Dropped from the Sky
Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, Royal Air Service, was on
reconnaissance. A report, or it would be better to say a rumor,
had come to the British headquarters in German East Africa that
the enemy had landed in force on the west coast and was marching
across the dark continent to reinforce their colonial troops. In
fact the new army was supposed to be no more than ten or twelve days'
march to the west. Of course the thing was ridiculous--preposterous--but
preposterous things often happen in war; and anyway no good general
permits the least rumor of enemy activity to go uninvestigated.
Therefore Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick flew low toward
the west, searching with keen eyes for signs of a Hun army. Vast
forests unrolled beneath him in which a German army corps might
have lain concealed, so dense was the overhanging foliage of the
great trees. Mountain, meadowland, and desert passed in lovely
panorama; but never a sight of man had the young lieutenant.
Always hoping that he might discover some sign of their passage--a
discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site--he continued
farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon.
Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a
winding river he determined to turn about and start for camp. It
would take straight flying at top speed to cover the distance before
dark; but as he had ample gasoline and a trustworthy machine there
was no doubt in his mind but that he could accomplish his aim. It
was then that his engine stalled.
He was too low to do anything but land, and that immediately,
while he had the more open country accessible, for directly east of
him was a vast forest into which a stalled engine could only have
plunged him to certain injury and probable death; and so he came
down in the meadowland near the winding river and there started to
tinker with his motor.
As he worked he hummed a tune, some music-hall air that had been
popular in London the year before, so that one might have thought
him working in the security of an English flying field surrounded
by innumerable comrades rather than alone in the heart of an unexplored
African wilderness. It was typical of the man that he should be
wholly indifferent to his surroundings, although his looks entirely
belied any assumption that he was of particularly heroic strain.
Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick was fair-haired, blue-eyed,
and slender, with a rosy, boyish face that might have been molded
more by an environment of luxury, indolence, and ease than the more
strenuous exigencies of life's sterner requirements.
And not only was the young lieutenant outwardly careless of the
immediate future and of his surroundings, but actually so. That
the district might be infested by countless enemies seemed not to
have occurred to him in the remotest degree. He bent assiduously
to the work of correcting the adjustment that had caused his motor
to stall without so much as an upward glance at the surrounding
country. The forest to the east of him, and the more distant jungle
that bordered the winding river, might have harbored an army of
bloodthirsty savages, but neither could elicit even a passing show
of interest on the part of Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick.
And even had he looked, it is doubtful if he would have seen the
score of figures crouching in the concealment of the undergrowth
at the forest's edge. There are those who are reputed to be endowed
with that which is sometimes, for want of a better appellation,
known as the sixth sense--a species of intuition which apprises
them of the presence of an unseen danger. The concentrated gaze of
a hidden observer provokes a warning sensation of nervous unrest in
such as these, but though twenty pairs of savage eyes were gazing
fixedly at Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, the fact aroused
no responsive sensation of impending danger in his placid breast.
He hummed peacefully and, his adjustment completed, tried out his
motor for a minute or two, then shut it off and descended to the
ground with the intention of stretching his legs and taking a smoke
before continuing his return flight to camp. Now for the first time
he took note of his surroundings, to be immediately impressed by
both the wildness and the beauty of the scene. In some respects the
tree-dotted meadowland reminded him of a park-like English forest,
and that wild beasts and savage men could ever be a part of so
quiet a scene seemed the remotest of contingencies.
Some gorgeous blooms upon a flowering shrub at a little distance
from his machine caught the attention of his aesthetic eye, and as
he puffed upon his cigarette, he walked over to examine the flowers
more closely. As he bent above them he was probably some hundred
yards from his plane and it was at this instant that Numabo, chief
of the Wamabo, chose to leap from his ambush and lead his warriors
in a sudden rush upon the white man.
