Chapter 18

The Jungle Toll



Early the following morning Tarzan awoke, and his first

thought of the new day, as the last of yesterday, was of

the wonderful writing which lay hidden in his quiver.



Hurriedly he brought it forth, hoping against hope that he

could read what the beautiful white girl had written there

the preceding evening.



At the first glance he suffered a bitter disappointment;

never before had he so yearned for anything as now he did

for the ability to interpret a message from that golden-haired

divinity who had come so suddenly and so unexpectedly into

his life.



What did it matter if the message were not intended for

him? It was an expression of her thoughts, and that was

sufficient for Tarzan of the Apes.



And now to be baffled by strange, uncouth characters the

like of which he had never seen before! Why, they even

tipped in the opposite direction from all that he had ever

examined either in printed books or the difficult script of

the few letters he had found.



Even the little bugs of the black book were familiar

friends, though their arrangement meant nothing to him; but

these bugs were new and unheard of.



For twenty minutes he pored over them, when suddenly

they commenced to take familiar though distorted shapes.

Ah, they were his old friends, but badly crippled.



Then he began to make out a word here and a word there.

His heart leaped for joy. He could read it, and he would.



In another half hour he was progressing rapidly, and, but

for an exceptional word now and again, he found it very

plain sailing.



Here is what he read:



WEST COAST OF AFRICA, ABOUT 10X DEGREES SOUTH

LATITUDE. (So Mr. Clayton says.)

February 3 (?), 1909.



DEAREST HAZEL:



It seems foolish to write you a letter that you may never

see, but I simply must tell somebody of our awful experiences

since we sailed from Europe on the ill-fated Arrow.



If we never return to civilization, as now seems only too

likely, this will at least prove a brief record of the events

which led up to our final fate, whatever it may be.



As you know, we were supposed to have set out upon a

scientific expedition to the Congo. Papa was presumed to

entertain some wondrous theory of an unthinkably ancient

civilization, the remains of which lay buried somewhere in the

Congo valley. But after we were well under sail the truth

came out.



It seems that an old bookworm who has a book and curio

shop in Baltimore discovered between the leaves of a very old

Spanish manuscript a letter written in 1550 detailing the

adventures of a crew of mutineers of a Spanish galleon bound

from Spain to South America with a vast treasure of "doubloons"

and "pieces of eight," I suppose, for they certainly

sound weird and piraty.



The writer had been one of the crew, and the letter was to

his son, who was, at the very time the letter was written,

master of a Spanish merchantman.



Many years had elapsed since the events the letter narrated

had transpired, and the old man had become a respected citizen

of an obscure Spanish town, but the love of gold was still

so strong upon him that he risked all to acquaint his son with

the means of attaining fabulous wealth for them both.



The writer told how when but a week out from Spain the crew

had mutinied and murdered every officer and man who opposed

them; but they defeated their own ends by this very act, for

there was none left competent to navigate a ship at sea.



They were blown hither and thither for two months, until

sick and dying of scurvy, starvation, and thirst, they had

been wrecked on a small islet.



The galleon was washed high upon the beach where she

went to pieces; but not before the survivors, who numbered

but ten souls, had rescued one of the great chests of treasure.



This they buried well up on the island, and for three years

they lived there in constant hope of being rescued.



One by one they sickened and died, until only one man

was left, the writer of the letter.



The men had built a boat from the wreckage of the galleon,

but having no idea where the island was located they

had not dared to put to sea.



When all were dead except himself, however, the awful

loneliness so weighed upon the mind of the sole survivor that

he could endure it no longer, and choosing to risk death upon

the open sea rather than madness on the lonely isle, he set

sail in his little boat after nearly a year of solitude.



Fortunately he sailed due north, and within a week was in

the track of the Spanish merchantmen plying between the

West Indies and Spain, and was picked up by one of these

vessels homeward bound.



The story he told was merely one of shipwreck in which all

but a few had perished, the balance, except himself, dying

after they reached the island. He did not mention the mutiny

or the chest of buried treasure.



The master of the merchantman assured him that from the

position at which they had picked him up, and the prevailing

winds for the past week he could have been on no other island

than one of the Cape Verde group, which lie off the

West Coast of Africa in about 16x or 17x north latitude.



