6 His first night in the jungle was one which the son of Tarzan held longest in his memory. No savage carnivora menaced him. There was never a sign of hideous barbarian. Or, if there were, the boy's troubled mind took no cognizance of them. His conscience was harassed by the thought of his mother's suffering. Self-blame plunged him into the depths of misery. The killing of the American caused him little or no remorse. The fellow had earned his fate. Jack's regret on this score was due mainly to the effect which the death of Condon had had upon his own plans. Now he could not return directly to his parents as he had planned. Fear of the primitive borderland law, of which he had read highly-colored imaginary tales, had thrust him into the jungle a fugitive. He dared not return to the coast at this point, not that he was so greatly influenced through personal fear as from a desire to shield his father and mother from further sorrow and from the shame of having their honored name dragged through the sordid degradation of a murder trial. With returning day the boy's spirits rose. With the rising sun rose new hope within his breast. He would return to civilization by another way. None would guess that he had been connected with the killing of the stranger in the little out-of-the-way trading post upon a remote shore. Crouch close to the great ape in the crotch of a tree, the boy had shivered through an almost sleepless night. His light pajamas had been but little protection from the chill dampness of the jungle, and only that side of him which was pressed against the warm body of his shaggy companion approximated to comfort. And so he welcomed the rising sun with its promise of warmth as well as light, the blessed sun, dispeller of physical and mental ills. He shook a cooped into wakefulness. Come, he said, I am cold and hungry. We will search for food out there in the sunlight. And he pointed to an open plain dotted with stunted trees and strewn with jagged rock. The boy slid to the ground as he spoke, but the ape first looked carefully about, sniffing the morning air, then satisfied that no danger lurked near. He descended slowly to the ground beside the boy. Numa and Sabor, his mate, feast upon those who descend first and look afterward, while those who look first and descend afterward live to feast themselves. Thus the old ape imparted to the son of Tarzan the boy's first lesson in jungle lore. Side by side they set off across the rough plain, for the boy wished first to be warm. The ape showed him the best places to dig for rodents and worms, but the lad only gagged at the thought of devouring the repulsive things. Some eggs they found, these he sucked raw, and also he ate roots and tubers which acoot unearthed. Beyond the plain and across a low bluff they came upon water, brackish, ill-smelling stuff in a shallow water-hole, the sides and bottom of which were trampled by the feet of many beasts. A herd of zebra galloped away as they approached. The lad was too thirsty by now to caviel at anything even remotely resembling water, so he drank his fill while acoot stood with raised head, alert for any danger. Before the ape drank he cautioned the boy to be watchful, but as he drank he raised his head from time to time to cast a quick glance toward a clump of bushes a hundred yards away upon the opposite side of the water-hole. When he had done he rose and spoke to the boy, in the language that was their common heritage, the tongue of the great apes. There is no danger near, he asked. None, replied the boy. I saw nothing move while you drank. Your eyes will help you but little in the jungle, said the ape. Here, if you would live, you must depend upon your ears and your nose, but most upon your nose. When we came down to drink I knew that no danger lurked near upon this side of the water-hole, for else the zebras would have discovered it and fled before we came, but upon the other side toward which the wind blows danger might lie concealed. We could not smell it, for its scent is being blown in the other direction, and so I bent my ears and eyes downwind where my nose cannot travel. And you found nothing? asked the lad with a laugh. I found Numa crouching in that clump of bushes where the tall grasses grow, and they co-pointed. A lion exclaimed the boy, how do you know? I can see nothing. Numa is there, though, replied the great ape. First I heard him sigh. To you the sigh of Numa may sound no different from the other noises which the wind makes among the grasses and the trees, but later you must learn to know the sigh of Numa. Then I watched, and at last I saw the tall grasses moving at one point to a force other than the force of the wind. See, they are spread there upon either side of Numa's great body, and as he breathes, you see? You see the little motion at either side that is not caused by the wind, the motion that none of the other grasses have? The boy strained his eyes, better eyes than the ordinary boy inherits, and at last he gave a little exclamation of discovery. Yes, he said, I see. He lies there, and he pointed. His head is toward us. Is he watching us? Numa is watching us, replied A. Koot.  His belly is almost full, or we should hear him crunching the bones. He is watching us in silence merely from curiosity. Presently he will resume his feeding, or he will rise and come down to the water for a drink. As he neither fears or desires us, he will not try to hide his presence from us. But now is an excellent time to learn to know Numa, for you must learn to know him well if you would live long in the jungle. Where the great apes are, many Numa leave us alone. Our fangs are long and strong, and we can fight. But when we are alone and he is hungry, we are no match for him. Come, we will circle him and catch his scent. The sooner you learn to know it, the better. But keep close to the trees as we go round him, for Numa often does that which he is least expected to do.  Remember always that there may be an enemy behind every bush, in every tree, and amongst every clump of jungle grass. While you are avoiding Numa, do not run into the jaws of Sabor, his mate. Follow me. And a coot set off in a wide circle about the water-hole and the crouching lion. The boy, followed close upon his heels, is every sense upon the alert, his nerves keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was life. For the instant he forgot his resolutions of a few minutes past to hasten to the coast at some other point than that at which he had landed, and make his way immediately back to London. He thought now only of the savage joy of living, and of pitting one's wits and prowess against the wiles and might of the savage jungle brood which haunted the broad plains and the gloomy forest aisles of the great untamed continent. He knew no fear. His father had had none to transmit to him, but honour and conscience he did have, and these were to trouble him many times as they battled with his inherent love of freedom for possession of his soul. They had passed but a short distance to the rear of Numa when the boy caught the unpleasant odor of the carnivore. His face lighted with a smile. Something told him that he would have known that scent among a myriad of others even if Acute had not told him that a lion lay near. There was a strange familiarity, a weird familiarity in it, that made the short hairs rise at the nape of his neck, and brought his upper lip into an involuntary snarl that bared his fighting fangs. There was a sense of stretching of the skin about his ears for all the world as though those members were flattening back against his skull in preparation for deadly combat. His skin tingled. He was aglow with a pleasurable sensation that he never before had known. He was, upon the instant, another creature, wary, alert, ready. Thus did the scent of Numa the lion transform the boy into a beast. He had never seen a lion, his mother had gone to great pains to prevent it, but he had devoured countless pictures of them, and now he was ravenous to feast his eyes upon the king of beasts in the flesh. As he trailed Acute he kept an eye caught over one shoulder, rearward, in the hope that Numa might rise from his kill and reveal himself. Thus it happened that he dropped some little way behind Acute, and the next he knew he was recalled suddenly to a contemplation of other matters than the hidden Numa by a shrill scream of warning from the ape. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction of his companion, the boy saw that, standing in the path directly before him, which sent tremors of excitement racing along every nerve of his body, with body half merging from a clump of bushes in which she must have lain hidden stood a sleek and beautiful lioness. Her yellow-green eyes were round and staring, boring straight into the eyes of the boy, not ten paces separated them. Twenty paces behind the lioness stood the great ape, bellowing instructions to the boy, and hurling taunts at the lioness in an evident effort to attract her attention from the lad, while he gained the shelter of a nearby tree. But Sabor was not to be diverted.  He stood between her and her mate, between her and the kill. It was suspicious. Probably he had ulterior designs upon her lord and master or upon the fruits of their hunting. A lioness is short-tempered. Acute's bellowing annoyed her. She uttered a little rumbling growl, taking a step toward the boy. The tree screamed Acute. The boy turned and fled, and at the same instant the lioness charged. The tree was but a few paces away. A limb hung ten feet from the ground, and as the boy leaped for it the lioness leaped for him. Like a monkey he pulled himself up and to one side. A great forepaw caught him a glancing blow at the hips, just grazing him. One curved talon hooked itself into the waistband of his pyjama trousers, ripping them from him as the lioness sped by. Half-naked the lad drew himself to safety as the beast turned and leaped for him once more. Acute, from a nearby tree, jabbered and scolded, calling the lioness all manner of foul names. The boy patterning his conduct after that of his preceptor, unstoppered the vials of his invective upon the head of the enemy, until in realization of the futility of words as weapons he bethought himself of something heavier to hurl. There was nothing but dead twigs and branches at hand, but these he flung at the upturned snarling face of Sabor, just as his father had before him twenty years ago when as a boy he too had taunted and tantalized the great cats of the jungle. The lioness fretted about the bowl of the tree for a short time, but finally either realizing the uselessness of her vigil or prompted by the pangs of hunger, she stalked majestically away and disappeared in the brush that hid her lord, who had not once shown himself during the altercation. Freed from their retreats, Acute and the boy came to the ground to take up their interrupted journey once more. The old ape scolded the lad for his carelessness. Had you not been so intent upon the lion behind you, you might have discovered the lioness much sooner than you did. But you passed right by her without seeing her, retorted the boy. Acute was chagrined. It is thus, he said, that jungle folk die. We go cautiously for a lifetime, and then just for an instant we forget and— He ground his teeth in mimicry of the crunching of great jaws in flesh. It is a lesson, he resumed. You have learned that you may not for too long keep your eyes and your ears and your nose all bent in the same direction.  