Chapter 4 Tarzan and the Jungle Murders by Edgar Rice Burrough
JUNGLE CALL
Two days were to pass before the thread which began with Horace Brown in Chicago, and was already soaked in one spot with Horace Brown's blood, was to reach out and wind itself about the hyena-hating Tarzan in Africa. The third day found Tarzan of the Apes following the cold trail of the Englishman, Cecil Giles-Burton.
Then fate played a queer trick. Cecil Giles-Burton, who had never set foot in Africa before, passed unharmed through the country of the savage Buiroos—but Tarzan of the Apes, born and bred in this land and the master of its lore, was ambushed, wounded and captured!
It happened in this way: Tarzan was approaching a forest growth down-wind, hence the scent-spoor of any life ahead of him could not come to his sensitive nostrils. Thus he could not know that a score of Buiroo warriors were advancing through the forest in his direction. They were hunting, therefore moved silently, so Tarzan neither heard nor smelled them as they came on.
It was at this moment that a lion broke suddenly from the forest a little to his left. Blood was running from a wound in the lion's side, and it was in an ugly mood. The beast bounded past him a few yards, then abruptly turned and charged directly at him. Tarzan, in perfect calm, raised his short, heavy spear above his right shoulder and waited. And now his back was toward the forest. It was then that the Buiroos came upon him from behind. Their surprise was great, but it did not deter their action.
Chemungo, son of Mpingu the chief, recognized the white man, recognized him as Tarzan—Tarzan who had once robbed the village of a captive who was to be tortured and sacrificed—Tarzan who had made a fool of Chemungo into the bargain. Chemungo wasted no time. He hurled his spear, and the white man went down with the weapon quivering in his back. But the other warriors did not forget the lion. With loud shouts they rushed upon him, holding their enormous shields in front of them.
The beast leaped for the foremost warrior, striking the shield and throwing the man to the ground where the shield protected him while his fellows surrounded the lion and drove home their weapons. Once more the lion charged, and once again a warrior went down beneath his shield, but now a spear found the savage heart and the battle was over.
There was great rejoicing in the village of Mpingu the Chief when the warriors returned with a white prisoner and the carcass of a lion. Their rejoicing, however, was tempered with some misgivings when they discovered that their prisoner was the redoubtable Tarzan. Some, incited by the village witch doctor, advocated killing the prisoner at once, lest he invoke his powers of magic to do them injury. Others, however, counseled setting him free, arguing that the spirit of the murdered Tarzan might do them infinitely more harm than Tarzan alive.
Torn between two opposing ideas, Mpingu compromised. He ordered the prisoner to be securely bound and guarded, and his wounds treated. If, by the time he got well, nothing untoward had happened, they would treat him as they treated other prisoners; and then there would be dancing—and eating!
Tarzan had stopped bleeding. The wound would have killed an ordinary man, but Tarzan was no ordinary man. Already he was planning his escape. His bonds were tight, and his captors took great pains to keep them that way. Each night they tightened them anew, wondering at the great strength that enabled the man to loosen them at least enough to cause the blood in his arms and legs to flow less sluggishly. This nightly tightening of his bonds became a serious problem to Tarzan. It was more than that—it was an insult to his natural dignity.
"A man without the use of his arms," he thought, "is only half a man. A man without the use of his arms and legs is not a man at all. He is a child, who must be fed like a child, as the Buiroos are feeding me."
And Tarzan's heart swelled with the indignity of it, an indignity thrice multiplied at being fed by a degenerate people like the Buiroos. Yet what availed the swelling of Tarzan's heart, if his wrists and ankles could not swell, too—swell and burst his bonds? Tarzan's great heart burned within his breast, but his brain remained cool.
"They feed me to fatten me," his brain told him. "A man of muscle would make too tough eating for them. So they seek to put over me a layer of succulent fat. Is this a fit end for Tarzan—to wind up in the bellies of Buiroos? No, it is not a fit end for Tarzan—nor will it be the end! Tarzan will surely think of something."
So Tarzan thought of this and that, and dismissed each thought in turn as useless. But his five senses, more highly developed than those of any other men, remained in tune. Three of those senses did not matter much in his present condition. He could see, but of what use was sight when a man had only the walls of a mean hut to look at? What mattered touch when a man's hands and feet were bound? What good was taste when it meant tasting food not acquired by his own strong hands but fed to him by Buiroos, so that his muscles should take on a layer of fat to melt on their tongues and delight their palates? No, two senses alone—hearing and smell—still meant something. And over and above them the mysterious sixth sense that Tarzan possessed to a degree unknown to other men.
