 CHAPTER VI. THE WHICH DOCTOR SEEKS VENGINCE. Lord Graystoke was hunting, or to be more accurate, he was shooting pheasants at Camston Heading. Lord Graystoke was immaculately and appropriately guard, to the minutest detail he was vogue. To be sure he was among the forward guns, not being considered a sporting shot, but what he lacked in skill he more than made up in appearance. At the end of the day he would, doubtless, have many birds to his credit, since he had two guns and a smart loader. Many more birds than he could eat in a year, even had he been hungry, which he was not, having but just arisen from the breakfast table. The beaters, there were twenty-three of them in white smocks, had but just driven the birds into a patch of gorse, and were now circling to the opposite side, that they might drive down toward the guns. Lord Graystoke was quite as excited as he ever permitted himself to become. There was an exhilaration in the sport that would not be denied. He felt his blood tingling through his veins as the beaters approached closer and closer to the birds. In a vague and stupid sort of way Lord Graystoke felt, as he always felt upon such occasions, that he was experiencing a sensation somewhat akin to a reversion to a prehistoric type, that the blood of an ancient forebearer was coursing hot through him, a hairy half-naked forebearer who had lived by the hunt. And far away, in a matted equatorial jungle, another Lord Graystoke, the real Lord Graystoke, hunted. By the standards which he knew, he too was vogue, utterly vogue, as was the primal ancestor before the first eviction. The day being sultry, the leopard skin had been left behind. The real Lord Graystoke had not two guns, to be sure, nor even one. Neither did he have a smart loader, but he possessed something infinitely more efficacious than guns or loaders, or even twenty-three beaters in white smocks. He possessed an appetite, an uncanny woodcraft, and muscles that were as steel springs. Later that day in England a Lord Graystoke ate bountifully of things he had not killed, and he drank other things which were uncorked, to the accompaniment of much noise. He patted his lips with Snowy Linnon to remove the faint traces of his repast, quite ignorant of the fact that he was an impostor, and that the rightful owner of his noble title was even then finishing his own dinner in far-off Africa. He was not using Snowy Linnon, though. Instead he drew the back of a brown forearm and hand across his mouth, and wiped his bloody fingers upon his thighs. Then he moved slowly through the jungle to the drinking-place, whereupon all fours he drank, as drank his fellows, the other beasts of the jungle. As he quenched his thirst another denizen of the gloomy forest approached the stream along the path behind him. It was Numa the Lion, tawny of body, and black of mane, scowling and sinister, rumbling out low, coughing roars. Tarzan of the apes heard him long before he came within sight, but the ape-man went on with his drinking, until he had had his fill. Then he arose slowly with the easy grace of a creature of the wilds, and all the quiet dignity that was his birthright. Numa halted as he saw the man standing at the very spot where the king would drink. His jaws were parted, and his cruel eyes gleamed. He growled and advanced slowly. The man growled too, backing slowly to one side, and watching, not the lion's face, but its tail. Should that commence to move from side to side in quick nervous jerks, it would be well to be upon the alert, and should it rise suddenly erect, straight and stiff, then one might prepare to fight or flee. But it did neither, so Tarzan merely backed away, and the lion came down and drank scarce fifty feet from where the man stood. Tomorrow they might be at one another's throats, but today there existed one of those strange and inexplicable truces which so often are seen among the savage ones of the jungle. Before Numa had finished drinking, Tarzan had returned into the forest and was swinging away in the direction of the village of Mabonga the Black Chief. It had been at least a moon, since the eight man had called upon the Gomangani. Not since he had restored little Tybo to his grief-stricken mother had the whim seized him to do so. The incident of the adopted Balu was a closed one to Tarzan. He had sought to find something upon which to lavy such an affection as Tyka lavished upon her Balu. But a short experience of the little Black Boy had made it quite plain to the eight man that no such sentiment could exist between them. The fact that he had for a time treated the little Black, as he might have treated a real Balu of his own, had in no way altered the vengeful sentiments with which he considered the murderers of Kayla. The Gomangani were his deadly enemies, nor could they ever be ought else. Today he looked forward to some slight relief from the monotony of his existence in such excitement as he might derive from baiting the Blacks. It was not yet dark when he reached the village and took his place in the great tree overhanging the palisade. From beneath came a great wailing out of the depths of a nearby hut. The noise fell disagreeably upon Tarzan's ears. It jarred and grated. He did not like it, so he decided to go away for a while in the hopes that it might cease. But though he was gone for a couple of hours, the wailing still continued when he returned. With the intention of putting a violent termination to the annoying sound, Tarzan slipped silently from the tree into the shadows beneath. Creeping stealthily and keeping well in the cover of other huts, he approached that from which rose the sounds of lamentation. A fire burned brightly before the doorway, as it did before other doorways in the village. A few females squatted about, occasionally adding their own mournful howlings to those of the master artist within. The eight-man smiled a slow smile as he thought of the consternation which would follow the quick leap that would carry him among the females and into the full light of the fire. Then he would dart into the hut during the excitement, throttle the chief screamer, and begone into the jungle before the blacks could gather their scattered nerves for an assault. Many times had Tarzan behaved similarly in the village of Mabonga, the chief. His mysterious and unexpected appearance has always filled the breasts of the poor superstitious blacks with the panic of terror. Never it seemed could they accustom themselves to the sight of him. It was this terror which lent to the adventures the spice of interest and amusement which the human mind of the eight-man craved. Merely to kill was not in itself sufficient. Accustomed to the sight of death, Tarzan found no great pleasure in it. Long since had he avenged the death of Kayla, but in the accomplishment of it he had learned the excitement and the pleasure to be derived from the baiting of the blacks. Of this he never tired. It was just as he was about to spring forward with a savage roar that a figure appeared in the doorway of the hut. It was the figure of the whaler whom he had come to still, the figure of a young woman with a wooden skewer through the split septum of her nose, with a heavy metal ornament depending from her lower lip which it had dragged down to hideous and repulsive deformity, with strange tattooing upon forehead, cheeks, and breasts, and a wonderful coiffure built up with mud and wire. A sudden flare of the fire threw the grotesque figure into high relief, and Tarzan recognized her as Momaya, the mother of Tybal. The fire also threw out a fitful flame which carried to the shadows where Tarzan lurked, picking out his light-brown body from the surrounding darkness. Momaya saw him and knew him. With a cry she leaped forward and Tarzan came to meet her. The other women, turning, saw him too, but they did not come toward him. Instead they rose as one, shrieked as one, fled as one. Momaya threw herself at Tarzan's feet, raising supplicating hands toward him, and pouring forth from her mutilated lips a perfect cataract of words, not one of which the eight men comprehended. For a moment he looked down upon the upturned frightful face of the woman. He had come to slay, but that overwhelming torrent of speech filled him with consternation and with awe. He glanced about him apprehensively, then back at the woman. A revulsion of feeling seized him. He could not kill little Tybal's mother, nor could he stand and face this verbal geyser. With a quick gesture of impatience at the spoiling of his evening's entertainment he wheeled and leaped away into the darkness. A moment later he was swinging through the black jungle night, the cries and lamentations of Momaya growing fainter in the distance. It was with a sigh of relief that he finally reached a point from which he could no longer hear them, and finding a comfortable crotch high among the trees, composed himself for a night of dreamless slumber, while a prowling lion moaned and coughed beneath him, and in far off England the other Lord Gray Stoke, with the assistance of a valet, disrobed and crawled between spotless sheets, swearing irritably as a cat meowed beneath his window. As Tarzan followed the fresh spore of Horta the Boar the following morning he came upon the tracks of two gomengani, a large one and a small one. The ape-man, accustomed as he was to questioning closely all that fell to his perceptions, paused to read the story written in the soft mud of the game-trail. You or I would have seen little of interest there, even if by chance we could have seen ought. Perhaps had one been there to point them out to us we might have noted indentations in the mud, but there were countless indentations, one overlapping another into a confusion that would have been entirely meaningless to us. To Tarzan each told its own story. Tantor the elephant had passed that way as recently as three sons since. Numa had hunted here the night just gone, and Horta the Boar had walked slowly along the trail within an hour. But what held Tarzan's attention was the spore tale of the gomengani. It told him that the day before an old man had gone toward the north in company with a little boy and that with them had been two hyenas. Tarzan scratched his head and puzzled in credulity. He could see by the overlapping of the footprints that the beasts had not been following the two, for sometimes one was ahead of them and one behind, and again both were in advance or both were in the rear. It was very strange and quite inexplicable, especially where the spore showed where the hyenas in the wider portions of the path had walked one on either side of the human pair, quite close to them. Then Tarzan read in the spore of the smaller gomengani a shrinking terror of the beast that brushed his side, but in that of the old man was no sign of fear. At first Tarzan had been solely occupied by the remarkable juxtaposition of the spore of dango and gomengani, but now his keen eyes caught something in the spore of the little gomengani which brought him to a sudden stop. It was as though finding a letter in the road you suddenly had discovered in it the familiar handwriting of a friend. Gobu Balu exclaimed the eight man, and at once memory flashed upon the screen of recollection the supplicating attitude of Mamaya as she had hurled herself before him in the village of Mabonga the night before. Instantly all was explained, the wailing and the lamentation, the pleading of the black mother, the sympathetic howling of the