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TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN
[Illustration]
TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN
by
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
[Illustration: Decoration]
This book, while produced under
wartime conditions, in full compliance
with government regulations
for the conservation of paper
and other essential materials, is
Complete and Unabridged
[Illustration: Decoration]
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1924, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Copyrighted in Great Britain
Made in the United States of America
TARZAN
AND THE ANT MEN
Tarzan and the Ant Men
CHAPTER I
In the filth of a dark hut, in the village of Obebe the cannibal, upon
the banks of the Ugogo, Esteban Miranda squatted upon his haunches and
gnawed upon the remnants of a half-cooked fish. About his neck was an
iron slave collar from which a few feet of rusty chain ran to a stout
post set deep in the ground near the low entranceway that let upon the
village street not far from the hut of Obebe himself.
For a year Esteban Miranda had been chained thus, like a dog, and like
a dog he sometimes crawled through the low doorway of his kennel and
basked in the sun outside. Two diversions had he; and only two. One
was the persistent idea that he was Tarzan of the Apes, whom he had
impersonated for so long and with such growing success that, like the
good actor he was, he had come not only to act the part, but to live
it--to _be_ it. He _was_, as far as he was concerned, Tarzan of the
Apes--there was no other--and he was Tarzan of the Apes to Obebe, too;
but the village witch doctor still insisted that he was the river
devil and as such, one to propitiate rather than to anger.
It had been this difference of opinion between the chief and the
witch doctor that had kept Esteban Miranda from the flesh pots of the
village, for Obebe had wanted to eat him, thinking him his old enemy
the ape-man; but the witch doctor had aroused the superstitious fears
of the villagers by half convincing them that their prisoner was the
river devil masquerading as Tarzan, and, as such, dire disaster would
descend upon the village were he harmed. The result of this difference
between Obebe and the witch doctor had been to preserve the life of
the Spaniard until the truth of one claim or the other was proved--if
Esteban died a natural death he was Tarzan, the mortal, and Obebe
the chief was vindicated; if he lived on forever, or mysteriously
disappeared, the claim of the witch doctor would be accepted as gospel.
After he had learned their language and thus come to a realization of
the accident of fate that had guided his destiny by so narrow a margin
from the cooking pots of the cannibals he was less eager to proclaim
himself Tarzan of the Apes. Instead he let drop mysterious suggestions
that he was, indeed, none other than the river devil. The witch doctor
was delighted, and everyone was fooled except Obebe, who was old and
wise and did not believe in river devils, and the witch doctor who was
old and wise and did not believe in them either, but realized that they
were excellent things for his parishioners to believe in.
Esteban Miranda's other diversion, aside from secretly believing
himself Tarzan, consisted in gloating over the bag of diamonds that
Kraski the Russian had stolen from the ape-man, and that had fallen
into the Spaniard's hands after he had murdered Kraski--the same bag of
diamonds that the old man had handed to Tarzan in the vaults beneath
The Tower of Diamonds, in the Valley of The Palace of Diamonds, when he
had rescued the Gomangani of the valley from the tyrannical oppression
of the Bolgani.
For hours at a time Esteban Miranda sat in the dim light of his dirty
kennel counting and fondling the brilliant stones. A thousand times
had he weighed each one in an appraising palm, computing its value and
translating it into such pleasures of the flesh as great wealth might
buy for him in the capitals of the world. Mired in his own filth,
feeding upon rotted scraps tossed to him by unclean hands, he yet
possessed the wealth of a Croesus, and it was as Croesus he lived in
his imaginings, his dismal hut changed into the pomp and circumstance
of a palace by the scintillant gleams of the precious stones. At the
sound of each approaching footstep he would hastily hide his fabulous
fortune in the wretched loin cloth that was his only garment, and once
again become a prisoner in a cannibal hut.
And now, after a year of solitary confinement, came a third diversion,
in the form of Uhha, the daughter of Khamis the witch doctor. Uhha
was fourteen, comely and curious. For a year now she had watched the
mysterious prisoner from a distance until, at last, familiarity had
overcome her fears and one day she approached him as he lay in the
sun outside his hut. Esteban, who had been watching her half-timorous
advance, smiled encouragingly. He had not a friend among the villagers.
If he could make but one his lot would be much the easier and freedom a
step nearer. At last Uhha came to a halt a few steps from him. She was
a child, ignorant and a savage; but she was a woman-child and Esteban
Miranda knew women.
