III. — THE FIGHT
FOR THE BALU
Teeka had become a mother. Tarzan of the Apes was intensely
interested, much more so, in fact, than Taug, the father. Tarzan was very fond
of Teeka. Even the cares of prospective motherhood had not entirely quenched
the fires of carefree youth, and Teeka had remained a good-natured playmate
even at an age when other shes of the tribe of Kerchak had assumed the sullen
dignity of maturity. She yet retained her childish delight in the primitive
games of tag and hide-and-go-seek which Tarzan's fertile man-mind had evolved.
To play tag through the tree tops is
an exciting and inspiring pastime. Tarzan delighted in it, but the bulls of his
childhood had long since abandoned such childish practices. Teeka, though, had
been keen for it always until shortly before the baby came; but with the advent
of her first-born, even Teeka changed.
The evidence of the change surprised
and hurt Tarzan immeasurably. One morning he saw Teeka squatted upon a low
branch hugging something very close to her hairy breast—a wee something which
squirmed and wriggled. Tarzan approached filled with the curiosity which is
common to all creatures endowed with brains which have progressed beyond the
microscopic stage.
Teeka rolled her eyes in his
direction and strained the squirming mite still closer to her. Tarzan came
nearer. Teeka drew away and bared her fangs. Tarzan was nonplussed. In all his
experiences with Teeka, never before had she bared fangs at him other than in
play; but today she did not look playful. Tarzan ran his brown fingers through
his thick, black hair, cocked his head upon one side, and stared. Then he edged
a bit nearer, craning his neck to have a better look at the thing which Teeka
cuddled.
Again Teeka drew back her upper lip
in a warning snarl. Tarzan reached forth a hand, cautiously, to touch the thing
which Teeka held, and Teeka, with a hideous growl, turned suddenly upon him.
Her teeth sank into the flesh of his forearm before the ape-man could snatch it
away, and she pursued him for a short distance as he retreated incontinently
through the trees; but Teeka, carrying her baby, could not overtake him. At a
safe distance Tarzan stopped and turned to regard his erstwhile play-fellow in
unconcealed astonishment. What had happened to so alter the gentle Teeka? She
had so covered the thing in her arms that Tarzan had not yet been able to
recognize it for what it was; but now, as she turned from the pursuit of him,
he saw it. Through his pain and chagrin he smiled, for Tarzan had seen young
ape mothers before. In a few days she would be less suspicious. Still Tarzan
was hurt; it was not right that Teeka, of all others, should fear him. Why, not
for the world would he harm her, or her balu, which is the ape word for baby.
And now, above the pain of his
injured arm and the hurt to his pride, rose a still stronger desire to come
close and inspect the new-born son of Taug. Possibly you will wonder that
Tarzan of the Apes, mighty fighter that he was, should have fled before the
irritable attack of a she, or that he should hesitate to return for the
satisfaction of his curiosity when with ease he might have vanquished the
weakened mother of the new-born cub; but you need not wonder. Were you an ape,
you would know that only a bull in the throes of madness will turn upon a
female other than to gently chastise her, with the occasional exception of the
individual whom we find exemplified among our own kind, and who delights in
beating up his better half because she happens to be smaller and weaker than
he.
Tarzan again came toward the young
mother—warily and with his line of retreat safely open. Again Teeka growled
ferociously. Tarzan expostulated.
"Tarzan of the Apes will not
harm Teeka's balu," he said. "Let me see it."
"Go away!" commanded
Teeka. "Go away, or I will kill you."
"Let me see it," urged
Tarzan.
"Go away," reiterated the
she-ape. "Here comes Taug. He will make you go away. Taug will kill you.
This is Taug's balu."
A savage growl close behind him
apprised Tarzan of the nearness of Taug, and the fact that the bull had heard
the warnings and threats of his mate and was coming to her succor.
Now Taug, as well as Teeka, had been
Tarzan's play-fellow while the bull was still young enough to wish to play.
