Chapter 2

Son of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER 2, SON OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Mr. Harold Moore was a bilious-countenanced, studious
young man. He took himself very seriously, and life, and
his work, which latter was the tutoring of the young son of a
British nobleman. He felt that his charge was not making the
progress that his parents had a right to expect, and he was now
conscientiously explaining this fact to the boy's mother.

"It's not that he isn't bright," he was saying; "if that were
true I should have hopes of succeeding, for then I might bring
to bear all my energies in overcoming his obtuseness; but the
trouble is that he is exceptionally intelligent, and learns so
quickly that I can find no fault in the matter of the preparation
of his lessons. What concerns me, however, is that fact that he
evidently takes no interest whatever in the subjects we are studying.
He merely accomplishes each lesson as a task to be rid of
as quickly as possible and I am sure that no lesson ever again
enters his mind until the hours of study and recitation once
more arrive. His sole interests seem to be feats of physical
prowess and the reading of everything that he can get hold of
relative to savage beasts and the lives and customs of uncivilized
peoples; but particularly do stories of animals appeal to him.
He will sit for hours together poring over the work of some
African explorer, and upon two occasions I have found him setting
up in bed at night reading Carl Hagenbeck's book on men and beasts."

The boy's mother tapped her foot nervously upon the hearth rug.

"You discourage this, of course?" she ventured.

Mr. Moore shuffled embarrassedly.

"I--ah--essayed to take the book from him," he replied, a
slight flush mounting his sallow cheek; "but--ah--your son is
quite muscular for one so young."

"He wouldn't let you take it?" asked the mother.

"He would not," confessed the tutor. "He was perfectly good
natured about it; but he insisted upon pretending that he was a
gorilla and that I was a chimpanzee attempting to steal food
from him. He leaped upon me with the most savage growls I
ever heard, lifted me completely above his head, hurled me
upon his bed, and after going through a pantomime indicative
of choking me to death he stood upon my prostrate form and
gave voice to a most fearsome shriek, which he explained was
the victory cry of a bull ape. Then he carried me to the door,
shoved me out into the hall and locked me from his room."

For several minutes neither spoke again. It was the boy's
mother who finally broke the silence.

"It is very necessary, Mr. Moore," she said, "that you do
everything in your power to discourage this tendency in Jack,
he--"; but she got no further. A loud "Whoop!" from the
direction of the window brought them both to their feet.
The room was upon the second floor of the house, and opposite
the window to which their attention had been attracted was a
large tree, a branch of which spread to within a few feet of
the sill. Upon this branch now they both discovered the subject
of their recent conversation, a tall, well-built boy, balancing
with ease upon the bending limb and uttering loud shouts of glee
as he noted the terrified expressions upon the faces of his audience.

The mother and tutor both rushed toward the window but before
they had crossed half the room the boy had leaped nimbly to the
sill and entered the apartment with them.

"`The wild man from Borneo has just come to town,'" he sang,
dancing a species of war dance about his terrified mother
and scandalized tutor, and ending up by throwing his arms about
the former's neck and kissing her upon either cheek.

"Oh, Mother," he cried, "there's a wonderful, educated ape
being shown at one of the music halls. Willie Grimsby saw it
last night. He says it can do everything but talk. It rides
a bicycle, eats with knife and fork, counts up to ten, and ever
so many other wonderful things, and can I go and see it too?
Oh, please, Mother--please let me."

Patting the boy's cheek affectionately, the mother shook her
head negatively. "No, Jack," she said; "you know I do not
approve of such exhibitions."

"I don't see why not, Mother," replied the boy. "All the
other fellows go and they go to the Zoo, too, and you'll never
let me do even that. Anybody'd think I was a girl--or
a mollycoddle. Oh, Father," he exclaimed, as the door opened
to admit a tall gray-eyed man. "Oh, Father, can't I go?"

"Go where, my son?" asked the newcomer.

"He wants to go to a music hall to see a trained ape," said
the mother, looking warningly at her husband.

