Lord Passmore was camped in a natural clearing on the bank of a small
river a few miles south of the jungle's northern fringe. His stalwart
porters and askaris squatted over their cooking fires laughing and
joking among themselves. It was two hours past sunset; and Lord
Passmore, faultlessly attired in dinner clothes, was dining, his native
boy, standing behind his chair, ready to anticipate his every need.
A tall, well built negro approached the fly beneath which Lord
Passmore's camp table had been placed. "You sent for me, Bwana?" he
asked.
Lord Passmore glanced up into the intelligent eyes of the handsome
black. There was just the faintest shadow of a smile lurking about the
corners of the patrician mouth of the white man. "Have you anything to
report?" he asked.
"No, bwana," replied the black. "Neither to the east nor to the west
were there signs of game. Perhaps the bwana had better luck."
"Yes," replied Passmore, "I was more fortunate. To the north I saw
signs of game. Tomorrow, perhaps, we shall have better hunting.
Tomorrow I shall--" He broke off abruptly. Both men were suddenly
alert, straining their ears to a faint sound that rose above the
nocturnal voices of the jungle for a few brief seconds.
The black looked questioningly at his master. "You heard it, bwana?" he
asked. The white nodded. "What was it, bwana?"
"It sounded deucedly like a machine gun," replied Passmore. "It came
from south of us; but who the devil would be firing a machine gun here?
and why at night?"
"I do not know, bwana," replied the headman. "Shall I go and find out?"
"No," said the Englishman. "Perhaps tomorrow. We shall see. Go now, and
get your sleep."
"Yes, bwana; good night."
"Good night--and warn the askari on sentry duty to be watchful."
"Yes, bwana." The black bowed very low and backed from beneath the fly.
Then he moved silently away, the flickering flames of the cook fires
reflecting golden high lights from his smooth brown skin, beneath which
played the mighty muscles of a giant.
* * * * *
"This," remarked "Gunner" Patrick, "is the life. I ain't seen a cop for
weeks."
Lafayette Smith smiled. "If cops are the only things you fear, Danny,
your mind and your nerves can be at rest for several weeks more."
"What give you the idea I was afraid of cops?" demanded Danny. "I ain't
never seen the cop I was afraid of. They're a bunch of punks. Anyhow,
they ain't got nothin' on me. What a guy's got to look out for though
is they might frame a guy. But, geeze, out here a guy don't have to
worry about nothin'." He settled back easily in his camp chair and
exhaled a slowly spiraling column of cigarette smoke that rose lazily
in the soft night air of the jungle. "Geeze," he remarked after a brief
silence. "I didn't know a guy could feel so peaceful. Say, do you know
this is the first time in years I ain't packed a rod?"
"A what?"
"A rod, iron, a gat--you know--a gun."
"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" laughed Smith. "Why don't
you try talking English once in a while?"
"Geeze!" exclaimed Danny. "You're a great guy to talk about a guy
talkin' English. What's that you pulled on me the other day when we
was crossin' that open rollin' country? I learned that by heart--'a
country of low relief in an advanced stage of mature dissection'--an'
you talk about me talkin' English! You and your thrust faults and
escarpments, your calderas and solfataras--geeze!"
"Well, you're learning, Danny."
"Learnin' what? Every racket has its own lingo. What good is your line
to me? But every guy wants to know what a rod is--if he knows what's
good for his health."
"From what Ogonyo tells me it may be just as well to continue 'packing
your rod,'" said Smith.
"How come?"
"He says we're getting into lion country. We may even find them near
here. They don't often frequent jungles, but we're only about a day's
march to more open terrain."
"Whatever that is. Talk English. Geeze! What was that?" A series of
coughing grunts rose from somewhere in the solid black wall of jungle
that surrounded the camp, to be followed by a thunderous roar that
shook the earth.
"Simba!" cried one of the blacks, and immediately a half dozen men
hastened to add fuel to the fires.
"Gunner" Patrick leaped to his feet and ran into the tent, emerging a
moment later with a Thompson submachine gun. "T'ell with a rod," he
said. "When I get that baby on the spot I want a typewriter."
"Are you going to take him for a ride?" inquired Lafayette Smith, whose
education had progressed noticeably in the weeks he had spent in the
society of Danny "Gunner" Patrick.
"No," admitted Danny, "unless he tries to muscle in on my racket."
