Bab Bab 19 · The Call of the Primitive

. The Call of the Primitive

From the time Tarzan left the tribe of great anthropoids in which he

had been raised, it was torn by continual strife and discord. Terkoz

proved a cruel and capricious king, so that, one by one, many of the

older and weaker apes, upon whom he was particularly prone to vent his

brutish nature, took their families and sought the quiet and safety of

the far interior.

But at last those who remained were driven to desperation by the

continued truculence of Terkoz, and it so happened that one of them

recalled the parting admonition of Tarzan:

“If you have a chief who is cruel, do not do as the other apes do, and

attempt, any one of you, to pit yourself against him alone. But,

instead, let two or three or four of you attack him together. Then, if

you will do this, no chief will dare to be other than he should be, for

four of you can kill any chief who may ever be over you.”

And the ape who recalled this wise counsel repeated it to several of

his fellows, so that when Terkoz returned to the tribe that day he

found a warm reception awaiting him.

There were no formalities. As Terkoz reached the group, five huge,

hairy beasts sprang upon him.

At heart he was an arrant coward, which is the way with bullies among

apes as well as among men; so he did not remain to fight and die, but

tore himself away from them as quickly as he could and fled into the

sheltering boughs of the forest.

Two more attempts he made to rejoin the tribe, but on each occasion he

was set upon and driven away. At last he gave it up, and turned,

foaming with rage and hatred, into the jungle.

For several days he wandered aimlessly, nursing his spite and looking

for some weak thing on which to vent his pent anger.

It was in this state of mind that the horrible, man-like beast,

swinging from tree to tree, came suddenly upon two women in the jungle.

He was right above them when he discovered them. The first intimation

Jane Porter had of his presence was when the great hairy body dropped

to the earth beside her, and she saw the awful face and the snarling,

hideous mouth thrust within a foot of her.

One piercing scream escaped her lips as the brute hand clutched her

arm. Then she was dragged toward those awful fangs which yawned at her

throat. But ere they touched that fair skin another mood claimed the

anthropoid.

The tribe had kept his women. He must find others to replace them. This

hairless white ape would be the first of his new household, and so he

threw her roughly across his broad, hairy shoulders and leaped back

into the trees, bearing Jane away.

Esmeralda’s scream of terror had mingled once with that of Jane, and

then, as was Esmeralda’s manner under stress of emergency which

required presence of mind, she swooned.

But Jane did not once lose consciousness. It is true that that awful

face, pressing close to hers, and the stench of the foul breath beating

upon her nostrils, paralyzed her with terror; but her brain was clear,

and she comprehended all that transpired.

With what seemed to her marvelous rapidity the brute bore her through

the forest, but still she did not cry out or struggle. The sudden

advent of the ape had confused her to such an extent that she thought

now that he was bearing her toward the beach.

For this reason she conserved her energies and her voice until she

could see that they had approached near enough to the camp to attract

the succor she craved.

She could not have known it, but she was being borne farther and

farther into the impenetrable jungle.

The scream that had brought Clayton and the two older men stumbling

through the undergrowth had led Tarzan of the Apes straight to where

Esmeralda lay, but it was not Esmeralda in whom his interest centered,

though pausing over her he saw that she was unhurt.

For a moment he scrutinized the ground below and the trees above, until

the ape that was in him by virtue of training and environment, combined

with the intelligence that was his by right of birth, told his wondrous

woodcraft the whole story as plainly as though he had seen the thing

happen with his own eyes.

And then he was gone again into the swaying trees, following the

high-flung spoor which no other human eye could have detected, much

less translated.

At boughs’ ends, where the anthropoid swings from one tree to another,

there is most to mark the trail, but least to point the direction of

the quarry; for there the pressure is downward always, toward the small

end of the branch, whether the ape be leaving or entering a tree.

Nearer the center of the tree, where the signs of passage are fainter,

the direction is plainly marked.

Here, on this branch, a caterpillar has been crushed by the fugitive’s

great foot, and Tarzan knows instinctively where that same foot would

touch in the next stride. Here he looks to find a tiny particle of the

demolished larva, ofttimes not more than a speck of moisture.