His letter described the island minutely, as well as the

location of the treasure, and was accompanied by the crudest,

funniest little old map you ever saw; with trees and rocks all

marked by scrawly X's to show the exact spot where the

treasure had been buried.



When papa explained the real nature of the expedition, my

heart sank, for I know so well how visionary and impractical

the poor dear has always been that I feared that he had again

been duped; especially when he told me he had paid a thousand

dollars for the letter and map.



To add to my distress, I learned that he had borrowed ten

thousand dollars more from Robert Canler, and had given his

notes for the amount.



Mr. Canler had asked for no security, and you know,

dearie, what that will mean for me if papa cannot meet

them. Oh, how I detest that man!



We all tried to look on the bright side of things, but Mr.

Philander, and Mr. Clayton--he joined us in London just for

the adventure--both felt as skeptical as I.



Well, to make a long story short, we found the island and

the treasure--a great iron-bound oak chest, wrapped in many

layers of oiled sailcloth, and as strong and firm as when it

had been buried nearly two hundred years ago.



It was SIMPLY FILLED with gold coin, and was so heavy that

four men bent underneath its weight.



The horrid thing seems to bring nothing but murder and

misfortune to those who have anything to do with it, for

three days after we sailed from the Cape Verde Islands our

own crew mutinied and killed every one of their officers.



Oh, it was the most terrifying experience one could

imagine--I cannot even write of it.



They were going to kill us too, but one of them, the leader,

named King, would not let them, and so they sailed south

along the coast to a lonely spot where they found a good

harbor, and here they landed and have left us.



They sailed away with the treasure to-day, but Mr. Clayton

says they will meet with a fate similar to the mutineers of the

ancient galleon, because King, the only man aboard who

knew aught of navigation, was murdered on the beach by one

of the men the day we landed.



I wish you could know Mr. Clayton; he is the dearest fellow

imaginable, and unless I am mistaken he has fallen very

much in love with me.



He is the only son of Lord Greystoke, and some day will inherit

the title and estates. In addition, he is wealthy in his own

right, but the fact that he is going to be an English Lord

makes me very sad--you know what my sentiments have always

been relative to American girls who married titled foreigners.

Oh, if he were only a plain American gentleman!



But it isn't his fault, poor fellow, and in everything except

birth he would do credit to my country, and that is the greatest

compliment I know how to pay any man.



We have had the most weird experiences since we were

landed here. Papa and Mr. Philander lost in the jungle,

and chased by a real lion.



Mr. Clayton lost, and attacked twice by wild beasts.

Esmeralda and I cornered in an old cabin by a perfectly awful

man-eating lioness. Oh, it was simply "terrifical," as Esmeralda

would say.



But the strangest part of it all is the wonderful creature

who rescued us. I have not seen him, but Mr. Clayton and

papa and Mr. Philander have, and they say that he is a

perfectly god-like white man tanned to a dusky brown, with the

strength of a wild elephant, the agility of a monkey, and the

bravery of a lion.



He speaks no English and vanishes as quickly and as

mysteriously after he has performed some valorous deed, as

though he were a disembodied spirit.



Then we have another weird neighbor, who printed a

beautiful sign in English and tacked it on the door of his

cabin, which we have preempted, warning us to destroy none

of his belongings, and signing himself "Tarzan of the Apes."



We have never seen him, though we think he is about, for

one of the sailors, who was going to shoot Mr. Clayton in the

back, received a spear in his shoulder from some unseen

hand in the jungle.



The sailors left us but a meager supply of food, so, as we

have only a single revolver with but three cartridges left in it,

we do not know how we can procure meat, though Mr. Philander

says that we can exist indefinitely on the wild fruit and

nuts which abound in the jungle.



I am very tired now, so I shall go to my funny bed of

grasses which Mr. Clayton gathered for me, but will add to

this from day to day as things happen.

Lovingly,

JANE PORTER.



TO HAZEL STRONG, BALTIMORE, MD.





Tarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finished

reading the letter. It was filled with so many new and

wonderful things that his brain was in a whirl as he attempted

to digest them all.



So they did not know that he was Tarzan of the Apes. He

would tell them.



