weapons she considered necessary for the
obtaining of meat and for self-defense.

She felt that she must have, in addition to a good spear, a
knife, and bow and arrows. Possibly when these had been achieved
she might seriously consider an attempt to fight her way to one
of civilization's nearest outposts. In the meantime it was
necessary to construct some sort of protective shelter in which
she might feel a greater sense of security by night, for she knew
that there was a possibility that any night she might receive a
visit from a prowling panther, although she had as yet seen none
upon this side of the valley. Aside from this danger she felt
comparatively safe in her aerial retreat.

The cutting of the long poles for her home occupied all of the
daylight hours that were not engaged in the search for food.
These poles she carried high into her tree and with them
constructed a flooring across two stout branches binding the
poles together and also to the branches with fibers from the
tough arboraceous grasses that grew in profusion near the stream.
Similarly she built walls and a roof, the latter thatched with
many layers of great leaves. The fashioning of the barred windows
and the door were matters of great importance and consuming
interest. The windows, there were two of them, were large and the
bars permanently fixed; but the door was small, the opening just
large enough to permit her to pass through easily on hands and
knees, which made it easier to barricade. She lost count of the
days that the house cost her; but time was a cheap commodity--she
had more of it than of anything else. It meant so little to her
that she had not even any desire to keep account of it. How long
since she and Obergatz had fled from the wrath of the Negro
villagers she did not know and she could only roughly guess at
the seasons. She worked hard for two reasons; one was to hasten
the completion of her little place of refuge, and the other a
desire for such physical exhaustion at night that she would sleep
through those dreaded hours to a new day. As a matter of fact the
house was finished in less than a week--that is, it was made as
safe as it ever would be, though regardless of how long she might
occupy it she would keep on adding touches and refinements here
and there.

Her daily life was filled with her house building and her
hunting, to which was added an occasional spice of excitement
contributed by roving lions. To the woodcraft that she had
learned from Tarzan, that master of the art, was added a
considerable store of practical experience derived from her own
past adventures in the jungle and the long months with Obergatz,
nor was any day now lacking in some added store of useful
knowledge. To these facts was attributable her apparent immunity
from harm, since they told her when ja was approaching before he
crept close enough for a successful charge and, too, they kept
her close to those never-failing havens of retreat--the trees.

The nights, filled with their weird noises, were lonely and
depressing. Only her ability to sleep quickly and soundly made
them endurable. The first night that she spent in her completed
house behind barred windows and barricaded door was one of almost
undiluted peace and happiness. The night noises seemed far
removed and impersonal and the soughing of the wind in the trees
was gently soothing. Before, it had carried a mournful note and
was sinister in that it might hide the approach of some real
danger. That night she slept indeed.

She went further afield now in search of food. So far nothing but
rodents had fallen to her spear--her ambition was an antelope,
since beside the flesh it would give her, and the gut for her
bow, the hide would prove invaluable during the colder weather
that she knew would accompany the rainy season. She had caught
glimpses of these wary animals and was sure that they always
crossed the stream at a certain spot above her camp. It was to
this place that she went to hunt them. With the stealth and
cunning of a panther she crept through the forest, circling about
to get up wind from the ford, pausing often to look and listen
for aught that might menace her--herself the personification of
a hunted deer. Now she moved silently down upon the chosen spot.
What luck! A beautiful buck stood drinking in the stream. The
woman wormed her way closer. Now she lay upon her belly behind a
small bush within throwing distance of the quarry. She must rise
to her full height and throw her spear almost in the same instant
and she must throw it with great force and perfect accuracy. She
thrilled with the excitement of the minute, yet cool and steady
were her swift muscles as she rose and cast her missile. Scarce
by the width of a finger did the point strike from the spot at
which it had been directed. The buck leaped high, landed upon the
bank of the stream, and fell dead. Jane Clayton sprang quickly
forward toward her kill.

"Bravo!" A man's voice spoke in English from the shrubbery upon
the opposite side of the stream. Jane Clayton halted in her
tracks--stunned, almost, by surprise. And then a strange, unkempt
figure of a man stepped into view. At first she did not recognize
him, but when she did, instinctively she stepped back.

"Lieutenant Obergatz!" she cried. "Can it be you?"

