Tambudza
Tarzan scooped a shallow grave for the Kincaid’s cook, beneath whose
repulsive exterior had beaten the heart of a chivalrous gentleman. That
was all he could do in the cruel jungle for the man who had given his
life in the service of his little son and his wife.
Then Tarzan took up again the pursuit of Rokoff. Now that he was
positive that the woman ahead of him was indeed Jane, and that she had
again fallen into the hands of the Russian, it seemed that with all the
incredible speed of his fleet and agile muscles he moved at but a
snail’s pace.
It was with difficulty that he kept the trail, for there were many
paths through the jungle at this point—crossing and crisscrossing,
forking and branching in all directions, and over them all had passed
natives innumerable, coming and going. The spoor of the white men was
obliterated by that of the native carriers who had followed them, and
over all was the spoor of other natives and of wild beasts.
It was most perplexing; yet Tarzan kept on assiduously, checking his
sense of sight against his sense of smell, that he might more surely
keep to the right trail. But, with all his care, night found him at a
point where he was positive that he was on the wrong trail entirely.
He knew that the pack would follow his spoor, and so he had been
careful to make it as distinct as possible, brushing often against the
vines and creepers that walled the jungle-path, and in other ways
leaving his scent-spoor plainly discernible.
As darkness settled a heavy rain set in, and there was nothing for the
baffled ape-man to do but wait in the partial shelter of a huge tree
until morning; but the coming of dawn brought no cessation of the
torrential downpour.
For a week the sun was obscured by heavy clouds, while violent rain and
wind storms obliterated the last remnants of the spoor Tarzan
constantly though vainly sought.
During all this time he saw no signs of natives, nor of his own pack,
the members of which he feared had lost his trail during the terrific
storm. As the country was strange to him, he had been unable to judge
his course accurately, since he had had neither sun by day nor moon nor
stars by night to guide him.
When the sun at last broke through the clouds in the fore-noon of the
seventh day, it looked down upon an almost frantic ape-man.
For the first time in his life, Tarzan of the Apes had been lost in the
jungle. That the experience should have befallen him at such a time
seemed cruel beyond expression. Somewhere in this savage land his wife
and son lay in the clutches of the arch-fiend Rokoff.
What hideous trials might they not have undergone during those seven
awful days that nature had thwarted him in his endeavours to locate
them? Tarzan knew the Russian, in whose power they were, so well that
he could not doubt but that the man, filled with rage that Jane had
once escaped him, and knowing that Tarzan might be close upon his
trail, would wreak without further loss of time whatever vengeance his
polluted mind might be able to conceive.
But now that the sun shone once more, the ape-man was still at a loss
as to what direction to take. He knew that Rokoff had left the river in
pursuit of Anderssen, but whether he would continue inland or return to
the Ugambi was a question.
The ape-man had seen that the river at the point he had left it was
growing narrow and swift, so that he judged that it could not be
navigable even for canoes to any great distance farther toward its
source. However, if Rokoff had not returned to the river, in what
direction had he proceeded?
From the direction of Anderssen’s flight with Jane and the child Tarzan
was convinced that the man had purposed attempting the tremendous feat
of crossing the continent to Zanzibar; but whether Rokoff would dare so
dangerous a journey or not was a question.
Fear might drive him to the attempt now that he knew the manner of
horrible pack that was upon his trail, and that Tarzan of the Apes was
following him to wreak upon him the vengeance that he deserved.
At last the ape-man determined to continue toward the northeast in the
general direction of German East Africa until he came upon natives from
whom he might gain information as to Rokoff’s whereabouts.
The second day following the cessation of the rain Tarzan came upon a
native village the inhabitants of which fled into the bush the instant
their eyes fell upon him. Tarzan, not to be thwarted in any such manner
as this, pursued them, and after a brief chase caught up with a young
warrior. The fellow was so badly frightened that he was unable to
defend himself, dropping his weapons and falling upon the ground,
wide-eyed and screaming as he gazed on his captor.
It was with considerable difficulty that the ape-man quieted the
fellow’s fears sufficiently to obtain a coherent statement from him as
to the cause of his uncalled-for terror.
From him Tarzan learned, by dint of much coaxing, that a party of
whites had passed through the village several days before. These men
had told them of a terrible white devil that pursued them, warning the
natives against it and the frightful pack of demons that accompanied
it.
