Mr. Harold Moore was a bilious-countenanced, studious young man. He
took himself very seriously, and life, and his work, which latter was
the tutoring of the young son of a British nobleman. He felt that his
charge was not making the progress that his parents had a right to
expect, and he was now conscientiously explaining this fact to the
boy’s mother.
“It’s not that he isn’t bright,” he was saying; “if that were true I
should have hopes of succeeding, for then I might bring to bear all my
energies in overcoming his obtuseness; but the trouble is that he is
exceptionally intelligent, and learns so quickly that I can find no
fault in the matter of the preparation of his lessons. What concerns
me, however, is the fact that he evidently takes no interest whatever
in the subjects we are studying. He merely accomplishes each lesson as
a task to be rid of as quickly as possible and I am sure that no lesson
ever again enters his mind until the hours of study and recitation once
more arrive. His sole interests seem to be feats of physical prowess
and the reading of everything that he can get hold of relative to
savage beasts and the lives and customs of uncivilized peoples; but
particularly do stories of animals appeal to him. He will sit for hours
together poring over the work of some African explorer, and upon two
occasions I have found him setting up in bed at night reading Carl
Hagenbeck’s book on men and beasts.”
The boy’s mother tapped her foot nervously upon the hearth rug.
“You discourage this, of course?” she ventured.
Mr. Moore shuffled embarrassedly.
“I—ah—essayed to take the book from him,” he replied, a slight flush
mounting his sallow cheek; “but—ah—your son is quite muscular for one
so young.”
“He wouldn’t let you take it?” asked the mother.
“He would not,” confessed the tutor. “He was perfectly good natured
about it; but he insisted upon pretending that he was a gorilla and
that I was a chimpanzee attempting to steal food from him. He leaped
upon me with the most savage growls I ever heard, lifted me completely
above his head, hurled me upon his bed, and after going through a
pantomime indicative of choking me to death he stood upon my prostrate
form and gave voice to a most fearsome shriek, which he explained was
the victory cry of a bull ape. Then he carried me to the door, shoved
me out into the hall and locked me from his room.”
For several minutes neither spoke again. It was the boy’s mother who
finally broke the silence.
“It is very necessary, Mr. Moore,” she said, “that you do everything in
your power to discourage this tendency in Jack, he—”; but she got no
further. A loud “Whoop!” from the direction of the window brought them
both to their feet. The room was upon the second floor of the house,
and opposite the window to which their attention had been attracted was
a large tree, a branch of which spread to within a few feet of the
sill. Upon this branch now they both discovered the subject of their
recent conversation, a tall, well-built boy, balancing with ease upon
the bending limb and uttering loud shouts of glee as he noted the
terrified expressions upon the faces of his audience.
The mother and tutor both rushed toward the window but before they had
crossed half the room the boy had leaped nimbly to the sill and entered
the apartment with them.
“‘The wild man from Borneo has just come to town,’” he sang, dancing a
species of war dance about his terrified mother and scandalized tutor,
and ending up by throwing his arms about the former’s neck and kissing
her upon either cheek.
“Oh, Mother,” he cried, “there’s a wonderful, educated ape being shown
at one of the music halls. Willie Grimsby saw it last night. He says it
can do everything but talk. It rides a bicycle, eats with knife and
fork, counts up to ten, and ever so many other wonderful things, and
can I go and see it too? Oh, please, Mother—please let me.”
Patting the boy’s cheek affectionately, the mother shook her head
negatively. “No, Jack,” she said; “you know I do not approve of such
exhibitions.”
“I don’t see why not, Mother,” replied the boy. “All the other fellows
go and they go to the Zoo, too, and you’ll never let me do even that.
Anybody’d think I was a girl—or a mollycoddle. Oh, Father,” he
exclaimed, as the door opened to admit a tall gray-eyed man. “Oh,
Father, can’t I go?”
“Go where, my son?” asked the newcomer.
“He wants to go to a music hall to see a trained ape,” said the mother,
looking warningly at her husband.
