Chương Chương 25 · The Outpost of the World

. The Outpost of the World

With the report of his gun D’Arnot saw the door fly open and the figure

of a man pitch headlong within onto the cabin floor.

The Frenchman in his panic raised his gun to fire again into the

prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the open door he saw

that the man was white and in another instant realized that he had shot

his friend and protector, Tarzan of the Apes.

With a cry of anguish D’Arnot sprang to the ape-man’s side, and

kneeling, lifted the latter’s head in his arms—calling Tarzan’s name

aloud.

There was no response, and then D’Arnot placed his ear above the man’s

heart. To his joy he heard its steady beating beneath.

Carefully he lifted Tarzan to the cot, and then, after closing and

bolting the door, he lighted one of the lamps and examined the wound.

The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull. There was an ugly

flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of the skull.

D’Arnot breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing the blood

from Tarzan’s face.

Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened his eyes to

look in questioning surprise at D’Arnot.

The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and as he saw that

Tarzan had regained consciousness he arose and going to the table wrote

a message, which he handed to the ape-man, explaining the terrible

mistake he had made and how thankful he was that the wound was not more

serious.

Tarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the couch and

laughed.

“It is nothing,” he said in French, and then, his vocabulary failing

him, he wrote:

You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Kerchak, and Terkoz,

before I killed them—then you would laugh at such a little scratch.

D’Arnot handed Tarzan the two messages that had been left for him.

Tarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on his face.

The second one he turned over and over, searching for an opening—he had

never seen a sealed envelope before. At length he handed it to D’Arnot.

The Frenchman had been watching him, and knew that Tarzan was puzzled

over the envelope. How strange it seemed that to a full-grown white man

an envelope was a mystery. D’Arnot opened it and handed the letter back

to Tarzan.

Sitting on a camp stool the ape-man spread the written sheet before him

and read:

TO TARZAN OF THE APES:

Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Mr. Clayton for the

kindness you have shown in permitting us the use of your cabin.

That you never came to make friends with us has been a great regret to

us. We should have liked so much to have seen and thanked our host.

There is another I should like to thank also, but he did not come back,

though I cannot believe that he is dead.

I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who wore the

diamond locket upon his breast.

If you know him and can speak his language carry my thanks to him, and

tell him that I waited seven days for him to return.

Tell him, also, that in my home in America, in the city of Baltimore,

there will always be a welcome for him if he cares to come.

I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath a tree near

the cabin. I do not know how you learned to love me, who have never

spoken to me, and I am very sorry if it is true, for I have already

given my heart to another.

But know that I am always your friend,

JANE PORTER.

Tarzan sat with gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an hour. It was

evident to him from the notes that they did not know that he and Tarzan

of the Apes were one and the same.

“I have given my heart to another,” he repeated over and over again to

himself.

Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended love, and

raised him to such a pinnacle of hope only to cast him down to such

utter depths of despair!

Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did he know, who

knew nothing of the customs of human beings?

Suddenly he arose, and, bidding D’Arnot good night as he had learned to

do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that had been Jane Porter’s.

D’Arnot extinguished the lamp, and lay down upon the cot.

For a week they did little but rest, D’Arnot coaching Tarzan in French.

At the end of that time the two men could converse quite easily.

One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before retiring,

Tarzan turned to D’Arnot.

“Where is America?” he said.

D’Arnot pointed toward the northwest.

“Many thousands of miles across the ocean,” he replied. “Why?”

“I am going there.”

D’Arnot shook his head.

“It is impossible, my friend,” he said.

Tarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned with a

well-thumbed geography.

Turning to a map of the world, he said:

“I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please.”

When D’Arnot had done so, showing him that the blue represented all the

water on the earth, and the bits of other colors the continents and

islands, Tarzan asked him to point out the spot where they now were.

D’Arnot did so.

“Now point out America,” said Tarzan.

And as D’Arnot placed his finger upon North America, Tarzan smiled and

laid his palm upon the page, spanning the great ocean that lay between

the two continents.

