Chương Chương 4 · The God of Tarzan

. The God of Tarzan

Among the books of his dead father in the little cabin by the

land-locked harbor, Tarzan of the Apes found many things to puzzle his

young head. By much labor and through the medium of infinite patience

as well, he had, without assistance, discovered the purpose of the

little bugs which ran riot upon the printed pages. He had learned that

in the many combinations in which he found them they spoke in a silent

language, spoke in a strange tongue, spoke of wonderful things which a

little ape-boy could not by any chance fully understand, arousing his

curiosity, stimulating his imagination and filling his soul with a

mighty longing for further knowledge.

A dictionary had proven itself a wonderful storehouse of information,

when, after several years of tireless endeavor, he had solved the

mystery of its purpose and the manner of its use. He had learned to

make a species of game out of it, following up the spoor of a new

thought through the mazes of the many definitions which each new word

required him to consult. It was like following a quarry through the

jungle—it was hunting, and Tarzan of the Apes was an indefatigable

huntsman.

There were, of course, certain words which aroused his curiosity to a

greater extent than others, words which, for one reason or another,

excited his imagination. There was one, for example, the meaning of

which was rather difficult to grasp. It was the word GOD. Tarzan first

had been attracted to it by the fact that it was very short and that it

commenced with a larger g-bug than those about it—a male g-bug it was

to Tarzan, the lower-case letters being females. Another fact which

attracted him to this word was the number of he-bugs which figured in

its definition—Supreme Deity, Creator or Upholder of the Universe. This

must be a very important word indeed, he would have to look into it,

and he did, though it still baffled him after many months of thought

and study.

However, Tarzan counted no time wasted which he devoted to these

strange hunting expeditions into the game preserves of knowledge, for

each word and each definition led on and on into strange places, into

new worlds where, with increasing frequency, he met old, familiar

faces. And always he added to his store of knowledge.

But of the meaning of GOD he was yet in doubt. Once he thought he had

grasped it—that God was a mighty chieftain, king of all the Mangani. He

was not quite sure, however, since that would mean that God was

mightier than Tarzan—a point which Tarzan of the Apes, who acknowledged

no equal in the jungle, was loath to concede.

But in all the books he had there was no picture of God, though he

found much to confirm his belief that God was a great, an all-powerful

individual. He saw pictures of places where God was worshiped; but

never any sign of God. Finally he began to wonder if God were not of a

different form than he, and at last he determined to set out in search

of Him.

He commenced by questioning Mumga, who was very old and had seen many

strange things in her long life; but Mumga, being an ape, had a faculty

for recalling the trivial. That time when Gunto mistook a sting-bug for

an edible beetle had made more impression upon Mumga than all the

innumerable manifestations of the greatness of God which she had

witnessed, and which, of course, she had not understood.

Numgo, overhearing Tarzan’s questions, managed to wrest his attention

long enough from the diversion of flea hunting to advance the theory

that the power which made the lightning and the rain and the thunder

came from Goro, the moon. He knew this, he said, because the Dum-Dum

always was danced in the light of Goro. This reasoning, though entirely

satisfactory to Numgo and Mumga, failed fully to convince Tarzan.

However, it gave him a basis for further investigation along a new

line. He would investigate the moon.

That night he clambered to the loftiest pinnacle of the tallest jungle

giant. The moon was full, a great, glorious, equatorial moon. The

ape-man, upright upon a slender, swaying limb, raised his bronzed face

to the silver orb. Now that he had clambered to the highest point

within his reach, he discovered, to his surprise, that Goro was as far

away as when he viewed him from the ground. He thought that Goro was

attempting to elude him.

“Come, Goro!” he cried, “Tarzan of the Apes will not harm you!” But

still the moon held aloof.

“Tell me,” he continued, “if you be the great king who sends Ara, the

lightning; who makes the great noise and the mighty winds, and sends

the waters down upon the jungle people when the days are dark and it is

cold. Tell me, Goro, are you God!”

