Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Tarzan 1 - Tarzan Of The Apes

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Tarzan Of The Apes
[pg/etext93/tarzan10.txt]
Tarzan of the Apes by Burroughs
This etext was originally made by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska.
The equipment: an IBM-compatible 486/33, a Hewlett-Packard Scan
Jet IIc flatbed scanner, and, donated by Calera:
M/Series Profesional Software
M/Series Accelerator Card
TARZAN of the Apes
Edgar Rice Burroughs
CONTENTS
I Out to Sea
II The Savage Home
III Life and Death
IV The Apes
V The White Ape
VI Jungle Battles
VII The Light of Knowledge
VIII The Tree-top Hunter
IX Man and Man
X The Fear-Phantom
XI "King of the Apes"
XII Man’s Reason
XIII His Own Kind
XIV At the Mercy of the Jungle
XV The Forest God
XVI "Most Remarkable"
XVII Burials
XVIII The Jungle Toll
XIX The Call of the Primitive
XX Heredity
XXI The Village of Torture
XXII The Search Party
XXIII Brother Men
XXIV Lost Treasure
XXV The Outpost of the World
XXVI The Height of Civilization
XXVII The Giant Again
XXVIII Conclusion
Chapter 1
Out to Sea
I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to
me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence
of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it,
and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed
for the balance of the strange tale.
When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so
1
much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride
assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he
unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript,
and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support
many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.
I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the
happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling
of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal
characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own
belief that it MAY be true.
The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and
the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the
narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as
I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.
If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one
with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and
interesting.
From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead
man’s diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman,
whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was
commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of
conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose
simple native inhabitants another European power was
known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it
used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory
from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi.
The natives of the British Colony complained that many of
their young men were enticed away through the medium of
fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned
to their families.
The Englishmen in Africa went even further, saying that
these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since after
their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed
upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had
yet several years to serve.
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new
post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions
centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment
of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly
European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment
to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor,
in fact, did he ever reach his destination.
Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes best to
associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement
upon a thousand victorious battlefields--a strong, virile man
--mentally, morally, and physically.
In stature he was above the average height; his eyes were
gray, his features regular and strong; his carriage that of
perfect, robust health influenced by his years of army training.
Political ambition had caused him to seek transference
2
from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find him, still
young, entrusted with a delicate and important commission in
the service of the Queen.
When he received this appointment he was both elated and
appalled. The preferment seemed to him in the nature of a
well-merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service,
and as a stepping stone to posts of greater importance and
responsibility; but, on the other hand, he had been married to
the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three months, and it
was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the dangers
and isolation of tropical Africa that appalled him.
For her sake he would have refused the appointment, but she
would not have it so. Instead she insisted that he accept,
and, indeed, take her with him.
There were mothers and brothers and sisters, and aunts
and cousins to express various opinions on the subject, but as
to what they severally advised history is silent.
We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888,
John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on
their way to Africa.
A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered
a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear
them to their final destination.
And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife,
vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.
Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared from
the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were
scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their little
vessel, and it was almost immediately that the wreckage was
found upon the shores of St. Helena which convinced the
world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on board,
and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun;
though hope lingered in longing hearts for many years.
The Fuwalda, a barkentine of about one hundred tons,
was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade
in the far southern Atlantic, their crews composed of
the offscourings of the sea--unhanged murderers and
cutthroats of every race and every nation.
The Fuwalda was no exception to the rule. Her officers
were swarthy bullies, hating and hated by their crew.
The captain, while a competent seaman, was a brute in his
treatment of his men. He knew, or at least he used, but two
arguments in his dealings with them--a belaying pin and a
revolver--nor is it likely that the motley aggregation
he signed would have understood aught else.
So it was that from the second day out from Freetown
John Clayton and his young wife witnessed scenes upon the
deck of the Fuwalda such as they had believed were never
enacted outside the covers of printed stories of the sea.
3
It was on the morning of the second day that the first link
was forged in what was destined to form a chain of circumstances
ending in a life for one then unborn such as has never been
paralleled in the history of man.
Two sailors were washing down the decks of the Fuwalda,
the first mate was on duty, and the captain had stopped to
speak with John Clayton and Lady Alice.
The men were working backwards toward the little party
who were facing away from the sailors. Closer and closer
they came, until one of them was directly behind the captain.
In another moment he would have passed by and this strange
narrative would never have been recorded.
But just that instant the officer turned to leave Lord and
Lady Greystoke, and, as he did so, tripped against the sailor
and sprawled headlong upon the deck, overturning the water-
pail so that he was drenched in its dirty contents.
For an instant the scene was ludicrous; but only for an instant.
With a volley of awful oaths, his face suffused with the
scarlet of mortification and rage, the captain regained his
feet, and with a terrific blow felled the sailor to the deck.