“You see it is not so very far,” he said; “scarce the width of my

hand.”

D’Arnot laughed. How could he make the man understand?

Then he took a pencil and made a tiny point upon the shore of Africa.

“This little mark,” he said, “is many times larger upon this map than

your cabin is upon the earth. Do you see now how very far it is?”

Tarzan thought for a long time.

“Do any white men live in Africa?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Where are the nearest?”

D’Arnot pointed out a spot on the shore just north of them.

“So close?” asked Tarzan, in surprise.

“Yes,” said D’Arnot; “but it is not close.”

“Have they big boats to cross the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“We shall go there to-morrow,” announced Tarzan.

Again D’Arnot smiled and shook his head.

“It is too far. We should die long before we reached them.”

“Do you wish to stay here then forever?” asked Tarzan.

“No,” said D’Arnot.

“Then we shall start to-morrow. I do not like it here longer. I should

rather die than remain here.”

“Well,” answered D’Arnot, with a shrug, “I do not know, my friend, but

that I also would rather die than remain here. If you go, I shall go

with you.”

“It is settled then,” said Tarzan. “I shall start for America

to-morrow.”

“How will you get to America without money?” asked D’Arnot.

“What is money?” inquired Tarzan.

It took a long time to make him understand even imperfectly.

“How do men get money?” he asked at last.

“They work for it.”

“Very well. I will work for it, then.”

“No, my friend,” returned D’Arnot, “you need not worry about money, nor

need you work for it. I have enough money for two—enough for twenty.

Much more than is good for one man and you shall have all you need if

ever we reach civilization.”

So on the following day they started north along the shore. Each man

carrying a rifle and ammunition, beside bedding and some food and

cooking utensils.

The latter seemed to Tarzan a most useless encumbrance, so he threw his

away.

“But you must learn to eat cooked food, my friend,” remonstrated

D’Arnot. “No civilized men eat raw flesh.”

“There will be time enough when I reach civilization,” said Tarzan. “I

do not like the things and they only spoil the taste of good meat.”

For a month they traveled north. Sometimes finding food in plenty and

again going hungry for days.

They saw no signs of natives nor were they molested by wild beasts.

Their journey was a miracle of ease.

Tarzan asked questions and learned rapidly. D’Arnot taught him many of

the refinements of civilization—even to the use of knife and fork; but

sometimes Tarzan would drop them in disgust and grasp his food in his

strong brown hands, tearing it with his molars like a wild beast.

Then D’Arnot would expostulate with him, saying:

“You must not eat like a brute, Tarzan, while I am trying to make a

gentleman of you. _Mon Dieu!_ Gentlemen do not thus—it is terrible.”

Tarzan would grin sheepishly and pick up his knife and fork again, but

at heart he hated them.

On the journey he told D’Arnot about the great chest he had seen the

sailors bury; of how he had dug it up and carried it to the gathering

place of the apes and buried it there.

“It must be the treasure chest of Professor Porter,” said D’Arnot. “It

is too bad, but of course you did not know.”

Then Tarzan recalled the letter written by Jane to her friend—the one

he had stolen when they first came to his cabin, and now he knew what

was in the chest and what it meant to Jane.

“To-morrow we shall go back after it,” he announced to D’Arnot.

“Go back?” exclaimed D’Arnot. “But, my dear fellow, we have now been

three weeks upon the march. It would require three more to return to

the treasure, and then, with that enormous weight which required, you

say, four sailors to carry, it would be months before we had again

reached this spot.”

“It must be done, my friend,” insisted Tarzan. “You may go on toward

civilization, and I will return for the treasure. I can go very much

faster alone.”

“I have a better plan, Tarzan,” exclaimed D’Arnot. “We shall go on

together to the nearest settlement, and there we will charter a boat

and sail back down the coast for the treasure and so transport it

easily. That will be safer and quicker and also not require us to be

separated. What do you think of that plan?”

