Chapter Chapter 17 · Burials

. Burials

As it was now quite light, the party, none of whom had eaten or slept

since the previous morning, began to bestir themselves to prepare food.

The mutineers of the _Arrow_ had landed a small supply of dried meats,

canned soups and vegetables, crackers, flour, tea, and coffee for the

five they had marooned, and these were hurriedly drawn upon to satisfy

the craving of long-famished appetites.

The next task was to make the cabin habitable, and to this end it was

decided to at once remove the gruesome relics of the tragedy which had

taken place there on some bygone day.

Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were deeply interested in examining

the skeletons. The two larger, they stated, had belonged to a male and

female of one of the higher white races.

The smallest skeleton was given but passing attention, as its location,

in the crib, left no doubt as to its having been the infant offspring

of this unhappy couple.

As they were preparing the skeleton of the man for burial, Clayton

discovered a massive ring which had evidently encircled the man’s

finger at the time of his death, for one of the slender bones of the

hand still lay within the golden bauble.

Picking it up to examine it, Clayton gave a cry of astonishment, for

the ring bore the crest of the house of Greystoke.

At the same time, Jane discovered the books in the cupboard, and on

opening the fly-leaf of one of them saw the name, _John Clayton,

London_. In a second book which she hurriedly examined was the single

name, _Greystoke_.

“Why, Mr. Clayton,” she cried, “what does this mean? Here are the names

of some of your own people in these books.”

“And here,” he replied gravely, “is the great ring of the house of

Greystoke which has been lost since my uncle, John Clayton, the former

Lord Greystoke, disappeared, presumably lost at sea.”

“But how do you account for these things being here, in this savage

African jungle?” exclaimed the girl.

“There is but one way to account for it, Miss Porter,” said Clayton.

“The late Lord Greystoke was not drowned. He died here in this cabin

and this poor thing upon the floor is all that is mortal of him.”

“Then this must have been Lady Greystoke,” said Jane reverently,

indicating the poor mass of bones upon the bed.

“The beautiful Lady Alice,” replied Clayton, “of whose many virtues and

remarkable personal charms I often have heard my mother and father

speak. Poor woman,” he murmured sadly.

With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the late Lord and Lady

Greystoke were buried beside their little African cabin, and between

them was placed the tiny skeleton of the baby of Kala, the ape.

As Mr. Philander was placing the frail bones of the infant in a bit of

sail cloth, he examined the skull minutely. Then he called Professor

Porter to his side, and the two argued in low tones for several

minutes.

“Most remarkable, most remarkable,” said Professor Porter.

“Bless me,” said Mr. Philander, “we must acquaint Mr. Clayton with our

discovery at once.”

“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!” remonstrated Professor Archimedes

Q. Porter. “‘Let the dead past bury its dead.’”

And so the white-haired old man repeated the burial service over this

strange grave, while his four companions stood with bowed and uncovered

heads about him.

From the trees Tarzan of the Apes watched the solemn ceremony; but most

of all he watched the sweet face and graceful figure of Jane Porter.

In his savage, untutored breast new emotions were stirring. He could

not fathom them. He wondered why he felt so great an interest in these

people—why he had gone to such pains to save the three men. But he did

not wonder why he had torn Sabor from the tender flesh of the strange

girl.

Surely the men were stupid and ridiculous and cowardly. Even Manu, the

monkey, was more intelligent than they. If these were creatures of his

own kind he was doubtful if his past pride in blood was warranted.

But the girl, ah—that was a different matter. He did not reason here.

He knew that she was created to be protected, and that he was created

to protect her.

He wondered why they had dug a great hole in the ground merely to bury

dry bones. Surely there was no sense in that; no one wanted to steal

dry bones.

Had there been meat upon them he could have understood, for thus alone

might one keep his meat from Dango, the hyena, and the other robbers of

the jungle.

When the grave had been filled with earth the little party turned back

toward the cabin, and Esmeralda, still weeping copiously for the two

she had never heard of before today, and who had been dead twenty

years, chanced to glance toward the harbor. Instantly her tears ceased.

“Look at them low down white trash out there!” she shrilled, pointing

toward the _Arrow_. “They-all’s a desecrating us, right here on this

here perverted island.”

