Meriem returned slowly toward the tree in which she had left her skirt,
her shoes and her stockings. She was singing blithely; but her song
came to a sudden stop when she came within sight of the tree, for
there, disporting themselves with glee and pulling and hauling upon her
belongings, were a number of baboons. When they saw her they showed no
signs of terror. Instead they bared their fangs and growled at her.
What was there to fear in a single she-Tarmangani? Nothing, absolutely
nothing.
In the open plain beyond the forest the hunters were returning from the
day’s sport. They were widely separated, hoping to raise a wandering
lion on the homeward journey across the plain. The Hon. Morison Baynes
rode closest to the forest. As his eyes wandered back and forth across
the undulating, shrub sprinkled ground they fell upon the form of a
creature close beside the thick jungle where it terminated abruptly at
the plain’s edge.
He reined his mount in the direction of his discovery. It was yet too
far away for his untrained eyes to recognize it; but as he came closer
he saw that it was a horse, and was about to resume the original
direction of his way when he thought that he discerned a saddle upon
the beast’s back. He rode a little closer. Yes, the animal was saddled.
The Hon. Morison approached yet nearer, and as he did so his eyes
expressed a pleasurable emotion of anticipation, for they had now
recognized the pony as the special favorite of Meriem.
He galloped to the animal’s side. Meriem must be within the wood. The
man shuddered a little at the thought of an unprotected girl alone in
the jungle that was still, to him, a fearful place of terrors and
stealthily stalking death. He dismounted and left his horse beside
Meriem’s. On foot he entered the jungle. He knew that she was probably
safe enough and he wished to surprise her by coming suddenly upon her.
He had gone but a short distance into the wood when he heard a great
jabbering in a near-by tree. Coming closer he saw a band of baboons
snarling over something. Looking intently he saw that one of them held
a woman’s riding skirt and that others had boots and stockings. His
heart almost ceased to beat as he quite naturally placed the most
direful explanation upon the scene. The baboons had killed Meriem and
stripped this clothing from her body. Morison shuddered.
He was about to call aloud in the hope that after all the girl still
lived when he saw her in a tree close beside that was occupied by the
baboons, and now he saw that they were snarling and jabbering at her.
To his amazement he saw the girl swing, ape-like, into the tree below
the huge beasts. He saw her pause upon a branch a few feet from the
nearest baboon. He was about to raise his rifle and put a bullet
through the hideous creature that seemed about to leap upon her when he
heard the girl speak. He almost dropped his rifle from surprise as a
strange jabbering, identical with that of the apes, broke from Meriem’s
lips.
The baboons stopped their snarling and listened. It was quite evident
that they were as much surprised as the Hon. Morison Baynes. Slowly and
one by one they approached the girl. She gave not the slightest
evidence of fear of them. They quite surrounded her now so that Baynes
could not have fired without endangering the girl’s life; but he no
longer desired to fire. He was consumed with curiosity.
For several minutes the girl carried on what could be nothing less than
a conversation with the baboons, and then with seeming alacrity every
article of her apparel in their possession was handed over to her. The
baboons still crowded eagerly about her as she donned them. They
chattered to her and she chattered back. The Hon. Morison Baynes sat
down at the foot of a tree and mopped his perspiring brow. Then he rose
and made his way back to his mount.
When Meriem emerged from the forest a few minutes later she found him
there, and he eyed her with wide eyes in which were both wonder and a
sort of terror.
“I saw your horse here,” he explained, “and thought that I would wait
and ride home with you—you do not mind?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “It will be lovely.”
As they made their way stirrup to stirrup across the plain the Hon.
Morison caught himself many times watching the girl’s regular profile
and wondering if his eyes had deceived him or if, in truth, he really
had seen this lovely creature consorting with grotesque baboons and
conversing with them as fluently as she conversed with him. The thing
was uncanny—impossible; yet he had seen it with his own eyes.
And as he watched her another thought persisted in obtruding itself
into his mind. She was most beautiful and very desirable; but what did
he know of her? Was she not altogether impossible? Was the scene that
he had but just witnessed not sufficient proof of her impossibility? A
woman who climbed trees and conversed with the baboons of the jungle!
It was quite horrible!
Again the Hon. Morison mopped his brow. Meriem glanced toward him.
“You are warm,” she said. “Now that the sun is setting I find it quite
cool. Why do you perspire now?”
He had not intended to let her know that he had seen her with the
baboons; but quite suddenly, before he realized what he was saying, he
had blurted it out.
“I perspire from emotion,” he said. “I went into the jungle when I
discovered your pony. I wanted to surprise you; but it was I who was
surprised. I saw you in the trees with the baboons.”
“Yes?” she said quite unemotionally, as though it was a matter of
little moment that a young girl should be upon intimate terms with
savage jungle beasts.
“It was horrible!” ejaculated the Hon. Morison.