Of course he did not pronounce God as you or I would pronounce His

name, for Tarzan knew naught of the spoken language of his English

forbears; but he had a name of his own invention for each of the little

bugs which constituted the alphabet. Unlike the apes he was not

satisfied merely to have a mental picture of the things he knew, he

must have a word descriptive of each. In reading he grasped a word in

its entirety; but when he spoke the words he had learned from the books

of his father, he pronounced each according to the names he had given

the various little bugs which occurred in it, usually giving the gender

prefix for each.

Thus it was an imposing word which Tarzan made of GOD. The masculine

prefix of the apes is BU, the feminine MU; g Tarzan had named LA, o he

pronounced TU, and d was MO. So the word God evolved itself into

BULAMUTUMUMO, or, in English, he-g-she-o-she-d.

Similarly he had arrived at a strange and wonderful spelling of his own

name. Tarzan is derived from the two ape words TAR and ZAN, meaning

white skin. It was given him by his foster mother, Kala, the great

she-ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of his own

people he had not yet chanced upon either WHITE or SKIN in the

dictionary; but in a primer he had seen the picture of a little white

boy and so he wrote his name BUMUDE-MUTOMURO, or he-boy.

To follow Tarzan’s strange system of spelling would be laborious as

well as futile, and so we shall in the future, as we have in the past,

adhere to the more familiar forms of our grammar school copybooks. It

would tire you to remember that DO meant b, TU o, and RO y, and that to

say he-boy you must prefix the ape masculine gender sound BU before the

entire word and the feminine gender sound MU before each of the

lower-case letters which go to make up boy—it would tire you and it

would bring me to the nineteenth hole several strokes under par.

And so Tarzan harangued the moon, and when Goro did not reply, Tarzan

of the Apes waxed wroth. He swelled his giant chest and bared his

fighting fangs, and hurled into the teeth of the dead satellite the

challenge of the bull ape.

“You are not Bulamutumumo,” he cried. “You are not king of the jungle

folk. You are not so great as Tarzan, mighty fighter, mighty hunter.

None there is so great as Tarzan. If there be a Bulamutumumo, Tarzan

can kill him. Come down, Goro, great coward, and fight with Tarzan.

Tarzan will kill you. I am Tarzan, the killer.”

But the moon made no answer to the boasting of the ape-man, and when a

cloud came and obscured her face, Tarzan thought that Goro was indeed

afraid, and was hiding from him, so he came down out of the trees and

awoke Numgo and told him how great was Tarzan—how he had frightened

Goro out of the sky and made him tremble. Tarzan spoke of the moon as

HE, for all things large or awe inspiring are male to the ape folk.

Numgo was not much impressed; but he was very sleepy, so he told Tarzan

to go away and leave his betters alone.

“But where shall I find God?” insisted Tarzan. “You are very old; if

there is a God you must have seen Him. What does He look like? Where

does He live?”

“I am God,” replied Numgo. “Now sleep and disturb me no more.”

Tarzan looked at Numgo steadily for several minutes, his shapely head

sank just a trifle between his great shoulders, his square chin shot

forward and his short upper lip drew back, exposing his white teeth.

Then, with a low growl he leaped upon the ape and buried his fangs in

the other’s hairy shoulder, clutching the great neck in his mighty

fingers. Twice he shook the old ape, then he released his tooth-hold.

“Are you God?” he demanded.

“No,” wailed Numgo. “I am only a poor, old ape. Leave me alone. Go ask

the Gomangani where God is. They are hairless like yourself and very

wise, too. They should know.”

Tarzan released Numgo and turned away. The suggestion that he consult

the blacks appealed to him, and though his relations with the people of

Mbonga, the chief, were the antithesis of friendly, he could at least

spy upon his hated enemies and discover if they had intercourse with

God.

So it was that Tarzan set forth through the trees toward the village of

the blacks, all excitement at the prospect of discovering the Supreme

Being, the Creator of all things. As he traveled he reviewed, mentally,

his armament—the condition of his hunting knife, the number of his

arrows, the newness of the gut which strung his bow—he hefted the war

spear which had once been the pride of some black warrior of Mbonga’s

tribe.

