Tarzan and the Golden Lion · Chapter 5 (1/2)

V

The Fatal Drops

At home, the life in the bungalow and at the farm followed its usual routine as it had before the departure of Tarzan. Korak, sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback, followed the activities of the farm hands and the herders, sometimes alone, but more often in company with the white foreman, Jervis, and often, especially when they rode, Jane accompanied them.

The golden lion Korak exercised upon a leash, since he was not at all confident of his powers of control over the beast, and feared lest, in the absence of his master, Jad-bal-ja might take to the forest and revert to his natural savage state. Such a lion, abroad in the jungle, would be a distinct menace to human life, for Jad-bal-ja, reared among men, lacked that natural timidity of men that is so marked a trait of all wild beasts. Trained as he had been to make his kill at the throat of a human effigy, it required no considerable powers of imagination upon the part of Korak to visualize what might occur should the golden lion, loosed from all restraint, be thrown upon his own resources in the surrounding jungle.

It was during the first week of Tarzan’s absence that a runner from Nairobi brought a cable message to Lady Greystoke, announcing the serious illness of her father in London. Mother and son discussed the situation. It would be five or six weeks before Tarzan could return, even if they sent a runner after him, and, were Jane to await him, there would be little likelihood of her reaching her father in time. Even should she depart at once, there seemed only a faint hope that she would arrive early enough to see him alive. It was decided, therefore, that she should set out immediately, Korak accompanying her as far as Nairobi, and then returning to the ranch and resuming its general supervision until his father’s return.

It is a long trek from the Greystoke estate to Nairobi, and Korak had not yet returned when, about three weeks after Tarzan’s departure, a black, whose duty it was to feed and care for Jad-bal-ja, carelessly left the door of the cage unfastened while he was cleaning it. The golden lion paced back and forth while the black wielded his broom within the cage. They were old friends, and the Waziri felt no fear of the great lion, with the result that his back was as often turned to him as not. The black was working in the far corner of the cage when Jad-bal-ja paused a moment at the door at the opposite end. The beast saw that the gate hung slightly ajar upon its hinges. Silently he raised a great padded paw and inserted it in the opening⁠—a slight pull and the gate swung in. Instantly the golden lion inserted his snout in the widened aperture, and as he swung the barrier aside the horrified black looked up to see his charge drop softly to the ground outside.

“Stop, Jad-bal-ja! Stop!” screamed the frightened black, leaping after him. But the golden lion only increased his pace, and leaping the fence, loped off in the direction of the forest.

The black pursued him with brandishing broom, emitting loud yells that brought the inmates of the Waziri huts into the open, where they joined their fellow in pursuit of the lion. Across the rolling plains they followed him, but as well have sought to snare the elusive will-o’-the-wisp as this swift and wary fugitive, who heeded neither their blandishments nor their threats. And so it was that they saw the golden lion disappear into the primeval forest and, though they searched diligently until almost dark, they were forced at length to give up their quest and return crestfallen to the farm.

“Ah,” cried the unhappy black, who had been responsible for the escape of Jad-bal-ja, “what will the Big Bwana say to me, what will he do to me when he finds that I have permitted the golden lion to get away!”

“You will be banished from the bungalow for a long time, Keewazi,” old Muviro assured him. “And doubtless you will be sent to the grazing ground far to the east to guard the herd there, where you will have plenty of lions for company, though they will not be as friendly as was Jad-bal-ja. It is not half what you deserve, and were the heart of the Big Bwana not filled with love for his black children⁠—were he like other white Bwanas old Muviro has seen⁠—you would be lashed until you could not stand, perhaps until you died.”

“I am a man,” replied Keewazi. “I am a warrior and a Waziri. Whatever punishment the Big Bwana inflicts I will accept as a man should.”

It was that same night that Tarzan approached the campfires of the strange party he had been tracking. Unseen by them, he halted in the foliage of a tree directly in the center of their camp, which was surrounded by an enormous thorn boma, and brilliantly lighted by numerous fires which blacks were diligently feeding with branches from an enormous pile of firewood that they had evidently gathered earlier in the day for this purpose. Near the center of the camp were several tents, and before one, in the light of a fire, sat four white men. Two of them were great, bull-necked, red-faced fellows, apparently Englishmen of the lower class, the third appeared to be a short, fat, German Jew, while the fourth was a tall, slender, handsome fellow, with dark, wavy brown hair and regular features. He and the German were most meticulously garbed for Central African traveling, after the highly idealized standard of motion pictures, in fact either one of them might have stepped directly from a screening of the latest jungle thriller. The young man was evidently not of English descent and Tarzan mentally cataloged him, almost immediately, as a Slav. Shortly after Tarzan’s arrival this one arose and entered one of the nearby tents, from which Tarzan immediately heard the sound of voices in low conversation. He could not distinguish the words, but the tones of one seemed quite distinctly feminine. The three remaining at the fire were carrying on a desultory conversation, when suddenly from near at hand beyond the boma wall, a lion’s roar broke the silence of the jungle.