“Very well,” said Tarzan. “The treasure will be there whenever we go

for it; and while I could fetch it now, and catch up with you in a moon

or two, I shall feel safer for you to know that you are not alone on

the trail. When I see how helpless you are, D’Arnot, I often wonder how

the human race has escaped annihilation all these ages which you tell

me about. Why, Sabor, single handed, could exterminate a thousand of

you.”

D’Arnot laughed.

“You will think more highly of your genus when you have seen its armies

and navies, its great cities, and its mighty engineering works. Then

you will realize that it is mind, and not muscle, that makes the human

animal greater than the mighty beasts of your jungle.

“Alone and unarmed, a single man is no match for any of the larger

beasts; but if ten men were together, they would combine their wits and

their muscles against their savage enemies, while the beasts, being

unable to reason, would never think of combining against the men.

Otherwise, Tarzan of the Apes, how long would you have lasted in the

savage wilderness?”

“You are right, D’Arnot,” replied Tarzan, “for if Kerchak had come to

Tublat’s aid that night at the Dum-Dum, there would have been an end of

me. But Kerchak could never think far enough ahead to take advantage of

any such opportunity. Even Kala, my mother, could never plan ahead. She

simply ate what she needed when she needed it, and if the supply was

very scarce, even though she found plenty for several meals, she would

never gather any ahead.

“I remember that she used to think it very silly of me to burden myself

with extra food upon the march, though she was quite glad to eat it

with me, if the way chanced to be barren of sustenance.”

“Then you knew your mother, Tarzan?” asked D’Arnot, in surprise.

“Yes. She was a great, fine ape, larger than I, and weighing twice as

much.”

“And your father?” asked D’Arnot.

“I did not know him. Kala told me he was a white ape, and hairless like

myself. I know now that he must have been a white man.”

D’Arnot looked long and earnestly at his companion.

“Tarzan,” he said at length, “it is impossible that the ape, Kala, was

your mother. If such a thing can be, which I doubt, you would have

inherited some of the characteristics of the ape, but you have not—you

are pure man, and, I should say, the offspring of highly bred and

intelligent parents. Have you not the slightest clue to your past?”

“Not the slightest,” replied Tarzan.

“No writings in the cabin that might have told something of the lives

of its original inmates?”

“I have read everything that was in the cabin with the exception of one

book which I know now to be written in a language other than English.

Possibly you can read it.”

Tarzan fished the little black diary from the bottom of his quiver, and

handed it to his companion.

D’Arnot glanced at the title page.

“It is the diary of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, an English nobleman,

and it is written in French,” he said.

Then he proceeded to read the diary that had been written over twenty

years before, and which recorded the details of the story which we

already know—the story of adventure, hardships and sorrow of John

Clayton and his wife Alice, from the day they left England until an

hour before he was struck down by Kerchak.

D’Arnot read aloud. At times his voice broke, and he was forced to stop

reading for the pitiful hopelessness that spoke between the lines.

Occasionally he glanced at Tarzan; but the ape-man sat upon his

haunches, like a carven image, his eyes fixed upon the ground.

Only when the little babe was mentioned did the tone of the diary alter

from the habitual note of despair which had crept into it by degrees

after the first two months upon the shore.

Then the passages were tinged with a subdued happiness that was even

sadder than the rest.

One entry showed an almost hopeful spirit.

To-day our little boy is six months old. He is sitting in Alice’s lap

beside the table where I am writing—a happy, healthy, perfect child.

Somehow, even against all reason, I seem to see him a grown man,

taking his father’s place in the world—the second John Clayton—and

bringing added honors to the house of Greystoke.

There—as though to give my prophecy the weight of his

endorsement—he has grabbed my pen in his chubby fists and with his

inkbegrimed little fingers has placed the seal of his tiny finger

prints upon the page.

And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred

imprints of four wee fingers and the outer half of the thumb.

When D’Arnot had finished the diary the two men sat in silence for some

minutes.

