3

Jungle Tales of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

3, JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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The Fight for the Balu

TEEKA HAD BECOME a mother. Tarzan of the Apes was
intensely interested, much more so, in fact, than Taug,
the father. Tarzan was very fond of Teeka. Even the cares
of prospective motherhood had not entirely quenched the fires
of carefree youth, and Teeka had remained a good-natured
playmate even at an age when other shes of the tribe
of Kerchak had assumed the sullen dignity of maturity.
She yet retained her childish delight in the primitive
games of tag and hide-and-go-seek which Tarzan's fertile
man-mind had evolved.

To play tag through the tree tops is an exciting
and inspiring pastime. Tarzan delighted in it,
but the bulls of his childhood had long since abandoned
such childish practices. Teeka, though, had been keen
for it always until shortly before the baby came;
but with the advent of her first-born, even Teeka changed.

The evidence of the change surprised and hurt Tarzan
immeasurably.
One morning he saw Teeka squatted upon a low branch hugging
something very close to her hairy breast-- a wee something
which squirmed and wriggled. Tarzan approached filled
with the curiosity which is common to all creatures endowed
with brains which have progressed beyond the microscopic stage.

Teeka rolled her eyes in his direction and strained the
squirming mite still closer to her. Tarzan came nearer.
Teeka drew away and bared her fangs. Tarzan was nonplussed.
In all his experiences with Teeka, never before had she
bared fangs at him other than in play; but today she did
not look playful. Tarzan ran his brown fingers through
his thick, black hair, cocked his head upon one side,
and stared. Then he edged a bit nearer, craning his neck
to have a better look at the thing which Teeka cuddled.

Again Teeka drew back her upper lip in a warning snarl.
Tarzan reached forth a hand, cautiously, to touch the
thing which Teeka held, and Teeka, with a hideous growl,
turned suddenly upon him. Her teeth sank into the
flesh of his forearm before the ape-man could snatch
it away, and she pursued him for a short distance
as he retreated incontinently through the trees;
but Teeka, carrying her baby, could not overtake him.
At a safe distance Tarzan stopped and turned to regard
his erstwhile play-fellow in unconcealed astonishment.
What had happened to so alter the gentle Teeka? She had
so covered the thing in her arms that Tarzan had not yet
been able to recognize it for what it was; but now, as she
turned from the pursuit of him, he saw it. Through his
pain and chagrin he smiled, for Tarzan had seen young ape
mothers before. In a few days she would be less suspicious.
Still Tarzan was hurt; it was not right that Teeka,
of all others, should fear him. Why, not for the world
would he harm her, or her balu, which is the ape word
for baby.

And now, above the pain of his injured arm and the hurt
to his pride, rose a still stronger desire to come close
and inspect the new-born son of Taug. Possibly you will
wonder that Tarzan of the Apes, mighty fighter that he was,
should have fled before the irritable attack of a she,
or that he should hesitate to return for the satisfaction
of his curiosity when with ease he might have vanquished
the weakened mother of the new-born cub; but you need
not wonder. Were you an ape, you would know that only
a bull in the throes of madness will turn upon a female
other than to gently chastise her, with the occasional
exception of the individual whom we find exemplified among
our own kind, and who delights in beating up his better
half because she happens to be smaller and weaker than he.

Tarzan again came toward the young mother--warily
and with his line of retreat safely open. Again Teeka
growled ferociously. Tarzan expostulated.

"Tarzan of the Apes will not harm Teeka's balu," he said.
"Let me see it."

"Go away!" commanded Teeka. "Go away, or I will kill you."

"Let me see it," urged Tarzan.

"Go away," reiterated the she-ape. "Here comes Taug.
He will make you go away. Taug will kill you. This is
Taug's balu."

A savage growl close behind him apprised Tarzan of the
nearness of Taug, and the fact that the bull had heard the
warnings and threats of his mate and was coming to her succor.

Now Taug, as well as Teeka, had been Tarzan's play-fellow
while the bull was still young enough to wish to play.
Once Tarzan had saved Taug's life; but the memory
of an ape is not overlong, nor would gratitude rise
above the parental instinct. Tarzan and Taug had once
measured strength, and Tarzan had been victorious.
That fact Taug could be depended upon still to remember;
but even so, he might readily face another defeat for his
first-born--if he chanced to be in the proper mood.

