Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs [red queen ebook .txt] 📗

saw it just as Gunto, with the terrifying cry of a challenging ape, sprang forward. Tarzan voiced a peculiar call and then crouched to meet the assault.

Taug crouched, too, and Bulabantu, assured now that these two were fighting upon his side, couched his spear and sprang between them to receive the first charge of the enemy.

 

Simultaneously a huge bulk broke into the clearing from the jungle behind the charging bulls.

The trumpeting of a mad tusker rose shrill above the cries of the anthropoids, as Tantor, the elephant, dashed swiftly across the clearing to the aid of his friend.

 

Gunto never closed upon the ape-man, nor did a fang enter flesh upon either side. The terrific reverberation of Tantor’s challenge sent the bulls scurrying to the trees, jabbering and scolding. Taug raced off with them.

Only Tarzan and Bulabantu remained. The latter stood his ground because he saw that the devil-god did not run, and because the black had the courage to face a certain and horrible death beside one who had quite evidently dared death for him.

 

But it was a surprised Gomangani who saw the mighty elephant come to a sudden halt in front of the ape-man and caress him with his long, sinuous trunk.

 

Tarzan turned toward the black man. “Go!” he said in the language of the apes, and pointed in the direction of the village of Mbonga. Bulabantu understood the gesture, if not the word, nor did he lose time in obeying.

Tarzan stood watching him until he had disappeared.

He knew that the apes would not follow. Then he said to the elephant: “Pick me up!” and the tusker swung him lightly to his head.

 

“Tarzan goes to his lair by the big water,” shouted the ape-man to the apes in the trees. “All of you are more foolish than Manu, except Taug and Teeka. Taug and Teeka may come to see Tarzan; but the others must keep away.

Tarzan is done with the tribe of Kerchak.”

 

He prodded Tantor with a calloused toe and the big beast swung off across the clearing, the apes watching them until they were swallowed up by the jungle.

 

Before the night fell Taug killed Gunto, picking a quarrel with him over his attack upon Tarzan.

 

For a moon the tribe saw nothing of Tarzan of the Apes.

Many of them probably never gave him a thought; but there were those who missed him more than Tarzan imagined.

Taug and Teeka often wished that he was back, and Taug determined a dozen times to go and visit Tarzan in his seaside lair; but first one thing and then another interfered.

 

One night when Taug lay sleepless looking up at the starry heavens he recalled the strange things that Tarzan once had suggested to him—that the bright spots were the eyes of the meat-eaters waiting in the dark of the jungle sky to leap upon Goro, the moon, and devour him.

The more he thought about this matter the more perturbed he became.

 

And then a strange thing happened. Even as Taug looked at Goro, he saw a portion of one edge disappear, precisely as though something was gnawing upon it.

Larger and larger became the hole in the side of Goro.

With a scream, Taug leaped to his feet. His frenzied “Kreegahs!” brought the terrified tribe screaming and chattering toward him.

 

“Look!” cried Taug, pointing at the moon. “Look! It is as Tarzan said. Numa has sprung through the fires and is devouring Goro. You called Tarzan names and drove him from the tribe; now see how wise he was.

Let one of you who hated Tarzan go to Goro’s aid.

See the eyes in the dark jungle all about Goro. He is in danger and none can help him—none except Tarzan.

Soon Goro will be devoured by Numa and we shall have no more light after Kudu seeks his lair. How shall we dance the Dum-Dum without the light of Goro?”

 

The apes trembled and whimpered. Any manifestation of the powers of nature always filled them with terror, for they could not understand.

 

“Go and bring Tarzan,” cried one, and then they all took up the cry of “Tarzan!” “Bring Tarzan!” “He will save Goro.”

But who was to travel the dark jungle by night to fetch him?

 

“I will go,” volunteered Taug, and an instant later he was off through the Stygian gloom toward the little landlocked harbor by the sea.

 

And as the tribe waited they watched the slow devouring of the moon. Already Numa had eaten out a great semicircular piece. At that rate Goro would be entirely gone before Kudu came again. The apes trembled at the thought of perpetual darkness by night. They could not sleep.

Restlessly they moved here and there among the branches of trees, watching Numa of the skies at his deadly feast, and listening for the coming of Taug with Tarzan.

 

Goro was nearly gone when the apes heard the sounds of the approach through the trees of the two they awaited, and presently Tarzan, followed by Taug, swung into a nearby tree.

 

The ape-man wasted no time in idle words. In his hand was his long bow and at his back hung a quiver full of arrows, poisoned arrows that he had stolen from the village of the blacks; just as he had stolen the bow. Up into a great tree he clambered, higher and higher until he stood swaying upon a small limb which bent low beneath his weight.

Here he had a clear and unobstructed view of the heavens.

He saw Goro and the inroads which the hungry Numa had made into his shining surface.

 

Raising his face to the moon, Tarzan shrilled forth his hideous challenge. Faintly and from afar came the roar of an answering lion. The apes shivered.

Numa of the skies had answered Tarzan.

 

Then the ape-man fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing the shaft far back, aimed its point at the heart of Numa where he lay in the heavens devouring Goro. There was a loud twang as the released bolt shot into the dark heavens.

Again and again did Tarzan of the Apes launch his arrows at Numa, and all the while the apes of the tribe of Kerchak huddled together in terror.

 

At last came a cry from Taug. “Look! Look!” he screamed.

“Numa is killed. Tarzan has killed Numa. See! Goro is emerging from the belly of Numa,” and, sure enough, the moon was gradually emerging from whatever had devoured her, whether it was Numa, the lion, or the shadow of the earth; but were you to try to convince an ape of the tribe of Kerchak that it was aught but Numa who so nearly devoured Goro that night, or that another than Tarzan preserved the brilliant god of their savage and mysterious rites from a frightful death, you would have difficulty—and a fight on your hands.

 

And so Tarzan of the Apes came back to the tribe of Kerchak, and in his coming he took a long stride toward the kingship, which he ultimately won, for now the apes looked up to him as a superior being.

 

In all the tribe there was but one who was at all skeptical about the plausibility of Tarzan’s remarkable rescue of Goro, and that one, strange as it may seem, was Tarzan of the Apes.