“Horrible?” repeated Meriem, puckering her brows in bewilderment. “What
was horrible about it? They are my friends. Is it horrible to talk with
one’s friends?”
“You were really talking with them, then?” cried the Hon. Morison. “You
understood them and they understood you?”
“Certainly.”
“But they are hideous creatures—degraded beasts of a lower order. How
could you speak the language of beasts?”
“They are not hideous, and they are not degraded,” replied Meriem.
“Friends are never that. I lived among them for years before Bwana
found me and brought me here. I scarce knew any other tongue than that
of the mangani. Should I refuse to know them now simply because I
happen, for the present, to live among humans?”
“For the present!” ejaculated the Hon. Morison. “You cannot mean that
you expect to return to live among them? Come, come, what foolishness
are we talking! The very idea! You are spoofing me, Miss Meriem. You
have been kind to these baboons here and they know you and do not
molest you; but that you once lived among them—no, that is
preposterous.”
“But I did, though,” insisted the girl, seeing the real horror that the
man felt in the presence of such an idea reflected in his tone and
manner, and rather enjoying baiting him still further. “Yes, I lived,
almost naked, among the great apes and the lesser apes. I dwelt among
the branches of the trees. I pounced upon the smaller prey and devoured
it—raw. With Korak and A’ht I hunted the antelope and the boar, and I
sat upon a tree limb and made faces at Numa, the lion, and threw sticks
at him and annoyed him until he roared so terribly in his rage that the
earth shook.
“And Korak built me a lair high among the branches of a mighty tree. He
brought me fruits and flesh. He fought for me and was kind to me—until
I came to Bwana and My Dear I do not recall that any other than Korak
was ever kind to me.” There was a wistful note in the girl’s voice now
and she had forgotten that she was bantering the Hon. Morison. She was
thinking of Korak. She had not thought of him a great deal of late.
For a time both were silently absorbed in their own reflections as they
rode on toward the bungalow of their host. The girl was thinking of a
god-like figure, a leopard skin half concealing his smooth, brown hide
as he leaped nimbly through the trees to lay an offering of food before
her on his return from a successful hunt. Behind him, shaggy and
powerful, swung a huge anthropoid ape, while she, Meriem, laughing and
shouting her welcome, swung upon a swaying limb before the entrance to
her sylvan bower. It was a pretty picture as she recalled it. The other
side seldom obtruded itself upon her memory—the long, black nights—the
chill, terrible jungle nights—the cold and damp and discomfort of the
rainy season—the hideous mouthings of the savage carnivora as they
prowled through the Stygian darkness beneath—the constant menace of
Sheeta, the panther, and Histah, the snake—the stinging insects—the
loathesome vermin. For, in truth, all these had been outweighed by the
happiness of the sunny days, the freedom of it all, and, most, the
companionship of Korak.
The man’s thoughts were rather jumbled. He had suddenly realized that
he had come mighty near falling in love with this girl of whom he had
known nothing up to the previous moment when she had voluntarily
revealed a portion of her past to him. The more he thought upon the
matter the more evident it became to him that he had given her his
love—that he had been upon the verge of offering her his honorable
name. He trembled a little at the narrowness of his escape. Yet, he
still loved her. There was no objection to that according to the ethics
of the Hon. Morison Baynes and his kind. She was a meaner clay than he.
He could no more have taken her in marriage than he could have taken
one of her baboon friends, nor would she, of course, expect such an
offer from him. To have his love would be sufficient honor for her—his
name he would, naturally, bestow upon one in his own elevated social
sphere.
A girl who had consorted with apes, who, according to her own
admission, had lived almost naked among them, could have no
considerable sense of the finer qualities of virtue. The love that he
would offer her, then, would, far from offending her, probably cover
all that she might desire or expect.
The more the Hon. Morison Baynes thought upon the subject the more
fully convinced he became that he was contemplating a most chivalrous
and unselfish act. Europeans will better understand his point of view
than Americans, poor, benighted provincials, who are denied a true
appreciation of caste and of the fact that “the king can do no wrong.”
He did not even have to argue the point that she would be much happier
amidst the luxuries of a London apartment, fortified as she would be by
both his love and his bank account, than lawfully wed to such a one as
her social position warranted. There was one question however, which he
wished to have definitely answered before he committed himself even to
the program he was considering.
“Who were Korak and A’ht?” he asked.
“A’ht was a Mangani,” replied Meriem, “and Korak a Tarmangani.”
“And what, pray, might a Mangani be, and a Tarmangani?”
The girl laughed.
“You are a Tarmangani,” she replied. “The Mangani are covered with
hair—you would call them apes.”
“Then Korak was a white man?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And he was—ah—your—er—your—?” He paused, for he found it rather
difficult to go on with that line of questioning while the girl’s
clear, beautiful eyes were looking straight into his.
“My what?” insisted Meriem, far too unsophisticated in her unspoiled
innocence to guess what the Hon. Morison was driving at.
