Chương Chương 3 · The Fight for the Balu

. The Fight for the Balu

Teeka had become a mother. Tarzan of the Apes was intensely interested,

much more so, in fact, than Taug, the father. Tarzan was very fond of

Teeka. Even the cares of prospective motherhood had not entirely

quenched the fires of carefree youth, and Teeka had remained a

good-natured playmate even at an age when other shes of the tribe of

Kerchak had assumed the sullen dignity of maturity. She yet retained

her childish delight in the primitive games of tag and hide-and-go-seek

which Tarzan’s fertile man-mind had evolved.

To play tag through the tree tops is an exciting and inspiring pastime.

Tarzan delighted in it, but the bulls of his childhood had long since

abandoned such childish practices. Teeka, though, had been keen for it

always until shortly before the baby came; but with the advent of her

first-born, even Teeka changed.

The evidence of the change surprised and hurt Tarzan immeasurably. One

morning he saw Teeka squatted upon a low branch hugging something very

close to her hairy breast—a wee something which squirmed and wriggled.

Tarzan approached filled with the curiosity which is common to all

creatures endowed with brains which have progressed beyond the

microscopic stage.

Teeka rolled her eyes in his direction and strained the squirming mite

still closer to her. Tarzan came nearer. Teeka drew away and bared her

fangs. Tarzan was nonplussed. In all his experiences with Teeka, never

before had she bared fangs at him other than in play; but today she did

not look playful. Tarzan ran his brown fingers through his thick, black

hair, cocked his head upon one side, and stared. Then he edged a bit

nearer, craning his neck to have a better look at the thing which Teeka

cuddled.

Again Teeka drew back her upper lip in a warning snarl. Tarzan reached

forth a hand, cautiously, to touch the thing which Teeka held, and

Teeka, with a hideous growl, turned suddenly upon him. Her teeth sank

into the flesh of his forearm before the ape-man could snatch it away,

and she pursued him for a short distance as he retreated incontinently

through the trees; but Teeka, carrying her baby, could not overtake

him. At a safe distance Tarzan stopped and turned to regard his

erstwhile play-fellow in unconcealed astonishment. What had happened to

so alter the gentle Teeka? She had so covered the thing in her arms

that Tarzan had not yet been able to recognize it for what it was; but

now, as she turned from the pursuit of him, he saw it. Through his pain

and chagrin he smiled, for Tarzan had seen young ape mothers before. In

a few days she would be less suspicious. Still Tarzan was hurt; it was

not right that Teeka, of all others, should fear him. Why, not for the

world would he harm her, or her balu, which is the ape word for baby.

And now, above the pain of his injured arm and the hurt to his pride,

rose a still stronger desire to come close and inspect the new-born son

of Taug. Possibly you will wonder that Tarzan of the Apes, mighty

fighter that he was, should have fled before the irritable attack of a

she, or that he should hesitate to return for the satisfaction of his

curiosity when with ease he might have vanquished the weakened mother

of the new-born cub; but you need not wonder. Were you an ape, you

would know that only a bull in the throes of madness will turn upon a

female other than to gently chastise her, with the occasional exception

of the individual whom we find exemplified among our own kind, and who

delights in beating up his better half because she happens to be

smaller and weaker than he.

Tarzan again came toward the young mother—warily and with his line of

retreat safely open. Again Teeka growled ferociously. Tarzan

expostulated.

“Tarzan of the Apes will not harm Teeka’s balu,” he said. “Let me see

it.”

“Go away!” commanded Teeka. “Go away, or I will kill you.”

“Let me see it,” urged Tarzan.

“Go away,” reiterated the she-ape. “Here comes Taug. He will make you

go away. Taug will kill you. This is Taug’s balu.”

A savage growl close behind him apprised Tarzan of the nearness of

Taug, and the fact that the bull had heard the warnings and threats of

his mate and was coming to her succor.

Now Taug, as well as Teeka, had been Tarzan’s play-fellow while the

bull was still young enough to wish to play. Once Tarzan had saved

Taug’s life; but the memory of an ape is not overlong, nor would

gratitude rise above the parental instinct. Tarzan and Taug had once

measured strength, and Tarzan had been victorious. That fact Taug could

be depended upon still to remember; but even so, he might readily face

another defeat for his first-born—if he chanced to be in the proper

mood.