The young Englishman's first intimation of danger was a chorus of
savage yells from the forest behind him. Turning, he saw a score
of naked, black warriors advancing rapidly toward him. They moved
in a compact mass and as they approached more closely their rate
of speed noticeably diminished. Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick realized
in a quick glance that the direction of their approach and their
proximity had cut off all chances of retreating to his plane, and
he also understood that their attitude was entirely warlike and
menacing. He saw that they were armed with spears and with bows and
arrows, and he felt quite confident that notwithstanding the fact
that he was armed with a pistol they could overcome him with the
first rush. What he did not know about their tactics was that at
any show of resistance they would fall back, which is the nature of
the native Negroes, but that after numerous advances and retreats,
during which they would work themselves into a frenzy of rage by
much shrieking, leaping, and dancing, they would eventually come
to the point of a determined and final assault.
Numabo was in the forefront, a fact which taken in connection with
his considerably greater size and more warlike appearance, indicated
him as the natural target and it was at Numabo that the Englishman
aimed his first shot. Unfortunately for him it missed its target,
as the killing of the chief might have permanently dispersed
the others. The bullet passed Numabo to lodge in the breast of a
warrior behind him and as the fellow lunged forward with a scream
the others turned and retreated, but to the lieutenant's chagrin
they ran in the direction of the plane instead of back toward the
forest so that he was still cut off from reaching his machine.
Presently they stopped and faced him again. They were talking loudly
and gesticulating, and after a moment one of them leaped into the
air, brandishing his spear and uttering savage war cries, which
soon had their effect upon his fellows so that it was not long ere
all of them were taking part in the wild show of savagery, which
would bolster their waning courage and presently spur them on to
another attack.
The second charge brought them closer to the Englishman, and though
he dropped another with his pistol, it was not before two or three
spears had been launched at him. He now had five shots remaining
and there were still eighteen warriors to be accounted for, so that
unless he could frighten them off, it was evident that his fate
was sealed.
That they must pay the price of one life for every attempt to take
his had its effect upon them and they were longer now in initiating
a new rush and when they did so it was more skillfully ordered than
those that had preceded it, for they scattered into three bands
which, partially surrounding him, came simultaneously toward him
from different directions, and though he emptied his pistol with
good effect, they reached him at last. They seemed to know that
his ammunition was exhausted, for they circled close about him now
with the evident intention of taking him alive, since they might
easily have riddled him with their sharp spears with perfect safety
to themselves.
For two or three minutes they circled about him until, at a word
from Numabo, they closed in simultaneously, and though the slender
young lieutenant struck out to right and left, he was soon overwhelmed
by superior numbers and beaten down by the hafts of spears in brawny
hands.
He was all but unconscious when they finally dragged him to his
feet, and after securing his hands behind his back, pushed him
roughly along ahead of them toward the jungle.
As the guard prodded him along the narrow trail, Lieutenant
Smith-Oldwick could not but wonder why they had wished to take him
alive. He knew that he was too far inland for his uniform to have
any significance to this native tribe to whom no inkling of the
World War probably ever had come, and he could only assume that he
had fallen into the hands of the warriors of some savage potentate
upon whose royal caprice his fate would hinge.
They had marched for perhaps half an hour when the Englishman saw
ahead of them, in a little clearing upon the bank of the river,
the thatched roofs of native huts showing above a crude but strong
palisade; and presently he was ushered into a village street where
he was immediately surrounded by a throng of women and children
and warriors. Here he was soon the center of an excited mob whose
intent seemed to be to dispatch him as quickly as possible. The
women were more venomous than the men, striking and scratching him
whenever they could reach him, until at last Numabo, the chief, was
obliged to interfere to save his prisoner for whatever purpose he
was destined.
As the warriors pushed the crowd back, opening a space through
which the white man was led toward a hut, Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick
saw coming from the opposite end of the village a number of Negroes
wearing odds and ends of German uniforms. He was not a little
surprised at this, and his first thought was that he had at last
come in contact with some portion of the army which was rumored to
be crossing from the west coast and for signs of which he had been
searching.
A rueful smile touched his lips as he contemplated the unhappy
circumstances which surrounded the accession of this knowledge for
though he was far from being without hope, he realized that only
by the merest chance could he escape these people and regain his
machine.