“Why—ah—your brother?” he stumbled.
“No, Korak was not my brother,” she replied.
“Was he your husband, then?” he finally blurted.
Far from taking offense, Meriem broke into a merry laugh.
“My husband!” she cried. “Why how old do you think I am? I am too young
to have a husband. I had never thought of such a thing. Korak
was—why—,” and now she hesitated, too, for she never before had
attempted to analyse the relationship that existed between herself and
Korak—“why, Korak was just Korak,” and again she broke into a gay laugh
as she realized the illuminating quality of her description.
Looking at her and listening to her the man beside her could not
believe that depravity of any sort or degree entered into the girl’s
nature, yet he wanted to believe that she had not been virtuous, for
otherwise his task was less a sinecure—the Hon. Morison was not
entirely without conscience.
For several days the Hon. Morison made no appreciable progress toward
the consummation of his scheme. Sometimes he almost abandoned it for he
found himself time and again wondering how slight might be the
provocation necessary to trick him into making a bona-fide offer of
marriage to Meriem if he permitted himself to fall more deeply in love
with her, and it was difficult to see her daily and not love her. There
was a quality about her which, all unknown to the Hon. Morison, was
making his task an extremely difficult one—it was that quality of
innate goodness and cleanness which is a good girl’s stoutest bulwark
and protection—an impregnable barrier that only degeneracy has the
effrontery to assail. The Hon. Morison Baynes would never be considered
a degenerate.
He was sitting with Meriem upon the verandah one evening after the
others had retired. Earlier they had been playing tennis—a game in
which the Hon. Morison shone to advantage, as, in truth, he did in most
all manly sports. He was telling Meriem stories of London and Paris, of
balls and banquets, of the wonderful women and their wonderful gowns,
of the pleasures and pastimes of the rich and powerful. The Hon.
Morison was a past master in the art of insidious boasting. His egotism
was never flagrant or tiresome—he was never crude in it, for crudeness
was a plebeianism that the Hon. Morison studiously avoided, yet the
impression derived by a listener to the Hon. Morison was one that was
not at all calculated to detract from the glory of the house of Baynes,
or from that of its representative.
Meriem was entranced. His tales were like fairy stories to this little
jungle maid. The Hon. Morison loomed large and wonderful and
magnificent in her mind’s eye. He fascinated her, and when he drew
closer to her after a short silence and took her hand she thrilled as
one might thrill beneath the touch of a deity—a thrill of exaltation
not unmixed with fear.
He bent his lips close to her ear.
“Meriem!” he whispered. “My little Meriem! May I hope to have the right
to call you ‘my little Meriem’?”
The girl turned wide eyes upward to his face; but it was in shadow. She
trembled but she did not draw away. The man put an arm about her and
drew her closer.
“I love you!” he whispered.
She did not reply. She did not know what to say. She knew nothing of
love. She had never given it a thought; but she did know that it was
very nice to be loved, whatever it meant. It was nice to have people
kind to one. She had known so little of kindness or affection.
“Tell me,” he said, “that you return my love.”
His lips came steadily closer to hers. They had almost touched when a
vision of Korak sprang like a miracle before her eyes. She saw Korak’s
face close to hers, she felt his lips hot against hers, and then for
the first time in her life she guessed what love meant. She drew away,
gently.
“I am not sure,” she said, “that I love you. Let us wait. There is
plenty of time. I am too young to marry yet, and I am not sure that I
should be happy in London or Paris—they rather frighten me.”
How easily and naturally she had connected his avowal of love with the
idea of marriage! The Hon. Morison was perfectly sure that he had not
mentioned marriage—he had been particularly careful not to do so. And
then she was not sure that she loved him! That, too, came rather in the
nature of a shock to his vanity. It seemed incredible that this little
barbarian should have any doubts whatever as to the desirability of the
Hon. Morison Baynes.
The first flush of passion cooled, the Hon. Morison was enabled to
reason more logically. The start had been all wrong. It would be better
now to wait and prepare her mind gradually for the only proposition
which his exalted estate would permit him to offer her. He would go
slow. He glanced down at the girl’s profile. It was bathed in the
silvery light of the great tropic moon. The Hon. Morison Baynes
wondered if it were to be so easy a matter to “go slow.” She was most
alluring.
Meriem rose. The vision of Korak was still before her.
“Good night,” she said. “It is almost too beautiful to leave,” she
waved her hand in a comprehensive gesture which took in the starry
heavens, the great moon, the broad, silvered plain, and the dense
shadows in the distance, that marked the jungle. “Oh, how I love it!”
“You would love London more,” he said earnestly. “And London would love
you. You would be a famous beauty in any capital of Europe. You would
have the world at your feet, Meriem.”
“Good night!” she repeated, and left him.
The Hon. Morison selected a cigarette from his crested case, lighted
it, blew a thin line of blue smoke toward the moon, and smiled.