Tarzan the Untamed
By
Edgar Rice Burroughs
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Murder and Pillage
II The Lion's Cave
III In the German Lines
IV When the Lion Fed
V The Golden Locket
VI Vengeance and Mercy
VII When Blood Told
VIII Tarzan and the Great Apes
IX Dropped from the Sky
X In the Hands of Savages
XI Finding the Airplane
XII The Black Flier
XIII Usanga's Reward
XIV The Black Lion
XV Mysterious Footprints
XVI The Night Attack
XVII The Walled City
XVIII Among the Maniacs
XIX The Queen's Story
XX Came Tarzan
XXI In the Alcove
XXII Out of the Niche
XXIII The Flight from Xuja
XXIV The Tommies
Chapter I
Murder and Pillage
Hauptmann Fritz Schneider trudged wearily through the somber aisles
of the dark forest. Sweat rolled down his bullet head and stood
upon his heavy jowls and bull neck. His lieutenant marched beside
him while Underlieutenant von Goss brought up the rear, following
with a handful of askaris the tired and all but exhausted porters
whom the black soldiers, following the example of their white officer,
encouraged with the sharp points of bayonets and the metal-shod
butts of rifles.
There were no porters within reach of Hauptmann Schneider so he
vented his Prussian spleen upon the askaris nearest at hand, yet
with greater circumspection since these men bore loaded rifles--and
the three white men were alone with them in the heart of Africa.
Ahead of the hauptmann marched half his company, behind him the
other half--thus were the dangers of the savage jungle minimized
for the German captain. At the forefront of the column staggered
two naked savages fastened to each other by a neck chain. These
were the native guides impressed into the service of Kultur and upon
their poor, bruised bodies Kultur's brand was revealed in divers
cruel wounds and bruises.
Thus even in darkest Africa was the light of German civilization
commencing to reflect itself upon the undeserving natives just as
at the same period, the fall of 1914, it was shedding its glorious
effulgence upon benighted Belgium.
It is true that the guides had led the party astray; but this is
the way of most African guides. Nor did it matter that ignorance
rather than evil intent had been the cause of their failure. It
was enough for Hauptmann Fritz Schneider to know that he was lost
in the African wilderness and that he had at hand human beings less
powerful than he who could be made to suffer by torture. That he
did not kill them outright was partially due to a faint hope that
they might eventually prove the means of extricating him from his
difficulties and partially that so long as they lived they might
still be made to suffer.
The poor creatures, hoping that chance might lead them at last
upon the right trail, insisted that they knew the way and so led
on through a dismal forest along a winding game trail trodden deep
by the feet of countless generations of the savage denizens of the
jungle.
Here Tantor, the elephant, took his long way from dust wallow to
water. Here Buto, the rhinoceros, blundered blindly in his solitary
majesty, while by night the great cats paced silently upon their
padded feet beneath the dense canopy of overreaching trees toward
the broad plain beyond, where they found their best hunting.
It was at the edge of this plain which came suddenly and unexpectedly
before the eyes of the guides that their sad hearts beat with
renewed hope. Here the hauptmann drew a deep sigh of relief, for
after days of hopeless wandering through almost impenetrable jungle
the broad vista of waving grasses dotted here and there with open
park like woods and in the far distance the winding line of green
shrubbery that denoted a river appeared to the European a veritable
heaven.
The Hun smiled in his relief, passed a cheery word with his lieutenant,
and then scanned the broad plain with his field glasses. Back and
forth they swept across the rolling land until at last they came
to rest upon a point near the center of the landscape and close to
the green-fringed contours of the river.
"We are in luck," said Schneider to his companions. "Do you see
it?"
The lieutenant, who was also gazing through his own glasses,
finally brought them to rest upon the same spot that had held the
attention of his superior.
"Yes," he said, "an English farm. It must be Greystoke's, for there
is none other in this part of British East Africa. God is with us,
Herr Captain."
"We have come upon the English schweinhund long before he can have
learned that his country is at war with ours," replied Schneider.
