"I should like to go there and see this strange city," said Tarzan, "and get some of their yellow metal from its fierce inhabitants.""It is a long march," replied Waziri, "and I am an old man, but if you will wait until the rainy season is over and the rivers have gone down I will take some of my warriors and go with you."And Tarzan had to be contented with that arrangement, though he would have liked it well enough to have set off the next morning--he was as impatient as a child.Really Tarzan of the Apes was but a child, or a primeval man, which is the same thing in a way.
The next day but one a small party of hunters returned to the village from the south to report a large herd of elephant some miles away.By climbing trees they had had a fairly good view of the herd, which they described as numbering several large tuskers, a great many cows and calves, and full-grown bulls whose ivory would be worth having.
The balance of the day and evening was filled with preparation for a great hunt--spears were overhauled, quivers were replenished, bows were restrung; and all the while the village witch doctor passed through the busy throngs disposing of various charms and amulets designed to protect the possessor from hurt, or bring him good fortune in the morrow's hunt.
At dawn the hunters were off.There were fifty sleek, black warriors, and in their midst, lithe and active as a young forest god, strode Tarzan of the Apes, his brown skin contrasting oddly with the ebony of his companions.Except for color he was one of them.His ornaments and weapons were the same as theirs--he spoke their language--he laughed and joked with them, and leaped and shouted in the brief wild dance that preceded their departure from the village, to all intent and purpose a savage among savages.Nor, had he questioned himself, is it to be doubted that he would have admitted that he was far more closely allied to these people and their life than to the Parisian friends whose ways, apelike, he had successfully mimicked for a few short months.
But he did think of D'Arnot, and a grin of amusement showed his strong white teeth as he pictured the immaculate Frenchman's expression could he by some means see Tarzan as he was that minute.Poor Paul, who had prided himself on having eradicated from his friend the last traces of wild savagery.
"How quickly have I fallen!" thought Tarzan; but in his heart he did not consider it a fall--rather, he pitied the poor creatures of Paris, penned up like prisoners in their silly clothes, and watched by policemen all their poor lives, that they might do nothing that was not entirely artificial and tiresome.
A two hours' march brought them close to the vicinity in which the elephants had been seen the previous day.
From there on they moved very quietly indeed searching for the spoor of the great beasts.At length they found the well-marked trail along which the herd had passed not many hours before.In single file they followed it for about half an hour.It was Tarzan who first raised his hand in signal that the quarry was at hand--his sensitive nose had warned him that the elephants were not far ahead of them.
The blacks were skeptical when he told them how he knew.
"Come with me," said Tarzan, "and we shall see."With the agility of a squirrel he sprang into a tree and ran nimbly to the top.One of the blacks followed more slowly and carefully.When he had reached a lofty limb beside the ape-man the latter pointed to the south, and there, some few hundred yards away, the black saw a number of huge black backs swaying back and forth above the top of the lofty jungle grasses.He pointed the direction to the watchers below, indicating with his fingers the number of beasts he could count.
Immediately the hunters started toward the elephants.
The black in the tree hastened down, but Tarzan stalked, after his own fashion, along the leafy way of the middle terrace.
It is no child's play to hunt wild elephants with the crude weapons of primitive man.Tarzan knew that few native tribes ever attempted it, and the fact that his tribe did so gave him no little pride--already he was commencing to think of himself as a member of the little community.