"I have been in the village of the chief Obebe for a year," he said
haltingly, in the laboriously acquired language of his captors, "but
never before did I guess that its walls held one so beautiful as you.
What is your name?"
Uhha was pleased. She smiled broadly. "I am Uhha," she told him. "My
father is Khamis the witch doctor."
It was Esteban who was pleased now. Fate, after rebuffing him for long,
was at last kind. She had sent to him one who, with cultivation, might
prove a flower of hope indeed.
"Why have you never come to see me before?" asked Esteban.
"I was afraid," replied Uhha simply.
"Why?"
"I was afraid--" she hesitated.
"Afraid that I was the river devil and would harm you?" demanded the
Spaniard, smiling.
"Yes," she said.
"Listen!" whispered Esteban; "but tell no one. I am the river devil,
but I shall not harm you."
"If you are the river devil why then do you remain chained to a stake?"
inquired Uhha. "Why do you not change yourself to something else and
return to the river?"
"You wonder about that, do you?" asked Miranda, sparring for time that
he might concoct a plausible answer.
"It is not only Uhha who wonders," said the girl. "Many others have
asked the same question of late. Obebe asked it first and there was
none to explain. Obebe says that you are Tarzan, the enemy of Obebe and
his people; but my father Khamis says that you are the river devil,
and that if you wanted to get away you would change yourself into a
snake and crawl through the iron collar that is about your neck. And
the people wonder why you do not, and many of them are commencing to
believe that you are not the river devil at all."
"Come closer, beautiful Uhha," whispered Miranda, "that no other ears
than yours may hear what I am about to tell you."
The girl came a little closer and leaned toward him where he squatted
upon the ground.
"I am indeed the river devil," said Esteban, "and I come and go as I
wish. At night, when the village sleeps, I am wandering through the
waters of the Ugogo, but always I come back again. I am waiting, Uhha,
to try the people of the village of Obebe that I may know which are my
friends and which my enemies. Already have I learned that Obebe is no
friend of mine, and I am not sure of Khamis. Had Khamis been a good
friend he would have brought me fine food and beer to drink. I could
go when I pleased, but I wait to see if there be one in the village of
Obebe who will set me free. Thus may I learn which is my best friend.
Should there be such a one, Uhha, fortune would smile upon him always,
his every wish would be granted and he would live to a great age, for
he would have nothing to fear from the river devil, who would help him
in all his undertakings. But listen, Uhha, tell no one what I have told
you! I shall wait a little longer, and then if there be no such friend
in the village of Obebe I shall return to my father and mother, the
Ugogo, and destroy the people of Obebe. Not one shall remain alive."
The girl drew away, terrified. It was evident that she was much
impressed.
"Do not be afraid," he reassured her. "I shall not harm you."
"But if you destroy all the people?" she demanded.
"Then, of course," he said, "I cannot help you; but let us hope that
someone comes and sets me free so that I shall know that I have at
least one good friend here. Now run along, Uhha, and remember that you
must tell no one what I have told you."
She moved off a short distance and then returned.
"When will you destroy the village?" she asked.
"In a few days," he said.
Uhha, trembling with terror, ran quickly away in the direction of the
hut of her father, Khamis, the witch doctor. Esteban Miranda smiled
a satisfied smile and crawled back into his hole to play with his
diamonds.
Khamis the witch doctor was not in his hut when Uhha his daughter,
faint from fright, crawled into the dim interior. Nor were his wives.
With their children, the latter were in the fields beyond the palisade,
where Uhha should have been. And so it was that the girl had time for
thought before she saw any of them again, with the result that she
recalled distinctly, what she had almost forgotten in the first frenzy
of fear, that the river devil had impressed upon her that she must
reveal to no one the thing that he had told her.
And she had been upon the point of telling her father all! What dire
calamity then would have befallen her? She trembled at the very
suggestion of a fate so awful that she could not even imagine it. How
close a call she had had! But what was she to do?
She lay huddled upon a mat of woven grasses, racking her poor, savage
little brain for a solution of the immense problem that confronted
her--the first problem that had ever entered her young life other
than the constantly recurring one of how most easily to evade her
share of the drudgery of the fields. Presently she sat suddenly erect,
galvanized into statuesque rigidity by a thought engendered by the
recollection of one of the river devil's remarks. Why had it not
occurred to her before? Very plainly he had said, and he had repeated
it, that if he were released he would know that he had at least one
friend in the village of Obebe, and that whoever released him would
live to a great age and have every thing he wished for; but after a few
minutes of thought Uhha drooped again. How was she, a little girl, to
compass the liberation of the river devil alone?