Among the partially uniformed blacks was a huge fellow in the tunic
of a sergeant and as this man's eyes fell upon the British officer,
a loud cry of exultation broke from his lips, and immediately his
followers took up the cry and pressed forward to bait the prisoner.
"Where did you get the Englishman?" asked Usanga, the black sergeant,
of the chief Numabo. "Are there many more with him?"
"He came down from the sky," replied the native chief, "in a strange
thing which flies like a bird and which frightened us very much at
first; but we watched for a long time and saw that it did not seem
to be alive, and when this white man left it we attacked him and
though he killed some of my warriors, we took him, for we Wamabos
are brave men and great warriors."
Usanga's eyes went wide. "He flew here through the sky?" he asked.
"Yes," said Numabo. "In a great thing which resembled a bird he
flew down out of the sky. The thing is still there where it came
down close to the four trees near the second bend in the river. We
left it there because, not knowing what it was, we were afraid to
touch it and it is still there if it has not flown away again."
"It cannot fly," said Usanga, "without this man in it. It is a
terrible thing which filled the hearts of our soldiers with terror,
for it flew over our camps at night and dropped bombs upon us.
It is well that you captured this white man, Numabo, for with his
great bird he would have flown over your village tonight and killed
all your people. These Englishmen are very wicked white men."
"He will fly no more," said Numabo. "It is not intended that a man
should fly through the air; only wicked demons do such things as
that and Numabo, the chief, will see that this white man does not
do it again," and with the words he pushed the young officer roughly
toward a hut in the center of the village, where he was left under
guard of two stalwart warriors.
For an hour or more the prisoner was left to his own devices, which
consisted in vain and unremitting attempts to loosen the strands
which fettered his wrists, and then he was interrupted by the
appearance of the black sergeant Usanga, who entered his hut and
approached him.
"What are they going to do with me?" asked the Englishman. "My
country is not at war with these people. You speak their language.
Tell them that I am not an enemy, that my people are the friends
of the black people and that they must let me go in peace."
Usanga laughed. "They do not know an Englishman from a German," he
replied. "It is nothing to them what you are, except that you are
a white man and an enemy."
"Then why did they take me alive?" asked the lieutenant.
"Come," said Usanga and he led the Englishman to the doorway of
the hut. "Look," he said, and pointed a black forefinger toward
the end of the village street where a wider space between the huts
left a sort of plaza.
Here Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick saw a number of Negresses
engaged in laying fagots around a stake and in preparing fires
beneath a number of large cooking vessels. The sinister suggestion
was only too obvious.
Usanga was eyeing the white man closely, but if he expected to be
rewarded by any signs of fear, he was doomed to disappointment and
the young lieutenant merely turned toward him with a shrug: "Really
now, do you beggars intend eating me?"
"Not my people," replied Usanga. "We do not eat human flesh, but
the Wamabos do. It is they who will eat you, but we will kill you
for the feast, Englishman."
The Englishman remained standing in the doorway of the hut, an
interested spectator of the preparations for the coming orgy that
was so horribly to terminate his earthly existence. It can hardly
be assumed that he felt no fear; yet, if he did, he hid it perfectly
beneath an imperturbable mask of coolness. Even the brutal Usanga
must have been impressed by the bravery of his victim since, though
he had come to abuse and possibly to torture the helpless prisoner,
he now did neither, contenting himself merely with berating whites
as a race and Englishmen especially, because of the terror the
British aviators had caused Germany's native troops in East Africa.
"No more," he concluded, "will your great bird fly over our people
dropping death among them from the skies--Usanga will see to that,"
and he walked abruptly away toward a group of his own fighting men
who were congregated near the stake where they were laughing and
joking with the women.
A few minutes later the Englishman saw them pass out of the village
gate, and once again his thoughts reverted to various futile plans
for escape.
Several miles north of the village on a little rise of ground close
to the river where the jungle, halting at the base of a knoll, had
left a few acres of grassy land sparsely wooded, a man and a girl
were busily engaged in constructing a small boma, in the center of
which a thatched hut already had been erected.
They worked almost in silence with only an occasional word of
direction or interrogation between them.
