As the trainer, with raised lash, hesitated an instant at the entrance
to the box where the boy and the ape confronted him, a tall
broad-shouldered man pushed past him and entered. As his eyes fell upon
the newcomer a slight flush mounted the boy’s cheeks.
“Father!” he exclaimed.
The ape gave one look at the English lord, and then leaped toward him,
calling out in excited jabbering. The man, his eyes going wide in
astonishment, stopped as though turned to stone.
“Akut!” he cried.
The boy looked, bewildered, from the ape to his father, and from his
father to the ape. The trainer’s jaw dropped as he listened to what
followed, for from the lips of the Englishman flowed the gutturals of
an ape that were answered in kind by the huge anthropoid that now clung
to him.
And from the wings a hideously bent and disfigured old man watched the
tableau in the box, his pock-marked features working spasmodically in
varying expressions that might have marked every sensation in the gamut
from pleasure to terror.
“Long have I looked for you, Tarzan,” said Akut. “Now that I have found
you I shall come to your jungle and live there always.”
The man stroked the beast’s head. Through his mind there was running
rapidly a train of recollection that carried him far into the depths of
the primeval African forest where this huge, man-like beast had fought
shoulder to shoulder with him years before. He saw the black Mugambi
wielding his deadly knob-stick, and beside them, with bared fangs and
bristling whiskers, Sheeta the terrible; and pressing close behind the
savage and the savage panther, the hideous apes of Akut. The man
sighed. Strong within him surged the jungle lust that he had thought
dead. Ah! if he could go back even for a brief month of it, to feel
again the brush of leafy branches against his naked hide; to smell the
musty rot of dead vegetation—frankincense and myrrh to the jungle born;
to sense the noiseless coming of the great carnivora upon his trail; to
hunt and to be hunted; to kill! The picture was alluring. And then came
another picture—a sweet-faced woman, still young and beautiful;
friends; a home; a son. He shrugged his giant shoulders.
“It cannot be, Akut,” he said; “but if you would return, I shall see
that it is done. You could not be happy here—I may not be happy there.”
The trainer stepped forward. The ape bared his fangs, growling.
“Go with him, Akut,” said Tarzan of the Apes. “I will come and see you
tomorrow.”
The beast moved sullenly to the trainer’s side. The latter, at John
Clayton’s request, told where they might be found. Tarzan turned toward
his son.
“Come!” he said, and the two left the theater. Neither spoke for
several minutes after they had entered the limousine. It was the boy
who broke the silence.
“The ape knew you,” he said, “and you spoke together in the ape’s
tongue. How did the ape know you, and how did you learn his language?”
And then, briefly and for the first time, Tarzan of the Apes told his
son of his early life—of the birth in the jungle, of the death of his
parents, and of how Kala, the great she ape had suckled and raised him
from infancy almost to manhood. He told him, too, of the dangers and
the horrors of the jungle; of the great beasts that stalked one by day
and by night; of the periods of drought, and of the cataclysmic rains;
of hunger; of cold; of intense heat; of nakedness and fear and
suffering. He told him of all those things that seem most horrible to
the creature of civilization in the hope that the knowledge of them
might expunge from the lad’s mind any inherent desire for the jungle.
Yet they were the very things that made the memory of the jungle what
it was to Tarzan—that made up the composite jungle life he loved. And
in the telling he forgot one thing—the principal thing—that the boy at
his side, listening with eager ears, was the son of Tarzan of the Apes.
After the boy had been tucked away in bed—and without the threatened
punishment—John Clayton told his wife of the events of the evening, and
that he had at last acquainted the boy with the facts of his jungle
life. The mother, who had long foreseen that her son must some time
know of those frightful years during which his father had roamed the
jungle, a naked, savage beast of prey, only shook her head, hoping
against hope that the lure she knew was still strong in the father’s
breast had not been transmitted to his son.
Tarzan visited Akut the following day, but though Jack begged to be
allowed to accompany him he was refused. This time Tarzan saw the
pock-marked old owner of the ape, whom he did not recognize as the wily
Paulvitch of former days. Tarzan, influenced by Akut’s pleadings,
broached the question of the ape’s purchase; but Paulvitch would not
name any price, saying that he would consider the matter.
