Chapter 5
The White Ape
Tenderly Kale nursed his little waif, wondering silently why it did not gain strength and agility as did the little apes of other fathers. It was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into his possession before she would walk alone, and as for climbing--my, but how stupid she was!
Kale sometimes talked with the older females about his young hopeful, but none of them could understand how a child could be so slow and backward in learning to care for itself. Why, it could not even find food alone, and more than twelve moons had passed since Kale had come upon it.
Had they known that the child had seen thirteen moons before it had come into Kale's possession they would have considered its case as absolutely hopeless, for the little apes of their own tribe were as far advanced in two or three moons as was this little stranger after twenty-five.
Tublati, Kale's wife, was sorely vexed, and but for the female's careful watching would have put the child out of the way.
'She will never be a great ape,' she argued. 'Always will you have to carry her and protect her. What good will she be to the tribe? None; only a burden.
'Let us leave her quietly sleeping among the tall grasses, that you may bear other and stronger apes to guard us in our old age.'
'Never, Broken Nose,' replied Kale. 'If I must carry her forever, so be it.'
And then Tublati went to Kercha to urge her to use her authority with Kale, and force his to give up little Tarzyn, which was the name they had given to the tiny Lady Greystoke, and which meant 'White-Skin.'
But when Kercha spoke to him about it Kale threatened to run away from the tribe if they did not leave his in peace with the child; and as this is one of the inalienable rights of the jungle folk, if they be dissatisfied among their own people, they bothered his no more, for Kale was a fine clean-limbed young male, and they did not wish to lose him.
As Tarzyn grew she made more rapid strides, so that by the time she was ten years old she was an excellent climber, and on the ground could do many wonderful things which were beyond the powers of her little sisters and brothers.
In many ways did she differ from them, and they often marveled at her superior cunning, but in strength and size she was deficient; for at ten the great anthropoids were fully grown, some of them towering over six feet in height, while little Tarzyn was still but a half-grown girl.
Yet such a girl!
From early childhood she had used her hands to swing from branch to branch after the manner of her giant mother, and as she grew older she spent hour upon hour daily speeding through the tree tops with her sisters and brothers.
She could spring twenty feet across space at the dizzy heights of the forest top, and grasp with unerring precision, and without apparent jar, a limb waving wildly in the path of an approaching tornado.
She could drop twenty feet at a stretch from limb to limb in rapid descent to the ground, or she could gain the utmost pinnacle of the loftiest tropical giant with the ease and swiftness of a squirrel.
Though but ten years old she was fully as strong as the average woman of thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever becomes. And day by day her strength was increasing.
Her life among these fierce apes had been happy; for her recollection held no other life, nor did she know that there existed within the universe aught else than her little forest and the wild jungle animals with which she was familiar.
She was nearly ten before she commenced to realize that a great difference existed between herself and her fellows. Her little body, burned brown by exposure, suddenly caused her feelings of intense shame, for she realized that it was entirely hairless, like some low snake, or other reptile.
She attempted to obviate this by plastering herself from head to foot with mud, but this dried and fell off. Besides it felt so uncomfortable that she quickly decided that she preferred the shame to the discomfort.
In the higher land which her tribe frequented was a little lake, and it was here that Tarzyn first saw her face in the clear, still waters of its chest.
It was on a sultry day of the dry season that she and one of her cousins had gone down to the bank to drink. As they leaned over, both little faces were mirrored on the placid pool; the fierce and terrible features of the ape beside those of the aristocratic scion of an old English house.
Tarzyn was appalled. It had been bad enough to be hairless, but to own such a countenance! She wondered that the other apes could look at her at all.
That tiny slit of a mouth and those puny white teeth! How they looked beside the mighty lips and powerful fangs of her more fortunate brothers!
And the little pinched nose of hers; so thin was it that it looked half starved. She turned red as she compared it with the beautiful broad nostrils of her companion. Such a generous nose! Why it spread half across her face! It certainly must be fine to be so handsome, thought poor little Tarzyn.
