Bab Bab 10 · The Fear-Phantom

. The Fear-Phantom

From a lofty perch Tarzan viewed the village of thatched huts across

the intervening plantation.

He saw that at one point the forest touched the village, and to this

spot he made his way, lured by a fever of curiosity to behold animals

of his own kind, and to learn more of their ways and view the strange

lairs in which they lived.

His savage life among the fierce wild brutes of the jungle left no

opening for any thought that these could be aught else than enemies.

Similarity of form led him into no erroneous conception of the welcome

that would be accorded him should he be discovered by these, the first

of his own kind he had ever seen.

Tarzan of the Apes was no sentimentalist. He knew nothing of the

brotherhood of man. All things outside his own tribe were his deadly

enemies, with the few exceptions of which Tantor, the elephant, was a

marked example.

And he realized all this without malice or hatred. To kill was the law

of the wild world he knew. Few were his primitive pleasures, but the

greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so he accorded to others

the right to cherish the same desires as he, even though he himself

might be the object of their hunt.

His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That he

joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his

handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most

often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing

which no other animal does; for it has remained for man alone among all

creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of

inflicting suffering and death.

And when he killed for revenge, or in self-defense, he did that also

without hysteria, for it was a very businesslike proceeding which

admitted of no levity.

So it was that now, as he cautiously approached the village of Mbonga,

he was quite prepared either to kill or be killed should he be

discovered. He proceeded with unwonted stealth, for Kulonga had taught

him great respect for the little sharp splinters of wood which dealt

death so swiftly and unerringly.

At length he came to a great tree, heavy laden with thick foliage and

loaded with pendant loops of giant creepers. From this almost

impenetrable bower above the village he crouched, looking down upon the

scene below him, wondering over every feature of this new, strange

life.

There were naked children running and playing in the village street.

There were women grinding dried plantain in crude stone mortars, while

others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flour. Out in the fields

he could see still other women hoeing, weeding, or gathering.

All wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and

many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets.

Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while

several were further ornamented by huge nose rings.

Tarzan of the Apes looked with growing wonder at these strange

creatures. Dozing in the shade he saw several men, while at the extreme

outskirts of the clearing he occasionally caught glimpses of armed

warriors apparently guarding the village against surprise from an

attacking enemy.

He noticed that the women alone worked. Nowhere was there evidence of a

man tilling the fields or performing any of the homely duties of the

village.

Finally his eyes rested upon a woman directly beneath him.

Before her was a small cauldron standing over a low fire and in it

bubbled a thick, reddish, tarry mass. On one side of her lay a quantity

of wooden arrows the points of which she dipped into the seething

substance, then laying them upon a narrow rack of boughs which stood

upon her other side.

Tarzan of the Apes was fascinated. Here was the secret of the terrible

destructiveness of The Archer’s tiny missiles. He noted the extreme

care which the woman took that none of the matter should touch her

hands, and once when a particle spattered upon one of her fingers he

saw her plunge the member into a vessel of water and quickly rub the

tiny stain away with a handful of leaves.

Tarzan knew nothing of poison, but his shrewd reasoning told him that

it was this deadly stuff that killed, and not the little arrow, which

was merely the messenger that carried it into the body of its victim.

How he should like to have more of those little death-dealing slivers.

If the woman would only leave her work for an instant he could drop

down, gather up a handful, and be back in the tree again before she

drew three breaths.

As he was trying to think out some plan to distract her attention he

heard a wild cry from across the clearing. He looked and saw a black

warrior standing beneath the very tree in which he had killed the

murderer of Kala an hour before.

The fellow was shouting and waving his spear above his head. Now and

again he would point to something on the ground before him.

The village was in an uproar instantly. Armed men rushed from the

interior of many a hut and raced madly across the clearing toward the

excited sentry. After them trooped the old men, and the women and

children until, in a moment, the village was deserted.

Tarzan of the Apes knew that they had found the body of his victim, but

that interested him far less than the fact that no one remained in the

village to prevent his taking a supply of the arrows which lay below

him.