Once again the rumbling roar of the lion shattered the quiet of the
outer darkness. This time it sounded so close that both men started
nervously.
"He appears to be harboring the thought," commented Smith.
"What thought?" demanded the "Gunner."
"About muscling in."
"The smokes got the same hunch," said Danny. "Look at 'em."
The blacks were palpably terrified and were huddled close to the fires,
the askaris fingering the triggers of their rifles. The "Gunner" walked
over to where they stood straining their eyes out into the impenetrable
darkness.
"Where is he?" he asked Ogonyo, the headman. "Have you seen him?"
"Over there," said Ogonyo. "It looks like something moving over there,
bwana."
Danny peered into the darkness. He could see nothing, but now he
thought he heard a rustling of foliage beyond the fires. He dropped to
one knee and aimed the machine gun in the direction of the sound. There
was a burst of flame and the sudden rat-a-tat-tat of the weapon as he
squeezed the trigger. For a moment the ringing ears of the watchers
heard nothing, and then, as their auditory nerves returned to normal,
to the keenest ears among them came the sound of crashing among the
bushes, diminishing in the distance.
"I guess I nicked him," said Danny to Smith, who had walked over and
was standing behind him.
"You didn't kill him," said Smith. "You must have wounded him."
"Simba is not wounded, bwana," said Ogonyo.
"How do you know?" demanded Danny. "You can't see nothin' out there."
"If you had wounded him he would have charged," explained the headman.
"He ran away. It was the noise that frightened him."
"Do you think he will come back?" asked Smith.
"I do not know, bwana," replied the negro. "No one knows what Simba
will do."
"Of course he won't come back," said Danny. "The old typewriter scared
him stiff. I'm going to turn in."
Numa, the lion, was old and hungry. He had been hunting in the open
country; but his muscles, while still mighty, were not what they had
been in his prime. When he reared to seize Pacco, the zebra, or Wappi,
the antelope, he was always just a trifle slower than he had been in
the past; and his prey eluded him. So Numa, the lion, had wandered
into the jungle where the scent of man had attracted him to the camp.
The beast fires of the blacks blinded him; but, beyond them, his still
keen scent told him there was flesh and blood, and Numa, the lion, was
ravenous.
Slowly his hunger was overcoming his inherent urge to avoid the
man-things; little by little it drew him closer to the hated fires.
Crouched almost upon his belly he moved forward a few inches at a time.
In another moment he would charge--and then came the sudden burst of
flame, the shattering crash of the machine gun, the shriek of bullets
above his head.
The startling suddenness with which this unexpected tumult broke the
fear laden silence of the camp and the jungle snapped the taut nerves
of the great cat, and his reaction was quite as natural as it was
involuntary. Wheeling in his tracks, he bounded away into the forest.
The ears of Numa, the lion, were not the only jungle ears upon which
the discord of "Gunner" Patrick's typewriter impinged, for that
seeming solitude of impenetrable darkness harbored a myriad life. For
an instant it was motionless, startled into immobility; and then it
moved on again upon the multitudinous concerns of its varied existence.
Some, concerned by the strangeness of the noise, moved farther from the
vicinity of the camp of the man-things; but there was at least one that
curiosity attracted to closer investigation.
Gradually the camp was settling down for the night. The two bwanas
had retired to the seclusion of their tent. The blacks had partially
overcome their nervousness, and most of them had lain down to sleep. A
few watched the beast fires near which two askaris stood on guard, one
on either side of the camp.
Numa stood with low hung head out there, somewhere, in the night. The
tattoo of the machine gun had not appeased his appetite, but it had
added to his nervous irritability--and to his caution. No longer did he
rumble forth his coughing protests against the emptiness of his belly
as he watched the flames of the beast fires that now fed the flood of
his anger until it submerged his fears.
And as the camp drifted gradually into sleep the tawny body of the
carnivore slunk slowly closer to the dancing circle of the beast fires'
light. The yellow-green eyes stared in savage fixity at an unsuspecting
askari leaning sleepily upon his rifle.
The man yawned and shifted his position. He noted the condition of the
fire. It needed new fuel, and the black turned to the pile of branches
and dead wood behind him. As he stooped to gather what he required, his
back toward the jungle, Numa charged.
