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The Son of Tarzan, a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
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Chapter 27 |
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_ Korak screamed commands to his huge protector, in an effort to halt him; but all to no avail. Meriem raced toward the bordering trees with all the speed that lay in her swift, little feet; but Tantor, for all his huge bulk, drove down upon her with the rapidity of an express train. Korak lay where he could see the whole frightful tragedy. The cold sweat broke out upon his body. His heart seemed to have stopped its beating. Meriem might reach the trees before Tantor overtook her, but even her agility would not carry her beyond the reach of that relentless trunk--she would be dragged down and tossed. Korak could picture the whole frightful scene. Then Tantor would follow her up, goring the frail, little body with his relentless tusks, or trampling it into an unrecognizable mass beneath his ponderous feet. He was almost upon her now. Korak wanted to close his eyes, but could not. His throat was dry and parched. Never in all his savage existence had he suffered such blighting terror--never before had he known what terror meant. A dozen more strides and the brute would seize her. What was that? Korak's eyes started from their sockets. A strange figure had leaped from the tree the shade of which Meriem already had reached--leaped beyond the girl straight into the path of the charging elephant. It was a naked white giant. Across his shoulder a coil of rope was looped. In the band of his gee string was a hunting knife. Otherwise he was unarmed. With naked hands he faced the maddening Tantor. A sharp command broke from the stranger's lips--the great beast halted in his tracks--and Meriem swung herself upward into the tree to safety. Korak breathed a sigh of relief not unmixed with wonder. He fastened his eyes upon the face of Meriem's deliverer and as recognition slowly filtered into his understanding they went wide in incredulity and surprise. Tantor, still rumbling angrily, stood swaying to and fro close before the giant white man. Then the latter stepped straight beneath the upraised trunk and spoke a low word of command. The great beast ceased his muttering. The savage light died from his eyes, and as the stranger stepped forward toward Korak, Tantor trailed docilely at his heels. Meriem was watching, too, and wondering. Suddenly the man turned toward her as though recollecting her presence after a moment of forgetfulness. "Come! Meriem," he called, and then she recognized him with a startled: "Bwana!" Quickly the girl dropped from the tree and ran to his side. Tantor cocked a questioning eye at the white giant, but receiving a warning word let Meriem approach. Together the two walked to where Korak lay, his eyes wide with wonder and filled with a pathetic appeal for forgiveness, and, mayhap, a glad thankfulness for the miracle that had brought these two of all others to his side. "Jack!" cried the white giant, kneeling at the ape-man's side. "Father!" came chokingly from The Killer's lips. "Thank God that it was you. No one else in all the jungle could have stopped Tantor." Quickly the man cut the bonds that held Korak, and as the youth leaped to his feet and threw his arms about his father, the older man turned toward Meriem. "I thought," he said, sternly, "that I told you to return to the farm." Korak was looking at them wonderingly. In his heart was a great yearning to take the girl in his arms; but in time he remembered the other--the dapper young English gentleman--and that he was but a savage, uncouth ape-man. Meriem looked up pleadingly into Bwana's eyes. "You told me," she said, in a very small voice, "that my place was beside the man I loved," and she turned her eyes toward Korak all filled with the wonderful light that no other man had yet seen in them, and that none other ever would. The Killer started toward her with outstretched arms; but suddenly he fell upon one knee before her, instead, and lifting her hand to his lips kissed it more reverently than he could have kissed the hand of his country's queen. A rumble from Tantor brought the three, all jungle bred, to instant alertness. Tantor was looking toward the trees behind them, and as their eyes followed his gaze the head and shoulders of a great ape appeared amidst the foliage. For a moment the creature eyed them, and then from its throat rose a loud scream of recognition and of joy, and a moment later the beast had leaped to the ground, followed by a score of bulls like himself, and was waddling toward them, shouting in the primordial tongue of the anthropoid: "Tarzan has returned! Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle!" It was Akut, and instantly he commenced leaping and bounding about the trio, uttering hideous shrieks and mouthings that to any other human beings might have indicated the most ferocious rage; but these three knew that the king of the apes was doing homage to a king greater than himself. In his wake leaped his shaggy bulls, vying with one another as to which could spring the highest and which utter the most uncanny sounds. Korak laid his hand affectionately upon his father's shoulder. "There is but one Tarzan," he said. "There can never be another." Two days later the three dropped from the trees on the edge of the plain across which they could see the smoke rising from the bungalow and the cook house chimneys. Tarzan of the Apes had regained his civilized clothing from the tree where he had hidden it, and as Korak refused to enter the presence of his mother in the savage half-raiment that he had worn so long and as Meriem would not leave him, for fear, as she explained, that he would change his mind and run off into the jungle again, the father went on ahead to the bungalow for horses and clothes. My Dear met him at the gate, her eyes filled with questioning and sorrow, for she saw that Meriem was not with him. "Where is she?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Muviri told me that she disobeyed your instructions and ran off into the jungle after you had left them. Oh, John, I cannot bear to lose her, too!" And Lady Greystoke broke down and wept, as she pillowed her head upon the broad breast where so often before she had found comfort in the great tragedies of her life. Lord Greystoke raised her head and looked down into her eyes, his own smiling and filled with the light of happiness. "What is it, John?" she cried. "You have good news--do not keep me waiting for it." "I want to be quite sure that you can stand hearing the best news that ever came to either of us," he said. "Joy never kills," she cried. "You have found--her?" She could not bring herself to hope for the impossible. "Yes, Jane," he said, and his voice was husky with emotion; "I have found her, and--HIM!" "Where is he? Where are they?" she demanded. "Out there at the edge of the jungle. He wouldn't come to you in his savage leopard skin and his nakedness--he sent me to fetch him civilized clothing." She clapped her hands in ecstasy, and turned to run toward the bungalow. "Wait!" she cried over her shoulder. "I have all his little suits--I have saved them all. I will bring one to you." Tarzan laughed and called to her to stop. "The only clothing on the place that will fit him," he said, "is mine--if it isn't too small for him--your little boy has grown, Jane." She laughed, too; she felt like laughing at everything, or at nothing. The world was all love and happiness and joy once more--the world that had been shrouded in the gloom of her great sorrow for so many years. So great was her joy that for the moment she forgot the sad message that awaited Meriem. She called to Tarzan after he had ridden away to prepare her for it, but he did not hear and rode on without knowing himself what the event was to which his wife referred. And so, an hour later, Korak, The Killer, rode home to his mother--the mother whose image had never faded in his boyish heart--and found in her arms and her eyes the love and forgiveness that he plead for. And then the mother turned toward Meriem, an expression of pitying sorrow erasing the happiness from her eyes. "My little girl," she said, "in the midst of our happiness a great sorrow awaits you--Mr. Baynes did not survive his wound." The expression of sorrow in Meriem's eyes expressed only what she sincerely felt; but it was not the sorrow of a woman bereft of her best beloved. "I am sorry," she said, quite simply. "He would have done me a great wrong; but he amply atoned before he died. Once I thought that I loved him. At first it was only fascination for a type that was new to me--then it was respect for a brave man who had the moral courage to admit a sin and the physical courage to face death to right the wrong he had committed. But it was not love. I did not know what love was until I knew that Korak lived," and she turned toward The Killer with a smile. Lady Greystoke looked quickly up into the eyes of her son--the son who one day would be Lord Greystoke. No thought of the difference in the stations of the girl and her boy entered her mind. To her Meriem was fit for a king. She only wanted to know that Jack loved the little Arab waif. The look in his eyes answered the question in her heart, and she threw her arms about them both and kissed them each a dozen times. "Now," she cried, "I shall really have a daughter!" It was several weary marches to the nearest mission; but they only waited at the farm a few days for rest and preparation for the great event before setting out upon the journey, and after the marriage ceremony had been performed they kept on to the coast to take passage for England. Those days were the most wonderful of Meriem's life. She had not dreamed even vaguely of the marvels that civilization held in store for her. The great ocean and the commodious steamship filled her with awe. The noise, and bustle and confusion of the English railway station frightened her. "If there was a good-sized tree at hand," she confided to Korak, "I know that I should run to the very top of it in terror of my