AN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE
AT sight of the true Tarzan, Esteban Miranda turned and fled blindly
into the jungle. His heart was cold with terror as he rushed on in blind
fear. He had no objective in mind. He did not know in what direction he
was going. His only thought—the thought which dominated him—was based
solely upon a desire to put as much distance as possible between himself
and the ape-man, and so he blundered on, forcing his way through dense
thickets of thorns that tore and lacerated his flesh until, at every
step he left a trail of blood behind him.
At the river’s edge the thorns reached out and seized again, as they had
several times before, the precious leopard skin to which he clung with
almost the same tenacity as he clung to life itself. But this time the
thorns would not leave go their hold, and as he struggled to tear it
away from them his eyes turned back in the direction from which he had
come. He heard the sound of a great body moving rapidly through the
thicket toward him, and an instant later saw the baleful glare of two
gleaming, yellow-green spots of flame. With a stifled cry of terror the
Spaniard relinquished his hold upon the leopard skin and, wheeling,
dived into the river.
As the black waters closed above his head Jad-bal-ja came to the edge of
the bank and looked down upon the widening circles which marked the spot
of his quarry’s disappearance, for Esteban, who was a strong swimmer,
struck boldly for the opposite side of the stream, keeping himself well
submerged.
For a moment the golden lion scanned the surface of the river, and then
he turned and sniffed at the hide the Spaniard had been forced to leave
behind, and grasping it in his jaws tore it from the thorns that held it
and carried it back to lay it at the feet of his master.
Forced at last to come to the surface for air the Spaniard arose amid a
mass of tangled foliage and branches. For a moment he thought that he
was lost, so tightly held was he by the entangling boughs, but presently
he forced his way upward, and as his head appeared above the surface of
the water amidst the foliage he discovered that he had arisen directly
beneath a fallen tree that was floating down the center of the stream.
After considerable effort he managed to draw himself up to the boughs
and find a place astride the great bole, and thus he floated down stream
in comparative safety.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he realized with what comparative
ease he had escaped the just vengeance of the ape-man. It is true that
he bemoaned the loss of the hide which carried the map to the location
of the hidden gold, but he still retained in his possession a far
greater treasure, and as he thought of it his hands gloatingly fondled
the bag of diamonds fastened to his loin cloth. Yet, even though he
possessed this great fortune in diamonds, his avaricious mind constantly
returned to the golden ingots by the waterfall.
“Owaza will get it,” he muttered to himself. “I never trusted the black
dog, and when he deserted me I knew well enough what his plans were.”
All night long Esteban Miranda floated down stream upon the fallen tree,
seeing no sign of life, until shortly after daybreak, he passed a native
village upon the shore.
It was the village of Obebe, the cannibal, and at sight of the strange
figure of the white giant floating down the stream upon the bole of a
tree, the young woman who espied him raised a great hue and cry until
the population of the village lined the shore watching him pass.
“It is a strange god,” cried one.
“It is the river devil,” said the witch doctor. “He is a friend of mine.
Now, indeed, shall we catch many fish if for each ten that you catch you
give one to me.”
“It is not the river devil,” rumbled the deep voice of Obebe, the
cannibal. “You are getting old,” he said to the witch doctor, “and of
late your medicine has been poor medicine, and now you tell me that
Obebe’s greatest enemy is the river devil. That is Tarzan of the Apes.
Obebe knows him well.” And in truth every cannibal chief in the vicinity
knew Tarzan of the Apes well and feared and hated him, for relentless
had been the ape-man’s war against them.
“It is Tarzan of the Apes,” repeated Obebe, “and he is in trouble.
Perhaps it is our chance to capture him.”
He called his warriors about him, and presently half a hundred brawny
young bucks started at a jog trot down the trail that paralleled the
river. For miles they followed the slowly moving tree which carried
Esteban Miranda until at last at a bend in the river the tree was caught
in the outer circle of a slow-moving eddy, which carried it beneath the
overhanging limbs of trees growing close to the river’s edge.
Cramped and chilled and hungry as he was, Esteban was glad of the
opportunity to desert his craft and gain the shore. And so, laboriously,
he drew himself up among the branches of the tree that momentarily
offered him a haven of retreat from the river, and crawling to its stem
lowered himself to the ground beneath, unconscious of the fact that in
the grasses around him squatted half a hundred cannibal warriors.
Leaning against the bole of the tree the Spaniard rested for a moment.
He felt for the diamonds and found that they were safe.
“I am a lucky devil, after all,” he said aloud, and almost
simultaneously the fifty blacks arose about him and leaped upon him. So
sudden was the attack, so overwhelming the force, that the Spaniard had
no opportunity to defend himself against them, with the result that he
was down and securely bound almost before he could realize what was
happening to him.
