5
In the Kor-ul-GRYF
As Tarzan fell among his enemies a man halted many miles away upon theouter verge of the morass that encircles Pal-ul-don. Naked he wasexcept for a loin cloth and three belts of cartridges, two of whichpassed over his shoulders, crossing upon his chest and back, while thethird encircled his waist. Slung to his back by its leathernsling-strap was an Enfield, and he carried too a long knife, a bow anda quiver of arrows. He had come far, through wild and savage lands,menaced by fierce beasts and fiercer men, yet intact to the lastcartridge was the ammunition that had filled his belts the day that heset out.
The bow and the arrows and the long knife had brought him thus farsafely, yet often in the face of great risks that could have beenminimized by a single shot from the well-kept rifle at his back. Whatpurpose might he have for conserving this precious ammunition? inrisking his life to bring the last bright shining missile to hisunknown goal? For what, for whom were these death-dealing bits of metalpreserved? In all the world only he knew.
When Pan-at-lee stepped over the edge of the cliff above Kor-ul-lul sheexpected to be dashed to instant death upon the rocks below; but shehad chosen this in preference to the rending fangs of JA. Instead,chance had ordained that she make the frightful plunge at a point wherethe tumbling river swung close beneath the overhanging cliff to eddyfor a slow moment in a deep pool before plunging madly downward againin a cataract of boiling foam, and water thundering against rocks.
Into this icy pool the girl shot, and down and down beneath the waterysurface until, half choked, yet fighting bravely, she battled her wayonce more to air. Swimming strongly she made the opposite shore andthere dragged herself out upon the bank to lie panting and spent untilthe approaching dawn warned her to seek concealment, for she was in thecountry of her people's enemies.
Rising, she moved into the concealment of the rank vegetation thatgrows so riotously in the well-watered kors[1] of Pal-ul-don.
Hidden amidst the plant life from the sight of any who might chance topass along the well-beaten trail that skirted the river Pan-at-leesought rest and food, the latter growing in abundance all about her inthe form of fruits and berries and succulent tubers which she scoopedfrom the earth with the knife of the dead Es-sat.
Ah! if she had but known that he was dead! What trials and risks andterrors she might have been saved; but she thought that he still livedand so she dared not return to Kor-ul-JA. At least not yet while hisrage was at white heat. Later, perhaps, her father and brothersreturned to their cave, she might risk it; but not now--not now. Norcould she for long remain here in the neighborhood of the hostileKor-ul-lul and somewhere she must find safety from beasts before thenight set in.
As she sat upon the bole of a fallen tree seeking some solution of theproblem of existence that confronted her, there broke upon her earsfrom up the gorge the voices of shouting men--a sound that sherecognized all too well. It was the war cry of the Kor-ul-lul. Closerand closer it approached her hiding place. Then, through the veil offoliage she caught glimpses of three figures fleeing along the trail,and behind them the shouting of the pursuers rose louder and louder asthey neared her. Again she caught sight of the fugitives crossing theriver below the cataract and again they were lost to sight. And now thepursuers came into view--shouting Kor-ul-lul warriors, fierce andimplacable. Forty, perhaps fifty of them. She waited breathless; butthey did not swerve from the trail and passed her, unguessing that anenemy she lay hid within a few yards of them.
Once again she caught sight of the pursued--three Waz-don warriorsclambering the cliff face at a point where portions of the summit hadfallen away presenting a steep slope that might be ascended by such asthese. Suddenly her attention was riveted upon the three. Could it be?O Jad-ben-Otho! had she but known a moment before. When they passed shemight have joined them, for they were her father and two brothers. Nowit was too late. With bated breath and tense muscles she watched therace. Would they reach the summit? Would the Kor-ul-lul overhaul them?They climbed well, but, oh, so slowly. Now one lost his footing in theloose shale and slipped back! The Kor-ul-lul were ascending--one hurledhis club at the nearest fugitive. The Great God was pleased with thebrother of Pan-at-lee, for he caused the club to fall short of itstarget, and to fall, rolling and bounding, back upon its owner carryinghim from his feet and precipitating him to the bottom of the gorge.
