第 九 章 · The Nightmare

. The Nightmare

The blacks of the village of Mbonga, the chief, were feasting, while

above them in a large tree sat Tarzan of the Apes—grim, terrible,

empty, and envious. Hunting had proved poor that day, for there are

lean days as well as fat ones for even the greatest of the jungle

hunters. Oftentimes Tarzan went empty for more than a full sun, and he

had passed through entire moons during which he had been but barely

able to stave off starvation; but such times were infrequent.

There once had been a period of sickness among the grass-eaters which

had left the plains almost bare of game for several years, and again

the great cats had increased so rapidly and so overrun the country that

their prey, which was also Tarzan’s, had been frightened off for a

considerable time.

But for the most part Tarzan had fed well always. Today, though, he had

gone empty, one misfortune following another as rapidly as he raised

new quarry, so that now, as he sat perched in the tree above the

feasting blacks, he experienced all the pangs of famine and his hatred

for his lifelong enemies waxed strong in his breast. It was

tantalizing, indeed, to sit there hungry while these Gomangani filled

themselves so full of food that their stomachs seemed almost upon the

point of bursting, and with elephant steaks at that!

It was true that Tarzan and Tantor were the best of friends, and that

Tarzan never yet had tasted of the flesh of the elephant; but the

Gomangani evidently had slain one, and as they were eating of the flesh

of their kill, Tarzan was assailed by no doubts as to the ethics of his

doing likewise, should he have the opportunity. Had he known that the

elephant had died of sickness several days before the blacks discovered

the carcass, he might not have been so keen to partake of the feast,

for Tarzan of the Apes was no carrion-eater. Hunger, however, may blunt

the most epicurean taste, and Tarzan was not exactly an epicure.

What he was at this moment was a very hungry wild beast whom caution

was holding in leash, for the great cooking pot in the center of the

village was surrounded by black warriors, through whom not even Tarzan

of the Apes might hope to pass unharmed. It would be necessary,

therefore, for the watcher to remain there hungry until the blacks had

gorged themselves to stupor, and then, if they had left any scraps, to

make the best meal he could from such; but to the impatient Tarzan it

seemed that the greedy Gomangani would rather burst than leave the

feast before the last morsel had been devoured. For a time they broke

the monotony of eating by executing portions of a hunting dance, a

maneuver which sufficiently stimulated digestion to permit them to fall

to once more with renewed vigor; but with the consumption of appalling

quantities of elephant meat and native beer they presently became too

loggy for physical exertion of any sort, some reaching a stage where

they no longer could rise from the ground, but lay conveniently close

to the great cooking pot, stuffing themselves into unconsciousness.

It was well past midnight before Tarzan even could begin to see the end

of the orgy. The blacks were now falling asleep rapidly; but a few

still persisted. From their condition Tarzan had no doubt but

that he easily could enter the village and snatch a handful of meat

from before their noses; but a handful was not what he wanted. Nothing

less than a stomachful would allay the gnawing craving of that great

emptiness. He must therefore have ample time to forage in peace.

At last but a single warrior remained true to his ideals—an old fellow

whose once wrinkled belly was now as smooth and as tight as the head of

a drum. With evidences of great discomfort, and even pain, he would

crawl toward the pot and drag himself slowly to his knees, from which

position he could reach into the receptacle and seize a piece of meat.

Then he would roll over on his back with a loud groan and lie there

while he slowly forced the food between his teeth and down into his

gorged stomach.

It was evident to Tarzan that the old fellow would eat until he died,

or until there was no more meat. The ape-man shook his head in disgust.

What foul creatures were these Gomangani? Yet of all the jungle folk

they alone resembled Tarzan closely in form. Tarzan was a man, and

they, too, must be some manner of men, just as the little monkeys, and

the great apes, and Bolgani, the gorilla, were quite evidently of one

great family, though differing in size and appearance and customs.