If he met God, Tarzan would be prepared. One could never tell whether a

grass rope, a war spear, or a poisoned arrow would be most efficacious

against an unfamiliar foe. Tarzan of the Apes was quite content—if God

wished to fight, the ape-man had no doubt as to the outcome of the

struggle. There were many questions Tarzan wished to put to the Creator

of the Universe and so he hoped that God would not prove a belligerent

God; but his experience of life and the ways of living things had

taught him that any creature with the means for offense and defense was

quite likely to provoke attack if in the proper mood.

It was dark when Tarzan came to the village of Mbonga. As silently as

the silent shadows of the night he sought his accustomed place among

the branches of the great tree which overhung the palisade. Below him,

in the village street, he saw men and women. The men were hideously

painted—more hideously than usual. Among them moved a weird and

grotesque figure, a tall figure that went upon the two legs of a man

and yet had the head of a buffalo. A tail dangled to his ankles behind

him, and in one hand he carried a zebra’s tail while the other clutched

a bunch of small arrows.

Tarzan was electrified. Could it be that chance had given him thus

early an opportunity to look upon God? Surely this thing was neither

man nor beast, so what could it be then other than the Creator of the

Universe! The ape-man watched the every move of the strange creature.

He saw the black men and women fall back at its approach as though they

stood in terror of its mysterious powers.

Presently he discovered that the deity was speaking and that all

listened in silence to his words. Tarzan was sure that none other than

God could inspire such awe in the hearts of the Gomangani, or stop

their mouths so effectually without recourse to arrows or spears.

Tarzan had come to look with contempt upon the blacks, principally

because of their garrulity. The small apes talked a great deal and ran

away from an enemy. The big, old bulls of Kerchak talked but little and

fought upon the slightest provocation. Numa, the lion, was not given to

loquacity, yet of all the jungle folk there were few who fought more

often than he.

Tarzan witnessed strange things that night, none of which he

understood, and, perhaps because they were strange, he thought that

they must have to do with the God he could not understand. He saw three

youths receive their first war spears in a weird ceremony which the

grotesque witch-doctor strove successfully to render uncanny and

awesome.

Hugely interested, he watched the slashing of the three brown arms and

the exchange of blood with Mbonga, the chief, in the rites of the

ceremony of blood brotherhood. He saw the zebra’s tail dipped into a

caldron of water above which the witch-doctor had made magical passes

the while he danced and leaped about it, and he saw the breasts and

foreheads of each of the three novitiates sprinkled with the charmed

liquid. Could the ape-man have known the purpose of this act, that it

was intended to render the recipient invulnerable to the attacks of his

enemies and fearless in the face of any danger, he would doubtless have

leaped into the village street and appropriated the zebra’s tail and a

portion of the contents of the caldron.

But he did not know, and so he only wondered, not alone at what he saw

but at the strange sensations which played up and down his naked spine,

sensations induced, doubtless, by the same hypnotic influence which

held the black spectators in tense awe upon the verge of a hysteric

upheaval.

The longer Tarzan watched, the more convinced he became that his eyes

were upon God, and with the conviction came determination to have word

with the deity. With Tarzan of the Apes, to think was to act.

The people of Mbonga were keyed to the highest pitch of hysterical

excitement. They needed little to release the accumulated pressure of

static nerve force which the terrorizing mummery of the witch-doctor

had induced.

A lion roared, suddenly and loud, close without the palisade. The

blacks started nervously, dropping into utter silence as they listened

for a repetition of that all-too-familiar and always terrorizing voice.

Even the witch-doctor paused in the midst of an intricate step,

remaining momentarily rigid and statuesque as he plumbed his cunning

mind for a suggestion as how best he might take advantage of the

condition of his audience and the timely interruption.

Already the evening had been vastly profitable to him. There would be

three goats for the initiation of the three youths into full-fledged

warriorship, and besides these he had received several gifts of grain

and beads, together with a piece of copper wire from admiring and

terrified members of his audience.