Standing now, her hands pressed tight above her golden breastplates,Pan-at-lee watched the race for life. Now one, her older brother,reached the summit and clinging there to something that she could notsee he lowered his body and his long tail to the father beneath him.The latter, seizing this support, extended his own tail to the sonbelow--the one who had slipped back--and thus, upon a living ladder oftheir own making, the three reached the summit and disappeared fromview before the Kor-ul-lul overtook them. But the latter did notabandon the chase. On they went until they too had disappeared fromsight and only a faint shouting came down to Pan-at-lee to tell herthat the pursuit continued.
The girl knew that she must move on. At any moment now might come ahunting party, combing the gorge for the smaller animals that fed orbedded there.
Behind her were Es-sat and the returning party of Kor-ul-lul that hadpursued her kin; before her, across the next ridge, was theKor-ul-GRYF, the lair of the terrifying monsters that brought the chillof fear to every inhabitant of Pal-ul-don; below her, in the valley,was the country of the Ho-don, where she could look for only slavery,or death; here were the Kor-ul-lul, the ancient enemies of her peopleand everywhere were the wild beasts that eat the flesh of man.
For but a moment she debated and then turning her face toward thesoutheast she set out across the gorge of water toward theKor-ul-GRYF--at least there were no men there. As it is now, so it wasin the beginning, back to the primitive progenitor of man which istypified by Pan-at-lee and her kind today, of all the hunters thatwoman fears, man is the most relentless, the most terrible. To thedangers of man she preferred the dangers of the GRYF.
Moving cautiously she reached the foot of the cliff at the far side ofKor-ul-lul and here, toward noon, she found a comparatively easyascent. Crossing the ridge she stood at last upon the brink ofKor-ul-GRYF--the horror place of the folklore of her race. Dank andmysterious grew the vegetation below; giant trees waved their plumedtops almost level with the summit of the cliff; and over all brooded anominous silence.
Pan-at-lee lay upon her belly and stretching over the edge scanned thecliff face below her. She could see caves there and the stone pegswhich the ancients had fashioned so laboriously by hand. She had heardof these in the firelight tales of her childhood and of how the gryfshad come from the morasses across the mountains and of how at last thepeople had fled after many had been seized and devoured by the hideouscreatures, leaving their caves untenanted for no man living knew howlong. Some said that Jad-ben-Otho, who has lived forever, was still alittle boy. Pan-at-lee shuddered; but there were caves and in them shewould be safe even from the gryfs.
She found a place where the stone pegs reached to the very summit ofthe cliff, left there no doubt in the final exodus of the tribe whenthere was no longer need of safeguarding the deserted caves againstinvasion. Pan-at-lee clambered slowly down toward the uppermost cave.She found the recess in front of the doorway almost identical withthose of her own tribe. The floor of it, though, was littered withtwigs and old nests and the droppings of birds, until it was halfchoked. She moved along to another recess and still another, but allwere alike in the accumulated filth. Evidently there was no need inlooking further. This one seemed large and commodious. With her knifeshe fell to work cleaning away the debris by the simple expedient ofpushing it over the edge, and always her eyes turned constantly towardthe silent gorge where lurked the fearsome creatures of Pal-ul-don. Andother eyes there were, eyes she did not see, but that saw her andwatched her every move--fierce eyes, greedy eyes, cunning and cruel.They watched her, and a red tongue licked flabby, pendulous lips. Theywatched her, and a half-human
brain laboriously evolved a brutishdesign.
As in her own Kor-ul-JA, the natural springs in the cliff had beendeveloped by the long-dead builders of the caves so that fresh, purewater trickled now, as it had for ages, within easy access to the caveentrances. Her only difficulty would be in procuring food and for thatshe must take the risk at least once in two days, for she was sure thatshe could find fruits and tubers and perhaps small animals, birds, andeggs near the foot of the cliff, the last two, possibly, in the cavesthemselves. Thus might she live on here indefinitely. She felt now acertain sense of security imparted doubtless by the impregnability ofher high-flung sanctuary that she knew to be safe from all the moredangerous beasts, and this one from men, too, since it lay in theabjured Kor-ul-GRYF.