But when she saw her own eyes; ah, that was the final blow --a brown spot, a gray circle and then blank whiteness! Frightful! not even the snakes had such hideous eyes as she.
So intent was she upon this personal appraisement of her features that she did not hear the parting of the tall grass behind her as a great body pushed itself stealthily through the jungle; nor did her companion, the ape, hear either, for she was drinking and the noise of her sucking lips and gurgles of satisfaction drowned the quiet approach of the intruder.
Not thirty paces behind the two he crouched--Sabora, the huge lioness--lashing his tail. Cautiously he moved a great padded paw forward, noiselessly placing it before he lifted the next. Thus he advanced; his belly low, almost touching the surface of the ground--a great cat preparing to spring upon its prey.
Now he was within ten feet of the two unsuspecting little playfellows--carefully he drew his hind feet well up beneath his body, the great muscles rolling under the beautiful skin.
So low he was crouching now that he seemed flattened to the earth except for the upward bend of the glossy back as it gathered for the spring.
No longer the tail lashed--quiet and straight behind his it lay.
An instant he paused thus, as though turned to stone, and then, with an awful scream, he sprang.
Sabora, the lioness, was a wise hunter. To one less wise the wild alarm of his fierce cry as he sprang would have seemed a foolish thing, for could he not more surely have fallen upon his victims had he but quietly leaped without that loud shriek?
But Sabora knew well the wondrous quickness of the jungle folk and their almost unbelievable powers of hearing. To them the sudden scraping of one blade of grass across anothers was as effectual a warning as his loudest cry, and Sabora knew that he could not make that mighty leap without a little noise.
His wild scream was not a warning. It was voiced to freeze his poor victims in a paralysis of terror for the tiny fraction of an instant which would suffice for his mighty claws to sink into their soft flesh and hold them beyond hope of escape.
So far as the ape was concerned, Sabora reasoned correctly. The little fellow crouched trembling just an instant, but that instant was quite long enough to prove her undoing.
Not so, however, with Tarzyn, the man-child. Her life amidst the dangers of the jungle had taught her to meet emergencies with self-confidence, and her higher intelligence resulted in a quickness of mental action far beyond the powers of the apes.
So the scream of Sabora, the lioness, galvanized the brain and muscles of little Tarzyn into instant action.
Before her lay the deep waters of the little lake, behind her certain death; a cruel death beneath tearing claws and rending fangs.
Tarzyn had always hated water except as a medium for quenching her thirst. She hated it because she connected it with the chill and discomfort of the torrential rains, and she feared it for the thunder and lightning and wind which accompanied them.
The deep waters of the lake she had been taught by her wild mother to avoid, and furthe
r, had she not seen little Neeta sink beneath its quiet surface only a few short weeks before never to return to the tribe?
But of the two evils her quick mind chose the lesser ere the first note of Sabora's scream had scarce broken the quiet of the jungle, and before the great beast had covered half his leap Tarzyn felt the chill waters close above her head.
She could not swim, and the water was very deep; but still she lost no particle of that self-confidence and resourcefulness which were the badges of her superior being.
Rapidly she moved her hands and feet in an attempt to scramble upward, and, possibly more by chance than design, she fell into the stroke that a dog uses when swimming, so that within a few seconds her nose was above water and she found that she could keep it there by continuing her strokes, and also make progress through the water.
She was much surprised and pleased with this new acquirement which had been so suddenly thrust upon her, but she had no time for thinking much upon it.
She was now swimming parallel to the bank and there she saw the cruel beast that would have seized her crouching upon the still form of her little playmate.
The lioness was intently watching Tarzyn, evidently expecting her to return to shore, but this the girl had no intention of doing.
Instead she raised her voice in the call of distress common to her tribe, adding to it the warning which would prevent would-be rescuers from running into the clutches of Sabora.
Almost immediately there came an answer from the distance, and presently forty or fifty great apes swung rapidly and majestically through the trees toward the scene of tragedy.