Tarzan was ashamed, for of all the beasts of the jungle, then, man was

the most disgusting—man and Dango, the hyena. Only man and Dango ate

until they swelled up like a dead rat. Tarzan had seen Dango eat his

way into the carcass of a dead elephant and then continue to eat so

much that he had been unable to get out of the hole through which he

had entered. Now he could readily believe that man, given the

opportunity, would do the same. Man, too, was the most unlovely of

creatures—with his skinny legs and his big stomach, his filed teeth,

and his thick, red lips. Man was disgusting. Tarzan’s gaze was riveted

upon the hideous old warrior wallowing in filth beneath him.

There! the thing was struggling to its knees to reach for another

morsel of flesh. It groaned aloud in pain and yet it persisted in

eating, eating, ever eating. Tarzan could endure it no longer—neither

his hunger nor his disgust. Silently he slipped to the ground with the

bole of the great tree between himself and the feaster.

The man was still kneeling, bent almost double in agony, before the

cooking pot. His back was toward the ape-man. Swiftly and noiselessly

Tarzan approached him. There was no sound as steel fingers closed about

the black throat. The struggle was short, for the man was old and

already half stupefied from the effects of the gorging and the beer.

Tarzan dropped the inert mass and scooped several large pieces of meat

from the cooking pot—enough to satisfy even his great hunger—then he

raised the body of the feaster and shoved it into the vessel. When the

other blacks awoke they would have something to think about! Tarzan

grinned. As he turned toward the tree with his meat, he picked up a

vessel containing beer and raised it to his lips, but at the first

taste he spat the stuff from his mouth and tossed the primitive tankard

aside. He was quite sure that even Dango would draw the line at such

filthy tasting drink as that, and his contempt for man increased with

the conviction.

Tarzan swung off into the jungle some half mile or so before he paused

to partake of his stolen food. He noticed that it gave forth a strange

and unpleasant odor, but assumed that this was due to the fact that it

had stood in a vessel of water above a fire. Tarzan was, of course,

unaccustomed to cooked food. He did not like it; but he was very hungry

and had eaten a considerable portion of his haul before it was really

borne in upon him that the stuff was nauseating. It required far less

than he had imagined it would to satisfy his appetite.

Throwing the balance to the ground he curled up in a convenient crotch

and sought slumber; but slumber seemed difficult to woo. Ordinarily

Tarzan of the Apes was asleep as quickly as a dog after it curls itself

upon a hearthrug before a roaring blaze; but tonight he squirmed and

twisted, for at the pit of his stomach was a peculiar feeling that

resembled nothing more closely than an attempt upon the part of the

fragments of elephant meat reposing there to come out into the night

and search for their elephant; but Tarzan was adamant. He gritted his

teeth and held them back. He was not to be robbed of his meal after

waiting so long to obtain it.

He had succeeded in dozing when the roaring of a lion awoke him. He sat

up to discover that it was broad daylight. Tarzan rubbed his eyes.

Could it be that he had really slept? He did not feel particularly

refreshed as he should have after a good sleep. A noise attracted his

attention, and he looked down to see a lion standing at the foot of the

tree gazing hungrily at him. Tarzan made a face at the king of beasts,

whereat Numa, greatly to the ape-man’s surprise, started to climb up

into the branches toward him. Now, never before had Tarzan seen a lion

climb a tree, yet, for some unaccountable reason, he was not greatly

surprised that this particular lion should do so.

As the lion climbed slowly toward him, Tarzan sought higher branches;

but to his chagrin, he discovered that it was with the utmost

difficulty that he could climb at all. Again and again he slipped back,

losing all that he had gained, while the lion kept steadily at his

climbing, coming ever closer and closer to the ape-man. Tarzan could

see the hungry light in the yellow-green eyes. He could see the slaver

on the drooping jowls, and the great fangs agape to seize and destroy

him. Clawing desperately, the ape-man at last succeeded in gaining a

little upon his pursuer. He reached the more slender branches far aloft

where he well knew no lion could follow; yet on and on came devil-faced

Numa. It was incredible; but it was true. Yet what most amazed Tarzan

was that though he realized the incredibility of it all, he at the same

time accepted it as a matter of course, first that a lion should climb

at all and second that he should enter the upper terraces where even

Sheeta, the panther, dared not venture.

To the very top of a tall tree the ape-man clawed his awkward way and

after him came Numa, the lion, moaning dismally. At last Tarzan stood

balanced upon the very utmost pinnacle of a swaying branch, high above

the forest. He could go no farther. Below him the lion came steadily

upward, and Tarzan of the Apes realized that at last the end had come.