With a startled shriek the Jew leaped to his feet, so suddenly that he cleared the ground a good foot, and then, stepping backward, he lost his balance, tripped over his campstool, and sprawled upon his back.

“My Gord, Adolph!” roared one of his companions. “If you do that again, damn me if I don’t break your neck. ’Ere we are, and that’s that.”

“Blime if ’e aint worse’n a bloomin’ lion,” growled the other.

The Jew crawled to his feet. “Mein Gott!” he cried, his voice quavering, “I t’ought sure he vas coming over the fence. S’elp me if I ever get out of diss, neffer again⁠—not for all der gold in Africa vould I go t’rough vat I haf been t’rough dese past t’ree mont’s. Oi! Oi! ven I t’ink of it, Oi! Oi! Lions, und leopards, und rhinoceroses und hippopotamuses, Oi! Oi!”

His companions laughed. “Dick and I tells you right along from the beginning that you ’adn’t oughter come into the interior,” said one of them.

“But for vy I buy all dese clo’s?” wailed the German. “Mein Gott, dis suit, it stands me tventy guineas, vot I stand in. Ach, had I know somet’ing, vun guinea vould have bought me my whole wardrobe⁠—tventy guineas for dis und no vun to see it but niggers und lions.”

“And you look like ’ell in it, besides,” commented one of his friends.

“Und look at it, it’s all dirty and torn. How should I know it I spoil dis suit? Mit mine own eyes I see it at der Princess Teayter, how der hero spend t’ree mont’s in Africa hunting lions und killing cannibals, und ven he comes ouid he hasn’t even got a grease spot on his pants⁠—how should I know it Africa was so dirty und full of thorns?”

It was at this point that Tarzan of the Apes elected to drop quietly into the circle of firelight before them. The two Englishmen leaped to their feet, quite evidently startled, and the Jew turned and took a half step as though in flight, but immediately his eyes rested upon the ape-man he halted, a look of relief supplanting that of terror which had overspread his countenance, as Tarzan had dropped upon them apparently from the heavens.

“Mein Gott, Esteban,” shrilled the German, “vy you come back so soon, and for vy you come back like dot, sudden⁠—don’t you suppose ve got nerves?”

Tarzan was angry, angry at these raw intruders, who dared enter without his permission, the wide domain in which he kept peace and order. When Tarzan was angry there flamed upon his forehead the scar that Bolgani, the gorilla, had placed there upon that long-gone day when the boy Tarzan had met the great beast in mortal combat, and first learned the true value of his father’s hunting knife⁠—the knife that had placed him, the comparatively weak little Tarmangani, upon an even footing with the great beasts of the jungle.

His gray eyes were narrowed, his voice came cold and level as he addressed them. “Who are you,” he demanded, “who dare thus invade the country of the Waziri, the land of Tarzan, without permission from the Lord of the Jungle?”

“Where do you get that stuff, Esteban,” demanded one of the Englishmen, “and wat in ’ell are you doin’ back ’ere alone and so soon? Where are your porters, where is the bloomin’ gold?”

The ape-man eyed the speaker in silence for a moment. “I am Tarzan of the Apes,” he said. “I do not know what you are talking about. I only know that I come in search of him who slew Gobu, the great ape; him who slew Bara, the deer, without my permission.”

“Oh, ’ell,” exploded the other Englishman, “stow the guff, Esteban⁠—if you’re tryin’ for to be funny we don’t see the joke, ’ere we are, and that’s that.”

Inside the tent, which the fourth white man had entered while Tarzan was watching the camp from his hiding place in the tree above, a woman, evidently suddenly stirred by terror, touched the arm of her companion frantically, and pointed toward the tall, almost naked figure of the ape-man as he stood revealed in the full light of the beast fires. “God, Carl,” she whispered, in trembling tones, “look!”

“What’s wrong, Flora?” inquired her companion. “I see only Esteban.”

“It is not Esteban,” hissed the girl. “It is Lord Greystoke himself⁠—it is Tarzan of the Apes!”

“You are mad, Flora,” replied the man, “it cannot be he.”