she's about the fire. Little Gobu Balu had been stolen again, and this time by another, then Tarzan. Doubtless the mother had thought that he was again in the power of Tarzan of the apes, and she had been beseeching him to return her balu to her. Yes, it was all quite plain now, but who could have stolen Gobu Balu this time? Tarzan wondered, and he wondered too about the presence of dango. He would investigate. The spore was a day old, and it ran toward the north. Tarzan set out to follow it. In places it was totally obliterated by the passage of many beasts, and where the way was rocky, even Tarzan of the apes was almost baffled. But there was still the faint effluvium which clung to the human spore, appreciable only to such highly trained perceptive powers as were Tarzans. It had all happened to Little Taibo very suddenly, and unexpectedly, within the brief span of two sons. First had come Bukawai, the witch doctor, Bukawai the unclean, with the ragged bit of flesh which still clung to his rotting face. He had come alone, and by day to the place at the river where Mamea went daily to wash her body and that of Taibo, her little boy. He had stepped out from behind a great bush quite close to Mamea, frightening Little Taibo so that he ran screaming to his mother's protecting arms. But Mamea, though startled, had wheeled to face the fearsome thing with all the savage ferocity of a she-tiger at bay. When she saw who it was, she breathed the sigh of partial relief, though she still clung tightly to Taibo. I have come, said Bukawai, without preliminary, for the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire as long as a tall man's arm. I have no goats for you, snapped Mamea, nor a sleeping mat, nor any wire. Your medicine was never made. The White Jungle God gave me back my Taibo. You had nothing to do with it. What I did, mumbled Bukawai through his fleshless jaws. It was I who commanded the White Jungle God to give back your Taibo. Mamea laughed in his face. Speaker of lies, she cried, go back to your foward den and your hyenas. Go back and hide your stinking face in the belly of the mountain, lest the sun, seeing it, cover his face with a black cloud. I have come, reiterated Bukawai, for the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm which you were to pay me for the return of your Taibo. It was to be the length of a man's forearm, corrected Mamea, but you shall have nothing, old thief. You would not make medicine until I had brought the payment in advance, and when I was returning to my village the Great White Jungle God gave me back my Taibo, gave him to me out of the jaws of Numa. His medicine is true medicine. Yours is the weak medicine of an old man with a hole in his face. I have come, repeated Bukawai patiently, for the three fat, but Mamea had not waited to hear more of what she already knew by heart, clasping Taibo close to her side, she was hurrying away toward the palisaded village of Mabonga the Chief, and the next day when Mamea was working in the plantain field with others of the women of the tribe and little Taibo had been playing at the edge of the jungle, casting a small spear in anticipation of the distant day when he should be a full-fledged warrior, Bukawai had come again. Taibo had seen a squirrel scampering up the bowl of a great tree. His childish mind had transformed it into the menacing figure of a hostile warrior. Little Taibo had raised his tiny spear, his heart filled with the savage bloodlust of his race as he pictured the knight's orgy when he should dance about the corpse of his human kill as the women of his tribe prepared the meat for the feast to follow, but when he cast the spear he missed both squirrel and tree, losing his missile far among the tangled undergrowth of the jungle. However it could be but a few steps within the forbidden labyrinth. The women were all about in the field. There were warriors on guard with an easy hail, and so little Taibo boldly ventured into the dark place. Just behind the screen of creepers and matted foliage lurked three horrid figures. An old old man, black as the pit, with a face half eaten away by leprosy. His sharp-filed teeth, the teeth of a cannibal, showing yellow and repulsive through the great gaping hole where his mouth and nose had been, and beside him equally hideous stood two powerful hyenas, carrion-eaters, consorting with carrion. Taibo did not see them until, head down, he had forced his way through the thickly growing vines in search of his little spear, and then it was too late. As he looked up into the face of Bukawai the old witch doctor seized him, muffling his screams with a palm across his mouth. Taibo struggled futile. A moment later he was being hustled away through the dark and terrible jungle. The frightful old man still muffling his screams, and the two hideous hyenas pacing now on either side, now before, now behind, always prowling, always growling, snapping, snarling, or worst of all laughing hideously. The little Taibo who within his brief existence had passed through such experiences as are given to few to pass through in a lifetime, the northward journey was a nightmare of terror. He thought now of the time that he had been with the great white jungle-god, and he prayed with all his little soul that he might be back again with the white skin giant who consorted with the hairy tree-man. Terror-stricken he had been then, but his surroundings had been nothing by comparison with those which he now endured. The old man seldom addressed Taibo, though he kept up an almost continuous mumbling throughout the long day. Taibo caught repeated references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. Ten fat goats! Ten fat goats! The old negro would croon over and over again. By this little Taibo guessed that the price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats! Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin ones either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor little boy? Mabonga would never let her have them, and Taibo knew that his father never had owned more than three goats at the same time in all his life. Ten fat goats! Taibo sniffled. The putrid old man would kill him and eat him, for the goats would never be forthcoming. Bukawai would throw his bones to the hyenas. The little black boy shuddered and became so weak that he almost fell in his traps. Bukawai cuffed him on an ear and jerked him along. After what seemed an eternity to Taibo, they arrived at the mouth of a cave between two rocky hills. The opening was low and narrow. A few saplings bound together with strips of rawhide closed it against stray beasts. Bukawai removed the primitive door and pushed Taibo within. The hyenas, snarling, rushed past him and were lost to view in the blackness of the interior. Bukawai replaced the saplings and seizing Taibo roughly by the arm dragged him along a narrow, rocky passage. The floor was comparatively smooth for the dirt which lay thick upon it had been trodden and tramped by many feet until few inequalities remained. The passage was tortuous, and as it was very dark and the walls rough and rocky, Taibo was scratched and bruised from the many bumps he received. Bukawai walked as rapidly through the winding gallery as one would traverse a familiar lane by daylight. He knew every twist and turn as a mother knows the face of her child, and he seemed to be in a hurry. He jerked poor little Taibo possibly a trifle more ruthlessly than necessary, even at the pace Bukawai set. But the old witch doctor, an outcast from the society of man, disease, shun, hated, feared, was far from possessing an angelic temper. Nature had given him few of the kindlier characteristics of man, and these few fate had eradicated entirely. Shrewd, cunning, cruel, vindictive was Bukawai the witch doctor. Frightful tales were whispered of the cruel tortures he inflicted upon his victims. Children were frightened into obedience by the threat of his name. Often had Taibo been thus frightened, and now he was reaping a grisly harvest of terror from the seeds his mother had innocently sown. The darkness, the presence of the dreaded witch doctor, the pain of the contusions, with a haunting premonition of the future, and the fear of the hyenas combined to almost paralyze the child. He stumbled and reeled until Bukawai was dragging rather than leading him. Presently Taibo saw a faint lightness ahead of them, and a moment later they emerged into a roughly circular chamber to which a little daylight filtered through a rift in the rocky ceiling. The hyenas were there ahead of them, waiting. As Bukawai entered with Taibo, the beasts slunk toward them, bearing yellow fangs. They were hungry. Toward Taibo they came, and one snapped at his naked legs. Bukawai seized a stick from the floor of the chamber and struck a vicious blow at the beast, at the same time mumbling forth a volley of execrations. The hyena dodged and ran to the side of the chamber where he stood growling. Bukawai took a step toward the creature which bristled with rage at his approach. Fear and hatred shot from its evil eyes, but fortunately for Bukawai fear predominated. Seeing that he was unnoticed, the second beast made a short quick rush for Taibo. The child screamed and darted after the witch doctor who now turned his attention to the second hyena. This one he reached with his heavy stick, striking it repeatedly and driving it to the wall. There the two carrion eaters commenced to circle the chamber, while the human carrion, their master now in a perfect frenzy of demoniacal rage, ran to and fro in an attempt to intercept them, striking out with his cudgel and lashing them with his tongue, calling down upon them the curses of whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and describing in lurid figures the ignominy of their ancestors. Several times one or the other of the beast would turn to make a stand against the witch doctor, and then Taibo would hold his breath in agonized terror, for never in his brief life had he seen such frightful hatred depicted upon the countenance of man or beast, but always fear overcame the rage of the savage creatures, so that they resumed their flight, snarling and bear-fanged, just at the moment that Taibo was certain they would spring at Bukawai's throat. At last the witch doctor tired of the futile chase, with a snarl quite as beastial as those of the beast he turned toward Taibo. I go to collect the ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the two pieces of copper wire that your mother will pay for the medicine I shall make to bring you back to her, he said. You will stay here. There, and he pointed toward the passage which they had followed to the chamber, I will leave the hyenas. If you try to escape, they will eat you. He cast aside the stick and called to the beast. They came snarling and slinking their tails between their legs. Bukawai led them to the passage and drove them into it. Then he dragged a rude lattice into place before the opening, after he himself had left the chamber. Yes, we'll keep them from you, he said. If I do not get the ten fat goats and the other things, they shall at least have a few bones after I am through. And he left the boy to think over the meaning of his all-too-suggestive words. When he was gone, Taibo threw himself upon the earth floor and broke into childish sobs of terror and loneliness. He knew that his mother had no ten fat goats to give, and that when Bukawai returned little Taibo would be killed