In his tree he had constructed a rude shelter of leaves and

boughs, beneath which, protected from the rain, he had

placed the few treasures brought from the cabin. Among

these were some pencils.



He took one, and beneath Jane Porter's signature he wrote:



I am Tarzan of the Apes





He thought that would be sufficient. Later he would return

the letter to the cabin.



In the matter of food, thought Tarzan, they had no need to

worry--he would provide, and he did.



The next morning Jane found her missing letter in the

exact spot from which it had disappeared two nights before.

She was mystified; but when she saw the printed words beneath

her signature, she felt a cold, clammy chill run up her

spine. She showed the letter, or rather the last sheet

with the signature, to Clayton.



"And to think," she said, "that uncanny thing was probably

watching me all the time that I was writing--oo! It makes me

shudder just to think of it."



"But he must be friendly," reassured Clayton, "for he has

returned your letter, nor did he offer to harm you, and unless

I am mistaken he left a very substantial memento of his

friendship outside the cabin door last night, for I just found

the carcass of a wild boar there as I came out."



From then on scarcely a day passed that did not bring its

offering of game or other food. Sometimes it was a young

deer, again a quantity of strange, cooked food--cassava

cakes pilfered from the village of Mbonga--or a boar, or

leopard, and once a lion.



Tarzan derived the greatest pleasure of his life in hunting

meat for these strangers. It seemed to him that no pleasure

on earth could compare with laboring for the welfare and

protection of the beautiful white girl.



Some day he would venture into the camp in daylight and

talk with these people through the medium of the little bugs

which were familiar to them and to Tarzan.



But he found it difficult to overcome the timidity of the

wild thing of the forest, and so day followed day without

seeing a fulfillment of his good intentions.



The party in the camp, emboldened by familiarity, wandered

farther and yet farther into the jungle in search of nuts

and fruit.



Scarcely a day passed that did not find Professor Porter

straying in his preoccupied indifference toward the jaws of

death. Mr. Samuel T. Philander, never what one might call

robust, was worn to the shadow of a shadow through the

ceaseless worry and mental distraction resultant from his

Herculean efforts to safeguard the professor.



A month passed. Tarzan had finally determined to visit the

camp by daylight.



It was early afternoon. Clayton had wandered to the point

at the harbor's mouth to look for passing vessels. Here he

kept a great mass of wood, high piled, ready to be ignited as

a signal should a steamer or a sail top the far horizon.



Professor Porter was wandering along the beach south of

the camp with Mr. Philander at his elbow, urging him to turn

his steps back before the two became again the sport of some

savage beast.



The others gone, Jane and Esmeralda had wandered into the

jungle to gather fruit, and in their search were led farther

and farther from the cabin.



Tarzan waited in silence before the door of the little house

until they should return. His thoughts were of the beautiful

white girl. They were always of her now. He wondered if she

would fear him, and the thought all but caused him to relinquish

his plan.



He was rapidly becoming impatient for her return, that he

might feast his eyes upon her and be near her, perhaps touch

her. The ape-man knew no god, but he was as near to

worshipping his divinity as mortal man ever comes to worship.

While he waited he passed the time printing a message to

her; whether he intended giving it to her he himself could not

have told, but he took infinite pleasure in seeing his thoughts

expressed in print--in which he was not so uncivilized after

all. He wrote:





I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are

mine. We live here together always in my house. I will bring

you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that

roam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the

jungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the

jungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter.

When you see this you will know that it is for you and that

Tarzan of the Apes loves you.





As he stood, straight as a young Indian, by the door, waiting

after he had finished the message, there came to his keen

ears a familiar sound. It was the passing of a great ape

through the lower branches of the forest.



For an instant he listened intently, and then from the jungle

came the agonized scream of a woman, and Tarzan of the

Apes, dropping his first love letter upon the ground, shot like

a panther into the forest.



Clayton, also, heard the scream, and Professor Porter and

Mr. Philander, and in a few minutes they came panting to

the cabin, calling out to each other a volley of excited

questions as they approached. A glance within confirmed

their worst fears.



Jane and Esmeralda were not there.



Instantly, Clayton, followed by the two old men, plunged

into the jungle, calling the girl's name aloud. For half an

hour they stumbled on, until Clayton, by merest chance,

came upon the prostrate form of Esmeralda.



