When Blood Told
Tarzan of the Apes was disgusted. He had had the German spy, Bertha
Kircher, in his power and had left her unscathed. It is true that he
had slain Hauptmann Fritz Schneider, that Underlieutenant von Goss
had died at his hands, and that he had otherwise wreaked vengeance
upon the men of the German company who had murdered, pillaged, and
raped at Tarzan's bungalow in the Waziri country. There was still
another officer to be accounted for, but him he could not find.
It was Lieutenant Obergatz he still sought, though vainly, for at
last he learned that the man had been sent upon some special mission,
whether in Africa or back to Europe Tarzan's informant either did
not know or would not divulge.
But the fact that he had permitted sentiment to stay his hand when
he might so easily have put Bertha Kircher out of the way in the
hotel at Wilhelmstal that night rankled in the ape-man's bosom.
He was shamed by his weakness, and when he had handed the paper
she had given him to the British chief of staff, even though
the information it contained permitted the British to frustrate a
German flank attack, he was still much dissatisfied with himself.
And possibly the root of this dissatisfaction lay in the fact that
he realized that were he again to have the same opportunity he
would still find it as impossible to slay a woman as it had been
in Wilhelmstal that night.
Tarzan blamed this weakness, as he considered it, upon his association
with the effeminizing influences of civilization, for in the bottom
of his savage heart he held in contempt both civilization and its
representatives--the men and women of the civilized countries of
the world. Always was he comparing their weaknesses, their vices,
their hypocrisies, and their little vanities with the open,
primitive ways of his ferocious jungle mates, and all the while
there battled in that same big heart with these forces another mighty
force--Tarzan's love and loyalty for his friends of the civilized
world.
The ape-man, reared as he had been by savage beasts amid savage
beasts, was slow to make friends. Acquaintances he numbered by the
hundreds; but of friends he had few. These few he would have died
for as, doubtless, they would have died for him; but there were
none of these fighting with the British forces in East Africa, and
so, sickened and disgusted by the sight of man waging his cruel
and inhuman warfare, Tarzan determined to heed the insistent call
of the remote jungle of his youth, for the Germans were now on the
run and the war in East Africa was so nearly over that he realized
that his further services would be of negligible value.
Never regularly sworn into the service of the King, he was under
no obligation to remain now that the moral obligation had been
removed, and so it was that he disappeared from the British camp
as mysteriously as he had appeared a few months before.
More than once had Tarzan reverted to the primitive only to return
again to civilization through love for his mate; but now that she
was gone he felt that this time he had definitely departed forever
from the haunts of man, and that he should live and die a beast
among beasts even as he had been from infancy to maturity.
Between him and his destination lay a trackless wilderness of untouched
primeval savagery where, doubtless in many spots, his would be the
first human foot to touch the virgin turf. Nor did this prospect
dismay the Tarmangani--rather was it an urge and an inducement, for
rich in his veins flowed that noble strain of blood that has made
most of the earth's surface habitable for man.
The question of food and water that would have risen paramount in
the mind of an ordinary man contemplating such an excursion gave
Tarzan little concern. The wilderness was his natural habitat
and woodcraft as inherent to him as breathing. Like other jungle
animals he could scent water from a great distance and, where you
or I might die of thirst, the ape-man would unerringly select the
exact spot at which to dig and find water.
For several days Tarzan traversed a country rich in game
and watercourses. He moved slowly, hunting and fishing, or again
fraternizing or quarreling with the other savage denizens of
the jungle. Now it was little Manu, the monkey, who chattered and
scolded at the mighty Tarmangani and in the next breath warned him
that Histah, the snake, lay coiled in the long grass just ahead.
Of Manu Tarzan inquired concerning the great apes--the Mangani--and
was told that few inhabited this part of the jungle, and that even
these were hunting farther to the north this season of the year.
"But there is Bolgani," said Manu. "Would you like to see Bolgani?"
Manu's tone was sneering, and Tarzan knew that it was because little
Manu thought all creatures feared mighty Bolgani, the gorilla.
Tarzan arched his great chest and struck it with a clinched fist.
"I am Tarzan," he cried. "While Tarzan was yet a balu he slew a
Bolgani. Tarzan seeks the Mangani, who are his brothers, but Bolgani
he does not seek, so let Bolgani keep from the path of Tarzan."
Little Manu, the monkey, was much impressed, for the way of the
jungle is to boast and to believe. It was then that he condescended
to tell Tarzan more of the Mangani.