So the days and nights passed, with Tarzan thinking in his waking hours and thinking even in his dreams. He was more alive than ever to all sounds and all smells; but more important than that, his sixth sense was alive to the jungle and any message it might bring him. Messages there were many, but he waited for the one that would bring him hope. He heard Sheetah, the Leopard. There was no hope there. He heard Dango again, and smelled the beast with his old disgust. Numa, the Lion, voiced his hunger grunt from far away. Tarzan's keen ears heard it, but the sound was meaningless except to introduce the passing thought that it was nobler to be eaten by a lion than by Buiroos.
Then Tarzan—or rather Tarzan's sixth sense—received another message. A faint glow of surprise appeared in his eyes, his nostrils quivered. Soon after that, Tarzan began to sway his torso backward and forward, gently, and a low chanting sound began to issue from his lips. The guard at the hut's opening peered in, saw Tarzan's gentle swaying, and asked: "What are you doing?"
Tarzan interrupted his motion and chant only long enough to say, "Praying." Then he resumed.
The guard reported what he had seen to Mpingu. Mpingu grunted and said that the gods of the Buiroos were more powerful than Tarzan's.
"Let him pray," Mpingu said. "It will not save him. Soon our teeth and tongues will know him."
The guard returned to the hut, resumed his post. Tarzan was still swaying and chanting, only a little louder now. He waited for the guard to tell him not to, but the guard said nothing, wherefore Tarzan knew that his plan was working. The message still came to him, but now it was more than a message received by his sixth sense. The message was coming to his nostrils now, unmistakable!
But Tarzan was careful. He was sending out a call, but he increased its volume only gradually, so that the illusion of prayer could be kept in the minds of the Buiroos. And so gradually did the sounds he made increase in volume, that from one minute to the next the change was scarcely noticeable.
It was all at once that the Buiroos realized that Tarzan's voice was very loud, and for still another minute they explained it by the supposition that Tarzan could not make his gods listen to him. Then they heard, bursting upon their ear-drums, like thunder when the skies are black and angry, Tarzan's great bellow. There was sudden quiet...
Deep in the jungle, Tantor, the Elephant, lifted his head to the night breeze, and the forepart of his trunk curled up spasmodically. His ears flapped. He turned partway around to face the breeze fully. Once more he sniffed—and then he trumpeted. He trumpeted, calling his herd together. They came, stood up-wind with him, listened, heard what he heard. They had wandered far, out of their usual stamping grounds, following their leader submissively, for their leader had been very restless the last few days, as though seeking something, and they had feared to cross his will. Now they knew what had made him restless and what had drawn him, and now they, too, shook the air with their own trumpetings, trampled the ground with impatience, waiting only the signal from their leader to set out.
Tantor gave the awaited signal—and the herd marched! It marched quickly, steadily, remorselessly—straight for its goal. It marched without swerving, except for the great trees. The saplings it juggernauted down as if they were matchwood. Straight and true, the great herd marched on the Buiroo village...
Tarzan, in his captive's lair, was the first to hear the thunder of the oncoming herd. His eyes lit up and his lips twisted in a smile. His "prayers" had been heard! His deliverance came on apace—faster, faster—nearer, nearer!
Panicky cries rose in the outer air. Tarzan heard the ripping and rending of wood as the elephants pushed against the village stockade.
Crash! A whole section of the stockade came shattering down. The elephants were in!
"Tantor! Tantor!" Tarzan's great voice called.
"Tantor! Tantor!" his voice yelled out. "Come to me!"
But Tantor needed no vocal invitation to come to Tarzan. The scent of his man-friend alone was enough, and Tarzan's voice merely confirmed Tantor's knowledge of his presence there. Tarzan heard the swoop of Tantor's trunk above him. The entire thatched roof of the hut he was in was swept away. Looking up, Tarzan beheld the tremendous bulk of Tantor, and beyond that the stars of heaven.
The next instant Tantor's trunk dipped down, encircled Tarzan, lifted him and hung him up on his back. Tantor lifted his trunk, waited. Now Tarzan and not Tantor was in command of the herd. And it was Tarzan, with his great voice, who signaled that it was time to depart. The village was a shambles now, not a hut left standing, and the Buiroos had retreated in terror into the bush.
Triumphantly, the herd left the village behind. Dawn was breaking. Tantor and the herd had done its job. It was the monkeys and not the elephants who loosened Tarzan's bonds, and hopped about him, chattering with delight at seeing him again. Tarzan rubbed Tantor behind the ears, and Tantor knew he was being thanked. Then, taking leave of his jungle friends, Tarzan swung off into the trees and disappeared from their sight. There was no use any more, he knew, in following the spoor of the English aviator. Very likely the poor fellow had already died, either of starvation or beneath the fangs and talons of one of the great carnivorous beasts. No, Tarzan's destination now lay elsewhere—specifically in Bangali.
Nights before, while lying captive, he had heard native African drums relaying a message from the Resident Commissioner in Bangali to his friend Tarzan of the Apes—a message for Tarzan to come to Bangali.