Chương Chương 6 · The Witch-Doctor Seeks Vengeance

. The Witch-Doctor Seeks Vengeance

Lord Greystoke was hunting, or, to be more accurate, he was shooting

pheasants at Chamston-Hedding. Lord Greystoke was immaculately and

appropriately garbed—to the minutest detail he was vogue. To be sure,

he was among the forward guns, not being considered a sporting shot,

but what he lacked in skill he more than made up in appearance. At the

end of the day he would, doubtless, have many birds to his credit,

since he had two guns and a smart loader—many more birds than he could

eat in a year, even had he been hungry, which he was not, having but

just arisen from the breakfast table.

The beaters—there were twenty-three of them, in white smocks—had but

just driven the birds into a patch of gorse, and were now circling to

the opposite side that they might drive down toward the guns. Lord

Greystoke was quite as excited as he ever permitted himself to become.

There was an exhilaration in the sport that would not be denied. He

felt his blood tingling through his veins as the beaters approached

closer and closer to the birds. In a vague and stupid sort of way Lord

Greystoke felt, as he always felt upon such occasions, that he was

experiencing a sensation somewhat akin to a reversion to a prehistoric

type—that the blood of an ancient forbear was coursing hot through him,

a hairy, half-naked forbear who had lived by the hunt.

And far away in a matted equatorial jungle another Lord Greystoke, the

real Lord Greystoke, hunted. By the standards which he knew, he, too,

was vogue—utterly vogue, as was the primal ancestor before the first

eviction. The day being sultry, the leopard skin had been left behind.

The real Lord Greystoke had not two guns, to be sure, nor even one,

neither did he have a smart loader; but he possessed something

infinitely more efficacious than guns, or loaders, or even twenty-three

beaters in white smocks—he possessed an appetite, an uncanny woodcraft,

and muscles that were as steel springs.

Later that day, in England, a Lord Greystoke ate bountifully of things

he had not killed, and he drank other things which were uncorked to the

accompaniment of much noise. He patted his lips with snowy linen to

remove the faint traces of his repast, quite ignorant of the fact that

he was an impostor and that the rightful owner of his noble title was

even then finishing his own dinner in far-off Africa. He was not using

snowy linen, though. Instead he drew the back of a brown forearm and

hand across his mouth and wiped his bloody fingers upon his thighs.

Then he moved slowly through the jungle to the drinking place, where,

upon all fours, he drank as drank his fellows, the other beasts of the

jungle.

As he quenched his thirst, another denizen of the gloomy forest

approached the stream along the path behind him. It was Numa, the lion,

tawny of body and black of mane, scowling and sinister, rumbling out

low, coughing roars. Tarzan of the Apes heard him long before he came

within sight, but the ape-man went on with his drinking until he had

had his fill; then he arose, slowly, with the easy grace of a creature

of the wilds and all the quiet dignity that was his birthright.

Numa halted as he saw the man standing at the very spot where the king

would drink. His jaws were parted, and his cruel eyes gleamed. He

growled and advanced slowly. The man growled, too, backing slowly to

one side, and watching, not the lion’s face, but its tail. Should that

commence to move from side to side in quick, nervous jerks, it would be

well to be upon the alert, and should it rise suddenly erect, straight

and stiff, then one might prepare to fight or flee; but it did neither,

so Tarzan merely backed away and the lion came down and drank scarce

fifty feet from where the man stood.

Tomorrow they might be at one another’s throats, but today there

existed one of those strange and inexplicable truces which so often are

seen among the savage ones of the jungle. Before Numa had finished

drinking, Tarzan had returned into the forest, and was swinging away in

the direction of the village of Mbonga, the black chief.

It had been at least a moon since the ape-man had called upon the

Gomangani. Not since he had restored little Tibo to his grief-stricken

mother had the whim seized him to do so. The incident of the adopted

balu was a closed one to Tarzan. He had sought to find something upon

which to lavish such an affection as Teeka lavished upon her balu, but

a short experience of the little black boy had made it quite plain to

the ape-man that no such sentiment could exist between them.

The fact that he had for a time treated the little black as he might

have treated a real balu of his own had in no way altered the vengeful

sentiments with which he considered the murderers of Kala. The

Gomangani were his deadly enemies, nor could they ever be aught else.

Today he looked forward to some slight relief from the monotony of his

existence in such excitement as he might derive from baiting the

blacks.

It was not yet dark when he reached the village and took his place in

the great tree overhanging the palisade. From beneath came a great

wailing out of the depths of a near-by hut. The noise fell disagreeably

upon Tarzan’s ears—it jarred and grated. He did not like it, so he

decided to go away for a while in the hopes that it might cease; but

though he was gone for a couple of hours the wailing still continued

when he returned.

