_Bolgani the Gorilla_
A black porter caught his foot in an entangling creeper and stumbled,
throwing his load to the ground. Of such trivialities are crises born.
This one altered the entire life of James Hunter Blake, young, rich,
American, hunting big game for the first time in Africa with his friend
Wilbur Stimbol who, having spent three weeks in the jungle two years
before, was naturally the leader of the expedition and an infallible
authority on all matters pertaining to big game, African jungle,
safari, food, weather and negroes. The further fact that Stimbol was
twenty-five years Blake's senior naturally but augmented his claims to
omniscience.
These factors did not in themselves constitute the basis for the
growing differences between the two men, for Blake was a phlegmatically
inclined young man of twenty-five who was rather amused at Stimbol's
egotism than otherwise. The first rift had occurred at railhead when,
through Stimbol's domineering manner and ill temper, the entire purpose
of the expedition had been abandoned by necessity, and what was to
have been a quasi scientific motion picture camera study of wild
African life had resolved itself into an ordinary big game hunt.
At railhead, while preparations were going on to secure equipment and
a safari, Stimbol had so offended and insulted the cameraman that he
had left them flat and returned to the coast. Blake was disappointed,
but he made up his mind to go on through and get what pictures he could
with a still camera. He was not a man who enjoyed killing for the mere
sport of taking life, and as originally planned there was to have been
no shooting of game except for food and half a dozen trophies that
Stimbol particularly wished to add to his collection.
There had since been one or two altercations relative to Stimbol's
treatment of the black porters, but these matters, Blake was hopeful,
had been ironed out and Stimbol had promised to leave the handling of
the safari to Blake and refrain from any further abuse of the men.
They had come into the interior even farther than they had planned,
had had the poorest of luck in the matter of game and were about to
turn back toward railhead. It seemed now to Blake that after all they
were going to pull through without further difficulty and that he and
Stimbol would return to America together, to all intent and purpose
still friends; but just then a black porter caught his foot in an
entangling creeper and stumbled, throwing his load to the ground.
Directly in front of the porter Stimbol and Blake were walking side by
side and, as though guided by a malevolent power, the load crashed into
Stimbol, hurling him to the ground. Stimbol and the porter scrambled
to their feet amidst the laughter of the negroes who had witnessed the
accident. The porter was grinning. Stimbol was flushed with anger.
"You damned clumsy nigger!" he cried, and before Blake could interfere
or the porter protect himself the angry white man stepped quickly over
the fallen load and struck the black a terrific blow in the face that
felled him; and as he lay there, Stimbol kicked him in the side. But
only once! Before he could repeat the outrage Blake seized him by the
shoulder, wheeled him about and struck him precisely as he had struck
the black.
Stimbol fell, rolled over on his side and reached for the automatic
that hung at his hip, but quick as he was Blake was quicker. "Cut
that!" said Blake, crisply, covering Stimbol with a .45. Stimbol's hand
dropped from the grip of his gun. "Get up!" ordered Blake, and when the
other had risen: "Now listen to me, Stimbol--this is the end. You and
I are through. Tomorrow morning we split the safari and equipment, and
whichever way you go with your half I'll go in the opposite direction."
Blake had returned his gun to its holster as he spoke, the black had
risen and was nursing a bloody nose, the other blacks were looking
on sullenly. Blake motioned to the porter to pick up his load and
presently the safari was again on the move--a sullen safari without
laughter or song.
Blake made camp at the first available ground shortly before noon in
order that the division of equipment, food and men could be made during
the afternoon and the two safaris thus be enabled to make an early
start the following morning.
Stimbol, sullen, would give no assistance, but, taking a couple of the
askari, the armed natives who act as soldiers for the safari, started
out from camp to hunt. He had proceeded scarcely a mile along a mould
padded game trail which gave forth no sound in answer to their falling
footsteps, when one of the natives in the lead held up his hand in
warning as he halted in his tracks.
Stimbol advanced cautiously and the black pointed toward the left,
through the foliage. Dimly, Stimbol saw a black mass moving slowly away
from them.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"Gorilla," replied the black.
Stimbol raised his rifle and fired at the retreating figure. The black
was not surprised that he missed.
"Hell!" ejaculated the white. "Come on, get after him! I've got to have
him. Gad! what a trophy he'll make."
The jungle was rather more open than usual and again and again they
came within sight of the retreating gorilla. Each time Stimbol fired
and each time he missed. Secretly the blacks were amused and pleased.
They did not like Stimbol.
At a distance Tarzan of the Apes, hunting with the tribe of Toyat,
heard the first shot and immediately took to the trees and was
racing in the direction of the sound. He felt sure that the weapon
had not been discharged by the Beduins, for he well knew and could
differentiate between the reports of their muskets and those made by
modern weapons.
Perhaps, he thought, there may be among them such a rifle, because such
was not impossible, but more likely it meant white men, and in Tarzan's
country it was his business to know what strangers were there and why.
Seldom they came even now, though once they had never come. It was
those days that Tarzan regretted, for when the white man comes peace
and happiness depart.
