Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Nkima danced excitedly upon the naked, brown shoulder of his master. He
chattered and scolded, now looking up inquiringly into Tarzan's face
and then off into the jungle.
"Something is coming, Bwana," said Muviro, sub-chief of the Waziri.
"Nkima has heard it."
"And Tarzan," said the ape-man.
"The big Bwana's ears are as keen as the ears of Bara the antelope,"
said Muviro.
"Had they not been, Tarzan would not be here today," replied the
ape-man, with a smile. "He would not have grown to manhood had not
Kala, his mother, taught him to use all of the senses that Mulungu gave
him."
"What comes?" asked Muviro.
"A party of men," replied Tarzan.
"Perhaps they are not friendly," suggested the black. "Shall I warn the
warriors?"
Tarzan glanced about the little camp where a score of his black
fighting men were busy preparing their evening meal and saw that, as
was the custom of the Waziri, their weapons were in order and at hand.
"No," he said. "It will, I believe, be unnecessary, as these people who
are approaching do not come stealthily as enemies would, nor are their
numbers so great as to cause us any apprehension."
But Nkima, a born pessimist, expected only the worst, and as the
approaching party came nearer his excitement increased. He leaped from
Tarzan's shoulder to the ground, jumped up and down several times and
then springing back to Tarzan's side, seized his arm and attempted to
drag him to his feet.
"Run, run!" he cried, in the language of the apes. "Strange Gomangani
are coming. They will kill little Nkima."
"Do not be afraid, Nkima," said the ape-man. "Tarzan and Muviro will
not let the strangers hurt you."
"I smell a strange Tarmangani," chattered Nkima. "There is a Tarmangani
with them. The Tarmangani are worse than the Gomangani. They come with
thundersticks and kill little Nkima and all his brothers and sisters.
They kill the Mangani. They kill the Gomangani. They kill everything
with their thundersticks. Nkima does not like the Tarmangani. Nkima is
afraid."
To Nkima, as to the other denizens of the jungle, Tarzan was no
Tarmangani, no white man. He was of the jungle. He was one of them, and
if they thought of him as being anything other than just Tarzan it was
as a Mangani, a great ape, that they classified him.
The advance of the strangers was now plainly audible to everyone in the
camp. The Waziri warriors glanced into the jungle in the direction from
which the sounds were coming and then back to Tarzan and Muviro, but
when they saw that their leaders were not concerned they went quietly
on with their cooking.
A tall, black warrior was the first of the party to come within sight
of the camp. When he saw the Waziri he halted and an instant later a
bearded white man stopped beside him.
For an instant the white man surveyed the camp and then he came
forward, making the sign of peace. Out of the jungle a dozen or more
blacks followed him. Most of them were porters, there being but three
or four rifles in evidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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