"Let him be the first to feel the iron hand of Germany."
"Let us hope that he is at home," said the lieutenant, "that we
may take him with us when we report to Kraut at Nairobi. It will
go well indeed with Herr Hauptmann Fritz Schneider if he brings in
the famous Tarzan of the Apes as a prisoner of war."
Schneider smiled and puffed out his chest. "You are right, my
friend," he said, "it will go well with both of us; but I shall
have to travel far to catch General Kraut before he reaches Mombasa.
These English pigs with their contemptible army will make good time
to the Indian Ocean."
It was in a better frame of mind that the small force set out across
the open country toward the trim and well-kept farm buildings of
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke; but disappointment was to be their
lot since neither Tarzan of the Apes nor his son was at home.
Lady Jane, ignorant of the fact that a state of war existed between
Great Britain and Germany, welcomed the officers most hospitably
and gave orders through her trusted Waziri to prepare a feast for
the black soldiers of the enemy.
Far to the east, Tarzan of the Apes was traveling rapidly from
Nairobi toward the farm. At Nairobi he had received news of the
World War that had already started, and, anticipating an immediate
invasion of British East Africa by the Germans, was hurrying homeward
to fetch his wife to a place of greater security. With him were a
score of his ebon warriors, but far too slow for the ape-man was
the progress of these trained and hardened woodsmen.
When necessity demanded, Tarzan of the Apes sloughed the thin
veneer of his civilization and with it the hampering apparel that
was its badge. In a moment the polished English gentleman reverted
to the naked ape man.
His mate was in danger. For the time, that single thought dominated.
He did not think of her as Lady Jane Greystoke, but rather as the
she he had won by the might of his steel thews, and that he must
hold and protect by virtue of the same offensive armament.
It was no member of the House of Lords who swung swiftly and grimly
through the tangled forest or trod with untiring muscles the wide
stretches of open plain--it was a great he ape filled with a single
purpose that excluded all thoughts of fatigue or danger.
Little Manu, the monkey, scolding and chattering in the upper
terraces of the forest, saw him pass. Long had it been since he had
thus beheld the great Tarmangani naked and alone hurtling through
the jungle. Bearded and gray was Manu, the monkey, and to his dim
old eyes came the fire of recollection of those days when Tarzan
of the Apes had ruled supreme, Lord of the Jungle, over all the
myriad life that trod the matted vegetation between the boles of
the great trees, or flew or swung or climbed in the leafy fastness
upward to the very apex of the loftiest terraces.
And Numa, the lion, lying up for the day close beside last night's
successful kill, blinked his yellow-green eyes and twitched his
tawny tail as he caught the scent spoor of his ancient enemy.
Nor was Tarzan senseless to the presence of Numa or Manu or any of
the many jungle beasts he passed in his rapid flight towards the
west. No particle had his shallow probing of English society dulled
his marvelous sense faculties. His nose had picked out the presence
of Numa, the lion, even before the majestic king of beasts was
aware of his passing.
He had heard noisy little Manu, and even the soft rustling of the
parting shrubbery where Sheeta passed before either of these alert
animals sensed his presence.
But however keen the senses of the ape-man, however swift his
progress through the wild country of his adoption, however mighty
the muscles that bore him, he was still mortal. Time and space
placed their inexorable limits upon him; nor was there another who
realized this truth more keenly than Tarzan. He chafed and fretted
that he could not travel with the swiftness of thought and that the
long tedious miles stretching far ahead of him must require hours
and hours of tireless effort upon his part before he would swing
at last from the final bough of the fringing forest into the open
plain and in sight of his goal.
Days it took, even though he lay up at night for but a few hours
and left to chance the finding of meat directly on his trail. If
Wappi, the antelope, or Horta, the boar, chanced in his way when
he was hungry, he ate, pausing but long enough to make the kill
and cut himself a steak.