From his hideous growls, which now rose in strength and volume, he

seemed to be in quite the mood. Now Tarzan felt no fear of Taug, nor

did the unwritten law of the jungle demand that he should flee from

battle with any male, unless he cared to from purely personal reasons.

But Tarzan liked Taug. He had no grudge against him, and his man-mind

told him what the mind of an ape would never have deduced—that Taug’s

attitude in no sense indicated hatred. It was but the instinctive urge

of the male to protect its offspring and its mate.

Tarzan had no desire to battle with Taug, nor did the blood of his

English ancestors relish the thought of flight, yet when the bull

charged, Tarzan leaped nimbly to one side, and thus encouraged, Taug

wheeled and rushed again madly to the attack. Perhaps the memory of a

past defeat at Tarzan’s hands goaded him. Perhaps the fact that Teeka

sat there watching him aroused a desire to vanquish the ape-man before

her eyes, for in the breast of every jungle male lurks a vast egotism

which finds expression in the performance of deeds of derring-do before

an audience of the opposite sex.

At the ape-man’s side swung his long grass rope—the plaything of

yesterday, the weapon of today—and as Taug charged the second time,

Tarzan slipped the coils over his head and deftly shook out the sliding

noose as he again nimbly eluded the ungainly beast. Before the ape

could turn again, Tarzan had fled far aloft among the branches of the

upper terrace.

Taug, now wrought to a frenzy of real rage, followed him. Teeka peered

upward at them. It was difficult to say whether she was interested.

Taug could not climb as rapidly as Tarzan, so the latter reached the

high levels to which the heavy ape dared not follow before the former

overtook him. There he halted and looked down upon his pursuer, making

faces at him and calling him such choice names as occurred to the

fertile man-brain. Then, when he had worked Taug to such a pitch of

foaming rage that the great bull fairly danced upon the bending limb

beneath him, Tarzan’s hand shot suddenly outward, a widening noose

dropped swiftly through the air, there was a quick jerk as it settled

about Taug, falling to his knees, a jerk that tightened it securely

about the hairy legs of the anthropoid.

Taug, slow of wit, realized too late the intention of his tormentor. He

scrambled to escape, but the ape-man gave the rope a tremendous jerk

that pulled Taug from his perch, and a moment later, growling

hideously, the ape hung head downward thirty feet above the ground.

Tarzan secured the rope to a stout limb and descended to a point close

to Taug.

“Taug,” he said, “you are as stupid as Buto, the rhinoceros. Now you

may hang here until you get a little sense in your thick head. You may

hang here and watch while I go and talk with Teeka.”

Taug blustered and threatened, but Tarzan only grinned at him as he

dropped lightly to the lower levels. Here he again approached Teeka

only to be again greeted with bared fangs and menacing growls. He

sought to placate her; he urged his friendly intentions, and craned his

neck to have a look at Teeka’s balu; but the she-ape was not to be

persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one. Her

motherhood was still so new that reason was yet subservient to

instinct.

Realizing the futility of attempting to catch and chastise Tarzan,

Teeka sought to escape him. She dropped to the ground and lumbered

across the little clearing about which the apes of the tribe were

disposed in rest or in the search of food, and presently Tarzan

abandoned his attempts to persuade her to permit a close examination of

the balu. The ape-man would have liked to handle the tiny thing. The

very sight of it awakened in his breast a strange yearning. He wished

to cuddle and fondle the grotesque little ape-thing. It was Teeka’s

balu and Tarzan had once lavished his young affections upon Teeka.

But now his attention was diverted by the voice of Taug. The threats

that had filled the ape’s mouth had turned to pleas. The tightening

noose was stopping the circulation of the blood in his legs—he was

beginning to suffer. Several apes sat near him highly interested in his

predicament. They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each of

them had felt the weight of Taug’s mighty hands and the strength of his

great jaws. They were enjoying revenge.