The pajama trousers had not been heavy, but they had been much heavier than nothing. And the next day he roasted in the hot sun, for again their way led much across wide and treeless plains. It was still in the boy's mind to travel to the south and circle back to the coast in search of another outpost of civilization. He had said nothing of this plan to Acute, for he knew that the old ape would look with displeasure upon any suggestion that savored of separation. For a month the two wandered on, the boy learning rapidly the laws of the jungle, his muscles adapting themselves to the new mode of life that had been thrust upon them. The fuse of the sire had been transmitted to the sun. It needed only the hardening of use to develop them. The lad found that it came quite naturally to him to swing through the trees. Even at great heights he never felt the slightest dizziness, and when he had caught the knack of the swing and the release he could hurl himself through space from branch to branch with even greater agility than the heavier Acute. And with exposure came a toughening and a hardening of his smooth white skin, browning now beneath the sun and wind. He had removed his pajama-jacket one day to bathe in a little stream that was too small to harbor crocodiles, and while he and Acute had been desporting themselves in the cool waters a monkey had dropped down from the overhanging trees, snatched up the boy's single remaining article of civilized garmenture, and scampered away with it. For a time Jack was angry, but when he had been without the jacket for a short while he began to realize that being half-clothed is infinitely more uncomfortable than being entirely naked. Soon he did not miss his clothing in the least, and from that he came to revel in the freedom of his unhampered state. Occasionally a smile would cross his face as he tried to imagine the surprise of his schoolmates could they but see him now. They would envy him. Yes, how they would envy him. He felt sorry for them at such times, and again as he thought of them amid luxuries and comforts of their English homes happy with their fathers and mothers, a most uncomfortable lump would arise into the boy's throat, and he would see a vision of his mother's face through a blur of mist that came unbidden to his eyes. Then it was that he urged Acute onward, for now they were headed westward toward the coast. The old ape thought that they were searching for a tribe of his own kind, nor did the boy disabuse his mind of this belief, it would do to tell Acute of his real plans when they had come within sight of civilization. One day as they were moving slowly along beside a river they came unexpectedly upon a native village. Some children were playing beside the water. The boy's heart leaped within his breast at sight of them, for over a month he had seen no human being. What if these were naked savages? What if their skins were black? Were they not creatures fashioned in the mold of their maker, as was he? They were his brothers and sisters. He started toward them.  The boy shook himself free, and with a shout of greeting ran forward toward the ebb and players. The sound of his voice brought every head erect. Wide eyes viewed him for an instant, and then with screams of terror the children turned and fled toward the village. At their heels ran their mothers, and from the village gate in response to the alarm came a score of warriors hastily snatched spears and shields ready in their hands. At sight of the consternation he had wrought the boy halted. The glad smile faded from his face, as with wild shouts and menacing gestures the warriors ran toward him. Acute was calling to him from behind to turn and flee, telling him that the blacks would kill him. For a moment he stood watching them coming. Then he raised his hand with the palm toward them in a signal for them to halt, calling out at the same time that he came as a friend, that he had only wanted to play with their children.  The missile struck all about the boy, but none touched him. Again his spine tingled, and the short hairs lifted at the nape of his neck and along the top of his scalp. His eyes narrowed. The sudden hatred flared in them to wither the expression of glad friendliness that had lighted them but an instant before. With a low snarl, quite similar to that of a baffled beast, he turned and ran into the jungle. There was Acute awaiting him in a tree. The ape urged him to hasten in flight, for the wise old anthrapoid knew that they too, naked and unarmed, were no match for the sinewy black warriors who would doubtless make some sort of search for them through the jungle. But a new power moved the son of Tarzan. He had come with a boy's glad and open heart to offer his friendship to these people who were human beings like himself. He had been met with suspicion and spears. They had not even listened to him. Rage and hatred consumed him. When Acute urged speed he held back. He wanted to fight, yet his reason made it all too plain that it would be but a foolish sacrifice of his life to meet these armed men with his naked hands and his teeth. Already the boy thought of his teeth, of his fighting fangs when possibility of combat loomed close. Moving slowly through the trees he kept his eyes over his shoulder, though he no longer neglected the possibilities of other dangers which might lurk on either hand or ahead. His experience with the lioness did not need a repetition to ensure the permanency of the lesson it had taught. Behind he could hear the savages advancing with shouts and cries. He lagged further behind until the pursuers were in sight. They did not see him, for they were not looking among the branches of the trees for human query. The lad kept just ahead of them. For a mile perhaps they continued the search, and then they turned back toward the village. Here was the boy's opportunity, that for which he had been waiting, while the hot blood of revenge coursed through his veins until he saw his pursuers through a scarlet haze. When they turned back he turned and followed them. Akut was no longer in sight, thinking that the boy followed he had gone on further ahead. He had no wish to tempt fate within range of those deadly spheres. Slinking silently from tree to tree, the boy dogged the footsteps of the returning warriors. At last one dropped behind his fellows as they followed a narrow path toward the village. A grim smile lit the lad's face. Swiftly he hurried forward until he moved almost above the unconscious black, stalking him as Sheeta the Panther stalked his prey, as the boy had seen Sheeta do on many occasions. Suddenly and silently he leaped forward and downward upon the broad shoulders of his prey. In the instant of contact his finger sought and found the man's throat. The weight of the boy's body hurled the black heavily to the ground, the knees in his back knocking the breath from him as he struck. Then a set of strong white teeth fastened themselves in his neck, and muscular fingers closed tighter upon his windpipe. For a time the warrior struggled frantically, throwing himself about in an effort to dislodge his antagonist. But all the while he was weakening, and all the while the grim and silent thing he could not see clung tenaciously to him, and dragged him slowly into the bush, to one side of the trail. Hidden there at last, safe from the prying eyes of searchers, should they miss their fellow and return for him, the lad choked the life from the body of his victim. At last he knew by the sudden struggle, followed by limp relaxation, that the warrior was dead. Then a strange desire seized him, his whole being quivered and thrilled. Involuntarily he leaped to his feet and placed one foot upon the body of his kill.  But no sound passed his lips. He just stood there for a full minute, his face turned toward the sky, his breast heaving to the panty motion like an animate statue of vengeance.  This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 7 Acute, discovering that the boy was not close behind him, turned back to search for him. He had gone but a short distance in return when he was brought to a sudden and startled halt by sight of a strange figure moving through the trees toward him. It was the boy, yet could it be? In his hand was a long spear, down his back hung an oblong shield such as the black warriors who had attacked them had worn, and upon ankle and arm were bands of iron and brass, while a loincloth was twisted about the youth's middle, a knife was thrust through its folds. When the boy saw the ape he hastened forward to exhibit his trophies. Proudly he called attention to each of his newly won possessions. Boastfully he recounted the details of his exploit. With my bare hands and my teeth I killed him, he said. I would have made friends with them, but they chose to be my enemies, and now that I have a spear I shall show Numa to, what it means to have me for a foe. Only the white men in the great ape, Acute, are our friends. Them we shall seek. All others must we avoid or kill. This have I learned of the jungle. They made a detour about the hostile village, and resumed their journey toward the coast. The boy took much pride in his new weapons and ornaments. He practiced continually with the spear, throwing it at some object ahead, hour by hour, as they travelled their buoyant ring way, until he gained proficiencies such as only youthful muscles may attain too speedily. All the while his training went on under the guidance of Acute. No longer was there a single jungle spore, but was an open book to the keen eyes of the lad, and those other indefinite spore that elude the senses of civilized man, and are only partially appreciable to his savage cousin, came to be familiar friends of the eager boy. He could differentiate the innumerable species of the herbivora by scent, and he could tell too whether an animal was approaching or departing, merely by the waxing or waning strength of its effluvium. Nor did he need the evidence of his eyes to tell him whether there were two lions or four upwind, a hundred yards away or a half a mile. Much of this had Acute taught him, but far more was instinctive knowledge, a species of strange intuition inherited from his father. He had come to love the jungle life, the constant battle of wits and senses against the many deadly foes that lurked by day and by night along the pathway of the wary and the unwary, appealed to the spirit of adventure which breathed strong in the heart of every red-blooded son of primordial Adam. Yet though he loved it, he had not let his selfish desires outweigh the sense of duty that had brought him to a realization of the moral wrong which lay beneath the adventurous esquavade that had brought him to Africa. His love of father and mother was strong within him, too strong to permit unalloyed happiness which was undoubtedly causing them days of sorrow, and so he held tight to his determination to find a port upon the coast where he might communicate with them and receive funds for his return to London. There he felt sure that he could now persuade his parents to let him spend at least a portion of his time upon those African estates which from little careless remarks dropped at home he knew his father possessed. That would be something, better at least, than a lifetime of the cramped and cloying restrictions of civilization. And so he was rather contented than otherwise, as he made his way in the direction of the coast, for while he enjoyed the liberty and the savage pleasures of the wild, his conscience was at the same time clear, for he knew that he was doing all that lay in his power to return to his parents. He rather looked forward, too, to meeting white men again, creatures of his own kind, for there had been many occasions upon which he had longed for other companionship than that of the old ape. The affair with the blacks still rankled in his heart. He had approached them in such innocent good fellowship, and with such childlike assurance of a hospitable welcome, that the reception which had been accorded to him had proved a shock to his boyish ideals. He no longer looked upon the black man as his brother, but rather as only another of the innumerable foes of the bloodthirsty jungle, a beast of prey which walked upon two feet instead of four. But if the blacks were his enemies there were those in the world who were not. There were those who always would welcome him with open arms, who would accept him as a friend and brother, and with whom he might find sanctuary from every enemy. Yes, there were always white men, somewhere along the coast, or even in the depths of the jungle itself, there were white men. To them he would be a welcome visitor. They would be friend him, and there were also the great apes, the friends of his father and of Acute, how glad they would be to receive the son of Tarzan of the apes. He hoped that he could come upon them before he found a trading post upon the coast. He wanted to be able to tell his father that he had known his old friends of the jungle, that he had hunted with them, that he had joined with them in their savage life and their fierce primeval ceremonies, the strange ceremonies of which Acute had tried to tell him. It cheered him immensely to dwell upon these happy meetings. Often he rehearsed the long speech which he would make to the apes in which he would tell them of the life of their former king since he had left them. At other times he would play at meeting with white men.  