"Who, Ajax?" questioned the man.

The boy nodded.

"Well, I don't know that I blame you, my son," said the father,
"I wouldn't mind seeing him myself. They say he is very
wonderful, and that for an anthropoid he is unusually large.
Let's all go, Jane--what do you say?" And he turned toward his
wife, but that lady only shook her head in a most positive
manner, and turning to Mr. Moore asked him if it was not time
that he and Jack were in the study for the morning recitations.
When the two had left she turned toward her husband.

"John," she said, "something must be done to discourage Jack's
tendency toward anything that may excite the cravings for the
savage life which I fear he has inherited from you. You know
from your own experience how strong is the call of the wild
at times. You know that often it has necessitated a stern
struggle on your part to resist the almost insane desire which
occasionally overwhelms you to plunge once again into the jungle
life that claimed you for so many years, and at the same time you
know, better than any other, how frightful a fate it would be for
Jack, were the trail to the savage jungle made either alluring or
easy to him."

"I doubt if there is any danger of his inheriting a taste for
jungle life from me," replied the man, "for I cannot conceive
that such a thing may be transmitted from father to son.
And sometimes, Jane, I think that in your solicitude for his
future you go a bit too far in your restrictive measures.
His love for animals--his desire, for example, to see this
trained ape--is only natural in a healthy, normal boy of his age.
Just because he wants to see Ajax is no indication that he would
wish to marry an ape, and even should he, far be it from you Jane
to have the right to cry `shame!'" and John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke, put an arm about his wife, laughing good-naturedly
down into her upturned face before he bent his head and kissed her.
Then, more seriously, he continued: "You have never told Jack
anything concerning my early life, nor have you permitted me to,
and in this I think that you have made a mistake. Had I been
able to tell him of the experiences of Tarzan of the Apes I could
doubtless have taken much of the glamour and romance from
jungle life that naturally surrounds it in the minds of those who
have had no experience of it. He might then have profited by my
experience, but now, should the jungle lust ever claim him, he
will have nothing to guide him but his own impulses, and I know
how powerful these may be in the wrong direction at times."

But Lady Greystoke only shook her head as she had a hundred
other times when the subject had claimed her attention in the past.

"No, John," she insisted, "I shall never give my consent to
the implanting in Jack's mind of any suggestion of the savage
life which we both wish to preserve him from."

It was evening before the subject was again referred to and
then it was raised by Jack himself. He had been sitting, curled
in a large chair, reading, when he suddenly looked up and
addressed his father.

"Why," he asked, coming directly to the point, "can't I go
and see Ajax?"

"Your mother does not approve," replied his father.

"Do you?"

"That is not the question," evaded Lord Greystoke. "It is
enough that your mother objects."

"I am going to see him," announced the boy, after a few
moments of thoughtful silence. "I am not different from Willie
Grimsby, or any other of the fellows who have been to see him.
It did not harm them and it will not harm me. I could go without
telling you; but I would not do that. So I tell you now,
beforehand, that I am going to see Ajax."

There was nothing disrespectful or defiant in the boy's tone
or manner. His was merely a dispassionate statement of facts.
His father could scarce repress either a smile or a show of the
admiration he felt for the manly course his son had pursued.

"I admire your candor, Jack," he said. "Permit me to be candid,
as well. If you go to see Ajax without permission, I shall
punish you. I have never inflicted corporal punishment upon
you, but I warn you that should you disobey your mother's wishes
in this instance, I shall."

"Yes, sir," replied the boy; and then: "I shall tell you, sir,
when I have been to see Ajax."

Mr. Moore's room was next to that of his youthful charge,
and it was the tutor's custom to have a look into the boy's each
evening as the former was about to retire. This evening he was
particularly careful not to neglect his duty, for he had just come
from a conference with the boy's father and mother in which it
had been impressed upon him that he must exercise the greatest
care to prevent Jack visiting the music hall where Ajax was
being shown. So, when he opened the boy's door at about half
after nine, he was greatly excited, though not entirely surprised
to find the future Lord Greystoke fully dressed for the street and
about to crawl from his open bed room window.