“Who, Ajax?” questioned the man.
The boy nodded.
“Well, I don’t know that I blame you, my son,” said the father, “I
wouldn’t mind seeing him myself. They say he is very wonderful, and
that for an anthropoid he is unusually large. Let’s all go, Jane—what
do you say?” And he turned toward his wife, but that lady only shook
her head in a most positive manner, and turning to Mr. Moore asked him
if it was not time that he and Jack were in the study for the morning
recitations. When the two had left she turned toward her husband.
“John,” she said, “something must be done to discourage Jack’s tendency
toward anything that may excite the cravings for the savage life which
I fear he has inherited from you. You know from your own experience how
strong is the call of the wild at times. You know that often it has
necessitated a stern struggle on your part to resist the almost insane
desire which occasionally overwhelms you to plunge once again into the
jungle life that claimed you for so many years, and at the same time
you know, better than any other, how frightful a fate it would be for
Jack, were the trail to the savage jungle made either alluring or easy
to him.”
“I doubt if there is any danger of his inheriting a taste for jungle
life from me,” replied the man, “for I cannot conceive that such a
thing may be transmitted from father to son. And sometimes, Jane, I
think that in your solicitude for his future you go a bit too far in
your restrictive measures. His love for animals—his desire, for
example, to see this trained ape—is only natural in a healthy, normal
boy of his age. Just because he wants to see Ajax is no indication that
he would wish to marry an ape, and even should he, far be it from you
Jane to have the right to cry ‘shame!’” and John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke, put an arm about his wife, laughing good-naturedly down into
her upturned face before he bent his head and kissed her. Then, more
seriously, he continued: “You have never told Jack anything concerning
my early life, nor have you permitted me to, and in this I think that
you have made a mistake. Had I been able to tell him of the experiences
of Tarzan of the Apes I could doubtless have taken much of the glamour
and romance from jungle life that naturally surrounds it in the minds
of those who have had no experience of it. He might then have profited
by my experience, but now, should the jungle lust ever claim him, he
will have nothing to guide him but his own impulses, and I know how
powerful these may be in the wrong direction at times.”
But Lady Greystoke only shook her head as she had a hundred other times
when the subject had claimed her attention in the past.
“No, John,” she insisted, “I shall never give my consent to the
implanting in Jack’s mind of any suggestion of the savage life which we
both wish to preserve him from.”
It was evening before the subject was again referred to and then it was
raised by Jack himself. He had been sitting, curled in a large chair,
reading, when he suddenly looked up and addressed his father.
“Why,” he asked, coming directly to the point, “can’t I go and see
Ajax?”
“Your mother does not approve,” replied his father.
“Do you?”
“That is not the question,” evaded Lord Greystoke. “It is enough that
your mother objects.”
“I am going to see him,” announced the boy, after a few moments of
thoughtful silence. “I am not different from Willie Grimsby, or any
other of the fellows who have been to see him. It did not harm them and
it will not harm me. I could go without telling you; but I would not do
that. So I tell you now, beforehand, that I am going to see Ajax.”
There was nothing disrespectful or defiant in the boy’s tone or manner.
His was merely a dispassionate statement of facts. His father could
scarce repress either a smile or a show of the admiration he felt for
the manly course his son had pursued.
“I admire your candor, Jack,” he said. “Permit me to be candid, as
well. If you go to see Ajax without permission, I shall punish you. I
have never inflicted corporal punishment upon you, but I warn you that
should you disobey your mother’s wishes in this instance, I shall.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the boy; and then: “I shall tell you, sir, when I
have been to see Ajax.”
Mr. Moore’s room was next to that of his youthful charge, and it was
the tutor’s custom to have a look into the boy’s each evening as the
former was about to retire. This evening he was particularly careful
not to neglect his duty, for he had just come from a conference with
the boy’s father and mother in which it had been impressed upon him
that he must exercise the greatest care to prevent Jack visiting the
music hall where Ajax was being shown. So, when he opened the boy’s
door at about half after nine, he was greatly excited, though not
entirely surprised to find the future Lord Greystoke fully dressed for
the street and about to crawl from his open bed room window.