And so the days passed, and with the traveling and the hunting and the climbing the boy's muscles developed, and his agility increased until even phlegmatic Acute marbled at the prowess of his pupil. And the boy, realizing his great strength and reveling in it, became careless. He strode through the jungle, his proud head erect, defying danger, where Acute took to the trees at the first scent of Numa, the lad laughed in the face of the king of beasts, and walked boldly past him. Good fortune was with him for a long time. The lions he met were well fed, perhaps, or the very boldness of the strange creature which invaded their domain, so filled them with surprise that thoughts of attack were banished from their minds as they stood round eyed watching his approach and his departure. Whatever the cause, however, the fact remains that on many occasions the boy passed within a few paces of some great lion without arousing more than a warning growl. But no two lions are necessarily alike in character or temper. They differ as greatly as do individuals of the human family. Because ten lions act similarly under similar conditions, one cannot say that the eleventh lion will do likewise. The chances are that he will not. The lion is a creature of high nervous development. He thinks, therefore he reasons. Having a nervous system and brains, he is the possessor of temperament which is affected variously by extraneous causes. One day the boy met the eleventh lion. The former was walking across a small plain upon which grew little clumps of bushes. Akut was a few yards to the left of the lad who was the first to discover the presence of Numa. Run, Akut, called the boy laughing. Numa lies hid in the bushes to my right. Take to the trees, Akut. I, the son of Tarzan, will protect you. And the boy, laughing, kept straight along his way which led close beside the brush in which Numa lay concealed. The ape shouted to him to come away, but the lad only flourished his spear and executed an improvised war dance to show his contempt for the king of beasts. Closer and closer to the dread destroyer he came, until, with a sudden angry growl, the lion rose from his bed not ten paces from the youth. A huge fellow he was, this lord of the jungle and the desert. A shaggy mane clothed his shoulders. Cruel fangs armed his great jaws. His yellow green eyes blazed with hatred and challenge. The boy, with his pitifully inadequate spear ready in his hand, realized quickly that this lion was different from the others he had met, but he had gone too far now to retreat. The nearest tree lay several yards to his left. The lion could be upon him before he had covered half the distance, and that the beast intended to charge none could doubt who looked upon him now. Beyond the lion was a thorn tree, only a few feet beyond him. It was the nearest sanctuary, but Numa stood between it and his prey. The feel of the long spear shaft in his hand and the sight of the tree beyond the lion gave the lad an idea, a preposterous idea, a ridiculous forlorn hope of an idea, but there was no time now to wait chances. There was but a single chance, and that was the thorn tree. If the lion charged it would be too late. The lad must charge first, and to the astonishment of Akut and nonetheless of Numa the boy leaped swiftly toward the beast. Just for a second was the lion motionless with surprise, and in that second Jack Clayton put to the crucial test an accomplishment which he had practiced at school. Straight for the savage brute he ran, his spear held but foremost across his body. Akut shrieked in terror and amazement. The lion stood with wide round eyes awaiting the attack, ready to rear upon his hind feet and receive this rash creature with blows that could crush the skull of a buffalo.  Safe but lacerated. Akut had never before seen a pole vault. Now he leaped up and down within the safety of his own tree, screaming taunts and boasts at the discomfited Numa, while the boy, torn and bleeding, sought some position in his thorny retreat in which he might find the least agony. He had saved his life but at considerable cost in suffering. It seemed to him that the lion would never leave, and it was a full hour before the angry brute gave up his vigil and strode majestically away across the plain. When he was at a safe distance the boy extricated himself from the thorn tree, but not without inflicting new wounds upon his already tortured flesh. It was many days before the outward evidence of the lesson he had learned had left him, while the impression upon his mind was one that was to remain with him for life. Never again did he uselessly tempt fate. He took long chances, often in his afterlife, but only when the taking of chances might further the attainment of some cherished end, and always thereafter he practiced pole vaulting. For several days the boy and the ape lay up while the former recovered from the painful wounds inflicted by the sharp thorns. The great anthropoid licked the wounds of his human friend, nor aside from this did they receive other treatment, but they soon healed, for healthy flesh quickly replaces itself. When the lad felt fit again the two continued their journey toward the coast, and once more the boy's mind was filled with pleasurable anticipation. And at last the much dreamed-of moment came. They were passing through a tangled forest when the boy's sharp eyes discovered from the lower branches through which he was travelling an old but well-marked spore, a spore that set his heart to leaping, the spore of man, of white men, for among the prints of naked feet were the well-defined outlines of European-made boots. The trail, which marked the passage of a good-sized company, pointed north at bright angles to the course the boy and the ape were taking toward the coast, doubtless these white men knew the nearest coast settlement. They might even be headed for it now. At any rate it would be worthwhile overtaking them if even only for the pleasure of meeting again creatures of his own kind. The lad was all excitement, palpitant with eagerness to be off in pursuit. Akut demurred. He wanted nothing of men. To him the lad was a fellow ape, for he was the son of the king of apes. He tried to dissuade the boy, telling him that soon they should come upon a tribe of their own folk where some day when he was older the boy should be king as his father had before him. But Jack was obdurate. He insisted that he wanted to see white men again. He wanted to send a message to his parents. Akut listened, and as he listened the intuition of the beast suggested the truth to him. The boy was planning to return to his own kind. The thought filled the old ape with sorrow. He loved the boy as he had loved the father, with the loyalty and faithfulness of a hound for its master. In his ape brain and his ape heart he had nursed the hope that he and the lad would never be separated. He saw all his fondly cherished plans fading away, and yet he remained loyal to the lad and to his wishes. Though disconsolate he gave in to the boy's determination to pursue the safari of the white men, accompanying him upon what he believed would be their last journey together. The spore was but a couple of days old when the two discovered it, which meant that the slow-moving caravan was but a few hours distant from them, whose trained and agile muscles could carry their bodies swiftly through the branches above the tangled undergrowth which had impeded the progress of the laden carriers of the white men. The boy was in the lead, excitement and anticipation carrying him ahead of his companion to whom the attainment of their goal meant only sorrow. And it was the boy who first saw the rear guard of the caravan and the white men he had been so anxious to overtake. Stumbling along the tangled trail of those ahead a dozen heavily laden blacks who from fatigue or sickness had dropped behind were being prodded by the black soldiers of the rear guard, kicked when they fell, and then roughly jerked to their feet and hustled onward.  The boy's lips formed a glad cry of salutation as his eyes first discovered the whites, a cry that was never uttered, for almost immediately he witnessed that which turned his happiness to anger as he saw that both the white men were wielding heavy whips brutally upon the naked backs of the poor devils, staggering along beneath loads that would have overtaxed the strength and endurance of strong men at the beginning of a new day. Every now and then the rear guard and the white men cast apprehensive glances rearward as though momentarily expecting the materialization of some long expected danger from that quarter. The boy had paused after his first sight of the caravan, and now was following slowly in the wake of the sorted brutal spectacle. Presently Acute came up with him. To the beast there was less of horror in the sight than to the lad, yet even the great ape growled beneath his breath at useless torture being inflicted upon the helpless slaves. He looked at the boy.  He put the question to his companion. They are fiends, muttered the boy. I would not travel with such as they, for if I did I should set upon them and kill them the first time they beat their people as they are beating them now. But, he added, after a moment's thought, I can ask them the whereabouts of the nearest port, and then, Acute, we can leave them. The ape made no reply, and the boy swung to the ground and started a debris walk toward the safari. He was a hundred yards away, perhaps, when one of the whites caught sight of him. The man gave a shout of alarm instantly leveling his rifle upon the boy and firing. The bullet struck just in front of its mark, scattering turf and fallen leaves against the lad's legs.  Jack leaped behind a tree, unhit. Days of panic-ridden flight through the jungle had filled Carl Jensen and Sven Malben with jangling nerves and their native boys with unreasoning terror. Every new note from behind sounded to their frightening ears the coming of the sheik and his bloodthirsty entourage. They were in a blue funk and the sight of the naked white warriors stepping silently out of the jungle through which they had just passed had been sufficient shock to let loose in action all the pent-nerve energy of Malben who had been the first to see the strange apparition, and Malben's shout and shot had set the others going. When their nervous energy had spent itself and they came to take stock of what they had been fighting, it developed that Malben alone had seen anything clearly. Several of the blacks averred that they too had obtained a good view of the creature but their descriptions of it varied so greatly that Jensen, who had seen nothing himself, was inclined to be a trifle skeptical. One of the blacks insisted that the thing had been eleven feet tall with a man's body and the head of an elephant. Another had seen three immense Arabs with huge black beards. But when, after conquering their nervousness, the rear guard advanced upon the enemy's position to investigate, they found nothing, for Akut and the boy had retreated out of range of the unfriendly guns. Jack was disheartened and sad. He had not entirely recovered from the depressing effect of the unfriendly reception he had received at the hands of the blacks, and now he found an even more hostile one accorded to him by men of his own color. The lesser beasts flee from me in terror, he murmured, half to himself. The greater beasts are ready to tear me to pieces at sight.  