The man was small and rather old, so that the brutality of
the act was thus accentuated. The other seaman, however,
was neither old nor small--a huge bear of a man, with fierce
black mustachios, and a great bull neck set between massive
shoulders.
As he saw his mate go down he crouched, and, with a low
snarl, sprang upon the captain crushing him to his knees with
a single mighty blow.
From scarlet the officer’s face went white, for this was mutiny;
and mutiny he had met and subdued before in his brutal
career. Without waiting to rise he whipped a revolver from
his pocket, firing point blank at the great mountain of muscle
towering before him; but, quick as he was, John Clayton was
almost as quick, so that the bullet which was intended for the
sailor’s heart lodged in the sailor’s leg instead, for Lord
Greystoke had struck down the captain’s arm as he had seen
the weapon flash in the sun.
Words passed between Clayton and the captain, the former
making it plain that he was disgusted with the brutality
displayed toward the crew, nor would he countenance anything
further of the kind while he and Lady Greystoke remained
passengers.
The captain was on the point of making an angry reply,
but, thinking better of it, turned on his heel and black and
scowling, strode aft.
He did not care to antagonize an English official, for the
Queen’s mighty arm wielded a punitive instrument which he could
appreciate, and which he feared--England’s far-reaching navy.
4
The two sailors picked themselves up, the older man assisting
his wounded comrade to rise. The big fellow, who was
known among his mates as Black Michael, tried his leg gingerly,
and, finding that it bore his weight, turned to Clayton
with a word of gruff thanks.
Though the fellow’s tone was surly, his words were evidently
well meant. Ere he had scarce finished his little speech he
had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the
very apparent intention of forestalling any further conversation.
They did not see him again for several days, nor did the
captain accord them more than the surliest of grunts when he
was forced to speak to them.
They took their meals in his cabin, as they had before the
unfortunate occurrence; but the captain was careful to see
that his duties never permitted him to eat at the same time.
The other officers were coarse, illiterate fellows, but little
above the villainous crew they bullied, and were only too
glad to avoid social intercourse with the polished English
noble and his lady, so that the Claytons were left very much
to themselves.
This in itself accorded perfectly with their desires, but it
also rather isolated them from the life of the little ship so
that they were unable to keep in touch with the daily happenings
which were to culminate so soon in bloody tragedy.
There was in the whole atmosphere of the craft that undefinable
something which presages disaster. Outwardly, to the
knowledge of the Claytons, all went on as before upon the
little vessel; but that there was an undertow leading them
toward some unknown danger both felt, though they did not
speak of it to each other.
On the second day after the wounding of Black Michael,
Clayton came on deck just in time to see the limp body of
one of the crew being carried below by four of his fellows
while the first mate, a heavy belaying pin in his hand, stood
glowering at the little party of sullen sailors.
Clayton asked no questions--he did not need to--and the
following day, as the great lines of a British battleship grew
out of the distant horizon, he half determined to demand that
he and Lady Alice be put aboard her, for his fears were
steadily increasing that nothing but harm could result from
remaining on the lowering, sullen Fuwalda.
Toward noon they were within speaking distance of the
British vessel, but when Clayton had nearly decided to ask
the captain to put them aboard her, the obvious ridiculousness
of such a request became suddenly apparent. What reason
could he give the officer commanding her majesty’s ship
for desiring to go back in the direction from which he had
just come!
5
What if he told them that two insubordinate seamen had
been roughly handled by their officers? They would but laugh
in their sleeves and attribute his reason for wishing to leave
the ship to but one thing--cowardice.
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, did not ask to be transferred
to the British man-of-war. Late in the afternoon he saw
her upper works fade below the far horizon, but not before
he learned that which confirmed his greatest fears, and
caused him to curse the false pride which had restrained him
from seeking safety for his young wife a few short hours
before, when safety was within reach--a safety which was now
gone forever.
It was mid-afternoon that brought the little old sailor, who
had been felled by the captain a few days before, to where
Clayton and his wife stood by the ship’s side watching the
ever diminishing outlines of the great battleship. The old
fellow was polishing brasses, and as he came edging along until
close to Clayton he said, in an undertone:
"’Ell’s to pay, sir, on this ’ere craft, an’ mark my word for
it, sir. ’Ell’s to pay."
"What do you mean, my good fellow?" asked Clayton.
"Wy, hasn’t ye seen wats goin’ on? Hasn’t ye ’eard that
devil’s spawn of a capting an’ is mates knockin’ the bloomin’
lights outen ’arf the crew?
"Two busted ’eads yeste’day, an’ three to-day. Black
Michael’s as good as new agin an’ ’e’s not the bully to
stand fer it, not ’e; an’ mark my word for it, sir."