Except for a loin cloth, the man was naked, his smooth skin tanned
to a deep brown by the action of sun and wind. He moved with the
graceful ease of a jungle cat and when he lifted heavy weights,
the action seemed as effortless as the raising of empty hands.
When he was not looking at her, and it was seldom that he did, the
girl found her eyes wandering toward him, and at such times there
was always a puzzled expression upon her face as though she found
in him an enigma which she could not solve. As a matter of fact,
her feelings toward him were not un-tinged with awe, since in
the brief period of their association she had discovered in this
handsome, godlike giant the attributes of the superman and the
savage beast closely intermingled. At first she had felt only that
unreasoning feminine terror which her unhappy position naturally
induced.
To be alone in the heart of an unexplored wilderness of Central
Africa with a savage wild man was in itself sufficiently appalling,
but to feel also that this man was a blood enemy, that he hated her
and her kind and that in addition thereto he owed her a personal
grudge for an attack she had made upon him in the past, left no
loophole for any hope that he might accord her even the minutest
measure of consideration.
She had seen him first months since when he had entered the
headquarters of the German high command in East Africa and carried
off the luckless Major Schneider, of whose fate no hint had ever
reached the German officers; and she had seen him again upon that
occasion when he had rescued her from the clutches of the lion and,
after explaining to her that he had recognized her in the British
camp, had made her prisoner. It was then that she had struck him
down with the butt of her pistol and escaped. That he might seek
no personal revenge for her act had been evidenced in Wilhelmstal
the night that he had killed Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and left
without molesting her.
No, she could not fathom him. He hated her and at the same time
he had protected her as had been evidenced again when he had kept
the great apes from tearing her to pieces after she had escaped
from the Wamabo village to which Usanga, the black sergeant, had
brought her a captive; but why was he saving her? For what sinister
purpose could this savage enemy be protecting her from the other
denizens of his cruel jungle? She tried to put from her mind the
probable fate which awaited her, yet it persisted in obtruding
itself upon her thoughts, though always she was forced to admit that
there was nothing in the demeanor of the man to indicate that her
fears were well grounded. She judged him perhaps by the standards
other men had taught her and because she looked upon him as a savage
creature, she felt that she could not expect more of chivalry from
him than was to be found in the breasts of the civilized men of
her acquaintance.
Fraulein Bertha Kircher was by nature a companionable and cheerful
character. She was not given to morbid forebodings, and above all
things she craved the society of her kind and that interchange of
thought which is one of the marked distinctions between man and
the lower animals. Tarzan, on the other hand, was sufficient unto
himself. Long years of semi-solitude among creatures whose powers
of oral expression are extremely limited had thrown him almost
entirely upon his own resources for entertainment.
His active mind was never idle, but because his jungle mates could
neither follow nor grasp the vivid train of imaginings that his
man-mind wrought, he had long since learned to keep them to himself;
and so now he found no need for confiding them in others. This
fact, linked with that of his dislike for the girl, was sufficient
to seal his lips for other than necessary conversation, and so they
worked on together in comparative silence. Bertha Kircher, however,
was nothing if not feminine and she soon found that having someone
to talk to who would not talk was extremely irksome. Her fear of
the man was gradually departing, and she was full of a thousand
unsatisfied curiosities as to his plans for the future in so far as
they related to her, as well as more personal questions regarding
himself, since she could not but wonder as to his antecedents and
his strange and solitary life in the jungle, as well as his friendly
intercourse with the savage apes among which she had found him.
With the waning of her fears she became sufficiently emboldened
to question him, and so she asked him what he intended doing after
the hut and boma were completed.
"I am going to the west coast where I was born," replied Tarzan.
"I do not know when. I have all my life before me and in the jungle
there is no reason for haste. We are not forever running as fast
as we can from one place to another as are you of the outer world.
When I have been here long enough I will go on toward the west,
but first I must see that you have a safe place in which to sleep,
and that you have learned how to provide yourself with necessaries.
That will take time."
"You are going to leave me here alone?" cried the girl; her tones
marked the fear which the prospect induced. "You are going to leave
me here alone in this terrible jungle, a prey to wild beasts and
savage men, hundreds of miles from a white settlement and in a
country which gives every evidence of never having been touched by
the foot of civilized men?"