and eaten. How long he lay there he did not know, but presently he was aroused by the growling of the hyenas. They had returned through the passage and were glaring at him from beyond the lattice. He could see their yellow eyes blazing through the darkness. They reared up and clawed at the barrier. Taibo shivered and withdrew to the opposite side of the chamber. He saw the lattice sag and swayed to the attacks of the beast. Momentarily he expected that it would fall inward, letting the creatures upon him. Wearily the horror-ridden hours dragged their slow way. Night came and for a time Taibo slept, but it seemed that the hungry beasts never slept. Always they stood just beyond the lattice, growling their hideous growls or laughing their hideous laughs. Through the narrow rift in the rocky roof above him Taibo could see a few stars and once the moon crossed. At last daylight came again. Taibo was very hungry and thirsty, for he had not eaten since the morning before, and only once upon the long march had he been permitted to drink, but even hunger and thirst were almost forgotten in the terror of his position. It was after daylight that the child discovered a second opening in the walls of the subterranean chamber, almost opposite that at which the hyenas still stood glaring hungrily at him. It was only a narrow slit in the rocky wall. It might lead in but a few feet, or it might lead to freedom. Taibo approached it and looked within. He could see nothing. He extended his arm into the blackness, but he dared not venture farther. Bukawai never would have left open a way of escape, Taibo reasoned, so this passage must lead either nowhere or to some still more hideous danger. To the boy's fear of the actual dangers which menaced him, Bukawai and the two hyenas, his superstition added countless others quite too horrible even to the name. For in the lives of the blacks, through the shadows of the jungle day, and the black horrors of the jungle night, flits strange fantastic shapes peopling the already hideously peopled forests with menacing figures, as though the lion and the leopard, the snake and the hyena, and the countless poisonous insects were not quite sufficient to strike terror to the hearts of the poor, simple creatures whose lot is cast in earth's most fearsome spot. And so it was that little Taibo crins not only from real menaces, but from imaginary ones. He was afraid even to venture upon a road that might lead to escape lest Bukawai had set to watch it some frightful demon of the jungle. But the real menaces suddenly drove the imaginary ones from the boy's mind, for with the coming of daylight the half-famished hyenas renewed their efforts to break down the frail barrier which kept them from their prey. Rearing upon their hind feet they clawed and struck at the lattice. With wide eyes Taibo saw it sag and rock. Not for long he knew could it withstand the assaults of these two powerful and determined brutes. Already one corner had been forced past the rocky protuberance of the entranceway, which had held it in place. A shaggy arm protruded into the chamber. Taibo trembled as with aegyo, for he knew that the end was near. Backing against the farther wall he stood flattened out as far from the beast as he could get. He saw the lattice give still more. He saw a savage snarling head forced past it and grinning jaws snapping and gaping toward him. In another instant the pitiful fabric would fall inward and the two would be upon him, rending his flesh from his bones, gnawing the bones themselves, fighting for possession of his entrails. Bukawai came upon Momaya outside the palisade of Mobonga, the chief. At sight of him the woman drew back in revulsion. Then she flew at him tooth and nail. But Bukawai, threatening her with a spear, held her at a safe distance. Where is my baby? she cried. Where is my little Taibo? Bukawai opened his eyes in well-simulated amazement. Your baby, he exclaimed, what should I know of him other than that I rescued him from the white god of the jungle and have not yet received my pay? I come for the goats and the sleeping mat and the peace of copper wire, the length of a tall man's arm, from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers. Oh, full of a hyena! Shriek Momaya, my child has been stolen and you rotting fragment of a man have taken him. Return him to me, or I shall tear your eyes from your head and feed your heart to the wild hogs. Bukawai shrugged his shoulders. What do I know about your child? He asked. I have not taken him. If he has stolen again, what should Bukawai know of the matter? Did Bukawai steal him before? No, the white jungle god stole him, and if he stole him once he would steal him again. It is nothing to me. I returned him to you before, and I have come for my pay. If he is gone and you would have him returned, Bukawai will return him. For ten fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and two pieces of copper wire, the length of a tall man's arm, from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers. And Bukawai will say nothing more about the goats and the sleeping mat and the copper wire which you were to pay for the first medicine. Ten fat goats, screamed Mamaya, I could not pay you ten fat goats in as many years. Ten fat goats indeed. Ten fat goats, repeated Bukawai. Ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and two pieces of copper wire, the length of, Mamaya stopped him with an impatient gesture. Wait! she cried. I have no goats. You waste your breath. Stay here while I go to my man. He has but three goats, yet something may be done. Wait! Bukawai sat down beneath a tree. He felt quite content, for he knew that he should have either payment or revenge. He did not fear harm at the hands of these people of another tribe, although he well knew that they must fear and hate him. His leprosy alone would prevent their laying hands upon him, while his reputation as a witch doctor rendered him doubly immune from attack. He was planning upon compelling them to drive the ten goats to the mouth of his cave when Mamaya returned. With her were three warriors, Mabonga the chief, Raba Kega the village witch doctor, and Ibeto, Tyvo's father. They were not pretty men, even under ordinary circumstances, and now with their faces marked by anger they well might have inspired terror in the heart of anyone. But if Bukawai felt any fear, he did not betray it. Instead he greeted them with an insolent stare, intended to awe them as they came and squattered in a semi-circle before him. Where is Ibeto's son? asked Mabonga. How should I know? returned Bukawai. Doubtless the white devil god has him. If I am paid I will make strong medicine, and then we shall know where is Ibeto's son, and shall get him back again. It was my medicine which got him back the last time for which I got no pay. I have my own witch doctor to make medicine, replied Mabonga with dignity. Bukawai sneered and rose to his feet. Very well, he said, let him make his medicine, and see if he can bring Ibeto's son back. He took a few steps away from them, and then he turned angrily back. His medicine will not bring the child back, that I know, and I also know that when you find him it will be too late for any medicine to bring him back, for he will be dead. This have I just found out. The ghost of my father or sister, but now came to me and told me. Now Mabonga and Robikega might not take much stock in their own magic, and they might even be skeptical as to the magic of another. But there was always a chance of something being in it, especially if it were not their own. Was it not well known that old Bukawai had speech with the demons themselves, and that two even lived with him in the forms of hyenas? Still they must not exceed too hastily. There was the price to be considered, and Mabonga had no intention of parting lightly with ten goats to obtain the return of a single little boy who might die of smallpox long before he reached a warrior's estate. Wait, said Mabonga, let us see some of your magic, that we may know if it be good magic. Then we can talk about payment. Robikega will make some magic, too. We will see who makes the best magic. Sit down, Bukawai. The payment will be ten goats, fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and two pieces of copper wire, the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder to the ends of his fingers, and it will be made in advance, the goats being driven to my cave. Then will I make the medicine, and on the second day the boy will be returned to his mother. It cannot be done more quickly than that, because it takes time to make such strong medicine. Make us some medicine now, said Mabonga. Let us see what sort of medicine you make. Bring me fire, replied Bukawai, and I will make you a little magic. Momaya was dispatched for the fire, and while she was away Mabonga dickered with Bukawai about the price. Ten goats, he said, was a high price for an able-bodied warrior. He also called Bukawai's attention to the fact that he, Mabonga, was very poor, that his people were very poor, and that ten goats were at least eight too many to say nothing of a new sleeping mat and the copper wire. But Bukawai was adamant. His medicine was very expensive, and he would have to give at least five goats to the gods who helped him make it. They were still arguing when Momaya returned with the fire. Bukawai placed a little on the ground before him, took a pinch of powder from a pouch at his side, and sprinkled it on the embers. A cloud of smoke rose with a puff. Bukawai closed his eyes and rocked back and forth. Then he made a few passes in the air and pretended to swoon. Mabonga and the others were much impressed. Robikega grew nervous. He saw his reputation waning. There was some fire left in the vessel which Momaya had brought. He seized the vessel, dropped a handful of dry leaves into it while no one was watching, and then uttered a frightful scream which drew the attention of Bukawai's audience to him. It also brought Bukawai quite miraculously out of his swoon. But when the old witch doctor saw the reason for the disturbance, he quickly relapsed into unconsciousness before anyone discovered his faux pas. Robikega, seeing that he had the attention of Mabonga, Ibeto, and Momaya, blew suddenly into the vessel with the result that the leaves commenced to smolder and smoke issued from the mouth of the receptacle. Robikega was careful to hold it so that none might see the dry leaves. Their eyes opened wide at this remarkable demonstration of the village witch doctor's powers. The latter, greatly elated, led himself out. He shouted, jumped up and down, and made frightful grimaces. Then he put his face close over the mouth of the vessel, and appeared to be communing with the spirits within. It was while he was thus engaged that Bukawai came out of his trance, his curiosity finally having gotten the better of him. No one was paying him the slightest attention. He blinked his one eye angrily. Then he too let out a loud roar, and when he was sure that Mabonga had turned toward him, he stiffened rigidly and made spasmodic movements with his arms and legs. I see him! he cried. He is far away. The white devil god did not get him. He is alone and in great danger. But, he added, if the ten fat goats and the other things are paid to me quickly, there is yet time to save him! Roba Kega had paused to listen. Mabonga looked toward him. The chief was in a quandary. He did not know which medicine was the better. What