The Beasts of Tarzan(泰山的野兽)
VIP免费
2024-12-26
1
0
617KB
177 页
5.9玖币
侵权投诉
The Beasts of Tarzan
1
The Beasts of Tarzan
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
To Joan Burroughs
The Beasts of Tarzan
2
CHAPTER 1
Kidnapped
"The entire affair is shrouded in mystery," said D'Arnot. "I have it on
the best of authority that neither the police nor the special agents of the
general staff have the faintest conception of how it was accomplished. All
they know, all that anyone knows, is that Nikolas Rokoff has escaped."
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke--he who had been "Tarzan of the Apes"-
- sat in silence in the apartments of his friend, Lieutenant Paul D'Arnot, in
Paris, gazing meditatively at the toe of his immaculate boot.
His mind revolved many memories, recalled by the escape of his arch-
enemy from the French military prison to which he had been sentenced for
life upon the testimony of the ape-man.
He thought of the lengths to which Rokoff had once gone to compass
his death, and he realized that what the man had already done would
doubtless be as nothing by comparison with what he would wish and plot
to do now that he was again free.
Tarzan had recently brought his wife and infant son to London to
escape the discomforts and dangers of the rainy season upon their vast
estate in Uziri--the land of the savage Waziri warriors whose broad
African domains the ape-man had once ruled.
He had run across the Channel for a brief visit with his old friend, but
the news of the Russian's escape had already cast a shadow upon his
outing, so that though he had but just arrived he was already
contemplating an immediate return to London.
"It is not that I fear for myself, Paul," he said at last. "Many times in
the past have I thwarted Rokoff's designs upon my life; but now there are
others to consider. Unless I misjudge the man, he would more quickly
strike at me through my wife or son than directly at me, for he doubtless
realizes that in no other way could he inflict greater anguish upon me. I
must go back to them at once, and remain with them until Rokoff is
recaptured--or dead."
As these two talked in Paris, two other men were talking together in a
The Beasts of Tarzan
3
little cottage upon the outskirts of London. Both were dark, sinister-
looking men.
One was bearded, but the other, whose face wore the pallor of long
confinement within doors, had but a few days' growth of black beard upon
his face. It was he who was speaking.
"You must needs shave off that beard of yours, Alexis," he said to his
companion. "With it he would recognize you on the instant. We must
separate here in the hour, and when we meet again upon the deck of the
Kincaid, let us hope that we shall have with us two honoured guests who
little anticipate the pleasant voyage we have planned for them.
"In two hours I should be upon my way to Dover with one of them,
and by tomorrow night, if you follow my instructions carefully, you
should arrive with the other, provided, of course, that he returns to London
as quickly as I presume he will.
"There should be both profit and pleasure as well as other good things
to reward our efforts, my dear Alexis. Thanks to the stupidity of the
French, they have gone to such lengths to conceal the fact of my escape
for these many days that I have had ample opportunity to work out every
detail of our little adventure so carefully that there is little chance of the
slightest hitch occurring to mar our prospects. And now good-bye, and
good luck!"
Three hours later a messenger mounted the steps to the apartment of
Lieutenant D'Arnot.
"A telegram for Lord Greystoke," he said to the servant who answered
his summons. "Is he here?"
The man answered in the affirmative, and, signing for the message,
carried it within to Tarzan, who was already preparing to depart for
London.
Tarzan tore open the envelope, and as he read his face went white.
"Read it, Paul," he said, handing the slip of paper to D'Arnot. "It has
come already."
The Frenchman took the telegram and read:
"Jack stolen from the garden through complicity of new servant.
Come at once.--JANE."
The Beasts of Tarzan
4
As Tarzan leaped from the roadster that had met him at the station
and ran up the steps to his London town house he was met at the door by a
dry-eyed but almost frantic woman.
Quickly Jane Porter Clayton narrated all that she had been able to
learn of the theft of the boy.