Then at last the long journey drew to its close and he was passing
through the last stretch of heavy forest that bounded his estate
upon the east, and then this was traversed and he stood upon the
plain's edge looking out across his broad lands towards his home.
At the first glance his eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed. Even
at that distance he could see that something was amiss. A thin
spiral of smoke arose at the right of the bungalow where the barns
had stood, but there were no barns there now, and from the bungalow
chimney from which smoke should have arisen, there arose nothing.
Once again Tarzan of the Apes was speeding onward, this time even
more swiftly than before, for he was goaded now by a nameless fear,
more product of intuition than of reason. Even as the beasts,
Tarzan of the Apes seemed to possess a sixth sense. Long before he
reached the bungalow, he had almost pictured the scene that finally
broke upon his view.
Silent and deserted was the vine-covered cottage. Smoldering embers
marked the site of his great barns. Gone were the thatched huts of
his sturdy retainers, empty the fields, the pastures, and corrals.
Here and there vultures rose and circled above the carcasses of
men and beasts.
It was with a feeling as nearly akin to terror as he ever had
experienced that the ape-man finally forced himself to enter his
home. The first sight that met his eyes set the red haze of hate
and bloodlust across his vision, for there, crucified against the
wall of the living-room, was Wasimbu, giant son of the faithful
Muviro and for over a year the personal bodyguard of Lady Jane.
The overturned and shattered furniture of the room, the brown pools
of dried blood upon the floor, and prints of bloody hands on walls
and woodwork evidenced something of the frightfulness of the battle
that had been waged within the narrow confines of the apartment.
Across the baby grand piano lay the corpse of another black warrior,
while before the door of Lady Jane's boudoir were the dead bodies
of three more of the faithful Greystoke servants.
The door of this room was closed. With drooping shoulders and dull
eyes Tarzan stood gazing dumbly at the insensate panel which hid
from him what horrid secret he dared not even guess.
Slowly, with leaden feet, he moved toward the door. Gropingly his
hand reached for the knob. Thus he stood for another long minute,
and then with a sudden gesture he straightened his giant frame,
threw back his mighty shoulders and, with fearless head held high,
swung back the door and stepped across the threshold into the
room which held for him the dearest memories and associations of
his life. No change of expression crossed his grim and stern-set
features as he strode across the room and stood beside the little
couch and the inanimate form which lay face downward upon it; the
still, silent thing that had pulsed with life and youth and love.
No tear dimmed the eye of the ape-man, but the God who made him alone
could know the thoughts that passed through that still half-savage
brain. For a long time he stood there just looking down upon the
dead body, charred beyond recognition, and then he stooped and lifted
it in his arms. As he turned the body over and saw how horribly
death had been meted he plumbed, in that instant, the uttermost
depths of grief and horror and hatred.
Nor did he require the evidence of the broken German rifle in the
outer room, or the torn and blood-stained service cap upon the
floor, to tell him who had been the perpetrators of this horrid
and useless crime.
For a moment he had hoped against hope that the blackened corpse was
not that of his mate, but when his eyes discovered and recognized
the rings upon her fingers the last faint ray of hope forsook him.
In silence, in love, and in reverence he buried, in the little
rose garden that had been Jane Clayton's pride and love, the poor,
charred form and beside it the great black warriors who had given
their lives so futilely in their mistress' protection.
At one side of the house Tarzan found other newly made graves
and in these he sought final evidence of the identity of the real
perpetrators of the atrocities that had been committed there in
his absence.
Here he disinterred the bodies of a dozen German askaris and found
upon their uniforms the insignia of the company and regiment to
which they had belonged. This was enough for the ape-man. White
officers had commanded these men, nor would it be a difficult task
to discover who they were.
Returning to the rose garden, he stood among the Hun trampled
blooms and bushes above the grave of his dead--with bowed head he
stood there in a last mute farewell. As the sun sank slowly behind
the towering forests of the west, he turned slowly away upon the
still-distinct trail of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and his blood-stained
company.