life." "And make faces and throw twigs at the engine?" he laughed back. "Poor old Numa," sighed the girl. "What will he do without us?" "Oh, there are others to tease him, my little Mangani," assured Korak. The Greystoke town house quite took Meriem's breath away; but when strangers were about none might guess that she had not been to the manner born. They had been home but a week when Lord Greystoke received a message from his friend of many years, D'Arnot. It was in the form of a letter of introduction brought by one General Armand Jacot. Lord Greystoke recalled the name, as who familiar with modern French history would not, for Jacot was in reality the Prince de Cadrenet--that intense republican who refused to use, even by courtesy, a title that had belonged to his family for four hundred years. "There is no place for princes in a republic," he was wont to say. Lord Greystoke received the hawk-nosed, gray mustached soldier in his library, and after a dozen words the two men had formed a mutual esteem that was to endure through life. "I have come to you," explained General Jacot, "because our dear Admiral tells me that there is no one in all the world who is more intimately acquainted with Central Africa than you. "Let me tell you my story from the beginning. Many years ago my little daughter was stolen, presumably by Arabs, while I was serving with the Foreign Legion in Algeria. We did all that love and money and even government resources could do to discover her; but all to no avail. Her picture was published in the leading papers of every large city in the world, yet never did we find a man or woman who ever had seen her since the day she mysteriously disappeared. "A week since there came to me in Paris a swarthy Arab, who called himself Abdul Kamak. He said that he had found my daughter and could lead me to her. I took him at once to Admiral d'Arnot, whom I knew had traveled some in Central Africa. The man's story led the Admiral to believe that the place where the white girl the Arab supposed to be my daughter was held in captivity was not far from your African estates, and he advised that I come at once and call upon you--that you would know if such a girl were in your neighborhood." "What proof did the Arab bring that she was your daughter?" asked Lord Greystoke. "None," replied the other. "That is why we thought best to consult you before organizing an expedition. The fellow had only an old photograph of her on the back of which was pasted a newspaper cutting describing her and offering a reward. We feared that having found this somewhere it had aroused his cupidity and led him to believe that in some way he could obtain the reward, possibly by foisting upon us a white girl on the chance that so many years had elapsed that we would not be able to recognize an imposter as such." "Have you the photograph with you?" asked Lord Greystoke. The General drew an envelope from his pocket, took a yellowed photograph from it and handed it to the Englishman. Tears dimmed the old warrior's eyes as they fell again upon the pictured features of his lost daughter. Lord Greystoke examined the photograph for a moment. A queer expression entered his eyes. He touched a bell at his elbow, and an instant later a footman entered. "Ask my son's wife if she will be so good as to come to the library," he directed. The two men sat in silence. General Jacot was too well bred to show in any way the chagrin and disappointment he felt in the summary manner in which Lord Greystoke had dismissed the subject of his call. As soon as the young lady had come and he had been presented he would make his departure. A moment later Meriem entered. Lord Greystoke and General Jacot rose and faced her. The Englishman spoke no word of introduction--he wanted to mark the effect of the first sight of the girl's face on the Frenchman, for he had a theory--a heaven-born theory that had leaped into his mind the moment his eyes had rested on the baby face of Jeanne Jacot. General Jacot took one look at Meriem, then he turned toward Lord Greystoke. "How long have you known it?" he asked, a trifle accusingly. "Since you showed me that photograph a moment ago," replied the Englishman. "It is she," said Jacot, shaking with suppressed emotion; "but she does not recognize me--of course she could not." Then he turned to Meriem. "My child," he said, "I am your--" But she interrupted him with a quick, glad cry, as she ran toward him with outstretched arms. "I know you! I know you!" she cried. "Oh, now I remember," and the old man folded her in his arms. Jack Clayton and his mother were summoned, and when the story had been told them they were only glad that little Meriem had found a father and a mother. "And really you didn't marry an Arab waif after all," said Meriem. "Isn't it fine!" "You are fine," replied The Killer. "I married my little Meriem, and I don't care, for my part, whether she is an Arab, or just a little Tarmangani." "She is neither, my son," said General Armand Jacot. "She is a princess in her own right." [THE END] _ |
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