"Why not?" asked Tarzan. "I did not bring you here. Would one of
your men accord any better treatment to an enemy woman?"
"Yes," she exclaimed. "They certainly would. No man of my race
would leave a defenseless white woman alone in this horrible place."
Tarzan shrugged his broad shoulders. The conversation seemed
profitless and it was further distasteful to him for the reason
that it was carried on in German, a tongue which he detested as
much as he did the people who spoke it. He wished that the girl
spoke English and then it occurred to him that as he had seen her
in disguise in the British camp carrying on her nefarious work as
a German spy, she probably did speak English and so he asked her.
"Of course I speak English," she exclaimed, "but I did not know
that you did."
Tarzan looked his wonderment but made no comment. He only wondered why
the girl should have any doubts as to the ability of an Englishman
to speak English, and then suddenly it occurred to him that she
probably looked upon him merely as a beast of the jungle who by
accident had learned to speak German through frequenting the district
which Germany had colonized. It was there only that she had seen
him and so she might not know that he was an Englishman by birth,
and that he had had a home in British East Africa. It was as well,
he thought, that she knew little of him, as the less she knew the
more he might learn from her as to her activities in behalf of the
Germans and of the German spy system of which she was a representative;
and so it occurred to him to let her continue to think that he was
only what he appeared to be--a savage denizen of his savage jungle,
a man of no race and no country, hating all white men impartially;
and this in truth, was what she did think of him. It explained
perfectly his attacks upon Major Schneider and the Major's brother,
Hauptmann Fritz.
Again they worked on in silence upon the boma which was now nearly
completed, the girl helping the man to the best of her small
ability. Tarzan could not but note with grudging approval the
spirit of helpfulness she manifested in the oft-times painful labor
of gathering and arranging the thorn bushes which constituted the
temporary protection against roaming carnivores. Her hands and arms
gave bloody token of the sharpness of the numerous points that had
lacerated her soft flesh, and even though she were an enemy Tarzan
could not but feel compunction that he had permitted her to do this
work, and at last he bade her stop.
"Why?" she asked. "It is no more painful to me than it must be to
you, and, as it is solely for my protection that you are building
this boma, there is no reason why I should not do my share."
"You are a woman," replied Tarzan. "This is not a woman's work. If
you wish to do something, take those gourds I brought this morning
and fill them with water at the river. You may need it while I am
away."
"While you are away--" she said. "You are going away?"
"When the boma is built I am going out after meat," he replied.
"Tomorrow I will go again and take you and show you how you may
make your own kills after I am gone."
Without a word she took the gourds and walked toward the river. As
she filled them, her mind was occupied with painful forebodings of
the future. She knew that Tarzan had passed a death sentence upon
her, and that the moment that he left her, her doom was sealed,
for it could be but a question of time--a very short time--before
the grim jungle would claim her, for how could a lone woman hope
successfully to combat the savage forces of destruction which
constituted so large a part of existence in the jungle?
So occupied was she with the gloomy prophecies that she had neither
ears nor eyes for what went on about her. Mechanically she filled
the gourds and, taking them up, turned slowly to retrace her steps
to the boma only to voice immediately a half-stifled scream and
shrink back from the menacing figure looming before her and blocking
her way to the hut.
Go-lat, the king ape, hunting a little apart from his tribe, had seen
the woman go to the river for water, and it was he who confronted
her when she turned back with her filled gourds. Go-lat was not
a pretty creature when judged by standards of civilized humanity,
though the shes of his tribe and even Go-lat himself, considered
his glossy black coat shot with silver, his huge arms dangling to
his knees, his bullet head sunk between his mighty shoulders, marks
of great personal beauty. His wicked, bloodshot eyes and broad
nose, his ample mouth and great fighting fangs only enhanced the
claim of this Adonis of the forest upon the affections of his shes.