Numa’s roar still reverberated along taut nerves when a woman’s laugh,

shrill and piercing, shattered the silence of the village. It was this

moment that Tarzan chose to drop lightly from his tree into the village

street. Fearless among his blood enemies he stood, taller by a full

head than many of Mbonga’s warriors, straight as their straightest

arrow, muscled like Numa, the lion.

For a moment Tarzan stood looking straight at the witch-doctor. Every

eye was upon him, yet no one had moved—a paralysis of terror held them,

to be broken a moment later as the ape-man, with a toss of head,

stepped straight toward the hideous figure beneath the buffalo head.

Then the nerves of the blacks could stand no more. For months the

terror of the strange, white, jungle god had been upon them. Their

arrows had been stolen from the very center of the village; their

warriors had been silently slain upon the jungle trails and their dead

bodies dropped mysteriously and by night into the village street as

from the heavens above.

One or two there were who had glimpsed the strange figure of the new

demon and it was from their oft-repeated descriptions that the entire

village now recognized Tarzan as the author of many of their ills. Upon

another occasion and by daylight, the warriors would doubtless have

leaped to attack him, but at night, and this night of all others, when

they were wrought to such a pitch of nervous dread by the uncanny

artistry of their witch-doctor, they were helpless with terror. As one

man they turned and fled, scattering for their huts, as Tarzan

advanced. For a moment one and one only held his ground. It was the

witch-doctor. More than half self-hypnotized into a belief in his own

charlatanry he faced this new demon who threatened to undermine his

ancient and lucrative profession.

“Are you God?” asked Tarzan.

The witch-doctor, having no idea of the meaning of the other’s words,

danced a few strange steps, leaped high in the air, turning completely

around and alighting in a stooping posture with feet far outspread and

head thrust out toward the ape-man. Thus he remained for an instant

before he uttered a loud “Boo!” which was evidently intended to

frighten Tarzan away; but in reality had no such effect.

Tarzan did not pause. He had set out to approach and examine God and

nothing upon earth might now stay his feet. Seeing that his antics had

no potency with the visitor, the witch-doctor tried some new medicine.

Spitting upon the zebra’s tail, which he still clutched in one hand, he

made circles above it with the arrows in the other hand, meanwhile

backing cautiously away from Tarzan and speaking confidentially to the

bushy end of the tail.

This medicine must be short medicine, however, for the creature, god or

demon, was steadily closing up the distance which had separated them.

The circles therefore were few and rapid, and when they were completed,

the witch-doctor struck an attitude which was intended to be awe

inspiring and waving the zebra’s tail before him, drew an imaginary

line between himself and Tarzan.

“Beyond this line you cannot pass, for my medicine is strong medicine,”

he cried. “Stop, or you will fall dead as your foot touches this spot.

My mother was a voodoo, my father was a snake; I live upon lions’

hearts and the entrails of the panther; I eat young babies for

breakfast and the demons of the jungle are my slaves. I am the most

powerful witch-doctor in the world; I fear nothing, for I cannot die.

I—” But he got no further; instead he turned and fled as Tarzan of the

Apes crossed the magical dead line and still lived.

As the witch-doctor ran, Tarzan almost lost his temper. This was no way

for God to act, at least not in accordance with the conception Tarzan

had come to have of God.

“Come back!” he cried. “Come back, God, I will not harm you.” But the

witch-doctor was in full retreat by this time, stepping high as he

leaped over cooking pots and the smoldering embers of small fires that

had burned before the huts of villagers. Straight for his own hut ran

the witch-doctor, terror-spurred to unwonted speed; but futile was his

effort—the ape-man bore down upon him with the speed of Bara, the deer.

Just at the entrance to his hut the witch-doctor was overhauled. A

heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him back. It seized upon a

portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from him. It was a

naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the hut’s

interior.

