Chapter 12

Beasts of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER 12, BEASTS OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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A Black Scoundrel


When Jane Clayton regained consciousness she saw Anderssen
standing over her, holding the baby in his arms. As her eyes
rested upon them an expression of misery and horror
overspread her countenance.

"What is the matter?" he asked. "You ban sick?"

"Where is my baby?" she cried, ignoring his questions.

Anderssen held out the chubby infant, but she shook her head.

"It is not mine," she said. "You knew that it was not mine.
You are a devil like the Russian."

Anderssen's blue eyes stretched in surprise.

"Not yours!" he exclaimed. "You tole me the kid aboard
the Kincaid ban your kid."

"Not this one," replied Jane dully. "The other. Where is the other?
There must have been two. I did not know about this one."

"There vasn't no other kid. Ay tank this ban yours. Ay am very sorry."

Anderssen fidgeted about, standing first on one foot and then upon
the other. It was perfectly evident to Jane that he was honest in
his protestations of ignorance of the true identity of the child.

Presently the baby commenced to crow, and bounce up and
down in the Swede's arms, at the same time leaning forward
with little hands out-reaching toward the young woman.

She could not withstand the appeal, and with a low cry
she sprang to her feet and gathered the baby to her breast.

For a few minutes she wept silently, her face buried in the
baby's soiled little dress. The first shock of disappointment
that the tiny thing had not been her beloved Jack was giving
way to a great hope that after all some miracle had occurred
to snatch her baby from Rokoff's hands at the last instant
before the Kincaid sailed from England.

Then, too, there was the mute appeal of this wee waif alone
and unloved in the midst of the horrors of the savage jungle.
It was this thought more than any other that had sent her
mother's heart out to the innocent babe, while still she
suffered from disappointment that she had been deceived in
its identity.

"Have you no idea whose child this is?" she asked Anderssen.

The man shook his head.

"Not now," he said. "If he ain't ban your kid, Ay don' know whose
kid he do ban. Rokoff said it was yours. Ay tank he tank so, too.

"What do we do with it now? Ay can't go back to the Kincaid.
Rokoff would have me shot; but you can go back. Ay take you to the sea,
and then some of these black men they take you to the ship--eh?"

"No! no!" cried Jane. "Not for the world. I would rather die
than fall into the hands of that man again. No, let us go on
and take this poor little creature with us. If God is willing
we shall be saved in one way or another."

So they again took up their flight through the wilderness,
taking with them a half-dozen of the Mosulas to carry
provisions and the tents that Anderssen had smuggled aboard
the small boat in preparation for the attempted escape.

The days and nights of torture that the young woman suffered
were so merged into one long, unbroken nightmare of
hideousness that she soon lost all track of time. Whether they
had been wandering for days or years she could not tell.
The one bright spot in that eternity of fear and suffering was the
little child whose tiny hands had long since fastened their
softly groping fingers firmly about her heart.

In a way the little thing took the place and filled the aching
void that the theft of her own baby had left. It could never be
the same, of course, but yet, day by day, she found her
mother-love, enveloping the waif more closely until she
sometimes sat with closed eyes lost in the sweet imagining
that the little bundle of humanity at her breast was truly her own.

For some time their progress inland was extremely slow.
Word came to them from time to time through natives passing
from the coast on hunting excursions that Rokoff had not
yet guessed the direction of their flight. This, and the desire
to make the journey as light as possible for the gently bred
woman, kept Anderssen to a slow advance of short and easy
marches with many rests.

The Swede insisted upon carrying the child while they
travelled, and in countless other ways did what he could to
help Jane Clayton conserve her strength. He had been terribly
chagrined on discovering the mistake he had made in the
identity of the baby, but once the young woman became
convinced that his motives were truly chivalrous she would not
permit him longer to upbraid himself for the error that he
could not by any means have avoided.

At the close of each day's march Anderssen saw to the
erection of a comfortable shelter for Jane and the child.
Her tent was always pitched in the most favourable location.
The thorn boma round it was the strongest and most
impregnable that the Mosula could construct.

Her food was the best that their limited stores and the rifle
of the Swede could provide, but the thing that touched her
heart the closest was the gentle consideration and courtesy
which the man always accorded her.

That such nobility of character could lie beneath so repulsive
an exterior never ceased to be a source of wonder and
amazement to her, until at last the innate chivalry of the man,
and his unfailing kindliness and sympathy transformed his
appearance in so far as Jane was concerned until she saw
only the sweetness of his character mirrored in his countenance.

They had commenced to make a little better progress when
word reached them that Rokoff was but a few marches behind
them, and that he had at last discovered the direction of
their flight. It was then that Anderssen took to the river,
purchasing a canoe from a chief whose village lay a short
distance from the Ugambi upon the bank of a tributary.