He could not do battle upon a tiny branch with Numa, the lion,

especially with such a Numa, to which swaying branches two hundred feet

above the ground provided as substantial footing as the ground itself.

Nearer and nearer came the lion. Another moment and he could reach up

with one great paw and drag the ape-man downward to those awful jaws. A

whirring noise above his head caused Tarzan to glance apprehensively

upward. A great bird was circling close above him. He never had seen so

large a bird in all his life, yet he recognized it immediately, for had

he not seen it hundreds of times in one of the books in the little

cabin by the land-locked bay—the moss-grown cabin that with its

contents was the sole heritage left by his dead and unknown father to

the young Lord Greystoke?

In the picture-book the great bird was shown flying far above the

ground with a small child in its talons while, beneath, a distracted

mother stood with uplifted hands. The lion was already reaching forth a

taloned paw to seize him when the bird swooped and buried no less

formidable talons in Tarzan’s back. The pain was numbing; but it was

with a sense of relief that the ape-man felt himself snatched from the

clutches of Numa.

With a great whirring of wings the bird rose rapidly until the forest

lay far below. It made Tarzan sick and dizzy to look down upon it from

so great a height, so he closed his eyes tight and held his breath.

Higher and higher climbed the huge bird. Tarzan opened his eyes. The

jungle was so far away that he could see only a dim, green blur below

him, but just above and quite close was the sun. Tarzan reached out his

hands and warmed them, for they were very cold. Then a sudden madness

seized him. Where was the bird taking him? Was he to submit thus

passively to a feathered creature however enormous? Was he, Tarzan of

the Apes, mighty fighter, to die without striking a blow in his own

defense? Never!

He snatched the hunting blade from his gee-string and thrusting upward

drove it once, twice, thrice into the breast above him. The mighty

wings fluttered a few more times, spasmodically, the talons relaxed

their hold, and Tarzan of the Apes fell hurtling downward toward the

distant jungle.

It seemed to the ape-man that he fell for many minutes before he

crashed through the leafy verdure of the tree tops. The smaller

branches broke his fall, so that he came to rest for an instant upon

the very branch upon which he had sought slumber the previous night.

For an instant he toppled there in a frantic attempt to regain his

equilibrium; but at last he rolled off, yet, clutching wildly, he

succeeded in grasping the branch and hanging on.

Once more he opened his eyes, which he had closed during the fall.

Again it was night. With all his old agility he clambered back to the

crotch from which he had toppled. Below him a lion roared, and, looking

downward, Tarzan could see the yellow-green eyes shining in the

moonlight as they bored hungrily upward through the darkness of the

jungle night toward him.

The ape-man gasped for breath. Cold sweat stood out from every pore,

there was a great sickness at the pit of Tarzan’s stomach. Tarzan of

the Apes had dreamed his first dream.

For a long time he sat watching for Numa to climb into the tree after

him, and listening for the sound of the great wings from above, for to

Tarzan of the Apes his dream was a reality.

He could not believe what he had seen and yet, having seen even these

incredible things, he could not disbelieve the evidence of his own

perceptions. Never in all his life had Tarzan’s senses deceived him

badly, and so, naturally, he had great faith in them. Each perception

which ever had been transmitted to Tarzan’s brain had been, with

varying accuracy, a true perception. He could not conceive of the

possibility of apparently having passed through such a weird adventure

in which there was no grain of truth. That a stomach, disordered by

decayed elephant flesh, a lion roaring in the jungle, a picture-book,

and sleep could have so truly portrayed all the clear-cut details of

what he had seemingly experienced was quite beyond his knowledge; yet

he knew that Numa could not climb a tree, he knew that there existed in

the jungle no such bird as he had seen, and he knew, too, that he could

not have fallen a tiny fraction of the distance he had hurtled

downward, and lived.

To say the least, he was a very puzzled Tarzan as he tried to compose

himself once more for slumber—a very puzzled and a very nauseated

Tarzan.