“Well! Tarzan of the Apes, what think you?” asked D’Arnot. “Does not

this little book clear up the mystery of your parentage?

“Why, man, you are Lord Greystoke.”

“The book speaks of but one child,” he replied. “Its little skeleton

lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment, from the first

time I entered the cabin until Professor Porter’s party buried it, with

its father and mother, beside the cabin.

“No, that was the babe the book speaks of—and the mystery of my origin

is deeper than before, for I have thought much of late of the

possibility of that cabin having been my birthplace. I am afraid that

Kala spoke the truth,” he concluded sadly.

D’Arnot shook his head. He was unconvinced, and in his mind had sprung

the determination to prove the correctness of his theory, for he had

discovered the key which alone could unlock the mystery, or consign it

forever to the realms of the unfathomable.

A week later the two men came suddenly upon a clearing in the forest.

In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a strong palisade.

Between them and the enclosure stretched a cultivated field in which a

number of negroes were working.

The two halted at the edge of the jungle.

Tarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but D’Arnot placed a hand

upon his arm.

“What would you do, Tarzan?” he asked.

“They will try to kill us if they see us,” replied Tarzan. “I prefer to

be the killer.”

“Maybe they are friends,” suggested D’Arnot.

“They are black,” was Tarzan’s only reply.

And again he drew back his shaft.

“You must not, Tarzan!” cried D’Arnot. “White men do not kill wantonly.

_Mon Dieu!_ but you have much to learn.

“I pity the ruffian who crosses you, my wild man, when I take you to

Paris. I will have my hands full keeping your neck from beneath the

guillotine.”

Tarzan lowered his bow and smiled.

“I do not know why I should kill the blacks back there in my jungle,

yet not kill them here. Suppose Numa, the lion, should spring out upon

us, I should say, then, I presume: Good morning, Monsieur Numa, how is

Madame Numa; eh?”

“Wait until the blacks spring upon you,” replied D’Arnot, “then you may

kill them. Do not assume that men are your enemies until they prove

it.”

“Come,” said Tarzan, “let us go and present ourselves to be killed,”

and he started straight across the field, his head high held and the

tropical sun beating upon his smooth, brown skin.

Behind him came D’Arnot, clothed in some garments which had been

discarded at the cabin by Clayton when the officers of the French

cruiser had fitted him out in more presentable fashion.

Presently one of the blacks looked up, and beholding Tarzan, turned,

shrieking, toward the palisade.

In an instant the air was filled with cries of terror from the fleeing

gardeners, but before any had reached the palisade a white man emerged

from the enclosure, rifle in hand, to discover the cause of the

commotion.

What he saw brought his rifle to his shoulder, and Tarzan of the Apes

would have felt cold lead once again had not D’Arnot cried loudly to

the man with the leveled gun:

“Do not fire! We are friends!”

“Halt, then!” was the reply.

“Stop, Tarzan!” cried D’Arnot. “He thinks we are enemies.”

Tarzan dropped into a walk, and together he and D’Arnot advanced toward

the white man by the gate.

The latter eyed them in puzzled bewilderment.

“What manner of men are you?” he asked, in French.

“White men,” replied D’Arnot. “We have been lost in the jungle for a

long time.”

The man had lowered his rifle and now advanced with outstretched hand.

“I am Father Constantine of the French Mission here,” he said, “and I

am glad to welcome you.”

“This is Monsieur Tarzan, Father Constantine,” replied D’Arnot,

indicating the ape-man; and as the priest extended his hand to Tarzan,

D’Arnot added: “and I am Paul D’Arnot, of the French Navy.”

Father Constantine took the hand which Tarzan extended in imitation of

the priest’s act, while the latter took in the superb physique and

handsome face in one quick, keen glance.

And thus came Tarzan of the Apes to the first outpost of civilization.

For a week they remained there, and the ape-man, keenly observant,

learned much of the ways of men; meanwhile black women sewed white duck

garments for himself and D’Arnot so that they might continue their

journey properly clothed.