does your magic tell you? he asked of Roba Kega. I too see him! screamed Roba Kega. But he is not where Bukawai says he is. He is dead at the bottom of the river. At this momea commence to howl loudly. Tarzan had followed the spore of the old man, the two hyenas, and the little black boy to the mouth of the cave in the rocky canyon between the two hills. Here he paused a moment before the sapling barrier which Bukawai had set up, listening to the snarls and growls which came faintly from the far recesses of the cavern. Presently, mingled with the beastly cries, there came faintly to the keen ears of the ape man, the agonized moan of a child. No longer did Tarzan hesitate, hurling the door aside, he sprang into the dark opening. Narrow and black was the corridor, but long use of his eyes in the stygian blackness of the jungle nights had given to the ape man something of the nocturnal visionary powers of the wild things with which he had consorted since babyhood. He moved rapidly, and yet with caution, for the place was dark, unfamiliar, and winding. As he advanced he heard more and more loudly the savage snarls of the two hyenas mingled with the scraping and scratching of their paws upon the wood. The moans of a child grew in volume, and Tarzan recognized in them the voice of the little black boy he once had sought to adopt as his baloo. There was no hysteria in the ape man's advance. To accustomed was he to the passing of life in the jungle to be greatly wrought, even by the death of one whom he knew. But the lust for battle spurred him on. He was only a wild beast at heart, and his wild beast's heart beat high in anticipation of conflict. In the rocky chamber of the hill's center little Tybo crouched low against the wall as far from the hunger-crazed beast as he could drag himself. He saw the lattice giving to the frantic clawing of the hyenas. He knew that in a few minutes his little life would flicker out horribly beneath the rending yellow fangs of these loathsome creatures. Beneath the buffettines of the powerful bodies the lattice sagged inward, until with a crash it gave way, letting the carnivora in upon the boy. Tybo cast one affrighted glance toward them, then closed his eyes and buried his face in his arms, sobbing pideously. For a moment the hyenas paused, caution and cowardice holding them from their prey. They stood thus glaring at the lad, then slowly, stealthily, crouching, they crept toward him. It was thus that Tarzan came upon them, bursting into the chamber swiftly and silently, but not so silently that the keen-eared beast did not note his coming. With angry growls they turned from Tybo upon the ape-man, as with a smile upon his lips he ran toward them. For an instant one of the animals stood its ground, but the ape-man did not deign even to draw his hunting-knife against despised dangle. Rushing in upon the brute he grasped it by the scruff of the neck, just as it attempted to dodge past him, and hurled it across the cavern after its fellow, which already was slinking into the corridor, bent upon escape. Then Tarzan picked Tybo from the floor, and when the child felt human hands upon him, instead of the paws and fangs of the hyenas, he rolled his eyes upward in surprise and in credulity, and as they fell upon Tarzan, sobs of relief broke from the child's lips, and his hands clutched at his deliverer, as though the white devil-god was not the most feared of jungle creatures. When Tarzan came to the cave mouth the hyenas were nowhere in sight, and after permitting Tybo to quench his thirst in the spring which rose nearby, he lifted the boy to his shoulders and set off toward the jungle at a rapid trot, determined to still the annoying howlings of Mamea as quickly as possible, for he shrewdly had guessed that the absence of her baloo was the cause of her lamentation. He is not dead at the bottom of the river, cried Bukawai. What does this fellow know about making magic? Who is he anyway that he dares say Bukawai's magic is not good magic? Bukawai sees Mamea's son. He is far away, and alone, and in great danger, hastened then with the ten fat goats, the—but he got no further. There was a sudden interruption from above, from the branches of the very tree beneath which they squatted, and as the five blacks looked up they almost swooned in fright as they saw the great white devil-god looking down upon them. But before they could flee they saw another face, that of the lost little Taibo, and his face was laughing and very happy. And then Tarzan dropped fearlessly among them. The boy still upon his back, and deposited him before his mother. Mamea, Aibato, Rabakega, and Mabonga were all crowding around the lad, trying to question him at the same time. Suddenly Mamea turned ferociously to fall upon Bukawai, for the boy had told her all that he had suffered at the hands of the cruel old man. But Bukawai was no longer there. He had required no recourse to black art to assure him that the vicinity of Mamea would be no healthful place for him after Taibo had told his story, and now he was running through the jungle as fast as his old legs would carry him toward the distant lair where he knew no black would dare pursue him. Tarzan too had vanished, as he had a way of doing, to the mystification of the blacks. Then Mamea's eyes lighted upon Rabakega, the village which Doctor saw something in those eyes of hers which boated no good to him, and backed away. So Taibo is dead at the bottom of the river, is he, the woman shrieked, and he's far away and alone in great danger, is he? Magic! The scorn which Mamea crowded into that single word would have done credit to a thespian of the first magnitude. Magic indeed! she screamed. Mamea will show you some magic of her own! And with that she seized upon a broken limb and struck Rabakega across the head, with a howl of pain the man turned and fled. Mamea, pursuing him and beating him across the shoulders, through the gateway, and up the length of the village street, to the intense amusement of the warriors, the women, and the children who were so fortunate as to witness the spectacle, for one and all feared Rabakega, and a fear is to hate. Thus it was that to his host of passive enemies, Tarzan of the apes added that day two active foes, both of whom remained awake long into the night, planning means of revenge upon the white devil-god who had brought them into ridicule and disrepute, but with their most malevolent schemings was mingled a vein of real fear and awe that would not down. Young Lord Greystoke did not know that they planned against him, nor knowing would have cared. He slept as well that night as he did on any other night, and though there was no roof above him and no doors to lock against intruders, he slept much better than his noble relative in England, who had eaten all together too much lobster, and drank too much wine at dinner that night. Still but a boy he had learned, among other things, the fashion pliant ropes of fibrous jungle grass. Strong and tough were the ropes of Tarzan, the little tarmin gany. Tublat, his foster father, would have told you this much and more. Had you tempted him with a handful of fat caterpillars he even might have sufficiently unbended to narrate to you a few stories of the many indignities which Tarzan had heaped upon him by means of his hated rope. But then Tublat always worked himself into such a frightful rage when he devoted any considerable thought, either to the rope or to Tarzan, that it might not have proved comfortable for you to have remained close enough to him to hear what he had to say. So often had that snake-like noose settled unexpectedly over Tublat's head. So often had he been jerked ridiculously and painfully from his feet when he was least looking for such an occurrence, that there is little wonder he found scant space in his savage heart for love of his white-skinned foster child, or the inventions thereof. There had been other times, too, when Tublat had swung helplessly in mid-air, the noose tightening about his neck, death staring him in the face, and little Tarzan dancing upon a nearby limb, taunting him and making unseemly grimaces. Then there had been another occasion in which the rope had figured prominently, an occasion and the only one connected with the rope which Tublat recalled with pleasure. Tarzan, as active in brain as he was in body, was always inventing new ways in which to play. It was through the medium of play that he learned much during his childhood. This day he learned something, and that he did not lose his life in the learning of it was a manner of great surprise to Tarzan, and to fly in the ointment to Tublat. The man-child had, in throwing his noose at a playmate in a tree above him, caught a projecting branch instead. When he tried to shake it loose, it but grew the tighter. Then Tarzan started to climb the rope to remove it from the branch. When he was partway up, a frolic some playmate seized that part of the rope which lay upon the ground and ran off with it as far as he could go. When Tarzan screamed at him to desist, the young ape released the rope a little and then drew it tight again. The result was to impart a swinging motion to Tarzan's body which the ape-boy suddenly realized was a new and pleasurable form of play. He urged the ape to continue until Tarzan was swinging to and fro as far as the short length of rope would permit. But the distance was not great enough, and too he was not far enough above the ground to give the necessary frills which added so greatly to the past times of the young. So he clamored to the branch where the noose was caught, and after removing it carried the rope far aloft and out upon a long and powerful branch. Here he again made it fast, and taking the loose end in his hand clamored quickly down among the branches as far as the rope would permit him to go. Then he swung out upon the end of it, his lithe young body turning and twisting, a human bob upon a pendulum of grass, thirty feet above the ground. Ah, how delectable! This was indeed a new play of the first magnitude. Tarzan was in trance. Soon he discovered that by wriggling his body in just the right way, at the proper time, he could diminish or accelerate his oscillation, and being a boy he chose naturally to accelerate. Presently he was swinging far and wide, while below him the apes of the tribe of Kerchak looked on in mild amaze. Had it been you or I swinging there at the end of that grass-rope, the thing which presently happened would not have happened, for we could not have hung on so long as to have made it possible. But Tarzan was quite as much at home swinging by his hands as he was standing upon his feet, or at least almost. At any rate he felt no fatigue long after the time that an ordinary mortal would have been numb with the strain of the physical exertion, and this was his undoing. Tublat was watching him, as were others of the tribe. Of all the creatures of the wild there was none Tublat so cordially hated as he did this hideous, hairless, white-skinned caricature of an ape. But for Tarzan's nimbleness and the zealous watchfulness of Savage Kayla's mother-love, Tublat would long sense of rid himself of this stain upon his family escutcheon. So long had it been since Tarzan became a member of the tribe that Tublat had forgotten the circumstances surrounding the entrance of the jungle-wave into his family with the result that he now imagined that Tarzan was his own offspring, adding greatly to his chagrin. Wide and far