Again, a minute bit of bark has been upturned by the scraping hand, and

the direction of the break indicates the direction of the passage. Or

some great limb, or the stem of the tree itself has been brushed by the

hairy body, and a tiny shred of hair tells him by the direction from

which it is wedged beneath the bark that he is on the right trail.

Nor does he need to check his speed to catch these seemingly faint

records of the fleeing beast.

To Tarzan they stand out boldly against all the myriad other scars and

bruises and signs upon the leafy way. But strongest of all is the

scent, for Tarzan is pursuing up the wind, and his trained nostrils are

as sensitive as a hound’s.

There are those who believe that the lower orders are specially endowed

by nature with better olfactory nerves than man, but it is merely a

matter of development.

Man’s survival does not hinge so greatly upon the perfection of his

senses. His power to reason has relieved them of many of their duties,

and so they have, to some extent, atrophied, as have the muscles which

move the ears and scalp, merely from disuse.

The muscles are there, about the ears and beneath the scalp, and so are

the nerves which transmit sensations to the brain, but they are

under-developed because they are not needed.

Not so with Tarzan of the Apes. From early infancy his survival had

depended upon acuteness of eyesight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste

far more than upon the more slowly developed organ of reason.

The least developed of all in Tarzan was the sense of taste, for he

could eat luscious fruits, or raw flesh, long buried with almost equal

appreciation; but in that he differed but slightly from more civilized

epicures.

Almost silently the ape-man sped on in the track of Terkoz and his

prey, but the sound of his approach reached the ears of the fleeing

beast and spurred it on to greater speed.

Three miles were covered before Tarzan overtook them, and then Terkoz,

seeing that further flight was futile, dropped to the ground in a small

open glade, that he might turn and fight for his prize or be free to

escape unhampered if he saw that the pursuer was more than a match for

him.

He still grasped Jane in one great arm as Tarzan bounded like a leopard

into the arena which nature had provided for this primeval-like battle.

When Terkoz saw that it was Tarzan who pursued him, he jumped to the

conclusion that this was Tarzan’s woman, since they were of the same

kind—white and hairless—and so he rejoiced at this opportunity for

double revenge upon his hated enemy.

To Jane the strange apparition of this god-like man was as wine to sick

nerves.

From the description which Clayton and her father and Mr. Philander had

given her, she knew that it must be the same wonderful creature who had

saved them, and she saw in him only a protector and a friend.

But as Terkoz pushed her roughly aside to meet Tarzan’s charge, and she

saw the great proportions of the ape and the mighty muscles and the

fierce fangs, her heart quailed. How could any vanquish such a mighty

antagonist?

Like two charging bulls they came together, and like two wolves sought

each other’s throat. Against the long canines of the ape was pitted the

thin blade of the man’s knife.

Jane—her lithe, young form flattened against the trunk of a great tree,

her hands tight pressed against her rising and falling bosom, and her

eyes wide with mingled horror, fascination, fear, and

admiration—watched the primordial ape battle with the primeval man for

possession of a woman—for her.

As the great muscles of the man’s back and shoulders knotted beneath

the tension of his efforts, and the huge biceps and forearm held at bay

those mighty tusks, the veil of centuries of civilization and culture

was swept from the blurred vision of the Baltimore girl.

When the long knife drank deep a dozen times of Terkoz’ heart’s blood,

and the great carcass rolled lifeless upon the ground, it was a

primeval woman who sprang forward with outstretched arms toward the

primeval man who had fought for her and won her.

And Tarzan?

He did what no red-blooded man needs lessons in doing. He took his

woman in his arms and smothered her upturned, panting lips with kisses.

For a moment Jane lay there with half-closed eyes. For a moment—the

first in her young life—she knew the meaning of love.

But as suddenly as the veil had been withdrawn it dropped again, and an

outraged conscience suffused her face with its scarlet mantle, and a

mortified woman thrust Tarzan of the Apes from her and buried her face

in her hands.

Tarzan had been surprised when he had found the girl he had learned to

love after a vague and abstract manner a willing prisoner in his arms.

Now he was surprised that she repulsed him.

He came close to her once more and took hold of her arm. She turned

upon him like a tigress, striking his great breast with her tiny hands.