His was the suffering of the dumb brute--mute; but though voiceless
no less poignant. At first his vast sorrow numbed his other faculties
of thought--his brain was overwhelmed by the calamity to such an
extent that it reacted to but a single objective suggestion: She is
dead! She is dead! She is dead! Again and again this phrase beat
monotonously upon his brain--a dull, throbbing pain, yet mechanically
his feet followed the trail of her slayer while, subconsciously,
his every sense was upon the alert for the ever-present perils of
the jungle.
Gradually the labor of his great grief brought forth another
emotion so real, so tangible, that it seemed a companion walking
at his side. It was Hate--and it brought to him a measure of solace
and of comfort, for it was a sublime hate that ennobled him as
it has ennobled countless thousands since--hatred for Germany and
Germans. It centered about the slayer of his mate, of course; but
it included everything German, animate or inanimate. As the thought
took firm hold upon him he paused and raising his face to Goro, the
moon, cursed with upraised hand the authors of the hideous crime
that had been perpetrated in that once peaceful bungalow behind
him; and he cursed their progenitors, their progeny, and all their
kind the while he took silent oath to war upon them relentlessly
until death overtook him.
There followed almost immediately a feeling of content, for, where
before his future at best seemed but a void, now it was filled
with possibilities the contemplation of which brought him, if not
happiness, at least a surcease of absolute grief, for before him
lay a great work that would occupy his time.
Stripped not only of all the outward symbols of civilization, Tarzan
had also reverted morally and mentally to the status of the savage
beast he had been reared. Never had his civilization been more than
a veneer put on for the sake of her he loved because he thought it
made her happier to see him thus. In reality he had always held the
outward evidences of so-called culture in deep contempt. Civilization
meant to Tarzan of the Apes a curtailment of freedom in all its
aspects--freedom of action, freedom of thought, freedom of love,
freedom of hate. Clothes he abhorred--uncomfortable, hideous,
confining things that reminded him somehow of bonds securing him to
the life he had seen the poor creatures of London and Paris living.
Clothes were the emblems of that hypocrisy for which civilization
stood--a pretense that the wearers were ashamed of what the clothes
covered, of the human form made in the semblance of God. Tarzan
knew how silly and pathetic the lower orders of animals appeared in
the clothing of civilization, for he had seen several poor creatures
thus appareled in various traveling shows in Europe, and he knew,
too, how silly and pathetic man appears in them since the only men
he had seen in the first twenty years of his life had been, like
himself, naked savages. The ape-man had a keen admiration for a
well-muscled, well-proportioned body, whether lion, or antelope,
or man, and it had ever been beyond him to understand how clothes
could be considered more beautiful than a clear, firm, healthy
skin, or coat and trousers more graceful than the gentle curves of
rounded muscles playing beneath a flexible hide.
In civilization Tarzan had found greed and selfishness and cruelty
far beyond that which he had known in his familiar, savage jungle,
and though civilization had given him his mate and several friends
whom he loved and admired, he never had come to accept it as you
and I who have known little or nothing else; so it was with a sense
of relief that he now definitely abandoned it and all that it stood
for, and went forth into the jungle once again stripped to his loin
cloth and weapons.
The hunting knife of his father hung at his left hip, his bow and
his quiver of arrows were slung across his shoulders, while around
his chest over one shoulder and beneath the opposite arm was coiled
the long grass rope without which Tarzan would have felt quite as
naked as would you should you be suddenly thrust upon a busy highway
clad only in a union suit. A heavy war spear which he sometimes
carried in one hand and again slung by a thong about his neck so
that it hung down his back completed his armament and his apparel.
The diamond-studded locket with the pictures of his mother and
father that he had worn always until he had given it as a token
of his highest devotion to Jane Clayton before their marriage was
missing. She always had worn it since, but it had not been upon
her body when he found her slain in her boudoir, so that now his
quest for vengeance included also a quest for the stolen trinket.