"It can. It is," replied the German. "I am a strange sight, no
doubt; but still it is I, Erich Obergatz. And you? You have
changed too, is it not?"

He was looking at her naked limbs and her golden breastplates,
the loin cloth of jato-hide, the harness and ornaments that
constitute the apparel of a Ho-don woman--the things that Lu-don
had dressed her in as his passion for her grew. Not Ko-tan's
daughter, even, had finer trappings.

"But why are you here?" Jane insisted. "I had thought you safely
among civilized men by this time, if you still lived."

"Gott!" he exclaimed. "I do not know why I continue to live. I
have prayed to die and yet I cling to life. There is no hope. We
are doomed to remain in this horrible land until we die. The bog!
The frightful bog! I have searched its shores for a place to
cross until I have entirely circled the hideous country. Easily
enough we entered; but the rains have come since and now no
living man could pass that slough of slimy mud and hungry
reptiles. Have I not tried it! And the beasts that roam this
accursed land. They hunt me by day and by night."

"But how have you escaped them?" she asked.

"I do not know," he replied gloomily. "I have fled and fled and
fled. I have remained hungry and thirsty in tree tops for days at
a time. I have fashioned weapons--clubs and spears--and I have
learned to use them. I have slain a lion with my club. So even
will a cornered rat fight. And we are no better than rats in this
land of stupendous dangers, you and I. But tell me about
yourself. If it is surprising that I live, how much more so that
you still survive."

Briefly she told him and all the while she was wondering what she
might do to rid herself of him. She could not conceive of a
prolonged existence with him as her sole companion. Better, a
thousand times better, to be alone. Never had her hatred and
contempt for him lessened through the long weeks and months of
their constant companionship, and now that he could be of no
service in returning her to civilization, she shrank from the
thought of seeing him daily. And, too, she feared him. Never had
she trusted him; but now there was a strange light in his eye
that had not been there when last she saw him. She could not
interpret it--all she knew was that it gave her a feeling of
apprehension--a nameless dread.

"You lived long then in the city of A-lur?" he said, speaking in
the language of Pal-ul-don.

"You have learned this tongue?" she asked. "How?"

"I fell in with a band of half-breeds," he replied, "members of a
proscribed race that dwells in the rock-bound gut through which
the principal river of the valley empties into the morass. They
are called Waz-ho-don and their village is partly made up of cave
dwellings and partly of houses carved from the soft rock at the
foot of the cliff. They are very ignorant and superstitious and
when they first saw me and realized that I had no tail and that
my hands and feet were not like theirs they were afraid of me.
They thought that I was either god or demon. Being in a position
where I could neither escape them nor defend myself, I made a
bold front and succeeded in impressing them to such an extent
that they conducted me to their city, which they call Bu-lur, and
there they fed me and treated me with kindness. As I learned
their language I sought to impress them more and more with the
idea that I was a god, and I succeeded, too, until an old fellow
who was something of a priest among them, or medicine-man, became
jealous of my growing power. That was the beginning of the end
and came near to being the end in fact. He told them that if I
was a god I would not bleed if a knife was stuck into me--if I
did bleed it would prove conclusively that I was not a god.
Without my knowledge he arranged to stage the ordeal before the
whole village upon a certain night--it was upon one of those
numerous occasions when they eat and drink to Jad-ben-Otho, their
pagan deity. Under the influence of their vile liquor they would
be ripe for any bloodthirsty scheme the medicine-man might
evolve. One of the women told me about the plan--not with any
intent to warn me of danger, but prompted merely by feminine
curiosity as to whether or not I would bleed if stuck with a
dagger. She could not wait, it seemed, for the orderly procedure
of the ordeal--she wanted to know at once, and when I caught her
trying to slip a knife into my side and questioned her she
explained the whole thing with the utmost naivete.
The warriors already had commenced drinking--it would have been
futile to make any sort of appeal either to their intellects or
their superstitions. There was but one alternative to death and
that was flight. I told the woman that I was very much outraged
and offended at this reflection upon my godhood and that as a
mark of my disfavor I should abandon them to their fate.

"'I shall return to heaven at once!' I exclaimed.