Now she determined to inspect the interior of her new home. The sunstill in the south, lighted the interior of the first apartment. It wassimilar to those of her experience--the same beasts and men weredepicted in the same crude fashion in the carvings on thewalls--evidently there had been little progress in the race of Waz-donduring the generations that had come and departed since Kor-ul-GRYF hadbeen abandoned by men. Of course Pan-at-lee thought no such thoughts,for evolution and progress existed not for her, or her kind. Thingswere as they had always been and would always be as they were.
That these strange creatures have existed thus for incalculable ages itcan scarce be doubted, so marked are the indications of antiquity abouttheir dwellings--deep furrows worn by naked feet in living rock; thehollow in the jamb of a stone doorway where many arms have touched inpassing; the endless carvings that cover, ofttimes, the entire face ofa great cliff and all the walls and ceilings of every cave and eachcarving wrought by a different hand, for each is the coat of arms, onemight say, of the adult male who traced it.
And so Pan-at-lee found this ancient cave homelike and familiar. Therewas less litter within than she had found without and what there waswas mostly an accumulation of dust. Beside the doorway was the niche inwhich wood and tinder were kept, but there remained nothing now otherthan mere dust. She had however saved a little pile of twigs from thedebris on the porch. In a short time she had made a light by firing abundle of twigs and lighting others from this fire she explored some ofthe inner rooms. Nor here did she find aught that was new or strangenor any relic of the departed owners other than a few broken stonedishes. She had been looking for something soft to sleep upon, but wasdoomed to disappointment as the former owners had evidently made aleisurely departure, carrying all their belongings with them. Below, inthe gorge were leaves and grasses and fragrant branches, but Pan-at-leefelt no stomach for descending into that horrid abyss for thegratification of mere creature comfort--only the necessity for foodwould drive her there.
And so, as the shadows lengthened and night approached she prepared tomake as comfortable a bed as she could by gathering the dust of agesinto a little pile and spreading it between her soft body and the hardfloor--at best it was only better than nothing. But Pan-at-lee was verytired. She had not slept since two nights before and in the intervalshe had experienced many dangers and hardships. What wonder then thatdespite the hard bed, she was asleep almost immediately she hadcomposed herself for rest.
She slept and the moon rose, casting its silver light upon the cliff'swhite face and lessening the gloom of the dark forest and the dismalgorge. In the distance a lion roared. There was a long silence. Fromthe upper reaches of the gorge came a deep bellow. There was a movementin the trees at the cliff's foot. Again the bellow, low and ominous. Itwas answered from below the deserted village. Something dropped fromthe foliage of a tree directly below the cave in which Pan-at-leeslept--it dropped to the ground among the dense shadows. Now it moved,cautiously. It moved toward the foot of the cliff, taking form andshape in the moonlight. It moved like the creature of a baddream--slowly, sluggishly. It might have been a huge sloth--it mighthave been a man, with so grotesque a brush does the moon paint--mastercubist.
Slowly it moved up the face of the cliff--like a great grubworm itmoved, but now the moon-brush touched it again and it had hands andfeet and with them it clung to the stone pegs and raised itselflaboriously aloft toward the cave where Pan-at-lee slept. From thelower reaches of the gorge came again the sound of bellowing, and itwas answered from above the village.
Tarzan of the Apes opened his eyes. He was conscious of a pain in hishead, and at first that was about all. A moment later grotesqueshadows, rising and falling, focused his arousing perceptions.Presently he saw that he was in a cave. A dozen Waz-don warriorssquatted about, talking. A rude stone cresset containing burning oillighted the interior and as the flame rose and fell the exaggeratedshadows of the warriors danced upon the walls behind them.
"We brought him to you alive, Gund," he heard one of them saying,"because never before was Ho-don like him seen. He has no tail--he wasborn without one, for there is no scar to mark where a tail had beencut off. The thumbs upon his hands and feet are unlike those of theraces of Pal-ul-don. He is more powerful than many men put together andhe attacks with the fearlessness of JA. We brought him alive, that youmight see him before he is slain."
The chief rose and approached the ape-man, who closed his eyes andfeigned unconsciousness. He felt hairy hands upon him as he was turnedover, none too gently. The gund examined him from head to foot, makingcomments, especially upon the shape and size of his thumbs and greattoes.