With the intention of putting a violent termination to the annoying

sound, Tarzan slipped silently from the tree into the shadows beneath.

Creeping stealthily and keeping well in the cover of other huts, he

approached that from which rose the sounds of lamentation. A fire

burned brightly before the doorway as it did before other doorways in

the village. A few females squatted about, occasionally adding their

own mournful howlings to those of the master artist within.

The ape-man smiled a slow smile as he thought of the consternation

which would follow the quick leap that would carry him among the

females and into the full light of the fire. Then he would dart into

the hut during the excitement, throttle the chief screamer, and be gone

into the jungle before the blacks could gather their scattered nerves

for an assault.

Many times had Tarzan behaved similarly in the village of Mbonga, the

chief. His mysterious and unexpected appearances always filled the

breasts of the poor, superstitious blacks with the panic of terror;

never, it seemed, could they accustom themselves to the sight of him.

It was this terror which lent to the adventures the spice of interest

and amusement which the human mind of the ape-man craved. Merely to

kill was not in itself sufficient. Accustomed to the sight of death,

Tarzan found no great pleasure in it. Long since had he avenged the

death of Kala, but in the accomplishment of it, he had learned the

excitement and the pleasure to be derived from the baiting of the

blacks. Of this he never tired.

It was just as he was about to spring forward with a savage roar that a

figure appeared in the doorway of the hut. It was the figure of the

wailer whom he had come to still, the figure of a young woman with a

wooden skewer through the split septum of her nose, with a heavy metal

ornament depending from her lower lip, which it had dragged down to

hideous and repulsive deformity, with strange tattooing upon forehead,

cheeks, and breasts, and a wonderful coiffure built up with mud and

wire.

A sudden flare of the fire threw the grotesque figure into high relief,

and Tarzan recognized her as Momaya, the mother of Tibo. The fire also

threw out a fitful flame which carried to the shadows where Tarzan

lurked, picking out his light brown body from the surrounding darkness.

Momaya saw him and knew him. With a cry, she leaped forward and Tarzan

came to meet her. The other women, turning, saw him, too; but they did

not come toward him. Instead they rose as one, shrieked as one, fled as

one.

Momaya threw herself at Tarzan’s feet, raising supplicating hands

toward him and pouring forth from her mutilated lips a perfect cataract

of words, not one of which the ape-man comprehended. For a moment he

looked down upon the upturned, frightful face of the woman. He had come

to slay, but that overwhelming torrent of speech filled him with

consternation and with awe. He glanced about him apprehensively, then

back at the woman. A revulsion of feeling seized him. He could not kill

little Tibo’s mother, nor could he stand and face this verbal geyser.

With a quick gesture of impatience at the spoiling of his evening’s

entertainment, he wheeled and leaped away into the darkness. A moment

later he was swinging through the black jungle night, the cries and

lamentations of Momaya growing fainter in the distance.

It was with a sigh of relief that he finally reached a point from which

he could no longer hear them, and finding a comfortable crotch high

among the trees, composed himself for a night of dreamless slumber,

while a prowling lion moaned and coughed beneath him, and in far-off

England the other Lord Greystoke, with the assistance of a valet,

disrobed and crawled between spotless sheets, swearing irritably as a

cat meowed beneath his window.

As Tarzan followed the fresh spoor of Horta, the boar, the following

morning, he came upon the tracks of two Gomangani, a large one and a

small one. The ape-man, accustomed as he was to questioning closely all

that fell to his perceptions, paused to read the story written in the

soft mud of the game trail. You or I would have seen little of interest

there, even if, by chance, we could have seen aught. Perhaps had one

been there to point them out to us, we might have noted indentations in

the mud, but there were countless indentations, one overlapping another

into a confusion that would have been entirely meaningless to us. To

Tarzan each told its own story. Tantor, the elephant, had passed that

way as recently as three suns since. Numa had hunted here the night

just gone, and Horta, the boar, had walked slowly along the trail

within an hour; but what held Tarzan’s attention was the spoor tale of

the Gomangani. It told him that the day before an old man had gone

toward the north in company with a little boy, and that with them had

been two hyenas.

Tarzan scratched his head in puzzled incredulity. He could see by the

overlapping of the footprints that the beasts had not been following

the two, for sometimes one was ahead of them and one behind, and again

both were in advance, or both were in the rear. It was very strange and

quite inexplicable, especially where the spoor showed where the hyenas

in the wider portions of the path had walked one on either side of the

human pair, quite close to them. Then Tarzan read in the spoor of the

smaller Gomangani a shrinking terror of the beast that brushed his

side, but in that of the old man was no sign of fear.