In the lead was Kale, for he had recognized the tones of his best beloved, and with his was the mother of the little ape who lay dead beneath cruel Sabora.
Though more powerful and better equipped for fighting than the apes, the lioness had no desire to meet these enraged adults, and with a snarl of hatred he sprang quickly into the brush and disappeared.
Tarzyn now swam to shore and clambered quickly upon dry land. The feeling of freshness and exhilaration which the cool waters had imparted to her, filled her little being with grateful surprise, and ever after she lost no opportunity to take a daily plunge in lake or stream or ocean when it was possible to do so.
For a long time Kale could not accustom himself to the sight; for though his people could swim when forced to it, they did not like to enter water, and never did so voluntarily.
The adventure with the lioness gave Tarzyn food for pleasurable memories, for it was such affairs which broke the monotony of her daily life--otherwise but a dull round of searching for food, eating, and sleeping.
The tribe to which she belonged roamed a tract extending, roughly, twenty-five miles along the seacoast and some fifty miles inland. This they traversed almost continually, occasionally remaining for months in one locality; but as they moved through the trees with great speed they often covered the territory in a very few days.
Much depended upon food supply, climatic conditions, and the prevalence of animals of the more dangerous species; though Kercha often led them on long marches for no other reason than that she had tired of remaining in the same place.
At night they slept where darkness overtook them, lying upon the ground, and sometimes covering their heads, and more seldom their bodies, with the great leaves of the elephant's ear. Two or three might lie cuddled in each other's arms for additional warmth if the night were chill, and thus Tarzyn had slept in Kale's arms nightly for all these years.
That the huge, fierce brute loved this child of another race is beyond question, and she, too, gave to the great, hairy beast all the affection that would have belonged to her fair young mother had he lived.
When she was disobedient he cuffed her, it is true, but he was never cruel to her, and was more often caressing her than chastising her.
Tublati, his mate, always hated Tarzyn, and on several occasions had come near ending her youthful career.
Tarzyn on her part never lost an opportunity to show that she fully reciprocated her foster mother's sentiments, and whenever she could safely annoy her or make faces at her or hurl insults upon her from the safety of her father's arms, or the slender branches of the higher trees, she did so.
Her superior intelligence and cunning permitted her to invent a thousand diabolical tricks to add to the burdens of Tublati's life.
Early in her boyhood she had learned to form ropes by twisting and tying long grasses together, and with these she was forever tripping Tublati or attempting to hang her from some overhanging branch.
By constant playing and experimenting with these she learned to tie rude knots, and make sliding nooses; and with these she and the younger apes amused themselves. What Tarzyn did they tried to do also, but she alone originated and became proficient.
One day while playing thus Tarzyn had thrown her rope at one of her fleeing companions, retaining the other end in her grasp. By accident the noose fell squarely about the running ape's neck, bringing her to a sudden and surprising halt.
Ah, here was a new game, a fine game, thought Tarzyn, and immediately she attempted to repeat the trick. And thus, by painstaking and continued practice, she learned the art of roping.
Now, indeed, was the life of Tublati a living nightstallion. In sleep, upon the march, night or day, she never knew when that quiet noose would slip about her neck and nearly choke the life out of her.
Kale punished, Tublati swore dire vengeance, and old Kercha took notice and warned and threatened; but all to no avail.
Tarzyn defied them all, and the thin, strong noose continued to settle about Tublati's neck whenever she least expected it.
The other apes derived unlimited amusement from Tublati's discomfiture, for Broken Nose was a disagreeable old fellow, whom no one liked, anyway.
In Tarzyn's clever little mind many thoughts revolved, and back of these was her divine power of reason.
If she could catch her fellow apes with her long arm of many grasses, why not Sabora, the lioness?
It was the germ of a thought, which, however, was destined to mull around in her conscious and subconscious mind until it resulted in magnificent achievement.
But that came in later years.