Chapter 14

Beasts of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER 14, BEASTS OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Alone in the Jungle


Tambudza, leading Tarzan of the Apes toward the camp of
the Russian, moved very slowly along the winding jungle
path, for she was old and her legs stiff with rheumatism.

So it was that the runners dispatched by M'ganwazam to warn
Rokoff that the white giant was in his village and that he
would be slain that night reached the Russian's camp before
Tarzan and his ancient guide had covered half the distance.

The guides found the white man's camp in a turmoil.
Rokoff had that morning been discovered stunned and bleeding
within his tent. When he had recovered his senses and realized
that Jane Clayton had escaped, his rage was boundless.

Rushing about the camp with his rifle, he had sought to
shoot down the native sentries who had allowed the young
woman to elude their vigilance, but several of the other
whites, realizing that they were already in a precarious
position owing to the numerous desertions that Rokoff's
cruelty had brought about, seized and disarmed him.

Then came the messengers from M'ganwazam, but scarce
had they told their story and Rokoff was preparing to depart
with them for their village when other runners, panting from
the exertions of their swift flight through the jungle, rushed
breathless into the firelight, crying that the great white giant
had escaped from M'ganwazam and was already on his way
to wreak vengeance against his enemies.

Instantly confusion reigned within the encircling boma.
The blacks belonging to Rokoff's safari were terror-stricken at the
thought of the proximity of the white giant who hunted through
the jungle with a fierce pack of apes and panthers at his heels.

Before the whites realized what had happened the superstitious
fears of the natives had sent them scurrying into the bush--
their own carriers as well as the messengers from M'ganwazam--
but even in their haste they had not neglected to take with them
every article of value upon which they could lay their hands.

Thus Rokoff and the seven white sailors found themselves
deserted and robbed in the midst of a wilderness.

The Russian, following his usual custom, berated his companions,
laying all the blame upon their shoulders for the events which
had led up to the almost hopeless condition in which they now
found themselves; but the sailors were in no mood to brook
his insults and his cursing.

In the midst of this tirade one of them drew a revolver and fired
point-blank at the Russian. The fellow's aim was poor, but
his act so terrified Rokoff that he turned and fled for his tent.

As he ran his eyes chanced to pass beyond the boma to the
edge of the forest, and there he caught a glimpse of that
which sent his craven heart cold with a fear that almost
expunged his terror of the seven men at his back, who by this
time were all firing in hate and revenge at his retreating figure.

What he saw was the giant figure of an almost naked white
man emerging from the bush.

Darting into his tent, the Russian did not halt in his flight,
but kept right on through the rear wall, taking advantage of
the long slit that Jane Clayton had made the night before.

The terror-stricken Muscovite scurried like a hunted rabbit
through the hole that still gaped in the boma's wall at the
point where his own prey had escaped, and as Tarzan approached
the camp upon the opposite side Rokoff disappeared into the
jungle in the wake of Jane Clayton.

As the ape-man entered the boma with old Tambudza at his elbow
the seven sailors, recognizing him, turned and fled in the
opposite direction. Tarzan saw that Rokoff was not among them,
and so he let them go their way--his business was with the Russian,
whom he expected to find in his tent. As to the sailors, he was
sure that the jungle would exact from them expiation for their
villainies, nor, doubtless, was he wrong, for his were the last
white man's eyes to rest upon any of them.

Finding Rokoff's tent empty, Tarzan was about to set out
in search of the Russian when Tambudza suggested to him
that the departure of the white man could only have resulted
from word reaching him from M'ganwazam that Tarzan was
in his village.

"He has doubtless hastened there," argued the old woman.
"If you would find him let us return at once."

Tarzan himself thought that this would probably prove to
be the fact, so he did not waste time in an endeavour to locate
the Russian's trail, but, instead, set out briskly for the village
of M'ganwazam, leaving Tambudza to plod slowly in his wake.

His one hope was that Jane was still safe and with Rokoff.
If this was the case, it would be but a matter of an hour or
more before he should be able to wrest her from the Russian.

He knew now that M'ganwazam was treacherous and that
he might have to fight to regain possession of his wife.
He wished that Mugambi, Sheeta, Akut, and the balance of the
pack were with him, for he realized that single-handed it
would be no child's play to bring Jane safely from the clutches
of two such scoundrels as Rokoff and the wily M'ganwazam.

