第 七 章 · The End of Bukawai

. The End of Bukawai

When Tarzan of the Apes was still but a boy he had learned, among other

things, to fashion pliant ropes of fibrous jungle grass. Strong and

tough were the ropes of Tarzan, the little Tarmangani. Tublat, his

foster father, would have told you this much and more. Had you tempted

him with a handful of fat caterpillars he even might have sufficiently

unbended to narrate to you a few stories of the many indignities which

Tarzan had heaped upon him by means of his hated rope; but then Tublat

always worked himself into such a frightful rage when he devoted any

considerable thought either to the rope or to Tarzan, that it might not

have proved comfortable for you to have remained close enough to him to

hear what he had to say.

So often had that snakelike noose settled unexpectedly over Tublat’s

head, so often had he been jerked ridiculously and painfully from his

feet when he was least looking for such an occurrence, that there is

little wonder he found scant space in his savage heart for love of his

white-skinned foster child, or the inventions thereof. There had been

other times, too, when Tublat had swung helplessly in midair, the noose

tightening about his neck, death staring him in the face, and little

Tarzan dancing upon a near-by limb, taunting him and making unseemly

grimaces.

Then there had been another occasion in which the rope had figured

prominently—an occasion, and the only one connected with the rope,

which Tublat recalled with pleasure. Tarzan, as active in brain as he

was in body, was always inventing new ways in which to play. It was

through the medium of play that he learned much during his childhood.

This day he learned something, and that he did not lose his life in the

learning of it, was a matter of great surprise to Tarzan, and the fly

in the ointment, to Tublat.

The man-child had, in throwing his noose at a playmate in a tree above

him, caught a projecting branch instead. When he tried to shake it

loose it but drew the tighter. Then Tarzan started to climb the rope to

remove it from the branch. When he was part way up a frolicsome

playmate seized that part of the rope which lay upon the ground and ran

off with it as far as he could go. When Tarzan screamed at him to

desist, the young ape released the rope a little and then drew it tight

again. The result was to impart a swinging motion to Tarzan’s body

which the ape-boy suddenly realized was a new and pleasurable form of

play. He urged the ape to continue until Tarzan was swinging to and fro

as far as the short length of rope would permit, but the distance was

not great enough, and, too, he was not far enough above the ground to

give the necessary thrills which add so greatly to the pastimes of the

young.

So he clambered to the branch where the noose was caught and after

removing it carried the rope far aloft and out upon a long and powerful

branch. Here he again made it fast, and taking the loose end in his

hand, clambered quickly down among the branches as far as the rope

would permit him to go; then he swung out upon the end of it, his

lithe, young body turning and twisting—a human bob upon a pendulum of

grass—thirty feet above the ground.

Ah, how delectable! This was indeed a new play of the first magnitude.

Tarzan was entranced. Soon he discovered that by wriggling his body in

just the right way at the proper time he could diminish or accelerate

his oscillation, and, being a boy, he chose, naturally, to accelerate.

Presently he was swinging far and wide, while below him, the apes of

the tribe of Kerchak looked on in mild amaze.

Had it been you or I swinging there at the end of that grass rope, the

thing which presently happened would not have happened, for we could

not have hung on so long as to have made it possible; but Tarzan was

quite as much at home swinging by his hands as he was standing upon his

feet, or, at least, almost. At any rate he felt no fatigue long after

the time that an ordinary mortal would have been numb with the strain

of the physical exertion. And this was his undoing.

Tublat was watching him as were others of the tribe. Of all the

creatures of the wild, there was none Tublat so cordially hated as he

did this hideous, hairless, white-skinned, caricature of an ape. But

for Tarzan’s nimbleness, and the zealous watchfulness of savage Kala’s

mother love, Tublat would long since have rid himself of this stain

upon his family escutcheon. So long had it been since Tarzan became a

member of the tribe, that Tublat had forgotten the circumstances

surrounding the entrance of the jungle waif into his family, with the

result that he now imagined that Tarzan was his own offspring, adding

greatly to his chagrin.

Wide and far swung Tarzan of the Apes, until at last, as he reached the

highest point of the arc the rope, which rapidly had frayed on the

rough bark of the tree limb, parted suddenly. The watching apes saw the

smooth, brown body shoot outward and down, plummet-like. Tublat leaped

high in the air, emitting what in a human being would have been an

exclamation of delight. This would be the end of Tarzan and most of

Tublat’s troubles. From now on he could lead his life in peace and

security.