As he thought deeply upon the strange occurrences of the night, he

witnessed another remarkable happening. It was indeed quite

preposterous, yet he saw it all with his own eyes—it was nothing less

than Histah, the snake, wreathing his sinuous and slimy way up the bole

of the tree below him—Histah, with the head of the old man Tarzan had

shoved into the cooking pot—the head and the round, tight, black,

distended stomach. As the old man’s frightful face, with upturned eyes,

set and glassy, came close to Tarzan, the jaws opened to seize him. The

ape-man struck furiously at the hideous face, and as he struck the

apparition disappeared.

Tarzan sat straight up upon his branch trembling in every limb,

wide-eyed and panting. He looked all around him with his keen,

jungle-trained eyes, but he saw naught of the old man with the body of

Histah, the snake, but on his naked thigh the ape-man saw a

caterpillar, dropped from a branch above him. With a grimace he flicked

it off into the darkness beneath.

And so the night wore on, dream following dream, nightmare following

nightmare, until the distracted ape-man started like a frightened deer

at the rustling of the wind in the trees about him, or leaped to his

feet as the uncanny laugh of a hyena burst suddenly upon a momentary

jungle silence. But at last the tardy morning broke and a sick and

feverish Tarzan wound sluggishly through the dank and gloomy mazes of

the forest in search of water. His whole body seemed on fire, a great

sickness surged upward to his throat. He saw a tangle of almost

impenetrable thicket, and, like the wild beast he was, he crawled into

it to die alone and unseen, safe from the attacks of predatory

carnivora.

But he did not die. For a long time he wanted to; but presently nature

and an outraged stomach relieved themselves in their own therapeutic

manner, the ape-man broke into a violent perspiration and then fell

into a normal and untroubled sleep which persisted well into the

afternoon. When he awoke he found himself weak but no longer sick.

Once more he sought water, and after drinking deeply, took his way

slowly toward the cabin by the sea. In times of loneliness and trouble

it had long been his custom to seek there the quiet and restfulness

which he could find nowhere else.

As he approached the cabin and raised the crude latch which his father

had fashioned so many years before, two small, blood-shot eyes watched

him from the concealing foliage of the jungle close by. From beneath

shaggy, beetling brows they glared maliciously upon him, maliciously

and with a keen curiosity; then Tarzan entered the cabin and closed the

door after him. Here, with all the world shut out from him, he could

dream without fear of interruption. He could curl up and look at the

pictures in the strange things which were books, he could puzzle out

the printed word he had learned to read without knowledge of the spoken

language it represented, he could live in a wonderful world of which he

had no knowledge beyond the covers of his beloved books. Numa and Sabor

might prowl about close to him, the elements might rage in all their

fury; but here at least, Tarzan might be entirely off his guard in a

delightful relaxation which gave him all his faculties for the

uninterrupted pursuit of this greatest of all his pleasures.

Today he turned to the picture of the huge bird which bore off the

little Tarmangani in its talons. Tarzan puckered his brows as he

examined the colored print. Yes, this was the very bird that had

carried him off the day before, for to Tarzan the dream had been so

great a reality that he still thought another day and a night had

passed since he had lain down in the tree to sleep.

But the more he thought upon the matter the less positive he was as to

the verity of the seeming adventure through which he had passed, yet

where the real had ceased and the unreal commenced he was quite unable

to determine. Had he really then been to the village of the blacks at

all, had he killed the old Gomangani, had he eaten of the elephant

meat, had he been sick? Tarzan scratched his tousled black head and

wondered. It was all very strange, yet he knew that he never had seen

Numa climb a tree, or Histah with the head and belly of an old black

man whom Tarzan already had slain.

Finally, with a sigh he gave up trying to fathom the unfathomable, yet

in his heart of hearts he knew that something had come into his life

that he never before had experienced, another life which existed when

he slept and the consciousness of which was carried over into his

waking hours.

Then he commenced to wonder if some of these strange creatures which he

met in his sleep might not slay him, for at such times Tarzan of the

Apes seemed to be a different Tarzan, sluggish, helpless and

timid—wishing to flee his enemies as fled Bara, the deer, most fearful

of creatures.