So this was what he had thought was God! Tarzan’s lip curled in an

angry snarl as he leaped into the hut after the terror-stricken

witch-doctor. In the blackness within he found the man huddled at the

far side and dragged him forth into the comparative lightness of the

moonlit night.

The witch-doctor bit and scratched in an attempt to escape; but a few

cuffs across the head brought him to a better realization of the

futility of resistance. Beneath the moon Tarzan held the cringing

figure upon its shaking feet.

“So you are God!” he cried. “If you be God, then Tarzan is greater than

God,” and so the ape-man thought. “I am Tarzan,” he shouted into the

ear of the black. “In all the jungle, or above it, or upon the running

waters, or the sleeping waters, or upon the big water, or the little

water, there is none so great as Tarzan. Tarzan is greater than the

Mangani; he is greater than the Gomangani. With his own hands he has

slain Numa, the lion, and Sheeta, the panther; there is none so great

as Tarzan. Tarzan is greater than God. See!” and with a sudden wrench

he twisted the black’s neck until the fellow shrieked in pain and then

slumped to the earth in a swoon.

Placing his foot upon the neck of the fallen witch-doctor, the ape-man

raised his face to the moon and uttered the long, shrill scream of the

victorious bull ape. Then he stooped and snatched the zebra’s tail from

the nerveless fingers of the unconscious man and without a backward

glance retraced his footsteps across the village.

From several hut doorways frightened eyes watched him. Mbonga, the

chief, was one of those who had seen what passed before the hut of the

witch-doctor. Mbonga was greatly concerned. Wise old patriarch that he

was, he never had more than half believed in witch-doctors, at least

not since greater wisdom had come with age; but as a chief he was well

convinced of the power of the witch-doctor as an arm of government, and

often it was that Mbonga used the superstitious fears of his people to

his own ends through the medium of the medicine-man.

Mbonga and the witch-doctor had worked together and divided the spoils,

and now the “face” of the witch-doctor would be lost forever if any saw

what Mbonga had seen; nor would this generation again have as much

faith in any future witch-doctor.

Mbonga must do something to counteract the evil influence of the forest

demon’s victory over the witch-doctor. He raised his heavy spear and

crept silently from his hut in the wake of the retreating ape-man. Down

the village street walked Tarzan, as unconcerned and as deliberate as

though only the friendly apes of Kerchak surrounded him instead of a

village full of armed enemies.

Seeming only was the indifference of Tarzan, for alert and watchful was

every well-trained sense. Mbonga, wily stalker of keen-eared jungle

creatures, moved now in utter silence. Not even Bara, the deer, with

his great ears could have guessed from any sound that Mbonga was near;

but the black was not stalking Bara; he was stalking man, and so he

sought only to avoid noise.

Closer and closer to the slowly moving ape-man he came. Now he raised

his war spear, throwing his spear-hand far back above his right

shoulder. Once and for all would Mbonga, the chief, rid himself and his

people of the menace of this terrifying enemy. He would make no poor

cast; he would take pains, and he would hurl his weapon with such great

force as would finish the demon forever.

But Mbonga, sure as he thought himself, erred in his calculations. He

might believe that he was stalking a man—he did not know, however, that

it was a man with the delicate sense perception of the lower orders.

Tarzan, when he had turned his back upon his enemies, had noted what

Mbonga never would have thought of considering in the hunting of

man—the wind. It was blowing in the same direction that Tarzan was

proceeding, carrying to his delicate nostrils the odors which arose

behind him. Thus it was that Tarzan knew that he was being followed,

for even among the many stenches of an African village, the ape-man’s

uncanny faculty was equal to the task of differentiating one stench

from another and locating with remarkable precision the source from

whence it came.

He knew that a man was following him and coming closer, and his

judgment warned him of the purpose of the stalker. When Mbonga,

therefore, came within spear range of the ape-man, the latter suddenly

wheeled upon him, so suddenly that the poised spear was shot a fraction

of a second before Mbonga had intended. It went a trifle high and

Tarzan stooped to let it pass over his head; then he sprang toward the

chief. But Mbonga did not wait to receive him. Instead, he turned and

fled for the dark doorway of the nearest hut, calling as he went for

his warriors to fall upon the stranger and slay him.