When Tarzan returned home Jack was all excitement to hear the details
of his visit, and finally suggested that his father buy the ape and
bring it home. Lady Greystoke was horrified at the suggestion. The boy
was insistent. Tarzan explained that he had wished to purchase Akut and
return him to his jungle home, and to this the mother assented. Jack
asked to be allowed to visit the ape, but again he was met with flat
refusal. He had the address, however, which the trainer had given his
father, and two days later he found the opportunity to elude his new
tutor—who had replaced the terrified Mr. Moore—and after a considerable
search through a section of London which he had never before visited,
he found the smelly little quarters of the pock-marked old man. The old
fellow himself replied to his knocking, and when he stated that he had
come to see Ajax, opened the door and admitted him to the little room
which he and the great ape occupied. In former years Paulvitch had been
a fastidious scoundrel; but ten years of hideous life among the
cannibals of Africa had eradicated the last vestige of niceness from
his habits. His apparel was wrinkled and soiled. His hands were
unwashed, his few straggling locks uncombed. His room was a jumble of
filthy disorder. As the boy entered he saw the great ape squatting upon
the bed, the coverlets of which were a tangled wad of filthy blankets
and ill-smelling quilts. At sight of the youth the ape leaped to the
floor and shuffled forward. The man, not recognizing his visitor and
fearing that the ape meant mischief, stepped between them, ordering the
ape back to the bed.
“He will not hurt me,” cried the boy. “We are friends, and before, he
was my father’s friend. They knew one another in the jungle. My father
is Lord Greystoke. He does not know that I have come here. My mother
forbid my coming; but I wished to see Ajax, and I will pay you if you
will let me come here often and see him.”
At the mention of the boy’s identity Paulvitch’s eyes narrowed. Since
he had first seen Tarzan again from the wings of the theater there had
been forming in his deadened brain the beginnings of a desire for
revenge. It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attribute
to others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness,
and so now it was that Alexis Paulvitch was slowly recalling the events
of his past life and as he did so laying at the door of the man whom he
and Rokoff had so assiduously attempted to ruin and murder all the
misfortunes that had befallen him in the failure of their various
schemes against their intended victim.
He saw at first no way in which he could, with safety to himself, wreak
vengeance upon Tarzan through the medium of Tarzan’s son; but that
great possibilities for revenge lay in the boy was apparent to him, and
so he determined to cultivate the lad in the hope that fate would play
into his hands in some way in the future. He told the boy all that he
knew of his father’s past life in the jungle and when he found that the
boy had been kept in ignorance of all these things for so many years,
and that he had been forbidden visiting the zoological gardens; that he
had had to bind and gag his tutor to find an opportunity to come to the
music hall and see Ajax, he guessed immediately the nature of the great
fear that lay in the hearts of the boy’s parents—that he might crave
the jungle as his father had craved it.
And so Paulvitch encouraged the boy to come and see him often, and
always he played upon the lad’s craving for tales of the savage world
with which Paulvitch was all too familiar. He left him alone with Akut
much, and it was not long until he was surprised to learn that the boy
could make the great beast understand him—that he had actually learned
many of the words of the primitive language of the anthropoids.
During this period Tarzan came several times to visit Paulvitch. He
seemed anxious to purchase Ajax, and at last he told the man frankly
that he was prompted not only by a desire upon his part to return the
beast to the liberty of his native jungle; but also because his wife
feared that in some way her son might learn the whereabouts of the ape
and through his attachment for the beast become imbued with the roving
instinct which, as Tarzan explained to Paulvitch, had so influenced his
own life.
The Russian could scarce repress a smile as he listened to Lord
Greystoke’s words, since scarce a half hour had passed since the time
the future Lord Greystoke had been sitting upon the disordered bed
jabbering away to Ajax with all the fluency of a born ape.