And, sure enough, the _Arrow_ was being worked toward the open sea,

slowly, through the harbor’s entrance.

“They promised to leave us firearms and ammunition,” said Clayton. “The

merciless beasts!”

“It is the work of that fellow they call Snipes, I am sure,” said Jane.

“King was a scoundrel, but he had a little sense of humanity. If they

had not killed him I know that he would have seen that we were properly

provided for before they left us to our fate.”

“I regret that they did not visit us before sailing,” said Professor

Porter. “I had proposed requesting them to leave the treasure with us,

as I shall be a ruined man if that is lost.”

Jane looked at her father sadly.

“Never mind, dear,” she said. “It wouldn’t have done any good, because

it is solely for the treasure that they killed their officers and

landed us upon this awful shore.”

“Tut, tut, child, tut, tut!” replied Professor Porter. “You are a good

child, but inexperienced in practical matters,” and Professor Porter

turned and walked slowly away toward the jungle, his hands clasped

beneath his long coat tails and his eyes bent upon the ground.

His daughter watched him with a pathetic smile upon her lips, and then

turning to Mr. Philander, she whispered:

“Please don’t let him wander off again as he did yesterday. We depend

upon you, you know, to keep a close watch upon him.”

“He becomes more difficult to handle each day,” replied Mr. Philander,

with a sigh and a shake of his head. “I presume he is now off to report

to the directors of the Zoo that one of their lions was at large last

night. Oh, Miss Jane, you don’t know what I have to contend with.”

“Yes, I do, Mr. Philander; but while we all love him, you alone are

best fitted to manage him; for, regardless of what he may say to you,

he respects your great learning, and, therefore, has immense confidence

in your judgment. The poor dear cannot differentiate between erudition

and wisdom.”

Mr. Philander, with a mildly puzzled expression on his face, turned to

pursue Professor Porter, and in his mind he was revolving the question

of whether he should feel complimented or aggrieved at Miss Porter’s

rather backhanded compliment.

Tarzan had seen the consternation depicted upon the faces of the little

group as they witnessed the departure of the _Arrow;_ so, as the ship

was a wonderful novelty to him in addition, he determined to hasten out

to the point of land at the north of the harbor’s mouth and obtain a

nearer view of the boat, as well as to learn, if possible, the

direction of its flight.

Swinging through the trees with great speed, he reached the point only

a moment after the ship had passed out of the harbor, so that he

obtained an excellent view of the wonders of this strange, floating

house.

There were some twenty men running hither and thither about the deck,

pulling and hauling on ropes.

A light land breeze was blowing, and the ship had been worked through

the harbor’s mouth under scant sail, but now that they had cleared the

point every available shred of canvas was being spread that she might

stand out to sea as handily as possible.

Tarzan watched the graceful movements of the ship in rapt admiration,

and longed to be aboard her. Presently his keen eyes caught the

faintest suspicion of smoke on the far northern horizon, and he

wondered over the cause of such a thing out on the great water.

About the same time the look-out on the _Arrow_ must have discerned it,

for in a few minutes Tarzan saw the sails being shifted and shortened.

The ship came about, and presently he knew that she was beating back

toward land.

A man at the bows was constantly heaving into the sea a rope to the end

of which a small object was fastened. Tarzan wondered what the purpose

of this action might be.

At last the ship came up directly into the wind; the anchor was

lowered; down came the sails. There was great scurrying about on deck.

A boat was lowered, and in it a great chest was placed. Then a dozen

sailors bent to the oars and pulled rapidly toward the point where

Tarzan crouched in the branches of a tree.

In the stern of the boat, as it drew nearer, Tarzan saw the rat-faced

man.

It was but a few minutes later that the boat touched the beach. The men

jumped out and lifted the great chest to the sand. They were on the

north side of the point so that their presence was concealed from those

at the cabin.

The men argued angrily for a moment. Then the rat-faced one, with

several companions, ascended the low bluff on which stood the tree that

concealed Tarzan. They looked about for several minutes.

“Here is a good place,” said the rat-faced sailor, indicating a spot

beneath Tarzan’s tree.