Thus, with a dream, came the first faint tinge of a knowledge of fear,

a knowledge which Tarzan, awake, had never experienced, and perhaps he

was experiencing what his early forbears passed through and transmitted

to posterity in the form of superstition first and religion later; for

they, as Tarzan, had seen things at night which they could not explain

by the daylight standards of sense perception or of reason, and so had

built for themselves a weird explanation which included grotesque

shapes, possessed of strange and uncanny powers, to whom they finally

came to attribute all those inexplicable phenomena of nature which with

each recurrence filled them with awe, with wonder, or with terror.

And as Tarzan concentrated his mind on the little bugs upon the printed

page before him, the active recollection of his strange adventures

presently merged into the text of that which he was reading—a story of

Bolgani, the gorilla, in captivity. There was a more or less lifelike

illustration of Bolgani in colors and in a cage, with many remarkable

looking Tarmangani standing against a rail and peering curiously at the

snarling brute. Tarzan wondered not a little, as he always did, at the

odd and seemingly useless array of colored plumage which covered the

bodies of the Tarmangani. It always caused him to grin a trifle when he

looked at these strange creatures. He wondered if they so covered their

bodies from shame of their hairlessness or because they thought the odd

things they wore added any to the beauty of their appearance.

Particularly was Tarzan amused by the grotesque headdresses of the

pictured people. He wondered how some of the shes succeeded in

balancing theirs in an upright position, and he came as near to

laughing aloud as he ever had, as he contemplated the funny little

round things upon the heads of the hes.

Slowly the ape-man picked out the meaning of the various combinations

of letters on the printed page, and as he read, the little bugs, for as

such he always thought of the letters, commenced to run about in a most

confusing manner, blurring his vision and befuddling his thoughts.

Twice he brushed the back of a hand smartly across his eyes; but only

for a moment could he bring the bugs back to coherent and intelligible

form. He had slept ill the night before and now he was exhausted from

loss of sleep, from sickness, and from the slight fever he had had, so

that it became more and more difficult to fix his attention, or to keep

his eyes open.

Tarzan realized that he was falling asleep, and just as the realization

was borne in upon him and he had decided to relinquish himself to an

inclination which had assumed almost the proportions of a physical

pain, he was aroused by the opening of the cabin door. Turning quickly

toward the interruption Tarzan was amazed, for a moment, to see bulking

large in the doorway the huge and hairy form of Bolgani, the gorilla.

Now there was scarcely a denizen of the great jungle with whom Tarzan

would rather not have been cooped up inside the small cabin than

Bolgani, the gorilla, yet he felt no fear, even though his quick eye

noted that Bolgani was in the throes of that jungle madness which

seizes upon so many of the fiercer males. Ordinarily the huge gorillas

avoid conflict, hide themselves from the other jungle folk, and are

generally the best of neighbors; but when they are attacked, or the

madness seizes them, there is no jungle denizen so bold and fierce as

to deliberately seek a quarrel with them.

But for Tarzan there was no escape. Bolgani was glowering at him from

red-rimmed, wicked eyes. In a moment he would rush in and seize the

ape-man. Tarzan reached for the hunting knife where he had lain it on

the table beside him; but as his fingers did not immediately locate the

weapon, he turned a quick glance in search of it. As he did so his eyes

fell upon the book he had been looking at which still lay open at the

picture of Bolgani. Tarzan found his knife, but he merely fingered it

idly and grinned in the direction of the advancing gorilla.

Not again would he be fooled by empty things which came while he slept!

In a moment, no doubt, Bolgani would turn into Pamba, the rat, with the

head of Tantor, the elephant. Tarzan had seen enough of such strange

happenings recently to have some idea as to what he might expect; but

this time Bolgani did not alter his form as he came slowly toward the

young ape-man.

Tarzan was a bit puzzled, too, that he felt no desire to rush

frantically to some place of safety, as had been the sensation most

conspicuous in the other of his new and remarkable adventures. He was

just himself now, ready to fight, if necessary; but still sure that no

flesh and blood gorilla stood before him.

The thing should be fading away into thin air by now, thought Tarzan,

or changing into something else; yet it did not. Instead it loomed

clear-cut and real as Bolgani himself, the magnificent dark coat

glistening with life and health in a bar of sunlight which shot across

the cabin through the high window behind the young Lord Greystoke. This

was quite the most realistic of his sleep adventures, thought Tarzan,

as he passively awaited the next amusing incident.