It was during this interview that a plan occurred to Paulvitch, and as
a result of it he agreed to accept a certain fabulous sum for the ape,
and upon receipt of the money to deliver the beast to a vessel that was
sailing south from Dover for Africa two days later. He had a double
purpose in accepting Clayton’s offer. Primarily, the money
consideration influenced him strongly, as the ape was no longer a
source of revenue to him, having consistently refused to perform upon
the stage after having discovered Tarzan. It was as though the beast
had suffered himself to be brought from his jungle home and exhibited
before thousands of curious spectators for the sole purpose of
searching out his long lost friend and master, and, having found him,
considered further mingling with the common herd of humans unnecessary.
However that may be, the fact remained that no amount of persuasion
could influence him even to show himself upon the music hall stage, and
upon the single occasion that the trainer attempted force the results
were such that the unfortunate man considered himself lucky to have
escaped with his life. All that saved him was the accidental presence
of Jack Clayton, who had been permitted to visit the animal in the
dressing room reserved for him at the music hall, and had immediately
interfered when he saw that the savage beast meant serious mischief.
And after the money consideration, strong in the heart of the Russian
was the desire for revenge, which had been growing with constant
brooding over the failures and miseries of his life, which he
attributed to Tarzan; the latest, and by no means the least, of which
was Ajax’s refusal to longer earn money for him. The ape’s refusal he
traced directly to Tarzan, finally convincing himself that the ape man
had instructed the great anthropoid to refuse to go upon the stage.
Paulvitch’s naturally malign disposition was aggravated by the
weakening and warping of his mental and physical faculties through
torture and privation. From cold, calculating, highly intelligent
perversity it had deteriorated into the indiscriminating, dangerous
menace of the mentally defective. His plan, however, was sufficiently
cunning to at least cast a doubt upon the assertion that his mentality
was wandering. It assured him first of the competence which Lord
Greystoke had promised to pay him for the deportation of the ape, and
then of revenge upon his benefactor through the son he idolized. That
part of his scheme was crude and brutal—it lacked the refinement of
torture that had marked the master strokes of the Paulvitch of old,
when he had worked with that virtuoso of villainy, Nikolas Rokoff—but
it at least assured Paulvitch of immunity from responsibility, placing
that upon the ape, who would thus also be punished for his refusal
longer to support the Russian.
Everything played with fiendish unanimity into Paulvitch’s hands. As
chance would have it, Tarzan’s son overheard his father relating to the
boy’s mother the steps he was taking to return Akut safely to his
jungle home, and having overheard he begged them to bring the ape home
that he might have him for a play-fellow. Tarzan would not have been
averse to this plan; but Lady Greystoke was horrified at the very
thought of it. Jack pleaded with his mother; but all unavailingly. She
was obdurate, and at last the lad appeared to acquiesce in his mother’s
decision that the ape must be returned to Africa and the boy to school,
from which he had been absent on vacation.
He did not attempt to visit Paulvitch’s room again that day, but
instead busied himself in other ways. He had always been well supplied
with money, so that when necessity demanded he had no difficulty in
collecting several hundred pounds. Some of this money he invested in
various strange purchases which he managed to smuggle into the house,
undetected, when he returned late in the afternoon.
The next morning, after giving his father time to precede him and
conclude his business with Paulvitch, the lad hastened to the Russian’s
room. Knowing nothing of the man’s true character the boy dared not
take him fully into his confidence for fear that the old fellow would
not only refuse to aid him, but would report the whole affair to his
father. Instead, he simply asked permission to take Ajax to Dover. He
explained that it would relieve the old man of a tiresome journey, as
well as placing a number of pounds in his pocket, for the lad purposed
paying the Russian well.
“You see,” he went on, “there will be no danger of detection since I am
supposed to be leaving on an afternoon train for school. Instead I will
come here after they have left me on board the train. Then I can take
Ajax to Dover, you see, and arrive at school only a day late. No one
will be the wiser, no harm will be done, and I shall have had an extra
day with Ajax before I lose him forever.”
The plan fitted perfectly with that which Paulvitch had in mind. Had he
known what further the boy contemplated he would doubtless have
entirely abandoned his own scheme of revenge and aided the boy whole
heartedly in the consummation of the lad’s, which would have been
better for Paulvitch, could he have but read the future but a few short
hours ahead.