Thereafter the little party of fugitives fled up the broad
Ugambi, and so rapid had their flight become that they no
longer received word of their pursuers. At the end of canoe
navigation upon the river, they abandoned their canoe and
took to the jungle. Here progress became at once arduous,
slow, and dangerous.

The second day after leaving the Ugambi the baby fell ill
with fever. Anderssen knew what the outcome must be, but
he had not the heart to tell Jane Clayton the truth, for he had
seen that the young woman had come to love the child almost
as passionately as though it had been her own flesh and blood.

As the baby's condition precluded farther advance, Anderssen
withdrew a little from the main trail he had been following
and built a camp in a natural clearing on the bank
of a little river.

Here Jane devoted her every moment to caring for the tiny
sufferer, and as though her sorrow and anxiety were not all
that she could bear, a further blow came with the sudden
announcement of one of the Mosula porters who had been foraging
in the jungle adjacent that Rokoff and his party were camped
quite close to them, and were evidently upon their trail to this
little nook which all had thought so excellent a hiding-place.

This information could mean but one thing, and that they must
break camp and fly onward regardless of the baby's condition.
Jane Clayton knew the traits of the Russian well enough
to be positive that he would separate her from the child
the moment that he recaptured them, and she knew that
separation would mean the immediate death of the baby.

As they stumbled forward through the tangled vegetation
along an old and almost overgrown game trail the Mosula
porters deserted them one by one.

The men had been staunch enough in their devotion and loyalty
as long as they were in no danger of being overtaken by the
Russian and his party. They had heard, however, so much of
the atrocious disposition of Rokoff that they had grown to
hold him in mortal terror, and now that they knew he was close
upon them their timid hearts would fortify them no longer,
and as quickly as possible they deserted the three whites.

Yet on and on went Anderssen and the girl. The Swede
went ahead, to hew a way through the brush where the path
was entirely overgrown, so that on this march it was
necessary that the young woman carry the child.

All day they marched. Late in the afternoon they realized
that they had failed. Close behind them they heard the noise
of a large safari advancing along the trail which they had
cleared for their pursuers.

When it became quite evident that they must be overtaken
in a short time Anderssen hid Jane behind a large tree,
covering her and the child with brush.

"There is a village about a mile farther on," he said to her.
"The Mosula told me its location before they deserted us.
Ay try to lead the Russian off your trail, then you go on
to the village. Ay tank the chief ban friendly to white men--
the Mosula tal me he ban. Anyhow, that was all we can do.

"After while you get chief to tak you down by the Mosula
village at the sea again, an' after a while a ship is sure to put
into the mouth of the Ugambi. Then you be all right. Gude-by an'
gude luck to you, lady!"

"But where are you going, Sven?" asked Jane. "Why can't
you hide here and go back to the sea with me?"

"Ay gotta tal the Russian you ban dead, so that he don't
luke for you no more," and Anderssen grinned.

"Why can't you join me then after you have told him that?"
insisted the girl.

Anderssen shook his head.

"Ay don't tank Ay join anybody any more after Ay tal the
Russian you ban dead," he said.

"You don't mean that you think he will kill you?" asked Jane,
and yet in her heart she knew that that was exactly what the
great scoundrel would do in revenge for his having been
thwarted by the Swede. Anderssen did not reply, other than
to warn her to silence and point toward the path along which
they had just come.

"I don't care," whispered Jane Clayton. "I shall not let
you die to save me if I can prevent it in any way. Give me
your revolver. I can use that, and together we may be able
to hold them off until we can find some means of escape."

"It won't work, lady," replied Anderssen. "They would
only get us both, and then Ay couldn't do you no good at all.
Think of the kid, lady, and what it would be for you both to
fall into Rokoff's hands again. For his sake you must do what
Ay say. Here, take my rifle and ammunition; you may need them."

He shoved the gun and bandoleer into the shelter beside Jane.
Then he was gone.

She watched him as he returned along the path to meet the
oncoming safari of the Russian. Soon a turn in the trail hid
him from view.

Her first impulse was to follow. With the rifle she might
be of assistance to him, and, further, she could not bear the
terrible thought of being left alone at the mercy of the fearful
jungle without a single friend to aid her.

She started to crawl from her shelter with the intention of
running after Anderssen as fast as she could. As she drew
the baby close to her she glanced down into its little face.

How red it was! How unnatural the little thing looked.
She raised the cheek to hers. It was fiery hot with fever!

With a little gasp of terror Jane Clayton rose to her feet
in the jungle path. The rifle and bandoleer lay forgotten in
the shelter beside her. Anderssen was forgotten, and Rokoff,
and her great peril.

All that rioted through her fear-mad brain was the fearful
fact that this little, helpless child was stricken with the
terrible jungle-fever, and that she was helpless to do aught to
allay its sufferings--sufferings that were sure to coming during
ensuing intervals of partial consciousness.