Mr. Moore made a rapid spring across the apartment; but the waste of
energy was unnecessary, for when the boy heard him within the chamber
and realized that he had been discovered he turned back as though to
relinquish his planned adventure.
“Where were you going?” panted the excited Mr. Moore.
“I am going to see Ajax,” replied the boy, quietly.
“I am astonished,” cried Mr. Moore; but a moment later he was
infinitely more astonished, for the boy, approaching close to him,
suddenly seized him about the waist, lifted him from his feet and threw
him face downward upon the bed, shoving his face deep into a soft
pillow.
“Be quiet,” admonished the victor, “or I’ll choke you.”
Mr. Moore struggled; but his efforts were in vain. Whatever else Tarzan
of the Apes may or may not have handed down to his son he had at least
bequeathed him almost as marvelous a physique as he himself had
possessed at the same age. The tutor was as putty in the boy’s hands.
Kneeling upon him, Jack tore strips from a sheet and bound the man’s
hands behind his back. Then he rolled him over and stuffed a gag of the
same material between his teeth, securing it with a strip wound about
the back of his victim’s head. All the while he talked in a low,
conversational tone.
“I am Waja, chief of the Waji,” he explained, “and you are Mohammed
Dubn, the Arab sheik, who would murder my people and steal my ivory,”
and he dexterously trussed Mr. Moore’s hobbled ankles up behind to meet
his hobbled wrists. “Ah—ha! Villain! I have you in me power at last. I
go; but I shall return!” And the son of Tarzan skipped across the room,
slipped through the open window, and slid to liberty by way of the down
spout from an eaves trough.
Mr. Moore wriggled and struggled about the bed. He was sure that he
should suffocate unless aid came quickly. In his frenzy of terror he
managed to roll off the bed. The pain and shock of the fall jolted him
back to something like sane consideration of his plight. Where before
he had been unable to think intelligently because of the hysterical
fear that had claimed him he now lay quietly searching for some means
of escape from his dilemma. It finally occurred to him that the room in
which Lord and Lady Greystoke had been sitting when he left them was
directly beneath that in which he lay upon the floor. He knew that some
time had elapsed since he had come up stairs and that they might be
gone by this time, for it seemed to him that he had struggled about the
bed, in his efforts to free himself, for an eternity. But the best that
he could do was to attempt to attract attention from below, and so,
after many failures, he managed to work himself into a position in
which he could tap the toe of his boot against the floor. This he
proceeded to do at short intervals, until, after what seemed a very
long time, he was rewarded by hearing footsteps ascending the stairs,
and presently a knock upon the door. Mr. Moore tapped vigorously with
his toe—he could not reply in any other way. The knock was repeated
after a moment’s silence. Again Mr. Moore tapped. Would they never open
the door! Laboriously he rolled in the direction of succor. If he could
get his back against the door he could then tap upon its base, when
surely he must be heard. The knocking was repeated a little louder, and
finally a voice called: “Mr. Jack!”
It was one of the house men—Mr. Moore recognized the fellow’s voice. He
came near to bursting a blood vessel in an endeavor to scream “come in”
through the stifling gag. After a moment the man knocked again, quite
loudly and again called the boy’s name. Receiving no reply he turned
the knob, and at the same instant a sudden recollection filled the
tutor anew with numbing terror—he had, himself, locked the door behind
him when he had entered the room.
He heard the servant try the door several times and then depart. Upon
which Mr. Moore swooned.
In the meantime Jack was enjoying to the full the stolen pleasures of
the music hall. He had reached the temple of mirth just as Ajax’s act
was commencing, and having purchased a box seat was now leaning
breathlessly over the rail watching every move of the great ape, his
eyes wide in wonder. The trainer was not slow to note the boy’s
handsome, eager face, and as one of Ajax’s biggest hits consisted in an
entry to one or more boxes during his performance, ostensibly in search
of a long-lost relative, as the trainer explained, the man realized the
effectiveness of sending him into the box with the handsome boy, who,
doubtless, would be terror stricken by proximity to the shaggy,
powerful beast.