Mr. Moore made a rapid spring across the apartment; but the
waste of energy was unnecessary, for when the boy heard him
within the chamber and realized that he had been discovered he
turned back as though to relinquish his planned adventure.

"Where were you going?" panted the excited Mr. Moore.

"I am going to see Ajax," replied the boy, quietly.

"I am astonished," cried Mr. Moore; but a moment later he
was infinitely more astonished, for the boy, approaching close
to him, suddenly seized him about the waist, lifted him from
his feet and threw him face downward upon the bed, shoving
his face deep into a soft pillow.

"Be quiet," admonished the victor, "or I'll choke you."

Mr. Moore struggled; but his efforts were in vain. Whatever else
Tarzan of the Apes may or may not have handed down to his son
he had at least bequeathed him almost as marvelous a physique
as he himself had possessed at the same age. The tutor was as
putty in the boy's hands. Kneeling upon him, Jack tore strips
from a sheet and bound the man's hands behind his back. Then he
rolled him over and stuffed a gag of the same material between
his teeth, securing it with a strip wound about the back of his
victim's head. All the while he talked in a low, conversational tone.

"I am Waja, chief of the Waji," he explained, "and you are
Mohammed Dubn, the Arab sheik, who would murder my people and
steal my ivory," and he dexterously trussed Mr. Moore's hobbled
ankles up behind to meet his hobbled wrists. "Ah--ha! Villain!
I have you in me power at last. I go; but I shall return!"
And the son of Tarzan skipped across the room, slipped through
the open window, and slid to liberty by way of the down spout
from an eaves trough.

Mr. Moore wriggled and struggled about the bed. He was
sure that he should suffocate unless aid came quickly. In his
frenzy of terror he managed to roll off the bed. The pain and
shock of the fall jolted him back to something like sane
consideration of his plight. Where before he had been unable
to think intelligently because of the hysterical fear that had
claimed him he now lay quietly searching for some means of escape
from his dilemma. It finally occurred to him that the room in
which Lord and Lady Greystoke had been sitting when he left them
was directly beneath that in which he lay upon the floor. He knew
that some time had elapsed since he had come up stairs and that
they might be gone by this time, for it seemed to him that he
had struggled about the bed, in his efforts to free himself, for
an eternity. But the best that he could do was to attempt to attract
attention from below, and so, after many failures, he managed
to work himself into a position in which he could tap the toe of
his boot against the floor. This he proceeded to do at short
intervals, until, after what seemed a very long time, he was
rewarded by hearing footsteps ascending the stairs, and presently
a knock upon the door. Mr. Moore tapped vigorously with
his toe--he could not reply in any other way. The knock was
repeated after a moment's silence. Again Mr. Moore tapped.
Would they never open the door! Laboriously he rolled in the
direction of succor. If he could get his back against the door
he could then tap upon its base, when surely he must be heard.
The knocking was repeated a little louder, and finally a voice
called: "Mr. Jack!"

It was one of the house men--Mr. Moore recognized the
fellow's voice. He came near to bursting a blood vessel in an
endeavor to scream "come in" through the stifling gag. After a
moment the man knocked again, quite loudly and again called
the boy's name. Receiving no reply he turned the knob, and at
the same instant a sudden recollection filled the tutor anew with
numbing terror--he had, himself, locked the door behind him
when he had entered the room.

He heard the servant try the door several times and then depart.
Upon which Mr. Moore swooned.

In the meantime Jack was enjoying to the full the stolen
pleasures of the music hall. He had reached the temple of mirth
just as Ajax's act was commencing, and having purchased a box seat
was now leaning breathlessly over the rail watching every move
of the great ape, his eyes wide in wonder. The trainer was not
slow to note the boy's handsome, eager face, and as one of
Ajax's biggest hits consisted in an entry to one or more boxes
during his performance, ostensibly in search of a long-lost
relative, as the trainer explained, the man realized the
effectiveness of sending him into the box with the handsome
boy, who, doubtless, would be terror stricken by proximity
to the shaggy, powerful beast.