Toward midnight Tarzan commenced to feel the physical strain of
his long hours of travel and to realize that even muscles such as
his had their limitations. His pursuit of the murderers had not
been characterized by excessive speed; but rather more in keeping
with his mental attitude, which was marked by a dogged determination
to require from the Germans more than an eye for an eye and more
than a tooth for a tooth, the element of time entering but slightly
into his calculations.
Inwardly as well as outwardly Tarzan had reverted to beast and in
the lives of beasts, time, as a measurable aspect of duration, has
no meaning. The beast is actively interested only in NOW, and as
it is always NOW and always shall be, there is an eternity of time
for the accomplishment of objects. The ape-man, naturally, had a
slightly more comprehensive realization of the limitations of time;
but, like the beasts, he moved with majestic deliberation when no
emergency prompted him to swift action.
Having dedicated his life to vengeance, vengeance became his natural
state and, therefore, no emergency, so he took his time in pursuit.
That he had not rested earlier was due to the fact that he had
felt no fatigue, his mind being occupied by thoughts of sorrow and
revenge; but now he realized that he was tired, and so he sought
a jungle giant that had harbored him upon more than a single other
jungle night.
Dark clouds moving swiftly across the heavens now and again eclipsed
the bright face of Goro, the moon, and forewarned the ape-man
of impending storm. In the depth of the jungle the cloud shadows
produced a thick blackness that might almost be felt--a blackness
that to you and me might have proven terrifying with its accompaniment
of rustling leaves and cracking twigs, and its even more suggestive
intervals of utter silence in which the crudest of imaginations
might have conjured crouching beasts of prey tensed for the fatal
charge; but through it Tarzan passed unconcerned, yet always alert.
Now he swung lightly to the lower terraces of the overarching
trees when some subtle sense warned him that Numa lay upon a kill
directly in his path, or again he sprang lightly to one side as
Buto, the rhinoceros, lumbered toward him along the narrow, deep-worn
trail, for the ape-man, ready to fight upon necessity's slightest
pretext, avoided unnecessary quarrels.
When he swung himself at last into the tree he sought, the moon was
obscured by a heavy cloud, and the tree tops were waving wildly in
a steadily increasing wind whose soughing drowned the lesser noises
of the jungle. Upward went Tarzan toward a sturdy crotch across which
he long since had laid and secured a little platform of branches.
It was very dark now, darker even than it had been before, for
almost the entire sky was overcast by thick, black clouds.
Presently the man-beast paused, his sensitive nostrils dilating as
he sniffed the air about him. Then, with the swiftness and agility of
a cat, he leaped far outward upon a swaying branch, sprang upward
through the darkness, caught another, swung himself upon it and
then to one still higher. What could have so suddenly transformed
his matter-of-fact ascent of the giant bole to the swift and wary
action of his detour among the branches? You or I could have seen
nothing--not even the little platform that an instant before had
been just above him and which now was immediately below--but as he
swung above it we should have heard an ominous growl; and then as
the moon was momentarily uncovered, we should have seen both the
platform, dimly, and a dark mass that lay stretched upon it--a dark
mass that presently, as our eyes became accustomed to the lesser
darkness, would take the form of Sheeta, the panther.
In answer to the cat's growl, a low and equally ferocious growl
rumbled upward from the ape-man's deep chest--a growl of warning
that told the panther he was trespassing upon the other's lair; but
Sheeta was in no mood to be dispossessed. With upturned, snarling
face he glared at the brown-skinned Tarmangani above him. Very slowly
the ape-man moved inward along the branch until he was directly
above the panther. In the man's hand was the hunting knife of his
long-dead father--the weapon that had first given him his real
ascendancy over the beasts of the jungle; but he hoped not to be
forced to use it, knowing as he did that more jungle battles were
settled by hideous growling than by actual combat, the law of bluff
holding quite as good in the jungle as elsewhere--only in matters
of love and food did the great beasts ordinarily close with fangs
and talons.
Tarzan braced himself against the bole of the tree and leaned closer
toward Sheeta.