“Ah, Tarzan of the Apes, I have you at last,” gloated Obebe, the
cannibal, but Esteban did not understand a word the man said, and so he
could make no reply. He talked to Obebe in English, but that language
the latter did not understand.
Of only one thing was Esteban certain; that he was a prisoner and that
he was being taken back toward the interior. When they reached Obebe’s
village there was great rejoicing on the part of the women and the
children and the warriors who had remained behind. But the witch doctor
shook his head and made wry faces and dire prophecies.
“You have seized the river devil,” he said. “We shall catch no more
fish, and presently a great sickness will fall upon Obebe’s people and
they will all die like flies.” But Obebe only laughed at the witch
doctor for, being an old man and a great king, he had accumulated much
wisdom and, with the acquisition of wisdom man is more inclined to be
skeptical in matters of religion.
“You may laugh now, Obebe,” said the witch doctor, “but later you will
not laugh. Wait and see.”
“When, with my own hands, I kill Tarzan of the Apes, then indeed shall I
laugh,” replied the chief, “and when I and my warriors have eaten his
heart and his flesh, then, indeed, shall we no longer fear any of your
devils.”
“Wait,” cried the witch doctor angrily, “and you shall see.”
They took the Spaniard, securely bound, and threw him into a filthy hut,
through the doorway of which he could see the women of the village
preparing cooking fires and pots for the feast of the coming night. A
cold sweat stood out upon the brow of Esteban Miranda as he watched
these gruesome preparations, the significance of which he could not
misinterpret, when coupled with the gestures and the glances that were
directed toward the hut where he lay, by the inhabitants of the village.
The afternoon was almost spent and the Spaniard felt that he could count
the hours of life remaining to him upon possibly two fingers of one
hand, when there came from the direction of the river a series of
piercing screams which shattered the quiet of the jungle, and brought
the inhabitants of the village to startled attention, and an instant
later sent them in a mad rush in the direction of the fear-laden
shrieks. But they were too late and reached the river only just in time
to see a woman dragged beneath the surface by a huge crocodile.
“Ah, Obebe, what did I tell you?” demanded the witch doctor, exultantly.
“Already has the devil god commenced his revenge upon your people.”
The ignorant villagers, steeped in superstition, looked fearfully from
their witch doctor to their chief. Obebe scowled, “He is Tarzan of the
Apes,” he insisted.
“He is the river devil who has taken the shape of Tarzan of the Apes,”
insisted the witch doctor.
“We shall see,” replied Obebe. “If he is the river devil he can escape
our bonds. If he is Tarzan of the Apes he cannot. If he is the river
devil he will not die a natural death, like men die, but will live on
forever. If he is Tarzan of the Apes some day he will die. We will keep
him, then, and see, and that will prove whether or not he is Tarzan of
the Apes or the river devil.”
“How?” asked the witch doctor.
“It is very simple,” replied Obebe. “If some morning we find that he has
escaped we will know that he is the river devil, and because we have not
harmed him but have fed him well while he has been here in our village,
he will befriend us and no harm will come of it. But if he does not
escape we will know that he is Tarzan of the Apes, provided he dies a
natural death. And so, if he does not escape, we shall keep him until he
dies and then we shall know that he was, indeed, Tarzan of the Apes.”
“But suppose he does not die?” asked the witch doctor, scratching his
woolly head.
“Then,” exclaimed Obebe triumphantly, “we will know that you are right,
and that he was, indeed, the river devil.”
Obebe went and ordered women to take food to the Spaniard while the
witch doctor stood, where Obebe had left him, in the middle of the
street, still scratching his head in thought.
And thus was Esteban Miranda, possessor of the most fabulous fortune in
diamonds that the world had ever known, condemned to life imprisonment
in the village of Obebe, the cannibal.
While he had been lying in the hut his traitorous confederate, Owaza,
from the opposite bank of the river from the spot where he and Esteban
had hidden the golden ingots, saw Tarzan and his Waziri come and search
for the gold and go away again, and the following morning Owaza came
with fifty men whom he had recruited from a neighboring village and dug
up the gold and started with it toward the coast.
That night Owaza made camp just outside a tiny village of a minor chief,
who was weak in warriors. The old fellow invited Owaza into his
compound, and there he fed him and gave him native beer, while the
chief’s people circulated among Owaza’s boys plying them with
innumerable questions until at last the truth leaked out and the chief
knew that Owaza’s porters were carrying a great store of yellow gold.
When the chief learned this for certain he was much perturbed, but
finally a smile crossed his face as he talked with the half-drunken
Owaza.
“You have much gold with you,” said the old chief, “and it is very
heavy. It will be hard to get your boys to carry it all the way back to
the coast.”