swung Tarzan of the apes until at last, as he reached the highest point of the ark, the rope which rapidly had frayed on the rough bark of the tree limb parted suddenly. The watching apes saw the smooth brown body shoot outward and down, plummet-like. Tublat leap high in the air, omitting what in a human being would have been an exclamation of delight. This would be the end of Tarzan and most of Tublat's troubles. From now on he could lead his life in peace and security. Tarzan fell quite forty feet, alighting on his back in a thick bush. Kayla was the first to reach his side, ferocious, hideous, loving Kayla. She had seen the life crust from her own baloo in just such a fall years before. Was she to lose this one too in the same way? Tarzan was lying quite still when she found him embedded deeply in the bush. It took Kayla several minutes to disentangle him and drag him forth, but he was not killed. He was not even badly injured. The bush had broken the force of the fall. A cut upon the back of his head showed where he had struck the tough stem of the shrub and explained his unconsciousness. In a few minutes he was as active as ever. Tublat was furious. In his rage he snapped at a fellow ape without first discovering the identity of his victim and was badly mauled for his ill temper, having chosen to vent his spite upon a husky and belligerent young bull in the full prime of his vigor. But Tarzan had learned something new. He had learned that continued friction would wear through the strands of his rope, though it was many years before this knowledge did more for him than merely to keep him from swinging too long at a time or too far above the ground at the end of his rope. The day came, however, when the very thing that had once all but killed him proved the means of saving his life. He was no longer a child but a mighty jungle male. There was none now to watch over him solicitously, nor did he need such. Kayla was dead, dead too was Tublat, and though with Kayla past the one creature that ever really had loved him, there were still many who hated him after Tublat departed under the arms of his fathers. It was not that he was more cruel or more savage than they that hated him, but though he was both cruel and savage as were the beasts, his fellows, yet too was he often tender, which they never were. No, the thing which brought Tarzan most into disrepute with those who did not like him was the possession and practice of a characteristic which they had not and could not understand, the human sense of humor. In Tarzan it was a trifled broad, perhaps, manifesting itself in rough and painful practical jokes upon his friends and cruel baiting of his enemies, but to neither of these did he owe the enmity of Bukawai, the witch-doctor, who dwelt in the cave between the two hills far to the north of the village of Mabonga the chief. Bukawai was jealous of Tarzan, and Bukawai it was who came near proving the undoing of the ape man. For months Bukawai had nursed his hatred while revenge seemed remote indeed, since Tarzan of the apes frequented another part of the jungle, miles away from the lair of Bukawai. Only once had the black witch-doctor seen the devil-god, as he was most often called among the blacks, and upon that occasion Tarzan had robbed him of a fat fee, at the same time putting the lie in the mouth of Bukawai and making his medicine seem poor medicine. All this Bukawai never could forgive, though it seemed unlikely that the opportunity would come to be revenge. Yet it did come, and quite unexpectedly. Tarzan was hunting far to the north. He had wandered away from the tribe as he did more and more often, as he approached maturity, to hunt alone for a few days. As a child he had enjoyed romping and playing with young apes his companions, but now these play-fellows of his had grown to surly luring bulls, or to touchy suspicious mothers jealously guarding helpless balloos. So Tarzan found in his own man-mind a greater and a truer companionship than any or all of the apes of Kurchak could afford him. This day as Tarzan hunted the sky slowly became overcast. Torn clouds whipped to ragged streamers fled low above the treetops. They reminded Tarzan of frightened antelope fleeing the charge of a hungry lion, but though the light clouds raced so swiftly the jungle was motionless. Not a leaf quivered, and the silence was a great dead wake insupportable. Even the insects seemed stilled by apprehension of some frightful thing impending, and the larger things were soundless. Such a forest, such a jungle might have stood there in the beginning of that unthinkably far-gone age before God peopled the world with life when there were no sounds because there were no ears to hear. And overall lay a sickly pallid ochre light through which the scourged clouds raced. Tarzan had seen all these conditions many times before, yet he never could escape a strange feeling at each recurrence of them. He knew no fear, but in the face of nature's manifestations of her cruel, immeasurable powers he felt very small, very small, and very lonely. Now he heard a low moaning, far away. The lions seek their prey, he murmured to himself, looking up once again at the swift flying clouds. The moaning rose to a great volume of sound. They come, said Tarzan of the apes, and sought the shelter of a thickly foliageed tree. Quite suddenly the trees bent their tops simultaneously, as though God had stretched a hand from the heavens and pressed his flat palm down upon the world. They pass, whispered Tarzan. The lions pass. Then came a vivid flash of lightning followed by deafening thunder. The lions have sprung, cried Tarzan, and now they roar above the bodies of their kills. The trees were waving wildly in all directions now. A perfectly demoniacal wind thrashed the jungle piteously. In the midst of it the rain came, not as it comes upon us of the Northlands, but in a sudden choking, blinding deluge. The blood of the kill, thought Tarzan, huddling himself closer to the bowl of the great tree beneath which he stood, he was close to the edge of the jungle, and at a little distance he had seen two hills before the storm broke, but now he could see nothing. It amused him to look out into the beating rain searching for the two hills, and imagining that the torrents from above had washed them away. Yet he knew that presently the rain would cease, the sun come out again, and all be as it was before, except where a few branches had fallen, and here and there some old and rotted patriarch had crashed back to enrich the soil upon which he had fatted for maybe centuries. All about him branches and leaves filled the air or felled worth, torn away by the strength of the tornado and the weight of the water upon them. A gaunt corpse toppled and fell a few yards away, but Tarzan was protected from all these dangers by the widespreading branches of the sturdy young giant beneath which his jungle-craft had guided him. Here there was but a single danger, and that a remote one, yet it came. Without warning the tree above him was riven by lightning, and when the rain ceased and the sun came out, Tarzan lay stretched as he had fallen upon his face amidst the wreckage of the jungle giant that should have shielded him. Bukawai came to the entrance of his cave after the rain and the storm had passed and looked out upon the scene. From his one eye Bukawai could see, but had he had a dozen eyes he could have found no beauty in the fresh sweetness of the revivified jungle, for to such things in the chemistry of temperament his brain failed to react, nor even had he had a nose which he had not for years could he have found enjoyment or sweetness in the clean-washed air. At either side of the leper stood his soul and constant companions, the two hyenas sniffing the air. Presently one of them uttered a low growl and with flattened head started, sneaking and wary toward the jungle. The other followed. Bukawai, his curiosity aroused, trailed after them in his hand a heavy knob-stick. The hyenas halted a few yards from the prostrate Tarzan, sniffing and growling. Then came Bukawai, and at first he could not believe the witness of his own eyes, but when he did and saw that it was indeed the devil-god, his rage knew no bounds, for he thought him dead and himself cheated of the revenge he had so long dreamed upon. The hyenas approached the ape-man with bared fangs. Bukawai, with an inarticulate scream, rushed upon them, striking cruel and heavy blows with his knob-stick, for there might still be life in the apparently lifeless form. The beast, snapping and snarling, half turned upon their master and their tormentor, but long fear still held them from his putrid throat. They slunk away a few yards and squatted upon their haunches, hatred and baffled hunger gleaming from their savage eyes. Bukawai stooped and placed his ear above the ape-man's heart. It still beat, as well as his sloughed features could register pleasure they did so, but it was not a pretty sight. At the ape-man's side lay his long grass-rope. Quickly Bukawai bound the limp arms behind his prisoner's back, then he raised him to one of his shoulders, for though Bukawai was old and diseased, he was still a strong man. The hyenas fell in behind as the witch-doctor set off toward the cave, and through the long black corridors they followed as Bukawai bore his victim into the bowels of the hills. Through subterranean chambers, connected by winding passageways, Bukawai staggered with his load. At a sudden turning of the corridor, daylight flooded them, and Bukawai stepped out into a small circular basin in the hill, apparently the crater of an ancient volcano, one of those which never reached the dignity of a mountain, and are little more than labyrinth pits closed to the earth's surface. Steep walls rimmed the cavity, the only exit was through the passageway by which Bukawai had entered. A few stunted trees grew upon the rocky floor. A hundred feet above could be seen the ragged lips of this cold, dead mouth of hell. Bukawai propped Tarzan against a tree, and bound him there with his own grass-rope, leaving his hands free, but securing the knots in such a way that the ape-man could not reach them. The hyenas slumped to and fro, growling. Bukawai hated them and they hated him. He knew that they but waited for the time when he should be helpless, or when their hatred should rise to such a height as to submerge their cringing fear of him. In his own heart was not a little fear of these repulsive creatures, and because of that fear Bukawai always kept the beasts well fed, often hunting for them when their own forages for food failed, but ever was he cruel to them with the cruelty of a little brain, diseased, bestial, primitive. He had had them since they were puppies. They had known no other life than that with him, and though they went abroad to hunt, always they returned. Of late Bukawai had come to believe that they return not so much from habit, as from a fiendish patience which would submit to every indignity and pain rather than forgo the final vengeance, and Bukawai needed but little imagination to picture what that vengeance would be. Today he would see for himself what his end would be, but another should impersonate Bukawai. When he had trust Tarzan securely, Bukawai went back into the corridor, driving the hyenas ahead of him, and pulling across the opening a lattice of laced branches which shut the pit from the cave during the night that Bukawai might sleep in security, or then the