Teeka, seeing that Tarzan had turned back toward the trees, had halted

in the center of the clearing, and there she sat hugging her balu and

casting suspicious glances here and there. With the coming of the balu,

Teeka’s care-free world had suddenly become peopled with innumerable

enemies. She saw an implacable foe in Tarzan, always heretofore her

best friend. Even poor old Mumga, half blind and almost entirely

toothless, searching patiently for grubworms beneath a fallen log,

represented to her a malignant spirit thirsting for the blood of little

balus.

And while Teeka guarded suspiciously against harm, where there was no

harm, she failed to note two baleful, yellow-green eyes staring fixedly

at her from behind a clump of bushes at the opposite side of the

clearing.

Hollow from hunger, Sheeta, the panther, glared greedily at the

tempting meat so close at hand, but the sight of the great bulls beyond

gave him pause.

Ah, if the she-ape with her balu would but come just a trifle nearer! A

quick spring and he would be upon them and away again with his meat

before the bulls could prevent.

The tip of his tawny tail moved in spasmodic little jerks; his lower

jaw hung low, exposing a red tongue and yellow fangs. But all this

Teeka did not see, nor did any other of the apes who were feeding or

resting about her. Nor did Tarzan or the apes in the trees.

Hearing the abuse which the bulls were pouring upon the helpless Taug,

Tarzan clambered quickly among them. One was edging closer and leaning

far out in an effort to reach the dangling ape. He had worked himself

into quite a fury through recollection of the last occasion upon which

Taug had mauled him, and now he was bent upon revenge. Once he had

grasped the swinging ape, he would quickly have drawn him within reach

of his jaws. Tarzan saw and was wroth. He loved a fair fight, but the

thing which this ape contemplated revolted him. Already a hairy hand

had clutched the helpless Taug when, with an angry growl of protest,

Tarzan leaped to the branch at the attacking ape’s side, and with a

single mighty cuff, swept him from his perch.

Surprised and enraged, the bull clutched madly for support as he

toppled sidewise, and then with an agile movement succeeded in

projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below. Here he found

a hand-hold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered upward

to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was otherwise engaged and

did not wish to be interrupted. He was explaining again to Taug the

depths of the latter’s abysmal ignorance, and pointing out how much

greater and mightier was Tarzan of the Apes than Taug or any other ape.

In the end he would release Taug, but not until Taug was fully

acquainted with his own inferiority. And then the maddened bull came

from beneath, and instantly Tarzan was transformed from a good-natured,

teasing youth into a snarling, savage beast. Along his scalp the hair

bristled; his upper lip drew back that his fighting fangs might be

uncovered and ready. He did not wait for the bull to reach him, for

something in the appearance or the voice of the attacker aroused within

the ape-man a feeling of belligerent antagonism that would not be

denied. With a scream that carried no human note, Tarzan leaped

straight at the throat of the attacker.

The impetuosity of this act and the weight and momentum of his body

carried the bull backward, clutching and clawing for support, down

through the leafy branches of the tree. For fifteen feet the two fell,

Tarzan’s teeth buried in the jugular of his opponent, when a stout

branch stopped their descent. The bull struck full upon the small of

his back across the limb, hung there for a moment with the ape-man

still upon his breast, and then toppled over toward the ground.

Tarzan had felt the instantaneous relaxation of the body beneath him

after the heavy impact with the tree limb, and as the other turned

completely over and started again upon its fall toward the ground, he

reached forth a hand and caught the branch in time to stay his own

descent, while the ape dropped like a plummet to the foot of the tree.

Tarzan looked downward for a moment upon the still form of his late

antagonist, then he rose to his full height, swelled his deep chest,

smote upon it with his clenched fist and roared out the uncanny

challenge of the victorious bull ape.

Even Sheeta, the panther, crouched for a spring at the edge of the

little clearing, moved uneasily as the mighty voice sent its weird cry

reverberating through the jungle. To right and left, nervously, glanced

Sheeta, as though assuring himself that the way of escape lay ready at

hand.

“I am Tarzan of the Apes,” boasted the ape-man; “mighty hunter, mighty

fighter! None in all the jungle so great as Tarzan.”

