Chapter 21

Beasts of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER 21, BEASTS OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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The Law of the Jungle


In Tarzan's camp, by dint of threats and promised rewards,
the ape-man had finally succeeded in getting the hull of a
large skiff almost completed. Much of the work he and
Mugambi had done with their own hands in addition to
furnishing the camp with meat.

Schneider, the mate, had been doing considerable grumbling,
and had at last openly deserted the work and gone off
into the jungle with Schmidt to hunt. He said that he wanted
a rest, and Tarzan, rather than add to the unpleasantness
which already made camp life almost unendurable, had permitted
the two men to depart without a remonstrance.

Upon the following day, however, Schneider affected a feeling
of remorse for his action, and set to work with a will upon
the skiff. Schmidt also worked good-naturedly, and Lord
Greystoke congratulated himself that at last the men had
awakened to the necessity for the labour which was being asked of
them and to their obligations to the balance of the party.

It was with a feeling of greater relief than he had experienced
for many a day that he set out that noon to hunt deep in the
jungle for a herd of small deer which Schneider reported
that he and Schmidt had seen there the day before.

The direction in which Schneider had reported seeing the
deer was toward the south-west, and to that point the ape-man
swung easily through the tangled verdure of the forest.

And as he went there approached from the north a half-dozen
ill-featured men who went stealthily through the jungle
as go men bent upon the commission of a wicked act.

They thought that they travelled unseen; but behind them,
almost from the moment they quitted their own camp, a tall
man crept upon their trail. In the man's eyes were hate and
fear, and a great curiosity. Why went Kai Shang and Momulla
and the others thus stealthily toward the south? What did
they expect to find there? Gust shook his low-browed
head in perplexity. But he would know. He would follow
them and learn their plans, and then if he could thwart them
he would--that went without question.

At first he had thought that they searched for him; but
finally his better judgment assured him that such could not
be the case, since they had accomplished all they really
desired by chasing him out of camp. Never would Kai Shang
or Momulla go to such pains to slay him or another unless it
would put money into their pockets, and as Gust had no
money it was evident that they were searching for someone else.

Presently the party he trailed came to a halt. Its members
concealed themselves in the foliage bordering the game trail
along which they had come. Gust, that he might the better
observe, clambered into the branches of a tree to the rear of
them, being careful that the leafy fronds hid him from the
view of his erstwhile mates.

He had not long to wait before he saw a strange white man
approach carefully along the trail from the south.

At sight of the newcomer Momulla and Kai Shang arose
from their places of concealment and greeted him. Gust could
not overhear what passed between them. Then the man returned
in the direction from which he had come.

He was Schneider. Nearing his camp he circled to the
opposite side of it, and presently came running in breathlessly.
Excitedly he hastened to Mugambi.

"Quick!" he cried. "Those apes of yours have caught Schmidt
and will kill him if we do not hasten to his aid. You alone
can call them off. Take Jones and Sullivan--you may need
help--and get to him as quick as you can. Follow the game
trail south for about a mile. I will remain here. I am
too spent with running to go back with you," and the mate
of the Kincaid threw himself upon the ground, panting as
though he was almost done for.

Mugambi hesitated. He had been left to guard the two women.
He did not know what to do, and then Jane Clayton,
who had heard Schneider's story, added her pleas to
those of the mate.

"Do not delay," she urged. "We shall be all right here.
Mr. Schneider will remain with us. Go, Mugambi. The poor
fellow must be saved."

Schmidt, who lay hidden in a bush at the edge of the camp, grinned.
Mugambi, heeding the commands of his mistress, though still doubtful
of the wisdom of his action, started off toward the south, with Jones
and Sullivan at his heels.

No sooner had he disappeared than Schmidt rose and darted north
into the jungle, and a few minutes later the face of Kai Shang
of Fachan appeared at the edge of the clearing. Schneider saw
the Chinaman, and motioned to him that the coast was clear.

Jane Clayton and the Mosula woman were sitting at the
opening of the former's tent, their backs toward the
approaching ruffians. The first intimation that either
had of the presence of strangers in camp was the sudden
appearance of a half-dozen ragged villains about them.

"Come!" said Kai Shang, motioning that the two arise
and follow him.

Jane Clayton sprang to her feet and looked about for Schneider,
only to see him standing behind the newcomers, a grin upon his face.
At his side stood Schmidt. Instantly she saw that she had been made
the victim of a plot.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked, addressing the mate.

"It means that we have found a ship and that we can now
escape from Jungle Island," replied the man.

"Why did you send Mugambi and the others into the jungle?" she inquired.

"They are not coming with us--only you and I, and the Mosula woman."

"Come!" repeated Kai Shang, and seized Jane Clayton's wrist.

One of the Maoris grasped the black woman by the arm,
and when she would have screamed struck her across the mouth.