“It is as good as any,” replied one of his companions. “If they catch

us with the treasure aboard it will all be confiscated anyway. We might

as well bury it here on the chance that some of us will escape the

gallows to come back and enjoy it later.”

The rat-faced one now called to the men who had remained at the boat,

and they came slowly up the bank carrying picks and shovels.

“Hurry, you!” cried Snipes.

“Stow it!” retorted one of the men, in a surly tone. “You’re no

admiral, you damned shrimp.”

“I’m Cap’n here, though, I’ll have you to understand, you swab,”

shrieked Snipes, with a volley of frightful oaths.

“Steady, boys,” cautioned one of the men who had not spoken before. “It

ain’t goin’ to get us nothing by fightin’ amongst ourselves.”

“Right enough,” replied the sailor who had resented Snipes’ autocratic

tones; “but it ain’t a-goin’ to get nobody nothin’ to put on airs in

this bloomin’ company neither.”

“You fellows dig here,” said Snipes, indicating a spot beneath the

tree. “And while you’re diggin’, Peter kin be a-makin’ of a map of the

location so’s we kin find it again. You, Tom, and Bill, take a couple

more down and fetch up the chest.”

“Wot are you a-goin’ to do?” asked he of the previous altercation.

“Just boss?”

“Git busy there,” growled Snipes. “You didn’t think your Cap’n was

a-goin’ to dig with a shovel, did you?”

The men all looked up angrily. None of them liked Snipes, and this

disagreeable show of authority since he had murdered King, the real

head and ringleader of the mutineers, had only added fuel to the flames

of their hatred.

“Do you mean to say that you don’t intend to take a shovel, and lend a

hand with this work? Your shoulder’s not hurt so all-fired bad as

that,” said Tarrant, the sailor who had before spoken.

“Not by a damned sight,” replied Snipes, fingering the butt of his

revolver nervously.

“Then, by God,” replied Tarrant, “if you won’t take a shovel you’ll

take a pickax.”

With the words he raised his pick above his head, and, with a mighty

blow, he buried the point in Snipes’ brain.

For a moment the men stood silently looking at the result of their

fellow’s grim humor. Then one of them spoke.

“Served the skunk jolly well right,” he said.

One of the others commenced to ply his pick to the ground. The soil was

soft and he threw aside the pick and grasped a shovel; then the others

joined him. There was no further comment on the killing, but the men

worked in a better frame of mind than they had since Snipes had assumed

command.

When they had a trench of ample size to bury the chest, Tarrant

suggested that they enlarge it and inter Snipes’ body on top of the

chest.

“It might ’elp fool any as ’appened to be diggin’ ’ereabouts,” he

explained.

The others saw the cunning of the suggestion, and so the trench was

lengthened to accommodate the corpse, and in the center a deeper hole

was excavated for the box, which was first wrapped in sailcloth and

then lowered to its place, which brought its top about a foot below the

bottom of the grave. Earth was shovelled in and tramped down about the

chest until the bottom of the grave showed level and uniform.

Two of the men rolled the rat-faced corpse unceremoniously into the

grave, after first stripping it of its weapons and various other

articles which the several members of the party coveted for their own.

They then filled the grave with earth and tramped upon it until it

would hold no more.

The balance of the loose earth was thrown far and wide, and a mass of

dead undergrowth spread in as natural a manner as possible over the

new-made grave to obliterate all signs of the ground having been

disturbed.

Their work done the sailors returned to the small boat, and pulled off

rapidly toward the _Arrow_.

The breeze had increased considerably, and as the smoke upon the

horizon was now plainly discernible in considerable volume, the

mutineers lost no time in getting under full sail and bearing away

toward the southwest.

Tarzan, an interested spectator of all that had taken place, sat

speculating on the strange actions of these peculiar creatures.

Men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the

jungle! How fortunate was he who lived in the peace and security of the

great forest!

Tarzan wondered what the chest they had buried contained. If they did

not want it why did they not merely throw it into the water? That would

have been much easier.

Ah, he thought, but they do want it. They have hidden it here because

they intend returning for it later.

Tarzan dropped to the ground and commenced to examine the earth about

the excavation. He was looking to see if these creatures had dropped

anything which he might like to own. Soon he discovered a spade hidden

by the underbrush which they had laid upon the grave.