That afternoon Lord and Lady Greystoke bid their son good-bye and saw
him safely settled in a first-class compartment of the railway carriage
that would set him down at school in a few hours. No sooner had they
left him, however, than he gathered his bags together, descended from
the compartment and sought a cab stand outside the station. Here he
engaged a cabby to take him to the Russian’s address. It was dusk when
he arrived. He found Paulvitch awaiting him. The man was pacing the
floor nervously. The ape was tied with a stout cord to the bed. It was
the first time that Jack had ever seen Ajax thus secured. He looked
questioningly at Paulvitch. The man, mumbling, explained that he
believed the animal had guessed that he was to be sent away and he
feared he would attempt to escape.
Paulvitch carried another piece of cord in his hand. There was a noose
in one end of it which he was continually playing with. He walked back
and forth, up and down the room. His pock-marked features were working
horribly as he talked silent to himself. The boy had never seen him
thus—it made him uneasy. At last Paulvitch stopped on the opposite side
of the room, far from the ape.
“Come here,” he said to the lad. “I will show you how to secure the ape
should he show signs of rebellion during the trip.”
The lad laughed. “It will not be necessary,” he replied. “Ajax will do
whatever I tell him to do.”
The old man stamped his foot angrily. “Come here, as I tell you,” he
repeated. “If you do not do as I say you shall not accompany the ape to
Dover—I will take no chances upon his escaping.”
Still smiling, the lad crossed the room and stood before the Russ.
“Turn around, with your back toward me,” directed the latter, “that I
may show you how to bind him quickly.”
The boy did as he was bid, placing his hands behind him when Paulvitch
told him to do so. Instantly the old man slipped the running noose over
one of the lad’s wrists, took a couple of half hitches about his other
wrist, and knotted the cord.
The moment that the boy was secured the attitude of the man changed.
With an angry oath he wheeled his prisoner about, tripped him and
hurled him violently to the floor, leaping upon his breast as he fell.
From the bed the ape growled and struggled with his bonds. The boy did
not cry out—a trait inherited from his savage sire whom long years in
the jungle following the death of his foster mother, Kala the great
ape, had taught that there was none to come to the succor of the
fallen.
Paulvitch’s fingers sought the lad’s throat. He grinned down horribly
into the face of his victim.
“Your father ruined me,” he mumbled. “This will pay him. He will think
that the ape did it. I will tell him that the ape did it. That I left
him alone for a few minutes, and that you sneaked in and the ape killed
you. I will throw your body upon the bed after I have choked the life
from you, and when I bring your father he will see the ape squatting
over it,” and the twisted fiend cackled in gloating laughter. His
fingers closed upon the boy’s throat.
Behind them the growling of the maddened beast reverberated against the
walls of the little room. The boy paled, but no other sign of fear or
panic showed upon his countenance. He was the son of Tarzan. The
fingers tightened their grip upon his throat. It was with difficulty
that he breathed, gaspingly. The ape lunged against the stout cord that
held him. Turning, he wrapped the cord about his hands, as a man might
have done, and surged heavily backward. The great muscles stood out
beneath his shaggy hide. There was a rending as of splintered wood—the
cord held, but a portion of the footboard of the bed came away.
At the sound Paulvitch looked up. His hideous face went white with
terror—the ape was free.
With a single bound the creature was upon him. The man shrieked. The
brute wrenched him from the body of the boy. Great fingers sunk into
the man’s flesh. Yellow fangs gaped close to his throat—he struggled,
futilely—and when they closed, the soul of Alexis Paulvitch passed into
the keeping of the demons who had long been awaiting it.
The boy struggled to his feet, assisted by Akut. For two hours under
the instructions of the former the ape worked upon the knots that
secured his friend’s wrists. Finally they gave up their secret, and the
boy was free. Then he opened one of his bags and drew forth some
garments. His plans had been well made. He did not consult the beast,
which did all that he directed. Together they slunk from the house, but
no casual observer might have noted that one of them was an ape.