The baby's nurse had been wheeling him in the sunshine on the walk
before the house when a closed taxicab drew up at the corner of the street.
The woman had paid but passing attention to the vehicle, merely noting
that it discharged no passenger, but stood at the kerb with the motor
running as though waiting for a fare from the residence before which it
had stopped.
Almost immediately the new houseman, Carl, had come running from
the Greystoke house, saying that the girl's mistress wished to speak with
her for a moment, and that she was to leave little Jack in his care until she
returned.
The woman said that she entertained not the slightest suspicion of the
man's motives until she had reached the doorway of the house, when it
occurred to her to warn him not to turn the carriage so as to permit the sun
to shine in the baby's eyes.
As she turned about to call this to him she was somewhat surprised to
see that he was wheeling the carriage rapidly toward the corner, and at the
same time she saw the door of the taxicab open and a swarthy face framed
for a moment in the aperture.
Intuitively, the danger to the child flashed upon her, and with a shriek
she dashed down the steps and up the walk toward the taxicab, into which
Carl was now handing the baby to the swarthy one within.
Just before she reached the vehicle, Carl leaped in beside his
confederate, slamming the door behind him. At the same time the
chauffeur attempted to start his machine, but it was evident that something
had gone wrong, as though the gears refused to mesh, and the delay
caused by this, while he pushed the lever into reverse and backed the car a
few inches before again attempting to go ahead, gave the nurse time to
reach the side of the taxicab.
Leaping to the running-board, she had attempted to snatch the baby
The Beasts of Tarzan
5
from the arms of the stranger, and here, screaming and fighting, she had
clung to her position even after the taxicab had got under way; nor was it
until the machine had passed the Greystoke residence at good speed that
Carl, with a heavy blow to her face, had succeeded in knocking her to the
pavement.
Her screams had attracted servants and members of the families from
residences near by, as well as from the Greystoke home. Lady Greystoke
had witnessed the girl's brave battle, and had herself tried to reach the
rapidly passing vehicle, but had been too late.
That was all that anyone knew, nor did Lady Greystoke dream of the
possible identity of the man at the bottom of the plot until her husband told
her of the escape of Nikolas Rokoff from the French prison where they
had hoped he was permanently confined.
As Tarzan and his wife stood planning the wisest course to pursue, the
telephone bell rang in the library at their right. Tarzan quickly answered
the call in person.
"Lord Greystoke?" asked a man's voice at the other end of the line.
"Yes."
"Your son has been stolen," continued the voice, "and I alone may help
you to recover him. I am conversant with the plot of those who took him.
In fact, I was a party to it, and was to share in the reward, but now they are
trying to ditch me, and to be quits with them I will aid you to recover him
on condition that you will not prosecute me for my part in the crime. What
do you say?"
"If you lead me to where my son is hidden," replied the ape-man, "you
need fear nothing from me."
"Good," replied the other. "But you must come alone to meet me, for it
is enough that I must trust you. I cannot take the chance of permitting
others to learn my identity."
"Where and when may I meet you?" asked Tarzan.
The other gave the name and location of a public-house on the water-
front at Dover--a place frequented by sailors.
"Come," he concluded, "about ten o'clock tonight. It would do no good
to arrive earlier. Your son will be safe enough in the meantime, and I can
The Beasts of Tarzan
6
then lead you secretly to where he is hidden. But be sure to come alone,
and under no circumstances notify Scotland Yard, for I know you well and
shall be watching for you.
"Should any other accompany you, or should I see suspicious
characters who might be agents of the police, I shall not meet you, and
your last chance of recovering your son will be gone."
Without more words the man rang off.
Tarzan repeated the gist of the conversation to his wife. She begged to
be allowed to accompany him, but he insisted that it might result in the
man's carrying out his threat of refusing to aid them if Tarzan did not come
alone, and so they parted, he to hasten to Dover, and she, ostensibly to
wait at home until he should notify her of the outcome of his mission.