He seized it and attempted to use it as he had seen the sailors do. It

was awkward work and hurt his bare feet, but he persevered until he had

partially uncovered the body. This he dragged from the grave and laid

to one side.

Then he continued digging until he had unearthed the chest. This also

he dragged to the side of the corpse. Then he filled in the smaller

hole below the grave, replaced the body and the earth around and above

it, covered it over with underbrush, and returned to the chest.

Four sailors had sweated beneath the burden of its weight—Tarzan of the

Apes picked it up as though it had been an empty packing case, and with

the spade slung to his back by a piece of rope, carried it off into the

densest part of the jungle.

He could not well negotiate the trees with his awkward burden, but he

kept to the trails, and so made fairly good time.

For several hours he traveled a little north of east until he came to

an impenetrable wall of matted and tangled vegetation. Then he took to

the lower branches, and in another fifteen minutes he emerged into the

amphitheater of the apes, where they met in council, or to celebrate

the rites of the Dum-Dum.

Near the center of the clearing, and not far from the drum, or altar,

he commenced to dig. This was harder work than turning up the freshly

excavated earth at the grave, but Tarzan of the Apes was persevering

and so he kept at his labor until he was rewarded by seeing a hole

sufficiently deep to receive the chest and effectually hide it from

view.

Why had he gone to all this labor without knowing the value of the

contents of the chest?

Tarzan of the Apes had a man’s figure and a man’s brain, but he was an

ape by training and environment. His brain told him that the chest

contained something valuable, or the men would not have hidden it. His

training had taught him to imitate whatever was new and unusual, and

now the natural curiosity, which is as common to men as to apes,

prompted him to open the chest and examine its contents.

But the heavy lock and massive iron bands baffled both his cunning and

his immense strength, so that he was compelled to bury the chest

without having his curiosity satisfied.

By the time Tarzan had hunted his way back to the vicinity of the

cabin, feeding as he went, it was quite dark.

Within the little building a light was burning, for Clayton had found

an unopened tin of oil which had stood intact for twenty years, a part

of the supplies left with the Claytons by Black Michael. The lamps also

were still useable, and thus the interior of the cabin appeared as

bright as day to the astonished Tarzan.

He had often wondered at the exact purpose of the lamps. His reading

and the pictures had told him what they were, but he had no idea of how

they could be made to produce the wondrous sunlight that some of his

pictures had portrayed them as diffusing upon all surrounding objects.

As he approached the window nearest the door he saw that the cabin had

been divided into two rooms by a rough partition of boughs and

sailcloth.

In the front room were the three men; the two older deep in argument,

while the younger, tilted back against the wall on an improvised stool,

was deeply engrossed in reading one of Tarzan’s books.

Tarzan was not particularly interested in the men, however, so he

sought the other window. There was the girl. How beautiful her

features! How delicate her snowy skin!

She was writing at Tarzan’s own table beneath the window. Upon a pile

of grasses at the far side of the room lay the Negress asleep.

For an hour Tarzan feasted his eyes upon her while she wrote. How he

longed to speak to her, but he dared not attempt it, for he was

convinced that, like the young man, she would not understand him, and

he feared, too, that he might frighten her away.

At length she arose, leaving her manuscript upon the table. She went to

the bed upon which had been spread several layers of soft grasses.

These she rearranged.

Then she loosened the soft mass of golden hair which crowned her head.

Like a shimmering waterfall turned to burnished metal by a dying sun it

fell about her oval face; in waving lines, below her waist it tumbled.

Tarzan was spellbound. Then she extinguished the lamp and all within

the cabin was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness.

Still Tarzan watched. Creeping close beneath the window he waited,

listening, for half an hour. At last he was rewarded by the sounds of

the regular breathing within which denotes sleep.

Cautiously he intruded his hand between the meshes of the lattice until

his whole arm was within the cabin. Carefully he felt upon the desk. At

last he grasped the manuscript upon which Jane Porter had been writing,

and as cautiously withdrew his arm and hand, holding the precious

treasure.

Tarzan folded the sheets into a small parcel which he tucked into the

quiver with his arrows. Then he melted away into the jungle as softly

and as noiselessly as a shadow.