Mugambi raced through the jungle toward the south. Jones and
Sullivan trailed far behind. For a mile he continued upon
his way to the relief of Schmidt, but no signs saw he of the
missing man or of any of the apes of Akut.

At last he halted and called aloud the summons which he and
Tarzan had used to hail the great anthropoids. There was
no response. Jones and Sullivan came up with the black warrior
as the latter stood voicing his weird call. For another
half-mile the black searched, calling occasionally.

Finally the truth flashed upon him, and then, like a
frightened deer, he wheeled and dashed back toward camp.
Arriving there, it was but a moment before full confirmation
of his fears was impressed upon him. Lady Greystoke and the
Mosula woman were gone. So, likewise, was Schneider.

When Jones and Sullivan joined Mugambi he would have killed
them in his anger, thinking them parties to the plot;
but they finally succeeded in partially convincing him that
they had known nothing of it.

As they stood speculating upon the probable whereabouts
of the women and their abductor, and the purpose which
Schneider had in mind in taking them from camp, Tarzan of
the Apes swung from the branches of a tree and crossed the
clearing toward them.

His keen eyes detected at once that something was radically
wrong, and when he had heard Mugambi's story his jaws clicked
angrily together as he knitted his brows in thought.

What could the mate hope to accomplish by taking Jane
Clayton from a camp upon a small island from which there
was no escape from the vengeance of Tarzan? The ape-man
could not believe the fellow such a fool, and then a slight
realization of the truth dawned upon him.

Schneider would not have committed such an act unless he
had been reasonably sure that there was a way by which
he could quit Jungle Island with his prisoners. But why had he
taken the black woman as well? There must have been others,
one of whom wanted the dusky female.

"Come," said Tarzan, "there is but one thing to do now,
and that is to follow the trail."

As he finished speaking a tall, ungainly figure emerged
from the jungle north of the camp. He came straight toward
the four men. He was an entire stranger to all of them,
not one of whom had dreamed that another human being than
those of their own camp dwelt upon the unfriendly shores
of Jungle Island.

It was Gust. He came directly to the point.

"Your women were stolen," he said. "If you want ever
to see them again, come quickly and follow me. If we do not
hurry the Cowrie will be standing out to sea by the time we
reach her anchorage."

"Who are you?" asked Tarzan. "What do you know of
the theft of my wife and the black woman?"

"I heard Kai Shang and Momulla the Maori plot with two
men of your camp. They had chased me from our camp, and
would have killed me. Now I will get even with them. Come!"

Gust led the four men of the Kincaid's camp at a rapid trot
through the jungle toward the north. Would they come to the
sea in time? But a few more minutes would answer the question.

And when at last the little party did break through the last
of the screening foliage, and the harbour and the ocean lay
before them, they realized that fate had been most cruelly
unkind, for the Cowrie was already under sail and moving
slowly out of the mouth of the harbour into the open sea.

What were they to do? Tarzan's broad chest rose and fell
to the force of his pent emotions. The last blow seemed to
have fallen, and if ever in all his life Tarzan of the Apes had
had occasion to abandon hope it was now that he saw the ship
bearing his wife to some frightful fate moving gracefully over
the rippling water, so very near and yet so hideously far away.

In silence he stood watching the vessel. He saw it turn
toward the east and finally disappear around a headland on
its way he knew not whither. Then he dropped upon his
haunches and buried his face in his hands.

It was after dark that the five men returned to the camp on
the east shore. The night was hot and sultry. No slightest
breeze ruffled the foliage of the trees or rippled the mirror-
like surface of the ocean. Only a gentle swell rolled softly in
upon the beach.

Never had Tarzan seen the great Atlantic so ominously at peace.
He was standing at the edge of the beach gazing out to sea
in the direction of the mainland, his mind filled with
sorrow and hopelessness, when from the jungle close behind
the camp came the uncanny wail of a panther.

There was a familiar note in the weird cry, and almost
mechanically Tarzan turned his head and answered. A moment
later the tawny figure of Sheeta slunk out into the half-light of
the beach. There was no moon, but the sky was brilliant with stars.
Silently the savage brute came to the side of the man. It had been
long since Tarzan had seen his old fighting companion, but the soft
purr was sufficient to assure him that the animal still recalled
the bonds which had united them in the past.

The ape-man let his fingers fall upon the beast's coat,
and as Sheeta pressed close against his leg he caressed and
fondled the wicked head while his eyes continued to search
the blackness of the waters.

Presently he started. What was that? He strained his eyes
into the night. Then he turned and called aloud to the men
smoking upon their blankets in the camp. They came running
to his side; but Gust hesitated when he saw the nature of
Tarzan's companion.