"How, _baba_," she asked her father, when he had returned to the hut,
later in the day, "does the river devil destroy those who harm him?"
"As the fish in the river, so are the ways of the river devil--without
number," replied Khamis. "He might send the fish from the river and the
game from the jungle and cause our crops to die. Then we should starve.
He might bring the fire out of the sky at night and strike dead all the
people of Obebe."
"And you think he may do these things to us, _baba_?"
"He will not harm Khamis, who saved him from the death that Obebe would
have inflicted," replied the witch doctor.
Uhha recalled that the river devil had complained that Khamis had
not brought him good food nor beer, but she said nothing about that,
although she realized that her father was far from being so high in the
good graces of the river devil as he seemed to think he was. Instead,
she took another tack.
"How can he escape," she asked, "while the collar is about his
neck--who will remove it for him?"
"No one can remove it but Obebe, who carries in his pouch the bit of
brass that makes the collar open," replied Khamis; "but the river devil
needs no help, for when the time comes that he wishes to be free he has
but to become a snake and crawl forth from the iron band about his
neck. Where are you going, Uhha?"
"I am going to visit the daughter of Obebe," she called back over her
shoulder.
The chief's daughter was grinding maize, as Uhha should have been
doing. She looked up and smiled as the daughter of the witch doctor
approached.
"Make no noise, Uhha," she cautioned, "for Obebe, my father, sleeps
within." She nodded toward the hut. The visitor sat down and the two
girls chatted in low tones. They spoke of their ornaments, their
coiffures, of the young men of the village, and often, when they spoke
of these, they giggled. Their conversation was not unlike that which
might pass between two young girls of any race or clime. As they
talked, Uhha's eyes often wandered toward the entrance to Obebe's hut
and many times her brows were contracted in much deeper thought than
their idle passages warranted.
"Where," she demanded suddenly, "is the armlet of copper wire that your
father's brother gave you at the beginning of the last moon?"
Obebe's daughter shrugged. "He took it back from me," she replied, "and
gave it to the sister of his youngest wife."
Uhha appeared crest-fallen. Could it be that she had coveted the copper
bracelet? Her eyes closely scrutinized the person of her friend. Her
brows almost met, so deeply was she thinking. Suddenly her face
brightened.
"The necklace of many beads that your father took from the body of the
warrior captured for the last feast!" she exclaimed. "You have not lost
it?"
"No," replied her friend. "It is in the house of my father. When I
grind maize it gets in my way and so I laid it aside."
"May I see it?" asked Uhha. "I will fetch it."
"No, you will awaken Obebe and he will be very angry," said the chief's
daughter.
"I will not awaken him," replied Uhha, and started to crawl toward the
hut's entrance.
Her friend tried to dissuade her. "I will fetch it as soon as _baba_
has awakened," she told Uhha, but Uhha paid no attention to her and
presently was crawling cautiously into the interior of the hut. Once
within she waited silently until her eyes became accustomed to the dim
light. Against the opposite wall of the hut Obebe lay sprawled upon a
sleeping mat. He snored lustily. Uhha crept toward him. Her stealth
was the stealth of Sheeta the leopard. Her heart was beating like the
tom-tom when the dance is at its height. She feared that its noise and
her rapid breathing would awaken the old chief, of whom she was as
terrified as of the river devil; but Obebe snored on.
Uhha came close to him. Her eyes were accustomed now to the half-light
of the hut's interior. At Obebe's side and half beneath his body she
saw the chief's pouch. Cautiously she reached forth a trembling hand
and laid hold upon it. She tried to draw it from beneath Obebe's
weight. The sleeper stirred uneasily and Uhha drew back, terrified.
Obebe changed his position and Uhha thought that he had awakened. Had
she not been frozen with horror she would have rushed into headlong
flight, but fortunately for her she could not move, and presently she
heard Obebe resume his interrupted snoring; but her nerve was gone and
she thought now only of escaping from the hut without being detected.
She cast a last frightened glance at the chief to reassure herself that
he still slept. Her eyes fell upon the pouch. Obebe had turned away
from it and it now lay within her reach, free from the weight of his
body.
She reached for it only to withdraw her hand suddenly. She turned away.