Racing through the trees, swinging from limb to limb, Tarzan of the
Apes unerringly followed the direction of the sound of the succeeding
shots; and as he approached more closely the scene of the pursuit of
Bolgani the gorilla, he heard the crashing of underbrush and the voices
of men.
Bolgani, fleeing with greater haste than caution, his mind and
attention occupied by thoughts of escape from the hated Tarmangani and
the terrifying thunder stick that roared each time the Tarmangani came
within sight of him, abandoned his accustomed wariness and hurried
through the jungle forgetful of what few other enemies might beset his
path; and so it was that he failed to see Histah the snake draped in
sinuous loops along an overhanging branch of a nearby patriarch of the
forest.
The huge python, naturally short tempered and irritable, had been
disturbed and annoyed by the crashing sounds of pursuit and escape and
the roaring voice of the rifle. Ordinarily he would have permitted a
full grown bull gorilla to pass unmolested, but in his present state of
mind he might have attacked even Tantor himself.
His beady eyes glaring fixedly, he watched the approach of the shaggy
Bolgani, and as the gorilla passed beneath the limb to which he clung
Histah launched himself upon his prey.
As the great coils, powerful, relentless, silent, encircled Bolgani,
he sought to tear the hideous folds from him. Great is the strength
of Bolgani, but even greater is that of Histah the snake. A single
hideous, almost human scream burst from the lips of Bolgani with the
first realization of the disaster that had befallen him, and then he
was on the ground tearing futilely at the steadily tightening bands
of living steel that would crush the life from him, crush until his
bones gave to the tremendous pressure, until only broken pulp remained
within a sausage like thing that would slip between the distended jaws
of the serpent.
It was upon this sight that Stimbol and Tarzan came
simultaneously--Stimbol stumbling awkwardly through the underbrush,
Tarzan of the Apes, demigod of the forest, swinging gracefully through
the foliage of the middle terraces.
They arrived simultaneously but Tarzan was the only one of the party
whose presence was unsuspected by the others, for, as always, he had
moved silently and with the utmost wariness because of the unknown
nature of the conditions he might discover.
As he looked down upon the scene below his quick eye and his knowledge
of the jungle revealed at a glance the full story of the tragedy that
had overtaken Bolgani, and then he saw Stimbol raise his rifle, intent
upon bagging two royal specimens with a single shot.
In the heart of Tarzan was no great love for Bolgani the gorilla. Since
childhood the shaggy, giant man-beast had been the natural foe of the
ape-man. His first mortal combat had been with Bolgani. For years he
had feared him, or rather avoided him through caution, for of fear
Tarzan was ignorant; and since he had emerged from childhood he had
continued to avoid Bolgani for the simple reason that his own people,
the great apes, avoided him.
But now when he saw the huge brute beset by two of the natural enemies
of both the Mangani and the Bolgani, there flared within his breast a
sudden loyalty that burned away the personal prejudices of a lifetime.
He was directly above Stimbol, and with such celerity do the mind and
muscles of the ape-man coordinate that even as the American raised his
weapon to his shoulder Tarzan had dropped upon his back, felling him
to the earth; and before Stimbol could discover what had happened to
him, long before he could stumble, cursing, to his feet, Tarzan, who
had been unarmed, had snatched the hunter's knife from its scabbard and
leaped full upon the writhing, struggling mass of python and gorilla.
Stimbol came to his feet ready to kill but what he saw before him
temporarily drove the desire for vengeance from his mind.
Naked but for a loin cloth, bronzed, black-haired, a giant white man
battled with the dread python; and as Stimbol watched he shuddered as
he became aware that the low, beast-like growls he heard came not alone
from the savage lips of the gorilla but from the throat of the god-like
man-thing that fought for him.
Steel fingers encircled the python just back of its head, while those
of the free hand drove Stimbol's hunting knife again and again into the
coiling, writhing body of the serpent. With the projection of a new
and more menacing enemy into the battle, Histah was forced partially
to release his hold upon Bolgani with, at first, the intention of
including Tarzan in the same embrace that he might crush them both at
once; but soon he discovered that the hairless man-thing constituted
a distinct menace to his life that would necessitate his undivided
attention, and so he quickly uncoiled from about Bolgani and in a
frenzy of rage and pain that whipped his great length into a lashing
fury of destruction he sought to encircle the ape-man; but wheresoever
his coils approached, the keen knife bit deep into tortured flesh.
Bolgani, the spark of life all but crushed from him, lay gasping upon
the ground, unable to come to the aid of his preserver, while Stimbol,
goggle-eyed with awe and terror, kept at a safe distance, momentarily
forgetful both of his lust for trophies and his bent for revenge.
Thus was Tarzan pitted, single-handed, against one of the mightiest of
Nature's creations in a duel to the death, the result of which seemed
to the watching American already a foregone conclusion, for what man
born of woman could hope, unaided, to escape from the embrace of the
deadly coils of a python?
Already Histah had encircled the torso and one leg of the ape-man,
but his powers of constriction, lessened by the frightful wounds he
had received, had as yet been unable to crush his adversary into
helplessness, and Tarzan was now concentrating his attention and the
heavy blade of the hunting knife upon a single portion of the weakening
body in an attempt to cut Histah in two.
