The Dance of Death
Through the luxuriant, tangled vegetation of the Stygian jungle night a
great lithe body made its way sinuously and in utter silence upon its
soft padded feet. Only two blazing points of yellow-green flame shone
occasionally with the reflected light of the equatorial moon that now
and again pierced the softly sighing roof rustling in the night wind.
Occasionally the beast would stop with high-held nose, sniffing
searchingly. At other times a quick, brief incursion into the branches
above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To
its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender
four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger to the cruel,
drooping jowl.
But steadfastly it kept on its way, strangely ignoring the cravings of
appetite that at another time would have sent the rolling, fur-clad
muscles flying at some soft throat.
All that night the creature pursued its lonely way, and the next day it
halted only to make a single kill, which it tore to fragments and
devoured with sullen, grumbling rumbles as though half famished for
lack of food.
It was dusk when it approached the palisade that surrounded a large
native village. Like the shadow of a swift and silent death it circled
the village, nose to ground, halting at last close to the palisade,
where it almost touched the backs of several huts. Here the beast
sniffed for a moment, and then, turning its head upon one side,
listened with up-pricked ears.
What it heard was no sound by the standards of human ears, yet to the
highly attuned and delicate organs of the beast a message seemed to be
borne to the savage brain. A wondrous transformation was wrought in the
motionless mass of statuesque bone and muscle that had an instant
before stood as though carved out of the living bronze.
As if it had been poised upon steel springs, suddenly released, it rose
quickly and silently to the top of the palisade, disappearing,
stealthily and cat-like, into the dark space between the wall and the
back of an adjacent hut.
In the village street beyond women were preparing many little fires and
fetching cooking-pots filled with water, for a great feast was to be
celebrated ere the night was many hours older. About a stout stake near
the centre of the circling fires a little knot of black warriors stood
conversing, their bodies smeared with white and blue and ochre in broad
and grotesque bands. Great circles of colour were drawn about their
eyes and lips, their breasts and abdomens, and from their
clay-plastered coiffures rose gay feathers and bits of long, straight
wire.
The village was preparing for the feast, while in a hut at one side of
the scene of the coming orgy the bound victim of their bestial
appetites lay waiting for the end. And such an end!
Tarzan of the Apes, tensing his mighty muscles, strained at the bonds
that pinioned him; but they had been re-enforced many times at the
instigation of the Russian, so that not even the ape-man’s giant brawn
could budge them.
Death!
Tarzan had looked the Hideous Hunter in the face many a time, and
smiled. And he would smile again tonight when he knew the end was
coming quickly; but now his thoughts were not of himself, but of those
others—the dear ones who must suffer most because of his passing.
Jane would never know the manner of it. For that he thanked Heaven; and
he was thankful also that she at least was safe in the heart of the
world’s greatest city. Safe among kind and loving friends who would do
their best to lighten her misery.
But the boy!
Tarzan writhed at the thought of him. His son! And now he—the mighty
Lord of the Jungle—he, Tarzan, King of the Apes, the only one in all
the world fitted to find and save the child from the horrors that
Rokoff’s evil mind had planned—had been trapped like a silly, dumb
creature. He was to die in a few hours, and with him would go the
child’s last chance of succour.
Rokoff had been in to see and revile and abuse him several times during
the afternoon; but he had been able to wring no word of remonstrance or
murmur of pain from the lips of the giant captive.
So at last he had given up, reserving his particular bit of exquisite
mental torture for the last moment, when, just before the savage spears
of the cannibals should for ever make the object of his hatred immune
to further suffering, the Russian planned to reveal to his enemy the
true whereabouts of his wife whom he thought safe in England.
Dusk had fallen upon the village, and the ape-man could hear the
preparations going forward for the torture and the feast. The dance of
death he could picture in his mind’s eye—for he had seen the thing many
times in the past. Now he was to be the central figure, bound to the
stake.
The torture of the slow death as the circling warriors cut him to bits
with the fiendish skill, that mutilated without bringing
unconsciousness, had no terrors for him. He was inured to suffering and
to the sight of blood and to cruel death; but the desire to live was no
less strong within him, and until the last spark of life should flicker
and go out, his whole being would remain quick with hope and
determination. Let them relax their watchfulness but for an instant, he
knew that his cunning mind and giant muscles would find a way to
escape—escape and revenge.
As he lay, thinking furiously on every possibility of self-salvation,
there came to his sensitive nostrils a faint and a familiar scent.
Instantly every faculty of his mind was upon the alert. Presently his
trained ears caught the sound of the soundless presence without—behind
the hut wherein he lay. His lips moved, and though no sound came forth
that might have been appreciable to a human ear beyond the walls of his
prison, yet he realized that the one beyond would hear. Already he knew
who that one was, for his nostrils had told him as plainly as your eyes
or mine tell us of the identity of an old friend whom we come upon in
broad daylight.