"They go there and there and there," he said, making a wide sweep
with a brown hand first toward the north, then west, and then south
again. "For there," and he pointed due west, "is much hunting; but
between lies a great place where there is no food and no water,
so they must go that way," and again he swung his hand through the
half-circle that explained to Tarzan the great detour the apes made
to come to their hunting ground to the west.
That was all right for the Mangani, who are lazy and do not care to
move rapidly; but for Tarzan the straight road would be the best.
He would cross the dry country and come to the good hunting in a third
of the time that it would take to go far to the north and circle
back again. And so it was that he continued on toward the west, and
crossing a range of low mountains came in sight of a broad plateau,
rock strewn and desolate. Far in the distance he saw another range
of mountains beyond which he felt must lie the hunting ground of
the Mangani. There he would join them and remain for a while before
continuing on toward the coast and the little cabin that his father
had built beside the land-locked harbor at the jungle's edge.
Tarzan was full of plans. He would rebuild and enlarge the cabin
of his birth, constructing storage houses where he would make the
apes lay away food when it was plenty against the times that were
lean--a thing no ape ever had dreamed of doing. And the tribe would
remain always in the locality and he would be king again as he had
in the past. He would try to teach them some of the better things
that he had learned from man, yet knowing the ape-mind as only
Tarzan could, he feared that his labors would be for naught.
The ape-man found the country he was crossing rough in the extreme,
the roughest he ever had encountered. The plateau was cut by frequent
canyons the passage of which often entailed hours of wearing effort.
The vegetation was sparse and of a faded brown color that lent to
the whole landscape a most depressing aspect. Great rocks were strewn
in every direction as far as the eye could see, lying partially
embedded in an impalpable dust that rose in clouds about him at
every step. The sun beat down mercilessly out of a cloudless sky.
For a day Tarzan toiled across this now hateful land and at the
going down of the sun the distant mountains to the west seemed no
nearer than at morn. Never a sign of living thing had the ape-man
seen, other than Ska, that bird of ill omen, that had followed him
tirelessly since he had entered this parched waste.
No littlest beetle that he might eat had given evidence that life
of any sort existed here, and it was a hungry and thirsty Tarzan who
lay down to rest in the evening. He decided now to push on during
the cool of the night, for he realized that even mighty Tarzan had
his limitations and that where there was no food one could not eat
and where there was no water the greatest woodcraft in the world
could find none. It was a totally new experience to Tarzan to find
so barren and terrible a country in his beloved Africa. Even the
Sahara had its oases; but this frightful world gave no indication
of containing a square foot of hospitable ground.
However, he had no misgivings but that he would fare forth into
the wonder country of which little Manu had told him, though it
was certain that he would do it with a dry skin and an empty belly.
And so he fought on until daylight, when he again felt the need
of rest. He was at the edge of another of those terrible canyons,
the eighth he had crossed, whose precipitous sides would have taxed
to the uttermost the strength of an untired man well fortified by
food and water, and for the first time, as he looked down into the
abyss and then at the opposite side that he must scale, misgivings
began to assail his mind.
He did not fear death--with the memory of his murdered mate still
fresh in his mind he almost courted it, yet strong within him
was that primal instinct of self-preservation--the battling force
of life that would keep him an active contender against the Great
Reaper until, fighting to the very last, he should be overcome by
a superior power.
A shadow swung slowly across the ground beside him, and looking
up, the ape-man saw Ska, the vulture, wheeling a wide circle above
him. The grim and persistent harbinger of evil aroused the man
to renewed determination. He arose and approached the edge of the
canyon, and then, wheeling, with his face turned upward toward the
circling bird of prey, he bellowed forth the challenge of the bull
ape.
"I am Tarzan," he shouted, "Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan of the Apes
is not for Ska, eater of carrion. Go back to the lair of Dango
and feed off the leavings of the hyenas, for Tarzan will leave no
bones for Ska to pick in this empty wilderness of death."
But before he reached the bottom of the canyon he again was forced
to the realization that his great strength was waning, and when he
dropped exhausted at the foot of the cliff and saw before him the
opposite wall that must be scaled, he bared his fighting fangs and
growled. For an hour he lay resting in the cool shade at the foot
of the cliff. All about him reigned utter silence--the silence of
the tomb. No fluttering birds, no humming insects, no scurrying
reptiles relieved the deathlike stillness. This indeed was the
valley of death. He felt the depressing influence of the horrible
place settling down upon him; but he staggered to his feet, shaking
himself like a great lion, for was he not still Tarzan, mighty
Tarzan of the Apes? Yes, and Tarzan the mighty he would be until
the last throb of that savage heart!