hyenas were penned in the crater that they might not sneak upon a sleeping Bukawai in the darkness. Bukawai returned to the outer cave mouth, filled a vessel with water at the spring which rose in the little canyon close at hand, and returned toward the pit. The hyenas stood before the lattice, looking hungrily toward Tarzan. They had been fed in this manner before. With his water the witch doctor approached Tarzan, and threw a portion of the contents of the vessel in the eight man's face. There was a fluttering of eyelids, and at the second application Tarzan opened his eyes and looked about. "'Devil God!' cried Bukawai. "'I am the great witch doctor. My medicine is strong. Yours is weak. If it is not, why do you stay tied here like a goat that is bait for lions?' Tarzan understood nothing the witch doctor said, therefore he did not reply, but only stared straight at Bukawai with cold and level gaze. The hyenas crept up behind him. He heard them growl, but he did not even turn his head. He was a beast with a man's brain. The beast in him refused to show fear in the face of a death which the man-mind already admitted to be inevitable. Bukawai not yet ready to give his victim to the beast rushed upon the hyenas with his knob-stick. There was a short scrimmage in which the brutes came off second best, as they always did. Tarzan watched it. He saw and realized the hatred which existed between the two animals and the hideous semblance of a man. With the hyenas subdued Bukawai returned to the baiting of Tarzan, but finding that the ape-man understood nothing he said, the witch doctor finally desisted. Then he withdrew into the corridor and pulled the latticework barrier across the opening. He went back into the cave and got a sleeping mat which he brought to the opening that he might lie down and watch the spectacle of his revenge in comfort. The hyenas were sneaking furtively around the ape-man. Tarzan strained at his bonds for a moment, but soon realized that the rope he had braided to hold Numa the Lion would hold him quite as successfully. He did not wish to die, but he could look death in the face now, as he had many times before, without a quaver. As he pulled upon the rope he felled at rub against the small tree about which it was passed, like a flash of the cinematograph upon the screen, a picture was flashed before his mind's eye from the store-house of his memory. He saw a lithe boy-figure swinging high above the ground at the end of a rope. He saw many apes watching from below, and then he saw the rope part and the boy hurtled downward toward the ground. Tarzan smiled. Immediately he commenced to draw the rope rapidly back and forth across the tree-trunk. The hyenas, gaining courage, came closer. They sniffed at his legs, but when he struck at them with his free arms they slunk off. He knew that with the growth of hunger they would attack. Coolly, methodically, without haste, Tarzan drew the rope back and forth against the rough trunk of the small tree. In the entrance to the cavern Bukawai fell asleep. He thought it would be some time before the beast gained sufficient courage or hunger to attack the captive. Their growls and the cries of the victim would awaken him. In the meantime he might as well rest, and he did. Thus the day wore on, for the hyenas were not famished, and the rope with which Tarzan was bound was a stronger one than that of his boyhood which had parted so quickly to the chafing of the rough tree-bark. Yet all the while hunger was growing upon the beast and the strands of the grass rope were wearing thinner and thinner. Bukawai slept. It was late afternoon before one of the beasts, irritated by the gnawing of appetite, made a quick growling dash at the ape-man. The noise awoke Bukawai. He sat up quickly and watched what went on within the crater. He saw the hungry hyena charge the man, leaping for the unprotected throat. He saw Tarzan reach out and seize the growling animal, and then he saw the second beast spring for the devil-god's shoulder. There was a mighty heave of the great smooth-skinned body. Rounded muscles shot into great tensed piles beneath the brown hide. The ape-man surged forward with all his weight and all his great strength. The bonds parted, and the three were rolling upon the floor of the crater snarling, snapping, and rending. Bukawai leaped to his feet. Could it be that the devil-god was to prevail against his servants? Impossible! The creature was unarmed, and he was down with two hyenas on top of him. But Bukawai did not know Tarzan. The ape-man fastened his fingers upon the throat of one of the hyenas and rose to one knee, though the other beast tore at him frantically in an effort to pull him down. With a single hand Tarzan held the one, and with the other hand he reached forth and pulled toward him the second beast. And then Bukawai, seeing the battle going against his forces, rushed forward from the cavern, brandishing his knob-stick. Tarzan saw him coming, and rising now to both feet, a hyena in each hand, he hurled one of the foaming beasts straight at the witch doctor's head. Down went the two in a snarling, biting heap. Tarzan tossed the second hyena across the crater, while the first nod at the rotting face of its master. But this did not suit the ape-man. With a kick he sent the beast howling after its companion, and springing to the side of the prostrate witch doctor dragged him to his feet. Bukawai, still conscious, saw death immediate and terrible in the cold eyes of his captor, so he turned upon Tarzan with teeth and nails. The ape-man shuddered at the proximity of that raw face to his. The hyenas had had enough and disappeared through the small aperture leading into the cave. Tarzan had little difficulty in overpowering and binding Bukawai. Then he led him to the very tree to which he had been bound. But in binding Bukawai Tarzan saw to it that escape after the same fashion that he had escaped would be out of the question. Then he left him. As he passed through the winding corridors and the subterranean apartments Tarzan saw nothing of the hyenas. They will return, he said to himself. In the crater between the towering walls Bukawai, cold with terror, trembled, trembled as with egg-you. They will return! he cried, his voice rising to a fright-filled shriek. And they did. END OF CHAPTER VIII THE LION Numa the lion crouched behind a thorn-bush close beside the drinking pool where the river eddied just below the bend. There was a ford there and on either bank a well-worn trail broadened far out at the river's brim, where for countless centuries the wild things of the jungle and of the plains beyond had come down to drink, the carnivora with bold and fearless majesty, the herbivora timorous, hesitating, fearful. Numa the lion was hungry. He was very hungry. And so he was quite silent now. On his way to the drinking place he had moaned often and roared not a little. But as he neared the spot where he would lie and wait for Berra, the deer, or Horta the boar, or some other of the many luscious fleshed creatures who came hither to drink, he was silent. It was a grim, a terrible silence, shot through with yellow-green light and ferocious eyes, punctuated with undulating tremors of sinuous tale. It was Paco the zebra who came first, and Numa the lion could scarce restrain a roar of anger, for of all the plains' people none are more wary than Paco the zebra. Behind the black stripe stagion came a herd of thirty or forty of the plump and vicious little horse-like beasts. As he neared the river the leader paused often, cocking his ears and raising his muzzle to sniff the gentle breeze for the tale-tale scentspore of the dread flesh-eaters. Numa shifted uneasily, drawing his hind quarters far beneath his tawny body, gathering himself for the sudden charge and the savage assault. His eyes shot hungry fire, his great muscles quivered to the excitement of the moment. Paco came a little nearer, halted, snorted, and wheeled. There was a pattering of scurrying hoofs, and the herd was gone. But Numa the lion moved not, he was familiar with the ways of Paco the zebra. He knew that he would return, though many times he might wheel and fly before he summoned the courage to lead his harem and his offspring to the water. There was the chance that Paco might be frightened off entirely. Numa had seen this happen before, and so he became almost rigid lest he be the one to send them galloping waterless back to the plain. Again and again came Paco and his family, and again and again did they turn and flee. But each time they came closer to the river, until at last the plump stallion dipped his velvet muzzle daintily into the water. The others, stepping warily, approached their leader. Numa selected a sleek, fat filly, and his flaming eyes burned greedily as they feasted upon her, for Numa the lion loved scarce anything better than the meat of Paco, perhaps because Paco is, of all the grass-eaters, the most difficult to catch. Slowly the lion rose, and as he rose a twig snapped beneath one of his great padded paws. Like a shot from a rifle he charged upon the filly, but the snapped twig had been enough to startle the timorous quarry so that they were in instant flight simultaneously with Numa's charge. The stallion was last, and with a prodigious leap the lion catapulted through the air to seize him. But the snapping twig had robbed Numa of his dinner, though his mighty talons raped the zebra's glossy rump, leaving four crimson bars across the beautiful colt. It was an angry Numa that quitted the river and prowled fierce, dangerous, and hungry into the jungle. Far from particular now was his appetite. Even Dango the hyena would have seemed a tidbit to that ravenous maw, and in this temper it was that the lion came upon the tribe of Kerchak the Great Ape. One does not look for Numa the lion this late in the morning. He should be lying up asleep beside his last night's kill by now, but Numa had made no kill last night. He was still hunting, hungrier than ever. The anthropoids were idling about the clearing, the first keen desire of the morning's hunger having been satisfied. Numa scented them long before he saw them. Ordinarily he would have turned away in search of other game, for even Numa respected the mighty muscles and the sharp fangs of the great boulds of the tribe of Kerchak, but to-day he kept on steadily toward them his bristled snout wrinkled into a savage snarl. Without an instant's hesitation Numa charged the moment he reached a point from where the apes were visible to him. There were a dozen or more of the hairy man-like creatures upon the ground in a little glade. In a tree at one side sat a brown-skinned youth. He saw Numa's swift charge. He saw the apes turn and flee, huge bulls trampling upon little Balus. Only a single she held her ground to meet the charge, a young she inspired by new motherhood to the great sacrifice that her Balu might escape. Tarzan leaped from his perch, screaming at the flying bulls beneath and at those who squatted in the safety of surrounding trees. Had the bulls stood their ground, Numa would not have carried through that charge unless goaded by great rage or the gnawing pangs of starvation. Even then he would not have come off unscathed. If the bulls heard, they were too slow in responding, for Numa had seized the mother ape and dragged her into the jungle before the males had sufficiently collected their wits and their courage to rally in defense of their fellow. Tarzan's angry voice aroused