"With these and with no tail," he said, "it cannot climb."
"No," agreed one of the warriors, "it would surely fall even from thecliff pegs."
"I have never seen a thing like it," said the chief. "It is neitherWaz-don nor Ho-don. I wonder from whence it came and what it is called."
"The Kor-ul-JA shouted aloud, 'Tarzan-jad-guru!' and we thought thatthey might be calling this one," said a warrior. "Shall we kill it now?"
"No," replied the chief, "we will wait until its life returns into itshead that I may question it. Remain here, In-tan, and watch it. When itcan again hear and speak call me."
He turned and departed from the cave, the others, except In-tan,following him. As they moved past him and out of the chamber Tarzancaught snatches of their conversation which indicated that theKor-ul-JA reinforcements had fallen upon their little party in greatnumbers and driven them away. Evidently the swift feet of Id-an hadsaved the day for the warriors of Om-at. The ape-man smiled, then hepartially opened an eye and cast it upon In-tan. The warrior stood atthe entrance to the cave looking out--his back was toward his prisoner.Tarzan tested the bonds that secured his wrists. They seemed none toostout and they had tied his hands in front of him! Evidence indeed thatthe Waz-don took few prisoners--if any.
Cautiously he raised his wrists until he could examine the thongs thatconfined them. A grim smile lighted his features. Instantly he was atwork upon the bonds with his strong teeth, but ever a wary eye was uponIn-tan, the warrior of Kor-ul-lul. The last knot had been loosened andTarzan's hands were free when In-tan turned to cast an appraising eyeupon his ward. He saw that the prisoner's position was changed--he nolonger lay upon his back as they had left him, but upon his side andhis hands were drawn up against his face. In-tan came closer and bentdown. The bonds seemed very loose upon the prisoner's wrists. Heextended his hand to examine them with his fingers and instantly thetwo hands leaped from their bonds--one to seize his own wrist, theother his throat. So unexpected the catlike attack that In-tan had noteven time to cry out before steel fingers silenced him. The creaturepulled him suddenly forward so that he lost his balance and rolled overupon the prisoner and to the floor beyond to stop with Tarzan upon hisbreast. In-tan struggled to release himself--struggled to draw hisknife; but Tarzan found it before him. The Waz-don's tail leaped to theother's throat, encircling it--he too could choke; but his own knife,in the hands of his antagonist, severed the beloved member close to itsroot.
The Waz-don's struggles became weaker--a film was obscuring his vision.He knew that he was dying and he was right. A moment later he was dead.Tarzan rose to
his feet and placed one foot upon the breast of his deadfoe. How the urge seized him to roar forth the victory cry of his kind!But he dared not. He discovered that they had not removed his rope fromhis shoulders and that they had replaced his knife in its sheath. Ithad been in his hand when he was felled. Strange creatures! He did notknow that they held a superstitious fear of the weapons of a deadenemy, believing that if buried without them he would forever haunt hisslayers in search of them and that when he found them he would kill theman who killed him. Against the wall leaned his bow and quiver ofarrows.
Tarzan stepped toward the doorway of the cave and looked out. Night hadjust fallen. He could hear voices from the nearer caves and therefloated to his nostrils the odor of cooking food. He looked down andexperienced a sensation of relief. The cave in which he had been heldwas in the lowest tier--scarce thirty feet from the base of the cliff.He was about to chance an immediate descent when there occurred to hima thought that brought a grin to his savage lips--a thought that wasborn of the name the Waz-don had given him--Tarzan-jad-guru--Tarzan theTerrible--and a recollection of the days when he had delighted inbaiting the blacks of the distant jungle of his birth. He turned backinto the cave where lay the dead body of In-tan. With his knife hesevered the warrior's head and carrying it to the outer edge of therecess tossed it to the ground below, then he dropped swiftly andsilently down the ladder of pegs in a way that would have surprised theKor-ul-lul who had been so sure that he could not climb.
At the bottom he picked up the head of In-tan and disappeared among theshadows of the trees carrying the grisly trophy by its shock of shaggyhair. Horrible? But you are judging a wild beast by the standards ofcivilization. You may teach a lion tricks, but he is still a lion.Tarzan looked well in a Tuxedo, but he was still a Tarmangani andbeneath his pleated shirt beat a wild and savage heart.