Tarzan fell quite forty feet, alighting on his back in a thick bush.

Kala was the first to reach his side—ferocious, hideous, loving Kala.

She had seen the life crushed from her own balu in just such a fall

years before. Was she to lose this one too in the same way? Tarzan was

lying quite still when she found him, embedded deeply in the bush. It

took Kala several minutes to disentangle him and drag him forth; but he

was not killed. He was not even badly injured. The bush had broken the

force of the fall. A cut upon the back of his head showed where he had

struck the tough stem of the shrub and explained his unconsciousness.

In a few minutes he was as active as ever. Tublat was furious. In his

rage he snapped at a fellow-ape without first discovering the identity

of his victim, and was badly mauled for his ill temper, having chosen

to vent his spite upon a husky and belligerent young bull in the full

prime of his vigor.

But Tarzan had learned something new. He had learned that continued

friction would wear through the strands of his rope, though it was many

years before this knowledge did more for him than merely to keep him

from swinging too long at a time, or too far above the ground at the

end of his rope.

The day came, however, when the very thing that had once all but killed

him proved the means of saving his life.

He was no longer a child, but a mighty jungle male. There was none now

to watch over him, solicitously, nor did he need such. Kala was dead.

Dead, too, was Tublat, and though with Kala passed the one creature

that ever really had loved him, there were still many who hated him

after Tublat departed unto the arms of his fathers. It was not that he

was more cruel or more savage than they that they hated him, for though

he was both cruel and savage as were the beasts, his fellows, yet too

was he often tender, which they never were. No, the thing which brought

Tarzan most into disrepute with those who did not like him, was the

possession and practice of a characteristic which they had not and

could not understand—the human sense of humor. In Tarzan it was a

trifle broad, perhaps, manifesting itself in rough and painful

practical jokes upon his friends and cruel baiting of his enemies.

But to neither of these did he owe the enmity of Bukawai, the

witch-doctor, who dwelt in the cave between the two hills far to the

north of the village of Mbonga, the chief. Bukawai was jealous of

Tarzan, and Bukawai it was who came near proving the undoing of the

ape-man. For months Bukawai had nursed his hatred while revenge seemed

remote indeed, since Tarzan of the Apes frequented another part of the

jungle, miles away from the lair of Bukawai. Only once had the black

witch-doctor seen the devil-god, as he was most often called among the

blacks, and upon that occasion Tarzan had robbed him of a fat fee, at

the same time putting the lie in the mouth of Bukawai, and making his

medicine seem poor medicine. All this Bukawai never could forgive,

though it seemed unlikely that the opportunity would come to be

revenged.

Yet it did come, and quite unexpectedly. Tarzan was hunting far to the

north. He had wandered away from the tribe, as he did more and more

often as he approached maturity, to hunt alone for a few days. As a

child he had enjoyed romping and playing with the young apes, his

companions; but now these play-fellows of his had grown to surly,

lowering bulls, or to touchy, suspicious mothers, jealously guarding

helpless balus. So Tarzan found in his own man-mind a greater and a

truer companionship than any or all of the apes of Kerchak could afford

him.

This day, as Tarzan hunted, the sky slowly became overcast. Torn

clouds, whipped to ragged streamers, fled low above the tree tops. They

reminded Tarzan of frightened antelope fleeing the charge of a hungry

lion. But though the light clouds raced so swiftly, the jungle was

motionless. Not a leaf quivered and the silence was a great, dead

weight—insupportable. Even the insects seemed stilled by apprehension

of some frightful thing impending, and the larger things were

soundless. Such a forest, such a jungle might have stood there in the

beginning of that unthinkably far-gone age before God peopled the world

with life, when there were no sounds because there were no ears to

hear.

And over all lay a sickly, pallid ocher light through which the

scourged clouds raced. Tarzan had seen all these conditions many times

before, yet he never could escape a strange feeling at each recurrence

of them. He knew no fear, but in the face of Nature’s manifestations of

her cruel, immeasurable powers, he felt very small—very small and very

lonely.

Now he heard a low moaning, far away. “