Well indeed might Mbonga scream for help, for Tarzan, young and

fleet-footed, covered the distance between them in great leaps, at the

speed of a charging lion. He was growling, too, not at all unlike Numa

himself. Mbonga heard and his blood ran cold. He could feel the wool

stiffen upon his pate and a prickly chill run up his spine, as though

Death had come and run his cold finger along Mbonga’s back.

Others heard, too, and saw, from the darkness of their huts—bold

warriors, hideously painted, grasping heavy war spears in nerveless

fingers. Against Numa, the lion, they would have charged fearlessly.

Against many times their own number of black warriors would they have

raced to the protection of their chief; but this weird jungle demon

filled them with terror. There was nothing human in the bestial growls

that rumbled up from his deep chest; there was nothing human in the

bared fangs, or the catlike leaps. Mbonga’s warriors were terrified—too

terrified to leave the seeming security of their huts while they

watched the beast-man spring full upon the back of their old chieftain.

Mbonga went down with a scream of terror. He was too frightened even to

attempt to defend himself. He just lay beneath his antagonist in a

paralysis of fear, screaming at the top of his lungs. Tarzan half rose

and kneeled above the black. He turned Mbonga over and looked him in

the face, exposing the man’s throat, then he drew his long, keen knife,

the knife that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, had brought from England

many years before. He raised it close above Mbonga’s neck. The old

black whimpered with terror. He pleaded for his life in a tongue which

Tarzan could not understand.

For the first time the ape-man had a close view of the chief. He saw an

old man, a very old man with scrawny neck and wrinkled face—a dried,

parchment-like face which resembled some of the little monkeys Tarzan

knew so well. He saw the terror in the man’s eyes—never before had

Tarzan seen such terror in the eyes of any animal, or such a piteous

appeal for mercy upon the face of any creature.

Something stayed the ape-man’s hand for an instant. He wondered why it

was that he hesitated to make the kill; never before had he thus

delayed. The old man seemed to wither and shrink to a bag of puny bones

beneath his eyes. So weak and helpless and terror-stricken he appeared

that the ape-man was filled with a great contempt; but another

sensation also claimed him—something new to Tarzan of the Apes in

relation to an enemy. It was pity—pity for a poor, frightened, old man.

Tarzan rose and turned away, leaving Mbonga, the chief, unharmed.

With head held high the ape-man walked through the village, swung

himself into the branches of the tree which overhung the palisade and

disappeared from the sight of the villagers.

All the way back to the stamping ground of the apes, Tarzan sought for

an explanation of the strange power which had stayed his hand and

prevented him from slaying Mbonga. It was as though someone greater

than he had commanded him to spare the life of the old man. Tarzan

could not understand, for he could conceive of nothing, or no one, with

the authority to dictate to him what he should do, or what he should

refrain from doing.

It was late when Tarzan sought a swaying couch among the trees beneath

which slept the apes of Kerchak, and he was still absorbed in the

solution of his strange problem when he fell asleep.

The sun was well up in the heavens when he awoke. The apes were astir

in search of food. Tarzan watched them lazily from above as they

scratched in the rotting loam for bugs and beetles and grubworms, or

sought among the branches of the trees for eggs and young birds, or

luscious caterpillars.

An orchid, dangling close beside his head, opened slowly, unfolding its

delicate petals to the warmth and light of the sun which but recently

had penetrated to its shady retreat. A thousand times had Tarzan of the

Apes witnessed the beauteous miracle; but now it aroused a keener

interest, for the ape-man was just commencing to ask himself questions

about all the myriad wonders which heretofore he had but taken for

granted.

What made the flower open? What made it grow from a tiny bud to a

full-blown bloom? Why was it at all? Why was he? Where did Numa, the

lion, come from? Who planted the first tree? How did Goro get way up

into the darkness of the night sky to cast his welcome light upon the

fearsome nocturnal jungle? And the sun! Did the sun merely happen

there?

