As the little expedition of
sailors toiled through the dense
jungle searching for signs of
Jane Porter, the futility of
their venture became more and
more apparent, but the grief
of the old man and the hopeless
eyes of the young Englishman
prevented the kind hearted D'Arnot
from turning back.
He thought that there might
be a bare possibility of finding
her body, or the remains of it,
for he was positive that she
had been devoured by some beast
of prey. He deployed his men
into a skirmish line from the
point where Esmeralda had been
found, and in this extended formation
they pushed their way, sweating
and panting, through the tangled
vines and creepers. It was slow
work. Noon found them but a few
miles inland. They halted for
a brief rest then, and after
pushing on for a short distance
further one of the men discovered
a well-marked trail.
It was an old elephant track,
and D'Arnot after consulting
with Professor Porter and Clayton
decided to follow it.
The path wound through the
jungle in a northeasterly direction,
and along it the column moved
in single file.
Lieutenant D'Arnot was in the
lead and moving at a quick pace,
for the trail was comparatively
open. Immediately behind him
came Professor Porter, but as
he could not keep pace with the
younger man D'Arnot was a hundred
yards in advance when suddenly
a half dozen black warriors arose
about him.
D'Arnot gave a warning shout
to his column as the blacks closed
on him, but before he could draw
his revolver he had been pinioned
and dragged into the jungle.
His cry had alarmed the sailors
and a dozen of them sprang forward
past Professor Porter, running
up the trail to their officer's
aid.
They did not know the cause
of his outcry, only that it was
a warning of danger ahead. They
had rushed past the spot where
D'Arnot had been seized when
a spear hurled from the jungle
transfixed one of the men, and
then a volley of arrows fell
among them.
Raising their rifles they fired
into the underbrush in the direction
from which the missiles had come.
By this time the balance of
the party had come up, and volley
after volley was fired toward
the concealed foe. It was these
shots that Tarzan and Jane Porter
had heard.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who
had been bringing up the rear
of the column, now came running
to the scene, and on hearing
the details of the ambush ordered
the men to follow him, and plunged
into the tangled vegetation.
In an instant they were in
a hand-to-hand fight with some
fifty black warriors of Mbonga's
village. Arrows and bullets flew
thick and fast.
Queer African knives and French
gun butts mingled for a moment
in savage and bloody duels, but
soon the natives fled into the
jungle, leaving the Frenchmen
to count their losses.
Four of the twenty were dead,
a dozen others were wounded,
and Lieutenant D'Arnot was missing.
Night was falling rapidly, and
their predicament was rendered
doubly worse when they could
not even find the elephant trail
which they had been following.
There was but one thing to
do, make camp where they were
until daylight. Lieutenant Charpentier
ordered a clearing made and a
circular abatis of underbrush
constructed about the camp.
This work was not completed
until long after dark, the men
building a huge fire in the center
of the clearing to give them
light to work by.
When all was safe as possible
against attack of wild beasts
and savage men, Lieutenant Charpentier
placed sentries about the little
camp and the tired and hungry
men threw themselves upon the
ground to sleep.
The groans of the wounded,
mingled with the roaring and
growling of the great beasts
which the noise and firelight
had attracted, kept sleep, except
in its most fitful form, from
the tired eyes. It was a sad
and hungry party that lay through
the long night praying for dawn.
The blacks who had seized D'Arnot
had not waited to participate
in the fight which followed,
but instead had dragged their
prisoner a little way through
the jungle and then struck the
trail further on beyond the scene
of the fighting in which their
fellows were engaged.
They hurried him along, the
sounds of battle growing fainter
and fainter as they drew away
from the contestants until there
suddenly broke upon D'Arnot's
vision a good-sized clearing
at one end of which stood a thatched
and palisaded village.
It was now dusk, but the watchers
at the gate saw the approaching
trio and distinguished one as
a prisoner ere they reached the
portals.
A cry went up within the palisade.
A great throng of women and children
rushed out to meet the party.
And then began for the French
officer the most terrifying experience
which man can encounter upon
earth--the reception of a white
prisoner into a village of African
cannibals.
To add to the fiendishness
of their cruel savagery was the
poignant memory of still crueler
barbarities practiced upon them
and theirs by the white officers
of that arch hypocrite, Leopold
II of Belgium, because of whose
atrocities they had fled the
Congo Free State--a pitiful remnant
of what once had been a mighty
tribe.
They fell upon D'Arnot tooth
and nail, beating him with sticks
and stones and tearing at him
with claw-like hands. Every vestige
of clothing was torn from him,
and the merciless blows fell
upon his bare and quivering flesh.
But not once did the Frenchman
cry out in pain. He breathed
a silent prayer that he be quickly
delivered from his torture.
But the death he prayed for
was not to be so easily had.
Soon the warriors beat the women
away from their prisoner. He
was to be saved for nobler sport
than this, and the first wave
of their passion having subsided
they contented themselves with
crying out taunts and insults
and spitting upon him.
Presently they reached the
center of the village. There
D'Arnot was bound securely to
the great post from which no
live man had ever been released.
