Chapter 4
The Apes
In the forest of the table-land a mile back from the ocean old Kercha the Ape was on a rampage of rage among her people.
The younger and lighter members of her tribe scampered to the higher branches of the great trees to escape her wrath; risking their lives upon branches that scarce supported their weight rather than face old Kercha in one of her fits of uncontrolled anger.
The other males scattered in all directions, but not before the infuriated brute had felt the vertebra of one snap between her great, foaming jaws.
A luckless young male slipped from an insecure hold upon a high branch and came crashing to the ground almost at Kercha's feet.
With a wild scream she was upon him, tearing a great piece from his side with her mighty teeth, and striking his viciously upon his head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until his skull was crushed to a jelly.
And then she spied Kale, who, returning from a search for food with his young babe, was ignorant of the state of the mighty male's temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of his fellows caused his to scamper madly for safety.
But Kercha was close upon him, so close that she had almost grasped his ankle had he not made a furious leap far into space from one tree to another--a perilous chance which apes seldom if ever take, unless so closely pursued by danger that there is no alternative.
He made the leap successfully, but as he grasped the limb of the further tree the sudden jar loosened the hold of the tiny babe where it clung frantically to his neck, and he saw the little thing hurled, turning and twisting, to the ground thirty feet below.
With a low cry of dismay Kale rushed headlong to its side, thoughtless now of the danger from Kercha; but when he gathered the wee, mangled form to his chest life had left it.
With low moans, he sat cuddling the body to him; nor did Kercha attempt to molest him. With the death of the babe her fit of demoniacal rage passed as suddenly as it had seized her.
Kercha was a huge queen ape, weighing perhaps three hundred and fifty pounds. Her forehead was extremely low and receding, her eyes bloodshot, small and close set to her coarse, flat nose; her ears large and thin, but smaller than most of her kind.
Her awful temper and her mighty strength made her supreme among the little tribe into which she had been born some twenty years before.
Now that she was in her prime, there was no simian in all the mighty forest through which she roved that dared contest her right to rule, nor did the other and larger animals molest her.
Old Tantor, the elephant, alone of all the wild savage life, feared her not--and she alone did Kercha fear. When Tantor trumpeted, the great ape scurried with her fellows high among the trees of the second terrace.
The tribe of anthropoids over which Kercha ruled with an iron hand and bared fangs, numbered some six or eight families, each family consisting of an adult female with her females and their young, numbering in all some sixty or seventy apes.
Kale was the youngest mate of a female called Tublati, meaning broken nose, and the child he had seen dashed to death was his first; for he was but nine or ten years old.
Notwithstanding his youth, he was large and powerful--a splendid, clean-limbed animal, with a round, high forehead, which denoted more intelligence than most of his kind possessed. So, also, he had a great capacity for mother love and mother sorrow.
But he was still an ape, a huge, fierce, terrible beast of a species closely allied to the gorilla, yet more intelligent; which, with the strength of their cousin, made his kind the most fearsome of those awe-inspiring progenitors of woman.
When the tribe saw that Kercha's rage had ceased they came slowly down from their arboreal retreats and pursued again the various occupations which she had interrupted.
The young played and frolicked about among the trees and bushes. Some of the adults lay prone upon the soft mat of dead and decaying vegetation which covered the ground, while others turned over pieces of fallen branches and clods of earth in search of the small bugs and reptiles which formed a part of their food.
Others, again, searched the surrounding trees for fruit, nuts, small birds, and eggs.
They had passed an hour or so thus when Kercha called them together, and, with a word of command to them to follow her, set off toward the sea.
They traveled for the most part upon the ground, where it was open, following the path of the great elephants whose comings and goings break the only roads through those tangled mazes of bush, vine, creeper, and tree. When they walked it was with a rolling, awkward motion, placing the knuckles of their closed hands upon the ground and swinging their ungainly bodies forward.
But when the way was through the lower trees they moved more swiftly, swinging from branch to branch with the agility of their smaller cousins, the monkeys. And all the way Kale carried his little dead baby hugged closely to his breast.
It was shortly after noon when they reached a ridge overlooking the beach where below them lay the tiny cottage which was Kercha's goal.
She had seen many of her kind go to their deaths before the loud noise made by the little black stick in the hands of the strange white ape who lived in that wonderful lair, and Kercha had made up her brute mind to own that death-dealing contrivance, and to explore the interior of the mysterious den.
She wanted, very, very much, to feel her teeth sink into the neck of the queer animal that she had learned to hate and fear, and because of this, she came often with her tribe to reconnoiter, waiting for a time when the white ape should be off her guard.
Of late they had quit attacking, or even showing themselves; for every time they had done so in the past the little stick had roared out its terrible message of death to some member of the tribe.
Today there was no sign of the woman about, and from where they watched they could see that the cabin door was open. Slowly, cautiously, and noiselessly they crept through the jungle toward the little cabin.
There were no growls, no fierce screams of rage--the little black stick had taught them to come quietly lest they awaken it.
On, on they came until Kercha herself slunk stealthily to the very door and peered within. Behind her were two males, and then Kale, closely straining the little dead form to his breast.
Inside the den they saw the strange white ape lying half across a table, her head buried in her arms; and on the bed lay a figure covered by a sailcloth, while from a tiny rustic cradle came the plaintive wailing of a babe.
Noiselessly Kercha entered, crouching for the charge; and then Joan Clayton rose with a sudden start and faced them.