Why were all the peoples of the jungle not trees? Why were the trees

not something else? Why was Tarzan different from Taug, and Taug

different from Bara, the deer, and Bara different from Sheeta, the

panther, and why was not Sheeta like Buto, the rhinoceros? Where and

how, anyway, did they all come from—the trees, the flowers, the

insects, the countless creatures of the jungle?

Quite unexpectedly an idea popped into Tarzan’s head. In following out

the many ramifications of the dictionary definition of GOD he had come

upon the word CREATE—“to cause to come into existence; to form out of

nothing.”

Tarzan almost had arrived at something tangible when a distant wail

startled him from his preoccupation into sensibility of the present and

the real. The wail came from the jungle at some little distance from

Tarzan’s swaying couch. It was the wail of a tiny balu. Tarzan

recognized it at once as the voice of Gazan, Teeka’s baby. They had

called it Gazan because its soft, baby hair had been unusually red, and

GAZAN in the language of the great apes, means red skin.

The wail was immediately followed by a real scream of terror from the

small lungs. Tarzan was electrified into instant action. Like an arrow

from a bow he shot through the trees in the direction of the sound.

Ahead of him he heard the savage snarling of an adult she-ape. It was

Teeka to the rescue. The danger must be very real. Tarzan could tell

that by the note of rage mingled with fear in the voice of the she.

Running along bending limbs, swinging from one tree to another, the

ape-man raced through the middle terraces toward the sounds which now

had risen in volume to deafening proportions. From all directions the

apes of Kerchak were hurrying in response to the appeal in the tones of

the balu and its mother, and as they came, their roars reverberated

through the forest.

But Tarzan, swifter than his heavy fellows, distanced them all. It was

he who was first upon the scene. What he saw sent a cold chill through

his giant frame, for the enemy was the most hated and loathed of all

the jungle creatures.

Twined in a great tree was Histah, the snake—huge, ponderous, slimy—and

in the folds of its deadly embrace was Teeka’s little balu, Gazan.

Nothing in the jungle inspired within the breast of Tarzan so near a

semblance to fear as did the hideous Histah. The apes, too, loathed the

terrifying reptile and feared him even more than they did Sheeta, the

panther, or Numa, the lion. Of all their enemies there was none they

gave a wider berth than they gave Histah, the snake.

Tarzan knew that Teeka was peculiarly fearful of this silent, repulsive

foe, and as the scene broke upon his vision, it was the action of Teeka

which filled him with the greatest wonder, for at the moment that he

saw her, the she-ape leaped upon the glistening body of the snake, and

as the mighty folds encircled her as well as her offspring, she made no

effort to escape, but instead grasped the writhing body in a futile

effort to tear it from her screaming balu.

Tarzan knew all too well how deep-rooted was Teeka’s terror of Histah.

He scarce could believe the testimony of his own eyes then, when they

told him that she had voluntarily rushed into that deadly embrace. Nor

was Teeka’s innate dread of the monster much greater than Tarzan’s own.

Never, willingly, had he touched a snake. Why, he could not say, for he

would admit fear of nothing; nor was it fear, but rather an inherent

repulsion bequeathed to him by many generations of civilized ancestors,

and back of them, perhaps, by countless myriads of such as Teeka, in

the breasts of each of which had lurked the same nameless terror of the

slimy reptile.

Yet Tarzan did not hesitate more than had Teeka, but leaped upon Histah

with all the speed and impetuosity that he would have shown had he been

springing upon Bara, the deer, to make a kill for food. Thus beset the

snake writhed and twisted horribly; but not for an instant did it loose

its hold upon any of its intended victims, for it had included the

ape-man in its cold embrace the minute that he had fallen upon it.

Still clinging to the tree, the mighty reptile held the three as though

they had been without weight, the while it sought to crush the life

from them. Tarzan had drawn his knife and this he now plunged rapidly

into the body of the enemy; but the encircling folds promised to sap

his life before he had inflicted a death wound upon the snake. Yet on

he fought, nor once did he seek to escape the horrid death that

confronted him—his sole aim was to slay Histah and thus free Teeka and

her balu.

