'So this is the wild man!' exclaimed one.
'You had better be careful, Phobeg,' said the other. 'I should hate to be locked up in a cell with a wild man.' Then, laughing at his joke, he slammed the door after the slave had come out, and the three went away.
Phobeg was appraising Tarzan with a new eye; his nakedness took on a new meaning in the light of that descriptive term, wild man. Phobeg noted the great height of his cellmate, the expanse of his chest, and his narrow hips, but he greatly under-estimated the strength of the symmetrical muscles that flowed so smoothly beneath the bronzed hide. Then he glanced at his own gnarled and knotted muscles and was satisfied.
'So you are a wild man!' he demanded. 'How wild are you?'
Tarzan turned slowly toward the speaker. He thought that he recognized thinly veiled sarcasm in the tone of Phobeg's voice. For the first time he saw his companion in the light of day. He saw a man a few inches shorter than himself but of mighty build, a man of great girth and bulging muscles, a man who might outweigh the Lord of the Jungle by fifty pounds. He noted his prominent jaw, his receding forehead, and his small eyes. In silence Tarzan regarded Phobeg.
'Why don't you answer me?' angrily demanded the Cathnean.
'Do not be a fool,' admonished Tarzan. 'I recall that last night you said that as we might be confined here for a long time we might as well be friends. We cannot be friends by insulting one another. Food is here. Let us eat.'
Phobeg grunted and inserted one of his big paws into the pot the slave had brought. As there was no knife or fork or spoon Tarzan, had no alternative but to do likewise if he wished to eat; and so he, too, took food from the pot with his fingers. The food was meat; it was tough and stringy and under-cooked. Had it been raw, Tarzan had been better suited.
Phobeg chewed assiduously upon a mouthful of the meat until he had reduced the fibres to a pulp that would pass down his throat. 'An old lion must have died yesterday.' he remarked, 'a very old lion.'
'If we acquire the characteristics of the creatures we eat, as many men believe,' Tarzan replied, 'we should soon die of old age on this diet.'
'Yesterday I had a piece of goat's meat from Thenar,' said Phobeg. 'It was strong and none too tender, but it was better than this. I am accustomed to good food. In the temple the priests live as well as the nobles do in the palace, and so the temple guard lives well on the leavings of the priests. I was a member of the temple guard. I was the strongest man on the guard. I am the strongest man in Cathne. When raiders come from Thenar, or when I am taken there on raids, the nobles marvel at my strength and bravery. I am afraid of nothing. With my bare hands I have killed men. Did you ever see a man like me?'
'No,' admitted the ape-man.
'Yes, it is well that we should be friends,' continued Phobeg, 'well for you. Everyone wants to be friends with me, for they have learned that my enemies get their necks twisted. I take them like this, by the head and the neck,' and with his great paws he went through a pantomime of seizing and twisting. 'Then, crack! their spines break. What do you think of that?'
'I should think that your enemies would find that very uncomfortable,' replied Tarzan.
'Uncomfortable!' ejaculated Phobeg. 'Why, man, it kills them!'
'At least they can no longer hear,' commented the Lord of the Jungle dryly.
'Of course they cannot hear; they are dead. I do not see what that has to do with it.'
'That does not surprise me,' Tarzan assured him.
'What does not surprise you?' demanded Phobeg.
'That they are dead, or that they cannot hear?'
'I am not easily surprised by anything' explained the ape-man.
Beneath his low forehead Pbobegs brows were knitted in thought. He scratched his head. 'What were we talking about?' he demanded.
'We were trying to decide which would be more terrible,' explained Tarzan patiently, 'to have you for a friend or an enemy.'
Phobeg looked at his companion for a long time. One could almost see the laborious effort of thinking going on inside that thick skull. Then he shook his head. 'That is not what we were talking about at all,' he grumbled.
'Now I have forgotten. I never saw anyone as stupid as you. When they called you a wild man they must have meant a crazy man. And I have got to remain locked in here with you for no one knows how long'.
'You can always get rid of me,' said Tarzan quite seriously.
'How can I get rid of you?' demanded the Cathnean.
'You can twist my neck, like this.' Tarzan mimicked the pantomime in which Phobeg had explained how he rid himself of his enemies.
'I could do it,' boasted Phobeg, 'but then they would kill me. No, I shall let you live.'
'Thanks,' said Tarzan.
'Or at least while we are locked up here together,' added Phobeg.
Loss of liberty represented for Tarzan, as it does for all creatures endowed with brains, the acme of misery, more to be avoided than physical pain; yet, with stoic fortitude he accepted his fate without a murmur of protest, and while his body was confined in four walls of stone, his memories roved the jungle and the veldt and lived again the freedom and the experience of the past.
He recalled the days of his childhood when fierce Kala, the she-ape that had suckled him at her hairy breast in his infancy, had protected him from the dangers of their savage life. He recalled her gentleness and her patience with this backward child who must still be carried in her arms long after the balus of her companion shes were able to scurry through the trees seeking their own food and even able to protect themselves against their enemies by flight if nothing more.
These were his first impressions of life, dating back perhaps to his second year while he was still unable to swing through the trees or even make much progress upon the ground. After that he had developed rapidly, far more rapidly than a pampered child of civilization, for upon the quick development of his cunning and his strength depended his life.
With a faint smile he recalled the rage of old Tublat, his foster father, when Tarzan had deliberately undertaken to annoy him. Old 'Broken-nose' had always hated Tarzan because the helplessness of his long-drawn infancy had prevented Kala from bearing other apes. Tublat had argued in the meagre language of the apes that Tarzan was a weakling that would never become strong enough or clever enough to be of value to the tribe. He wanted Tarzan killed, and he tried to get old Kerchak, the king, to decree his death; so when Tarzan grew old enough to understand, he hated Tublat and sought to annoy him in every way that he could.
His memories of those days brought only smiles now, save only the great tragedy of his life, the death of Kala. But that had occurred later, when he was almost a grown man. She had been saved to him while he needed her most and not taken away until after he was amply able to fend for himself and meet the other denizens of the jungle upon an equal footing. But it was not the protection of those creat arms and mighty fangs that he had missed, that he still missed even today: he had missed the maternal live of that savage heart, the only mother-love that he had ever known.
And now his thoughts turned naturally to other friends of the jungle of whom Kala had been first and greatest. There were his many friends among the great apes; there was Tantor the elephant; there was Jad-bai-ja the Golden Lion; there was little Nkima. Poor little Nkima! Much to his disgust and amid loud howls, Nkima had been left behind this time when Tarzan set out upon his journey into the north country. The little monkey had contracted a cold and the ape-man did not wish to expose him to the closing rains of the rainy season.
Tarzan regretted a little that he had not brought Jad-bal-ja with him, for though he could do very well for considerable periods without the companionship of man, he often missed that of the wild beasts that were his friends. Of course the Golden Lion was sometimes an embarrassing companion when one was in contact with human beings, but he was a loyal friend and good company, for only occasionally did he break the silence.
Tarzan recalled the day that he had captured the tiny cub. What a cub he had been! All lion from the very first. Tarzan sighed as he thought of the days that he and the Golden Lion had hunted and fought together.