A number of the women scattered
to their several huts to fetch
pots and water, while others
built a row of fires on which
portions of the feast were to
be boiled while the balance would
be slowly dried in strips for
future use, as they expected
the other warriors to return
with many prisoners. The festivities
were delayed awaiting the return
of the warriors who had remained
to engage in the skirmish with
the white men, so that it was
quite late when all were in the
village, and the dance of death
commenced to circle around the
doomed officer.
Half fainting from pain and
exhaustion, D'Arnot watched from
beneath half-closed lids what
seemed but the vagary of delirium,
or some horrid nightmare from
which he must soon awake.
The bestial faces, daubed with
color--the huge mouths and flabby
hanging lips--the yellow teeth,
sharp filed--the rolling, demon
eyes--the shining naked bodies--the
cruel spears. Surely no such
creatures really existed upon
earth--he must indeed be dreaming.
The savage, whirling bodies
circled nearer. Now a spear sprang
forth and touched his arm. The
sharp pain and the feel of hot,
trickling blood assured him of
the awful reality of his hopeless
position.
Another spear and then another
touched him. He closed his eyes
and held his teeth firm set--he
would not cry out.
He was a soldier of France,
and he would teach these beasts
how an officer and a gentleman
died.
Tarzan of the Apes needed no
interpreter to translate the
story of those distant shots.
With Jane Porter's kisses still
warm upon his lips he was swinging
with incredible rapidity through
the forest trees straight toward
the village of Mbonga.
He was not interested in the
location of the encounter, for
he judged that that would soon
be over. Those who were killed
he could not aid, those who escaped
would not need his assistance.
It was to those who had neither
been killed or escaped that he
hastened. And he knew that he
would find them by the great
post in the center of Mbonga
village.
Many times had Tarzan seen
Mbonga's black raiding parties
return from the northward with
prisoners, and always were the
same scenes enacted about that
grim stake, beneath the flaring
light of many fires.
He knew, too, that they seldom
lost much time before consummating
the fiendish purpose of their
captures. He doubted that he
would arrive in time to do more
than avenge.
On he sped. Night had fallen
and he traveled high along the
upper terrace where the gorgeous
tropic moon lighted the dizzy
pathway through the gently undulating
branches of the tree tops.
Presently he caught the reflection
of a distant blaze. It lay to
the right of his path. It must
be the light from the camp fire
the two men had built before
they were attacked--Tarzan knew
nothing of the presence of the
sailors.
So sure was Tarzan of his jungle
knowledge that he did not turn
from his course, but passed the
glare at a distance of a half
mile. It was the camp fire of
the Frenchmen.
In a few minutes more Tarzan
swung into the trees above Mbonga's
village. Ah, he was not quite
too late! Or, was he? He could
not tell. The figure at the stake
was very still, yet the black
warriors were but pricking it.
Tarzan knew their customs.
The death blow had not been struck.
He could tell almost to a minute
how far the dance had gone.
In another instant Mbonga's
knife would sever one of the
victim's ears--that would mark
the beginning of the end, for
very shortly after only a writhing
mass of mutilated flesh would
remain.
There would still be life in
it, but death then would be the
only charity it craved.
The stake stood forty feet
from the nearest tree. Tarzan
coiled his rope. Then there rose
suddenly above the fiendish cries
of the dancing demons the awful
challenge of the ape-man.
The dancers halted as though
turned to stone.
The rope sped with singing
whir high above the heads of
the blacks. It was quite invisible
in the flaring lights of the
camp fires.
D'Arnot opened his eyes. A
huge black, standing directly
before him, lunged backward as
though felled by an invisible
hand.
Struggling and shrieking, his
body, rolling from side to side,
moved quickly toward the shadows
beneath the trees.
The blacks, their eyes protruding
in horror, watched spellbound.
Once beneath the trees, the
body rose straight into the air,
and as it disappeared into the
foliage above, the terrified
negroes, screaming with fright,
broke into a mad race for the
village gate.
D'Arnot was left alone.
He was a brave man, but he
had felt the short hairs bristle
upon the nape of his neck when
that uncanny cry rose upon the
air.
As the writhing body of the
black soared, as though by unearthly
power, into the dense foliage
of the forest, D'Arnot felt an
icy shiver run along his spine,
as though death had risen from
a dark grave and laid a cold
and clammy finger on his flesh.
As D'Arnot watched the spot
where the body had entered the
tree he heard the sounds of movement
there.
The branches swayed as though
under the weight of a man's body--there
was a crash and the black came
sprawling to earth again,--to
lie very quietly where he had
fallen.
Immediately after him came
a white body, but this one alighted
erect.
D'Arnot saw a clean-limbed
young giant emerge from the shadows
into the firelight and come quickly
toward him.
What could it mean? Who could
it be? Some new creature of torture
and destruction, doubtless.
D'Arnot waited. His eyes never
left the face of the advancing
man. Nor did the other's frank,
clear eyes waver beneath D'Arnot's
fixed gaze.
D'Arnot was reassured, but
still without much hope, though
he felt that that face could
not mask a cruel heart.
Without a word Tarzan of the
Apes cut the bonds which held
the Frenchman. Weak from suffering
and loss of blood, he would have
fallen but for the strong arm
that caught him.
He felt himself lifted from
the ground. There was a sensation
as of flying, and then he lost
consciousness.
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