The Tommies

Tarzan the Untamed

by Edgar R. Burroughs

THE TOMMIES, TARZAN THE UNTAMED by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Daylight overtook them after they had entered the gorge,
but, tired as they all were with the exception of Tar-
zan, they realized that they must keep on at all costs
until they found a spot where they might ascend the precipi-
tous side of the gorge to the floor of the plateau above. Tarzan
and Otobu were both equally confident that the Xujans would
not follow them beyond the gorge, but though they scanned
every inch of the frowning cliffs upon either hand noon came
and there was still no indication of any avenue of escape to
right or left. There were places where the ape-man alone
might have negotiated the ascent but none where the others
could hope successfully to reach the plateau, nor where Tar-
zan, powerful and agile as he was, could have ventured safely
to carry them aloft.

For half a day the ape-man had been either carrying or
supporting Smith-Oldwick and now, to his chagrin, he saw
that the girl was faltering. He had realized well how much
she had undergone and how greatly the hardships and dan-
gers and the fatigue of the past weeks must have told upon
her vitality. He saw how bravely she attempted to keep up,
yet how often she stumbled and staggered as she labored
through the sand and gravel of the gorge. Nor could he help
but admire her fortitude and the uncomplaining effort she was
making to push on.

The Englishman must have noticed her condition too, for
some time after noon, he stopped suddenly and sat down in
the sand. "It's no use," he said to Tarzan. "I can go no far-
ther. Miss Kircher is rapidly weakening. You will have to go
on without me."

"No," said the girl, "we cannot do that. We have all been
through so much together and the chances of our escape are
still so remote that whatever comes, let us remain together,
unless," and she looked up at Tarzan, "you, who have done
so much for us to whom you are under no obligations, will
go on without us. I for one wish that you would. It must be
as evident to you as it is to me that you cannot save us, for
though you succeeded in dragging us from the path of our
pursuers, even your great strength and endurance could never
take one of us across the desert waste which lies between
here and the nearest fertile country."

The ape-man returned her serious look with a smile. "You
are not dead," he said to her, "nor is the lieutenant, nor Otobu,
nor myself. One is either dead or alive, and until we are dead
we should plan only upon continuing to live. Because we
remain here and rest is no indication that we shall die here.
I cannot carry you both to the country of the Wamabos, which
is the nearest spot at which we may expect to find game and
water, but we shall not give up on that account. So far we
have found a way. Let us take things as they come. Let us
rest now because you and Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick need the
rest, and when you are stronger we will go on again."

"But the Xujans --?" she asked, "may they not follow us
here?"

"Yes," he said, "they probably will. But we need not be
concerned with them until they come."

"I wish," said the girl, "that I possessed your philosophy
but I am afraid it is beyond me."

"You were not born and reared in the jungle by wild beasts
and among wild beasts, or you would possess, as I do, the
fatalism of the jungle."

And so they moved to the side of the gorge beneath the
shade of an overhanging rock and lay down in the hot sand to
rest. Numa wandered restlessly to and fro and finally, after
sprawling for a moment close beside the ape-man, rose and
moved off up the gorge to be lost to view a moment later be-
yond the nearest turn.

For an hour the little party rested and then Tarzan suddenly
rose and, motioning the others to silence, listened. For a min-
ute he stood motionless, his keen ears acutely receptive to
sounds so faint and distant that none of the other three could
detect the slightest break in the utter and deathlike quiet of
the
gorge. Finally the ape-man relaxed and turned toward them.
"What is it?" asked the girl.

"They are coming," he replied. "They are yet some distance
away, though not far, for the sandaled feet of the men and the
pads of the lions make little noise upon the soft sands."

"What shall we do -- try to go on?" asked Smith-Oldwick.
"I believe I could make a go of it now for a short way. I am
much rested. How about you Miss Kircher?"

"Oh, yes," she said, "I am much stronger. Yes, surely I can
go on."

Tarzan knew that neither of them quite spoke the truth,
that people do not recover so quickly from utter exhaustion,
but he saw no other way and there was always the hope that
just beyond the next turn would be a way out of the gorge.

"You help the lieutenant, Otobu," he said, turning to the
black, "and I will carry Miss Kircher," and though the girl
objected, saying that he must not waste his strength, he lifted
her lightly in his arms and moved off up the canyon, followed
by Otobu and the Englishman. They had gone no great dis-
tance when the others of the party became aware of the sounds
of pursuit, for now the lions were whining as though the fresh
scent spoor of their quarry had reached their nostrils.

"I wish that your Numa would return," said the girl.

"Yes," said Tarzan, "but we shall have to do the best we can
without him. I should like to find some place where we can
barricade ourselves against attack from all sides. Possibly then
we might hold them off. Smith-Oldwick is a good shot and if
there are not too many men he might be able to dispose of
them provided they can only come at him one at a time. The
lions don't bother me so much. Sometimes they are stupid
animals, and I am sure that these that pursue us, and who are
so dependent upon the masters that have raised and trained
them, will be easily handled after the warriors are disposed of."

"You think there is some hope, then?" she asked.

"We are still alive," was his only answer.