“Yes,” said Owaza, “but I shall pay them well.”
“If they did not have to carry it so far from home you would not have to
pay them so much, would you?” asked the chief.
“No,” said Owaza, “but I cannot dispose of it this side of the coast.”
“I know where you can dispose of it within two days’ march,” replied the
old chief.
“Where?” demanded Owaza. “And who here in the interior will buy it?”
“There is a white man who will give you a little piece of paper for it
and you can take that paper to the coast and get the full value of your
gold.”
“Who is this white man?” demanded Owaza, “and where is he?”
“He is a friend of mine,” said the chief, “and if you wish I will take
you to him on the morrow, and you can bring with you all your gold and
get the little piece of paper.”
“Good,” said Owaza, “and then I shall not have to pay the carriers but a
very small amount.”
The carriers were glad, indeed, to learn the next day that they were not
to go all the way to the coast, for even the lure of payment was not
sufficient to overcome their dislike to so long a journey, and their
fear of being at so great a distance from home. They were very happy,
therefore, as they set forth on a two days’ march toward the northeast.
And Owaza was happy and so was the old chief, who accompanied them
himself, though why he was happy about it Owaza could not guess.
They had marched for almost two days when the chief sent one of his own
men forward with a message.
“It is to my friend,” he said, “to tell him to come and meet us and lead
us to his village.” And a few hours later, as the little caravan emerged
from the jungle onto a broad, grassy plain, they saw not far from them,
and approaching rapidly, a large band of warriors. Owaza halted.
“Who are those?” he demanded.
“Those are the warriors of my friend,” replied the chief, “and he is
with them. See?” and he pointed toward a figure at the head of the
blacks, who were approaching at a trot, their spears and white plumes
gleaming in the sunshine.
“They come for war and not for peace,” said Owaza tearfully.
“That depends upon you, Owaza,” replied the chief.
“I do not understand you,” said Owaza.
“But you will in a few minutes after my friend has come.”
As the advancing warriors approached more closely Owaza saw a giant
white at their head—a white whom he mistook for Esteban—the
confederate he had so traitorously deserted. He turned upon the chief.
“You have betrayed me,” he cried.
“Wait,” said the old chief; “nothing that belongs to you shall be taken
from you.”
“The gold is not his,” cried Owaza. “He stole it,” and he pointed at
Tarzan who had approached and halted before him, but who ignored him
entirely and turned to the chief.
“Your runner came,” he said to the old man, “and brought your message,
and Tarzan and his Waziri have come to see what they could do for their
old friend.”
The chief smiled. “Your runner came to me, O Tarzan, four days since,
and two days later came this man with his carriers, bearing golden
ingots toward the coast. I told him that I had a friend who would buy
them, giving him a little piece of paper for them, but that, of course,
only in case the gold belonged to Owaza.”
The ape-man smiled. “You have done well, my friend,” he said. “The gold
does not belong to Owaza.”
“It does not belong to you, either,” cried Owaza. “You are not Tarzan of
the Apes. I know you. You came with the four white men and the white
woman to steal the gold from Tarzan’s country, and then you stole it
from your own friends.”
The chief and the Waziri laughed. The ape-man smiled one of his slow
smiles.
“The other was an impostor, Owaza,” he said, “but _I_ am Tarzan of the
Apes, and I thank you for bringing my gold to me. Come,” he said, “it is
but a few more miles to my home,” and the ape-man compelled Owaza to
direct his carriers to bear the golden ingots to the Greystoke bungalow.
There Tarzan fed the carriers and paid them, and the next morning sent
them back toward their own country, and he sent Owaza with them, but not
without a gift of value, accompanied with an admonition that the black
never again return to Tarzan’s country.
When they had all departed, and Tarzan and Jane and Korak were standing
upon the veranda of the bungalow with Jad-bal-ja lying at their feet,
the ape-man threw an arm about his mate’s shoulders.
“I shall have to retract what I said about the gold of Opar not being
for me, for you see before you a new fortune that has come all the way
from the treasure vaults of Opar without any effort on my part.”
“Now, if someone would only bring your diamonds back,” laughed Jane.
“No chance of that,” said Tarzan. “They are unquestionably at the bottom
of the Ugogo River,” and far away, upon the banks of the Ugogo, in the
village of Obebe, the cannibal, Esteban Miranda lay in the filth of the
hut that had been assigned to him, gloating over the fortune that he
could never utilize as he entered upon a life of captivity that the
stubbornness and superstition of Obebe had doomed him to undergo.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.
Illustrations by James Allen St. John (1872-1957) were moved to
facilitate page layout. The cover is the original first edition cover,
also illustrated by James Allen St. John.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tarzan and the Golden Lion, by Edgar Rice Burroughs