Then he made his way back in the direction of Taug. Teeka had watched

the happenings in the tree. She had even placed her precious balu upon

the soft grasses and come a little nearer that she might better witness

all that was passing in the branches above her. In her heart of hearts

did she still esteem the smooth-skinned Tarzan? Did her savage breast

swell with pride as she witnessed his victory over the ape? You will

have to ask Teeka.

And Sheeta, the panther, saw that the she-ape had left her cub alone

among the grasses. He moved his tail again, as though this closest

approximation of lashing in which he dared indulge might stimulate his

momentarily waned courage. The cry of the victorious ape-man still held

his nerves beneath its spell. It would be several minutes before he

again could bring himself to the point of charging into view of the

giant anthropoids.

And as he regathered his forces, Tarzan reached Taug’s side, and then

clambering higher up to the point where the end of the grass rope was

made fast, he unloosed it and lowered the ape slowly downward, swinging

him in until the clutching hands fastened upon a limb.

Quickly Taug drew himself to a position of safety and shook off the

noose. In his rage-maddened heart was no room for gratitude to the

ape-man. He recalled only the fact that Tarzan had laid this painful

indignity upon him. He would be revenged, but just at present his legs

were so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone the

gratification of his vengeance.

Tarzan was coiling his rope the while he lectured Taug on the futility

of pitting his poor powers, physical and intellectual, against those of

his betters. Teeka had come close beneath the tree and was peering

upward. Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his belly close

to the ground. In another moment he would be clear of the underbrush

and ready for the rapid charge and the quick retreat that would end the

brief existence of Teeka’s balu.

Then Tarzan chanced to look up and across the clearing. Instantly his

attitude of good-natured bantering and pompous boastfulness dropped

from him. Silently and swiftly he shot downward toward the ground.

Teeka, seeing him coming, and thinking that he was after her or her

balu, bristled and prepared to fight. But Tarzan sped by her, and as he

went, her eyes followed him and she saw the cause of his sudden descent

and his rapid charge across the clearing. There in full sight now was

Sheeta, the panther, stalking slowly toward the tiny, wriggling balu

which lay among the grasses many yards away.

Teeka gave voice to a shrill scream of terror and of warning as she

dashed after the ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan coming. He saw the

she-ape’s cub before him, and he thought that this other was bent upon

robbing him of his prey. With an angry growl, he charged.

Taug, warned by Teeka’s cry, came lumbering down to her assistance.

Several other bulls, growling and barking, closed in toward the

clearing, but they were all much farther from the balu and the panther

than was Tarzan of the Apes, so it was that Sheeta and the ape-man

reached Teeka’s little one almost simultaneously; and there they stood,

one upon either side of it, baring their fangs and snarling at each

other over the little creature.

Sheeta was afraid to seize the balu, for thus he would give the ape-man

an opening for attack; and for the same reason Tarzan hesitated to

snatch the panther’s prey out of harm’s way, for had he stooped to

accomplish this, the great beast would have been upon him in an

instant. Thus they stood while Teeka came across the clearing, going

more slowly as she neared the panther, for even her mother love could

scarce overcome her instinctive terror of this natural enemy of her

kind.

Behind her came Taug, warily and with many pauses and much bluster, and

still behind him came other bulls, snarling ferociously and uttering

their uncanny challenges. Sheeta’s yellow-green eyes glared terribly at

Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes of Kerchak

advancing upon him. Discretion prompted him to turn and flee, but

hunger and the close proximity of the tempting morsel in the grass

before him urged him to remain. He reached forth a paw toward Teeka’s

balu, and as he did so, with a savage guttural, Tarzan of the Apes was

upon him.

The panther reared to meet the ape-man’s attack. He swung a frightful

raking blow for Tarzan that would have wiped his face away had it

landed, but it did not land, for Tarzan ducked beneath it and closed,

his long knife ready in one strong hand—the knife of his dead father,

of the father he never had known.

