Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“If you cannot follow,” he said, “wait here. I do not wish him to
escape. I will return for you. If you can follow on slowly, do so.” And
then he left her and made his way cautiously forward toward the light
and the voices. He heard Flora Hawkes moving directly behind him. It was
evident that she could not bear the thought of being left alone again in
the dark jungle. Almost simultaneously Tarzan heard a low whine a few
paces to his right. “Jad-bal-ja,” he whispered in a low voice, “heel,”
and the great black-maned lion crept close to him, and Flora Hawkes,
stifling a scream, rushed to his side and grasped his arms.
“Silence,” he whispered; “Jad-bal-ja will not harm you.”
An instant later the three came to the edge of the ancient river bank,
and through the tall grasses growing there looked down upon the little
camp beneath.
Tarzan, to his consternation, saw a counterpart of himself standing
before a little fire, while slowly approaching the man, with
outstretched arms, was a woman, draped in flowing white. He heard her
words; soft words of love and endearment, and at the sound of the voice
and the scent spoor that a vagrant wind carried suddenly to his
nostrils, a strange complex of emotion overwhelmed him—happiness,
despair, rage, love, and hate.
He saw the man at the fire step forward with open arms to take the woman
to his breast, and then Tarzan separated the grasses and stepped to the
very edge of the embankment, his voice shattering the jungle with a
single word.
“Jane!” he cried, and instantly the man and woman turned and looked up
at him, where his figure was dimly revealed in the light of the
campfire. At sight of him the man wheeled and raced for the jungle on
the opposite side of the river, and then Tarzan leaped to the bottom of
the wash below and ran toward the woman.
“Jane,” he cried, “it is you, it is you!”
The woman showed her bewilderment. She looked first at the retreating
figure of the man she had been about to embrace and then turned her eyes
toward Tarzan. She drew her fingers across her brow and looked back
toward Esteban, but Esteban was no longer in sight. Then she took a
faltering step toward the ape-man.
“My God,” she cried, “what does it mean? Who are you, and if you are
Tarzan who was he?”
“I am Tarzan, Jane,” said the ape-man.
She looked back and saw Flora Hawkes approaching. “Yes,” she said, “you
are Tarzan. I saw you when you ran off into the jungle with Flora
Hawkes. I cannot understand, John. I could not believe that you, even
had you suffered an accident to your head, could have done such a
thing.”
“I, run off into the jungle with Flora Hawkes?” he asked, in unfeigned
surprise.
“I saw you,” said Jane.
The ape-man turned toward Flora. “I do not understand it,” he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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