When the time came, therefore, for the ape to return from the
wings in reply to an encore the trainer directed its attention to
the boy who chanced to be the sole occupant of the box in which
he sat. With a spring the huge anthropoid leaped from the stage
to the boy's side; but if the trainer had looked for a laughable
scene of fright he was mistaken. A broad smile lighted the boy's
features as he laid his hand upon the shaggy arm of his visitor.
The ape, grasping the boy by either shoulder, peered long and
earnestly into his face, while the latter stroked his head and
talked to him in a low voice.

Never had Ajax devoted so long a time to an examination of
another as he did in this instance. He seemed troubled and not
a little excited, jabbering and mumbling to the boy, and now
caressing him, as the trainer had never seen him caress a human
being before. Presently he clambered over into the box with him
and snuggled down close to the boy's side. The audience was
delighted; but they were still more delighted when the trainer,
the period of his act having elapsed, attempted to persuade Ajax
to leave the box. The ape would not budge. The manager,
becoming excited at the delay, urged the trainer to greater haste,
but when the latter entered the box to drag away the reluctant
Ajax he was met by bared fangs and menacing growls.

The audience was delirious with joy. They cheered the ape.
They cheered the boy, and they hooted and jeered at the trainer
and the manager, which luckless individual had inadvertently
shown himself and attempted to assist the trainer.

Finally, reduced to desperation and realizing that this show
of mutiny upon the part of his valuable possession might render
the animal worthless for exhibition purposes in the future if not
immediately subdued, the trainer had hastened to his dressing
room and procured a heavy whip. With this he now returned to
the box; but when he had threatened Ajax with it but once he
found himself facing two infuriated enemies instead of one, for
the boy had leaped to his feet, and seizing a chair was standing
ready at the ape's side to defend his new found friend. There was
no longer a smile upon his handsome face. In his gray eyes was
an expression which gave the trainer pause, and beside him stood
the giant anthropoid growling and ready.

What might have happened, but for a timely interruption, may
only be surmised; but that the trainer would have received a
severe mauling, if nothing more, was clearly indicated by the
attitudes of the two who faced him.

* * *

It was a pale-faced man who rushed into the Greystoke library
to announce that he had found Jack's door locked and had been
able to obtain no response to his repeated knocking and calling
other than a strange tapping and the sound of what might have
been a body moving about upon the floor.

Four steps at a time John Clayton took the stairs that led to
the floor above. His wife and the servant hurried after him.
Once he called his son's name in a loud voice; but receiving no
reply he launched his great weight, backed by all the undiminished
power of his giant muscles, against the heavy door. With a snapping
of iron butts and a splintering of wood the obstacle burst inward.

At its foot lay the body of the unconscious Mr. Moore, across
whom it fell with a resounding thud. Through the opening leaped
Tarzan, and a moment later the room was flooded with light
from a dozen electric bulbs.

It was several minutes before the tutor was discovered, so
completely had the door covered him; but finally he was dragged
forth, his gag and bonds cut away, and a liberal application of
cold water had hastened returning consciousness.

"Where is Jack?" was John Clayton's first question, and then;
"Who did this?" as the memory of Rokoff and the fear of a
second abduction seized him.

Slowly Mr. Moore staggered to his feet. His gaze wandered
about the room. Gradually he collected his scattered wits.
The details of his recent harrowing experience returned to him.

"I tender my resignation, sir, to take effect at once," were
his first words. "You do not need a tutor for your son--what he
needs is a wild animal trainer."

"But where is he?" cried Lady Greystoke.

"He has gone to see Ajax."

It was with difficulty that Tarzan restrained a smile, and after
satisfying himself that the tutor was more scared than injured,
he ordered his closed car around and departed in the direction
of a certain well-known music hall.