The great, wide-gaping jaws of the snake turned and hovered above him.

The elastic maw, which could accommodate a rabbit or a horned buck with

equal facility, yawned for him; but Histah, in turning his attention

upon the ape-man, brought his head within reach of Tarzan’s blade.

Instantly a brown hand leaped forth and seized the mottled neck, and

another drove the heavy hunting knife to the hilt into the little

brain.

Convulsively Histah shuddered and relaxed, tensed and relaxed again,

whipping and striking with his great body; but no longer sentient or

sensible. Histah was dead, but in his death throes he might easily

dispatch a dozen apes or men.

Quickly Tarzan seized Teeka and dragged her from the loosened embrace,

dropping her to the ground beneath, then he extricated the balu and

tossed it to its mother. Still Histah whipped about, clinging to the

ape-man; but after a dozen efforts Tarzan succeeded in wriggling free

and leaping to the ground out of range of the mighty battering of the

dying snake.

A circle of apes surrounded the scene of the battle; but the moment

that Tarzan broke safely from the enemy they turned silently away to

resume their interrupted feeding, and Teeka turned with them,

apparently forgetful of all but her balu and the fact that when the

interruption had occurred she just had discovered an ingeniously hidden

nest containing three perfectly good eggs.

Tarzan, equally indifferent to a battle that was over, merely cast a

parting glance at the still writhing body of Histah and wandered off

toward the little pool which served to water the tribe at this point.

Strangely, he did not give the victory cry over the vanquished Histah.

Why, he could not have told you, other than that to him Histah was not

an animal. He differed in some peculiar way from the other denizens of

the jungle. Tarzan only knew that he hated him.

At the pool Tarzan drank his fill and lay stretched upon the soft grass

beneath the shade of a tree. His mind reverted to the battle with

Histah, the snake. It seemed strange to him that Teeka should have

placed herself within the folds of the horrid monster. Why had she done

it? Why, indeed, had he? Teeka did not belong to him, nor did Teeka’s

balu. They were both Taug’s. Why then had he done this thing? Histah

was not food for him when he was dead. There seemed to Tarzan, now that

he gave the matter thought, no reason in the world why he should have

done the thing he did, and presently it occurred to him that he had

acted almost involuntarily, just as he had acted when he had released

the old Gomangani the previous evening.

What made him do such things? Somebody more powerful than he must force

him to act at times. “All-powerful,” thought Tarzan. “The little bugs

say that God is all-powerful. It must be that God made me do these

things, for I never did them by myself. It was God made Teeka rush

upon Histah. Teeka would never go near Histah of her own volition. It

was God who held my knife from the throat of the old Gomangani. God

accomplishes strange things for he is ‘all-powerful.’ I cannot see Him;

but I know that it must be God who does these things. No Mangani, no

Gomangani, no Tarmangani could do them.”

And the flowers—who made them grow? Ah, now it was all explained—the

flowers, the trees, the moon, the sun, himself, every living creature

in the jungle—they were all made by God out of nothing.

And what was God? What did God look like? Of that he had no conception;

but he was sure that everything that was good came from God. His good

act in refraining from slaying the poor, defenseless old Gomangani;

Teeka’s love that had hurled her into the embrace of death; his own

loyalty to Teeka which had jeopardized his life that she might live.

The flowers and the trees were good and beautiful. God had made them.

He made the other creatures, too, that each might have food upon which

to live. He had made Sheeta, the panther, with his beautiful coat; and

Numa, the lion, with his noble head and his shaggy mane. He had made

Bara, the deer, lovely and graceful.

Yes, Tarzan had found God, and he spent the whole day in attributing to

Him all of the good and beautiful things of nature; but there was one

thing which troubled him. He could not quite reconcile it to his

conception of his new-found God.

Who made Histah, the snake?