From his hideous growls, which now rose in strength
and volume, he seemed to be in quite the mood. Now Tarzan
felt no fear of Taug, nor did the unwritten law of the jungle
demand that he should flee from battle with any male,
unless he cared to from purely personal reasons.
But Tarzan liked Taug. He had no grudge against him,
and his man-mind told him what the mind of an ape would
never have deduced-- that Taug's attitude in no sense
indicated hatred. It was but the instinctive urge
of the male to protect its offspring and its mate.

Tarzan had no desire to battle with Taug, nor did the blood
of his English ancestors relish the thought of flight,
yet when the bull charged, Tarzan leaped nimbly to one side,
and thus encouraged, Taug wheeled and rushed again madly
to the attack. Perhaps the memory of a past defeat at
Tarzan's hands goaded him. Perhaps the fact that Teeka sat
there watching him aroused a desire to vanquish the ape-man
before her eyes, for in the breast of every jungle male lurks
a vast egotism which finds expression in the performance
of deeds of derring-do before an audience of the opposite sex.

At the ape-man's side swung his long grass rope--the
play-thing of yesterday, the weapon of today--and
as Taug charged the second time, Tarzan slipped the
coils over his head and deftly shook out the sliding
noose as he again nimbly eluded the ungainly beast.
Before the ape could turn again, Tarzan had fled
far aloft among the branches of the upper terrace.

Taug, now wrought to a frenzy of real rage, followed him.
Teeka peered upward at them. It was difficult to say
whether she was interested. Taug could not climb as
rapidly as Tarzan, so the latter reached the high levels
to which the heavy ape dared not follow before the former
overtook him. There he halted and looked down upon
his pursuer, making faces at him and calling him such
choice names as occurred to the fertile man-brain. Then,
when he had worked Taug to such a pitch of foaming rage
that the great bull fairly danced upon the bending limb
beneath him, Tarzan's hand shot suddenly outward, a widening
noose dropped swiftly through the air, there was a quick
jerk as it settled about Taug, falling to his knees,
a jerk that tightened it securely about the hairy legs
of the anthropoid.

Taug, slow of wit, realized too late the intention of
his tormentor. He scrambled to escape, but the ape-man
gave the rope a tremendous jerk that pulled Taug from
his perch, and a moment later, growling hideously,
the ape hung head downward thirty feet above the ground.

Tarzan secured the rope to a stout limb and descended
to a point close to Taug.

"Taug," he said, "you are as stupid as Buto, the rhinoceros.
Now you may hang here until you get a little sense
in your thick head. You may hang here and watch while I
go and talk with Teeka."

Taug blustered and threatened, but Tarzan only grinned
at him as he dropped lightly to the lower levels. Here he
again approached Teeka only to be again greeted with bared
fangs and menacing growls. He sought to placate her;
he urged his friendly intentions, and craned his neck to
have a look at Teeka's balu; but the she-ape was not to be
persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one.
Her motherhood was still so new that reason was yet
subservient to instinct.

Realizing the futility of attempting to catch
and chastise Tarzan, Teeka sought to escape him.
She dropped to the ground and lumbered across the little
clearing about which the apes of the tribe were disposed
in rest or in the search of food, and presently Tarzan
abandoned his attempts to persuade her to permit a close
examination of the balu. The ape-man would have liked
to handle the tiny thing. The very sight of it awakened
in his breast a strange yearning. He wished to cuddle
and fondle the grotesque little ape-thing. It was Teeka's
balu and Tarzan had once lavished his young affections upon
Teeka.

But now his attention was diverted by the voice of Taug.
The threats that had filled the ape's mouth had turned
to pleas. The tightening noose was stopping the circulation
of the blood in his legs--he was beginning to suffer.
Several apes sat near him highly interested in his predicament.
They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each of
them had felt the weight of Taug's mighty hands and the
strength of his great jaws. They were enjoying revenge.