At first Tarzan had been solely occupied by the remarkable

juxtaposition of the spoor of Dango and Gomangani, but now his keen

eyes caught something in the spoor of the little Gomangani which

brought him to a sudden stop. It was as though, finding a letter in the

road, you suddenly had discovered in it the familiar handwriting of a

friend.

“Go-bu-balu!” exclaimed the ape-man, and at once memory flashed upon

the screen of recollection the supplicating attitude of Momaya as she

had hurled herself before him in the village of Mbonga the night

before. Instantly all was explained—the wailing and lamentation, the

pleading of the black mother, the sympathetic howling of the shes about

the fire. Little Go-bu-balu had been stolen again, and this time by

another than Tarzan. Doubtless the mother had thought that he was again

in the power of Tarzan of the Apes, and she had been beseeching him to

return her balu to her.

Yes, it was all quite plain now; but who could have stolen Go-bu-balu

this time? Tarzan wondered, and he wondered, too, about the presence of

Dango. He would investigate. The spoor was a day old and it ran toward

the north. Tarzan set out to follow it. In places it was totally

obliterated by the passage of many beasts, and where the way was rocky,

even Tarzan of the Apes was almost baffled; but there was still the

faint effluvium which clung to the human spoor, appreciable only to

such highly trained perceptive powers as were Tarzan’s.

It had all happened to little Tibo very suddenly and unexpectedly

within the brief span of two suns. First had come Bukawai, the

witch-doctor—Bukawai, the unclean—with the ragged bit of flesh which

still clung to his rotting face. He had come alone and by day to the

place at the river where Momaya went daily to wash her body and that of

Tibo, her little boy. He had stepped out from behind a great bush quite

close to Momaya, frightening little Tibo so that he ran screaming to

his mother’s protecting arms.

But Momaya, though startled, had wheeled to face the fearsome thing

with all the savage ferocity of a she-tiger at bay. When she saw who it

was, she breathed a sigh of partial relief, though she still clung

tightly to Tibo.

“I have come,” said Bukawai without preliminary, “for the three fat

goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire as long as a

tall man’s arm.”

“I have no goats for you,” snapped Momaya, “nor a sleeping mat, nor any

wire. Your medicine was never made. The white jungle god gave me back

my Tibo. You had nothing to do with it.”

“But I did,” mumbled Bukawai through his fleshless jaws. “It was I who

commanded the white jungle god to give back your Tibo.”

Momaya laughed in his face. “Speaker of lies,” she cried, “go back to

your foul den and your hyenas. Go back and hide your stinking face in

the belly of the mountain, lest the sun, seeing it, cover his face with

a black cloud.”

“I have come,” reiterated Bukawai, “for the three fat goats, the new

sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire the length of a tall man’s

arm, which you were to pay me for the return of your Tibo.”

“It was to be the length of a man’s forearm,” corrected Momaya, “but

you shall have nothing, old thief. You would not make medicine until I

had brought the payment in advance, and when I was returning to my

village the great, white jungle god gave me back my Tibo—gave him to me

out of the jaws of Numa. His medicine is true medicine—yours is the

weak medicine of an old man with a hole in his face.”

“I have come,” repeated Bukawai patiently, “for the three fat—” But

Momaya had not waited to hear more of what she already knew by heart.

Clasping Tibo close to her side, she was hurrying away toward the

palisaded village of Mbonga, the chief.

And the next day, when Momaya was working in the plantain field with

others of the women of the tribe, and little Tibo had been playing at

the edge of the jungle, casting a small spear in anticipation of the

distant day when he should be a full-fledged warrior, Bukawai had come

again.

Tibo had seen a squirrel scampering up the bole of a great tree. His

childish mind had transformed it into the menacing figure of a hostile

warrior. Little Tibo had raised his tiny spear, his heart filled with

the savage blood lust of his race, as he pictured the night’s orgy when

he should dance about the corpse of his human kill as the women of his

tribe prepared the meat for the feast to follow.

But when he cast the spear, he missed both squirrel and tree, losing

his missile far among the tangled undergrowth of the jungle. However,

it could be but a few steps within the forbidden labyrinth. The women

were all about in the field. There were warriors on guard within easy

hail, and so little Tibo boldly ventured into the dark place.