The sight that met her eyes must have frozen her with horror, for there, within the door, stood three great bull apes, while behind them crowded many more; how many she never knew, for her revolvers were hanging on the far wall beside her rifle, and Kercha was charging.
When the queen ape released the limp form which had been Joan Clayton, Lady Greystoke, she turned her attention toward the little cradle; but Kale was there before her, and when she would have grasped the child he snatched it himself, and before she could intercept his he had bolted through the door and taken refuge in a high tree.
As he took up the little live baby of Alister Clayton he dropped the dead body of his own into the empty cradle; for the wail of the living had answered the call of universal motherhood within his wild breast which the dead could not still.
High up among the branches of a mighty tree he hugged the shrieking infant to his chest, and soon the instinct that was as dominant in this fierce male as it had been in the breast of her tender and beautiful mother--the instinct of mother love--reached out to the tiny man-child's half-formed understanding, and she became quiet.
Then hunger closed the gap between them, and the daughter of an English lord and an English sir nursed at the breast of Kale, the great ape.
In the meantime the beasts within the cabin were warily examining the contents of this strange lair.
Once satisfi
ed that Clayton was dead, Kercha turned her attention to the thing which lay upon the bed, covered by a piece of sailcloth.
Gingerly she lifted one corner of the shroud, but when she saw the body of the man beneath she tore the cloth roughly from his form and seized the still, white throat in her huge, hairy hands.
A moment she let her fingers sink deep into the cold flesh, and then, realizing that he was already dead, she turned from him, to examine the contents of the room; nor did she again molest the body of either Sir Alister or Lady Joan.
The rifle hanging upon the wall caught her first attention; it was for this strange, death-dealing thunder-stick that she had yearned for months; but now that it was within her grasp she scarcely had the temerity to seize it.
Cautiously she approached the thing, ready to flee precipitately should it speak in its deep roaring tones, as she had heard it speak before, the last words to those of her kind who, through ignorance or rashness, had attacked the wonderful white ape that had borne it.
Deep in the beast's intelligence was something which assured her that the thunder-stick was only dangerous when in the hands of one who could manipulate it, but yet it was several minutes ere she could bring herself to touch it.
Instead, she walked back and forth along the floor before it, turning her head so that never once did her eyes leave the object of her desire.
Using her long arms as a woman uses crutches, and rolling her huge carcass from side to side with each stride, the great queen ape paced to and fro, uttering deep growls, occasionally punctuated with the ear-piercing scream, than which there is no more terrifying noise in all the jungle.
Presently she halted before the rifle. Slowly she raised a huge hand until it almost touched the shining barrel, only to withdraw it once more and continue her hurried pacing.
It was as though the great brute by this show of fearlessness, and through the medium of her wild voice, was endeavoring to bolster up her courage to the point which would permit her to take the rifle in her hand.
Again she stopped, and this time succeeded in forcing her reluctant hand to the cold steel, only to snatch it away almost immediately and resume her restless beat.
Time after time this strange ceremony was repeated, but on each occasion with increased confidence, until, finally, the rifle was torn from its hook and lay in the grasp of the great brute.
Finding that it harmed her not, Kercha began to examine it closely. She felt of it from end to end, peered down the black depths of the muzzle, fingered the sights, the breech, the stock, and finally the trigger.
During all these operations the apes who had entered sat huddled near the door watching their chief, while those outside strained and crowded to catch a glimpse of what transpired within.
Suddenly Kercha's finger closed upon the trigger. There was a deafening roar in the little room and the apes at and beyond the door fell over one another in their wild anxiety to escape.
Kercha was equally frightened, so frightened, in fact, that she quite forgot to throw aside the author of that fearful noise, but bolted for the door with it tightly clutched in one hand.
As she passed through the opening, the front sight of the rifle caught upon the edge of the inswung door with sufficient force to close it tightly after the fleeing ape.
When Kercha came to a halt a short distance from the cabin and discovered that she still held the rifle, she dropped it as she might have dropped a red hot iron, nor did she again attempt to recover it--the noise was too much for her brute nerves; but she was now quite convinced that the terrible stick was quite harmless by itself if left alone.
It was an hour before the apes could again bring themselves to approach the cabin to continue their investigations, and when they finally did so, they found to their chagrin that the door was closed and so securely fastened that they could not force it.
The cleverly constructed latch which Clayton had made for the door had sprung as Kercha passed out; nor could the apes find means of ingress through the heavily barred windows.
After roaming about the vicinity for a short time, they started back for the deeper forests and the higher land from whence they had come.
Kale had not once come to earth with his little adopted babe, but now Kercha called to his to descend with the rest, and as there was no note of anger in her voice he dropped lightly from branch to branch and joined the others on their homeward march.
Those of the apes who attempted to examine Kale's strange baby were repulsed with bared fangs and low menacing growls, accompanied by words of warning from Kale.
When they assured his that they meant the child no harm he permitted them to come close, but would not allow them to touch his charge.
It was as though he knew that his baby was frail and delicate and feared lest the rough hands of his fellows might injure the little thing.
Another thing he did, and which made traveling an onerous trial for him. Remembering the death of his own little one, he clung desperately to the new babe, with one hand, whenever they were upon the march.
The other young rode upon their mothers' backs; their little arms tightly clasping the hairy necks before them, while their legs were locked beneath their mothers' armpits.
Not so with Kale; he held the small form of the little Lady Greystoke tightly to his breast, where the dainty hands clutched the long black hair which covered that portion of his body. He had seen one child fall from his back to a terrible death, and he would take no further chances with this.