When the time came, therefore, for the ape to return from the wings in
reply to an encore the trainer directed its attention to the boy who
chanced to be the sole occupant of the box in which he sat. With a
spring the huge anthropoid leaped from the stage to the boy’s side; but
if the trainer had looked for a laughable scene of fright he was
mistaken. A broad smile lighted the boy’s features as he laid his hand
upon the shaggy arm of his visitor. The ape, grasping the boy by either
shoulder, peered long and earnestly into his face, while the latter
stroked his head and talked to him in a low voice.
Never had Ajax devoted so long a time to an examination of another as
he did in this instance. He seemed troubled and not a little excited,
jabbering and mumbling to the boy, and now caressing him, as the
trainer had never seen him caress a human being before. Presently he
clambered over into the box with him and snuggled down close to the
boy’s side. The audience was delighted; but they were still more
delighted when the trainer, the period of his act having elapsed,
attempted to persuade Ajax to leave the box. The ape would not budge.
The manager, becoming excited at the delay, urged the trainer to
greater haste, but when the latter entered the box to drag away the
reluctant Ajax he was met by bared fangs and menacing growls.
The audience was delirious with joy. They cheered the ape. They cheered
the boy, and they hooted and jeered at the trainer and the manager,
which luckless individual had inadvertently shown himself and attempted
to assist the trainer.
Finally, reduced to desperation and realizing that this show of mutiny
upon the part of his valuable possession might render the animal
worthless for exhibition purposes in the future if not immediately
subdued, the trainer had hastened to his dressing room and procured a
heavy whip. With this he now returned to the box; but when he had
threatened Ajax with it but once he found himself facing two infuriated
enemies instead of one, for the boy had leaped to his feet, and seizing
a chair was standing ready at the ape’s side to defend his new found
friend. There was no longer a smile upon his handsome face. In his gray
eyes was an expression which gave the trainer pause, and beside him
stood the giant anthropoid growling and ready.
What might have happened, but for a timely interruption, may only be
surmised; but that the trainer would have received a severe mauling, if
nothing more, was clearly indicated by the attitudes of the two who
faced him.
It was a pale-faced man who rushed into the Greystoke library to
announce that he had found Jack’s door locked and had been able to
obtain no response to his repeated knocking and calling other than a
strange tapping and the sound of what might have been a body moving
about upon the floor.
Four steps at a time John Clayton took the stairs that led to the floor
above. His wife and the servant hurried after him. Once he called his
son’s name in a loud voice; but receiving no reply he launched his
great weight, backed by all the undiminished power of his giant
muscles, against the heavy door. With a snapping of iron butts and a
splintering of wood the obstacle burst inward.
At its foot lay the body of the unconscious Mr. Moore, across whom it
fell with a resounding thud. Through the opening leaped Tarzan, and a
moment later the room was flooded with light from a dozen electric
bulbs.
It was several minutes before the tutor was discovered, so completely
had the door covered him; but finally he was dragged forth, his gag and
bonds cut away, and a liberal application of cold water had hastened
returning consciousness.
“Where is Jack?” was John Clayton’s first question, and then; “Who did
this?” as the memory of Rokoff and the fear of a second abduction
seized him.
Slowly Mr. Moore staggered to his feet. His gaze wandered about the
room. Gradually he collected his scattered wits. The details of his
recent harrowing experience returned to him.
“I tender my resignation, sir, to take effect at once,” were his first
words. “You do not need a tutor for your son—what he needs is a wild
animal trainer.”
“But where is he?” cried Lady Greystoke.
“He has gone to see Ajax.”
It was with difficulty that Tarzan restrained a smile, and after
satisfying himself that the tutor was more scared than injured, he
ordered his closed car around and departed in the direction of a
certain well-known music hall.