Just behind the screen of creepers and matted foliage lurked three

horrid figures—an old, old man, black as the pit, with a face half

eaten away by leprosy, his sharp-filed teeth, the teeth of a cannibal,

showing yellow and repulsive through the great gaping hole where his

mouth and nose had been. And beside him, equally hideous, stood two

powerful hyenas—carrion-eaters consorting with carrion.

Tibo did not see them until, head down, he had forced his way through

the thickly growing vines in search of his little spear, and then it

was too late. As he looked up into the face of Bukawai, the old

witch-doctor seized him, muffling his screams with a palm across his

mouth. Tibo struggled futilely.

A moment later he was being hustled away through the dark and terrible

jungle, the frightful old man still muffling his screams, and the two

hideous hyenas pacing now on either side, now before, now behind,

always prowling, always growling, snapping, snarling, or, worst of all,

laughing hideously.

To little Tibo, who within his brief existence had passed through such

experiences as are given to few to pass through in a lifetime, the

northward journey was a nightmare of terror. He thought now of the time

that he had been with the great, white jungle god, and he prayed with

all his little soul that he might be back again with the white-skinned

giant who consorted with the hairy tree men. Terror-stricken he had

been then, but his surroundings had been nothing by comparison with

those which he now endured.

The old man seldom addressed Tibo, though he kept up an almost

continuous mumbling throughout the long day. Tibo caught repeated

references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. “Ten

fat goats, ten fat goats,” the old Negro would croon over and over

again. By this little Tibo guessed that the price of his ransom had

risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin

ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor little boy?

Mbonga would never let her have them, and Tibo knew that his father

never had owned more than three goats at the same time in all his life.

Ten fat goats! Tibo sniffled. The putrid old man would kill him and eat

him, for the goats would never be forthcoming. Bukawai would throw his

bones to the hyenas. The little black boy shuddered and became so weak

that he almost fell in his tracks. Bukawai cuffed him on an ear and

jerked him along.

After what seemed an eternity to Tibo, they arrived at the mouth of a

cave between two rocky hills. The opening was low and narrow. A few

saplings bound together with strips of rawhide closed it against stray

beasts. Bukawai removed the primitive door and pushed Tibo within. The

hyenas, snarling, rushed past him and were lost to view in the

blackness of the interior. Bukawai replaced the saplings and seizing

Tibo roughly by the arm, dragged him along a narrow, rocky passage. The

floor was comparatively smooth, for the dirt which lay thick upon it

had been trodden and tramped by many feet until few inequalities

remained.

The passage was tortuous, and as it was very dark and the walls rough

and rocky, Tibo was scratched and bruised from the many bumps he

received. Bukawai walked as rapidly through the winding gallery as one

would traverse a familiar lane by daylight. He knew every twist and

turn as a mother knows the face of her child, and he seemed to be in a

hurry. He jerked poor little Tibo possibly a trifle more ruthlessly

than necessary even at the pace Bukawai set; but the old witch-doctor,

an outcast from the society of man, diseased, shunned, hated, feared,

was far from possessing an angelic temper. Nature had given him few of

the kindlier characteristics of man, and these few Fate had eradicated

entirely. Shrewd, cunning, cruel, vindictive, was Bukawai, the

witch-doctor.

Frightful tales were whispered of the cruel tortures he inflicted upon

his victims. Children were frightened into obedience by the threat of

his name. Often had Tibo been thus frightened, and now he was reaping a

grisly harvest of terror from the seeds his mother had innocently sown.

The darkness, the presence of the dreaded witch-doctor, the pain of the

contusions, with a haunting premonition of the future, and the fear of

the hyenas combined to almost paralyze the child. He stumbled and

reeled until Bukawai was dragging rather than leading him.

Presently Tibo saw a faint lightness ahead of them, and a moment later

they emerged into a roughly circular chamber to which a little daylight

filtered through a rift in the rocky ceiling. The hyenas were there

ahead of them, waiting. As Bukawai entered with Tibo, the beasts slunk

toward them, baring yellow fangs. They were hungry. Toward Tibo they

came, and one snapped at his naked legs. Bukawai seized a stick from

the floor of the chamber and struck a vicious blow at the beast, at the

same time mumbling forth a volley of execrations. The hyena dodged and

ran to the side of the chamber, where he stood growling. Bukawai took a

step toward the creature, which bristled with rage at his approach.

Fear and hatred shot from its evil eyes, but, fortunately for Bukawai,

fear predominated.