Man and serpent were red with blood; and crimson were the grasses and
the brush for yards in all directions as, with a final effort, Histah
closed his giant coils spasmodically about his victim at the instant
that Tarzan with a mighty upward heavy lunge cut through the vertebrae
of the great snake.
Lashing and writhing, the nether portion, headless, flopped aside while
the ape-man, still fighting with what remained, exerting his superhuman
strength to its ultimate utmost, slowly forced the coils from about
his body and cast the dying Histah from him. Then, without a glance at
Stimbol, he turned to Bolgani.
"You are hurt to death?" he asked in the language of the great apes.
"No," replied the gorilla. "I am Bolgani! I kill, Tarmangani!"
"I am Tarzan of the Apes," said the ape-man. "I saved you from Histah."
"You did not come to kill Bolgani?" inquired the gorilla.
"No. Let us be friends."
Bolgani frowned in an effort to concentrate upon this remarkable
problem. Presently he spoke. "We will be friends," he said. "The
Tarmangani behind you will kill us both with his thunder stick. Let us
kill him first." Painfully he staggered to his feet.
"No," remonstrated Tarzan. "I will send the Tarmangani away."
"You? He will not go."
"I am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle," replied the ape-man. "The word of
Tarzan is law in the jungle."
Stimbol, who had been watching, was under the impression that the
man and the beast were growling at one another and that a new duel
impended. Had he guessed the truth and suspicioned that they considered
him a common enemy he would have felt far less at ease. Now, his rifle
regained, he started toward Tarzan just as the latter turned to address
him.
"Stand to one side, young fellow," said Stimbol, "while I finish that
gorilla. After the experience you just had with the snake, I doubt if
you want that fellow to jump you, too." The American was none too sure
of what the attitude of the white giant might be, for all too fresh
in his mind was the startling and disconcerting manner of the wild
man's introduction; but he felt safe because he held a rifle, while
the other was unarmed, and he guessed that the giant might be only
too glad to be saved from the attentions of the gorilla, which, from
Stimbol's imagined knowledge of such beasts, appeared to him to be
quite evidently threatening.
Tarzan halted directly between Bolgani and the hunter and eyed
the latter appraisingly for a moment. "Lower your rifle," he said,
presently. "You are not going to shoot the gorilla."
"The hell I'm not!" ejaculated Stimbol. "What do you suppose I've been
chasing him through the jungle for?"
"Under a misapprehension," replied Tarzan.
"What misapprehension?" demanded Stimbol.
"That you were going to shoot him. You are not."
"Say, young man, do you know who I am?" demanded Stimbol.
"I am not interested," replied Tarzan coldly.
"Well you'd better be. I'm Wilbur Stimbol of Stimbol & Company,
brokers, New York!" That was a name to conjure with--in New York. Even
in Paris and London it had opened many a door, bent many a knee. Seldom
had it failed the purpose of this purse-arrogant man.
"What are you doing in my country?" demanded the ape-man, ignoring
Stimbol's egotistical statement of his identity.
"Your country? Who the hell are you?"
Tarzan turned toward the two blacks who had been standing a little in
the rear of Stimbol and to one side. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he said
to them in their own dialect. "What is this man doing in my country?
How many are there in his party--how many white men?"
"Big Bwana," replied one of the men with sincere deference, "we knew
that you were Tarzan of the Apes when we saw you swing from the trees
and slay the great snake. There is no other in all the jungle who could
do that. This white man is a bad master. There is one other white man
with him. The other is kind. They came to hunt Simba the lion and other
big game. They have had no luck. Tomorrow they turn back."
"Where is their camp?" demanded Tarzan.
The black who had spoken pointed. "It is not far," he said.
The ape-man turned to Stimbol. "Go back to your camp," he said.
"I shall come there later this evening and talk with you and your
companion. In the meantime hunt no more except for food in Tarzan's
country."
There was something in the voice and manner of the stranger that had
finally gone through Stimbol's thick sensibilities and impressed him
with a species of awe--a thing he had scarcely ever experienced in the
past except in the presence of wealth that was grossly superior to his
own. He did not reply. He just stood and watched the bronzed giant turn
to the gorilla. He heard them growl at one another for a moment and
then, to his vast surprise, he saw them move off through the jungle
together, shoulder to shoulder. As the foliage closed about them he
removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a silken
handkerchief as he stood staring at the green branches that had parted
to receive this strangely assorted pair.
Finally he turned to his men with an oath. "A whole day wasted!" he
complained. "Who is this fellow? You seemed to know him."
"He is Tarzan," replied one of the blacks.
"Tarzan? Never heard of him," snapped Stimbol.
"All who know the jungle, know Tarzan."
"Humph!" sneered Stimbol. "No lousy wild man is going to tell Wilbur
Stimbol where he can hunt and where he can't."
"Master," said the black who had first spoken, "the word of Tarzan is
the law of the jungle. Do not offend him."
"I'm not paying you damned niggers for advice," snapped Stimbol. "If
I say hunt, we hunt, and don't you forget it." But on their return to
camp they saw no game, or at least Stimbol saw none. What the blacks
saw was their own affair.