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Tarzan, equally indifferent to a battle that was over, merely cast a parting glance at the still writhing body
of Histah and wandered off toward the little pool which served to water the tribe at this point. Strangely,
he did not give the victory cry over the vanquished Histah. Why, he could not have told you, other than
that to him Histah was not an animal. He differed in some peculiar way from the other denizens of the
jungle. Tarzan only knew that he hated him.
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At the pool Tarzan drank his filled and lay stretched upon the soft grass beneath the shade of a tree. His
mind reverted to the battle with Histah, the snake. It seemed strange to him that Teeka should have
placed herself within the folds of the horrid monster. Why had she done it? Why, indeed, had he? Teeka
did not belong to him, nor did Teeka's balu. They were both Taug's. Why then had he done this thing?
Histah was not food for him when he was dead. There seemed to Tarzan, now that he gave the matter
thought, no reason in the world why he should have done the thing he did, and presently it occurred to
him that he had acted almost involuntarily, just as he had acted when he had released the old Gomangani
the previous evening.
What made him do such things? Somebody more powerful than he must force him to act at times.
"All-powerful," thought. Tarzan. "The little bugs say that God is all-powerful. It must be that God made
me do these things, for I never did them by myself. It was God who made Teeka rush upon Histah.
Teeka would never go near Histah of her own volition. It was God who held my knife from the throat of
the old Gomangani. God accomplishes strange things for he is 'all-powerful.' I cannot see Him; but I
know that it must be God who does these things. No Mangani, no Gomangani, no Tarmangani could do
them."
And the flowers who made them grow? Ah, now it was all explained the flowers, the trees, the
moon, the sun, himself, every living creature in the jungle they were all made by God out of nothing.
And what was God? What did God look like? Of that he had no conception; but he was sure that
everything that was good came from God. His good act in refraining from slaying the poor, defenseless
old Gomangani; Teeka's love that had hurled her into the embrace of death; his own loyalty to Teeka
which had jeopardized his life that she might live. The flowers and the trees were good and beautiful. God
had made them. He made the other creatures, too, that each might have food upon which to live. He had
made Sheeta, the panther, with his beautiful coat; and Numa, the lion, with his noble head and his shaggy
mane. He had made Bara, the deer, lovely and graceful.
Yes, Tarzan had found God, and he spent the whole day in attributing to Him all of the good and
beautiful things of nature; but there was one thing which troubled him. He could not quite reconcile it to
his conception of his new-found God.
Who made Histah, the snake?
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5
Tarzan and the Black Boy
TARZAN of the Apes sat at the foot of a great tree braiding a new grass rope. Beside him lay the
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frayed remnants of the old one, torn and severed by the fangs and talons of Sheeta, the panther. Only half
the original rope was there, the balance having been carried off by the angry cat as he bounded away
through the jungle with the noose still about his savage neck and the loose end dragging among the
underbrush.
Tarzan smiled as he recalled Sheeta's great rage, his frantic efforts to free himself from the entangling
strands, his uncanny screams that were part hate, part anger, part terror. He smiled in retrospection at the
discomfiture of his enemy, and in anticipation of another day as he added an extra strand to his new rope.
This would be the strongest, the heaviest rope that Tarzan of the Apes ever had fashioned. Visions of
Numa, the lion, straining futilely in its embrace thrilled the ape-man. He was quite content, for his hands
and his brain were busy. Content; too, were his fellows of the tribe of Kerchak, searching for food in the
clearing and the surrounding trees about him.
No perplexing thoughts of the future burdened their minds, and only occasionally, dimly arose
recollections of the near past. They were stimulated to a species of brutal content by the delectable
business of filling their bellies. Afterward they would sleep it was their life, and they enjoyed it as we
enjoy ours, you and I as Tarzan enjoyed his. Possibly they enjoyed theirs more than we enjoy ours, for
who shall say that the beasts of the jungle do not better fulfill the purposes for which they are created than
does man with his many excursions into strange fields and his contraventions of the laws of nature? And
what gives greater content and greater happiness than the fulfilling of a destiny?
As Tarzan worked, Gazan, Teeka's little balu, played about him while Teeka sought food upon the
opposite side of the clearing. No more did Teeka, the mother, or Taug, the sullen sire, harbor suspicions
of Tarzan's intentions toward their first-born. Had he not courted death to save their Gazan from the
fangs and talons of Sheeta? Did he not fondle and cuddle the little one with even as great a show of
affection as Teeka herself displayed? Their fears were allayed and Tarzan now found himself often in the
role of nursemaid to a tiny anthropoid an avocation which he found by no means irksome, since Gazan
was a never-failing fount of surprises and entertainment.
Just now the apeling was developing those arboreal tendencies which were to stand him in such good
stead during the years of his youth, when rapid flight into the upper terraces was of far more importance
and value than his undeveloped muscles and untried fighting fangs. Backing off fifteen or twenty feet from
the bole of the tree beneath the branches of which Tarzan worked upon his rope, Gazan scampered
quickly forward, scrambling nimbly upward to the lower limbs. Here he would squat for a moment or
two, quite proud of his achievement, then clamber to the ground again and repeat. Sometimes, quite often
in fact, for he was an ape, his attention was distracted by other things, a beetle, a caterpillar, a tiny field
mouse, and off he would go in pursuit; the caterpillars he always caught, and sometimes the beetles; but
the field mice, never.
Now he discovered the tail of the rope upon which Tarzan was working. Grasping it in one small hand
he bounced away, for all the world like an animated rubber ball, snatching it from the ape-man's hand
and running off across the clearing. Tarzan leaped to his feet and was in pursuit in an instant, no trace of
anger on his face or in his voice as he called to the roguish little balu to drop his rope.
Straight toward his mother raced Gazan, and after him came Tarzan. Teeka looked up from her feeding,
and in the first instant that she realized that Gazan was fleeing and that another was in pursuit, she bared
her fangs and bristled; but when she saw that the pursuer was Tarzan she turned back to the business that
had been occupying her attention. At her very feet the ape-man overhauled the balu and, though the
youngster squealed and fought when Tarzan seized him, Teeka only glanced casually in their direction. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]