"There," he said presently, "I thought I recalled this very
spot." He pointed toward a fragment that had evidently fallen
from the summit of the cliff and which now lay imbedded in
the sand a few feet from the base. It was a jagged fragment of
rock which rose some ten feet above the surface of the sand,
leaving a narrow aperture between it and the cliff behind. To-
ward this they directed their steps and when finally they
reached their goal they found a space about two feet wide and
ten feet long between the rock and the cliff. To be sure it was
open at both ends but at least they could not be attacked
upon all sides at once.

They had scarcely concealed themselves before Tarzan's
quick ears caught a sound upon the face of the cliff above
them, and looking up he saw a diminutive monkey perched
upon a slight projection -- an ugly-faced little monkey who
looked down upon them for a moment and then scampered
away toward the south in the direction from which their pur-
suers were coming. Otobu had seen the monkey too. "He will
tell the parrots," said the black, "and the parrots will tell the
madmen."

"It is all the same," replied Tarzan; "the lions would have
found us here. We could not hope to hide from them."

He placed Smith-Oldwick, with his pistol, at the north open-
ing of their haven and told Otobu to stand with his spear at
the Englishman's shoulder, while he himself prepared to guard
the southern approach. Between them he had the girl lie down
in the sand. "You will be safe there in the event that they use
their spears," he said.

The minutes that dragged by seemed veritable eternities to
Bertha Kircher and then at last, and almost with relief, she
knew that the pursuers were upon them. She heard the angry
roaring of the lions and the cries of the madmen. For several
minutes the men seemed to be investigating the stronghold
which their quarry had discovered. She could hear them both
to the north and south and then from where she lay she saw
a lion charging for the ape-man before her. She saw the giant
arm swing back with the curved saber and she saw it fall
with terrific velocity and meet the lion as he rose to grapple
with the man, cleaving his skull as cleanly as a butcher opens
up a sheep.

Then she heard footsteps running rapidly toward Smith-
Oldwick and, as his pistol spoke, there was a scream and the
sound of a falling body. Evidently disheartened by the failure
of their first attempt the assaulters drew off, but only for a
short time. Again they came, this time a man opposing Tar-
zan and a lion seeking to overcome Smith-Oldwick. Tarzan
had cautioned the young Englishman not to waste his car-
tridges upon the lions and it was Otobu with the Xujan spear
who met the beast, which was not subdued until both he and
Smith-Oldwick had been mauled, and the latter had succeeded
in running the point of the saber the girl had carried, into the
beast's heart. The man who opposed Tarzan inadvertently
came too close in an attempt to cut at the ape-man's head, with
the result that an instant later his corpse lay with the neck
broken upon the body of the lion.

Once again the enemy withdrew, but again only for a short
time, and now they came in full force, the lions and the men,
possibly a half dozen of each, the men casting their spears
and the lions waiting just behind, evidently for the signal to
charge.

"Is this the end?" asked the girl.

"No," cried the ape-man, "for we still live!"

The words had scarcely passed his lips when the remaining
warriors, rushing in, cast their spears simultaneously from
both sides. In attempting to shield the girl, Tarzan received
one of the shafts in the shoulder, and so heavily had the
weapon been hurled that it bore him backward to the ground.
Smith-Oldwick fired his pistol twice when he too was struck
down, the weapon entering his right leg midway between hip
and knee. Only Otobu remained to face the enemy, for the
Englishman, already weak from his wounds and from the
latest mauling he had received at the claws of the lion, had lost
consciousness as he sank to the ground with this new hurt.

As he fell his pistol dropped from his fingers, and the girl,
seeing, snatched it up. As Tarzan struggled to rise, one of the
warriors leaped full upon his breast and bore him back as, with
fiendish shrieks, he raised the point of his saber above the
other's heart. Before he could drive it home the girl leveled
Smith-Oldwick's pistol and fired point-blank at the fiend's
face.

Simultaneously there broke upon the astonished ears of both
attackers and attacked a volley of shots from the gorge. With
the sweetness of the voice of an angel from heaven the Euro-
peans heard the sharp-barked commands of an English non-
com. Even above the roars of the lions and the screams of
the maniacs, those beloved tones reached the ears of Tarzan
and the girl at the very moment that even the ape-man had
given up the last vestige of hope.

Rolling the body of the warrior to one side Tarzan strug-
gled to his feet, the spear still protruding from his shoulder.
The girl rose too, and as Tarzan wrenched the weapon from
his flesh and stepped out from behind the concealment of
their refuge, she followed at his side. The skirmish that had
resulted in their rescue was soon over. Most of the lions es-
caped but all of the pursuing Xujans had been slain. As Tar-
zan and the girl came into full view of the group, a British
Tommy leveled his rifle at the ape-man. Seeing the fellow's
actions and realizing instantly the natural error that Tarzan's
yellow tunic had occasioned the girl sprang between him and
the soldier. "Don't shoot," she cried to the latter, "we are both
friends."

"Hold up your hands, you, then," he commanded Tarzan.
"I ain't taking no chances with any duffer with a yellow shirt."