"Stealer of balus!" he cried. The panther rose to a sitting position,
his bared fangs but a few feet from the ape-man's taunting face.
Tarzan growled hideously and struck at the cat's face with his
knife. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he roared. "This is Tarzan's
lair. Go, or I will kill you."
Though he spoke in the language of the great apes of the jungle,
it is doubtful that Sheeta understood the words, though he knew
well enough that the hairless ape wished to frighten him from his
well-chosen station past which edible creatures might be expected
to wander sometime during the watches of the night.
Like lightning the cat reared and struck a vicious blow at his
tormentor with great, bared talons that might well have torn away
the ape-man's face had the blow landed; but it did not land--Tarzan
was even quicker than Sheeta. As the panther came to all fours
again upon the little platform, Tarzan un-slung his heavy spear and
prodded at the snarling face, and as Sheeta warded off the blows,
the two continued their horrid duet of blood-curdling roars and
growls.
Goaded to frenzy the cat presently determined to come up after this
disturber of his peace; but when he essayed to leap to the branch
that held Tarzan he found the sharp spear point always in his
face, and each time as he dropped back he was prodded viciously in
some tender part; but at length, rage having conquered his better
judgment, he leaped up the rough bole to the very branch upon which
Tarzan stood. Now the two faced each other upon even footing and
Sheeta saw a quick revenge and a supper all in one. The hairless
ape-thing with the tiny fangs and the puny talons would be helpless
before him.
The heavy limb bent beneath the weight of the two beasts as Sheeta
crept cautiously out upon it and Tarzan backed slowly away, growling.
The wind had risen to the proportions of a gale so that even the
greatest giants of the forest swayed, groaning, to its force and
the branch upon which the two faced each other rose and fell like
the deck of a storm-tossed ship. Goro was now entirely obscured,
but vivid flashes of lightning lit up the jungle at brief intervals,
revealing the grim tableau of primitive passion upon the swaying
limb.
Tarzan backed away, drawing Sheeta farther from the stem of the
tree and out upon the tapering branch, where his footing became
ever more precarious. The cat, infuriated by the pain of spear
wounds, was overstepping the bounds of caution. Already he had
reached a point where he could do little more than maintain a secure
footing, and it was this moment that Tarzan chose to charge. With
a roar that mingled with the booming thunder from above he leaped
toward the panther, who could only claw futilely with one huge paw
while he clung to the branch with the other; but the ape-man did
not come within that parabola of destruction. Instead he leaped
above menacing claws and snapping fangs, turning in mid-air and
alighting upon Sheeta's back, and at the instant of impact his knife
struck deep into the tawny side. Then Sheeta, impelled by pain and
hate and rage and the first law of Nature, went mad. Screaming
and clawing he attempted to turn upon the ape-thing clinging to
his back. For an instant he toppled upon the now wildly gyrating
limb, clutched frantically to save himself, and then plunged downward
into the darkness with Tarzan still clinging to him. Crashing
through splintering branches the two fell. Not for an instant did
the ape-man consider relinquishing his death-hold upon his adversary.
He had entered the lists in mortal combat and true to the primitive
instincts of the wild--the unwritten law of the jungle--one or both
must die before the battle ended.
Sheeta, catlike, alighted upon four out-sprawled feet, the weight
of the ape-man crushing him to earth, the long knife again imbedded
in his side. Once the panther struggled to rise; but only to sink
to earth again. Tarzan felt the giant muscles relax beneath him.
Sheeta was dead. Rising, the ape-man placed a foot upon the body of
his vanquished foe, raised his face toward the thundering heavens,
and as the lightning flashed and the torrential rain broke upon
him, screamed forth the wild victory cry of the bull ape.
Having accomplished his aim and driven the enemy from his lair,
Tarzan gathered an armful of large fronds and climbed to his dripping
couch. Laying a few of the fronds upon the poles he lay down and
covered himself against the rain with the others, and despite the
wailing of the wind and the crashing of the thunder, immediately
fell asleep.