Instantly the balu was forgotten by Sheeta, the panther. He now thought

only of tearing to ribbons with his powerful talons the flesh of his

antagonist, of burying his long, yellow fangs in the soft, smooth hide

of the ape-man, but Tarzan had fought before with clawed creatures of

the jungle. Before now he had battled with fanged monsters, nor always

had he come away unscathed. He knew the risk that he ran, but Tarzan of

the Apes, inured to the sight of suffering and death, shrank from

neither, for he feared neither.

The instant that he dodged beneath Sheeta’s blow, he leaped to the

beast’s rear and then full upon the tawny back, burying his teeth in

Sheeta’s neck and the fingers of one hand in the fur at the throat, and

with the other hand he drove his blade into Sheeta’s side.

Over and over upon the grass rolled Sheeta, growling and screaming,

clawing and biting, in a mad effort to dislodge his antagonist or get

some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons.

As Tarzan leaped to close quarters with the panther, Teeka had run

quickly in and snatched up her balu. Now she sat upon a high branch,

safe out of harm’s way, cuddling the little thing close to her hairy

breast, the while her savage little eyes bored down upon the

contestants in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged Taug and the

other bulls to leap into the melee.

Thus goaded the bulls came closer, redoubling their hideous clamor; but

Sheeta was already sufficiently engaged—he did not even hear them. Once

he succeeded in partially dislodging the ape-man from his back, so that

Tarzan swung for an instant in front of those awful talons, and in the

brief instant before he could regain his former hold, a raking blow

from a hind paw laid open one leg from hip to knee.

It was the sight and smell of this blood, possibly, which wrought upon

the encircling apes; but it was Taug who really was responsible for the

thing they did.

Taug, but a moment before filled with rage toward Tarzan of the Apes,

stood close to the battling pair, his red-rimmed, wicked little eyes

glaring at them. What was passing in his savage brain? Did he gloat

over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did he long to

see Sheeta’s great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man? Or

did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to

rush to the rescue and imperil his life for Teeka’s balu—for Taug’s

little balu? Is gratitude a possession of man only, or do the lower

orders know it also?

With the spilling of Tarzan’s blood, Taug answered these questions.

With all the weight of his great body he leaped, hideously growling,

upon Sheeta. His long fighting fangs buried themselves in the white

throat. His powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur until it flew

upward in the jungle breeze.

And with Taug’s example before them the other bulls charged, burying

Sheeta beneath rending fangs and filling all the forest with the wild

din of their battle cries.

Ah! but it was a wondrous and inspiring sight—this battle of the

primordial apes and the great, white ape-man with their ancestral foe,

Sheeta, the panther.

In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly danced upon the limb which swayed

beneath her great weight as she urged on the males of her people, and

Thaka, and Mumga, and Kamma, with the other shes of the tribe of

Kerchak, added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the pandemonium

which now reigned within the jungle.

Bitten and biting, tearing and torn, Sheeta battled for his life; but

the odds were against him. Even Numa, the lion, would have hesitated to

have attacked an equal number of the great bulls of the tribe of

Kerchak, and now, a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the terrific

battle, the king of beasts rose uneasily from his midday slumber and

slunk off farther into the jungle.

Presently Sheeta’s torn and bloody body ceased its Titanic struggles.

It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and was still, yet the bulls

continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn to shreds.

At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from the

tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as an arrow.

He placed a foot upon the dead body of the panther, and lifting his

blood-stained face to the blue of the equatorial heavens, gave voice to

the horrid victory cry of the bull ape.

One by one his hairy fellows of the tribe of Kerchak followed his

example. The shes came down from their perches of safety and struck and

reviled the dead body of Sheeta. The young apes refought the battle in

mimicry of their mighty elders.

Teeka was quite close to Tarzan. He turned and saw her with the balu

hugged close to her hairy breast, and put out his hands to take the

little one, expecting that Teeka would bare her fangs and spring upon

him; but instead she placed the balu in his arms, and coming nearer,

licked his frightful wounds.

And presently Taug, who had escaped with only a few scratches, came and

squatted beside Tarzan and watched him as he played with the little

balu, and at last he too leaned over and helped Teeka with the

cleansing and the healing of the ape-man’s hurts.