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his wake. Another and another followed in quick succession until the jungle reverberated with the now
almost ceaseless notes of their bloodthirsty screams.
It was the challenge and the hunt.
When all the adult males had joined in the thin line of circling dancers the attack commenced.
Kerchak, seizing a huge club from the pile which lay at hand for the purpose, rushed furiously upon the
dead ape, dealing the corpse a terrific blow, at the same time emitting the growls and snarls of combat.
The din of the drum was now increased, as well as the frequency of the blows, and the warriors, as each
approached the victim of the hunt and delivered his bludgeon blow, joined in the mad whirl of the Death
Dance.
Tarzan was one of the wild, leaping horde. His brown, sweat-streaked, muscular body, glistening in the
moonlight, shone supple and graceful among the uncouth, awkward, hairy brutes about him.
None was more stealthy in the mimic hunt, none more ferocious than he in the wild ferocity of the attack,
none who leaped so high into the air in the Dance of Death.
As the noise and rapidity of the drumbeats increased the dancers apparently became intoxicated with the
wild rhythm and the savage yells. Their leaps and bounds increased, their bared fangs dripped saliva, and
their lips and breasts were flecked with foam.
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For half an hour the weird dance went on, until, at a sign from Kerchak, the noise of the drums ceased,
the female drummers scampering hurriedly through the line of dancers toward the outer rim of squatting
spectators. Then, as one, the males rushed headlong upon the thing which their terrific blows had reduced
to a mass of hairy pulp.
Flesh seldom came to their jaws in satisfying quantities, so a fit finale to their wild revel was a taste of
fresh killed meat, and it was to the purpose of devouring their late enemy that they now turned their
attention.
Great fangs sunk into the carcass tearing away huge hunks, the mightiest of the apes obtaining the
choicest morsels, while the weaker circled the outer edge of the fighting, snarling pack awaiting their
chance to dodge in and snatch a dropped tidbit or filch a remaining bone before all was gone.
Tarzan, more than the apes, craved and needed flesh. Descended from a race of meat eaters, never in
his life, he thought, had he once satisfied his appetite for animal food; and so now his agile little body
wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an endeavor to obtain a share which his
strength would have been unequal to the task of winning for him.
At his side hung the hunting knife of his unknown father in a sheath self-fashioned in copy of one he had
seen among the pictures of his treasure-books.
At last he reached the fast disappearing feast and with his sharp knife slashed off a more generous
portion than he had hoped for, an entire hairy forearm, where it protruded from beneath the feet of the
mighty Kerchak, who was so busily engaged in perpetuating the royal prerogative of gluttony that he
failed to note the act oflese-majeste .
So little Tarzan wriggled out from beneath the struggling mass, clutching his grisly prize close to his
breast.
Among those circling futilely the outskirts of the banqueters was old Tublat. He had been among the first
at the feast, but had retreated with a goodly share to eat in quiet, and was now forcing his way back for
more.
So it was that he spied Tarzan as the boy emerged from the clawing, pushing throng with that hairy
forearm hugged firmly to his body.
Tublat's little, close-set, bloodshot, pig-eyes shot wicked gleams of hate as they fell upon the object of
his loathing. In them, too, was greed for the toothsome dainty the boy carried.
But Tarzan saw his arch enemy as quickly, and divining what the great beast would do he leaped nimbly
away toward the females and the young, hoping to hide himself among them. Tublat, however, was close
upon his heels, so that he had no opportunity to seek a place of concealment, but saw that he would be
put to it to escape at all.
Swiftly he sped toward the surrounding trees and with an agile bound gained a lower limb with one hand,
and then, transferring his burden to his teeth, he climbed rapidly upward, closely followed by Tublat.
Up, up he went to the waving pinnacle of a lofty monarch of the forest where his heavy pursuer dared
not follow him. There he perched, hurling taunts and insults at the raging, foaming beast fifty feet below
him.
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And then Tublat went mad. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]