Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Early the following morning Tarzan set out again toward Opar, and
directing his Waziri to continue the march in the most direct way, he
left them that he might pursue further his investigations of the
mysterious presence in his jungle that the arrow and the footsteps had
apprised him of. Coming again to the spot at which darkness had forced
him to abandon his investigations, he took up the spoor of the stranger.
Nor had he followed it far before he came upon further evidence of the
presence of this new and malign personality—stretched before him in the
trail was the body of a giant ape, one of the tribe of great anthropoids
among whom Tarzan had been raised. Protruding from the hairy abdomen of
the Mangani was another of the machine-made arrows of civilization. The
ape-man’s eyes narrowed and a scowl darkened his brow. Who was this who
dared invade his sacred preserves and slaughter thus ruthlessly Tarzan’s
people?
A low growl rumbled in the throat of the ape-man. Sloughed with the
habiliments of civilization was the thin veneer of civilization that
Tarzan wore among white men. No English lord was this who looked upon
the corpse of his hairy cousin, but another jungle beast in whose breast
raged the unquenchable fire of suspicion and hatred for the man-thing
that is the heritage of the jungle-bred. A beast of prey viewed the
bloody work of ruthless man. Nor was there in the consciousness of
Tarzan any acknowledgment of his blood relationship to the killer.
Realizing that the trail had been made upon the second day before,
Tarzan hastened on in pursuit of the slayer. There was no doubt in his
mind but that plain murder had been committed, for he was sufficiently
familiar with the traits of the Mangani to know that none of them would
provoke assault unless driven to it.
Tarzan was traveling up wind, and some half-hour after he had discovered
the body of the ape his keen nostrils caught the scent spoor of others
of its kind. Knowing the timidity of these fierce denizens of the jungle
he moved forward now with great wariness, lest, warned of his approach,
they take flight before they were aware of his identity. He did not see
them often, yet he knew that there were always those among them who
recalled him, and that through these he could always establish amicable
relations with the balance of the tribe.
Owing to the denseness of the undergrowth Tarzan chose the middle
terraces for his advance, and here, swinging freely and swiftly among
the leafy boughs, he came presently upon the giant anthropoids. There
were about twenty of them in the band, and they were engaged, in a
little natural clearing, in their never-ending search for caterpillars
and beetles, which formed important items in the diet of the Mangani.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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