Once Tarzan had saved Taug's life; but the memory of an ape is not overlong,
nor would gratitude rise above the parental instinct. Tarzan and Taug had once
measured strength, and Tarzan had been victorious. That fact Taug could be
depended upon still to remember; but even so, he might readily face another
defeat for his first-born—if he chanced to be in the proper mood.
From his hideous growls, which now
rose in strength and volume, he seemed to be in quite the mood. Now Tarzan felt
no fear of Taug, nor did the unwritten law of the jungle demand that he should
flee from battle with any male, unless he cared to from purely personal
reasons. But Tarzan liked Taug. He had no grudge against him, and his man-mind
told him what the mind of an ape would never have deduced—that Taug's attitude
in no sense indicated hatred. It was but the instinctive urge of the male to
protect its offspring and its mate.
Tarzan had no desire to battle with
Taug, nor did the blood of his English ancestors relish the thought of flight,
yet when the bull charged, Tarzan leaped nimbly to one side, and thus
encouraged, Taug wheeled and rushed again madly to the attack. Perhaps the
memory of a past defeat at Tarzan's hands goaded him. Perhaps the fact that
Teeka sat there watching him aroused a desire to vanquish the ape-man before
her eyes, for in the breast of every jungle male lurks a vast egotism which
finds expression in the performance of deeds of derring-do before an audience
of the opposite sex.
At the ape-man's side swung his long
grass rope—the play-thing of yesterday, the weapon of today—and as Taug charged
the second time, Tarzan slipped the coils over his head and deftly shook out
the sliding noose as he again nimbly eluded the ungainly beast. Before the ape
could turn again, Tarzan had fled far aloft among the branches of the upper
terrace.
Taug, now wrought to a frenzy of
real rage, followed him. Teeka peered upward at them. It was difficult to say
whether she was interested. Taug could not climb as rapidly as Tarzan, so the
latter reached the high levels to which the heavy ape dared not follow before
the former overtook him. There he halted and looked down upon his pursuer,
making faces at him and calling him such choice names as occurred to the
fertile man-brain. Then, when he had worked Taug to such a pitch of foaming
rage that the great bull fairly danced upon the bending limb beneath him,
Tarzan's hand shot suddenly outward, a widening noose dropped swiftly through
the air, there was a quick jerk as it settled about Taug, falling to his knees,
a jerk that tightened it securely about the hairy legs of the anthropoid.
Taug, slow of wit, realized too late
the intention of his tormentor. He scrambled to escape, but the ape-man gave
the rope a tremendous jerk that pulled Taug from his perch, and a moment later,
growling hideously, the ape hung head downward thirty feet above the ground.
Tarzan secured the rope to a stout
limb and descended to a point close to Taug.
"Taug," he said, "you
are as stupid as Buto, the rhinoceros. Now you may hang here until you get a
little sense in your thick head. You may hang here and watch while I go and
talk with Teeka."
Taug blustered and threatened, but
Tarzan only grinned at him as he dropped lightly to the lower levels. Here he
again approached Teeka only to be again greeted with bared fangs and menacing
growls. He sought to placate her; he urged his friendly intentions, and craned
his neck to have a look at Teeka's balu; but the she-ape was not to be
persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one. Her motherhood was
still so new that reason was yet subservient to instinct.
Realizing the futility of attempting
to catch and chastise Tarzan, Teeka sought to escape him. She dropped to the
ground and lumbered across the little clearing about which the apes of the
tribe were disposed in rest or in the search of food, and presently Tarzan
abandoned his attempts to persuade her to permit a close examination of the
balu. The ape-man would have liked to handle the tiny thing. The very sight of
it awakened in his breast a strange yearning. He wished to cuddle and fondle
the grotesque little ape-thing. It was Teeka's balu and Tarzan had once
lavished his young affections upon Teeka.
But now his attention was diverted
by the voice of Taug. The threats that had filled the ape's mouth had turned to
pleas. The tightening noose was stopping the circulation of the blood in his
legs—he was beginning to suffer. Several apes sat near him highly interested in
his predicament. They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each of them
had felt the weight of Taug's mighty hands and the strength of his great jaws. They
were enjoying revenge.
