Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (top 10 novels of all time TXT) 📗

With the report of his gun D’Arnot saw the door fly open and the figure of a man pitch headlong within onto the cabin floor.

The Frenchman in his panic raised his gun to fire again into the prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the open door he saw that the man was white and in another instant realized that he had shot his friend and protector, Tarzan of the Apes.

With a cry of anguish D’Arnot sprang to the ape-man’s side, and kneeling, lifted the latter’s head in his arms—calling Tarzan’s name aloud.

There was no response, and then D’Arnot placed his ear above the man’s heart. To his joy he heard its steady beating beneath.

Carefully he lifted Tarzan to the cot, and then, after closing and bolting the door, he lighted one of the lamps and examined the wound.

The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull. There was an ugly flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of the skull.

D’Arnot breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing the blood from Tarzan’s face.

Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened his eyes to look in questioning surprise at D’Arnot.

The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and as he saw that Tarzan had regained consciousness he arose and going to the table wrote a message, which he handed to the ape-man, explaining the terrible mistake he had made and how thankful he was that the wound was not more serious.

Tarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the couch and laughed.

“It is nothing,” he said in French, and then, his vocabulary failing him, he wrote:

You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Kerchak, and Terkoz, before I killed them—then you would laugh at such a little scratch.

D’Arnot handed Tarzan the two messages that had been left for him.

Tarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on his face. The second one he turned over and over, searching for an opening—he had never seen a sealed envelope before. At length he handed it to D’Arnot.

The Frenchman had been watching him, and knew that Tarzan was puzzled over the envelope. How strange it seemed that to a full-grown white man an envelope was a mystery. D’Arnot opened it and handed the letter back to Tarzan.

Sitting on a camp stool the ape-man spread the written sheet before him and read:

TO TARZAN OF THE APES:

Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Mr. Clayton for the kindness you have shown in permitting us the use of your cabin.

That you never came to make friends with us has been a great regret to us. We should have liked so much to have seen and thanked our host.

There is another I should like to thank also, but he did not come back, though I cannot believe that he is dead.

I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who wore the diamond locket upon his breast.

If you know him and can speak his language carry my thanks to him, and tell him that I waited seven days for him to return.

Tell him, also, that in my home in America, in the city of Baltimore, there will always be a welcome for him if he cares to come.

I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath a tree near the cabin. I do not know how you learned to love me, who have never spoken to me, and I am very sorry if it is true, for I have already given my heart to another.

But know that I am always your friend,
JANE PORTER.

Tarzan sat with gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an hour. It was evident to him from the notes that they did not know that he and Tarzan of the Apes were one and the same.

“I have given my heart to another,” he repeated over and over again to himself.

Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended love, and raised him to such a pinnacle of hope only to cast him down to such utter depths of despair!

Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did he know, who knew nothing of the customs of human beings?

Suddenly he arose, and, bidding D’Arnot good night as he had learned to do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that had been Jane Porter’s.

D’Arnot extinguished the lamp, and lay down upon the cot.

For a week they did little but rest, D’Arnot coaching Tarzan in French. At the end of that time the two men could converse quite easily.

One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before retiring, Tarzan turned to D’Arnot.

“Where is America?” he said.

D’Arnot pointed toward the northwest.

“Many thousands of miles across the ocean,” he replied. “Why?”

“I am going there.”

D’Arnot shook his head.

“It is impossible, my friend,” he said.

Tarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned with a well-thumbed geography.

Turning to a map of the world, he said:

“I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please.”

When D’Arnot had done so, showing him that the blue represented all the water on the earth, and the bits of other colors the continents and islands, Tarzan asked him to point out the spot where they now were.

D’Arnot did so.

“Now point out America,” said Tarzan.

And as D’Arnot placed his finger upon North America, Tarzan smiled and laid his palm upon the page, spanning the great ocean that lay between the two continents.

“You see it is not so very far,” he said; “scarce the width of my hand.”

D’Arnot laughed. How could he make the man understand?

Then he took a pencil and made a tiny point upon the shore of Africa.

“This little mark,” he said, “is many times larger upon this map than your cabin is upon the earth. Do you see now how very far it is?”

Tarzan thought for a long time.

“Do any white men live in Africa?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Where are the nearest?”

D’Arnot pointed out a spot on the shore just north of them.

“So close?” asked Tarzan, in surprise.

“Yes,” said D’Arnot; “but it is not close.”

“Have they big boats to cross the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“We shall go there to-morrow,” announced Tarzan.

Again D’Arnot smiled and shook his head.

“It is too far. We should die long before we reached them.”

“Do you wish to stay here then forever?” asked Tarzan.

“No,” said D’Arnot.

“Then we shall start to-morrow. I do not like it here longer. I should rather die than remain here.”