Seeing that he was unnoticed, the second beast made a short, quick rush

for Tibo. The child screamed and darted after the witch-doctor, who now

turned his attention to the second hyena. This one he reached with his

heavy stick, striking it repeatedly and driving it to the wall. There

the two carrion-eaters commenced to circle the chamber while the human

carrion, their master, now in a perfect frenzy of demoniacal rage, ran

to and fro in an effort to intercept them, striking out with his cudgel

and lashing them with his tongue, calling down upon them the curses of

whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and describing in

lurid figures the ignominy of their ancestors.

Several times one or the other of the beasts would turn to make a stand

against the witch-doctor, and then Tibo would hold his breath in

agonized terror, for never in his brief life had he seen such frightful

hatred depicted upon the countenance of man or beast; but always fear

overcame the rage of the savage creatures, so that they resumed their

flight, snarling and bare-fanged, just at the moment that Tibo was

certain they would spring at Bukawai’s throat.

At last the witch-doctor tired of the futile chase. With a snarl quite

as bestial as those of the beasts, he turned toward Tibo. “I go to

collect the ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the two pieces of

copper wire that your mother will pay for the medicine I shall make to

bring you back to her,” he said. “You will stay here. There,” and he

pointed toward the passage which they had followed to the chamber, “I

will leave the hyenas. If you try to escape, they will eat you.”

He cast aside the stick and called to the beasts. They came, snarling

and slinking, their tails between their legs. Bukawai led them to the

passage and drove them into it. Then he dragged a rude lattice into

place before the opening after he, himself, had left the chamber. “This

will keep them from you,” he said. “If I do not get the ten fat goats

and the other things, they shall at least have a few bones after I am

through.” And he left the boy to think over the meaning of his

all-too-suggestive words.

When he was gone, Tibo threw himself upon the earth floor and broke

into childish sobs of terror and loneliness. He knew that his mother

had no ten fat goats to give and that when Bukawai returned, little

Tibo would be killed and eaten. How long he lay there he did not know,

but presently he was aroused by the growling of the hyenas. They had

returned through the passage and were glaring at him from beyond the

lattice. He could see their yellow eyes blazing through the darkness.

They reared up and clawed at the barrier. Tibo shivered and withdrew to

the opposite side of the chamber. He saw the lattice sag and sway to

the attacks of the beasts. Momentarily he expected that it would fall

inward, letting the creatures upon him.

Wearily the horror-ridden hours dragged their slow way. Night came, and

for a time Tibo slept, but it seemed that the hungry beasts never

slept. Always they stood just beyond the lattice growling their hideous

growls or laughing their hideous laughs. Through the narrow rift in the

rocky roof above him, Tibo could see a few stars, and once the moon

crossed. At last daylight came again. Tibo was very hungry and thirsty,

for he had not eaten since the morning before, and only once upon the

long march had he been permitted to drink, but even hunger and thirst

were almost forgotten in the terror of his position.

It was after daylight that the child discovered a second opening in the

walls of the subterranean chamber, almost opposite that at which the

hyenas still stood glaring hungrily at him. It was only a narrow slit

in the rocky wall. It might lead in but a few feet, or it might lead to

freedom! Tibo approached it and looked within. He could see nothing. He

extended his arm into the blackness, but he dared not venture farther.

Bukawai never would have left open a way of escape, Tibo reasoned, so

this passage must lead either nowhere or to some still more hideous

danger.

To the boy’s fear of the actual dangers which menaced him—Bukawai and

the two hyenas—his superstition added countless others quite too

horrible even to name, for in the lives of the blacks, through the

shadows of the jungle day and the black horrors of the jungle night,

flit strange, fantastic shapes peopling the already hideously peopled

forests with menacing figures, as though the lion and the leopard, the

snake and the hyena, and the countless poisonous insects were not quite

sufficient to strike terror to the hearts of the poor, simple creatures

whose lot is cast in earth’s most fearsome spot.

And so it was that little Tibo cringed not only from real menaces but

from imaginary ones. He was afraid even to venture upon a road that

might lead to escape, lest Bukawai had set to watch it some frightful

demon of the jungle.

But the real menaces suddenly drove the imaginary ones from the boy’s

mind, for with the coming of daylight the half-famished hyenas renewed

their efforts to break down the frail barrier which kept them from

their prey. Rearing upon their hind feet they clawed and struck at the

lattice. With wide eyes Tibo saw it sag and rock. Not for long, he

knew, could it withstand the assaults of these two powerful and

determined brutes. Already one corner had been forced past the rocky

protuberance of the entrance way which had held it in place. A shaggy

forearm protruded into the chamber. Tibo trembled as with ague, for he

knew that the end was near.