similar anger in the breasts of the apes. Snarling and barking they followed Numa into the dense labyrinth of foliage wherein he sought to hide himself from them. The ape-man was in the lead, moving rapidly and yet with caution, depending even more upon his ears and nose than upon his eyes for information of the lion's whereabouts. The spore was easy to follow, for the dragged body of the victim left a plain trail, blood-spattered and sentful. Even such dull creatures that you or I might easily have followed it. To Tarzan and the apes of Kurchak it was as obvious as a cement sidewalk. Tarzan knew that they were nearing the great cat even before he heard an angry growl of warning just ahead. Calling to the apes to follow his example, he swung into a tree, and a moment later Numa was surrounded by a ring of growling beasts, well out of reach of his fangs and talons, but within plain sight of him. The carnivore crouched with his forequarters upon the she-ape. Tarzan could see that the latter was already dead, but something within him made it seem quite necessary to rescue the useless body from the clutches of the enemy and to punish him. He shrieked taunts and insults at Numa, and tearing dead branches from the tree in which he danced hurled them at the lion. The apes followed his example. Numa roared out in rage and vexation. He was hungry, but under such conditions he could not feed. The apes, if they had been left to themselves, would doubtless soon have left the lion to peaceful enjoyment of his feast, for was not the she dead? They could not restore her to life by throwing sticks at Numa, and they might even now be feeding in quiet themselves. But Tarzan was of a different mind. Numa must be punished and driven away. He must be taught that even though he killed a man Ganny, he would not be permitted to feed upon his kill. The man mined looked into the future, while the apes perceived only the immediate present. They would be content to escape today the menace of Numa, while Tarzan saw the necessity and the means as well of safeguarding the days to come. So he urged the great anthropoids on until Numa was showered with missiles that kept his head dodging and his voice peeling forth its savage protest. But still he clung desperately to his kill. The twigs and branches hurled at Numa, Tarzan soon realized, did not hurt him greatly, even when they struck him and did not injure him at all. So the ape-man looked about for more effective missiles, nor did he have to look long. An outcropping of decomposed granite not far from Numa suggested ammunition of a much more painful nature. Calling to the apes to watch him, Tarzan slipped to the ground and gathered a handful of small fragments. He knew that when once they had seen him carry out his idea they would be much quicker to follow his lead than to obey his instructions. Were he to command them to procure pieces of rock and hurl them at Numa? For Tarzan was not then king of the apes of the tribe of Kerchak. That came in later years. Now he was but a youth, though one who already had rested for himself a place in the councils of the savage beasts, among whom a strange fate had cast him. The sullen bulls of the older generation still hated him as beasts hate those of whom they are suspicious, whose scent characteristic is the scent characteristic of an alien order, and therefore of an enemy order. The younger bulls, those who had grown up through childhood as his playmates, were as accustomed to Tarzan's scent as to that of any other member of the tribe. They felt no greater suspicion of him than any other bull of their acquaintance. Yet they did not love him, for they loved none outside the mating season, and the animosities aroused by other bulls during that season lasted well over until the next. They were a morose and peevish band at best, though here and there were those among them in whom germinated the primal seeds of humanity, reversions to type these doubtless, reversions to the ancient progenitor who took the first step out of apehood toward humaneness when he walked more often upon his hind feet and discovered other things for idle hands to do. So now Tarzan led where he could not yet command. He had long since discovered the apeish propensity for mimicry and learned to make use of it. Having filled his arms with fragments of rotted granite, he clamored again into a tree, and it pleased him to see that the apes had followed his example. During the brief respite while they were gathering their ammunition Numa had settled himself to feed. But scarce had he arranged himself and his kill when a sharp piece of rock hurled by the practised hand of the ape-man struck him upon the cheek. His sudden roar of pain and rage was smothered by a volley from the apes who had seen Tarzan's act. Numa shook his massive head and glared upward at his tormentors. For a half hour they pursued him with rocks and broken branches, and though he dragged his kill into densest thickets, yet they always found a way to reach him with their missiles, giving him no opportunity to feed and driving him on and on. The hairless ape-thing with the man sent was worst of all, for he had even the temerity to advance upon the ground to within a few yards of the lord of the jungle, that he might with greater accuracy and force hurl the sharp bits of granite and the heavy sticks at him. Time and again did Numa charge, sudden vicious charges, but the lithe, active tormentor, always managed to elude him and with such insolent ease that the lion forgot even his great hunger in the consuming passion of his rage, leaving his meat for considerable spaces of time in vain efforts to catch his enemy. The apes and Tarzan pursued the great beast to a natural clearing, where Numa evidently determined to make a last stand, taking up his position in the center of the open space, which was far enough from any tree to render him practically immune from the rather erratic throwing of the apes, though Tarzan still found him with most persistent and aggravating frequency. This, however, did not suit the ape-man, since Numa now suffered an occasional missile with no more than a snarl, while he settled himself to partake of his delayed feast. Tarzan scratched his head, pondering some more effective method of offence, for he had determined to prevent Numa from profiting in any way through his attack upon the tribe. The man mined reasoned against the future, while the shaggy apes thought only of their present hatred of this ancestral enemy. Tarzan guessed that should Numa find it an easy thing to snatch a meal from the tribe of Kirchak, it would be but a short time before their existence would be one living nightmare of hideous watchfulness and dread. Numa must be taught that the killing of an ape brought immediate punishment and no rewards. It would take but a few lessons to ensure the former safety of the tribe. This must be some old lion whose failing strength and agility had forced him to any prey that he could catch, but even a single lion, undisputed, could exterminate the tribe, or at least make its existence so precarious and so terrifying that life would no longer be a pleasant condition. Let him hunt among the gold mangani, thought Tarzan, he will find them easier prey. I will teach ferocious Numa that he may not hunt the mangani. But how to rest the body of his victim from the feeding lion was the first question to be solved. At last Tarzan hit upon a plan. To any one but Tarzan of the apes it might have seemed rather a risky plan, and perhaps it did even to him. But Tarzan rather liked things that contained a considerable element of danger. At any rate I rather doubt that you or I would have chosen a similar plan for foiling an angry and a hungry lion. Tarzan required assistance in the scheme he had hit upon, and his assistant must be equally as brave and almost as active as he. The ape-man's eyes fell upon Tog, the playmate of his childhood, the rival in his first love, and now, of all the bulls of the tribe, the only one that might be thought to hold in his savage brain any such feeling toward Tarzan as we describe among ourselves as friendship. At least Tarzan knew Tog was courageous, and he was young and agile and wonderfully muscled. Tog! cried the ape-man. The great ape looked up from a dead limb he was attempting to tear from a lightning-blasted tree. Go close to Numa and worry him, said Tarzan. Worry him until he charges. Lead him away from the body of Mamca. Keep him away as long as you can. Tog nodded. He was across the clearing from Tarzan. Resting the limb at last from the tree, he dropped to the ground and advanced toward Numa, growling and barking out his insults. The worried lion looked up and rose to his feet. His tail went stiffly erect, and Tog turned in flight, for he knew that warning signal of the charge. From behind the lion Tarzan ran quickly toward the center of the clearing and the body of Mamca. Numa, all his eyes for Tog, did not see the ape-man. Instead he shot forward after the fleeing bull, who had turned in flight, not an instant too soon, since he reached the nearest tree but a yard or two ahead of the pursuing demon. Like a cat, the heavy anthropoid scampered up the bowl of his sanctuary. Numa's talons missed him by little more than inches. For a moment the lion paused beneath the tree, glaring up at the ape and roaring until the earth trembled. Then he turned back again toward his kill, and as he did so his tail shot once more to rigid erectness, and he charged back even more ferociously than he had come, for what he saw was the naked man-thing running toward the farther trees with the bloody carcass of his prey across a giant shoulder. The apes watching the grim rays from the safety of the trees, screamed taunts at Numa, and warnings to Tarzan. The high sun, hot and brilliant, fell like a spotlight upon the actors in the little clearing, portraying them in glaring relief to the audience in the leafy shadows of the surrounding trees. The light brown body of the naked youth was all but hidden by the shaggy carcass of the killed ape, the red blood streaking his smooth hide, his muscles rolling, velvety beneath. Behind him the black main lion had flattened, tail extended, raced a jungle thoroughbred across the sunlit clearing. Ah, but this was life! With death at his heels Tarzan thrilled with the joy of such a living as this, but what he reached the trees ahead of the rampant death so close behind. Gunto swung from a limb in a tree before him. Gunto was screaming warnings and advice. Catch me, cried Tarzan, and with his heavy burden leaked straight for the big bull hanging there by his hind feet and one forepaw, and Gunto caught them, the big ape man and the dead weight of the slain she-ape, caught them with one great hairy paw, and whirled them upward until Tarzan's fingers closed upon a nearby branch. Beneath, Numa leaped, but Gunto, heavy and awkward as he may have appeared, was as quick as Manu the Monkey so that the lion's talons but barely grazed him, scratching a bloody streak beneath one hairy arm. Tarzan carried Mamka's corpse to a high crotch, where even Sheeta the Panther could not get it. Numa paced angrily back and forth beneath the tree, roaring frightfully. He had been robbed of his kill and his revenge also. He was very savage indeed, but his despoilers were well out of his reach, and after hurling a few taunts and missiles at him, they swung away through the trees, fiercely reviling him. Tarzan thought much upon the little