Are all the creatures of the world my enemies? Has the son of Tarzan no friend other than Akut? The old ape grew closer to the boy. There are the great apes, he said. They only will be the friends of Akut's friend. Only the great apes will welcome the son of Tarzan. You have seen that men want nothing of you. Let us go now and continue our search for the great apes, our people. The language of the great apes is a combination of monosyllabic gutterals amplified by gestures and signs. It may not be literally translated into human speech, but as nearer as may be this is what Akut said to the boy. The two proceeded in silence for some time after Akut had spoken. The boy was immersed in deep thought, bitter thoughts in which hatred and revenge predominated. Finally he spoke. Very well, Akut, he said, we will find our friends, the great apes. The anthropoid was overjoyed, but he gave no outward demonstration of his pleasure. A low grunt was his only response, and a moment later he had leaped nimbly upon a small and unwary rodent that had been surprised at a fatal distance from its burrow. Tearing the unhappy creature in two, Akut handed the lion's share to the lad. END OF CHAPTER VIII A year had passed since the two Swedes had been driven in terror from the savage country where the sheik held sway. Little Miriam still played with Geekah, lavishing all her childish love upon the now almost hopeless ruin of what had never, even in its palmiest days, possessed even a slight degree of loveliness. But to Miriam Geekah was all that was sweet and adorable.  For even in the face of hopelessness, in the clutches of the dread authority from which there was no escape, little Miriam yet cherished hopes and ambitions, it is true that her ambitions were rather nebulous in form, consisting chiefly of a desire to escape with Geekah to some remote and unknown spot where there were no sheiks, no Mabunas, where El-Adrieth could find no entrance, and where she might play all day surrounded only by flowers and birds and the harmless little monkeys playing in the treetops. The sheik had been away for a long time, conducting a caravan of ivory skins and rubber far into the north. The interim had been one of great peace for Miriam. It is true that Mabunu had still been with her to pinch or beat her as the mood seized the villainous old hag, but Mabunu was only one. When the sheik was there also there were two of them, and the sheik was stronger and more brutal even than Mabunu. Little Miriam often wondered why the grim old man hated her so. It is true that he was cruel and unjust to all with whom he came in contact, but to Miriam he reserved his greatest cruelties, his most studied injustices. Today Miriam was squatting at the foot of a large tree which grew inside the palisade close to the edge of the village. She was fashioning a tent of leaves for Geekah, before the tent were some pieces of wood and small leaves and a few stones. These were the household utensils. Geekah was cooking dinner. As the little girl played she prattled continuously to her companion, propped in a sitting position with a couple of twigs. She was totally absorbed in the domestic duties of Geekah, so much so that she did not note the gentle swaying of the branches of the tree above her as they bent to the body of the creature that had entered them stealthily from the jungle. In happy ignorance the little girl played on while from above two steady eyes looked down upon her, unblinking, unwavering. There was none other than the little girl in this part of the village which had been almost deserted since the sheik had left long months before upon his journey toward the north. And out in the jungle an hour's march from the village the sheik was leading his returning caravan homeward. A year had passed since the white men had fired upon the lad and driven him back into the jungle to take up his search for the only remaining creatures to whom he might look for companionship, the great apes. For months the two had wandered eastward, deeper and deeper into the jungle. The year had done much for the boy, turning his already mighty muscles to fues of steel, developing his woodcraft to a point where it verged upon the uncanny, perfecting his arboreal instincts and training him in the use of both natural and artificial weapons. He had become at last a creature of marvellous physical powers and mental cunning. He was still but a boy, yet so great was his strength that the powerful anthropoid with which he often engaged in mimic battle was no match for him. Akut had taught him to fight as the bull-ape fights, nor ever was there a teacher better fitted to instruct in the savage warfare of primordial man, or a pupil better equipped to profit from the lessons of a master. As the two searched for a band of the almost extinct species of ape to which Akut belonged, they lived upon the best the jungle afforded. Antelope and zebra fell to the boy's spear, or were dragged down by the two powerful beasts of prey who leaped upon them from some overhanging limb or from the ambush of the undergrowth beside the trail to the water-hole or the ford. The pelt of a leopard covered the nakedness of the youth, but the wearing of it had not been dictated by any prompting of modesty. With the rifle shots of the white men showering about him he had reverted to the savagery of the beast that is inherent in each of us, but that flamed more strongly in this boy whose father had been raised a beast of prey. He wore his leopard skin at first in response to a desire to parade a trophy of his prowess, for he had slain the leopard with his knife in a hand to hand combat. He saw that the skin was beautiful, which appealed to his barbaric sense of ornamentation, and when it stiffened and later commenced to decompose, because of his having no knowledge of how to cure or tan it, was with sorrow and regret that he discarded it. Later, when he chanced upon a lone black warrior wearing the counterpart of it, soft and clinging and beautiful from proper curing, it required but an instant to leap from above upon the shoulders of the unsuspecting black, sink a keen blade into his heart and possess the rightly preserved hide. There were no afterqualms of conscience, in the jungle might is right, nor does it take long to inculcate this axiom in the mind of a jungle dweller regardless of what his past training may have been. That the black would have killed him had he had the chance the boy knew full well. Neither he nor the black were any more sacred than the lion, or the buffalo, the zebra, or the deer, or any other of the countless creatures who roamed or slunk or flew or wriggled through the dark mazes of the forest. Each had but a single life which was sought by many. The greater number of enemies slain the better chance to prolong that life. So the boy smiled and dawned the finery of the vanquished and went his way with Acute, searching always searching for the elusive anthropoids who were to welcome them with open arms. And at last they found them. Deep in the jungle, buried far from sight of man, they came upon such another little natural arena as had witnessed the wild ceremony of the dum-dum in which the boy's father had taken part long years before. First at a great distance they heard the beating of the drum of the great apes. They were sleeping in the safety of a huge tree when the booming sounds smote upon their ears. Both awoke at once. Acute was the first to interpret the strange cadence. The great apes, he growled, they danced the dum-dum.  Months before Acute had given the boy a name of his own choosing, since he could not master the man-given name of Jack. Coraac is as near as it may be interpreted into human speech. In the language of the apes it means killer. Now the killer rose upon the branch of the great tree where he had been sleeping with his back braced against the stem. He stretched his live young muscles, the moonlight filtering through the foliage from above, dappling his brown skin with little patches of light. The ape too stood up, half squatting after the manner of his kind. Low growls rumbled from the bottom of his deep chest. Growls of excited anticipation. The boy growled in harmony with the ape. Then the anthropoid slid softly to the ground. Close by, in the direction of the booming drum, lay a clearing which they must cross. The moon flooded it with silvery light. Half erect, the great ape shuffled into the full glare of the moon. At his side, swinging gracefully along in marked contrast to the awkwardness of his companion, strode the boy, the dark shaggy coat of the one brushing against the smooth clear hide of the other. The lad was humming now, a music-hall air that had found its way to the forms of the great English public school that was to see him no more. He was happy and expectant. The moment he had looked forward to for so long was about to be realized. He was coming into his own. He was coming home. As the months had dragged or flown along, retarded or spurred on as privation or adventure predominated, thoughts of his own home, while oft recurring, had become less vivid. The old life had grown to seem more like a dream than a reality, and the balking of his determination to reach the coast and return to London had finally thrown the hope of realization so remotely into the future that it now seemed little more than a pleasant but hopeless dream. Now all thoughts of London and civilization were crowded so far into the background of his brain that they might as well have been non-existent. Except for form and mental development he was as much an ape as the great fierce creature at his side. In the exuberance of his joy he slapped his companion roughly on the side of the head. Half in anger, half in play, the anthropoid turned upon him, his fangs bared and glistening. Long hairy arms reached out to seize him, and as they had done a thousand times before, the two clinched in mimic battle, rolling upon the sword, striking, growling and biting, though never closing their teeth in more than a rough pinch. It was wondrous practice for them both. The boy brought into play wrestling tricks that he had learned at school, and many of these Acute learned to use and to foil, and from the ape the boy learned the methods that had been handed down to Acute from some common ancestor of them both, who had roamed the teeming earth when ferns were trees and crocodiles were birds. But there was one art the boy possessed which Acute could not master, though he did achieve fair proficiency in it for an ape, boxing, to have his bull-like charges stopped and crumpled with a suddenly planted fist upon the end of his snout, or a painful jolt in the short ribs always surprised Acute. It angered him, too, and at such times his mighty jaws came nearer to closing in the soft flesh of his friend than at any other, for he was still an ape, with an ape's short temper and brutal instincts. But the difficulty was in catching his tormentor while his rage lasted, for when he lost his head and rushed madly into close quarters with the boy he discovered that the stinging hail of blows released upon him always found their mark and effectually stopped him, effectually and painfully. Then he would withdraw growling