Her heart was in her mouth. She swayed dizzily and then she thought
of the river devil and of the possibilities for horrid death that lay
within his power. Once more she reached for the pouch and this time
she picked it up. Hurriedly opening it she examined the contents. The
brass key was there. She recognized it because it was the only thing
the purpose of which she was not familiar with. The collar, chain and
key had been taken from an Arab slave raider that Obebe had killed and
eaten and as some of the old men of Obebe's village had worn similar
bonds in the past, there was no difficulty in adapting it to its
intended purpose when occasion demanded.
Uhha hastily closed the pouch and replaced it at Obebe's side. Then,
clutching the key in a clammy palm, she crawled hurriedly toward the
doorway.
That night, after the cooking fires had died to embers and been
covered with earth and the people of Obebe had withdrawn into their
huts, Esteban Miranda heard a stealthy movement at the entrance to
his kennel. He listened intently. Someone was creeping into the
interior--someone or something.
"Who is it?" demanded the Spaniard in a voice that he tried hard to
keep from trembling.
"Hush!" responded the intruder in soft tones. "It is I, Uhha, the
daughter of Khamis the witch doctor. I have come to set you free that
you may know that you have a good friend in the village of Obebe and
will, therefore, not destroy us."
Miranda smiled. His suggestion had borne fruit more quickly than he
had dared to hope, and evidently the girl had obeyed his injunction to
keep silent. In that matter he had reasoned wrongly, but of what moment
that, since his sole aim in life--freedom--was to be accomplished.
He had cautioned the girl to silence believing this the surest way to
disseminate the word he had wished spread through the village, where,
he was positive, it would have come to the ears of some one of the
superstitious savages with the means to free him now that the incentive
was furnished.
"And how are you going to free me?" demanded Miranda.
"See!" exclaimed Uhha. "I have brought the key to the collar about your
neck."
"Good," cried the Spaniard. "Where is it?"
Uhha crawled closer to the man and handed him the key. Then she would
have fled.
"Wait!" demanded the prisoner. "When I am free you must lead me forth
into the jungle. Whoever sets me free must do this if he would win the
favor of the river god."
Uhha was afraid, but she did not dare refuse. Miranda fumbled with the
ancient lock for several minutes before it at last gave to the worn key
the girl had brought. Then he snapped the padlock again and carrying
the key with him crawled toward the entrance.
"Get me weapons," he whispered to the girl and Uhha departed through
the shadows of the village street. Miranda knew that she was terrified
but was confident that this very terror would prove the means of
bringing her back to him with the weapons. Nor was he wrong, for scarce
five minutes had elapsed before Uhha had returned with a quiver of
arrows, a bow and a stout knife.
"Now lead me to the gate," commanded Esteban.
Keeping out of the main street and as much in rear of the huts as
possible Uhha led the fugitive toward the village gates. It surprised
her a little that he, a river devil, should not know how to unlock and
open them, for she had thought that river devils were all-wise; but she
did as he bid and showed him how the great bar could be withdrawn, and
helped him push the gates open enough to permit him to pass through.
Beyond was the clearing that led to the river, on either hand rose the
giants of the jungle. It was very dark out there and Esteban Miranda
suddenly discovered that his new-found liberty had its drawbacks. To go
forth alone at night into the dark, mysterious jungle filled him with a
nameless dread.
Uhha drew back from the gates. She had done her part and saved the
village from destruction. Now she wished to close the gates again and
hasten back to the hut of her father, there to lie trembling in nervous
excitement and terror against the morning that would reveal to the
village the escape of the river devil.
Esteban reached forth and took her by the arm. "Come," he said, "and
receive your reward."
Uhha shrank away from him. "Let me go!" she cried. "I am afraid."
But Esteban was afraid, too, and he had decided that the company of
this little negro girl would be better than no company at all in the
depths of the lonely jungle. Possibly when daylight came he would let
her go back to her people, but tonight he shuddered at the thought of
entering the jungle without human companionship.
Uhha tried to tear herself free from his grasp. She struggled like a
little lion-cub, and at last would have raised her voice in a wild
scream for help had not Miranda suddenly clapped his palm across her
mouth, lifted her bodily from the ground and running swiftly across the
clearing disappeared into the jungle.
Behind them the warriors of Obebe the cannibal slept in peaceful
ignorance of the sudden tragedy that had entered the life of little
Uhha and before them, far out in the jungle, a lion roared thunderously.