Tarzan could not understand it.

A moment ago and it had been his intention to hasten Jane back to her

people, but that little moment was lost now in the dim and distant past

of things which were but can never be again, and with it the good

intentions had gone to join the impossible.

Since then Tarzan of the Apes had felt a warm, lithe form close pressed

to his. Hot, sweet breath against his cheek and mouth had fanned a new

flame to life within his breast, and perfect lips had clung to his in

burning kisses that had seared a deep brand into his soul—a brand which

marked a new Tarzan.

Again he laid his hand upon her arm. Again she repulsed him. And then

Tarzan of the Apes did just what his first ancestor would have done.

He took his woman in his arms and carried her into the jungle.

Early the following morning the four within the little cabin by the

beach were awakened by the booming of a cannon. Clayton was the first

to rush out, and there, beyond the harbor’s mouth, he saw two vessels

lying at anchor.

One was the _Arrow_ and the other a small French cruiser. The sides of

the latter were crowded with men gazing shoreward, and it was evident

to Clayton, as to the others who had now joined him, that the gun which

they had heard had been fired to attract their attention if they still

remained at the cabin.

Both vessels lay at a considerable distance from shore, and it was

doubtful if their glasses would locate the waving hats of the little

party far in between the harbor’s points.

Esmeralda had removed her red apron and was waving it frantically above

her head; but Clayton, still fearing that even this might not be seen,

hurried off toward the northern point where lay his signal pyre ready

for the match.

It seemed an age to him, as to those who waited breathlessly behind,

ere he reached the great pile of dry branches and underbrush.

As he broke from the dense wood and came in sight of the vessels again,

he was filled with consternation to see that the _Arrow_ was making

sail and that the cruiser was already under way.

Quickly lighting the pyre in a dozen places, he hurried to the extreme

point of the promontory, where he stripped off his shirt, and, tying it

to a fallen branch, stood waving it back and forth above him.

But still the vessels continued to stand out; and he had given up all

hope, when the great column of smoke, rising above the forest in one

dense vertical shaft, attracted the attention of a lookout aboard the

cruiser, and instantly a dozen glasses were leveled on the beach.

Presently Clayton saw the two ships come about again; and while the

_Arrow_ lay drifting quietly on the ocean, the cruiser steamed slowly

back toward shore.

At some distance away she stopped, and a boat was lowered and

dispatched toward the beach.

As it was drawn up a young officer stepped out.

“Monsieur Clayton, I presume?” he asked.

“Thank God, you have come!” was Clayton’s reply. “And it may be that it

is not too late even now.”

“What do you mean, Monsieur?” asked the officer.

Clayton told of the abduction of Jane Porter and the need of armed men

to aid in the search for her.

“_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed the officer, sadly. “Yesterday and it would not

have been too late. Today and it may be better that the poor lady were

never found. It is horrible, Monsieur. It is too horrible.”

Other boats had now put off from the cruiser, and Clayton, having

pointed out the harbor’s entrance to the officer, entered the boat with

him and its nose was turned toward the little landlocked bay, into

which the other craft followed.

Soon the entire party had landed where stood Professor Porter, Mr.

Philander and the weeping Esmeralda.

Among the officers in the last boats to put off from the cruiser was

the commander of the vessel; and when he had heard the story of Jane’s

abduction, he generously called for volunteers to accompany Professor

Porter and Clayton in their search.

Not an officer or a man was there of those brave and sympathetic

Frenchmen who did not quickly beg leave to be one of the expedition.

The commander selected twenty men and two officers, Lieutenant D’Arnot

and Lieutenant Charpentier. A boat was dispatched to the cruiser for

provisions, ammunition, and carbines; the men were already armed with

revolvers.

Then, to Clayton’s inquiries as to how they had happened to anchor off

shore and fire a signal gun, the commander, Captain Dufranne, explained

that a month before they had sighted the _Arrow_ bearing southwest

under considerable canvas, and that when they had signaled her to come

about she had but crowded on more sail.

They had kept her hull-up until sunset, firing several shots after her,

but the next morning she was nowhere to be seen. They had then

continued to cruise up and down the coast for several weeks, and had

about forgotten the incident of the recent chase, when, early one

morning a few days before the lookout had described a vessel laboring

in the trough of a heavy sea and evidently entirely out of control.

