Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs [best classic books .TXT] 📗

CHAPTER XVI.
“Most Remarkable”

Several miles south of the cabin, upon a strip of sandy beach, stood two old men, arguing.

Before them stretched the broad Atlantic. At their backs was the Dark Continent. Close around them loomed the impenetrable blackness of the jungle.

Savage beasts roared and growled; noises, hideous and weird, assailed their ears. They had wandered for miles in search of their camp, but always in the wrong direction. They were as hopelessly lost as though they suddenly had been transported to another world.

At such a time, indeed, every fiber of their combined intellects must have been concentrated upon the vital question of the minute—the life-and-death question to them of retracing their steps to camp.

Samuel T. Philander was speaking.

“But, my dear professor,” he was saying, “I still maintain that but for the victories of Ferdinand and Isabella over the fifteenth-century Moors in Spain the world would be today a thousand years in advance of where we now find ourselves. The Moors were essentially a tolerant, broad-minded, liberal race of agriculturists, artisans and merchants—the very type of people that has made possible such civilization as we find today in America and Europe—while the Spaniards—”

“Tut, tut, dear Mr. Philander,” interrupted Professor Porter; “their religion positively precluded the possibilities you suggest. Moslemism was, is, and always will be, a blight on that scientific progress which has marked—”

“Bless me! Professor,” interjected Mr. Philander, who had turned his gaze toward the jungle, “there seems to be someone approaching.”

Professor Archimedes Q. Porter turned in the direction indicated by the nearsighted Mr. Philander.

“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” he chided. “How often must I urge you to seek that absolute concentration of your mental faculties which alone may permit you to bring to bear the highest powers of intellectuality upon the momentous problems which naturally fall to the lot of great minds? And now I find you guilty of a most flagrant breach of courtesy in interrupting my learned discourse to call attention to a mere quadruped of the genus Felis. As I was saying, Mr.—”

“Heavens, Professor, a lion?” cried Mr. Philander, straining his weak eyes toward the dim figure outlined against the dark tropical underbrush.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Philander, if you insist upon employing slang in your discourse, a ‘lion.’ But as I was saying—”

“Bless me, Professor,” again interrupted Mr. Philander; “permit me to suggest that doubtless the Moors who were conquered in the fifteenth century will continue in that most regrettable condition for the time being at least, even though we postpone discussion of that world calamity until we may attain the enchanting view of yon Felis carnivora which distance proverbially is credited with lending.”

In the meantime the lion had approached with quiet dignity to within ten paces of the two men, where he stood curiously watching them.

The moonlight flooded the beach, and the strange group stood out in bold relief against the yellow sand.

“Most reprehensible, most reprehensible,” exclaimed Professor Porter, with a faint trace of irritation in his voice. “Never, Mr. Philander, never before in my life have I known one of these animals to be permitted to roam at large from its cage. I shall most certainly report this outrageous breach of ethics to the directors of the adjacent zoological garden.”

“Quite right, Professor,” agreed Mr. Philander, “and the sooner it is done the better. Let us start now.”

Seizing the professor by the arm, Mr. Philander set off in the direction that would put the greatest distance between themselves and the lion.

They had proceeded but a short distance when a backward glance revealed to the horrified gaze of Mr. Philander that the lion was following them. He tightened his grip upon the protesting professor and increased his speed.

“As I was saying, Mr. Philander,” repeated Professor Porter.

Mr. Philander took another hasty glance rearward. The lion also had quickened his gait, and was doggedly maintaining an unvarying distance behind them.

“He is following us!” gasped Mr. Philander, breaking into a run.

“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” remonstrated the professor, “this unseemly haste is most unbecoming to men of letters. What will our friends think of us, who may chance to be upon the street and witness our frivolous antics? Pray let us proceed with more decorum.”

Mr. Philander stole another observation astern.

The lion was bounding along in easy leaps scarce five paces behind.

Mr. Philander dropped the professor’s arm, and broke into a mad orgy of speed that would have done credit to any varsity track team.

“As I was saying, Mr. Philander—” screamed Professor Porter, as, metaphorically speaking, he himself “threw her into high.” He, too, had caught a fleeting backward glimpse of cruel yellow eyes and half open mouth within startling proximity of his person.

With streaming coat tails and shiny silk hat Professor Archimedes Q. Porter fled through the moonlight close upon the heels of Mr. Samuel T. Philander.

Before them a point of the jungle ran out toward a narrow promontory, and it was for the haven of the trees he saw there that Mr. Samuel T. Philander directed his prodigious leaps and bounds; while from the shadows of this same spot peered two keen eyes in interested appreciation of the race.

It was Tarzan of the Apes who watched, with face a-grin, this odd game of follow-the-leader.

He knew the two men were safe enough from attack in so far as the lion was concerned. The very fact that Numa had foregone such easy prey at all convinced the wise forest craft of Tarzan that Numa’s belly already was full.

The lion might stalk them until hungry again; but the chances were that if not angered he would soon tire of the sport, and slink away to his jungle lair.

Really, the one great danger was that one of the men might stumble and fall, and then the yellow devil would be upon him in a moment and the joy of the kill would be too great a temptation to withstand.

So Tarzan swung quickly to a lower limb in line with the approaching fugitives; and as Mr. Samuel T. Philander came panting and blowing beneath him, already too spent to struggle up to the safety of the limb, Tarzan reached down and, grasping him by the collar of his coat, yanked him to the limb by his side.