viciously, backing away with grinning jaws distended to sulk for an hour or so. Tonight they did not box, just for a moment or two they wrestled playfully, until the scents of Sheeta, the panther, brought them to their feet, alert and wary. The great cat was passing through the jungle in front of them, for a moment it paused, listening. The boy and the ape growled menacingly in chorus, and the carnivore moved on. Then the two took up their journey toward the sound of the dum-dum. Louder and louder came the beating of the drum. Now at last they could hear the growling of the dancing apes, and strong to their nostrils came the scent of their kind. The lad trembled with excitement. The hair down Acute's spine stiffened. The symptoms of happiness and anger are often similar. Silently they crept through the jungle as they neared the meeting-place of the apes. Now they were in the trees, worming their way forward, alert for sentinels. Presently, through a break in the foliage, the scene burst upon the eager eyes of the boy. To Acute it was a familiar one, but to Korak it was all new. His nerves tingled at the savage sight. The great bowls were dancing in the moonlight, leaping in an irregular circle about the flat-topped earthen drum, about which three old females sat beating its resounding top, with sticks worn smooth by long years of use. Acute, knowing the temper and customs of his kind, was too wise to make their presence known until the frenzy of the dance had passed. After the drum was quiet and the bellies of the tribe well filled, he would hail them. Then would come a parley, after which he and Korak would be accepted into membership by the community. There might be those who would object, but such could be overcome by brute force, of which he and the lad had an ample surplus. For weeks possibly months their presence might cause ever-decreasing suspicion among others of the tribe, but eventually they would become as born brothers to these strange apes. He hoped that they had been among those who had known Tarzan, for that would help in the introduction of the lad and in the consummation of Acute's dearest wish that Korak should become king of the apes. It was with difficulty, however, that Acute kept the boy from rushing into the midst of the dancing anthropoids, an act that would have meant the instant extermination of them both, since the hysterical frenzy into which the great apes worked themselves during the performance of their strange rites, is of such a nature that even the most ferocious of the carnivora give them a wide berth at such times. As the moon declined slowly toward the lofty foliage horizon of the amphitheater, the booming of the drums decreased and lessened were the exertions of the dancers, until at last the final note was struck and the huge beast turned to fall upon the feast they had dragged hither for the orgy. From what he had seen and heard, Acute was able to explain to Korak that the rites proclaimed the choosing of a new king, and he pointed out to the boy the massive figure of the shaggy monarch coming to his kingship, no doubt, as many human rulers have come into theirs by the murder of his predecessor. When the apes had filled their bellies and many of them had sought the bases of the trees to curl up in sleep, Acute plucked Korak by the arm. Come, he whispered, come slowly, follow me, do as Acute does. Then he advanced slowly through the trees until he stood upon a bow over hanging one side of the amphitheater. Here he stood in silence for a moment. Then he uttered a low growl. Instantly a score of apes leaped to their feet. Their savage little eyes sped quickly around the periphery of the clearing. The king ape was the first to see the two figures upon the branch. He gave voice to an ominous growl. Then he took a few lumbering steps in the direction of the intruders. His hair was bristling. His legs were stiff, imparting a halting jerky motion to his gait. Behind him pressed a number of bulls. He stopped just a little before he came beneath the two, just far enough to be beyond their spring. Where, a king, here he stood, rocking himself to and fro upon his short legs, bearing his fangs in hideous grinnings, rumbling out an ever-increasing volume of growls, which were slowly but steadily increasing to the proportions of roars. Akut knew that he was planning an attack upon them. The old ape did not wish to fight. He had come with the boy to cast his lot with the tribe. I am Akut, he said. This is Korak. Korak is the son of Tarzan, who was king of the apes. I too was king of the apes who dwelt in the midst of the great waters. We have come to hunt with you, to fight with you. We are great hunters. We are mighty fighters. Let us come in peace. The king ceased his rocking. He eyed the pair from beneath his beating brows. His bloodshot eyes were savage and crafty. His kingship was very new and he was jealous of it. He feared the encroachments of two strange apes. The sleek brown, hairless body of the lad spelled man, and man he feared and hated. Go away, he growled.  The eager lad standing behind the great Akut had been pulsing with anticipation and happiness. He wanted to leap down among these hairy monsters, and show them that he was their friend, that he was one of them. He had expected that they would receive him with open arms, and now the words of the king ape filled him with indignation and sorrow. The blacks had set upon him and driven him away. Then he had turned to the white men, to those of his own kind, only to hear the ping of bullets where he had expected words of cordial welcome. The great apes had remained his final hope. To them he looked for the companionship man had denied him. Suddenly rage overwhelmed him. The king ape was almost directly beneath him. The others were formed in a half circle several yards behind the king. They were watching events interestingly. Before Akut could guess his intention or prevent, the boy leaped to the ground directly in the path of the king, who had now succeeded in stimulating himself to a frenzy of fury. I am Korak, shouted the boy. I am the killer. I came to live among you as a friend. You want to drive me away. Very well, then, I shall go.  For an instant the king ape had stood motionless with surprise. He had expected no such rash action upon the part of either of the intruders. Akut was equally surprised. Now he shouted excitedly for Korak to come back, for he knew that in the sacred arena the other bulls might be expected to come to the assistance of their king against an outsider, though there was small likelihood that the king would need assistance. Once those mighty jaws closed upon the boy's soft neck, the end would come quickly. To leap to his rescue would mean death for Akut, too. But the brave old ape never hesitated, bristling and growling he dropped to the sward just as the king ape charged. The beast's hands clutched for their hold as the animal sprang upon the lad. The fierce jaws were wide distended to bury the yellow fangs deeply in the brown hide. Korak, too, leaped forward to meet the attack, but leaped crouching beneath the outstretched arms. At the instant of contact the lad pivoted on one foot, and with all the weight of his body and the strength of his trained muscles drove a clenched fist into the bull's stomach.  Howls of rage and dismay broke from the bull apes behind the fallen king, as with murder in their sabby's little hearts they rushed forward upon Korak and Akut, but the old ape was too wise to court any such unequal encounter. To have counseled the boy to retreat now would have been futile, and Akut knew it, to delay even a second in argument would have sealed the death warrants of them both. There was but a single hope, and Akut seized it. Grasping the lad round the waist he lifted him bodily from the ground, and turning ran swiftly toward another tree which swung low branches above the arena. Close upon their heels swarmed the hideous mob, but Akut, all though he was, and burdened by the weight of the struggling Korak, was still fleeter than his pursuers.  Nor did he hesitate even here, but raced on through the jungle night, bearing his burden to safety. For a time the bulls pursued, but presently as the swifter outdistanced the floor, and found themselves separated from their fellows they abandoned the chase, standing, roaring, and screaming until the jungle reverberated to their hideous noises. Then they turned and retraced their way to the amphitheater. When Akut fell assured that they were no longer pursued, he stopped and released Korak. The boy was furious. Why did you drag me away? he cried. I would have taught them. I would have taught them all. Now they will think that I am afraid of them. What they think cannot harm you, said Akut. You are alive. If I had not brought you away you would be dead now, and so would I. Do you not know that even Numa slinks from the path of the great apes when there are many of them, and they are mad? Chapter 9 It was an unhappy Korak who wandered aimlessly through the jungle the day following his inhospitable reception by the great apes. His heart was heavy from disappointment. Unsatisfied vengeance smoldered in his breast. He looked with hatred upon the denizens of his jungle world, bearing his fighting fangs and growling at those that came within radius of his senses. The mark of his father's early life was strong upon him, and enhanced by months of association with beasts, from whom the imitative faculty of youth had absorbed a countless number of little mannerisms of the predatory creatures of the wild. He bared his fangs now as naturally and upon his slight provocation as Sheeta the panther bared his. He growled as ferociously as Akut himself. When he came suddenly upon another beast his quick crouch bore a strange resemblance to the arching of a cat's back. Korak the killer was looking for trouble. In his heart of hearts he hoped to meet the king ape who had driven him from the amphitheater. To this end he insisted upon remaining in the vicinity, but the exigencies of the perpetual search for food led them several miles further away during day. They were moving slowly downwind and wearily because the advantage was with whatever beast might chance to be hunting ahead of them where their sense for was being born by the light breeze. Suddenly the two halted simultaneously. Two heads were cocked upon one side. Like creatures hewn from solid rock they stood immovable, listening, not a muscle quivered. For several seconds they remained thus, then Korak advanced cautiously a few yards and leaped nimbly into a tree. Akut followed close upon his heels. Neither had made a noise that would have been appreciable to human ears at a dozen paces. Stopping often to listen they crept forward through the trees. That both were greatly puzzled was apparent from the questioning looks they cast at one another from time to time. Finally the lad caught a glimpse of a palisade a hundred yards ahead and beyond it the tops of some goat-skin tents and a number of fatched huts, his lip up curled in a savage snarl, blacks, how he hated them. He signed to Akut to remain where he was while he advanced to Reconoiter. Woe betide the unfortunate villager whom the killer came upon now, slinking through the lower branches of the trees, leaping lightly from one jungle giant to its neighbor, where the distance was not too great, or swinging from one hand hold to another, Korak came silently toward the village. He heard a voice beyond the palisade, and toward that he made his way. A great tree overhung the enclosure at the very point from which the voice came. Into this Korak crept, his spear was ready in his hand. His ears told him of the proximity of a human being. All that his eyes required was a single glance to show him his target. Then lightning-like the missile would fly to its gall. With Ray's spear he crept among the branches of the tree, glaring narrowly, downward in search of the owner of the voice which rose to him from below. At last he saw a human back. The spearhand flew to the limit of the throwing position to gather the force that would send the iron-shot missile completely through the body of the unconscious victim. And then the killer paused. He leaned forward a little to get a better view of the target, was it, to ensure more perfect aim? Or had there been that in the graceful lines and the childish curves of the little body below him that had held in check the spirit of murder running riot in his veins? He lured his spear cautiously that it might make no noise by scraping against foliage or branches.  