Quickly and noiselessly he dropped to the ground beside the cauldron of

poison. For a moment he stood motionless, his quick, bright eyes

scanning the interior of the palisade.

No one was in sight. His eyes rested upon the open doorway of a nearby

hut. He would take a look within, thought Tarzan, and so, cautiously,

he approached the low thatched building.

For a moment he stood without, listening intently. There was no sound,

and he glided into the semi-darkness of the interior.

Weapons hung against the walls—long spears, strangely shaped knives, a

couple of narrow shields. In the center of the room was a cooking pot,

and at the far end a litter of dry grasses covered by woven mats which

evidently served the owners as beds and bedding. Several human skulls

lay upon the floor.

Tarzan of the Apes felt of each article, hefted the spears, smelled of

them, for he “saw” largely through his sensitive and highly trained

nostrils. He determined to own one of these long, pointed sticks, but

he could not take one on this trip because of the arrows he meant to

carry.

As he took each article from the walls, he placed it in a pile in the

center of the room. On top of all he placed the cooking pot, inverted,

and on top of this he laid one of the grinning skulls, upon which he

fastened the headdress of the dead Kulonga.

Then he stood back, surveyed his work, and grinned. Tarzan of the Apes

enjoyed a joke.

But now he heard, outside, the sounds of many voices, and long mournful

howls, and mighty wailing. He was startled. Had he remained too long?

Quickly he reached the doorway and peered down the village street

toward the village gate.

The natives were not yet in sight, though he could plainly hear them

approaching across the plantation. They must be very near.

Like a flash he sprang across the opening to the pile of arrows.

Gathering up all he could carry under one arm, he overturned the

seething cauldron with a kick, and disappeared into the foliage above

just as the first of the returning natives entered the gate at the far

end of the village street. Then he turned to watch the proceeding

below, poised like some wild bird ready to take swift wing at the first

sign of danger.

The natives filed up the street, four of them bearing the dead body of

Kulonga. Behind trailed the women, uttering strange cries and weird

lamentation. On they came to the portals of Kulonga’s hut, the very one

in which Tarzan had wrought his depredations.

Scarcely had half a dozen entered the building ere they came rushing

out in wild, jabbering confusion. The others hastened to gather about.

There was much excited gesticulating, pointing, and chattering; then

several of the warriors approached and peered within.

Finally an old fellow with many ornaments of metal about his arms and

legs, and a necklace of dried human hands depending upon his chest,

entered the hut.

It was Mbonga, the king, father of Kulonga.

For a few moments all was silent. Then Mbonga emerged, a look of

mingled wrath and superstitious fear writ upon his hideous countenance.

He spoke a few words to the assembled warriors, and in an instant the

men were flying through the little village searching minutely every hut

and corner within the palisades.

Scarcely had the search commenced than the overturned cauldron was

discovered, and with it the theft of the poisoned arrows. Nothing more

they found, and it was a thoroughly awed and frightened group of

savages which huddled around their king a few moments later.

Mbonga could explain nothing of the strange events that had taken

place. The finding of the still warm body of Kulonga—on the very verge

of their fields and within easy earshot of the village—knifed and

stripped at the door of his father’s home, was in itself sufficiently

mysterious, but these last awesome discoveries within the village,

within the dead Kulonga’s own hut, filled their hearts with dismay, and

conjured in their poor brains only the most frightful of superstitious

explanations.

They stood in little groups, talking in low tones, and ever casting

affrighted glances behind them from their great rolling eyes.

Tarzan of the Apes watched them for a while from his lofty perch in the

great tree. There was much in their demeanor which he could not

understand, for of superstition he was ignorant, and of fear of any

kind he had but a vague conception.

The sun was high in the heavens. Tarzan had not broken fast this day,

and it was many miles to where lay the toothsome remains of Horta the

boar.

So he turned his back upon the village of Mbonga and melted away into

the leafy fastness of the forest.