Chapter 17

Son of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER 17, SON OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Meriem returned slowly toward the tree in which she had left
her skirt, her shoes and her stockings. She was singing
blithely; but her song came to a sudden stop when she came
within sight of the tree, for there, disporting themselves
with glee and pulling and hauling upon her belongings, were a
number of baboons. When they saw her they showed no signs
of terror. Instead they bared their fangs and growled at her.
What was there to fear in a single she-Tarmangani?
Nothing, absolutely nothing.

In the open plain beyond the forest the hunters were returning
from the day's sport. They were widely separated, hoping to
raise a wandering lion on the homeward journey across the plain.
The Hon. Morison Baynes rode closest to the forest. As his eyes
wandered back and forth across the undulating, shrub sprinkled
ground they fell upon the form of a creature close beside the
thick jungle where it terminated abruptly at the plain's edge.

He reined his mount in the direction of his discovery. It was
yet too far away for his untrained eyes to recognize it; but as
he came closer he saw that it was a horse, and was about to resume
the original direction of his way when he thought that he discerned
a saddle upon the beast's back. He rode a little closer. Yes, the
animal was saddled. The Hon. Morison approached yet nearer, and as
he did so his eyes expressed a pleasurable emotion of anticipation,
for they had now recognized the pony as the special favorite of Meriem.

He galloped to the animal's side. Meriem must be within the wood.
The man shuddered a little at the thought of an unprotected girl
alone in the jungle that was still, to him, a fearful place of
terrors and stealthily stalking death. He dismounted and
left his horse beside Meriem's. On foot he entered the jungle.
He knew that she was probably safe enough and he wished to
surprise her by coming suddenly upon her.

He had gone but a short distance into the wood when he heard
a great jabbering in a near-by tree. Coming closer he saw a band
of baboons snarling over something. Looking intently he saw
that one of them held a woman's riding skirt and that others had
boots and stockings. His heart almost ceased to beat as he quite
naturally placed the most direful explanation upon the scene.
The baboons had killed Meriem and stripped this clothing from
her body. Morison shuddered.

He was about to call aloud in the hope that after all the girl
still lived when he saw her in a tree close beside that was
occupied by the baboons, and now he saw that they were snarling
and jabbering at her. To his amazement he saw the girl swing,
ape-like, into the tree below the huge beasts. He saw her pause
upon a branch a few feet from the nearest baboon. He was about
to raise his rifle and put a bullet through the hideous creature
that seemed about to leap upon her when he heard the girl speak.
He almost dropped his rifle from surprise as a strange jabbering,
identical with that of the apes, broke from Meriem's lips.

The baboons stopped their snarling and listened. It was quite
evident that they were as much surprised as the Hon. Morison Baynes.
Slowly and one by one they approached the girl. She gave not
the slightest evidence of fear of them. They quite surrounded
her now so that Baynes could not have fired without endangering
the girl's life; but he no longer desired to fire. He was
consumed with curiosity.

For several minutes the girl carried on what could be nothing
less than a conversation with the baboons, and then with seeming
alacrity every article of her apparel in their possession was
handed over to her. The baboons still crowded eagerly about her
as she donned them. They chattered to her and she chattered back.
The Hon. Morison Baynes sat down at the foot of a tree and mopped
his perspiring brow. Then he rose and made his way back to his mount.

When Meriem emerged from the forest a few minutes later
she found him there, and he eyed her with wide eyes in which
were both wonder and a sort of terror.

"I saw your horse here," he explained, "and thought that I
would wait and ride home with you--you do not mind?"

"Of course not," she replied. "It will be lovely."

As they made their way stirrup to stirrup across the plain the
Hon. Morison caught himself many times watching the girl's
regular profile and wondering if his eyes had deceived him or
if, in truth, he really had seen this lovely creature consorting
with grotesque baboons and conversing with them as fluently as
she conversed with him. The thing was uncanny--impossible;
yet he had seen it with his own eyes.

And as he watched her another thought persisted in obtruding
itself into his mind. She was most beautiful and very desirable;
but what did he know of her? Was she not altogether impossible?
Was the scene that he had but just witnessed not sufficient proof
of her impossibility? A woman who climbed trees and conversed
with the baboons of the jungle! It was quite horrible!

Again the Hon. Morison mopped his brow. Meriem glanced
toward him.

"You are warm," she said. "Now that the sun is setting I
find it quite cool. Why do you perspire now?"

He had not intended to let her know that he had seen her with
the baboons; but quite suddenly, before he realized what he was
saying, he had blurted it out.

"I perspire from emotion," he said. "I went into the jungle
when I discovered your pony. I wanted to surprise you; but it
was I who was surprised. I saw you in the trees with the baboons."

"Yes?" she said quite unemotionally, as though it was a matter
of little moment that a young girl should be upon intimate
terms with savage jungle beasts.

"It was horrible!" ejaculated the Hon. Morison.

