The Call of the Jungle
Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the ape-man lay awake one
night in the little thorn boma that protected, in a way, his party from
the depredations of the great carnivora of the jungle. A single warrior
stood sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of the darkness
beyond the camp made imperative. The moans and the coughing of the big
cats mingled with the myriad noises of the lesser denizens of the
jungle to fan the savage flame in the breast of this savage English
lord. He tossed upon his bed of grasses, sleepless, for an hour and
then he rose, noiseless as a wraith, and while the Waziri’s back was
turned, vaulted the boma wall in the face of the flaming eyes, swung
silently into a great tree and was gone.
For a time in sheer exuberance of animal spirit he raced swiftly
through the middle terrace, swinging perilously across wide spans from
one jungle giant to the next, and then he clambered upward to the
swaying, lesser boughs of the upper terrace where the moon shone full
upon him and the air was stirred by little breezes and death lurked
ready in each frail branch. Here he paused and raised his face to Goro,
the moon. With uplifted arm he stood, the cry of the bull ape quivering
upon his lips, yet he remained silent lest he arouse his faithful
Waziri who were all too familiar with the hideous challenge of their
master.
And then he went on more slowly and with greater stealth and caution,
for now Tarzan of the Apes was seeking a kill. Down to the ground he
came in the utter blackness of the close-set boles and the overhanging
verdure of the jungle. He stooped from time to time and put his nose
close to earth. He sought and found a wide game trail and at last his
nostrils were rewarded with the scent of the fresh spoor of Bara, the
deer. Tarzan’s mouth watered and a low growl escaped his patrician
lips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige of artificial caste—once
again he was the primeval hunter—the first man—the highest caste type
of the human race. Up wind he followed the elusive spoor with a sense
of perception so transcending that of ordinary man as to be
inconceivable to us. Through counter currents of the heavy stench of
meat eaters he traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink of
Horta, the boar, could not drown his quarry’s scent—the permeating,
mellow musk of the deer’s foot.
Presently the body scent of the deer told Tarzan that his prey was
close at hand. It sent him into the trees again—into the lower terrace
where he could watch the ground below and catch with ears and nose the
first intimation of actual contact with his quarry. Nor was it long
before the ape-man came upon Bara standing alert at the edge of a
moon-bathed clearing. Noiselessly Tarzan crept through the trees until
he was directly over the deer. In the ape-man’s right hand was the long
hunting knife of his father and in his heart the blood lust of the
carnivore. Just for an instant he poised above the unsuspecting Bara
and then he launched himself downward upon the sleek back. The impact
of his weight carried the deer to its knees and before the animal could
regain its feet the knife had found its heart. As Tarzan rose upon the
body of his kill to scream forth his hideous victory cry into the face
of the moon the wind carried to his nostrils something which froze him
to statuesque immobility and silence. His savage eyes blazed into the
direction from which the wind had borne down the warning to him and a
moment later the grasses at one side of the clearing parted and Numa,
the lion, strode majestically into view. His yellow-green eyes were
fastened upon Tarzan as he halted just within the clearing and glared
enviously at the successful hunter, for Numa had had no luck this
night.
From the lips of the ape-man broke a rumbling growl of warning. Numa
answered but he did not advance. Instead he stood waving his tail
gently to and fro, and presently Tarzan squatted upon his kill and cut
a generous portion from a hind quarter. Numa eyed him with growing
resentment and rage as, between mouthfuls, the ape-man growled out his
savage warnings. Now this particular lion had never before come in
contact with Tarzan of the Apes and he was much mystified. Here was the
appearance and the scent of a man-thing and Numa had tasted of human
flesh and learned that though not the most palatable it was certainly
by far the easiest to secure, yet there was that in the bestial growls
of the strange creature which reminded him of formidable antagonists
and gave him pause, while his hunger and the odor of the hot flesh of
Bara goaded him almost to madness. Always Tarzan watched him, guessing
what was passing in the little brain of the carnivore and well it was
that he did watch him, for at last Numa could stand it no longer. His
tail shot suddenly erect and at the same instant the wary ape-man,
knowing all too well what the signal portended, grasped the remainder
of the deer’s hind quarter between his teeth and leaped into a nearby
tree as Numa charged him with all the speed and a sufficient semblance
of the weight of an express train.
Tarzan’s retreat was no indication that he felt fear. Jungle life is
ordered along different lines than ours and different standards
prevail. Had Tarzan been famished he would, doubtless, have stood his
ground and met the lion’s charge. He had done the thing before upon
more than one occasion, just as in the past he had charged lions
himself; but tonight he was far from famished and in the hind quarter
he had carried off with him was more raw flesh than he could eat; yet
it was with no equanimity that he looked down upon Numa rending the
flesh of Tarzan’s kill. The presumption of this strange Numa must be
punished! And forthwith Tarzan set out to make life miserable for the
big cat. Close by were many trees bearing large, hard fruits and to one
of these the ape-man swung with the agility of a squirrel. Then
commenced a bombardment which brought forth earthshaking roars from
Numa. One after another as rapidly as he could gather and hurl them,
Tarzan pelted the hard fruit down upon the lion. It was impossible for
the tawny cat to eat under that hail of missiles—he could but roar and
growl and dodge and eventually he was driven away entirely from the
carcass of Bara, the deer. He went roaring and resentful; but in the
very center of the clearing his voice was suddenly hushed and Tarzan
saw the great head lower and flatten out, the body crouch and the long
tail quiver, as the beast slunk cautiously toward the trees upon the
opposite side.