The great lion wished to strike swiftly and silently; but something
within him, the mark of the ages of charging forebears that had
preceded him, raised a low, ominous growl in his throat.
The victim heard and so did "Gunner" Patrick, lying sleepless on his
cot. As the askari wheeled to the menace of that awesome warning, the
"Gunner" leaped to his feet, seizing the Thompson as he sprang into the
open just as Numa rose, towering, above the black. A scream of terror
burst from the lips of the doomed man in the instant that the lion's
talons buried themselves in his shoulders. Then the giant jaws closed
upon his face.
The scream, fraught with the terror of utter hopelessness, awakened the
camp. Men, startled into terrified consciousness, sprang to their feet,
most of them in time to see Numa, half carrying, half dragging his
victim, bounding off into the darkness.
The "Gunner" was the first to see all this and the only one to act.
Without waiting to kneel he raised the machine gun to his shoulder.
That his bullets must indubitably find the man if they found the lion
was of no moment to Danny Patrick, intimate of sudden and violent
death. He might have argued that the man was already dead, but he
did not waste a thought upon a possibility which was, in any event,
of no consequence, so do environment and habitude warp or dull the
sensibilities of man.
The lion was still discernible in the darkness when Danny squeezed
the trigger of his beloved typewriter, and this time he did not
miss--perhaps unfortunately, for a wounded lion is as dangerous an
engine of destruction as an all wise Providence can create.
Aroused by the deafening noise of the weapon, enraged by the wound
inflicted by the single slug that entered his body, apprehending
that he was to be robbed of his prey, and bent upon swift and savage
reprisal, Numa dropped the askari, wheeled about, and charged straight
for Danny Patrick.
The "Gunner" was kneeling, now, to take better aim. Lafayette Smith
stood just behind him, armed only with a nickel plated .32 caliber
revolver that some friend had given him years before. A great tree
spread above the two men--a sanctuary that Lafayette Smith, at least,
should have sought, but his mind was not upon flight, for, in truth,
Lafayette was assailed by no fear for his own welfare or that of his
companion. He was excited, but not afraid, since he could conceive
of no disaster, in the form of man or beast, overwhelming one under
the protection of Danny Patrick and his submachine gun. And even in
the remote contingency that they should fail, was not he, himself,
adequately armed? He grasped the grip of his shiny toy more tightly and
with a renewed sensation of security.
The blacks, huddled in small groups, stood wide eyed awaiting the
outcome of the event, which was accomplished in a few brief seconds
from the instant that one of Danny's slugs struck the fleeing carnivore.
And now as the lion came toward him, not in bounds, but rather in
a low gliding rush of incredible speed, several things, surprising
things, occurred almost simultaneously. And if there was the element
of surprise, there was also, for Danny, at least one cause for
embarrassment.
As the lion had wheeled Danny had again squeezed the trigger. The
mechanism of the piece was set for a continuous discharge of bullets as
long as Danny continued to squeeze and the remainder of the one hundred
rounds in the drum lasted; but there was only a brief spurt of fire,
and then the gun jammed.
How may one record in slow moving words the thoughts and happenings of
a second and impart to the narration any suggestion of the speed and
action of the instant?
Did the "Gunner" seek, frantically, to remove the empty cartridge that
had caused the jam? Did terror enter his heart, causing his fingers to
tremble and bungle? What did Lafayette Smith do? Or rather what did he
contemplate doing? since he had no opportunity to do aught but stand
there, a silent observer of events. I do not know.
Before either could formulate a plan wherewith to meet the emergency, a
bronzed white man, naked but for a G string, dropped from the branches
of the tree above them directly into the path of the charging lion.
In the man's hand was a heavy spear, and as he alighted silently upon
the soft mold he was already braced to receive the shock of the lion's
charge upon the point of his weapon.
The impact of Numa's heavy body would have hurled a lesser man to
earth; but this one kept his feet, and the well placed thrust drove
into the carnivore's chest a full two feet, while in the same instant
the man stepped aside. Numa, intercepted before the completion of his
charge, had not yet reared to seize his intended victim. Now, surprised
and thwarted by this new enemy, while the other was almost within
his grasp, he was momentarily confused; and in that brief moment the
strange man-thing leaped upon his back. A giant arm encircled his
throat, legs of steel locked around his shrunken waist, and a stout
blade was driven into his side.