Backing against the farther wall he stood flattened out as far from the

beasts as he could get. He saw the lattice give still more. He saw a

savage, snarling head forced past it, and grinning jaws snapping and

gaping toward him. In another instant the pitiful fabric would fall

inward, and the two would be upon him, rending his flesh from his

bones, gnawing the bones themselves, fighting for possession of his

entrails.

* * *

Bukawai came upon Momaya outside the palisade of Mbonga, the chief. At

sight of him the woman drew back in revulsion, then she flew at him,

tooth and nail; but Bukawai threatening her with a spear held her at a

safe distance.

“Where is my baby?” she cried. “Where is my little Tibo?”

Bukawai opened his eyes in well-simulated amazement. “Your baby!” he

exclaimed. “What should I know of him, other than that I rescued him

from the white god of the jungle and have not yet received my pay. I

come for the goats and the sleeping mat and the piece of copper wire

the length of a tall man’s arm from the shoulder to the tips of his

fingers.”

“Offal of a hyena!” shrieked Momaya. “My child has been

stolen, and you, rotting fragment of a man, have taken him. Return him

to me or I shall tear your eyes from your head and feed your heart to

the wild hogs.”

Bukawai shrugged his shoulders. “What do I know about your child?” he

asked. “I have not taken him. If he is stolen again, what should

Bukawai know of the matter? Did Bukawai steal him before? No, the white

jungle god stole him, and if he stole him once he would steal him

again. It is nothing to me. I returned him to you before and I have

come for my pay. If he is gone and you would have him returned, Bukawai

will return him—for ten fat goats, a new sleeping mat and two pieces of

copper wire the length of a tall man’s arm from the shoulder to the

tips of his fingers, and Bukawai will say nothing more about the goats

and the sleeping mat and the copper wire which you were to pay for the

first medicine.”

“Ten fat goats!” screamed Momaya. “I could not pay you ten fat goats in

as many years. Ten fat goats, indeed!”

“Ten fat goats,” repeated Bukawai. “Ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat

and two pieces of copper wire the length of——”

Momaya stopped him with an impatient gesture. “Wait!” she cried. “I

have no goats. You waste your breath. Stay here while I go to my man.

He has but three goats, yet something may be done. Wait!”

Bukawai sat down beneath a tree. He felt quite content, for he knew

that he should have either payment or revenge. He did not fear harm at

the hands of these people of another tribe, although he well knew that

they must fear and hate him. His leprosy alone would prevent their

laying hands upon him, while his reputation as a witch-doctor rendered

him doubly immune from attack. He was planning upon compelling them to

drive the ten goats to the mouth of his cave when Momaya returned. With

her were three warriors—Mbonga, the chief, Rabba Kega, the village

witch-doctor, and Ibeto, Tibo’s father. They were not pretty men even

under ordinary circumstances, and now, with their faces marked by

anger, they well might have inspired terror in the heart of anyone; but

if Bukawai felt any fear, he did not betray it. Instead he greeted them

with an insolent stare, intended to awe them, as they came and squatted

in a semi-circle before him.

“Where is Ibeto’s son?” asked Mbonga.

“How should I know?” returned Bukawai. “Doubtless the white devil-god

has him. If I am paid I will make strong medicine and then we shall

know where is Ibeto’s son, and shall get him back again. It was my

medicine which got him back the last time, for which I got no pay.”

“I have my own witch-doctor to make medicine,” replied Mbonga with

dignity.

Bukawai sneered and rose to his feet. “Very well,” he said, “let him

make his medicine and see if he can bring Ibeto’s son back.” He took a

few steps away from them, and then he turned angrily back. “His

medicine will not bring the child back—that I know, and I also know

that when you find him it will be too late for any medicine to bring

him back, for he will be dead. This have I just found out, the ghost of

my father’s sister but now came to me and told me.”

Now Mbonga and Rabba Kega might not take much stock in their own magic,

and they might even be skeptical as to the magic of another; but there

was always a chance of _something_ being in it, especially if it were

not their own. Was it not well known that old Bukawai had speech with

the demons themselves and that two even lived with him in the forms of

hyenas! Still they must not accede too hastily. There was the price to

be considered, and Mbonga had no intention of parting lightly with ten

goats to obtain the return of a single little boy who might die of

smallpox long before he reached a warrior’s estate.

“Wait,” said Mbonga. “Let us see some of your magic, that we may know

if it be good magic. Then we can talk about payment. Rabba Kega will

make some magic, too. We will see who makes the best magic. Sit down,

Bukawai.”