"Look!" cried Tarzan. "A light! A ship's light! It must
be the Cowrie. They are becalmed." And then with an
exclamation of renewed hope, "We can reach them!
The skiff will carry us easily."

Gust demurred. "They are well armed," he warned. "We
could not take the ship--just five of us."

"There are six now," replied Tarzan, pointing to Sheeta,
"and we can have more still in a half-hour. Sheeta is the
equivalent of twenty men, and the few others I can bring will
add full a hundred to our fighting strength. You do not know them."

The ape-man turned and raised his head toward the jungle,
while there pealed from his lips, time after time,
the fearsome cry of the bull-ape who would summon his fellows.

Presently from the jungle came an answering cry, and then
another and another. Gust shuddered. Among what sort of
creatures had fate thrown him? Were not Kai Shang and Momulla
to be preferred to this great white giant who stroked a
panther and called to the beasts of the jungle?

In a few minutes the apes of Akut came crashing through
the underbrush and out upon the beach, while in the meantime
the five men had been struggling with the unwieldy bulk
of the skiff's hull.

By dint of Herculean efforts they had managed to get it to
the water's edge. The oars from the two small boats of the
Kincaid, which had been washed away by an off-shore wind
the very night that the party had landed, had been in use to
support the canvas of the sailcloth tents. These were hastily
requisitioned, and by the time Akut and his followers came
down to the water all was ready for embarkation.

Once again the hideous crew entered the service of their
master, and without question took up their places in the skiff.
The four men, for Gust could not be prevailed upon to accompany
the party, fell to the oars, using them paddle-wise, while some
of the apes followed their example, and presently the ungainly
skiff was moving quietly out to sea in the direction of the
light which rose and fell gently with the swell.

A sleepy sailor kept a poor vigil upon the Cowrie's deck,
while in the cabin below Schneider paced up and down arguing
with Jane Clayton. The woman had found a revolver in a table
drawer in the room in which she had been locked, and now she
kept the mate of the Kincaid at bay with the weapon.

The Mosula woman kneeled behind her, while Schneider paced
up and down before the door, threatening and pleading and
promising, but all to no avail. Presently from the deck
above came a shout of warning and a shot. For an instant
Jane Clayton relaxed her vigilance, and turned her eyes toward
the cabin skylight. Simultaneously Schneider was upon her.

The first intimation the watch had that there was another
craft within a thousand miles of the Cowrie came when he
saw the head and shoulders of a man poked over the ship's side.
Instantly the fellow sprang to his feet with a cry and
levelled his revolver at the intruder. It was his cry and the
subsequent report of the revolver which threw Jane Clayton
off her guard.

Upon deck the quiet of fancied security soon gave place
to the wildest pandemonium. The crew of the Cowrie rushed
above armed with revolvers, cutlasses, and the long knives
that many of them habitually wore; but the alarm had come
too late. Already the beasts of Tarzan were upon the ship's
deck, with Tarzan and the two men of the Kincaid's crew.

In the face of the frightful beasts the courage of the mutineers
wavered and broke. Those with revolvers fired a few scattering
shots and then raced for some place of supposed safety.
Into the shrouds went some; but the apes of Akut were
more at home there than they.

Screaming with terror the Maoris were dragged from their
lofty perches. The beasts, uncontrolled by Tarzan who had
gone in search of Jane, loosed in the full fury of their savage
natures upon the unhappy wretches who fell into their clutches.

Sheeta, in the meanwhile, had felt his great fangs sink into
but a singular jugular. For a moment he mauled the corpse,
and then he spied Kai Shang darting down the companionway
toward his cabin.

With a shrill scream Sheeta was after him--a scream which
awoke an almost equally uncanny cry in the throat of the
terror-stricken Chinaman.

But Kai Shang reached his cabin a fraction of a second
ahead of the panther, and leaping within slammed the door--
just too late. Sheeta's great body hurtled against it before
the catch engaged, and a moment later Kai Shang was gibbering
and shrieking in the back of an upper berth.

Lightly Sheeta sprang after his victim, and presently the
wicked days of Kai Shang of Fachan were ended, and Sheeta
was gorging himself upon tough and stringy flesh.

A moment scarcely had elapsed after Schneider leaped
upon Jane Clayton and wrenched the revolver from her hand,
when the door of the cabin opened and a tall and half-naked
white man stood framed within the portal.

Silently he leaped across the cabin. Schneider felt sinewy
fingers at his throat. He turned his head to see who had
attacked him, and his eyes went wide when he saw the face of
the ape-man close above his own.

Grimly the fingers tightened upon the mate's throat. He tried
to scream, to plead, but no sound came forth. His eyes
protruded as he struggled for freedom, for breath, for life.

Jane Clayton seized her husband's hands and tried to drag them
from the throat of the dying man; but Tarzan only shook his head.

