CHAPTER V.

The White Ape

Tenderly Kala nursed her little waif, wondering silently why it did not

gain strength and agility as did the little apes of other mothers. It

was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into her

possession before he would walk alone, and as for climbing—my, but how

stupid he was!

Kala sometimes talked with the older females about her young hopeful,

but none of them could understand how a child could be so slow and

backward in learning to care for itself. Why, it could not even find

food alone, and more than twelve moons had passed since Kala had come

upon it.

Had they known that the child had seen thirteen moons before it had

come into Kala’s possession they would have considered its case as

absolutely hopeless, for the little apes of their own tribe were as far

advanced in two or three moons as was this little stranger after

twenty-five.

Tublat, Kala’s husband, was sorely vexed, and but for the female’s

careful watching would have put the child out of the way.

“He will never be a great ape,” he argued. “Always will you have to

carry him and protect him. What good will he be to the tribe? None;

only a burden.

“Let us leave him quietly sleeping among the tall grasses, that you may

bear other and stronger apes to guard us in our old age.”

“Never, Broken Nose,” replied Kala. “If I must carry him forever, so be

it.”

And then Tublat went to Kerchak to urge him to use his authority with

Kala, and force her to give up little Tarzan, which was the name they

had given to the tiny Lord Greystoke, and which meant “White-Skin.”

But when Kerchak spoke to her about it Kala threatened to run away from

the tribe if they did not leave her in peace with the child; and as

this is one of the inalienable rights of the jungle folk, if they be

dissatisfied among their own people, they bothered her no more, for

Kala was a fine clean-limbed young female, and they did not wish to

lose her.

As Tarzan grew he made more rapid strides, so that by the time he was

ten years old he was an excellent climber, and on the ground could do

many wonderful things which were beyond the powers of his little

brothers and sisters.

In many ways did he differ from them, and they often marveled at his

superior cunning, but in strength and size he was deficient; for at ten

the great anthropoids were fully grown, some of them towering over six

feet in height, while little Tarzan was still but a half-grown boy.

Yet such a boy!

From early childhood he had used his hands to swing from branch to

branch after the manner of his giant mother, and as he grew older he

spent hour upon hour daily speeding through the tree tops with his

brothers and sisters.

He could spring twenty feet across space at the dizzy heights of the

forest top, and grasp with unerring precision, and without apparent

jar, a limb waving wildly in the path of an approaching tornado.

He could drop twenty feet at a stretch from limb to limb in rapid

descent to the ground, or he could gain the utmost pinnacle of the

loftiest tropical giant with the ease and swiftness of a squirrel.

Though but ten years old he was fully as strong as the average man of

thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever

becomes. And day by day his strength was increasing.

His life among these fierce apes had been happy; for his recollection

held no other life, nor did he know that there existed within the

universe aught else than his little forest and the wild jungle animals

with which he was familiar.

He was nearly ten before he commenced to realize that a great

difference existed between himself and his fellows. His little body,

burned brown by exposure, suddenly caused him feelings of intense

shame, for he realized that it was entirely hairless, like some low

snake, or other reptile.

He attempted to obviate this by plastering himself from head to foot

with mud, but this dried and fell off. Besides it felt so uncomfortable

that he quickly decided that he preferred the shame to the discomfort.

In the higher land which his tribe frequented was a little lake, and it

was here that Tarzan first saw his face in the clear, still waters of

its bosom.

It was on a sultry day of the dry season that he and one of his cousins

had gone down to the bank to drink. As they leaned over, both little

faces were mirrored on the placid pool; the fierce and terrible

features of the ape beside those of the aristocratic scion of an old

English house.

Tarzan was appalled. It had been bad enough to be hairless, but to own

such a countenance! He wondered that the other apes could look at him

at all.

That tiny slit of a mouth and those puny white teeth! How they looked

beside the mighty lips and powerful fangs of his more fortunate

brothers!

And the little pinched nose of his; so thin was it that it looked half

starved. He turned red as he compared it with the beautiful broad

nostrils of his companion. Such a generous nose! Why it spread half

across his face! It certainly must be fine to be so handsome, thought

poor little Tarzan.

