Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Little Manu was very much afraid out there alone in the growing dusk,
and he scampered very fast with his tail bowed up and out behind him.
All the time he cast affrighted glances to the right and left. The
moment he reached the kopje he scampered up its face as fast as he
could. It was really a huge, precipitous granite rock with almost
perpendicular sides, but sufficiently weather-worn to make its ascent
easy to little Manu. He paused a moment at the summit to get his breath
and still the beatings of his frightened little heart, and then he made
his way around to a point where he could look down upon the party
beneath.
There, indeed, was the great Tarmangani Tarzan, and with him were some
fifty Gomangani. The latter were splicing together a number of long,
straight poles, which they had laid upon the ground in two parallel
lines. Across these two, at intervals of a foot or more, they were
lashing smaller straight branches about eighteen inches in length, the
whole forming a crude but substantial ladder. The purpose of all this
Manu, of course, did not understand, nor did he know that it had been
evolved from the fertile brain of Flora Hawkes as a means of scaling the
precipitous kopje, at the summit of which lay the outer entrance to the
treasure vaults of Opar. Nor did Manu know that the party had no
intention of entering the city of Opar and were therefore in no danger
of becoming victims of Cadj’s hidden assassins. To him, the danger to
Tarzan of the Apes was very real, and so, having regained his breath, he
lost no time in delivering his warning to the friend of his people.
“Tarzan,” he cried, in the language that was common to both.
The white man and the blacks looked up at the sound of his chattering
voice.
“It is Manu, Tarzan,” continued the little monkey, “who has come to tell
you not to go to Opar. Cadj and his people await within the outer wall
to slay you.”
The blacks, having discovered that the author of the disturbance was
nothing but a little gray monkey, returned immediately to their work,
while the white man similarly ignored his words of warning. Manu was not
surprised at the lack of interest displayed by the blacks, for he knew
that they did not understand his language, but he could not comprehend
why Tarzan failed to pay any attention whatsoever to him. Again and
again he called Tarzan by name. Again and again he shrieked his warning
to the ape-man, but without eliciting any reply or any information that
the great Tarmangani had either heard or understood him. Manu was
mystified. What had occurred to render Tarzan of the Apes so indifferent
to the warnings of his old friend?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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