Teeka, seeing that Tarzan had turned
back toward the trees, had halted in the center of the clearing, and there she
sat hugging her balu and casting suspicious glances here and there. With the
coming of the balu, Teeka's care-free world had suddenly become peopled with
innumerable enemies. She saw an implacable foe in Tarzan, always heretofore her
best friend. Even poor old Mumga, half blind and almost entirely toothless,
searching patiently for grubworms beneath a fallen log, represented to her a
malignant spirit thirsting for the blood of little balus.
And while Teeka guarded suspiciously
against harm, where there was no harm, she failed to note two baleful,
yellow-green eyes staring fixedly at her from behind a clump of bushes at the
opposite side of the clearing.
Hollow from hunger, Sheeta, the
panther, glared greedily at the tempting meat so close at hand, but the sight
of the great bulls beyond gave him pause.
Ah, if the she-ape with her balu
would but come just a trifle nearer! A quick spring and he would be upon them
and away again with his meat before the bulls could prevent.
The tip of his tawny tail moved in
spasmodic little jerks; his lower jaw hung low, exposing a red tongue and
yellow fangs. But all this Teeka did not see, nor did any other of the apes who
were feeding or resting about her. Nor did Tarzan or the apes in the trees.
Hearing the abuse which the bulls
were pouring upon the helpless Taug, Tarzan clambered quickly among them. One
was edging closer and leaning far out in an effort to reach the dangling ape.
He had worked himself into quite a fury through recollection of the last
occasion upon which Taug had mauled him, and now he was bent upon revenge. Once
he had grasped the swinging ape, he would quickly have drawn him within reach
of his jaws. Tarzan saw and was wroth. He loved a fair fight, but the thing
which this ape contemplated revolted him. Already a hairy hand had clutched the
helpless Taug when, with an angry growl of protest, Tarzan leaped to the branch
at the attacking ape's side, and with a single mighty cuff, swept him from his
perch.
Surprised and enraged, the bull
clutched madly for support as he toppled sidewise, and then with an agile
movement succeeded in projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below.
Here he found a hand-hold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered
upward to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was otherwise engaged and
did not wish to be interrupted. He was explaining again to Taug the depths of
the latter's abysmal ignorance, and pointing out how much greater and mightier
was Tarzan of the Apes than Taug or any other ape.
In the end he would release Taug,
but not until Taug was fully acquainted with his own inferiority. And then the
maddened bull came from beneath, and instantly Tarzan was transformed from a
good-natured, teasing youth into a snarling, savage beast. Along his scalp the
hair bristled: his upper lip drew back that his fighting fangs might be
uncovered and ready. He did not wait for the bull to reach him, for something
in the appearance or the voice of the attacker aroused within the ape-man a feeling
of belligerent antagonism that would not be denied. With a scream that carried
no human note, Tarzan leaped straight at the throat of the attacker.
The impetuosity of this act and the
weight and momentum of his body carried the bull backward, clutching and
clawing for support, down through the leafy branches of the tree. For fifteen
feet the two fell, Tarzan's teeth buried in the jugular of his opponent, when a
stout branch stopped their descent. The bull struck full upon the small of his
back across the limb, hung there for a moment with the ape-man still upon his
breast, and then toppled over toward the ground.
Tarzan had felt the instantaneous
relaxation of the body beneath him after the heavy impact with the tree limb,
and as the other turned completely over and started again upon its fall toward
the ground, he reached forth a hand and caught the branch in time to stay his
own descent, while the ape dropped like a plummet to the foot of the tree.
Tarzan looked downward for a moment
upon the still form of his late antagonist, then he rose to his full height,
swelled his deep chest, smote upon it with his clenched fist and roared out the
uncanny challenge of the victorious bull ape.
Even Sheeta, the panther, crouched
for a spring at the edge of the little clearing, moved uneasily as the mighty
voice sent its weird cry reverberating through the jungle. To right and left,
nervously, glanced Sheeta, as though assuring himself that the way of escape
lay ready at hand.
"I am Tarzan of the Apes,"
boasted the ape-man; "mighty hunter, mighty fighter! None in all the
jungle so great as Tarzan."