The black had recognized Tarzan as the white devil from the
descriptions given by the whites and their black servants. Behind him
he had expected to see a horde of demons disguised as apes and
panthers.
In this Tarzan saw the cunning hand of Rokoff. The Russian was
attempting to make travel as difficult as possible for him by turning
the natives against him in superstitious fear.
The native further told Tarzan that the white man who had led the
recent expedition had promised them a fabulous reward if they would
kill the white devil. This they had fully intended doing should the
opportunity present itself; but the moment they had seen Tarzan their
blood had turned to water, as the porters of the white men had told
them would be the case.
Finding the ape-man made no attempt to harm him, the native at last
recovered his grasp upon his courage, and, at Tarzan’s suggestion,
accompanied the white devil back to the village, calling as he went for
his fellows to return also, as “the white devil has promised to do you
no harm if you come back right away and answer his questions.”
One by one the blacks straggled into the village, but that their fears
were not entirely allayed was evident from the amount of white that
showed about the eyes of the majority of them as they cast constant and
apprehensive sidelong glances at the ape-man.
The chief was among the first to return to the village, and as it was
he that Tarzan was most anxious to interview, he lost no time in
entering into a palaver with the black.
The fellow was short and stout, with an unusually low and degraded
countenance and apelike arms. His whole expression denoted
deceitfulness.
Only the superstitious terror engendered in him by the stories poured
into his ears by the whites and blacks of the Russian’s party kept him
from leaping upon Tarzan with his warriors and slaying him forthwith,
for he and his people were inveterate maneaters. But the fear that he
might indeed be a devil, and that out there in the jungle behind him
his fierce demons waited to do his bidding, kept M’ganwazam from
putting his desires into action.
Tarzan questioned the fellow closely, and by comparing his statements
with those of the young warrior he had first talked with he learned
that Rokoff and his safari were in terror-stricken retreat in the
direction of the far East Coast.
Many of the Russian’s porters had already deserted him. In that very
village he had hanged five for theft and attempted desertion. Judging,
however, from what the Waganwazam had learned from those of the
Russian’s blacks who were not too far gone in terror of the brutal
Rokoff to fear even to speak of their plans, it was apparent that he
would not travel any great distance before the last of his porters,
cooks, tent-boys, gun-bearers, askari, and even his headman, would have
turned back into the bush, leaving him to the mercy of the merciless
jungle.
M’ganwazam denied that there had been any white woman or child with the
party of whites; but even as he spoke Tarzan was convinced that he
lied. Several times the ape-man approached the subject from different
angles, but never was he successful in surprising the wily cannibal
into a direct contradiction of his original statement that there had
been no women or children with the party.
Tarzan demanded food of the chief, and after considerable haggling on
the part of the monarch succeeded in obtaining a meal. He then tried to
draw out others of the tribe, especially the young man whom he had
captured in the bush, but M’ganwazam’s presence sealed their lips.
At last, convinced that these people knew a great deal more than they
had told him concerning the whereabouts of the Russian and the fate of
Jane and the child, Tarzan determined to remain overnight among them in
the hope of discovering something further of importance.
When he had stated his decision to the chief he was rather surprised to
note the sudden change in the fellow’s attitude toward him. From
apparent dislike and suspicion M’ganwazam became a most eager and
solicitous host.
Nothing would do but that the ape-man should occupy the best hut in the
village, from which M’ganwazam’s oldest wife was forthwith summarily
ejected, while the chief took up his temporary abode in the hut of one
of his younger consorts.
Had Tarzan chanced to recall the fact that a princely reward had been
offered the blacks if they should succeed in killing him, he might have
more quickly interpreted M’ganwazam’s sudden change in front.
To have the white giant sleeping peacefully in one of his own huts
would greatly facilitate the matter of earning the reward, and so the
chief was urgent in his suggestions that Tarzan, doubtless being very
much fatigued after his travels, should retire early to the comforts of
the anything but inviting palace.
As much as the ape-man detested the thought of sleeping within a native
hut, he had determined to do so this night, on the chance that he might
be able to induce one of the younger men to sit and chat with him
before the fire that burned in the centre of the smoke-filled dwelling,
and from him draw the truths he sought. So Tarzan accepted the
invitation of old M’ganwazam, insisting, however, that he much
preferred sharing a hut with some of the younger men rather than
driving the chief’s old wife out in the cold.