At this juncture the British sergeant who had been in com-
mand of the advance guard approached and when Tarzan and
the girl spoke to him in English, explaining their disguises, he
accepted their word, since they were evidently not of the
same race as the creatures which lay dead about them. Ten
minutes later the main body of the expedition came into view.
Smith-Oldwick's wounds were dressed, as well as were those
of the ape-man, and in half an hour they were on their way to
the camp of their rescuers.

That night it was arranged that the following day Smith-
Oldwick and Bertha Kircher should be transported to British
headquarters near the coast by aeroplane, the two planes
attached to the expeditionary force being requisitioned for the
purpose. Tarzan and Otobu declined the offers of the British
captain to accompany his force overland on the return march
as Tarzan explained that his country lay to the west, as did
Otobu's, and that they would travel together as far as the
country of the Wamabos.

"You are not going back with us, then?" asked the girl.

"No," replied the ape-man. "My home is upon the west
coast. I will continue my journey in that direction."

She cast appealing eyes toward him. "You will go back into
that terrible jungle?" she asked. "We shall never see you
again?"

He looked at her a moment in silence. "Never," he said,
and without another word turned and walked away.

In the morning Colonel Capell came from the base camp in
one of the planes that was to carry Smith-Oldwick and the girl
to the east. Tarzan was standing some distance away as the
ship landed and the officer descended to the ground. He saw
the colonel greet his junior in command of the advance de-
tachment, and then he saw him turn toward Bertha Kircher
who was standing a few paces behind the captain. Tarzan won-
dered how the German spy felt in this situation, especially
when she must know that there was one there who knew her
real status. He saw Colonel Capell walk toward her with out-
stretched hands and smiling face and, although he could
not hear the words of his greeting, he saw that it was friendly
and cordial to a degree.

Tarzan turned away scowling, and if any had been close by
they might have heard a low growl rumble from his chest. He
knew that his country was at war with Germany and that not
only his duty to the land of his fathers, but also his personal
grievance against the enemy people and his hatred of them,
demanded that he expose the girl's perfidy, and yet he hesi-
tated, and because he hesitated he growled -- not at the German
spy but at himself for his weakness.

He did not see her again before she entered a plane and was
borne away toward the east. He bid farewell to Smith-Oldwick
and received again the oft-repeated thanks of the young Eng-
lishman. And then he saw him too borne aloft in the high
circling plane and watched until the ship became a speck far
above the eastern horizon to disappear at last high in air.

The Tommies, their packs and accouterments slung, were
waiting the summons to continue their return march. Colonel
Capell had, through a desire to personally observe the stretch
of country between the camp of the advance detachment and
the base, decided to march back his troops. Now that all was
in readiness for departure he turned to Tarzan. "I wish you
would come back with us, Greystoke," he said, "and if my
appeal carries no inducement possibly that of Smith-Oldwick
'and the young lady who just left us may. They asked me to
urge you to return to civilization."

"No;" said Tarzan, "I shall go my own way. Miss Kircher
and Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick were only prompted by a sense
of gratitude in considering my welfare."

"Miss Kircher?" exclaimed Capell and then he laughed,
"You know her then as Bertha Kircher, the German spy?"

Tarzan looked at the other a moment in silence. It was
beyond him to conceive that a British officer should thus laco-
nically speak of an enemy spy whom he had had within his
power and permitted to escape. "Yes," he replied, "I knew
that she was Bertha Kircher, the German spy?"

"Is that all you knew?" asked Capell.

"That is all," said the ape-man.

"She is the Honorable Patricia Canby," said Capell, "one
of the most valuable members of the British Intelligence Serv-
ice attached to the East African forces. Her father and I
served in India together and I have known her ever since she
was born.

"Why, here's a packet of papers she took from a German
officer and has been carrying it through all her vicissitudes --
single-minded in the performance of her duty. Look! I
haven't yet had time to examine them but as you see here is a
military sketch map, a bundle of reports, and the diary of one
Hauptmann Fritz Schneider."

"The diary of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider!" repeated Tar-
zan in a constrained voice. "May I see it, Capell? He is the
man who murdered Lady Greystoke."

The Englishman handed the little volume over to the other
without a word. Tarzan ran through the pages quickly look-
ing for a certain date -- the date that the horror had been com-
mitted -- and when he found it he read rapidly. Suddenly a
gasp of incredulity burst from his lips. Capell looked at him
questioningly.

"God!" exclaimed the ape-man. "Can this be true? Listen!"
and he read an excerpt from the closely written page:

"'Played a little joke on the English pig. When he comes
home he will find the burned body of his wife in her boudoir --
but he will only think it is his wife. Had von Goss substitute
the body of a dead Negress and char it after putting Lady
Greystoke's rings on it -- Lady G will be of more value to the
High Command alive than dead.'"

"She lives!" cried Tarzan.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Capell. "And now?"

"I will return with you, of course. How terribly I have
wronged Miss Canby, but how could I know? I even told
Smith-Oldwick, who loves her, that she was a German spy.

"Not only must I return to find my wife but I must right
this wrong."

"Don't worry about that," said Capell, "she must have con-
vinced him that she is no enemy spy, for just before they left
this morning he told me she had promised to marry him."