Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs (most important books to read TXT) 📖

he had been unsuccessful in raiding the treasure vaults of Opar, the sack of diamonds which he carried compensated several-fold for this miscarriage of his plans. His only concern now was for the safety of his Waziri, and, perhaps, a troublesome desire to seek out the whites who had drugged him and mete out to them the punishment they deserved. In view, however, of his greater desire to return home he decided to make no effort at apprehending them for the time being at least.

Hunting together, feeding together, and sleeping together, the man and the great lion trod the savage jungle trails toward home. Yesterday they shared the meat of Bara, the deer, today they feasted upon the carcass of Horta, the boar, and between them there was little chance that either would go hungry.

They had come within a day’s march of the bungalow when Tarzan discovered the spoor of a considerable body of warriors. As some men devour the latest stock-market quotations as though their very existence depended upon an accurate knowledge of them, so Tarzan of the Apes devoured every scrap of information that the jungle held for him, for, in truth, an accurate knowledge of all that this information could impart to him had been during his lifetime a sine qua non to his existence. So now he carefully examined the spoor that lay before him, several days old though it was and partially obliterated by the passage of beasts since it had been made, but yet legible enough to the keen eyes and nostrils of the ape-man. His partial indifference suddenly gave way to keen interest, for among the footprints of the great warriors he saw now and again the smaller one of a white woman—a loved footprint that he knew as well as you know your mother’s face.

“The Waziri returned and told her that I was missing,” he soliloquized, “and now she has set out with them to search for me.” He turned to the lion. “Well, Jad-bal-ja, once again we turn away from home—but no, where she is is home.”

The direction that the trail led rather mystified Tarzan of the Apes, as it was not along the direct route toward Opar, but in a rather more southerly direction. On the sixth day his keen ears caught the sound of approaching men, and presently there was wafted to his nostrils the spoor of blacks. Sending Jad-bal-ja into a thicket to hide, Tarzan took to the trees and moved rapidly in the direction of the approaching negroes. As the distance between them lessened the scent became stronger, until, even before he saw them, Tarzan knew that they were Waziri, but the one effluvium that would have filled his soul with happiness was lacking.

It was a surprised Usula who, at the head of the sad and dejected Waziri, came at the turning of the trail suddenly face to face with his master.

“Tarzan of the Apes!” cried Usula. “Is it indeed you?”

“It is none other,” replied the ape-man, “but where is Lady Greystoke?”

“Ah, master, how can we tell you!” cried Usula.

“You do not mean—” cried Tarzan. “It cannot be. Nothing could happen to her while she was guarded by my Waziri!”

The warriors hung their heads in shame and sorrow. “We offer our lives for hers,” said Usula, simply. He threw down his spear and shield and, stretching his arms wide apart, bared his great breast to Tarzan. “Strike, Bwana,” he said.

The ape-man turned away with bowed head. Presently he looked at Usula again. “Tell me how it happened,” he said, “and forget your foolish speech as I have forgotten the suggestion which prompted it.”

Briefly Usula narrated the events which had led up to the death of Jane, and when he was done Tarzan of the Apes spoke but three words, voicing a question which was typical of him.

“Where is Luvini?” he asked.

“Ah, that we do not know,” replied Usula.

“But I shall know,” said Tarzan of the Apes. “Go upon your way, my children, back to your huts, and your women and your children, and when next you see Tarzan of the Apes you will know that Luvini is dead.”

They begged permission to accompany him, but he would not listen to them.

“You are needed at home at this time of year,” he said. “Already have you been gone too long from the herds and fields. Return, then, and carry word to Korak, but tell him that it is my wish that he, too, remains at home—if I fail, then may he come and take up my unfinished work if he wishes to do so.” As he ceased speaking he turned back in the direction from which he had come, and whistled once a single, low, long-drawn note, and a moment later Jad-bal-ja, the golden lion, bounded into view along the jungle trail.

“The golden lion!” cried Usula. “When he escaped from Keewazi it was to search for his beloved Bwana.”

Tarzan nodded. “He followed many marches to a strange country until he found me,” he said, and then he bid the Waziri good-bye and bent his steps once more away from home in search of Luvini and revenge.

John Peebles, wedged in the crotch of a large tree, greeted the coming dawn with weary eyes. Near him was Dick Throck, similarly braced in another crotch, while Kraski, more intelligent and therefore possessing more inventive genius, had rigged a small platform of branches across two parallel boughs, upon which he lay in comparative comfort. Ten feet above him Bluber swung, half exhausted and wholly terrified, to a smaller branch, supported in something that approximated safety by a fork of the branch to which he clung.

“Gord,” groaned Peebles, “hi’ll let the bloody lions ’ave me before hi’ll spend another such a night as this, an’ ’ere we are, ’n that’s that!”

“And blime, too,” said Throck, “hi sleeps on the ground hafter this, lions or no lions.”

“If the combined intelligence of the three of you was equal to that of a walrus,” remarked Kraski, “we might have slept in comparative safety and comfort last night on the ground.”