Teeka, seeing that Tarzan had turned back toward
the trees, had halted in the center of the clearing,
and there she sat hugging her balu and casting suspicious
glances here and there. With the coming of the balu,
Teeka's care-free world had suddenly become peopled
with innumerable enemies. She saw an implacable foe
in Tarzan, always heretofore her best friend. Even poor
old Mumga, half blind and almost entirely toothless,
searching patiently for grubworms beneath a fallen log,
represented to her a malignant spirit thirsting for the
blood of little balus.

And while Teeka guarded suspiciously against harm,
where there was no harm, she failed to note two baleful,
yellow-green eyes staring fixedly at her from behind
a clump of bushes at the opposite side of the clearing.

Hollow from hunger, Sheeta, the panther, glared greedily
at the tempting meat so close at hand, but the sight
of the great bulls beyond gave him pause.

Ah, if the she-ape with her balu would but come just a
trifle nearer! A quick spring and he would be upon them
and away again with his meat before the bulls could prevent.

The tip of his tawny tail moved in spasmodic little jerks;
his lower jaw hung low, exposing a red tongue and
yellow fangs. But all this Teeka did not see, nor did any
other of the apes who were feeding or resting about her.
Nor did Tarzan or the apes in the trees.

Hearing the abuse which the bulls were pouring upon
the helpless Taug, Tarzan clambered quickly among them.
One was edging closer and leaning far out in an effort
to reach the dangling ape. He had worked himself into
quite a fury through recollection of the last occasion
upon which Taug had mauled him, and now he was bent
upon revenge. Once he had grasped the swinging ape,
he would quickly have drawn him within reach of his jaws.
Tarzan saw and was wroth. He loved a fair fight,
but the thing which this ape contemplated revolted him.
Already a hairy hand had clutched the helpless Taug when,
with an angry growl of protest, Tarzan leaped to the branch
at the attacking ape's side, and with a single mighty cuff,
swept him from his perch.

Surprised and enraged, the bull clutched madly for
support as he toppled sidewise, and then with an agile
movement succeeded in projecting himself toward another
limb a few feet below. Here he found a hand-hold,
quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered
upward to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was
otherwise engaged and did not wish to be interrupted.
He was explaining again to Taug the depths of the latter's
abysmal ignorance, and pointing out how much greater
and mightier was Tarzan of the Apes than Taug or any other ape.

In the end he would release Taug, but not until Taug
was fully acquainted with his own inferiority. And then
the maddened bull came from beneath, and instantly Tarzan
was transformed from a good-natured, teasing youth into
a snarling, savage beast. Along his scalp the hair
bristled: his upper lip drew back that his fighting fangs
might be uncovered and ready. He did not wait for the bull
to reach him, for something in the appearance or the voice
of the attacker aroused within the ape-man a feeling
of belligerent antagonism that would not be denied.
With a scream that carried no human note, Tarzan leaped
straight at the throat of the attacker.

The impetuosity of this act and the weight and momentum
of his body carried the bull backward, clutching and clawing
for support, down through the leafy branches of the tree.
For fifteen feet the two fell, Tarzan's teeth buried in
the jugular of his opponent, when a stout branch stopped
their descent. The bull struck full upon the small of his back
across the limb, hung there for a moment with the ape-man
still upon his breast, and then toppled over toward the ground.

Tarzan had felt the instantaneous relaxation of the body
beneath him after the heavy impact with the tree limb,
and as the other turned completely over and started again
upon its fall toward the ground, he reached forth a hand
and caught the branch in time to stay his own descent,
while the ape dropped like a plummet to the foot of
the tree.

Tarzan looked downward for a moment upon the still form
of his late antagonist, then he rose to his full height,
swelled his deep chest, smote upon it with his clenched
fist and roared out the uncanny challenge of the victorious
bull ape.

Even Sheeta, the panther, crouched for a spring at the edge
of the little clearing, moved uneasily as the mighty voice
sent its weird cry reverberating through the jungle.
To right and left, nervously, glanced Sheeta, as though
assuring himself that the way of escape lay ready at hand.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes," boasted the ape-man;
"mighty hunter, mighty fighter! None in all the jungle
so great as Tarzan."