“Well,” answered D’Arnot, with a shrug, “I do not know, my friend, but that I also would rather die than remain here. If you go, I shall go with you.”

“It is settled then,” said Tarzan. “I shall start for America to-morrow.”

“How will you get to America without money?” asked D’Arnot.

“What is money?” inquired Tarzan.

It took a long time to make him understand even imperfectly.

“How do men get money?” he asked at last.

“They work for it.”

“Very well. I will work for it, then.”

“No, my friend,” returned D’Arnot, “you need not worry about money, nor need you work for it. I have enough money for two—enough for twenty. Much more than is good for one man and you shall have all you need if ever we reach civilization.”

So on the following day they started north along the shore. Each man carrying a rifle and ammunition, beside bedding and some food and cooking utensils.

The latter seemed to Tarzan a most useless encumbrance, so he threw his away.

“But you must learn to eat cooked food, my friend,” remonstrated D’Arnot. “No civilized men eat raw flesh.”

“There will be time enough when I reach civilization,” said Tarzan. “I do not like the things and they only spoil the taste of good meat.”

For a month they traveled north. Sometimes finding food in plenty and again going hungry for days.

They saw no signs of natives nor were they molested by wild beasts. Their journey was a miracle of ease.

Tarzan asked questions and learned rapidly. D’Arnot taught him many of the refinements of civilization—even to the use of knife and fork; but sometimes Tarzan would drop them in disgust and grasp his food in his strong brown hands, tearing it with his molars like a wild beast.

Then D’Arnot would expostulate with him, saying:

“You must not eat like a brute, Tarzan, while I am trying to make a gentleman of you. Mon Dieu! Gentlemen do not thus—it is terrible.”

Tarzan would grin sheepishly and pick up his knife and fork again, but at heart he hated them.

On the journey he told D’Arnot about the great chest he had seen the sailors bury; of how he had dug it up and carried it to the gathering place of the apes and buried it there.

“It must be the treasure chest of Professor Porter,” said D’Arnot. “It is too bad, but of course you did not know.”

Then Tarzan recalled the letter written by Jane to her friend—the one he had stolen when they first came to his cabin, and now he knew what was in the chest and what it meant to Jane.

“To-morrow we shall go back after it,” he announced to D’Arnot.

“Go back?” exclaimed D’Arnot. “But, my dear fellow, we have now been three weeks upon the march. It would require three more to return to the treasure, and then, with that enormous weight which required, you say, four sailors to carry, it would be months before we had again reached this spot.”

“It must be done, my friend,” insisted Tarzan. “You may go on toward civilization, and I will return for the treasure. I can go very much faster alone.”

“I have a better plan, Tarzan,” exclaimed D’Arnot. “We shall go on together to the nearest settlement, and there we will charter a boat and sail back down the coast for the treasure and so transport it easily. That will be safer and quicker and also not require us to be separated. What do you think of that plan?”

“Very well,” said Tarzan. “The treasure will be there whenever we go for it; and while I could fetch it now, and catch up with you in a moon or two, I shall feel safer for you to know that you are not alone on the trail. When I see how helpless you are, D’Arnot, I often wonder how the human race has escaped annihilation all these ages which you tell me about. Why, Sabor, single handed, could exterminate a thousand of you.”

D’Arnot laughed.

“You will think more highly of your genus when you have seen its armies and navies, its great cities, and its mighty engineering works. Then you will realize that it is mind, and not muscle, that makes the human animal greater than the mighty beasts of your jungle.

“Alone and unarmed, a single man is no match for any of the larger beasts; but if ten men were together, they would combine their wits and their muscles against their savage enemies, while the beasts, being unable to reason, would never think of combining against the men. Otherwise, Tarzan of the Apes, how long would you have lasted in the savage wilderness?”

“You are right, D’Arnot,” replied Tarzan, “for if Kerchak had come to Tublat’s aid that night at the Dum-Dum, there would have been an end of me. But Kerchak could never think far enough ahead to take advantage of any such opportunity. Even Kala, my mother, could never plan ahead. She simply ate what she needed when she needed it, and if the supply was very scarce, even though she found plenty for several meals, she would never gather any ahead.

“I remember that she used to think it very silly of me to burden myself with extra food upon the march, though she was quite glad to eat it with me, if the way chanced to be barren of sustenance.”

“Then you knew your mother, Tarzan?” asked D’Arnot, in surprise.

“Yes. She was a great, fine ape, larger than I, and weighing twice as much.”

“And your father?” asked D’Arnot.

“I did not know him. Kala told me he was a white ape, and hairless like myself. I know now that he must have been a white man.”

D’Arnot looked long and earnestly at his companion.

“Tarzan,” he said at length, “it is impossible that the ape, Kala, was your mother. If such a thing can be, which I doubt, you would have inherited some of the characteristics of the