As he crossed the floor of the canyon he saw something lying close
to the base of the side wall he was approaching--something that
stood out in startling contrast to all the surroundings and yet
seemed so much a part and parcel of the somber scene as to suggest
an actor amid the settings of a well-appointed stage, and, as though
to carry out the allegory, the pitiless rays of flaming Kudu topped
the eastern cliff, picking out the thing lying at the foot of the
western wall like a giant spotlight.
And as Tarzan came nearer he saw the bleached skull and bones of
a human being about which were remnants of clothing and articles
of equipment that, as he examined them, filled the ape-man with
curiosity to such an extent that for a time he forgot his own
predicament in contemplation of the remarkable story suggested by
these mute evidences of a tragedy of a time long past.
The bones were in a fair state of preservation and indicated by
their intactness that the flesh had probably been picked from them
by vultures as none was broken; but the pieces of equipment bore
out the suggestion of their great age. In this protected spot where
there were no frosts and evidently but little rainfall, the bones
might have lain for ages without disintegrating, for there were
here no other forces to scatter or disturb them.
Near the skeleton lay a helmet of hammered brass and a corroded
breastplate of steel while at one side was a long, straight sword
in its scabbard and an ancient harquebus. The bones were those of
a large man--a man of wondrous strength and vitality Tarzan knew
he must have been to have penetrated thus far through the dangers
of Africa with such a ponderous yet at the same time futile armament.
The ape-man felt a sense of deep admiration for this nameless
adventurer of a bygone day. What a brute of a man he must have been
and what a glorious tale of battle and kaleidoscopic vicissitudes
of fortune must once have been locked within that whitened skull!
Tarzan stooped to examine the shreds of clothing that still lay
about the bones. Every particle of leather had disappeared, doubtless
eaten by Ska. No boots remained, if the man had worn boots, but
there were several buckles scattered about suggesting that a great
part of his trappings had been of leather, while just beneath the
bones of one hand lay a metal cylinder about eight inches long and
two inches in diameter. As Tarzan picked it up he saw that it had
been heavily lacquered and had withstood the slight ravages of
time so well as to be in as perfect a state of preservation today
as it had been when its owner dropped into his last, long sleep
perhaps centuries ago.
As he examined it he discovered that one end was closed with
a friction cover which a little twisting force soon loosened and
removed, revealing within a roll of parchment which the ape-man
removed and opened, disclosing a number of age-yellowed sheets
closely written upon in a fine hand in a language which he guessed
to be Spanish but which he could not decipher. Upon the last sheet
was a roughly drawn map with numerous reference points marked upon
it, all unintelligible to Tarzan, who, after a brief examination
of the papers, returned them to their metal case, replaced the top
and was about to toss the little cylinder to the ground beside the
mute remains of its former possessor when some whim of curiosity
unsatisfied prompted him to slip it into the quiver with his arrows,
though as he did so it was with the grim thought that possibly
centuries hence it might again come to the sight of man beside his
own bleached bones.
And then, with a parting glance at the ancient skeleton, he turned
to the task of ascending the western wall of the canyon. Slowly
and with many rests he dragged his weakening body upwards. Again and
again he slipped back from sheer exhaustion and would have fallen
to the floor of the canyon but for merest chance. How long it took
him to scale that frightful wall he could not have told, and when
at last he dragged himself over the top it was to lie weak and
gasping, too spent to rise or even to move a few inches farther
from the perilous edge of the chasm.
At last he arose, very slowly and with evident effort gaining his
knees first and then staggering to his feet, yet his indomitable
will was evidenced by a sudden straightening of his shoulders and
a determined shake of his head as he lurched forward on unsteady
legs to take up his valiant fight for survival. Ahead he scanned
the rough landscape for sign of another canyon which he knew would
spell inevitable doom. The western hills rose closer now though
weirdly unreal as they seemed to dance in the sunlight as though
mocking him with their nearness at the moment that exhaustion was
about to render them forever unattainable.
Beyond them he knew must be the fertile hunting grounds of which Manu
had told. Even if no canyon intervened, his chances of surmounting
even low hills seemed remote should he have the fortune to reach
their base; but with another canyon hope was dead. Above them Ska
still circled, and it seemed to the ape-man that the ill-omened
bird hovered ever lower and lower as though reading in that failing
gait the nearing of the end, and through cracked lips Tarzan growled
out his defiance.