Doubtless in the little, savage brain there was a well-formed
conviction that this strange she belonging to the Tarmangani must
look with admiration upon so handsome a creature as Go-lat, for
there could be no doubt in the mind of any that his beauty entirely
eclipsed such as the hairless white ape might lay claim to.
But Bertha Kircher saw only a hideous beast, a fierce and terrible
caricature of man. Could Go-lat have known what passed through her
mind, he must have been terribly chagrined, though the chances are
that he would have attributed it to a lack of discernment on her
part. Tarzan heard the girl's cry and looking up saw at a glance
the cause of her terror. Leaping lightly over the boma, he ran
swiftly toward her as Go-lat lumbered closer to the girl the while
he voiced his emotions in low gutturals which, while in reality the
most amicable of advances, sounded to the girl like the growling
of an enraged beast. As Tarzan drew nearer he called aloud to the
ape and the girl heard from the human lips the same sounds that
had fallen from those of the anthropoid.
"I will not harm your she," Go-lat called to Tarzan.
"I know it," replied the ape-man, "but she does not. She is like
Numa and Sheeta, who do not understand our talk. She thinks you
come to harm her."
By this time Tarzan was beside the girl. "He will not harm you,"
he said to her. "You need not be afraid. This ape has learned his
lesson. He has learned that Tarzan is lord of the jungle. He will
not harm that which is Tarzan's."
The girl cast a quick glance at the man's face. It was evident to
her that the words he had spoken meant nothing to him and that the
assumed proprietorship over her was, like the boma, only another
means for her protection.
"But I am afraid of him," she said.
"You must not show your fear. You will be often surrounded by these
apes. At such times you will be safest. Before I leave you I will
give you the means of protecting yourself against them should one
of them chance to turn upon you. If I were you I would seek their
society. Few are the animals of the jungle that dare attack the
great apes when there are several of them together. If you let
them know that you are afraid of them, they will take advantage of
it and your life will be constantly menaced. The shes especially
would attack you. I will let them know that you have the means of
protecting yourself and of killing them. If necessary, I will show
you how and then they will respect and fear you."
"I will try," said the girl, "but I am afraid that it will be
difficult. He is the most frightful creature I ever have seen."
Tarzan smiled. "Doubtless he thinks the same of you," he said.
By this time other apes had entered the clearing and they were now
the center of a considerable group, among which were several bulls,
some young shes, and some older ones with their little balus clinging
to their backs or frolicking around at their feet. Though they had
seen the girl the night of the Dum-Dum when Sheeta had forced her
to leap from her concealment into the arena where the apes were
dancing, they still evinced a great curiosity regarding her. Some
of the shes came very close and plucked at her garments, commenting
upon them to one another in their strange tongue. The girl, by
the exercise of all the will power she could command, succeeded in
passing through the ordeal without evincing any of the terror and
revulsion that she felt. Tarzan watched her closely, a half-smile
upon his face. He was not so far removed from recent contact with
civilized people that he could not realize the torture that she
was undergoing, but he felt no pity for this woman of a cruel enemy
who doubtless deserved the worst suffering that could be meted to
her. Yet, notwithstanding his sentiments toward her, he was forced
to admire her fine display of courage. Suddenly he turned to the
apes.
"Tarzan goes to hunt for himself and his she," he said. "The she
will remain there," and he pointed toward the hut. "See that no
member of the tribe harms her. Do you understand?"
The apes nodded. "We will not harm her," said Go-lat.
"No," said Tarzan. "You will not. For if you do, Tarzan will kill
you," and then turning to the girl, "Come," he said, "I am going to
hunt now. You had better remain at the hut. The apes have promised
not to harm you. I will leave my spear with you. It will be the best
weapon you could have in case you should need to protect yourself,
but I doubt if you will be in any danger for the short time that
I am away."
He walked with her as far as the boma and when she had entered he
closed the gap with thorn bushes and turned away toward the forest.
She watched him moving across the clearing, noting the easy, catlike
tread and the grace of every movement that harmonized so well with
the symmetry and perfection of his figure. At the forest's edge
she saw him swing lightly into a tree and disappear from view, and
then, being a woman, she entered the hut and, throwing herself upon
the ground, burst into tears.