Spellbound, Smith and Patrick and their blacks stood staring
incredulously at the sight before them. They saw Numa turn quickly to
seize his tormentor. They saw him leap and bound and throw himself to
the ground in an effort to dislodge his opponent. They saw the free
hand of the man repeatedly drive home the point of his knife in the
tawny side of the raging lion.
From the tangled mass of man and lion there issued frightful snarls and
growls, the most terrifying element of which came to the two travellers
with the discovery that these bestial sounds issued not alone from the
savage throat of the lion but from that of the man as well.
The battle was brief, for the already sorely wounded animal had
received the spear thrust directly through its heart, only its
remarkable tenacity of life having permitted it to live for the few
seconds that intervened between the death blow and the collapse.
As Numa slumped suddenly to his side, the man leaped clear. For a
moment he stood looking down upon the death throes of his vanquished
foe, while Smith and Patrick remained in awestruck contemplation of the
savage, primordial scene; and then he stepped closer; and, placing one
foot upon the carcass of his kill, he raised his face to the heavens
and gave tongue to a cry so hideous that the black men dropped to the
ground in terror while the two whites felt the hair rise upon their
scalps.
Once again upon the jungle fell the silence and the paralysis of
momentary terror. Then faintly, from the far distance, came an
answering challenge. Somewhere out there in the black void of night a
bull ape, awakened, had answered the victory cry of his fellow. More
faintly, and from a greater distance, came the rumbling roar of a lion.
The stranger stooped and seized the haft of his spear. He placed a foot
against Numa's shoulder and withdrew the weapon from the carcass. Then
he turned toward the two white men. It was the first intimation he had
given that he had been aware of their presence.
"Geeze!" exclaimed "Gunner" Patrick, beyond which his vocabulary failed
to meet the situation.
The stranger surveyed them coolly. "Who are you?" he asked. "What are
you doing here?"
That he spoke English was both a surprise and a relief to Lafayette
Smith. Suddenly he seemed less terrifying. "I am a geologist," he
explained. "My name is Smith--Lafayette Smith--and my companion is
Mr. Patrick. I am here to conduct some field research work--purely a
scientific expedition."
The stranger pointed to the machine gun. "Is that part of the regular
field equipment of a geologist?" he asked.
"No," Smith replied, "and I'm sure I don't know why Mr. Patrick
insisted on bringing it along."
"I wasn't takin' no chances in a country full of strange smokes," said
the "Gunner." "Say, a broad I meets on the boats tells me some of these
smokes eats people."
"It would come in handy, perhaps, for hunting," suggested the stranger.
"A herd of antelope would make an excellent target for a weapon of that
sort."
"Geeze!" exclaimed the "Gunner," "wot do you think I am, Mister, a
butcher? I packs this for insurance only. It sure wasn't worth the
premium this time though," he added disgustedly; "jammed on me right
when I needed it the most. But say, you were there all right. I gotta
hand it to you. You're regular, Mister, and if I can ever return the
favor--" He made an expansive gesture that completed the sentence and
promised all that the most exacting might demand of a reciprocatory
nature.
The giant nodded. "Don't use it for hunting," he said, and then,
turning to Smith, "Where are you going to conduct your research?"
Suddenly a comprehending light shone in the eyes of the "Gunner," and
a pained expression settled definitely upon his face. "Geeze!" he
exclaimed disgusted to Smith. "I might of known it was too good to be
true."
"What?" asked Lafayette.
"What I said about there not bein' no cops here."
"Where are you going?" asked the stranger, again.
"We are going to the Ghenzi Mountains now," replied Smith.
"Say, who the hell are you, anyhow?" demanded the "Gunner," "and what
business is it of yours where we go?"
The stranger ignored him and turned again toward Smith. "Be very
careful in the Ghenzi country," he said. "There is a band of slave
raiders working there at present, I understand. If your men learn of it
they may desert you."
"Thanks," replied Smith. "It is very kind of you to warn us. I should
like to know to whom we are indebted," but the stranger was gone.
As mysteriously and silently as he had appeared, he swung again into
the tree above and disappeared. The two whites looked at one another in
amazement.
"Geeze," said Danny.
"I fully indorse your statement," said Smith.
"Say, Ogonyo," demanded the "Gunner," "who was that bozo? You or any of
your men know?"
"Yes, bwana," replied the headman, "that was Tarzan of the Apes."