Tarzan of the Apes read the letter through twice. Mountford! Almost ever since he could remember, it seemed, the mysterious disappearance of Lord and Lady Mountford had been recalled to the minds of men by rumors that they still lived, until they had become a legend of the wilderness.
No one really believed that they lived, yet at intervals some wanderer from the interior would revive the rumor with more or less circumstantial evidence. He had had the story from the chieftain of a remote tribe, or perhaps from the lips of a dying white man; but there never came any definite clew as to the exact whereabouts of the Mountfords-they had been reported from a score of places all the way from the Soudan to Rhodesia .
And now at last the truth had come, but too late.. Lady Mountford had been dead for twenty years, and it was quite improbable that her husband still lived. The child must, of course, have died or been killed by the Kaji. It could scarcely have survived among those savage people through infancy.
To the jungle bred ape-man death was a commonplace phenomenon of existence and far less remarkable than many other manifestations of nature, for it came eventually to all living things; so the possibility of the death of the man and the child induced no reaction of sorrow or regret. It simply meant nothing to him whatsoever. He would deliver the letter to the English authorities at the first opportunity, and that would be all that there would be to it. Or so Tarzan thought. He continued his way, putting the matter from his mind. He was more interested in the maneuvers of Ska the vulture, for they indicated that Ska was circling about some creature not yet dead and which, because of its size or nature, he hesitated to attack.
As Tarzan approached the spot above which Ska wheeled on static wings he saw Numa the lion drop from the ledge upon which he had been standing and move cautiously toward the thing that had aroused the man's curiosity. Though the latter was in plain sight, Numa seemingly ignored his presence; nor did Tarzan alter his course because of the lion. If neither changed his pace or his direction they would meet close to the thing above which Ska hovered.
As the ape-man came nearer the object of his interest he saw the body of a man lying in a little natural depression of the ground-the body of a white man.
To the right of it, a hundred yards away, was Numa. Presently the man stirred. He was not dead. He raised his head and saw the lion; then he struggled to rise, but he was very weak and could only manage to raise himself to one knee. Behind him was Tarzan, whom he did not see.
As the man half rose, the lion growled. It was only a warning in which there was no immediate menace. Tarzan recognized it as such. He knew that Numa had been attracted by curiosity and not by hunger. His belly was full.
But the man did not know these things. He thought it was the end, for he was unarmed and helpless; and the great carnivore, the king of beasts, was almost upon him.
Then he heard another low growl behind him and, turning his eyes quickly in that direction, saw an almost naked man coming toward him. For an instant he did not understand, for he saw no other beast; then he heard the growl again and saw that it came from the throat of the bronzed giant approaching him.
Numa heard the growl too and paused. He shook his head and snarled. Tarzan did not pause; he continued on toward the man. There was no sanctuary should the lion attack no tree to offer the safety of its branches; there were only Tarzan's weapons and his great strength and his skill; but greatest of all was his conviction that Numa would not attack.
The Lord of the Jungle well knew the art of bluff and its value. Suddenly he raised his head and voiced the hideous warning-cry of the bull ape. The man shuddered as he heard the bestial cry issue from the lips of a human being. Numa, with a parting growl, turned and stalked away.
Tarzan came and stood over the man. 'Are you hurt?' he demanded, 'or weak from hunger and thirst?'
The voice of a beast coming from the lips of this strange white giant had been no more disconcerting to the man than now to hear him speak in English. He did not know whether to be afraid or not. He glanced hurriedly in the direction of the lion and saw it moving off in the direction from which it had come, and he was filled with a new awe of this creature who could frighten the king of beasts from its prey.
'Well,' demanded the ape-man, 'do you understand English?'
'Yes,' replied the other; 'I am an American. I am not hurt. I have been without food for several days. I have had no water today.'
Tarzan stooped and lifted the man to a shoulder. 'We will find water and food,' he said, 'and then you may tell me what you are doing alone in this country.'
Chapter 2. A Strange Tale
AS TARZAN CARRIED the man toward safety, the limp, dead weight of his burden told him that his charge had lost consciousness. Occasionally he mumbled incoherently, but for the greater part of the journey he was as one dead.
When they came at last to water, Tarzan laid the man in the shade of a small tree; and, raising his head and shoulders, forced a few drops of the liquid between his lips. Presently he could take more, and with its revivifying effects he commenced to speak-broken, disjointed, sometimes incoherent snatches of sentences; as one speaks in delirium or when emerging from an anesthetic.
'She-devil,' he mumbled. '. . . beautiful . . . God! how beautiful.' Then he was silent for a while as Tarzan bathed his face and wrists with the cool water.
Presently he opened his eyes and looked at the ape-man, his brows wrinkled in questioning and puzzlement. 'The diamond!' he demanded. 'Did you get the diamond? Huge . . . she must have been sired by Satan . . . beautiful-enormous-big as . . . what? It can't be . . . but I saw it-with my own eyes-eyes! eyes! . . . what eyes! . . . but a fiend . . . ten million dollars . . . all of that . . . big . . . big as a woman's head.'
'Be quiet,' said the ape-man, 'and rest. I will get food.'
When he returned, the man was sleeping peacefully and night was falling. Tarzan built a fire and prepared a brace of quail and a hare that he had brought down with arrows from his bow. The quail he wrapped in wet clay and laid in the embers; the hare he jointed and grilled on sharpened sticks.
When he had done, he glanced at the man and saw that his eyes were open and upon him. The gaze was quite normal, but the expression was one of puzzlement.
'Who are you?' asked the man. 'What happened? I do not seem to be able to recall.'
'I found you out on the plain-exhausted,' explained Tarzan.
'O-oh!' exclaimed the other. 'You are the-the man the lion ran away from. Now I remember. And you brought me here and got food?-and there is water, too?'
'Yes; you have had some. You can have more now. There is a spring behind you. Are you strong enough to reach it?'
The man turned and saw the water; then he crawled to it. Some of his strength had returned.
'Don't drink too much at once,' cautioned the ape-man.
After the man had drunk he turned again toward Tarzan. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'Why did you save me?'
'You will answer the questions,' said the Lord of the Jungle. 'Who are you? And what are you doing in this country alone? What are you doing here at all?'
The voice was low and deep. It questioned, but it also commanded. The stranger felt that. It was the well modulated, assured voice of a man who was always obeyed. He wondered who this almost naked white giant could be. A regular Tarzan, he thought. When he looked at the man he could almost believe that such a creature existed outside of story and legend and that this was, indeed, he.
'Perhaps you had better eat first,' said the ape-man; 'then you may answer my questions.' He took a ball of hard baked clay from the fire, scraping it out with a stick; then with the hilt of his knife he broke it open, and the baked clay fell away from the body of the quail, taking the feathers with it. He impaled the bird on the stick and handed it to the man. 'It is hot,' he said.
It was, but the half-famished stranger risked burning for an initial morsel. Without seasoning, as it was, no food had ever tasted better. Only its high temperature restrained him from wolfing it. He ate one quail and half the rabbit before he lay back, at least partially satisfied.