To his surprise he found no sign of either Rokoff or Jane
in the village, and as he could not trust the word of the chief,
he wasted no time in futile inquiry. So sudden and unexpected
had been his return, and so quickly had he vanished into the jungle
after learning that those he sought were not among the Waganwazam,
that old M'ganwazam had no time to prevent his going.

Swinging through the trees, he hastened back to the deserted camp
he had so recently left, for here, he knew, was the logical place
to take up the trail of Rokoff and Jane.

Arrived at the boma, he circled carefully about the outside
of the enclosure until, opposite a break in the thorny wall,
he came to indications that something had recently passed
into the jungle. His acute sense of smell told him that both
of those he sought had fled from the camp in this direction,
and a moment later he had taken up the trail and was following
the faint spoor.

Far ahead of him a terror-stricken young woman was slinking
along a narrow game-trail, fearful that the next moment
would bring her face to face with some savage beast or equally
savage man. As she ran on, hoping against hope that she had
hit upon the direction that would lead her eventually to the
great river, she came suddenly upon a familiar spot.

At one side of the trail, beneath a giant tree, lay a little
heap of loosely piled brush--to her dying day that little spot
of jungle would be indelibly impressed upon her memory.
It was where Anderssen had hidden her--where he had given
up his life in the vain effort to save her from Rokoff.

At sight of it she recalled the rifle and ammunition that
the man had thrust upon her at the last moment. Until now
she had forgotten them entirely. Still clutched in her hand
was the revolver she had snatched from Rokoff's belt, but
that could contain at most not over six cartridges--not enough
to furnish her with food and protection both on the long
journey to the sea.

With bated breath she groped beneath the little mound,
scarce daring to hope that the treasure remained where she
had left it; but, to her infinite relief and joy, her hand came
at once upon the barrel of the heavy weapon and then upon
the bandoleer of cartridges.

As she threw the latter about her shoulder and felt the weight
of the big game-gun in her hand a sudden sense of security
suffused her. It was with new hope and a feeling almost of
assured success that she again set forward upon her journey.

That night she slept in the crotch of a tree, as Tarzan had
so often told her that he was accustomed to doing, and early
the next morning was upon her way again. Late in the afternoon,
as she was about to cross a little clearing, she was startled
at the sight of a huge ape coming from the jungle upon the
opposite side.

The wind was blowing directly across the clearing between
them, and Jane lost no time in putting herself downwind
from the huge creature. Then she hid in a clump of heavy
bush and watched, holding the rifle ready for instant use.

To her consternation she saw that the apes were pausing in the
centre of the clearing. They came together in a little knot,
where they stood looking backward, as though in expectation
of the coming of others of their tribe.
Jane wished that they would go on, for she knew that at
any moment some little, eddying gust of wind might carry
her scent down to their nostrils, and then what would the
protection of her rifle amount to in the face of those gigantic
muscles and mighty fangs?

Her eyes moved back and forth between the apes and the edge
of the jungle toward which they were gazing until at last
she perceived the object of their halt and the thing that
they awaited. They were being stalked.

Of this she was positive, as she saw the lithe, sinewy form
of a panther glide noiselessly from the jungle at the point at
which the apes had emerged but a moment before.

Quickly the beast trotted across the clearing toward
the anthropoids. Jane wondered at their apparent apathy,
and a moment later her wonder turned to amazement as she saw
the great cat come quite close to the apes, who appeared
entirely unconcerned by its presence, and, squatting down
in their midst, fell assiduously to the business of preening,
which occupies most of the waking hours of the cat family.

If the young woman was surprised by the sight of these natural
enemies fraternizing, it was with emotions little short of fear
for her own sanity that she presently saw a tall, muscular warrior
enter the clearing and join the group of savage beasts assembled there.

At first sight of the man she had been positive that he would
be torn to pieces, and she had half risen from her shelter,
raising her rifle to her shoulder to do what she could to
avert the man's terrible fate.

Now she saw that he seemed actually conversing with the beasts--
issuing orders to them.

Presently the entire company filed on across the clearing
and disappeared in the jungle upon the opposite side.

With a gasp of mingled incredulity and relief Jane Clayton
staggered to her feet and fled on away from the terrible horde
that had just passed her, while a half-mile behind her another
individual, following the same trail as she, lay frozen with
terror behind an ant-hill as the hideous band passed quite
close to him.