Immediately Tarzan was alert. He lifted his head and sniffed the slow,
jungle breeze. What was it that had attracted Numa’s attention and
taken him soft-footed and silent away from the scene of his
discomfiture? Just as the lion disappeared among the trees beyond the
clearing Tarzan caught upon the down-coming wind the explanation of his
new interest—the scent spoor of man was wafted strongly to the
sensitive nostrils. Caching the remainder of the deer’s hind quarter in
the crotch of a tree the ape-man wiped his greasy palms upon his naked
thighs and swung off in pursuit of Numa. A broad, well-beaten elephant
path led into the forest from the clearing. Parallel to this slunk
Numa, while above him Tarzan moved through the trees, the shadow of a
wraith. The savage cat and the savage man saw Numa’s quarry almost
simultaneously, though both had known before it came within the vision
of their eyes that it was a black man. Their sensitive nostrils had
told them this much and Tarzan’s had told him that the scent spoor was
that of a stranger—old and a male, for race and sex and age each has
its own distinctive scent. It was an old man that made his way alone
through the gloomy jungle, a wrinkled, dried up, little old man
hideously scarred and tattooed and strangely garbed, with the skin of a
hyena about his shoulders and the dried head mounted upon his grey
pate. Tarzan recognized the ear-marks of the witch-doctor and awaited
Numa’s charge with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation, for the
ape-man had no love for witch-doctors; but in the instant that Numa did
charge, the white man suddenly recalled that the lion had stolen his
kill a few minutes before and that revenge is sweet.
The first intimation the black man had that he was in danger was the
crash of twigs as Numa charged through the bushes into the game trail
not twenty yards behind him. Then he turned to see a huge, black-maned
lion racing toward him and even as he turned, Numa seized him. At the
same instant the ape-man dropped from an overhanging limb full upon the
lion’s back and as he alighted he plunged his knife into the tawny side
behind the left shoulder, tangled the fingers of his right hand in the
long mane, buried his teeth in Numa’s neck and wound his powerful legs
about the beast’s torso. With a roar of pain and rage, Numa reared up
and fell backward upon the ape-man; but still the mighty man-thing
clung to his hold and repeatedly the long knife plunged rapidly into
his side. Over and over rolled Numa, the lion, clawing and biting at
the air, roaring and growling horribly in savage attempt to reach the
thing upon its back. More than once was Tarzan almost brushed from his
hold. He was battered and bruised and covered with blood from Numa and
dirt from the trail, yet not for an instant did he lessen the ferocity
of his mad attack nor his grim hold upon the back of his antagonist. To
have loosened for an instant his grip there, would have been to bring
him within reach of those tearing talons or rending fangs, and have
ended forever the grim career of this jungle-bred English lord. Where
he had fallen beneath the spring of the lion the witch-doctor lay, torn
and bleeding, unable to drag himself away and watched the terrific
battle between these two lords of the jungle. His sunken eyes glittered
and his wrinkled lips moved over toothless gums as he mumbled weird
incantations to the demons of his cult.
For a time he felt no doubt as to the outcome—the strange white man
must certainly succumb to terrible Simba—whoever heard of a lone man
armed only with a knife slaying so mighty a beast! Yet presently the
old black man’s eyes went wider and he commenced to have his doubts and
misgivings. What wonderful sort of creature was this that battled with
Simba and held his own despite the mighty muscles of the king of beasts
and slowly there dawned in those sunken eyes, gleaming so brightly from
the scarred and wrinkled face, the light of a dawning recollection.
Gropingly backward into the past reached the fingers of memory, until
at last they seized upon a faint picture, faded and yellow with the
passing years. It was the picture of a lithe, white-skinned youth
swinging through the trees in company with a band of huge apes, and the
old eyes blinked and a great fear came into them—the superstitious fear
of one who believes in ghosts and spirits and demons.
And came the time once more when the witch-doctor no longer doubted the
outcome of the duel, yet his first judgment was reversed, for now he
knew that the jungle god would slay Simba and the old black was even
more terrified of his own impending fate at the hands of the victor
than he had been by the sure and sudden death which the triumphant lion
would have meted out to him. He saw the lion weaken from loss of blood.
He saw the mighty limbs tremble and stagger and at last he saw the
beast sink down to rise no more. He saw the forest god or demon rise
from the vanquished foe, and placing a foot upon the still quivering
carcass, raise his face to the moon and bay out a hideous cry that
froze the ebbing blood in the veins of the witch-doctor.