The toothless old hag grinned her appreciation of this suggestion, and
as the plan still better suited the chief’s scheme, in that it would
permit him to surround Tarzan with a gang of picked assassins, he
readily assented, so that presently Tarzan had been installed in a hut
close to the village gate.
As there was to be a dance that night in honour of a band of recently
returned hunters, Tarzan was left alone in the hut, the young men, as
M’ganwazam explained, having to take part in the festivities.
As soon as the ape-man was safely installed in the trap, M’Ganwazam
called about him the young warriors whom he had selected to spend the
night with the white devil!
None of them was overly enthusiastic about the plan, since deep in
their superstitious hearts lay an exaggerated fear of the strange white
giant; but the word of M’ganwazam was law among his people, so not one
dared refuse the duty he was called upon to perform.
As M’ganwazam unfolded his plan in whispers to the savages squatting
about him the old, toothless hag, to whom Tarzan had saved her hut for
the night, hovered about the conspirators ostensibly to replenish the
supply of firewood for the blaze about which the men sat, but really to
drink in as much of their conversation as possible.
Tarzan had slept for perhaps an hour or two despite the savage din of
the revellers when his keen senses came suddenly alert to a
suspiciously stealthy movement in the hut in which he lay. The fire had
died down to a little heap of glowing embers, which accentuated rather
than relieved the darkness that shrouded the interior of the
evil-smelling dwelling, yet the trained senses of the ape-man warned
him of another presence creeping almost silently toward him through the
gloom.
He doubted that it was one of his hut mates returning from the
festivities, for he still heard the wild cries of the dancers and the
din of the tom-toms in the village street without. Who could it be that
took such pains to conceal his approach?
As the presence came within reach of him the ape-man bounded lightly to
the opposite side of the hut, his spear poised ready at his side.
“Who is it,” he asked, “that creeps upon Tarzan of the Apes, like a
hungry lion out of the darkness?”
“Silence, bwana!” replied an old cracked voice. “It is Tambudza—she
whose hut you would not take, and thus drive an old woman out into the
cold night.”
“What does Tambudza want of Tarzan of the Apes?” asked the ape-man.
“You were kind to me to whom none is now kind, and I have come to warn
you in payment of your kindness,” answered the old hag.
“Warn me of what?”
“M’ganwazam has chosen the young men who are to sleep in the hut with
you,” replied Tambudza. “I was near as he talked with them, and heard
him issuing his instructions to them. When the dance is run well into
the morning they are to come to the hut.
“If you are awake they are to pretend that they have come to sleep, but
if you sleep it is M’ganwazam’s command that you be killed. If you are
not then asleep they will wait quietly beside you until you do sleep,
and then they will all fall upon you together and slay you. M’ganwazam
is determined to win the reward the white man has offered.”
“I had forgotten the reward,” said Tarzan, half to himself, and then he
added, “How may M’ganwazam hope to collect the reward now that the
white men who are my enemies have left his country and gone he knows
not where?”
“Oh, they have not gone far,” replied Tambudza. “M’ganwazam knows where
they camp. His runners could quickly overtake them—they move slowly.”
“Where are they?” asked Tarzan.
“Do you wish to come to them?” asked Tambudza in way of reply.
Tarzan nodded.
“I cannot tell you where they lie so that you could come to the place
yourself, but I could lead you to them, bwana.”
In their interest in the conversation neither of the speakers had
noticed the little figure which crept into the darkness of the hut
behind them, nor did they see it when it slunk noiselessly out again.
It was little Buulaoo, the chief’s son by one of his younger wives—a
vindictive, degenerate little rascal who hated Tambudza, and was ever
seeking opportunities to spy upon her and report her slightest breach
of custom to his father.
“Come, then,” said Tarzan quickly, “let us be on our way.”
This Buulaoo did not hear, for he was already legging it up the village
street to where his hideous sire guzzled native beer, and watched the
evolutions of the frantic dancers leaping high in the air and cavorting
wildly in their hysterical capers.
So it happened that as Tarzan and Tambudza sneaked warily from the
village and melted into the Stygian darkness of the jungle two lithe
runners took their way in the same direction, though by another trail.
When they had come sufficiently far from the village to make it safe
for them to speak above a whisper, Tarzan asked the old woman if she
had seen aught of a white woman and a little child.
“Yes, bwana,” replied Tambudza, “there was a woman with them and a
little child—a little white piccaninny. It died here in our village of
the fever and they buried it!”