But when he saw his own eyes; ah, that was the final blow—a brown spot,

a gray circle and then blank whiteness! Frightful! not even the snakes

had such hideous eyes as he.

So intent was he upon this personal appraisement of his features that

he did not hear the parting of the tall grass behind him as a great

body pushed itself stealthily through the jungle; nor did his

companion, the ape, hear either, for he was drinking and the noise of

his sucking lips and gurgles of satisfaction drowned the quiet approach

of the intruder.

Not thirty paces behind the two she crouched—Sabor, the huge

lioness—lashing her tail. Cautiously she moved a great padded paw

forward, noiselessly placing it before she lifted the next. Thus she

advanced; her belly low, almost touching the surface of the ground—a

great cat preparing to spring upon its prey.

Now she was within ten feet of the two unsuspecting little

playfellows—carefully she drew her hind feet well up beneath her body,

the great muscles rolling under the beautiful skin.

So low she was crouching now that she seemed flattened to the earth

except for the upward bend of the glossy back as it gathered for the

spring.

No longer the tail lashed—quiet and straight behind her it lay.

An instant she paused thus, as though turned to stone, and then, with

an awful scream, she sprang.

Sabor, the lioness, was a wise hunter. To one less wise the wild alarm

of her fierce cry as she sprang would have seemed a foolish thing, for

could she not more surely have fallen upon her victims had she but

quietly leaped without that loud shriek?

But Sabor knew well the wondrous quickness of the jungle folk and their

almost unbelievable powers of hearing. To them the sudden scraping of

one blade of grass across another was as effectual a warning as her

loudest cry, and Sabor knew that she could not make that mighty leap

without a little noise.

Her wild scream was not a warning. It was voiced to freeze her poor

victims in a paralysis of terror for the tiny fraction of an instant

which would suffice for her mighty claws to sink into their soft flesh

and hold them beyond hope of escape.

So far as the ape was concerned, Sabor reasoned correctly. The little

fellow crouched trembling just an instant, but that instant was quite

long enough to prove his undoing.

Not so, however, with Tarzan, the man-child. His life amidst the

dangers of the jungle had taught him to meet emergencies with

self-confidence, and his higher intelligence resulted in a quickness of

mental action far beyond the powers of the apes.

So the scream of Sabor, the lioness, galvanized the brain and muscles

of little Tarzan into instant action.

Before him lay the deep waters of the little lake, behind him certain

death; a cruel death beneath tearing claws and rending fangs.

Tarzan had always hated water except as a medium for quenching his

thirst. He hated it because he connected it with the chill and

discomfort of the torrential rains, and he feared it for the thunder

and lightning and wind which accompanied them.

The deep waters of the lake he had been taught by his wild mother to

avoid, and further, had he not seen little Neeta sink beneath its quiet

surface only a few short weeks before never to return to the tribe?

But of the two evils his quick mind chose the lesser ere the first note

of Sabor’s scream had scarce broken the quiet of the jungle, and before

the great beast had covered half her leap Tarzan felt the chill waters

close above his head.

He could not swim, and the water was very deep; but still he lost no

particle of that self-confidence and resourcefulness which were the

badges of his superior being.

Rapidly he moved his hands and feet in an attempt to scramble upward,

and, possibly more by chance than design, he fell into the stroke that

a dog uses when swimming, so that within a few seconds his nose was

above water and he found that he could keep it there by continuing his

strokes, and also make progress through the water.

He was much surprised and pleased with this new acquirement which had

been so suddenly thrust upon him, but he had no time for thinking much

upon it.

He was now swimming parallel to the bank and there he saw the cruel

beast that would have seized him crouching upon the still form of his

little playmate.

The lioness was intently watching Tarzan, evidently expecting him to

return to shore, but this the boy had no intention of doing.

Instead he raised his voice in the call of distress common to his

tribe, adding to it the warning which would prevent would-be rescuers

from running into the clutches of Sabor.

Almost immediately there came an answer from the distance, and

presently forty or fifty great apes swung rapidly and majestically

through the trees toward the scene of tragedy.