adventure of that day. He foresaw what might happen should the great carnivore of the jungle turn their serious attention upon the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape, but equally he thought upon the wild scramble of the apes for safety when Numa first charged among them. There is little humor in the jungle that is not grim and awful. The beasts have little or no conception of humor, but the young Englishman saw humor in many things which presented no humorous angle to his associates. Since earliest childhood he had been a searcher after fun, much to the sorrow of his fellow apes. And now he saw the humor of the frightened panic of the apes and the baffled rage of Numa, even in this grim jungle adventure which had robbed Mamka of life and jeopardized that of many members of the tribe. It was but a few weeks later that Sheeta the Panther made a sudden rush among the tribe and snatched a little baloo from a tree where it had been hidden while its mother sought food. Sheeta got away with his small prize unmolested. Tarzan was very wroth. He spoke to the bulls of the ease with which Numa and Sheeta in a single moon had slain two members of the tribe. They will take us all for food, he cried. We hunt as we will through the jungle, paying no heed to approaching enemies. Even Manu the Monkey does not so. He keeps two or three always watching for enemies. Pako the Zebra and Wappi the Antelope have those about the herd who keep watch while the others feed, while we the great man Gani let Numa and Sabor and Sheeta come when they will and carry us off to feed their baloo. Said Numbgo, What are we to do? asked Tog. We too should have two or three always watching for the approach of Numa and Sabor and Sheeta, replied Tarzan. No others need we fear except Hista the Snake, and if we watch for the others we will see Hista if he comes, though gliding ever so silently. And so it was that the great apes of the tribe of Kurchak posted sentries thereafter, who watched upon three sides while the tribe hunted, scattered less than had been their want. But Tarzan went abroad alone, for Tarzan was a man thing, and sought amusement and adventure, and such humor as the grim and terrible jungle offers to those who know it and do not fear it, a weird humor shot with blazing eyes and dappled with the crimson of life-blood. While others sought only food and love, Tarzan of the apes sought food and joy. One day he hovered above the palisaded village of Mabonga the chief, the jet cannibal of the jungle primeval. He saw, as he had seen many times before, the witch doctor, Ravakega, decked out in the head and hide of Gorgo the buffalo. It amused Tarzan to see the Gomangani parading as Gorgo, but it suggested nothing in particular to him, until he chanced to see stretched against the side of Mabonga's hut, the skin of a lion with the head still on. Then a broad grin widened the handsome face of the savage beast youth. Back into the jungle he went until chance, agility, strength, and cunning, backed by his marvelous powers of perception, gave him an easy meal. If Tarzan felt that the world owed him a living, he also realized that it was for him to collect it, nor was there ever a better collector than this son of an English Lord, who knew even less of the ways of his forebears than he did of the forebears themselves, which was nothing. It was quite dark when Tarzan returned to the village of Mabonga and took his now-polished perch in the tree which overhangs the palisade upon one side of the walled enclosure. As there was nothing in particular to feast upon in the village there was little life in the single street, for only an orgy of flesh and native beer could draw out the people of Mabonga. Tonight they sat gossiping about their cooking fires, the older members of the tribe, or if they were young paired off in the shadows cast by the palm-thatsed huts. Tarzan dropped lightly into the village, and sneaking stealthily in the concealment of the denser shadows approached the hut of the chief Mabonga. Here he found that which he sought. There were warriors all about him, but they did not know that the feared devil-god slunt noiselessly so near them, nor did they see him possess himself of that which he coveted and depart from their village as noiselessly as he had come. Later that night, as Tarzan curled himself for sleep, he lay for a long time looking up at the burning planets and the twinkling stars, and at Goral the moon, and he smiled. He recalled how ludicrous the great bulls had appeared in their mad scramble for safety that day when Numa had charged among them and seized Mabonga, and yet he knew them to be fierce and courageous. It was the sudden shock of surprise that always sent them into a panic, but of this Tarzan was not as yet fully aware. That was something he was to learn in the near future. He fell asleep with a broad grin upon his face. Manu, the monkey, awoke him in the morning by dropping discarded bean pods upon his upturned face from a branch a short distance above him. Tarzan looked up and smiled. He had been awakened thus before many times. He and Manu were fairly good friends, their friendship operating upon a reciprocal basis. Sometimes Manu would come running early in the morning to awaken Tarzan and tell him that Bara, the deer, was feeding close at hand, or that Horta the boar was asleep in a mud-hole, hard by, and in return Tarzan broke open the shells of the harder nuts and fruits for Manu, or frightened away Hista the snake and Sheeta the panther. The sun had been up for some time, and the tribe had already wandered off in search of food. Manu indicated the direction they had taken with a wave of his hand and a few piping notes of his squeaky little voice. Come, Manu, said Tarzan, and you will see that which shall make you dance for joy and squeal your wrinkled little head off. Come, follow Tarzan of the apes. With that he set off in the direction Manu had indicated, and above him, chattering, scolding, and squealing, skipped Manu the monkey. Across Tarzan's shoulders was the thing he had stolen from the village of Mabonga the chief the evening before. The tribe was feeding in the forest beside the clearing where Gunto and Tog and Tarzan had so harassed Numa and finally taken away from him the fruit of his kill. Some of them were in the clearing itself. In peace and content they fed, for were there not three sentries each watching upon a different side of the herd? Tarzan had taught them this, and though he had been away for several days hunting alone, as he often did, or visiting at the cabin by the sea, they had not as yet forgotten his admonitions, and if they continued for a short time longer to post sentries it would become a habit of their tribal life and thus be perpetuated indefinitely. But Tarzan, who knew them better than they knew themselves, was confident that they had ceased to place the watchers about them the moment that he had left them, and now he planned not only to have a little fun at their expense, but to teach them a lesson in preparedness, which by the way is even a more vital issue in the jungle than in civilized places. That you and I exist today must be due to the preparedness of some shaggy anthropoid of the oligocene. Of course the apes of Kurchak were always prepared after their own way. Tarzan had merely suggested a new and additional safeguard. Gunto was posted today at the north of the clearing. He squatted in the fork of a tree from where he might view the jungle for quite a distance about him. It was he who first discovered the enemy. A rustling in the undergrowth attracted his attention, and a moment later he had a partial view of a shaggy mane and tawny yellow back, just a glimpse it was through the matted foliage beneath him, but it brought from Gunto's leather lung to shrill Cree-Oggs, which is the ape for beware or danger. Instantly the tribe took up the cry until Cree-Oggs rang through the jungle about the clearing as apes swung quickly to places of safety among the lower branches of the trees and the great bulls hastened in the direction of Gunto. And then into the clearing strode Numa the lion, majestic and mighty, and from a deep chest issued the moan and the cough and the rumbling roar that set stiff hairs to bristling from the shaggy craniums down the length of mighty spines. Inside the clearing Numa paused, and on the instant there fell upon him from the trees nearby a shower of broken rock and dead limbs torn from age-old trees. A dozen times he was hit, and then the apes ran down and gathered other rocks pelting him unmercifully. Numa turned to flee, but his way was barred by a fusillade of sharp-cornered missiles, and then upon the edge of the clearing great tog met him with a huge fragment of rock as large as a man's head, and down went the lord of the jungle beneath the stunning blow. With shrieks and roars and loud barkings the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak rushed upon the fallen lion. Sticks and stones and yellow fangs menaced the still form. In another moment before he could regain consciousness Numa would be battered and torn until only a bloody mass of broken bones and matted hair remained of what had once been the most dreaded of jungle creatures. But even as the sticks and stones were raised above him and the great fangs bared to tear him, there descended like a plummet from the trees above a diminutive figure with long white whiskers and a wrinkled face. Square upon the body of Numa it alighted, and there it danced and screamed and shrieked out its challenge against the bulls of Kerchak. For an instant they paused, paralyzed by the wonder of the thing. It was Manu the monkey, Manu the little coward, and here he was daring the ferocity of the great mangani hopping about upon the carcass of Numa the lion and crying out that they must not strike it again. And when the bulls paused Manu reached down and seized a tawny ear. With all his little might he tugged upon the heavy head until slowly it turned back revealing the tussled black head and clean-cut profile of Tarzan of the apes. Some of the older apes were for finishing what they had commenced, but Tog, sullen, mighty Tog sprang quickly to the ape-man's side and straddling the unconscious form, warned back those who had struck his childhood playmate, and Tikka, his mate, came too, taking her place with bared fangs at Tog's side. Others followed their example, until at last Tarzan was surrounded by a ring of hairy champions who would permit no enemy to approach him. It was a surprised and chastened Tarzan who opened his eyes to consciousness a few minutes later. He looked about him at the surrounding apes and slowly there returned to him a realization of what had occurred. Gradually a broad grin illuminated his features. His bruises were many and they hurt, but the good that had come from his adventure was worth all that it had cost. He had learned, for instance, that the apes of Kerchak had heeded his teaching, and he had learned that he had good friends among the sullen beasts whom he had thought without sentiment. He had discovered that Manu, the monkey, even little cowardly Manu, had risked his life in his defense. It made Tarzan very glad to know these things, but at the other lesson he had been taught he reddened. He had always been a joker, the only joker in the grim and terrible company, but now as he lay there half-dead from his hurts he almost swore a solemn oath forever to forego practical joking. Almost, but not quite.