"Horrible?" repeated Meriem, puckering her brows in bewilderment.
"What was horrible about it? They are my friends. Is it horrible
to talk with one's friends?"

"You were really talking with them, then?" cried the Hon. Morison.
"You understood them and they understood you?"

"Certainly."

"But they are hideous creatures--degraded beasts of a lower order.
How could you speak the language of beasts?"

"They are not hideous, and they are not degraded," replied Meriem.
"Friends are never that. I lived among them for years
before Bwana found me and brought me here. I scarce knew
any other tongue than that of the mangani. Should I refuse to
know them now simply because I happen, for the present, to
live among humans?"

"For the present!" ejaculated the Hon. Morison. "You cannot mean
that you expect to return to live among them? Come, come, what
foolishness are we talking! The very idea! You are spoofing me,
Miss Meriem. You have been kind to these baboons here and they
know you and do not molest you; but that you once lived among
them--no, that is preposterous."

"But I did, though," insisted the girl, seeing the real horror
that the man felt in the presence of such an idea reflected in his
tone and manner, and rather enjoying baiting him still further.
"Yes, I lived, almost naked, among the great apes and the lesser apes.
I dwelt among the branches of the trees. I pounced upon the
smaller prey and devoured it--raw. With Korak and A'ht I
hunted the antelope and the boar, and I sat upon a tree limb and
made faces at Numa, the lion, and threw sticks at him and annoyed
him until he roared so terribly in his rage that the earth shook.

"And Korak built me a lair high among the branches of a
mighty tree. He brought me fruits and flesh. He fought for me
and was kind to me--until I came to Bwana and My Dear I do
not recall that any other than Korak was ever kind to me."
There was a wistful note in the girl's voice now and she had
forgotten that she was bantering the Hon. Morison. She was
thinking of Korak. She had not thought of him a great deal
of late.

For a time both were silently absorbed in their own reflections
as they rode on toward the bungalow of their host. The girl was
thinking of a god-like figure, a leopard skin half concealing his
smooth, brown hide as he leaped nimbly through the trees to
lay an offering of food before her on his return from a
successful hunt. Behind him, shaggy and powerful, swung a
huge anthropoid ape, while she, Meriem, laughing and shouting
her welcome, swung upon a swaying limb before the entrance to her
sylvan bower. It was a pretty picture as she recalled it. The other
side seldom obtruded itself upon her memory--the long, black
nights--the chill, terrible jungle nights--the cold and damp and
discomfort of the rainy season--the hideous mouthings of the
savage carnivora as they prowled through the Stygian darkness
beneath--the constant menace of Sheeta, the panther, and Histah, the snake--the stinging
insects--the loathesome vermin. For, in truth,
all these had been outweighed by the happiness of the sunny days,
the freedom of it all, and, most, the companionship of Korak.

The man's thoughts were rather jumbled. He had suddenly
realized that he had come mighty near falling in love with this
girl of whom he had known nothing up to the previous moment
when she had voluntarily revealed a portion of her past to him.
The more he thought upon the matter the more evident it became
to him that he had given her his love--that he had been upon the
verge of offering her his honorable name. He trembled a little
at the narrowness of his escape. Yet, he still loved her.
There was no objection to that according to the ethics of the
Hon. Morison Baynes and his kind. She was a meaner clay than he.
He could no more have taken her in marriage than he could have
taken one of her baboon friends, nor would she, of course,
expect such an offer from him. To have his love would be
sufficient honor for her--his name he would, naturally, bestow
upon one in his own elevated social sphere.

A girl who had consorted with apes, who, according to her
own admission, had lived almost naked among them, could have
no considerable sense of the finer qualities of virtue. The love
that he would offer her, then, would, far from offending her,
probably cover all that she might desire or expect.

The more the Hon. Morison Baynes thought upon the subject
the more fully convinced he became that he was contemplating
a most chivalrous and unselfish act. Europeans will better
understand his point of view than Americans, poor, benighted
provincials, who are denied a true appreciation of caste and of
the fact that "the king can do no wrong." He did not even have
to argue the point that she would be much happier amidst the
luxuries of a London apartment, fortified as she would be by
both his love and his bank account, than lawfully wed to such a
one as her social position warranted. There was one question
however, which he wished to have definitely answered before
he committed himself even to the program he was considering.

"Who were Korak and A'ht?" he asked.

"A'ht was a Mangani," replied Meriem, "and Korak a Tarmangani."

"And what, pray, might a Mangani be, and a Tarmangani?"

The girl laughed.

"You are a Tarmangani," she replied. "The Mangani are covered
with hair--you would call them apes."

"Then Korak was a white man?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And he was--ah--your--er--your--?" He paused, for he found
it rather difficult to go on with that line of questioning
while the girl's clear, beautiful eyes were looking straight
into his.

"My what?" insisted Meriem, far too unsophisticated in her
unspoiled innocence to guess what the Hon. Morison was driving at.