“The payment will be ten goats—fat goats—a new sleeping mat and two

pieces of copper wire the length of a tall man’s arm from the shoulder

to the ends of his fingers, and it will be made in advance, the goats

being driven to my cave. Then will I make the medicine, and on the

second day the boy will be returned to his mother. It cannot be done

more quickly than that because it takes time to make such strong

medicine.”

“Make us some medicine now,” said Mbonga. “Let us see what sort of

medicine you make.”

“Bring me fire,” replied Bukawai, “and I will make you a little magic.”

Momaya was dispatched for the fire, and while she was away Mbonga

dickered with Bukawai about the price. Ten goats, he said, was a high

price for an able-bodied warrior. He also called Bukawai’s attention to

the fact that he, Mbonga, was very poor, that his people were very

poor, and that ten goats were at least eight too many, to say nothing

of a new sleeping mat and the copper wire; but Bukawai was adamant. His

medicine was very expensive and he would have to give at least five

goats to the gods who helped him make it. They were still arguing when

Momaya returned with the fire.

Bukawai placed a little on the ground before him, took a pinch of

powder from a pouch at his side and sprinkled it on the embers. A cloud

of smoke rose with a puff. Bukawai closed his eyes and rocked back and

forth. Then he made a few passes in the air and pretended to swoon.

Mbonga and the others were much impressed. Rabba Kega grew nervous. He

saw his reputation waning. There was some fire left in the vessel which

Momaya had brought. He seized the vessel, dropped a handful of dry

leaves into it while no one was watching and then uttered a frightful

scream which drew the attention of Bukawai’s audience to him. It also

brought Bukawai quite miraculously out of his swoon, but when the old

witch-doctor saw the reason for the disturbance he quickly relapsed

into unconsciousness before anyone discovered his _faux pas_.

Rabba Kega, seeing that he had the attention of Mbonga, Ibeto, and

Momaya, blew suddenly into the vessel, with the result that the leaves

commenced to smolder, and smoke issued from the mouth of the

receptacle. Rabba Kega was careful to hold it so that none might see

the dry leaves. Their eyes opened wide at this remarkable demonstration

of the village witch-doctor’s powers. The latter, greatly elated, let

himself out. He shouted, jumped up and down, and made frightful

grimaces; then he put his face close over the mouth of the vessel and

appeared to be communing with the spirits within.

It was while he was thus engaged that Bukawai came out of his trance,

his curiosity finally having gotten the better of him. No one was

paying him the slightest attention. He blinked his one eye angrily,

then he, too, let out a loud roar, and when he was sure that Mbonga had

turned toward him, he stiffened rigidly and made spasmodic movements

with his arms and legs.

“I see him!” he cried. “He is far away. The white devil-god did not get

him. He is alone and in great danger; but,” he added, “if the ten fat

goats and the other things are paid to me quickly there is yet time to

save him.”

Rabba Kega had paused to listen. Mbonga looked toward him. The chief

was in a quandary. He did not know which medicine was the better. “What

does your magic tell you?” he asked of Rabba Kega.

“I, too, see him,” screamed Rabba Kega; “but he is not where Bukawai

says he is. He is dead at the bottom of the river.”

At this Momaya commenced to howl loudly.

Tarzan had followed the spoor of the old man, the two hyenas, and the

little black boy to the mouth of the cave in the rocky cañon between

the two hills. Here he paused a moment before the sapling barrier which

Bukawai had set up, listening to the snarls and growls which came

faintly from the far recesses of the cavern.

Presently, mingled with the beastly cries, there came faintly to the

keen ears of the ape-man, the agonized moan of a child. No longer did

Tarzan hesitate. Hurling the door aside, he sprang into the dark

opening. Narrow and black was the corridor; but long use of his eyes in

the Stygian blackness of the jungle nights had given to the ape-man

something of the nocturnal visionary powers of the wild things with

which he had consorted since babyhood.

He moved rapidly and yet with caution, for the place was dark,

unfamiliar and winding. As he advanced, he heard more and more loudly

the savage snarls of the two hyenas, mingled with the scraping and

scratching of their paws upon wood. The moans of a child grew in

volume, and Tarzan recognized in them the voice of the little black boy

he once had sought to adopt as his balu.

There was no hysteria in the ape-man’s advance. Too accustomed was he

to the passing of life in the jungle to be greatly wrought even by the

death of one whom he knew; but the lust for battle spurred him on. He

was only a wild beast at heart and his wild beast’s heart beat high in

anticipation of conflict.