An instant later he heard the soft sound of a fur-clad body and padded
feet scaling the outer wall behind the hut and then a tearing at the
poles which formed the wall. Presently through the hole thus made slunk
a great beast, pressing its cold muzzle close to his neck.
It was Sheeta, the panther.
The beast snuffed round the prostrate man, whining a little. There was
a limit to the interchange of ideas which could take place between
these two, and so Tarzan could not be sure that Sheeta understood all
that he attempted to communicate to him. That the man was tied and
helpless Sheeta could, of course, see; but that to the mind of the
panther this would carry any suggestion of harm in so far as his master
was concerned, Tarzan could not guess.
What had brought the beast to him? The fact that he had come augured
well for what he might accomplish; but when Tarzan tried to get Sheeta
to gnaw his bonds asunder the great animal could not seem to understand
what was expected of him, and, instead, but licked the wrists and arms
of the prisoner.
Presently there came an interruption. Some one was approaching the hut.
Sheeta gave a low growl and slunk into the blackness of a far corner.
Evidently the visitor did not hear the warning sound, for almost
immediately he entered the hut—a tall, naked, savage warrior.
He came to Tarzan’s side and pricked him with a spear. From the lips of
the ape-man came a weird, uncanny sound, and in answer to it there
leaped from the blackness of the hut’s farthermost corner a bolt of
fur-clad death. Full upon the breast of the painted savage the great
beast struck, burying sharp talons in the black flesh and sinking great
yellow fangs in the ebon throat.
There was a fearful scream of anguish and terror from the black, and
mingled with it was the hideous challenge of the killing panther. Then
came silence—silence except for the rending of bloody flesh and the
crunching of human bones between mighty jaws.
The noise had brought sudden quiet to the village without. Then there
came the sound of voices in consultation.
High-pitched, fear-filled voices, and deep, low tones of authority, as
the chief spoke. Tarzan and the panther heard the approaching footsteps
of many men, and then, to Tarzan’s surprise, the great cat rose from
across the body of its kill, and slunk noiselessly from the hut through
the aperture through which it had entered.
The man heard the soft scraping of the body as it passed over the top
of the palisade, and then silence. From the opposite side of the hut he
heard the savages approaching to investigate.
He had little hope that Sheeta would return, for had the great cat
intended to defend him against all comers it would have remained by his
side as it heard the approaching savages without.
Tarzan knew how strange were the workings of the brains of the mighty
carnivora of the jungle—how fiendishly fearless they might be in the
face of certain death, and again how timid upon the slightest
provocation. There was doubt in his mind that some note of the
approaching blacks vibrating with fear had struck an answering chord in
the nervous system of the panther, sending him slinking through the
jungle, his tail between his legs.
The man shrugged. Well, what of it? He had expected to die, and, after
all, what might Sheeta have done for him other than to maul a couple of
his enemies before a rifle in the hands of one of the whites should
have dispatched him!
If the cat could have released him! Ah! that would have resulted in a
very different story; but it had proved beyond the understanding of
Sheeta, and now the beast was gone and Tarzan must definitely abandon
hope.
The natives were at the entrance to the hut now, peering fearfully into
the dark interior. Two in advance held lighted torches in their left
hands and ready spears in their right. They held back timorously
against those behind, who were pushing them forward.
The shrieks of the panther’s victim, mingled with those of the great
cat, had wrought mightily upon their poor nerves, and now the awful
silence of the dark interior seemed even more terribly ominous than had
the frightful screaming.
Presently one of those who was being forced unwillingly within hit upon
a happy scheme for learning first the precise nature of the danger
which menaced him from the silent interior. With a quick movement he
flung his lighted torch into the centre of the hut. Instantly all
within was illuminated for a brief second before the burning brand was
dashed out against the earth floor.
There was the figure of the white prisoner still securely bound as they
had last seen him, and in the centre of the hut another figure equally
as motionless, its throat and breasts horribly torn and mangled.
The sight that met the eyes of the foremost savages inspired more
terror within their superstitious breasts than would the presence of
Sheeta, for they saw only the result of a ferocious attack upon one of
their fellows.
Not seeing the cause, their fear-ridden minds were free to attribute
the ghastly work to supernatural causes, and with the thought they
turned, screaming, from the hut, bowling over those who stood directly
behind them in the exuberance of their terror.
For an hour Tarzan heard only the murmur of excited voices from the far
end of the village. Evidently the savages were once more attempting to
work up their flickering courage to a point that would permit them to
make another invasion of the hut, for now and then came a savage yell,
such as the warriors give to bolster up their bravery upon the field of
battle.