The snarl had gone from his lip. His only expression was one of interested attention. He was trying to discover what the girl was doing. Suddenly a broad grin overspread his face, for a turn of the girl's body had revealed geeka of the ivory head and the rat-skin torso, geeka of the splinter limbs and the disreputable appearance. The little girl raised the marred face to hers, and rocking herself backward and forward, crooned a plaintive Arab lullaby to the doll. A softer light entered the eyes of the killer. For a long hour that passed very quickly to him, Coraac lay with gaze riveted upon the playing child. Not once had he had a view of the girl's full face. For the most part he saw only a mass of wavy black hair.   Now she was shaking a slim finger at geeka, reprovingly, and again she crushed to her heart this only object upon which she might lavish the untold wealth of her childish affections.  It slipped almost falling, but the occurrence recalled the killer to himself. It reminded him of his purpose in slinking stealthily upon the owner of the voice that had attracted his vengeful attention. He glanced at the spear with its well-worn grip and cruel barbed head. Then he let his eyes wander again to the dainty form below him. In imagination he saw the heavy weapon shooting downward. He saw it pierce the tender flesh, driving its way deep into the yielding body. He saw the ridiculous doll drop from its owner's arms to lie sprawled and pathetic beside the quivering body of the little girl. The killer shuddered, scowling at the inanimate iron and wood of the spear as though they constituted a sentient being endowed with a malignant mind. Coraac wondered what the girl would do were he to drop suddenly from the tree to her side. Most likely she would scream and run away. Then would come the men of the village with spears and guns and set upon him.  A lump rose in the boy's throat. He craved the companionship of his own kind, though he scarce realized how greatly. He would have liked to slip down beside the little girl and talk with her, though he knew from the words he had overheard that she spoke a language with which he was unfamiliar. They could have talked by signs a little. That would have been better than nothing. Too he would have been glad to see her face. What he had glimpsed assured him that she was pretty, but her strongest appeal to him lay in the affectionate nature revealed by her gentle mothering of the grotesque doll. At last he hid upon a plan. He would attract her attention and reassure her by a smiling greeting from a greater distance. Silently he wormed his way back into the tree. It was his intention to hail her from beyond the palisade, giving her the feeling of security which he imagined the stout barricade would afford. He had scarcely left his position in the tree when his attention was attracted by a considerable noise upon the opposite side of the village. By moving a little he could see the gate at the far end of the main street. A number of men, women, and children were running toward it. It swung open, revealing the head of a caravan upon the opposite side.  Into the village they all trooped behind a tall, sour old man who rode without greetings to those who shrunk from his path directly to a large goat-skin tent in the center of the village. Here he spoke to a wrinkled hag. Korak from his vantage spot could see it all. He saw the old man asking questions of the black woman, and then he saw the latter point toward a secluded corner of the village which was hidden from the main street by the tents of the air-abs and the huts of the natives in the direction of the tree beneath which the little girl played. This was doubtless her father, thought Korak. He had been away, and his first thought upon returning was of his little daughter. How glad she would be to see him, how she would run and throw herself into his arms to be crushed to his breast and covered with his kisses! Korak sighed. He thought of his own father and mother far away in London. He returned to his place in the tree above the girl, if he couldn't have happiness of this sort himself, he wanted to enjoy the happiness of others. Possibly if he had made himself known to the old man, he might be permitted to come to the village occasionally as a friend. It would be worth trying. He would wait until the old A-rab had greeted his daughter, then he would make his presence known with signs of peace. The A-rab was striding softly toward the girl. In a moment he would be beside her, and then how surprised and delighted she would be. Korak's eyes sparkled in anticipation. And now the old man stood behind the little girl. His stern old face was still un-relaxed. The child was yet unconscious of his presence. She prattled on to the unresponsive geeka. Then the old man coughed. With a start the child glanced quickly up over her shoulder. Korak could see her full face now. It was very beautiful in its sweet and innocent childishness, all soft and lovely curves. He could see her great dark eyes. He looked for the happy love-light that would follow recognition. But it did not come. Instead terror, start, paralyzing, terror was mirrored in her eyes, in the expression of her mouth, in the tense cowering attitude of her body. A grim smile curbed the thin, cruel lip of the A-rab. The child essayed to crawl away, but before she could get out of his reach the old man kicked her brutally, sending her sprawling upon the grass. Then he followed her up, to seize and strike her as was his custom. Above them, in the tree, a beast crouched where a moment before had been a boy. A beast with dilating nostrils and bared fangs. A beast that trembled with rage. The chic was stooping to reach for the girl when the killer dropped to the ground at his side. His spear was still in his left hand, but he had forgotten it. Instead, his right fist was clenched, and as the chic took a backward step, astonished by the sudden materialization of this strange apparition, apparently out of clear air, the heavy fist landed full upon his mouth, backed by the weight of the young giant and the terrific power of his more than human muscles. Bleeding and senseless, the chic sank to earth. Korak turned toward the child. She had regained her feet and stood wide-eyed and frightened, looking first into his face and then horror struck at the recumbent figure of the chic. In an involuntary gesture of protection, the killer threw an arm about the girl's shoulders and stood waiting for the A-Rab to regain consciousness. For a moment they remained thus when the girl spoke. When he regains his senses, he will kill me, she said in Arabic. Korak could not understand her. He shook his head, speaking to her first in English and then in the language of the great apes, but neither of these was intelligible to her. She leaned forward and touched the health of the long knife that the A-Rab wore. Then she raised her clasped hand above her head and drove an imaginary blade into her breast above her heart. Korak understood.  The girl came to his side again and stood there trembling. She did not fear him. Why should she? He had saved her from a terrible beating at the hands of the chic. Never in her memory had another so befriended her. She looked up into his face. It was a boyish, handsome face, nut-brown like her own. She admired the spotted leopard skin that circled his life body from one shoulder to his knees. The metal anklets and armlets adorning him aroused her envy. Always had she coveted something of the kind, but never had the chic permitted her more than the single cotton garment that barely suffice to cover her nakedness. No furs or silks or jewelry had there ever been for Little Merriam. And Korak looked at the girl. He had always held girls in a species of contempt. Boys who associated with them were, in his estimation, molly-cottles. He wondered what he should do. Could he leave her here to be abused, possibly murdered by the villainous old-day rab? No. But on the other hand, could he take her into the jungle with him? What could he accomplish burdened by a weak and frightened girl? She would scream at her own shadow when the moon came out upon the jungle night and the great beast roamed, moaning and roaring through the darkness. He stood, for several minutes, buried in thought. The girl watched his face, wondering what was passing in his mind. She too was thinking of the future. She feared to remain and suffer the vengeance of the chic. There was no one in all the world to whom she might turn, other than this half-naked stranger who had dropped miraculously from the clouds to savor from one of the chic's accustomed beatings. Would her new friend leave her now? Wistfully she gazed at his intent face. She moved a little closer to him, laying a slim-brown hand upon his arm. The contact awakened the lad from his absorption. He looked down at her, and then his arm went about her shoulder once more, for he saw tears upon her lashes. Come, he said, the jungle is kinder than man. You shall live in the jungle, and Korak and Akut will protect you. She did not understand his words, but the pressure of his arm drawing her away from the prostrate Arab and the tense was quite intelligible. One little arm crept about his waist, and together they walked toward the palisade. Beneath the great free that had harbored Korak while he watched the girl at play, he lifted her in his arms and throwing her lightly across his shoulder, leaped nimbly into the lower branches. Her arms were about his neck, and from one little hand Geek had dangled down his straight young back.  