Then he made his way back in the
direction of Taug. Teeka had watched the happenings in the tree. She had even
placed her precious balu upon the soft grasses and come a little nearer that
she might better witness all that was passing in the branches above her. In her
heart of hearts did she still esteem the smooth-skinned Tarzan? Did her savage
breast swell with pride as she witnessed his victory over the ape? You will have
to ask Teeka.
And Sheeta, the panther, saw that
the she-ape had left her cub alone among the grasses. He moved his tail again,
as though this closest approximation of lashing in which he dared indulge might
stimulate his momentarily waned courage. The cry of the victorious ape-man
still held his nerves beneath its spell. It would be several minutes before he
again could bring himself to the point of charging into view of the giant
anthropoids.
And as he regathered his forces,
Tarzan reached Taug's side, and then clambering higher up to the point where
the end of the grass rope was made fast, he unloosed it and lowered the ape
slowly downward, swinging him in until the clutching hands fastened upon a
limb.
Quickly Taug drew himself to a
position of safety and shook off the noose. In his rage-maddened heart was no
room for gratitude to the ape-man. He recalled only the fact that Tarzan had
laid this painful indignity upon him. He would be revenged, but just at present
his legs were so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone the
gratification of his vengeance.
Tarzan was coiling his rope the
while he lectured Taug on the futility of pitting his poor powers, physical and
intellectual, against those of his betters. Teeka had come close beneath the tree
and was peering upward. Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his
belly close to the ground. In another moment he would be clear of the
underbrush and ready for the rapid charge and the quick retreat that would end
the brief existence of Teeka's balu.
Then Tarzan chanced to look up and
across the clearing. Instantly his attitude of good-natured bantering and
pompous boastfulness dropped from him. Silently and swiftly he shot downward
toward the ground. Teeka, seeing him coming, and thinking that he was after her
or her balu, bristled and prepared to fight. But Tarzan sped by her, and as he
went, her eyes followed him and she saw the cause of his sudden descent and his
rapid charge across the clearing. There in full sight now was Sheeta, the panther,
stalking slowly toward the tiny, wriggling balu which lay among the grasses
many yards away.
Teeka gave voice to a shrill scream
of terror and of warning as she dashed after the ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan
coming. He saw the she-ape's cub before him, and he thought that this other was
bent upon robbing him of his prey. With an angry growl, he charged.
Taug, warned by Teeka's cry, came
lumbering down to her assistance. Several other bulls, growling and barking,
closed in toward the clearing, but they were all much farther from the balu and
the panther than was Tarzan of the Apes, so it was that Sheeta and the ape-man
reached Teeka's little one almost simultaneously; and there they stood, one
upon either side of it, baring their fangs and snarling at each other over the
little creature.
Sheeta was afraid to seize the balu,
for thus he would give the ape-man an opening for attack; and for the same
reason Tarzan hesitated to snatch the panther's prey out of harm's way, for had
he stooped to accomplish this, the great beast would have been upon him in an
instant. Thus they stood while Teeka came across the clearing, going more
slowly as she neared the panther, for even her mother love could scarce
overcome her instinctive terror of this natural enemy of her kind.
Behind her came Taug, warily and
with many pauses and much bluster, and still behind him came other bulls,
snarling ferociously and uttering their uncanny challenges. Sheeta's
yellow-green eyes glared terribly at Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief
glances at the apes of Kerchak advancing upon him. Discretion prompted him to
turn and flee, but hunger and the close proximity of the tempting morsel in the
grass before him urged him to remain. He reached forth a paw toward Teeka's
balu, and as he did so, with a savage guttural, Tarzan of the Apes was upon
him.
The panther reared to meet the ape-man's
attack. He swung a frightful raking blow for Tarzan that would have wiped his
face away had it landed, but it did not land, for Tarzan ducked beneath it and
closed, his long knife ready in one strong hand—the knife of his dead father,
of the father he never had known.