"Why--ah--your brother?" he stumbled.

"No, Korak was not my brother," she replied.

"Was he your husband, then?" he finally blurted.

Far from taking offense, Meriem broke into a merry laugh.

"My husband!" she cried. "Why how old do you think I am?
I am too young to have a husband. I had never thought of such
a thing. Korak was--why--," and now she hesitated, too, for
she never before had attempted to analyse the relationship that
existed between herself and Korak--"why, Korak was just Korak,"
and again she broke into a gay laugh as she realized the
illuminating quality of her description.

Looking at her and listening to her the man beside her could
not believe that depravity of any sort or degree entered into the
girl's nature, yet he wanted to believe that she had not been
virtuous, for otherwise his task was less a sinecure--the Hon.
Morison was not entirely without conscience.

For several days the Hon. Morison made no appreciable progress
toward the consummation of his scheme. Sometimes he almost
abandoned it for he found himself time and again wondering how
slight might be the provocation necessary to trick him into
making a bona-fide offer of marriage to Meriem if he permitted
himself to fall more deeply in love with her, and it was
difficult to see her daily and not love her. There was a
quality about her which, all unknown to the Hon. Morison, was
making his task an extremely difficult one--it was that quality
of innate goodness and cleanness which is a good girl's stoutest
bulwark and protection--an impregnable barrier that only
degeneracy has the effrontery to assail. The Hon. Morison Baynes
would never be considered a degenerate.

He was sitting with Meriem upon the verandah one evening after
the others had retired. Earlier they had been playing tennis--
a game in which the Hon. Morison shone to advantage, as, in truth,
he did in most all manly sports. He was telling Meriem stories
of London and Paris, of balls and banquets, of the wonderful women
and their wonderful gowns, of the pleasures and pastimes of the
rich and powerful. The Hon. Morison was a past master in the
art of insidious boasting. His egotism was never flagrant or
tiresome--he was never crude in it, for crudeness was a
plebeianism that the Hon. Morison studiously avoided, yet
the impression derived by a listener to the Hon. Morison was
one that was not at all calculated to detract from the glory of
the house of Baynes, or from that of its representative.

Meriem was entranced. His tales were like fairy stories to this
little jungle maid. The Hon. Morison loomed large and wonderful
and magnificent in her mind's eye. He fascinated her, and
when he drew closer to her after a short silence and took her
hand she thrilled as one might thrill beneath the touch of a
deity--a thrill of exaltation not unmixed with fear.

He bent his lips close to her ear.

"Meriem!" he whispered. "My little Meriem! May I hope
to have the right to call you `my little Meriem'?"

The girl turned wide eyes upward to his face; but it was
in shadow. She trembled but she did not draw away. The man
put an arm about her and drew her closer.

"I love you!" he whispered.

She did not reply. She did not know what to say. She knew
nothing of love. She had never given it a thought; but she did
know that it was very nice to be loved, whatever it meant.
It was nice to have people kind to one. She had known so
little of kindness or affection.

"Tell me," he said, "that you return my love."

His lips came steadily closer to hers. They had almost touched
when a vision of Korak sprang like a miracle before her eyes.
She saw Korak's face close to hers, she felt his lips hot against
hers, and then for the first time in her life she guessed what
love meant. She drew away, gently.

"I am not sure," she said, "that I love you. Let us wait.
There is plenty of time. I am too young to marry yet, and I am
not sure that I should be happy in London or Paris--they rather
frighten me."

How easily and naturally she had connected his avowal of love
with the idea of marriage! The Hon. Morison was perfectly
sure that he had not mentioned marriage--he had been particularly
careful not to do so. And then she was not sure that she loved him!
That, too, came rather in the nature of a shock to his vanity.
It seemed incredible that this little barbarian should have any
doubts whatever as to the desirability of the Hon. Morison Baynes.

The first flush of passion cooled, the Hon. Morison was enabled
to reason more logically. The start had been all wrong. It would
be better now to wait and prepare her mind gradually for the
only proposition which his exalted estate would permit him
to offer her. He would go slow. He glanced down at the
girl's profile. It was bathed in the silvery light of the
great tropic moon. The Hon. Morison Baynes wondered if it were
to be so easy a matter to "go slow." She was most alluring.

Meriem rose. The vision of Korak was still before her.

"Good night," she said. "It is almost too beautiful to leave,"
she waved her hand in a comprehensive gesture which took in
the starry heavens, the great moon, the broad, silvered plain,
and the dense shadows in the distance, that marked the jungle.
"Oh, how I love it!"

"You would love London more," he said earnestly. "And London
would love you. You would be a famous beauty in any capital
of Europe. You would have the world at your feet, Meriem."

"Good night!" she repeated, and left him.

The Hon. Morison selected a cigarette from his crested case,
lighted it, blew a thin line of blue smoke toward the moon,
and smiled.