She had no conception of what the future might hold. She did not know, nor could she have guessed, the manner of life led by her protector. Possibly she pictured a distant village similar to that of the Sheek in which lived other white men like the stranger. That she was to be taken into the savage primeval life of a jungle beast could not have occurred to her. Had it her little heart would have palpitated with fear. Often had she wished to run away from the cruelties of the Sheek and Mabunu, but the dangers of the jungle always had deterred her. The two had gone but a short distance from the village when the girl spied the huge proportions of the great Akut. With a half-stifled scream she clung more closely to Korak and pointed fearfully toward the ape. Akut, thinking that the killer was returning with a prisoner, came growling toward them. A little girl aroused no more sympathy in the beast's heart than would a full grown bull ape. She was a stranger and therefore to be killed. He bared his yellow fangs as he approached, and to his surprise the killer bared his likewise, but he bared them at Akut and snarled menacingly. Oh, thought Akut, the killer has taken a mate! And so obedient to the tribal laws of his kind he left them alone, becoming suddenly absorbed in a fuzzy caterpillar of peculiarly succulent appearance. The larvae disposed of he glanced from the corner of an eye at Korak. The youth had deposited his burden upon a large limb where she clung desperately to keep from falling. She will accompany us, said Korak to Akut, jerking a thumb in the direction of the girl. Do not harm her. We will protect her. Akut shrugged to be burdened by the young of man was in no way to his liking. He could see from her evident fright at her position on the branch and from the terrified glances she cast in his direction that she was hopelessly unfit. By all the ethics of Akut's training and inheritance the unfit should be eliminated. But if the killer wished this there was nothing to be done about it but to tolerate her. Akut certainly didn't want her. Of that he was quite positive. Her skin was too smooth and hairless. Quite snake-like, in fact, and her face was most unattractive. Not at all like that of a certain lovely he had particularly noticed among the apes in the amphitheater the previous night. Ah, there was true feminine beauty for one. A great generous mouth, lovely yellow fangs, and the cutest softest side whiskers. Akut sighed. Then he rose, expanded his great chest and strutted back and forth along a substantial branch, for even a puny thing like this she of Korak's might admire his fine coat and his graceful carriage. But poor little Maryam only shrank closer to Korak and almost wished that she were back in the village of the Sheik where the terrors of existence were of human origin and so more or less familiar. The hideous ape frightened her. He was so large and so ferocious in appearance. His actions she could only interpret as a menace for how could she guess that he was parading to excite admiration. Nor could she know of the bond of fellowship which existed between this great brute and the God-like youth who had rescued her from the Sheik. Maryam spent an evening and a night of unmitigated terror. Korak and Akut led her along dizzy ways as they searched for food, once they hid her in the branches of a tree while they stalked a nearby buck. Even her natural terror of being left alone in the awful jungle was submerged in a greater horror as she saw the man and the beast spring simultaneously upon their prey and drag it down as she saw the handsome face of her preserver contorted in a bestial snarl as she saw his strong white teeth buried in the soft flesh of the kill. When he came back to her blood smeared his face and hands and breast and she shrank from him as he offered her a huge hunk of hot raw meat. He was evidently much disturbed by her refusal to eat and when a moment later he scampered away into the forest to return with fruit for her she was once more forced to alter her estimation of him. This time she did not shrink but acknowledged his gift with a smile that, had she known it, was more than ample payment to the affection-starved boy. The sleeping problem vexed Korak. He knew that the girl could not balance herself in safety and a tree-crotch while she slept nor would it be safe to permit her to sleep upon the ground open to the attacks of prowling beasts of prey. There was but a single solution that presented itself. He must hold her in his arms all night and that he did, with Akut braced upon one side of her and he upon the other so that she was warmed by the bodies of them both. She did not sleep much until the night was half spent but at last nature overcame her terrors of the black abyss beneath and the hairy body of the wild beast at her side and she fell into a deep slumber which outlasted the darkness. When she opened her eyes the sun was well up. At first she could not believe in the reality of her position.  At sight of it she shrank away. Then she realized that someone was holding her and turning her head she saw the smiling eyes of the youth regarding her. When he smiled she could not fear him and now she shrank closer against him in natural revulsion toward the rough coat of the brute upon her other side. Korak spoke to her in the language of the apes but she shook her head and spoke to him in the language of the Arab which was as unintelligible to him as was apes speech to her. Akut sat up and looked at them. He could understand what Korak said but the girl made only foolish noises that were entirely unintelligible and ridiculous. Akut could not understand what Korak saw in her to attract him. He looked at her long and steadily, appraising her carefully. Then he scratched his head, rose and shook himself. His movement gave the girl a little start. She had forgotten Akut for the moment. Again she shrank from him. The beast saw that she feared him and being a brute enjoyed the evidence of the terror his brutishness inspired. Crouching he extended his huge hand stealthily toward her as though to seize her. She shrank still further away. Akut's eyes were busy drinking in the humor of the situation. He did not see the narrowing eyes of the boy upon him nor the shortening neck as the broad shoulders rose in a characteristic attitude of preparation for attack. As the apes fingers were about to close upon the girl's arm the youth rose suddenly with a short vicious growl. A clenched fist flew before Miriam's eyes to land full upon the snout of the Asthani Stakut. With an explosive bellow the anthropoid reeled backward and tumbled from the tree. Korak stood glaring down upon him when a sudden swish in the bushes close by attracted his attention. The girl too was looking down, but she saw nothing but the angry apes scrambling to his feet. Then like a bolt from a crossbowl a mass of spotted yellow fur shot into view straight for Akut's back. It was Sheeta, the leopard. As the leopard leaped for the great ape Miriam gasped in surprise and horror not for the impending fate of the anthropoid but at the act of the youth who but for an instant before had angrily struck his strange companion. For scarce had the carnivore burst into view then with drawn knife the youth had leaped far out above him so that as Sheeta was almost in the act of sinking fangs and talons in Akut's broad back the killer landed full upon the leopard's shoulders. The cat halted in mid-air, missed the ape by but a hare's breath, and with horrid snarlings rolled over upon its back, clutching and clawing in an effort to reach and dislodged the antagonist biting at its neck and knifing it in the side. Akut, startled by the sudden rush from his rear and following horny instinct, was in the tree beside the girl with an agility little short of marvellous, in so heavy a beast. But the moment that he turned to see what was going on below him brought him as quickly to the ground again. Personal differences were quickly forgotten in the danger which menaced his human companion nor was he a wit less eager to jeopardize his own safety in the service of his friend than Korak had been to succor him. The result was that Sheeta presently found two ferocious creatures tearing him to ribbons, shrieking, snarling and growling, the three rolled hither and thither among the underbrush, while with staring eyes the sole spectator of the battle-royal crouched trembling in the tree above them, hugging Geekah frantically to her breast. It was the boy's knife which eventually decided the battle, and as the fierce feline shuddered convulsively and rolled over upon its side the youth and the ape rose and faced one another across the prostrate carcass. Korak jerked his head in the direction of the little girl in the tree. Leave her alone, he said. She is mine. Akeut grunted, blinked his bloodshot eyes, and turned toward the body of Sheeta, standing erect upon a teeth throughout his great chest, raised his face toward the heavens, and gave voice to so horrid a scream that once again the little girl shuddered and shrank. It was the victory cry of the bull-ape that has made a kill. The boy only looked on for a moment in silence, then he leaped into the tree again to the girl's side. Akeut presently rejoined them.  For many months the strange life of the three went on unmarked by any unusual occurrences, at least without any occurrences that seemed unusual to the youth or the ape. But to the little girl it was a constant nightmare of horrors for days and weeks, until she too became accustomed to gazing into the eyeless sockets of death and to the feel of the icy wind of his shroud-like mantle. Slowly she learned the rudiments of the only common medium of thought exchange which her companions possessed, the language of the great apes. More quickly she perfected herself in jungle craft, so that the time soon came when she was an important factor in the chase, watching while the others slept or helping them to trace the spore of whatever prey they might be stocking. Akeut accepted her on a footing which bordered upon equality when it was necessary for them to come into close contact, but for the most part he avoided her. The youth always was kind to her, and if there were many occasions upon which he felt the burden of her presence he hid it from her. Finding that the night, damp and chill, caused her discomfort and even suffering, Korak constructed a tight little shelter high among the swaying branches of a giant tree. Here little Miriam slept in comparative warmth and safety while the killer and the ape perched upon nearby branches. The former always before the entrance to the lofty domicile where he best could guard its inmate from the dangers of arboreal enemies. They were too high to feel much fear for Shita, but there was always Hista, the snake, to strike terror to one's soul, and the great baboons who lived nearby and who, while never attacking, always bared their fangs and barked at any of the trio when they passed near them. After the construction of the shelter, the activities of the three became localized. They ranged less widely, for there was always the necessity of returning to their own tree at nightfall. A river flowed nearby. Game and fruit were plentiful, as were fish also. Existence had settled down to the daily humdrum of the wild, the search for food and the sleeping upon full bellies. They looked no further ahead than to-day. If the youth thought of his past and of those who longed for him in the distant metropolis, it was in a detached and impersonal sort of way, as though that other life belonged to another creature than himself. He had given up hope of returning to civilization, for since his various rebuffs at the hands of those to whom he had looked for friendship, he had wandered so far inland as to realize that he was completely lost in the mazes of the jungle. Then too, since the coming of Miriam, he had found in her that one thing which he had most missed before in his savage jungle life, human companionship. In his friendship for her there was appreciable no trace of sex influence of which he was cognizant, they were friends, companions, that was all. Both might have been boys except for the half-tender and always masterful manifestation of the protective instinct which was apparent in Korak's attitude. The little girl idolized him as she might have idolized an indulgent brother had she had one. Love was a thing unknown to either, but as the youth neared manhood it was inevitable that it should come to him as it did to every other savage jungle male. As Miriam became proficient in their common language, the pleasures of their companionship grew correspondingly, for now they could converse and aided by the mental powers of their human heritage they amplified the restricted vocabulary of the apes until talking was transformed from a task into an enjoyable pastime. When Korak hunted, Miriam usually accompanied him, for she had learned the fine art of silence when silence was desirable. She could pass through the branches of the great trees now with all the agility and stealth of the killer himself. Great heights no longer appalled her. She swung from limb to limb, or she raced through the mighty branches, sure-footed, lithe, and fearless. Korak was very proud of her, and even all acute grunted in approval where before he had growled in contempt. A distant village of blacks had furnished her with a mantle of fur and feathers with copper ornaments and weapons, for Korak would not permit her to go unarmed or unburst in the use of the weapons he stole for her. A leather thong over one shoulder supported the