Then he made his way back in the direction of Taug.
Teeka had watched the happenings in the tree. She had
even placed her precious balu upon the soft grasses and
come a little nearer that she might better witness all
that was passing in the branches above her. In her heart
of hearts did she still esteem the smooth-skinned Tarzan?
Did her savage breast swell with pride as she witnessed
his victory over the ape? You will have to ask Teeka.

And Sheeta, the panther, saw that the she-ape had left
her cub alone among the grasses. He moved his tail again,
as though this closest approximation of lashing in which he
dared indulge might stimulate his momentarily waned courage.
The cry of the victorious ape-man still held his nerves
beneath its spell. It would be several minutes before he
again could bring himself to the point of charging into
view of the giant anthropoids.

And as he regathered his forces, Tarzan reached Taug's side,
and then clambering higher up to the point where the end
of the grass rope was made fast, he unloosed it and
lowered the ape slowly downward, swinging him in until
the clutching hands fastened upon a limb.

Quickly Taug drew himself to a position of safety and shook
off the noose. In his rage-maddened heart was no room
for gratitude to the ape-man. He recalled only the fact
that Tarzan had laid this painful indignity upon him.
He would be revenged, but just at present his legs were
so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone
the gratification of his vengeance.

Tarzan was coiling his rope the while he lectured
Taug on the futility of pitting his poor powers,
physical and intellectual, against those of his betters.
Teeka had come close beneath the tree and was peering upward.
Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his belly
close to the ground. In another moment he would be clear
of the underbrush and ready for the rapid charge and the quick
retreat that would end the brief existence of Teeka's balu.

Then Tarzan chanced to look up and across the clearing.
Instantly his attitude of good-natured bantering and pompous
boastfulness dropped from him. Silently and swiftly he
shot downward toward the ground. Teeka, seeing him coming,
and thinking that he was after her or her balu, bristled and
prepared to fight. But Tarzan sped by her, and as he went,
her eyes followed him and she saw the cause of his sudden
descent and his rapid charge across the clearing.
There in full sight now was Sheeta, the panther,
stalking slowly toward the tiny, wriggling balu which lay
among the grasses many yards away.

Teeka gave voice to a shrill scream of terror and of warning
as she dashed after the ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan coming.
He saw the she-ape's cub before him, and he thought
that this other was bent upon robbing him of his prey.
With an angry growl, he charged.

Taug, warned by Teeka's cry, came lumbering down to
her assistance. Several other bulls, growling and barking,
closed in toward the clearing, but they were all much farther
from the balu and the panther than was Tarzan of the Apes,
so it was that Sheeta and the ape-man reached Teeka's
little one almost simultaneously; and there they stood,
one upon either side of it, baring their fangs and snarling
at each other over the little creature.

Sheeta was afraid to seize the balu, for thus he would
give the ape-man an opening for attack; and for the same
reason Tarzan hesitated to snatch the panther's prey
out of harm's way, for had he stooped to accomplish this,
the great beast would have been upon him in an instant.
Thus they stood while Teeka came across the clearing,
going more slowly as she neared the panther, for even her
mother love could scarce overcome her instinctive terror
of this natural enemy of her kind.

Behind her came Taug, warily and with many pauses and
much bluster, and still behind him came other bulls,
snarling ferociously and uttering their uncanny challenges.
Sheeta's yellow-green eyes glared terribly at Tarzan,
and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes
of Kerchak advancing upon him. Discretion prompted him
to turn and flee, but hunger and the close proximity
of the tempting morsel in the grass before him urged him
to remain. He reached forth a paw toward Teeka's balu,
and as he did so, with a savage guttural, Tarzan of the Apes
was upon him.

The panther reared to meet the ape-man's attack.
He swung a frightful raking blow for Tarzan that would have
wiped his face away had it landed, but it did not land,
for Tarzan ducked beneath it and closed, his long knife
ready in one strong hand--the knife of his dead father,
of the father he never had known.