Mile after mile Tarzan of the Apes put slowly behind him, borne up
by sheer force of will where a lesser man would have lain down to
die and rest forever tired muscles whose every move was an agony of
effort; but at last his progress became practically mechanical--he
staggered on with a dazed mind that reacted numbly to a single
urge--on, on, on! The hills were now but a dim, ill-defined blur
ahead. Sometimes he forgot that they were hills, and again he
wondered vaguely why he must go on forever through all this torture
endeavoring to overtake them--the fleeing, elusive hills. Presently
he began to hate them and there formed within his half-delirious
brain the hallucination that the hills were German hills, that they
had slain someone dear to him, whom he could never quite recall,
and that he was pursuing to slay them.
This idea, growing, appeared to give him strength--a new and
revivifying purpose--so that for a time he no longer staggered; but
went forward steadily with head erect. Once he stumbled and fell,
and when he tried to rise he found that he could not--that his
strength was so far gone that he could only crawl forward on his
hands and knees for a few yards and then sink down again to rest.
It was during one of these frequent periods of utter exhaustion
that he heard the flap of dismal wings close above him. With his
remaining strength he turned himself over on his back to see Ska
wheel quickly upward. With the sight Tarzan's mind cleared for a
while.
"Is the end so near as that?" he thought. "Does Ska know that I am
so near gone that he dares come down and perch upon my carcass?"
And even then a grim smile touched those swollen lips as into the
savage mind came a sudden thought--the cunning of the wild beast
at bay. Closing his eyes he threw a forearm across them to protect
them from Ska's powerful beak and then he lay very still and waited.
It was restful lying there, for the sun was now obscured by clouds
and Tarzan was very tired. He feared that he might sleep and something
told him that if he did he would never awaken, and so he concentrated
all his remaining powers upon the one thought of remaining awake.
Not a muscle moved--to Ska, circling above, it became evident that
the end had come--that at last he should be rewarded for his long
vigil.
Circling slowly he dropped closer and closer to the dying man. Why
did not Tarzan move? Had he indeed been overcome by the sleep of
exhaustion, or was Ska right--had death at last claimed that mighty
body? Was that great, savage heart stilled forever? It is unthinkable.
Ska, filled with suspicions, circled warily. Twice he almost alighted
upon the great, naked breast only to wheel suddenly away; but the
third time his talons touched the brown skin. It was as though the
contact closed an electric circuit that instantaneously vitalized
the quiet clod that had lain motionless so long. A brown hand swept
downward from the brown forehead and before Ska could raise a wing
in flight he was in the clutches of his intended victim.
Ska fought, but he was no match for even a dying Tarzan, and
a moment later the ape-man's teeth closed upon the carrion-eater.
The flesh was coarse and tough and gave off an unpleasant odor and
a worse taste; but it was food and the blood was drink and Tarzan
only an ape at heart and a dying ape into the bargain--dying of
starvation and thirst.
Even mentally weakened as he was the ape-man was still master
of his appetite and so he ate but sparingly, saving the rest, and
then, feeling that he now could do so safely, he turned upon his
side and slept.
Rain, beating heavily upon his body, awakened him and sitting up he
cupped his hands and caught the precious drops which he transferred
to his parched throat. Only a little he got at a time; but that
was best. The few mouthfuls of Ska that he had eaten, together with
the blood and rain water and the sleep had refreshed him greatly
and put new strength into his tired muscles.
Now he could see the hills again and they were close and, though
there was no sun, the world looked bright and cheerful, for Tarzan
knew that he was saved. The bird that would have devoured him, and
the providential rain, had saved him at the very moment that death
seemed inevitable.
Again partaking of a few mouthfuls of the unsavory flesh of Ska,
the vulture, the ape-man arose with something of his old force
and set out with steady gait toward the hills of promise rising
alluringly ahead. Darkness fell before he reached them; but he
kept on until he felt the steeply rising ground that proclaimed
his arrival at the base of the hills proper, and then he lay down
and waited until morning should reveal the easiest passage to the
land beyond. The rain had ceased, but the sky still was overcast
so that even his keen eyes could not penetrate the darkness farther
than a few feet. And there he slept, after eating again of what
remained of Ska, until the morning sun awakened him with a new
sense of strength and well-being.
And so at last he came through the hills out of the valley of death
into a land of park-like beauty, rich in game. Below him lay a deep
valley through the center of which dense jungle vegetation marked
the course of a river beyond which a primeval forest extended
for miles to terminate at last at the foot of lofty, snow-capped
mountains. It was a land that Tarzan never had looked upon before,
nor was it likely that the foot of another white man ever had
touched it unless, possibly, in some long-gone day the adventurer
whose skeleton he had found bleaching in the canyon had traversed
it.