And then the gorilla charged. Two mighty, calloused hands seized upon

the ape-man, great fangs were bared close to his face, a hideous growl

burst from the cavernous throat and hot breath fanned Tarzan’s cheek,

and still he sat grinning at the apparition. Tarzan might be fooled

once or twice, but not for so many times in succession! He knew that

this Bolgani was no real Bolgani, for had he been he never could have

gained entrance to the cabin, since only Tarzan knew how to operate the

latch.

The gorilla seemed puzzled by the strange passivity of the hairless

ape. He paused an instant with his jaws snarling close to the other’s

throat, then he seemed suddenly to come to some decision. Whirling the

ape-man across a hairy shoulder, as easily as you or I might lift a

babe in arms, Bolgani turned and dashed out into the open, racing

toward the great trees.

Now, indeed, was Tarzan sure that this was a sleep adventure, and so

grinned largely as the giant gorilla bore him, unresisting, away.

Presently, reasoned Tarzan, he would awaken and find himself back in

the cabin where he had fallen asleep. He glanced back at the thought

and saw the cabin door standing wide open. This would never do! Always

had he been careful to close and latch it against wild intruders. Manu,

the monkey, would make sad havoc there among Tarzan’s treasures should

he have access to the interior for even a few minutes. The question

which arose in Tarzan’s mind was a baffling one. Where did sleep

adventures end and reality commence? How was he to be sure that the

cabin door was not really open? Everything about him appeared quite

normal—there were none of the grotesque exaggerations of his former

sleep adventures. It would be better then to be upon the safe side and

make sure that the cabin door was closed—it would do no harm even if

all that seemed to be happening were not happening at all.

Tarzan essayed to slip from Bolgani’s shoulder; but the great beast

only growled ominously and gripped him tighter. With a mighty effort

the ape-man wrenched himself loose, and as he slid to the ground, the

dream gorilla turned ferociously upon him, seized him once more and

buried great fangs in a sleek, brown shoulder.

The grin of derision faded from Tarzan’s lips as the pain and the hot

blood aroused his fighting instincts. Asleep or awake, this thing was

no longer a joke! Biting, tearing, and snarling, the two rolled over

upon the ground. The gorilla now was frantic with insane rage. Again

and again he loosed his hold upon the ape-man’s shoulder in an attempt

to seize the jugular; but Tarzan of the Apes had fought before with

creatures who struck first for the vital vein, and each time he

wriggled out of harm’s way as he strove to get his fingers upon his

adversary’s throat. At last he succeeded—his great muscles tensed and

knotted beneath his smooth hide as he forced with every ounce of his

mighty strength to push the hairy torso from him. And as he choked

Bolgani and strained him away, his other hand crept slowly upward

between them until the point of the hunting knife rested over the

savage heart—there was a quick movement of the steel-thewed wrist and

the blade plunged to its goal.

Bolgani, the gorilla, voiced a single frightful shriek, tore himself

loose from the grasp of the ape-man, rose to his feet, staggered a few

steps and then plunged to earth. There were a few spasmodic movements

of the limbs and the brute was still.

Tarzan of the Apes stood looking down upon his kill, and as he stood

there he ran his fingers through his thick, black shock of hair.

Presently he stooped and touched the dead body. Some of the red

life-blood of the gorilla crimsoned his fingers. He raised them to his

nose and sniffed. Then he shook his head and turned toward the cabin.

The door was still open. He closed it and fastened the latch. Returning

toward the body of his kill he again paused and scratched his head.

If this was a sleep adventure, what then was reality? How was he to

know the one from the other? How much of all that had happened in his

life had been real and how much unreal?

He placed a foot upon the prostrate form and raising his face to the

heavens gave voice to the kill cry of the bull ape. Far in the distance

a lion answered. It was very real and, yet, he did not know. Puzzled,

he turned away into the jungle.

No, he did not know what was real and what was not; but there was one

thing that he did know—never again would he eat of the flesh of Tantor,

the elephant.