Another moment brought the professor within the sphere of the friendly grip, and he, too, was drawn upward to safety just as the baffled Numa, with a roar, leaped to recover his vanishing quarry.

For a moment the two men clung panting to the great branch, while Tarzan squatted with his back to the stem of the tree, watching them with mingled curiosity and amusement.

It was the professor who first broke the silence.

“I am deeply pained, Mr. Philander, that you should have evinced such a paucity of manly courage in the presence of one of the lower orders, and by your crass timidity have caused me to exert myself to such an unaccustomed degree in order that I might resume my discourse. As I was saying, Mr. Philander, when you interrupted me, the Moors—”

“Professor Archimedes Q. Porter,” broke in Mr. Philander, in icy tones, “the time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in the mantle of virtue. You have accused me of cowardice. You have insinuated that you ran only to overtake me, not to escape the clutches of the lion. Have a care, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter! I am a desperate man. Goaded by long-suffering patience the worm will turn.”

“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!” cautioned Professor Porter; “you forget yourself.”

“I forget nothing as yet, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter; but, believe me, sir, I am tottering on the verge of forgetfulness as to your exalted position in the world of science, and your gray hairs.”

The professor sat in silence for a few minutes, and the darkness hid the grim smile that wreathed his wrinkled countenance. Presently he spoke.

“Look here, Skinny Philander,” he said, in belligerent tones, “if you are lookin’ for a scrap, peel off your coat and come on down on the ground, and I’ll punch your head just as I did sixty years ago in the alley back of Porky Evans’ barn.”

“Ark!” gasped the astonished Mr. Philander. “Lordy, how good that sounds! When you’re human, Ark, I love you; but somehow it seems as though you had forgotten how to be human for the last twenty years.”

The professor reached out a thin, trembling old hand through the darkness until it found his old friend’s shoulder.

“Forgive me, Skinny,” he said, softly. “It hasn’t been quite twenty years, and God alone knows how hard I have tried to be ‘human’ for Jane’s sake, and yours, too, since He took my other Jane away.”

Another old hand stole up from Mr. Philander’s side to clasp the one that lay upon his shoulder, and no other message could better have translated the one heart to the other.

They did not speak for some minutes. The lion below them paced nervously back and forth. The third figure in the tree was hidden by the dense shadows near the stem. He, too, was silent—motionless as a graven image.

“You certainly pulled me up into this tree just in time,” said the professor at last. “I want to thank you. You saved my life.”

“But I didn’t pull you up here, Professor,” said Mr. Philander. “Bless me! The excitement of the moment quite caused me to forget that I myself was drawn up here by some outside agency—there must be someone or something in this tree with us.”

“Eh?” ejaculated Professor Porter. “Are you quite positive, Mr. Philander?”

“Most positive, Professor,” replied Mr. Philander, “and,” he added, “I think we should thank the party. He may be sitting right next to you now, Professor.”

“Eh? What’s that? Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!” said Professor Porter, edging cautiously nearer to Mr. Philander.

Just then it occurred to Tarzan of the Apes that Numa had loitered beneath the tree for a sufficient length of time, so he raised his young head toward the heavens, and there rang out upon the terrified ears of the two old men the awful warning challenge of the anthropoid.

The two friends, huddled trembling in their precarious position on the limb, saw the great lion halt in his restless pacing as the blood-curdling cry smote his ears, and then slink quickly into the jungle, to be instantly lost to view.

“Even the lion trembles in fear,” whispered Mr. Philander.

“Most remarkable, most remarkable,” murmured Professor Porter, clutching frantically at Mr. Philander to regain the balance which the sudden fright had so perilously endangered. Unfortunately for them both, Mr. Philander’s center of equilibrium was at that very moment hanging upon the ragged edge of nothing, so that it needed but the gentle impetus supplied by the additional weight of Professor Porter’s body to topple the devoted secretary from the limb.

For a moment they swayed uncertainly, and then, with mingled and most unscholarly shrieks, they pitched headlong from the tree, locked in frenzied embrace.

It was quite some moments ere either moved, for both were positive that any such attempt would reveal so many breaks and fractures as to make further progress impossible.

At length Professor Porter made an attempt to move one leg. To his surprise, it responded to his will as in days gone by. He now drew up its mate and stretched it forth again.

“Most remarkable, most remarkable,” he murmured.

“Thank God, Professor,” whispered Mr. Philander, fervently, “you are not dead, then?”

“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut,” cautioned Professor Porter, “I do not know with accuracy as yet.”

With infinite solicitude Professor Porter wiggled his right arm—joy! It was intact. Breathlessly he waved his left arm above his prostrate body—it waved!

“Most remarkable, most remarkable,” he said.

“To whom are you signaling, Professor?” asked Mr. Philander, in an excited tone.

Professor Porter deigned to make no response to this puerile inquiry. Instead he raised his head gently from the ground, nodding it back and forth a half dozen times.

“Most remarkable,” he breathed. “It remains intact.”

Mr. Philander had not moved from where he had fallen; he had not dared the attempt. How indeed could one move when one’s arms and legs and back were broken?

One eye was buried in the soft loam; the other, rolling sidewise, was fixed in awe upon the strange gyrations of Professor Porter.

“How sad!” exclaimed Mr. Philander, half aloud. “Concussion of the brain, superinducing total mental aberration. How very sad indeed! and for one still so young!”

Professor Porter rolled over upon his stomach; gingerly he bowed his back until he resembled a huge tom cat in proximity to a yelping dog.