“It is he, though,” she insisted. “Do you suppose that I do not know him? Did I not work in his town house for years? Did I not see him nearly every day? Do you suppose that I do not know Tarzan of the Apes? Look at that red scar flaming on his forehead⁠—I have heard the story of that scar and I have seen it burn scarlet when he was aroused to anger. It is scarlet now, and Tarzan of the Apes is angry.”

“Well, suppose it is Tarzan of the Apes, what can he do?”

“You do not know him,” replied the girl. “You do not guess the tremendous power he wields here⁠—the power of life and death over man and beast. If he knew our mission here not one of us would ever reach the coast alive. The very fact that he is here now makes me believe that he may have discovered our purpose, and if he has, God help us⁠—unless⁠—unless⁠—”

“Unless what?” demanded the man.

The girl was silent in thought for a moment. “There is only one way,” she said finally. “We dare not kill him. His savage blacks would learn of it, and no power on earth could save us then. There is a way, though, if we act quickly.” She turned and searched for a moment in one of her bags, and presently she handed the man a small bottle, containing liquid. “Go out and talk to him,” she said, “make friends with him. Lie to him. Tell him anything. Promise anything. But get on friendly enough terms with him so that you can offer him coffee. He does not drink wine or anything with alcohol in it, but I know that he likes coffee. I have often served it to him in his room late at night upon his return from the theater or a ball. Get him to drink coffee and then you will know what to do with this.” And she indicated the bottle which the man still held in his hand.

Kraski nodded. “I understand,” he said, and, turning, left the tent.

He had taken but a step when the girl recalled him. “Do not let him see me. Do not let him guess that I am here or that you know me.”

The man nodded and left her. Approaching the tense figures before the fire he greeted Tarzan with a pleasant smile and a cheery word.

“Welcome,” he said, “we are always glad to see a stranger in our camp. Sit down. Hand the gentleman a stool, John,” he said to Peebles.

The ape-man eyed Kraski as he had eyed the others. There was no answering friendly light in his eyes responding to the Russian’s greeting.

“I have been trying to find out what your party is doing here,” he said sharply to the Russian, “but they still insist that I am someone whom I am not. They are either fools or knaves, and I intend to find out which, and deal with them accordingly.”

“Come, come,” cried Kraski, soothingly. “There must be some mistake, I am sure. But tell me, who are you?”

“I am Tarzan of the Apes,” replied the ape-man. “No hunters enter this part of Africa without my permission. That fact is so well known that there is no chance of your having passed the coast without having been so advised. I seek an explanation, and that quickly.”

“Ah, you are Tarzan of the Apes,” exclaimed Kraski. “Fortunate indeed are we, for now may we be set straight upon our way, and escape from our frightful dilemma is assured. We are lost, sir, inextricably lost, due to the ignorance or knavery of our guide, who deserted us several weeks ago. Surely we knew of you; who does not know of Tarzan of the Apes? But it was not our intention to cross the boundaries of your territory. We were searching farther south for specimens of the fauna of the district, which our good friend and employer, here, Mr. Adolph Bluber, is collecting at great expense for presentation to a museum in his home city in America. Now I am sure that you can tell us where we are and direct us upon our proper course.”

Peebles, Throck, and Bluber stood fascinated by Kraski’s glib lies, but it was the German Jew who first rose to the occasion. Too thick were the skulls of the English pugs to grasp quickly the clever ruse of the Russian.

“Vy yes,” said the oily Bluber, rubbing his palms together, “dot iss it, yust vot I vas going to tell you.”

Tarzan turned sharply upon him. “Then what was all this talk about Esteban?” he asked. “Was it not by that name that these others addressed me?”

“Ah,” cried Bluber, “John will haf his leetle joke. He iss ignorant of Africa; he has neffer been here before. He t’ought perhaps dat you vere a native. John he calls all der natives Esteban, und he has great jokes by himself mit dem, because he knows dey cannot onderstand vot he says. Hey John, iss it not so, vot it iss I say?” But the shrewd Bluber did not wait for John to reply. “You see,” he went on, “ve are lost, und you take us ouid mit dis jungle, ve pay you anyt’ing⁠—you name your own price.”

The ape-man only half believed him, yet he was somewhat mollified by their evidently friendly intentions. Perhaps after all they were telling him a half-truth and had, really, wandered into his territory unwittingly. That, however, he would find out definitely from their native carriers, from whom his own Waziri would wean the truth. But the matter of his having been mistaken for Esteban still piqued his curiosity, also he was still desirous of learning the identity of the slayer of Gobu, the great ape.

“Please sit down,” urged Kraski. “We were about to have coffee and we should be delighted to have you join us. We meant no wrong in coming here, and I can assure you that we will gladly and willingly make full amends to you, or to whomever else we may have unintentionally wronged.”