ever-present geeka who was still the recipient of her most sacred confidences. A light spear and a long knife were her weapons of offense or defense. Her body rounding into the fullness of an early maturity followed the lines of a Greek goddess, but there the similarity ceased, for her face was beautiful. As she grew more accustomed to the jungle and the ways of its wild denizens, fear left her. As time wore on she even hunted alone when Korak and acute were prowling at a great distance, as they were sometimes forced to do when game was scarce in their immediate vicinity. Upon these occasions she usually confined her endeavours to the smaller animals, though sometimes she brought down a deer and once even Horta, the boar, a great tusker that even Sheeta might have thought twice before attacking. In their stamping grounds in the jungle the three were familiar figures. The little monkeys knew them well, often coming close to chatter and frolic about them. When acute was by the small folk kept their distance, but with Korak they were less shy and when both the males were gone they would come close to Miriam, tugging at her ornaments or playing with Gika, who was a never-ending source of amusement to them. The girl played with them and fed them, and when she was alone they helped her to pass the long hours until Korak's return. Nor were they worthless as friends. In the hunt they helped her locate her quarry. Often they would come racing through the trees to her side to announce the near presence of antelope or giraffe, or with excited warnings of the proximity of Sheeta or Numa. Luscious, sun-kissed fruits which hung far out upon the frail bow of the jungle's waving crest were brought to her by these tiny nimble allies. Sometimes they played tricks upon her, but she was always kind and gentle with them, and in their wild half-human way they were kind to her and affectionate. Their language being similar to that of the great apes, Miriam could converse with them, though the poverty of their vocabulary rendered these exchanges anything but feasts of reason. For familiar objects they had names, as well as for those conditions which induced pain or pleasure, joy, sorrow, or rage. These root words were so similar to those in use among the great anthropoids as to suggest that the language of the Manus was the mother tongue. Dreams, aspirations, hopes, the past, the future held no place in the conversation of Manu the monkey. All was of the present, particularly of filling his belly and catching lice. Poor food was this to nourish the mental appetite of a girl just upon the brink of womanhood, and so finding Manu only amusing as an occasional playfellow or pet, Miriam poured out her sweetest soul-thoughts into the deaf ears of Geekah's ivory head. To Geekah she spoke in Arabic, knowing that Geekah, being but a doll, could not understand the language of Korak and Akut, and that the language of Korak and Akut, being that of male apes, contained nothing of interest to an Arab doll. Geekah had undergone a transformation since her little mother had left the village of the Sheik. Her garmenture now reflected in miniature that of Miriam. A tiny bit of leopard skin covered her rat-skin torso from shoulder to splinter knee. A band of braided grasses about her brow held in place a few gaudy feathers from the parakeet, while other bits of grass were fashioned into imitations of arm and leg ornaments of metal. Geekah was a perfect little savage, but at heart she was unchanged, being the same omnivorous listener as of Yor. An excellent trait in Geekah was that she never interrupted in order to talk about herself. Today was no exception. She had been listening attentively to Miriam for an hour, propped against the bowl of a tree, while her live young mistress stretched cat-like and luxurious along a swaying branch before her. "'Little Geekah,' said Miriam, "'our Korak has been gone for a long time today. We miss him, little Geekah, do we not? It is dull and lonesome in the great jungle when our Korak is away. What will he bring us this time? Eh?' Another shining band of metal for Miriam's ankle? Or a soft, doe-skin loincloth from the body of a black shee? He tells me that it is harder to get the possessions of the shees, for he will not kill them as he does the males, and they fight savagely when he leaps upon them to rest their ornaments from them. Then come the males with spears and arrows, and Korak takes to the trees. Sometimes he takes the shee with him, and high among the branches divest her of the things he wishes to bring home to Miriam. He says that the blacks fear him now, and at first sight of him the women and children run shrieking to their huts, but he follows them within, and it is not often that he returns without arrows for himself and a present for Miriam. Korak is mighty among the jungle people. Our Korak, Geekah, know my Korak."  Climb! he cried. Climb! The mangani are coming! Miriam glanced lazily over her shoulder at the excited disturber of her peace. Climb yourself, little Manu, she said. The only mangani in our jungle are Korak and Ekut. It is they you have seen returning from the hunt. Someday you will see your own shadow, little Manu, and then you will be frightened to death. But the monkey only screamed his warning more lustily before he raced upward toward the safety of the high terrace where mangani, the great ape, could not follow. Presently Miriam heard the sound of approaching bodies swinging through the trees. She listened attentively. There were two, and they were great apes, Korak and Ekut. To her Korak was an ape, a mangani, for as such the three always described themselves. Man was an enemy, so they did not think of themselves as belonging any longer to the same genus. Tar mangani, or great white ape, which described the white man in their language, did not fit them all. Go mangani, great black ape, or negro, described none of them, so they called themselves plain mangani. Miriam decided that she would feign slumber and play a joke on Korak, so she lay very still, with eyes tightly closed. She heard the two approaching closer and closer. They were in the adjoining tree now, and must have discovered her, for they had halted. Why were they so quiet? Why did not Korak call out his customary greeting? The quietness was ominous. It was followed presently by a very stealthy sound. One of them was creeping upon her. Was Korak planning a joke upon his own account? Well, she would fool him. Cautiously she opened her eyes the tiniest bit, and as she did so her heart stood still. Creeping silently toward her was a huge bull-ape that she never before had seen. Behind him was another like him. With the agility of a squirrel Miriam was upon her feet, and at the same instant the great bull lunged for her. Leaping from limb to limb the girl fled through the jungle, while close behind her came the two great apes. Above them raced a bevy of screaming, chattering monkeys, hurling taunts and insults at the mangany, and encouragement and advice to the girl. From tree to tree swung Miriam, working ever upward toward the smaller branches which would not bear the weight of her pursuers, faster and faster came the bull apes after her. The clutching fingers of the foremost were almost upon her again and again, but she eluded them by sudden bursts of speed or reckless chances as she threw herself across dizzy spaces. Slowly she was gaining her way to the greater heights where safety lay, when after a particularly daring leap the swaying branch she grasped bent low beneath her weight, nor whipped upward again as it should have done. Even before the rending sound which followed Miriam knew that she had misjudged the strength of the limb. It gave slowly at first, then there was a ripping as it parted from the trunk. Releasing her hold, Miriam dropped among the foliage beneath, clutching for a new support. She found it a dozen feet below the broken limb. She had fallen thus many times before, so that she had no particular terror of a fall. It was the delay which appalled her most, and rightly, for scarce had she scrambled to a place of safety than the body of the huge ape dropped at her side, and a great hairy arm went about her waist. Almost at once the other ape reached his companion's side. He made a lunge at Miriam, but her captor swung her to one side, bared his fighting fangs and growled ominously. Miriam struggled to escape. She struck at the hairy breast and bearded cheek. She fastened her strong white teeth in one shaggy forearm. The ape cuffed her viciously across the face, then he had to turn his attention to his fellow, who quite evidently desired the prize for his own. The captor could not fight to advantage upon the swaying bow, burdened as he was by a squirming, struggling captive, so he dropped quickly to the ground beneath. The other followed him, and here they fought, occasionally abandoning, in their duel, to pursue and recapture the girl who took every advantage of her captor's preoccupation in battle to break away in attempted escape. But always they overtook her, and first won, and then the other possessed her as they struggled to tear one another to pieces for the prize. Often the girl came in for many blows that were intended for a hairy foe, and once she was felled, lying unconscious while the apes relieved of the distraction of detaining her by force, tore into one another in fierce and terrible combat. Above them screamed the little monkeys racing hither and thither in a frenzy of hysterical excitement. Back and forth over the battlefield flew countless birds of gorgeous plumage squawking their horse-cries of rage and defiance. In the distance a lion roared. The larger bull was slowly tearing his antagonist to pieces. They rolled upon the ground, biting and striking.  Miriam, through it all, lay still and unconscious upon the ground. At last one found a permanent hold upon the jugular of the other, and thus they went down for the last time. For several minutes they lay with scarce struggle. It was the larger bull who arose alone from the last embrace. He shook himself. A deep growl rumbled from his hairy throat. He waddled back and forth between the body of the girl and that of his vanquished foe. Then he stood upon the latter and gave tongue to his hideous challenge.  The gorgeous birds took wing and fled. Once again the lion roared, this time at a greater distance. The great ape waddled once more to the girl's side.  She lived. The monkeys were returning. They came in swarms, and from above hurled down insults upon the victor. The ape showed his displeasure by baring his teeth and growling up at them. Then he stooped and lifting the girl to his shoulder, waddled off through the jungle. In his wake followed the angry mob.


This was taken from work by a variety of people, and especially by Jim Zachos, and it was used in a report of the U.S. government, the CCSP, that I helped with a little bit. And so we'll draw you a dinosaur over here, poor dinosaur, because right here, 65 million years ago, this big meteorite came zinging in and the poor dinosaur was wiped out. And what we have is time since then, from 65 million years ago on your left, running up to today on your right. And this is sort of no ice on the planet down here right after the dinosaurs, and then you start to get ice in East Antarctica and then West Antarctica. So over here it is icy. And what you can see down here are estimates of temperature. In a no ice world, it was pretty hot, and then it cooled off as we went the ice, and this was primarily because of dropping CO2. And right here, there's this little blip. It was already hot, and then in a reasonably short time of sort of 10,000 years, the temperature went way up, and then over 100 or 200,000 years, the temperature came back down. And that had all sorts of implications for living.  And it was caused rather clearly by CO2 being belched out of the Earth system in various places.