As they steamed nearer to the derelict they were surprised to note that

it was the same vessel that had run from them a few weeks earlier. Her

forestaysail and mizzen spanker were set as though an effort had been

made to hold her head up into the wind, but the sheets had parted, and

the sails were tearing to ribbons in the half gale of wind.

In the high sea that was running it was a difficult and dangerous task

to attempt to put a prize crew aboard her; and as no signs of life had

been seen above deck, it was decided to stand by until the wind and sea

abated; but just then a figure was seen clinging to the rail and feebly

waving a mute signal of despair toward them.

Immediately a boat’s crew was ordered out and an attempt was

successfully made to board the _Arrow_. The sight that met the

Frenchmen’s eyes as they clambered over the ship’s side was appalling.

A dozen dead and dying men rolled hither and thither upon the pitching

deck, the living intermingled with the dead. Two of the corpses

appeared to have been partially devoured as though by wolves.

The prize crew soon had the vessel under proper sail once more and the

living members of the ill-starred company carried below to their

hammocks.

The dead were wrapped in tarpaulins and lashed on deck to be identified

by their comrades before being consigned to the deep.

None of the living was conscious when the Frenchmen reached the

_Arrow’s_ deck. Even the poor devil who had waved the single despairing

signal of distress had lapsed into unconsciousness before he had

learned whether it had availed or not.

It did not take the French officer long to learn what had caused the

terrible condition aboard; for when water and brandy were sought to

restore the men, it was found that there was none, nor even food of any

description.

He immediately signalled to the cruiser to send water, medicine, and

provisions, and another boat made the perilous trip to the _Arrow_.

When restoratives had been applied several of the men regained

consciousness, and then the whole story was told. That part of it we

know up to the sailing of the _Arrow_ after the murder of Snipes, and

the burial of his body above the treasure chest.

It seems that the pursuit by the cruiser had so terrorized the

mutineers that they had continued out across the Atlantic for several

days after losing her; but on discovering the meager supply of water

and provisions aboard, they had turned back toward the east.

With no one on board who understood navigation, discussions soon arose

as to their whereabouts; and as three days’ sailing to the east did not

raise land, they bore off to the north, fearing that the high north

winds that had prevailed had driven them south of the southern

extremity of Africa.

They kept on a north-northeasterly course for two days, when they were

overtaken by a calm which lasted for nearly a week. Their water was

gone, and in another day they would be without food.

Conditions changed rapidly from bad to worse. One man went mad and

leaped overboard. Soon another opened his veins and drank his own

blood.

When he died they threw him overboard also, though there were those

among them who wanted to keep the corpse on board. Hunger was changing

them from human beasts to wild beasts.

Two days before they had been picked up by the cruiser they had become

too weak to handle the vessel, and that same day three men died. On the

following morning it was seen that one of the corpses had been

partially devoured.

All that day the men lay glaring at each other like beasts of prey, and

the following morning two of the corpses lay almost entirely stripped

of flesh.

The men were but little stronger for their ghoulish repast, for the

want of water was by far the greatest agony with which they had to

contend. And then the cruiser had come.

When those who could had recovered, the entire story had been told to

the French commander; but the men were too ignorant to be able to tell

him at just what point on the coast the professor and his party had

been marooned, so the cruiser had steamed slowly along within sight of

land, firing occasional signal guns and scanning every inch of the

beach with glasses.

They had anchored by night so as not to neglect a particle of the shore

line, and it had happened that the preceding night had brought them off

the very beach where lay the little camp they sought.

The signal guns of the afternoon before had not been heard by those on

shore, it was presumed, because they had doubtless been in the thick of

the jungle searching for Jane Porter, where the noise of their own

crashing through the underbrush would have drowned the report of a far

distant gun.

By the time the two parties had narrated their several adventures, the

cruiser’s boat had returned with supplies and arms for the expedition.

Within a few minutes the little body of sailors and the two French

officers, together with Professor Porter and Clayton, set off upon

their hopeless and ill-fated quest into the untracked jungle.