“Hey there, Bluber, Mister Kraski is spikin’ to yer,” called Peebles in fine sarcasm, accenting the Mister.

“Oi! Oi! I don’t care vot nobody says,” moaned Bluber.

“ ’E wants us to build a ’ouse for ’im hevery night,” continued Peebles, “while ’e stands abaht and tells us bloomin’ well ’ow to do it, and ’im, bein’ a fine gentleman, don’t do no work.”

“Why should I do any work with my hands when you two big beasts haven’t got anything else to work with?” asked Kraski. “You would all have starved by this time if I hadn’t found food for you. And you’ll be lion meat in the end, or die of exhaustion if you don’t listen to me—not that it would be much loss.”

The others paid no attention to his last sally. As a matter of fact they had all been quarreling so much for such a long time that they really paid little attention to one another. With the exception of Peebles and Throck they all hated one another cordially, and only clung together because they were afraid to separate. Slowly Peebles lowered his bulk to the ground. Throck followed him, and then came Kraski, and then, finally, Bluber, who stood for a moment in silence, looking down at his disreputable clothing.

“Mein Gott!” he exclaimed at last. “Look at me! Dis suit, vot it cost me tventy guineas, look at it. Ruined. Ruined. It vouldn’t bring vun penny in der pound.”

“The hell with your clothes!” exclaimed Kraski. “Here we are, lost, half starved, constantly menaced by wild animals, and maybe, for all we know, by cannibals, with Flora missing in the jungle, and you can stand there and talk about your ’tventy guinea’ suit. You make me tired, Bluber. But come on, we might as well be moving.”

“Which way?” asked Throck.

“Why, to the west, of course,” replied Kraski. “The coast is there, and there is nothing else for us to do but try to reach it.”

“We can’t reach it by goin’ east,” roared Peebles, “an’ ’ere we are, ’n that’s that.”

“Who said we could?” demanded Kraski.

“Well, we was travelin’ east all day yesterday,” said Peebles. “I knew all the time that there was somethin’ wrong, and I just got it figured out.”

Throck looked at his partner in stupid surprise. “What do you mean?” he growled. “What makes you think we was travelin’ east?”

“It’s easy enough,” replied Peebles, “and I can prove it to you. Because this party here knows so much more than the rest of us we’ve been travelin’ straight toward the interior ever since the niggers deserted us.” He nodded toward the Russian, who stood with his hands on his hips, eyeing the other quizzically.

“If you think I’m taking you in the wrong direction, Peebles,” said Kraski, “you just turn around and go the other way; but I’m going to keep on the way we’ve been going, which is the right way.”

“It ain’t the right way,” retorted Peebles, “and I’ll show yer. Listen here. When you travel west the sun is at your left side, isn’t it—that is, all durin’ the middle of the day. Well, ever since we’ve been travelin’ without the niggers the sun has been on our right. I thought all the time there was somethin’ wrong, but I could never figure it out until just now. It’s plain as the face on your nose. We’ve been travelin’ due east right along.”

“Blime,” cried Throck, “that we have, due east, and this blighter thinks as ’ow ’e knows it all.”

“Oi!” groaned Bluber, “und ve got to valk it all back again yet, once more?”

Kraski laughed and turned away to resume the march in the direction he had chosen. “You fellows go on your own way if you want to,” he said, “and while you’re traveling, just ponder the fact that you’re south of the equator and that therefore the sun is always in the north, which, however, doesn’t change its old-fashioned habit of setting in the west.”

Bluber was the first to grasp the truth of Kraski’s statement. “Come on, boys,” he said, “Carl vas right,” and he turned and followed the Russian.

Peebles stood scratching his head, entirely baffled by the puzzling problem, which Throck, also, was pondering deeply. Presently the latter turned after Bluber and Kraski. “Come on, John,” he said to Peebles, “hi don’t hunderstand it, but hi guess they’re right. They are headin’ right toward where the sun set last night, and that sure must be west.”

His theory tottering, Peebles followed Throck, though he remained unconvinced.

The four men, hungry and footsore, had dragged their weary way along the jungle trail toward the west for several hours in vain search for game. Unschooled in jungle craft they blundered on. There might have been on every hand fierce carnivore or savage warriors, but so dull are the perceptive faculties of civilized man, the most blatant foe might have stalked them unperceived.

And so it was that shortly after noon, as they were crossing a small clearing, the zip of an arrow that barely missed Bluber’s head, brought them to a sudden, terrified halt. With a shrill scream of terror the Jew crumpled to the ground. Kraski threw his rifle to his shoulder and fired.

“There!” he cried, “behind those bushes,” and then another arrow, from another direction, pierced his forearm. Peebles and Throck, beefy and cumbersome, got into action with less celerity than the Russian, but, like him, they showed no indication of fear.

“Down,” cried Kraski, suiting the action to the word. “Lie down and let them have it.”

Scarcely had the three men dropped among the long grass when a score of