This one was Rokoff; but he had recognized the members
of the awful aggregation as allies of Tarzan of the Apes.
No sooner, therefore, had the beasts passed him than he rose and
raced through the jungle as fast as he could go, in order that
he might put as much distance as possible between himself
and these frightful beasts.

So it happened that as Jane Clayton came to the bank of the river,
down which she hoped to float to the ocean and eventual rescue,
Nikolas Rokoff was but a short distance in her rear.

Upon the bank the girl saw a great dugout drawn half-way
from the water and tied securely to a near-by tree.

This, she felt, would solve the question of transportation
to the sea could she but launch the huge, unwieldy craft.
Unfastening the rope that had moored it to the tree, Jane
pushed frantically upon the bow of the heavy canoe, but for
all the results that were apparent she might as well have been
attempting to shove the earth out of its orbit.

She was about winded when it occurred to her to try working
the dugout into the stream by loading the stern with ballast
and then rocking the bow back and forth along the bank
until the craft eventually worked itself into the river.

There were no stones or rocks available, but along the
shore she found quantities of driftwood deposited by the river
at a slightly higher stage. These she gathered and piled far
in the stern of the boat, until at last, to her immense relief,
she saw the bow rise gently from the mud of the bank and
the stern drift slowly with the current until it again lodged a
few feet farther down-stream.

Jane found that by running back and forth between the
bow and stern she could alternately raise and lower each end
of the boat as she shifted her weight from one end to the
other, with the result that each time she leaped to the stern
the canoe moved a few inches farther into the river.

As the success of her plan approached more closely to
fruition she became so wrapped in her efforts that she failed
to note the figure of a man standing beneath a huge tree at
the edge of the jungle from which he had just emerged.

He watched her and her labours with a cruel and malicious
grin upon his swarthy countenance.

The boat at last became so nearly free of the retarding
mud and of the bank that Jane felt positive that she could
pole it off into deeper water with one of the paddles which
lay in the bottom of the rude craft. With this end in view she
seized upon one of these implements and had just plunged it
into the river bottom close to the shore when her eyes
happened to rise to the edge of the jungle.

As her gaze fell upon the figure of the man a little cry of
terror rose to her lips. It was Rokoff.

He was running toward her now and shouting to her to
wait or he would shoot--though he was entirely unarmed it
was difficult to discover just how he intended making good
his threat.

Jane Clayton knew nothing of the various misfortunes that
had befallen the Russian since she had escaped from his tent,
so she believed that his followers must be close at hand.

However, she had no intention of falling again into the
man's clutches. She would rather die at once than that that
should happen to her. Another minute and the boat would be free.

Once in the current of the river she would be beyond Rokoff's
power to stop her, for there was no other boat upon
the shore, and no man, and certainly not the cowardly Rokoff,
would dare to attempt to swim the crocodile-infested
water in an effort to overtake her.

Rokoff, on his part, was bent more upon escape than aught else.
He would gladly have forgone any designs he might have
had upon Jane Clayton would she but permit him to share
this means of escape that she had discovered. He would
promise anything if she would let him come aboard the dugout,
but he did not think that it was necessary to do so.

He saw that he could easily reach the bow of the boat
before it cleared the shore, and then it would not be
necessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff would
have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promises
he might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having
to sue for favour with one who had so recently assaulted
and escaped him.

Already he was gloating over the days and nights of revenge
that would be his while the heavy dugout drifted its
slow way to the ocean.

Jane Clayton, working furiously to shove the boat beyond
his reach, suddenly realized that she was to be successful,
for with a little lurch the dugout swung quickly into the
current, just as the Russian reached out to place his hand
upon its bow.

His fingers did not miss their goal by a half-dozen inches.
The girl almost collapsed with the reaction from the terrific
mental, physical, and nervous strain under which she had
been labouring for the past few minutes. But, thank Heaven,
at last she was safe!

Even as she breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving, she
saw a sudden expression of triumph lighten the features of
the cursing Russian, and at the same instant he dropped
suddenly to the ground, grasping firmly upon something which
wriggled through the mud toward the water.

Jane Clayton crouched, wide-eyed and horror-stricken, in
the bottom of the boat as she realized that at the last instant
success had been turned to failure, and that she was indeed
again in the power of the malignant Rokoff.

For the thing that the man had seen and grasped was the
end of the trailing rope with which the dugout had been
moored to the tree.