Instantly the balu was forgotten by Sheeta, the panther.
He now thought only of tearing to ribbons with his powerful
talons the flesh of his antagonist, of burying his long,
yellow fangs in the soft, smooth hide of the ape-man, but
Tarzan had fought before with clawed creatures of the jungle.
Before now he had battled with fanged monsters, nor always
had he come away unscathed. He knew the risk that he ran,
but Tarzan of the Apes, inured to the sight of suffering
and death, shrank from neither, for he feared neither.

The instant that he dodged beneath Sheeta's blow, he leaped
to the beast's rear and then full upon the tawny back,
burying his teeth in Sheeta's neck and the fingers of one
hand in the fur at the throat, and with the other hand
he drove his blade into Sheeta's side.

Over and over upon the grass rolled Sheeta, growling and
screaming,
clawing and biting, in a mad effort to dislodge his antagonist
or get some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons.

As Tarzan leaped to close quarters with the panther,
Teeka had run quickly in and snatched up her balu.
Now she sat upon a high branch, safe out of harm's way,
cuddling the little thing close to her hairy breast,
the while her savage little eyes bored down upon the
contestants in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged
Taug and the other bulls to leap into the melee.

Thus goaded the bulls came closer, redoubling their
hideous clamor; but Sheeta was already sufficiently engaged--
he did not even hear them. Once he succeeded in partially
dislodging the ape-man from his back, so that Tarzan swung
for an instant in front of those awful talons, and in the
brief instant before he could regain his former hold,
a raking blow from a hind paw laid open one leg from hip to knee.


It was the sight and smell of this blood, possibly,
which wrought upon the encircling apes; but it
was Taug who really was responsible for the thing they did.

Taug, but a moment before filled with rage toward
Tarzan of the Apes, stood close to the battling pair,
his red-rimmed, wicked little eyes glaring at them.
What was passing in his savage brain? Did he gloat over
the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did
he long to see Sheeta's great fangs sink into the soft
throat of the ape-man? Or did he realize the courageous
unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to rush to the
rescue and imperil his life for Teeka's balu--for Taug's
little balu? Is gratitude a possession of man only,
or do the lower orders know it also?

With the spilling of Tarzan's blood, Taug answered
these questions. With all the weight of his great body
he leaped, hideously growling, upon Sheeta. His long
fighting fangs buried themselves in the white throat.
His powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur until it
flew upward in the jungle breeze.

And with Taug's example before them the other bulls charged,
burying Sheeta beneath rending fangs and filling all
the forest with the wild din of their battle cries.

Ah! but it was a wondrous and inspiring sight--this battle
of the primordial apes and the great, white ape-man
with their ancestral foe, Sheeta, the panther.

In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly danced upon
the limb which swayed beneath her great weight as she
urged on the males of her people, and Thaka, and Mumga,
and Kamma, with the other shes of the tribe of Kerchak,
added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the
pandemonium which now reigned within the jungle.

Bitten and biting, tearing and torn, Sheeta battled
for his life; but the odds were against him. Even Numa,
the lion, would have hesitated to have attacked an equal
number of the great bulls of the tribe of Kerchak, and now,
a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the terrific battle,
the king of beasts rose uneasily from his midday slumber
and slunk off farther into the jungle.

Presently Sheeta's torn and bloody body ceased its
titanic struggles. It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and
was still, yet the bulls continued to lacerate it until
the beautiful coat was torn to shreds. At last they desisted
from sheer physical weariness, and then from the tangle
of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as an arrow.

He placed a foot upon the dead body of the panther,
and lifting his blood-stained face to the blue of the
equatorial heavens, gave voice to the horrid victory
cry of the bull ape.

One by one his hairy fellows of the tribe of Kerchak
followed his example. The shes came down from their perches
of safety and struck and reviled the dead body of Sheeta.
The young apes refought the battle in mimicry of their
mighty elders.

Teeka was quite close to Tarzan. He turned and saw her
with the balu hugged close to her hairy breast, and put
out his hands to take the little one, expecting that Teeka
would bare her fangs and spring upon him; but instead
she placed the balu in his arms, and coming nearer,
licked his frightful wounds.

And presently Taug, who had escaped with only a few scratches,
came and squatted beside Tarzan and watched him as he
played with the little balu, and at last he too leaned
over and helped Teeka with the cleansing and the healing
of the ape-man's hurts.