Little did either dream of what both were destined to pass through
before they should meet again, or the far-distant-- but why anticipate?
For ten minutes after the ape-man had left her Jane Clayton walked
restlessly back and forth across the silken rugs of the library. Her mother
heart ached, bereft of its firstborn. Her mind was in an anguish of hopes
and fears.
Though her judgment told her that all would be well were her Tarzan
to go alone in accordance with the mysterious stranger's summons, her
intuition would not permit her to lay aside suspicion of the gravest dangers
to both her husband and her son.
The more she thought of the matter, the more convinced she became
that the recent telephone message might be but a ruse to keep them
inactive until the boy was safely hidden away or spirited out of England.
Or it might be that it had been simply a bait to lure Tarzan into the hands
of the implacable Rokoff.
With the lodgment of this thought she stopped in wide- eyed terror.
Instantly it became a conviction. She glanced at the great clock ticking the
minutes in the corner of the library.
It was too late to catch the Dover train that Tarzan was to take. There
was another, later, however, that would bring her to the Channel port in
time to reach the address the stranger had given her husband before the
appointed hour.
The Beasts of Tarzan
7
Summoning her maid and chauffeur, she issued instructions rapidly.
Ten minutes later she was being whisked through the crowded streets
toward the railway station.
It was nine-forty-five that night that Tarzan entered the squalid "pub"
on the water-front in Dover. As he passed into the evil-smelling room a
muffled figure brushed past him toward the street.
"Come, my lord!" whispered the stranger.
The ape-man wheeled about and followed the other into the ill-lit alley,
which custom had dignified with the title of thoroughfare. Once outside,
the fellow led the way into the darkness, nearer a wharf, where high-piled
bales, boxes, and casks cast dense shadows. Here he halted.
"Where is the boy?" asked Greystoke.
"On that small steamer whose lights you can just see yonder," replied
the other.
In the gloom Tarzan was trying to peer into the features of his
companion, but he did not recognize the man as one whom he had ever
before seen. Had he guessed that his guide was Alexis Paulvitch he would
have realized that naught but treachery lay in the man's heart, and that
danger lurked in the path of every move.
"He is unguarded now," continued the Russian. "Those who took him
feel perfectly safe from detection, and with the exception of a couple of
members of the crew, whom I have furnished with enough gin to silence
them effectually for hours, there is none aboard the Kincaid. We can go
aboard, get the child, and return without the slightest fear."
Tarzan nodded.
"Let's be about it, then," he said.
His guide led him to a small boat moored alongside the wharf. The two
men entered, and Paulvitch pulled rapidly toward the steamer. The black
smoke issuing from her funnel did not at the time make any suggestion to
Tarzan's mind. All his thoughts were occupied with the hope that in a few
moments he would again have his little son in his arms.
At the steamer's side they found a monkey-ladder dangling close
above them, and up this the two men crept stealthily. Once on deck they
hastened aft to where the Russian pointed to a hatch.
The Beasts of Tarzan
8
"The boy is hidden there," he said. "You had better go down after him,
as there is less chance that he will cry in fright than should he find himself
in the arms of a stranger. I will stand on guard here."
So anxious was Tarzan to rescue the child that he gave not the slightest
thought to the strangeness of all the conditions surrounding the Kincaid.
That her deck was deserted, though she had steam up, and from the
volume of smoke pouring from her funnel was all ready to get under way
made no impression upon him.
With the thought that in another instant he would fold that precious
little bundle of humanity in his arms, the ape-man swung down into the
darkness below. Scarcely had he released his hold upon the edge of the
hatch than the heavy covering fell clattering above him.
Instantly he knew that he was the victim of a plot, and that far from
rescuing his son he had himself fallen into the hands of his enemies.
Though he immediately endeavoured to reach the hatch and lift the cover,
he was unable to do so.