In the rocky chamber of the hill’s center, little Tibo crouched low

against the wall as far from the hunger-crazed beasts as he could drag

himself. He saw the lattice giving to the frantic clawing of the

hyenas. He knew that in a few minutes his little life would flicker out

horribly beneath the rending, yellow fangs of these loathsome

creatures.

Beneath the buffetings of the powerful bodies, the lattice sagged

inward, until, with a crash it gave way, letting the carnivora in upon

the boy. Tibo cast one affrighted glance toward them, then closed his

eyes and buried his face in his arms, sobbing piteously.

For a moment the hyenas paused, caution and cowardice holding them from

their prey. They stood thus glaring at the lad, then slowly,

stealthily, crouching, they crept toward him. It was thus that Tarzan

came upon them, bursting into the chamber swiftly and silently; but not

so silently that the keen-eared beasts did not note his coming. With

angry growls they turned from Tibo upon the ape-man, as, with a smile

upon his lips, he ran toward them. For an instant one of the animals

stood its ground; but the ape-man did not deign even to draw his

hunting knife against despised Dango. Rushing in upon the brute he

grasped it by the scruff of the neck, just as it attempted to dodge

past him, and hurled it across the cavern after its fellow which

already was slinking into the corridor, bent upon escape.

Then Tarzan picked Tibo from the floor, and when the child felt human

hands upon him instead of the paws and fangs of the hyenas, he rolled

his eyes upward in surprise and incredulity, and as they fell upon

Tarzan, sobs of relief broke from the childish lips and his hands

clutched at his deliverer as though the white devil-god was not the

most feared of jungle creatures.

When Tarzan came to the cave mouth the hyenas were nowhere in sight,

and after permitting Tibo to quench his thirst in the spring which rose

near by, he lifted the boy to his shoulders and set off toward the

jungle at a rapid trot, determined to still the annoying howlings of

Momaya as quickly as possible, for he shrewdly had guessed that the

absence of her balu was the cause of her lamentation.

“He is not dead at the bottom of the river,” cried Bukawai. “What does

this fellow know about making magic? Who is he, anyway, that he dare

say Bukawai’s magic is not good magic? Bukawai sees Momaya’s son. He is

far away and alone and in great danger. Hasten then with the ten fat

goats, the—”

But he got no further. There was a sudden interruption from above, from

the branches of the very tree beneath which they squatted, and as the

five blacks looked up they almost swooned in fright as they saw the

great, white devil-god looking down upon them; but before they could

flee they saw another face, that of the lost little Tibo, and his face

was laughing and very happy.

And then Tarzan dropped fearlessly among them, the boy still upon his

back, and deposited him before his mother. Momaya, Ibeto, Rabba Kega,

and Mbonga were all crowding around the lad trying to question him at

the same time. Suddenly Momaya turned ferociously to fall upon Bukawai,

for the boy had told her all that he had suffered at the hands of the

cruel old man; but Bukawai was no longer there—he had required no

recourse to black art to assure him that the vicinity of Momaya would

be no healthful place for him after Tibo had told his story, and now he

was running through the jungle as fast as his old legs would carry him

toward the distant lair where he knew no black would dare pursue him.

Tarzan, too, had vanished, as he had a way of doing, to the

mystification of the blacks. Then Momaya’s eyes lighted upon Rabba

Kega. The village witch-doctor saw something in those eyes of her’s

which boded no good to him, and backed away.

“So my Tibo is dead at the bottom of the river, is he?” the woman

shrieked. “And he’s far away and alone and in great danger, is he?

Magic!” The scorn which Momaya crowded into that single word would have

done credit to a Thespian of the first magnitude. “Magic, indeed!” she

screamed. “Momaya will show you some magic of her own,” and with that

she seized upon a broken limb and struck Rabba Kega across the head.

With a howl of pain, the man turned and fled, Momaya pursuing him and

beating him across the shoulders, through the gateway and up the length

of the village street, to the intense amusement of the warriors, the

women, and the children who were so fortunate as to witness the

spectacle, for one and all feared Rabba Kega, and to fear is to hate.

Thus it was that to his host of passive enemies, Tarzan of the Apes

added that day two active foes, both of whom remained awake long into

the night planning means of revenge upon the white devil-god who had

brought them into ridicule and disrepute, but with their most

malevolent schemings was mingled a vein of real fear and awe that would

not down.

Young Lord Greystoke did not know that they planned against him, nor,

knowing, would have cared. He slept as well that night as he did on any

other night, and though there was no roof above him, and no doors to

lock against intruders, he slept much better than his noble relative in

England, who had eaten altogether too much lobster and drank too much

wine at dinner that night.