Nor was his madness lacking in method. He knew that the hearts of theKor-ul-lul would be filled with rage when they discovered the thingthat he had done and he knew too, that mixed with the rage would be aleaven of fear and it was fear of him that had made Tarzan master ofmany jungles--one does not win the respect of the killers with bonbons.
Below the village Tarzan returned to the foot of the cliff searchingfor a point where he could make the ascent to the ridge and thus backto the village of Om-at, the Kor-ul-JA. He came at last to a placewhere the river ran so close to the rocky wall that he was forced toswim it in search of a trail upon the opposite side and here it wasthat his keen nostrils detected a familiar spoor. It was the scent ofPan-at-lee at the spot where she had emerged from the pool and taken tothe safety of the jungle.
Immediately the ape-man's plans were changed. Pan-at-lee lived, or atleast she had lived after the leap from the cliff's summit. He hadstarted in search of her for Om-at, his friend, and for Om-at he wouldcontinue upon the trail he had picked up thus fortuitously by accident.It led him into the jungle and across the gorge and then to the pointat which Pan-at-lee had commenced the ascent of the opposite cliffs.Here Tarzan abandoned the head of In-tan, tying it to the lower branchof a tree, for he knew that it would handicap him in his ascent of thesteep escarpment. Apelike he ascended, following easily the scentspoor of Pan-at-lee. Over the summit and across the ridge the traillay, plain as a printed page to the delicate senses of the jungle-bredtracker.
Tarzan knew naught of the Kor-ul-GRYF. He had seen, dimly in theshadows of the night, strange, monstrous forms and Ta-den and Om-at hadspoken of great creatures that all men feared; but always, everywhere,by night and by day, there were dangers. From infancy death hadstalked, grim and terrible, at his heels. He knew little of any otherexistence. To cope with danger was his life and he lived his life assimply and as naturally as you live yours amidst the dangers of thecrowded city streets. The black man who goes abroad in the jungle bynight is afraid, for he has spent his life since infancy surrounded bynumbers of his own kind and safeguarded, especially at night, by suchcrude means as lie within his powers. But Tarzan had lived as the lionlives and the panther and the elephant and the ape--a true junglecreature dependent solely upon his prowess and his wits, playing a lonehand against creation. Therefore he was surprised at nothing and fearednothing and so he walked through the strange night as undisturbed andunapprehensive as the farmer to the cow lot in the darkness before thedawn.
Once more Pan-at-lee's trail ended at the verge of a cliff; but thistime there was no indication that she had leaped over the edge and amoment's search revealed to Tarzan the stone pegs upon which she hadmade her descent. As he lay upon his belly leaning over the top of thecliff examining the pegs his attention was suddenly attracted bysomething at the foot of the cliff. He could not distinguish itsidentity, but he saw that it moved and presently that it was ascendingslowly, apparently by means of pegs similar to those directly belowhim. He watched it intently as it rose higher and higher until he wasable to distinguish its form more clearly, with the result that hebecame convinced that it more nearly resembled some form of great apethan a lower order. It had a tail, though, and in other respects it didnot seem a true ape.
Slowly it ascended to the upper tier of caves, into one of which itdisappeared. Then Tarzan took up again the trail of Pan-at-lee. Hefollowed it down the stone pegs to the nearest cave and then furtheralong the upper tier. The ape-man raised his eyebrows when he saw thedirection in which it led, and quickened his pace. He had almostreached the third cave when the echoes of Kor-ul-GRYF were awakened bya shrill scream of terror.
[1] I have used the Pal-ul-don word for gorge with the English plural,which is not the correct native plural form. The latter, it seems tome, is awkward for us and so I have generally ignored it throughout mymanuscript, permitting, for example, Kor-ul-JA to answer for bothsingular and plural. However, for the benefit of those who may beinterested in such things I may say that the plurals are formed simplyfor all words in the Pal-ul-don language by doubling the initial letterof the word, as k'kor, gorges, pronounced as though written kakor, thea having the sound of a in sofa. Lions, d' don.