But in the end it was two of the whites who first entered, carrying
torches and guns. Tarzan was not surprised to discover that neither of
them was Rokoff. He would have wagered his soul that no power on earth
could have tempted that great coward to face the unknown menace of the
hut.
When the natives saw that the white men were not attacked they, too,
crowded into the interior, their voices hushed with terror as they
looked upon the mutilated corpse of their comrade. The whites tried in
vain to elicit an explanation from Tarzan; but to all their queries he
but shook his head, a grim and knowing smile curving his lips.
At last Rokoff came.
His face grew very white as his eyes rested upon the bloody thing
grinning up at him from the floor, the face set in a death mask of
excruciating horror.
“Come!” he said to the chief. “Let us get to work and finish this demon
before he has an opportunity to repeat this thing upon more of your
people.”
The chief gave orders that Tarzan should be lifted and carried to the
stake; but it was several minutes before he could prevail upon any of
his men to touch the prisoner.
At last, however, four of the younger warriors dragged Tarzan roughly
from the hut, and once outside the pall of terror seemed lifted from
the savage hearts.
A score of howling blacks pushed and buffeted the prisoner down the
village street and bound him to the post in the centre of the circle of
little fires and boiling cooking-pots.
When at last he was made fast and seemed quite helpless and beyond the
faintest hope of succour, Rokoff’s shrivelled wart of courage swelled
to its usual proportions when danger was not present.
He stepped close to the ape-man, and, seizing a spear from the hands of
one of the savages, was the first to prod the helpless victim. A little
stream of blood trickled down the giant’s smooth skin from the wound in
his side; but no murmur of pain passed his lips.
The smile of contempt upon his face seemed to infuriate the Russian.
With a volley of oaths he leaped at the helpless captive, beating him
upon the face with his clenched fists and kicking him mercilessly about
the legs.
Then he raised the heavy spear to drive it through the mighty heart,
and still Tarzan of the Apes smiled contemptuously upon him.
Before Rokoff could drive the weapon home the chief sprang upon him and
dragged him away from his intended victim.
“Stop, white man!” he cried. “Rob us of this prisoner and our
death-dance, and you yourself may have to take his place.”
The threat proved most effective in keeping the Russian from further
assaults upon the prisoner, though he continued to stand a little apart
and hurl taunts at his enemy. He told Tarzan that he himself was going
to eat the ape-man’s heart. He enlarged upon the horrors of the future
life of Tarzan’s son, and intimated that his vengeance would reach as
well to Jane Clayton.
“You think your wife safe in England,” said Rokoff. “Poor fool! She is
even now in the hands of one not even of decent birth, and far from the
safety of London and the protection of her friends. I had not meant to
tell you this until I could bring to you upon Jungle Island proof of
her fate.
“Now that you are about to die the most unthinkably horrid death that
it is given a white man to die—let this word of the plight of your wife
add to the torments that you must suffer before the last savage
spear-thrust releases you from your torture.”
The dance had commenced now, and the yells of the circling warriors
drowned Rokoff’s further attempts to distress his victim.
The leaping savages, the flickering firelight playing upon their
painted bodies, circled about the victim at the stake.
To Tarzan’s memory came a similar scene, when he had rescued D’Arnot
from a like predicament at the last moment before the final
spear-thrust should have ended his sufferings. Who was there now to
rescue him? In all the world there was none able to save him from the
torture and the death.
The thought that these human fiends would devour him when the dance was
done caused him not a single qualm of horror or disgust. It did not add
to his sufferings as it would have to those of an ordinary white man,
for all his life Tarzan had seen the beasts of the jungle devour the
flesh of their kills.
Had he not himself battled for the grisly forearm of a great ape at
that long-gone Dum-Dum, when he had slain the fierce Tublat and won his
niche in the respect of the Apes of Kerchak?
The dancers were leaping more closely to him now. The spears were
commencing to find his body in the first torturing pricks that prefaced
the more serious thrusts.
It would not be long now. The ape-man longed for the last savage lunge
that would end his misery.
And then, far out in the mazes of the weird jungle, rose a shrill
scream.
For an instant the dancers paused, and in the silence of the interval
there rose from the lips of the fast-bound white man an answering
shriek, more fearsome and more terrible than that of the jungle-beast
that had roused it.
For several minutes the blacks hesitated; then, at the urging of Rokoff
and their chief, they leaped in to finish the dance and the victim; but
ere ever another spear touched the brown hide a tawny streak of
green-eyed hate and ferocity bounded from the door of the hut in which
Tarzan had been imprisoned, and Sheeta, the panther, stood snarling
beside his master.
For an instant the blacks and the whites stood transfixed with terror.
Their eyes were riveted upon the bared fangs of the jungle cat.
Only Tarzan of the Apes saw what else there was emerging from the dark
interior of the hut.