"Not again," he said quietly. "Before have I permitted
scoundrels to live, only to suffer and to have you suffer for
my mercy. This time we shall make sure of one scoundrel--
sure that he will never again harm us or another," and with
a sudden wrench he twisted the neck of the perfidious mate
until there was a sharp crack, and the man's body lay limp
and motionless in the ape-man's grasp. With a gesture of
disgust Tarzan tossed the corpse aside. Then he returned to
the deck, followed by Jane and the Mosula woman.

The battle there was over. Schmidt and Momulla and two
others alone remained alive of all the company of the Cowrie,
for they had found sanctuary in the forecastle. The others
had died, horribly, and as they deserved, beneath the fangs
and talons of the beasts of Tarzan, and in the morning the
sun rose on a grisly sight upon the deck of the unhappy
Cowrie; but this time the blood which stained her white
planking was the blood of the guilty and not of the innocent.

Tarzan brought forth the men who had hidden in the forecastle,
and without promises of immunity from punishment forced them
to help work the vessel--the only alternative was immediate death.

A stiff breeze had risen with the sun, and with canvas
spread the Cowrie set in toward Jungle Island, where a few
hours later, Tarzan picked up Gust and bid farewell to Sheeta
and the apes of Akut, for here he set the beasts ashore to
pursue the wild and natural life they loved so well; nor did
they lose a moment's time in disappearing into the cool depths
of their beloved jungle.

That they knew that Tarzan was to leave them may be doubted--
except possibly in the case of the more intelligent Akut,
who alone of all the others remained upon the beach as the
small boat drew away toward the schooner, carrying his savage
lord and master from him.

And as long as their eyes could span the distance, Jane and
Tarzan, standing upon the deck, saw the lonely figure of
the shaggy anthropoid motionless upon the surf-beaten sands
of Jungle Island.


It was three days later that the Cowrie fell in with H.M.
sloop-of-war Shorewater, through whose wireless Lord Greystoke
soon got in communication with London. Thus he learned that
which filled his and his wife's heart with joy and thanksgiving--
little Jack was safe at Lord Greystoke's town house.

It was not until they reached London that they learned the
details of the remarkable chain of circumstances that had
preserved the infant unharmed.

It developed that Rokoff, fearing to take the child aboard the
Kincaid by day, had hidden it in a low den where nameless infants
were harboured, intending to carry it to the steamer after dark.

His confederate and chief lieutenant, Paulvitch, true to the
long years of teaching of his wily master, had at last
succumbed to the treachery and greed that had always marked
his superior, and, lured by the thoughts of the immense ransom
that he might win by returning the child unharmed, had
divulged the secret of its parentage to the woman who
maintained the foundling asylum. Through her he had arranged
for the substitution of another infant, knowing full well that
never until it was too late would Rokoff suspect the trick that
had been played upon him.

The woman had promised to keep the child until Paulvitch
returned to England; but she, in turn, had been tempted to
betray her trust by the lure of gold, and so had opened
negotiations with Lord Greystoke's solicitors for the return
of the child.

Esmeralda, the old Negro nurse whose absence on a vacation
in America at the time of the abduction of little Jack
had been attributed by her as the cause of the calamity,
had returned and positively identified the infant.

The ransom had been paid, and within ten days of the date
of his kidnapping the future Lord Greystoke, none the worse
for his experience, had been returned to his father's home.

And so that last and greatest of Nikolas Rokoff's many
rascalities had not only miserably miscarried through the
treachery he had taught his only friend, but it had resulted
in the arch-villain's death, and given to Lord and Lady Greystoke
a peace of mind that neither could ever have felt so long as
the vital spark remained in the body of the Russian and his
malign mind was free to formulate new atrocities against them.

Rokoff was dead, and while the fate of Paulvitch was unknown,
they had every reason to believe that he had succumbed to the
dangers of the jungle where last they had seen him--the
malicious tool of his master.

And thus, in so far as they might know, they were to be
freed for ever from the menace of these two men--the only
enemies which Tarzan of the Apes ever had had occasion to
fear, because they struck at him cowardly blows, through
those he loved.


It was a happy family party that were reunited in Greystoke
House the day that Lord Greystoke and his lady landed upon
English soil from the deck of the Shorewater.

Accompanying them were Mugambi and the Mosula
woman whom he had found in the bottom of the canoe that
night upon the bank of the little tributary of the Ugambi.

The woman had preferred to cling to her new lord and master
rather than return to the marriage she had tried to escape.

Tarzan had proposed to them that they might find a home
upon his vast African estates in the land of the Waziri, where
they were to be sent as soon as opportunity presented itself.

Possibly we shall see them all there amid the savage romance
of the grim jungle and the great plains where Tarzan
of the Apes loves best to be.

Who knows?