"She wanted to hang around and see me go, but I told her that her
eyes would be blasted by the fire surrounding my departure and
that she must leave at once and not return to the spot for at
least an hour. I also impressed upon her the fact that should any
other approach this part of the village within that time not only
they, but she as well, would burst into flames and be consumed.

"She was very much impressed and lost no time in leaving, calling
back as she departed that if I were indeed gone in an hour she
and all the village would know that I was no less than
Jad-ben-Otho himself, and so they must thank me, for I can assure
you that I was gone in much less than an hour, nor have I
ventured close to the neighborhood of the city of Bu-lur since,"
and he fell to laughing in harsh, cackling notes that sent a
shiver through the woman's frame.

As Obergatz talked Jane had recovered her spear from the carcass
of the antelope and commenced busying herself with the removal of
the hide. The man made no attempt to assist her, but stood by
talking and watching her, the while he continually ran his filthy
fingers through his matted hair and beard. His face and body
were caked with dirt and he was naked except for a torn greasy
hide about his loins. His weapons consisted of a club and knife
of Waz-don pattern, that he had stolen from the city of Bu-lur;
but what more greatly concerned the woman than his filth or his
armament were his cackling laughter and the strange expression in
his eyes.

She went on with her work, however, removing those parts of the
buck she wanted, taking only as much meat as she might consume
before it spoiled, as she was not sufficiently a true jungle
creature to relish it beyond that stage, and then she
straightened up and faced the man.

"Lieutenant Obergatz," she said, "by a chance of accident we have
met again. Certainly you would not have sought the meeting any
more than I. We have nothing in common other than those
sentiments which may have been engendered by my natural dislike
and suspicion of you, one of the authors of all the misery and
sorrow that I have endured for endless months. This little corner
of the world is mine by right of discovery and occupation. Go
away and leave me to enjoy here what peace I may. It is the least
that you can do to amend the wrong that you have done me and
mine."

The man stared at her through his fishy eyes for a moment in
silence, then there broke from his lips a peal of mirthless,
uncanny laughter.

"Go away! Leave you alone!" he cried. "I have found you. We are
going to be good friends. There is no one else in the world but
us. No one will ever know what we do or what becomes of us and
now you ask me to go away and live alone in this hellish
solitude." Again he laughed, though neither the muscles of his
eyes or his mouth reflected any mirth--it was just a hollow sound
that imitated laughter.

"Remember your promise," she said.

"Promise! Promise! What are promises? They are made to be
broken--we taught the world that at Liege and Louvain.
No, no! I will not go away. I shall stay and protect you."

"I do not need your protection," she insisted. "You have already
seen that I can use a spear."

"Yes," he said; "but it would not be right to leave you here
alone--you are but a woman. No, no; I am an officer of the Kaiser
and I cannot abandon you."

Once more he laughed. "We could be very happy here together," he
added.

The woman could not repress a shudder, nor, in fact, did she
attempt to hide her aversion.

"You do not like me?" he asked. "Ah, well; it is too sad. But
some day you will love me," and again the hideous laughter.

The woman had wrapped the pieces of the buck in the hide and this
she now raised and threw across her shoulder. In her other hand
she held her spear and faced the German.

"Go!" she commanded. "We have wasted enough words. This is my
country and I shall defend it. If I see you about again I shall
kill you. Do you understand?"

An expression of rage contorted Obergatz' features. He raised his
club and started toward her.

"Stop!" she commanded, throwing her spear-hand backward for a
cast. "You saw me kill this buck and you have said truthfully
that no one will ever know what we do here. Put these two facts
together, German, and draw your own conclusions before you take
another step in my direction."

The man halted and his club-hand dropped to his side. "Come," he
begged in what he intended as a conciliatory tone. "Let us be
friends, Lady Greystoke. We can be of great assistance to each
other and I promise not to harm you."

"Remember Liege and Louvain," she reminded him with a
sneer. "I am going now--be sure that you do not follow me. As
far as you can walk in a day from this spot in any direction you
may consider the limits of my domain. If ever again I see you
within these limits I shall kill you."

There could be no question that she meant what she said and the
man seemed convinced for he but stood sullenly eyeing her as she
backed from sight beyond a turn in the game trail that crossed
the ford where they had met, and disappeared in the forest.