In the lead was Kala, for she had recognized the tones of her best

beloved, and with her was the mother of the little ape who lay dead

beneath cruel Sabor.

Though more powerful and better equipped for fighting than the apes,

the lioness had no desire to meet these enraged adults, and with a

snarl of hatred she sprang quickly into the brush and disappeared.

Tarzan now swam to shore and clambered quickly upon dry land. The

feeling of freshness and exhilaration which the cool waters had

imparted to him, filled his little being with grateful surprise, and

ever after he lost no opportunity to take a daily plunge in lake or

stream or ocean when it was possible to do so.

For a long time Kala could not accustom herself to the sight; for

though her people could swim when forced to it, they did not like to

enter water, and never did so voluntarily.

The adventure with the lioness gave Tarzan food for pleasurable

memories, for it was such affairs which broke the monotony of his daily

life—otherwise but a dull round of searching for food, eating, and

sleeping.

The tribe to which he belonged roamed a tract extending, roughly,

twenty-five miles along the seacoast and some fifty miles inland. This

they traversed almost continually, occasionally remaining for months in

one locality; but as they moved through the trees with great speed they

often covered the territory in a very few days.

Much depended upon food supply, climatic conditions, and the prevalence

of animals of the more dangerous species; though Kerchak often led them

on long marches for no other reason than that he had tired of remaining

in the same place.

At night they slept where darkness overtook them, lying upon the

ground, and sometimes covering their heads, and more seldom their

bodies, with the great leaves of the elephant’s ear. Two or three might

lie cuddled in each other’s arms for additional warmth if the night

were chill, and thus Tarzan had slept in Kala’s arms nightly for all

these years.

That the huge, fierce brute loved this child of another race is beyond

question, and he, too, gave to the great, hairy beast all the affection

that would have belonged to his fair young mother had she lived.

When he was disobedient she cuffed him, it is true, but she was never

cruel to him, and was more often caressing him than chastising him.

Tublat, her mate, always hated Tarzan, and on several occasions had

come near ending his youthful career.

Tarzan on his part never lost an opportunity to show that he fully

reciprocated his foster father’s sentiments, and whenever he could

safely annoy him or make faces at him or hurl insults upon him from the

safety of his mother’s arms, or the slender branches of the higher

trees, he did so.

His superior intelligence and cunning permitted him to invent a

thousand diabolical tricks to add to the burdens of Tublat’s life.

Early in his boyhood he had learned to form ropes by twisting and tying

long grasses together, and with these he was forever tripping Tublat or

attempting to hang him from some overhanging branch.

By constant playing and experimenting with these he learned to tie rude

knots, and make sliding nooses; and with these he and the younger apes

amused themselves. What Tarzan did they tried to do also, but he alone

originated and became proficient.

One day while playing thus Tarzan had thrown his rope at one of his

fleeing companions, retaining the other end in his grasp. By accident

the noose fell squarely about the running ape’s neck, bringing him to a

sudden and surprising halt.

Ah, here was a new game, a fine game, thought Tarzan, and immediately

he attempted to repeat the trick. And thus, by painstaking and

continued practice, he learned the art of roping.

Now, indeed, was the life of Tublat a living nightmare. In sleep, upon

the march, night or day, he never knew when that quiet noose would slip

about his neck and nearly choke the life out of him.

Kala punished, Tublat swore dire vengeance, and old Kerchak took notice

and warned and threatened; but all to no avail.

Tarzan defied them all, and the thin, strong noose continued to settle

about Tublat’s neck whenever he least expected it.

The other apes derived unlimited amusement from Tublat’s discomfiture,

for Broken Nose was a disagreeable old fellow, whom no one liked,

anyway.

In Tarzan’s clever little mind many thoughts revolved, and back of

these was his divine power of reason.

If he could catch his fellow apes with his long arm of many grasses,

why not Sabor, the lioness?

It was the germ of a thought, which, however, was destined to mull

around in his conscious and subconscious mind until it resulted in

magnificent achievement.

But that came in later years.