He stopped beside her, feeling for her pulse and then

listening for her heartbeats. She lived. He shook her.



"Esmeralda!" he shrieked in her ear. "Esmeralda! For God's

sake, where is Miss Porter? What has happened? Esmeralda!"



Slowly Esmeralda opened her eyes. She saw Clayton. She

saw the jungle about her.



"Oh, Gaberelle!" she screamed, and fainted again.



By this time Professor Porter and Mr. Philander had come up.



"What shall we do, Mr. Clayton?" asked the old professor.

"Where shall we look? God could not have been so cruel as

to take my little girl away from me now."



"We must arouse Esmeralda first," replied Clayton. "She

can tell us what has happened. Esmeralda!" he cried again,

shaking the black woman roughly by the shoulder.



"O Gaberelle, I want to die!" cried the poor woman, but

with eyes fast closed. "Let me die, dear Lord, don't let

me see that awful face again."



"Come, come, Esmeralda," cried Clayton.



"The Lord isn't here; it's Mr. Clayton. Open your eyes."



Esmeralda did as she was bade.



"O Gaberelle! Thank the Lord," she said.



"Where's Miss Porter? What happened?" questioned Clayton.



"Ain't Miss Jane here?" cried Esmeralda, sitting up with

wonderful celerity for one of her bulk. "Oh, Lord, now I

remember! It must have took her away," and the Negress

commenced to sob, and wail her lamentations.



"What took her away?" cried Professor Porter.



"A great big giant all covered with hair."



"A gorilla, Esmeralda?" questioned Mr. Philander, and the

three men scarcely breathed as he voiced the horrible thought.



"I thought it was the devil; but I guess it must have been

one of them gorilephants. Oh, my poor baby, my poor little

honey," and again Esmeralda broke into uncontrollable sobbing.



Clayton immediately began to look about for tracks, but he

could find nothing save a confusion of trampled grasses in

the close vicinity, and his woodcraft was too meager for the

translation of what he did see.



All the balance of the day they sought through the jungle;

but as night drew on they were forced to give up in despair

and hopelessness, for they did not even know in what

direction the thing had borne Jane.



It was long after dark ere they reached the cabin, and a sad

and grief-stricken party it was that sat silently within the

little structure.



Professor Porter finally broke the silence. His tones were

no longer those of the erudite pedant theorizing upon the

abstract and the unknowable; but those of the man of action--

determined, but tinged also by a note of indescribable

hopelessness and grief which wrung an answering pang from

Clayton's heart.



"I shall lie down now," said the old man, "and try to sleep.

Early to-morrow, as soon as it is light, I shall take what food

I can carry and continue the search until I have found Jane. I

will not return without her."



His companions did not reply at once. Each was immersed

in his own sorrowful thoughts, and each knew, as did the old

professor, what the last words meant--Professor Porter

would never return from the jungle.



At length Clayton arose and laid his hand gently upon

Professor Porter's bent old shoulder.



"I shall go with you, of course," he said.



"I knew that you would offer--that you would wish to go,

Mr. Clayton; but you must not. Jane is beyond human

assistance now. What was once my dear little girl shall

not lie alone and friendless in the awful jungle.



"The same vines and leaves will cover us, the same rains beat

upon us; and when the spirit of her mother is abroad, it will

find us together in death, as it has always found us in life.



"No; it is I alone who may go, for she was my daughter--

all that was left on earth for me to love."



"I shall go with you," said Clayton simply.



The old man looked up, regarding the strong, handsome face

of William Cecil Clayton intently. Perhaps he read there the

love that lay in the heart beneath--the love for his daughter.



He had been too preoccupied with his own scholarly

thoughts in the past to consider the little occurrences, the

chance words, which would have indicated to a more practical

man that these young people were being drawn more and

more closely to one another. Now they came back to him,

one by one.



"As you wish," he said.



"You may count on me, also," said Mr. Philander.



"No, my dear old friend," said Professor Porter. "We may not

all go. It would be cruelly wicked to leave poor Esmeralda here

alone, and three of us would be no more successful than one.



"There be enough dead things in the cruel forest as it is.

Come--let us try to sleep a little."

****

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