"You mean, my man, that the crew contemplates mutiny?"
asked Clayton.
"Mutiny!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Mutiny! They means
murder, sir, an’ mark my word for it, sir."
"When?"
"Hit’s comin’, sir; hit’s comin’ but I’m not a-sayin’ wen, an’
I’ve said too damned much now, but ye was a good sort
t’other day an’ I thought it no more’n right to warn ye. But
keep a still tongue in yer ’ead an’ when ye ’ear shootin’ git
below an’ stay there.
"That’s all, only keep a still tongue in yer ’ead, or they’ll
put a pill between yer ribs, an’ mark my word for it, sir," and
the old fellow went on with his polishing, which carried him
away from where the Claytons were standing.
"Deuced cheerful outlook, Alice," said Clayton.
"You should warn the captain at once, John. Possibly the
trouble may yet be averted," she said.
"I suppose I should, but yet from purely selfish motives I
6
am almost prompted to ‘keep a still tongue in my ’ead.’
Whatever they do now they will spare us in recognition of
my stand for this fellow Black Michael, but should they find
that I had betrayed them there would be no mercy shown us, Alice."
"You have but one duty, John, and that lies in the interest
of vested authority. If you do not warn the captain you are
as much a party to whatever follows as though you had helped
to plot and carry it out with your own head and hands."
"You do not understand, dear," replied Clayton. "It is of
you I am thinking--there lies my first duty. The captain has
brought this condition upon himself, so why then should I
risk subjecting my wife to unthinkable horrors in a probably
futile attempt to save him from his own brutal folly? You
have no conception, dear, of what would follow were this
pack of cutthroats to gain control of the Fuwalda."
"Duty is duty, John, and no amount of sophistries may
change it. I would be a poor wife for an English lord were I
to be responsible for his shirking a plain duty. I realize the
danger which must follow, but I can face it with you."
"Have it as you will then, Alice," he answered, smiling.
"Maybe we are borrowing trouble. While I do not like the
looks of things on board this ship, they may not be so bad
after all, for it is possible that the ‘Ancient Mariner’ was but
voicing the desires of his wicked old heart rather than speaking
of real facts.
"Mutiny on the high sea may have been common a hundred
years ago, but in this good year 1888 it is the least likely
of happenings.
"But there goes the captain to his cabin now. If I am going
to warn him I might as well get the beastly job over for I
have little stomach to talk with the brute at all."
So saying he strolled carelessly in the direction of the
companionway through which the captain had passed, and a
moment later was knocking at his door.
"Come in," growled the deep tones of that surly officer.
And when Clayton had entered, and closed the door behind him:
"Well?"
"I have come to report the gist of a conversation I heard
to-day, because I feel that, while there may be nothing to it,
it is as well that you be forearmed. In short, the men
contemplate mutiny and murder."
"It’s a lie!" roared the captain. "And if you have been
interfering again with the discipline of this ship, or meddling
in affairs that don’t concern you you can take the consequences,
and be damned. I don’t care whether you are an English lord
or not. I’m captain of this here ship, and from now on you
keep your meddling nose out of my business."
7
The captain had worked himself up to such a frenzy of
rage that he was fairly purple of face, and he shrieked the
last words at the top of his voice, emphasizing his remarks by
a loud thumping of the table with one huge fist, and shaking
the other in Clayton’s face.
Greystoke never turned a hair, but stood eying the excited
man with level gaze.
"Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon
my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass."
Whereupon he turned and left the captain with the same
indifferent ease that was habitual with him, and which was
more surely calculated to raise the ire of a man of Billings’
class than a torrent of invective.
So, whereas the captain might easily have been brought to
regret his hasty speech had Clayton attempted to conciliate
him, his temper was now irrevocably set in the mold in which
Clayton had left it, and the last chance of their working
together for their common good was gone.
"Well, Alice," said Clayton, as he rejoined his wife, "I might
have saved my breath. The fellow proved most ungrateful.
Fairly jumped at me like a mad dog.
"He and his blasted old ship may hang, for aught I care;
and until we are safely off the thing I shall spend my energies
in looking after our own welfare. And I rather fancy the first
step to that end should be to go to our cabin and look over
my revolvers. I am sorry now that we packed the larger guns
and the ammunition with the stuff below."
They found their quarters in a bad state of disorder. Clothing
from their open boxes and bags strewed the little apartment,
and even their beds had been torn to pieces.
"Evidently someone was more anxious about our belongings
than we," said Clayton. "Let’s have a look around, Alice,
and see what’s missing."
A thorough search revealed the fact that nothing had been
taken but Clayton’s two revolvers and the small supply of
ammunition he had saved out for them.
"Those are the very things I most wish they had left us,"
said Clayton, "and the fact that they wished for them and
them alone is most sinister."