Striking a match, he explored his surroundings, finding that a little
compartment had been partitioned off from the main hold, with the hatch
above his head the only means of ingress or egress. It was evident that the
room had been prepared for the very purpose of serving as a cell for
himself.
There was nothing in the compartment, and no other occupant. If the
child was on board the Kincaid he was confined elsewhere.
For over twenty years, from infancy to manhood, the ape-man had
roamed his savage jungle haunts without human companionship of any
nature. He had learned at the most impressionable period of his life to take
his pleasures and his sorrows as the beasts take theirs.
So it was that he neither raved nor stormed against fate, but instead
waited patiently for what might next befall him, though not by any means
without an eye to doing the utmost to succour himself. To this end he
examined his prison carefully, tested the heavy planking that formed its
walls, and measured the distance of the hatch above him.
And while he was thus occupied there came suddenly to him the
vibration of machinery and the throbbing of the propeller.
The Beasts of Tarzan
9
The ship was moving! Where to and to what fate was it carrying him?
And even as these thoughts passed through his mind there came to his
ears above the din of the engines that which caused him to go cold with
apprehension.
Clear and shrill from the deck above him rang the scream of a
frightened woman.
The Beasts of Tarzan
10
CHAPTER 2
Marooned
As Tarzan and his guide had disappeared into the shadows upon the
dark wharf the figure of a heavily veiled woman had hurried down the
narrow alley to the entrance of the drinking-place the two men had just
quitted.
Here she paused and looked about, and then as though satisfied that
she had at last reached the place she sought, she pushed bravely into the
interior of the vile den.
A score of half-drunken sailors and wharf-rats looked up at the
unaccustomed sight of a richly gowned woman in their midst. Rapidly she
approached the slovenly barmaid who stared half in envy, half in hate, at
her more fortunate sister.
"Have you seen a tall, well-dressed man here, but a minute since," she
asked, "who met another and went away with him?"
The girl answered in the affirmative, but could not tell which way the
two had gone. A sailor who had approached to listen to the conversation
vouchsafed the information that a moment before as he had been about to
enter the "pub" he had seen two men leaving it who walked toward the
wharf.
"Show me the direction they went," cried the woman, slipping a coin
into the man's hand.
The fellow led her from the place, and together they walked quickly
toward the wharf and along it until across the water they saw a small boat
just pulling into the shadows of a nearby steamer.
"There they be," whispered the man.
"Ten pounds if you will find a boat and row me to that steamer," cried
the woman.
"Quick, then," he replied, "for we gotta go it if we're goin' to catch the
Kincaid afore she sails. She's had steam up for three hours an' jest been a-
waitin' fer that one passenger. I was a-talkin' to one of her crew 'arf an
hour ago."
摘要：
收起<<
TheBeastsofTarzan1TheBeastsofTarzanbyEdgarRiceBurroughsToJoanBurroughsTheBeastsofTarzan2CHAPTER1Kidnapped"Theentireaffairisshroudedinmystery,"saidD'Arnot."Ihaveitonthebestofauthoritythatneitherthepolicenorthespecialagentsofthegeneralstaffhavethefaintestconceptionofhowitwasaccomplished.Alltheyknow,al...
声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！
分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：177 页
大小：617KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-12-26
作者详情
-
IMU2CLIP MULTIMODAL CONTRASTIVE LEARNING FOR IMU MOTION SENSORS FROM EGOCENTRIC VIDEOS AND TEXT NARRATIONS Seungwhan Moon Andrea Madotto Zhaojiang Lin Alireza Dirafzoon Aparajita Saraf5.9 玖币0人下载
-
Improving Visual-Semantic Embedding with Adaptive Pooling and Optimization Objective Zijian Zhang1 Chang Shu23 Ya Xiao1 Yuan Shen1 Di Zhu1 Jing Xiao25.9 玖币0人下载
渝公网安备50010702506394