Instantly the balu was forgotten by
Sheeta, the panther. He now thought only of tearing to ribbons with his
powerful talons the flesh of his antagonist, of burying his long, yellow fangs
in the soft, smooth hide of the ape-man, but Tarzan had fought before with
clawed creatures of the jungle. Before now he had battled with fanged monsters,
nor always had he come away unscathed. He knew the risk that he ran, but Tarzan
of the Apes, inured to the sight of suffering and death, shrank from neither,
for he feared neither.
The instant that he dodged beneath
Sheeta's blow, he leaped to the beast's rear and then full upon the tawny back,
burying his teeth in Sheeta's neck and the fingers of one hand in the fur at
the throat, and with the other hand he drove his blade into Sheeta's side.
Over and over upon the grass rolled
Sheeta, growling and screaming, clawing and biting, in a mad effort to dislodge
his antagonist or get some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons.
As Tarzan leaped to close quarters
with the panther, Teeka had run quickly in and snatched up her balu. Now she
sat upon a high branch, safe out of harm's way, cuddling the little thing close
to her hairy breast, the while her savage little eyes bored down upon the contestants
in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged Taug and the other bulls to leap
into the melee.
Thus goaded the bulls came closer,
redoubling their hideous clamor; but Sheeta was already sufficiently engaged—he
did not even hear them. Once he succeeded in partially dislodging the ape-man
from his back, so that Tarzan swung for an instant in front of those awful
talons, and in the brief instant before he could regain his former hold, a
raking blow from a hind paw laid open one leg from hip to knee.
It was the sight and smell of this
blood, possibly, which wrought upon the encircling apes; but it was Taug who
really was responsible for the thing they did.
Taug, but a moment before filled
with rage toward Tarzan of the Apes, stood close to the battling pair, his
red-rimmed, wicked little eyes glaring at them. What was passing in his savage
brain? Did he gloat over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did
he long to see Sheeta's great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man?
Or did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to rush
to the rescue and imperil his life for Teeka's balu—for Taug's little balu? Is
gratitude a possession of man only, or do the lower orders know it also?
With the spilling of Tarzan's blood,
Taug answered these questions. With all the weight of his great body he leaped,
hideously growling, upon Sheeta. His long fighting fangs buried themselves in
the white throat. His powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur until it
flew upward in the jungle breeze.
And with Taug's example before them
the other bulls charged, burying Sheeta beneath rending fangs and filling all
the forest with the wild din of their battle cries.
Ah! but it was a wondrous and
inspiring sight—this battle of the primordial apes and the great, white ape-man
with their ancestral foe, Sheeta, the panther.
In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly
danced upon the limb which swayed beneath her great weight as she urged on the
males of her people, and Thaka, and Mumga, and Kamma, with the other shes of
the tribe of Kerchak, added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the
pandemonium which now reigned within the jungle.
Bitten and biting, tearing and torn,
Sheeta battled for his life; but the odds were against him. Even Numa, the
lion, would have hesitated to have attacked an equal number of the great bulls
of the tribe of Kerchak, and now, a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the
terrific battle, the king of beasts rose uneasily from his midday slumber and
slunk off farther into the jungle.
Presently Sheeta's torn and bloody
body ceased its titanic struggles. It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and was
still, yet the bulls continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn
to shreds. At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from
the tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as an arrow.
He placed a foot upon the dead body
of the panther, and lifting his blood-stained face to the blue of the
equatorial heavens, gave voice to the horrid victory cry of the bull ape.
One by one his hairy fellows of the
tribe of Kerchak followed his example. The shes came down from their perches of
safety and struck and reviled the dead body of Sheeta. The young apes refought
the battle in mimicry of their mighty elders.
Teeka was quite close to Tarzan. He
turned and saw her with the balu hugged close to her hairy breast, and put out
his hands to take the little one, expecting that Teeka would bare her fangs and
spring upon him; but instead she placed the balu in his arms, and coming
nearer, licked his frightful wounds.
And presently Taug, who had escaped
with only a few scratches, came and squatted beside Tarzan and watched him as
he played with the little balu, and at last he too leaned over and helped Teeka
with the cleansing and the healing of the ape-man's hurts.