"What are we to do, John?" asked his wife. "Perhaps you
were right in that our best chance lies in maintaining a
neutral position.
"If the officers are able to prevent a mutiny, we have nothing
to fear, while if the mutineers are victorious our one slim
hope lies in not having attempted to thwart or antagonize them."
8
"Right you are, Alice. We’ll keep in the middle of the road."
As they started to straighten up their cabin, Clayton and
his wife simultaneously noticed the corner of a piece of paper
protruding from beneath the door of their quarters. As Clayton
stooped to reach for it he was amazed to see it move
further into the room, and then he realized that it was being
pushed inward by someone from without.
Quickly and silently he stepped toward the door, but, as
he reached for the knob to throw it open, his wife’s hand fell
upon his wrist.
"No, John," she whispered. "They do not wish to be seen,
and so we cannot afford to see them. Do not forget that we
are keeping to the middle of the road."
Clayton smiled and dropped his hand to his side. Thus
they stood watching the little bit of white paper until it
finally remained at rest upon the floor just inside the door.
Then Clayton stooped and picked it up. It was a bit of
grimy, white paper roughly folded into a ragged square.
Opening it they found a crude message printed almost
illegibly, and with many evidences of an unaccustomed task.
Translated, it was a warning to the Claytons to refrain
from reporting the loss of the revolvers, or from repeating
what the old sailor had told them--to refrain on pain of death.
"I rather imagine we’ll be good," said Clayton with a rueful
smile. "About all we can do is to sit tight and wait for
whatever may come."
Chapter 2
The Savage Home
Nor did they have long to wait, for the next morning as
Clayton was emerging on deck for his accustomed walk before
breakfast, a shot rang out, and then another, and another.
The sight which met his eyes confirmed his worst fears.
Facing the little knot of officers was the entire motley crew
of the Fuwalda, and at their head stood Black Michael.
At the first volley from the officers the men ran for shelter,
and from points of vantage behind masts, wheel-house and
cabin they returned the fire of the five men who represented
the hated authority of the ship.
Two of their number had gone down before the captain’s
revolver. They lay where they had fallen between the
combatants. But then the first mate lunged forward upon his
face, and at a cry of command from Black Michael the mutineers
charged the remaining four. The crew had been able to muster
but six firearms, so most of them were armed with boat
hooks, axes, hatchets and crowbars.
9
The captain had emptied his revolver and was reloading as
the charge was made. The second mate’s gun had jammed,
and so there were but two weapons opposed to the mutineers
as they bore down upon the officers, who now started to give
back before the infuriated rush of their men.
Both sides were cursing and swearing in a frightful manner,
which, together with the reports of the firearms and the
screams and groans of the wounded, turned the deck of the
Fuwalda to the likeness of a madhouse.
Before the officers had taken a dozen backward steps the
men were upon them. An ax in the hands of a burly Negro
cleft the captain from forehead to chin, and an instant later
the others were down: dead or wounded from dozens of
blows and bullet wounds.
Short and grisly had been the work of the mutineers of the
Fuwalda, and through it all John Clayton had stood leaning
carelessly beside the companionway puffing meditatively upon
his pipe as though he had been but watching an indifferent
cricket match.
As the last officer went down he thought it was time that
he returned to his wife lest some members of the crew find
her alone below.
Though outwardly calm and indifferent, Clayton was inwardly
apprehensive and wrought up, for he feared for his wife’s
safety at the hands of these ignorant, half-brutes into
whose hands fate had so remorselessly thrown them.
As he turned to descend the ladder he was surprised to see
his wife standing on the steps almost at his side.
"How long have you been here, Alice?"
"Since the beginning," she replied. "How awful, John. Oh,
how awful! What can we hope for at the hands of such as those?"
"Breakfast, I hope," he answered, smiling bravely in an
attempt to allay her fears.
"At least," he added, "I’m going to ask them. Come with
me, Alice. We must not let them think we expect any but
courteous treatment."
The men had by this time surrounded the dead and wounded
officers, and without either partiality or compassion
proceeded to throw both living and dead over the sides of
the vessel. With equal heartlessness they disposed of their
own dead and dying.
Presently one of the crew spied the approaching Claytons,
and with a cry of: "Here’s two more for the fishes," rushed
toward them with uplifted ax.
But Black Michael was even quicker, so that the fellow
went down with a bullet in his back before he had taken a
10
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TarzanOfTheApes[pg/etext93/tarzan10.txt]TarzanoftheApesbyBurroughsThisetextwasoriginallymadebyJudithBoss,Omaha,Nebraska.Theequipment:anIBM-compatible486/33,aHewlett-PackardScanJetIIcflatbedscanner,and,donatedbyCalera:M/SeriesProfesionalSoftwareM/SeriesAcceleratorCardTARZANoftheApesEdgarRiceBurroughs...

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