Her one thought was to find some one who could help her--some woman
who had had children of her own--and with the thought came recollection
of the friendly village of which Anderssen had spoken. If she could
but reach it--in time!

There was no time to be lost. Like a startled antelope she
turned and fled up the trail in the direction Anderssen
had indicated.

From far behind came the sudden shouting of men, the sound of shots,
and then silence. She knew that Anderssen had met the Russian.

A half-hour later she stumbled, exhausted, into a little
thatched village. Instantly she was surrounded by men,
women, and children. Eager, curious, excited natives plied
her with a hundred questions, no one of which she could
understand or answer.

All that she could do was to point tearfully at the baby,
now wailing piteously in her arms, and repeat over and over,
"Fever--fever--fever."

The blacks did not understand her words, but they saw the
cause of her trouble, and soon a young woman had pulled
her into a hut and with several others was doing her poor
best to quiet the child and allay its agony.

The witch doctor came and built a little fire before the
infant, upon which he boiled some strange concoction in a
small earthen pot, making weird passes above it and mumbling
strange, monotonous chants. Presently he dipped a zebra's
tail into the brew, and with further mutterings and incantations
sprinkled a few drops of the liquid over the baby's face.

After he had gone the women sat about and moaned and
wailed until Jane thought that she should go mad; but,
knowing that they were doing it all out of the kindness
of their hearts, she endured the frightful waking nightmare
of those awful hours in dumb and patient suffering.

It must have been well toward midnight that she became
conscious of a sudden commotion in the village. She heard
the voices of the natives raised in controversy, but she could
not understand the words.

Presently she heard footsteps approaching the hut in which
she squatted before a bright fire with the baby on her lap.
The little thing lay very still now, its lids, half-raised,
showed the pupils horribly upturned.

Jane Clayton looked into the little face with fear-haunted eyes.
It was not her baby--not her flesh and blood--but how close,
how dear the tiny, helpless thing had become to her.
Her heart, bereft of its own, had gone out to this poor,
little, nameless waif, and lavished upon it all the love
that had been denied her during the long, bitter weeks
of her captivity aboard the Kincaid.

She saw that the end was near, and though she was terrified
at contemplation of her loss, still she hoped that it would
come quickly now and end the sufferings of the little victim.

The footsteps she had heard without the hut now halted
before the door. There was a whispered colloquy, and a
moment later M'ganwazam, chief of the tribe, entered. She had
seen but little of him, as the women had taken her in hand
almost as soon as she had entered the village.

M'ganwazam, she now saw, was an evil-appearing savage
with every mark of brutal degeneracy writ large upon his
bestial countenance. To Jane Clayton he looked more gorilla
than human. He tried to converse with her, but without success,
and finally he called to some one without.

In answer to his summons another Negro entered--a man
of very different appearance from M'ganwazam--so different,
in fact, that Jane Clayton immediately decided that he was
of another tribe. This man acted as interpreter, and almost
from the first question that M'ganwazam put to her, Jane felt
an intuitive conviction that the savage was attempting to
draw information from her for some ulterior motive.

She thought it strange that the fellow should so suddenly
have become interested in her plans, and especially in her
intended destination when her journey had been interrupted
at his village.

Seeing no reason for withholding the information, she told
him the truth; but when he asked if she expected to meet her
husband at the end of the trip, she shook her head negatively.

Then he told her the purpose of his visit, talking through
the interpreter.

"I have just learned," he said, "from some men who live
by the side of the great water, that your husband followed
you up the Ugambi for several marches, when he was at last
set upon by natives and killed. Therefore I have told you this
that you might not waste your time in a long journey if you
expected to meet your husband at the end of it; but instead
could turn and retrace your steps to the coast."

Jane thanked M'ganwazam for his kindness, though her heart
was numb with suffering at this new blow. She who had
suffered so much was at last beyond reach of the keenest
of misery's pangs, for her senses were numbed and calloused.

With bowed head she sat staring with unseeing eyes upon
the face of the baby in her lap. M'ganwazam had left the hut.
Sometime later she heard a noise at the entrance--another
had entered. One of the women sitting opposite her threw a
faggot upon the dying embers of the fire between them.

With a sudden flare it burst into renewed flame, lighting
up the hut's interior as though by magic.

The flame disclosed to Jane Clayton's horrified gaze that the baby
was quite dead. How long it had been so she could not guess.

A choking lump rose to her throat, her head drooped in
silent misery upon the little bundle that she had caught
suddenly to her breast.

For a moment the silence of the hut was unbroken.
Then the native woman broke into a hideous wail.

A man coughed close before Jane Clayton and spoke her name.

With a start she raised her eyes to look into the sardonic
countenance of Nikolas Rokoff.