Chapter XII. Man's Reason

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

　　There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned hisauthority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but heso feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his newlord that he confined the manifestation of his objections topetty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew,however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest thekingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, andso he was ever on his guard against surprise.

　　For months the life of the little band went on much as ithad before, except that Tarzan's greater intelligence and hisability as a hunter were the means of providing for themmore bountifully than ever before. Most of them, therefore,were more than content with the change in rulers.

　　Tarzan led them by night to the fields of the black men,and there, warned by their chief's superior wisdom, they ateonly what they required, nor ever did they destroy what theycould not eat, as is the way of Manu, the monkey, and ofmost apes.

　　So, while the blacks were wroth at the continued pilferingof their fields, they were not discouraged in their efforts tocultivate the land, as would have been the case had Tarzanpermitted his people to lay waste the plantation wantonly.

　　During this period Tarzan paid many nocturnal visits to thevillage, where he often renewed his supply of arrows. Hesoon noticed the food always standing at the foot of the treewhich was his avenue into the palisade, and after a little, hecommenced to eat whatever the blacks put there.

　　When the awe-struck savages saw that the food disappearedovernight they were filled with consternation and dread,for it was one thing to put food out to propitiate a godor a devil, but quite another thing to have the spirit reallycome into the village and eat it. Such a thing was unheard of,and it clouded their superstitious minds with all manner ofvague fears.

　　Nor was this all. The periodic disappearance of theirarrows, and the strange pranks perpetrated by unseen hands,had wrought them to such a state that life had become averitable burden in their new home, and now it was that Mbongaand his head men began to talk of abandoning the village andseeking a site farther on in the jungle.

　　Presently the black warriors began to strike farther andfarther south into the heart of the forest when they went tohunt, looking for a site for a new village.

　　More often was the tribe of Tarzan disturbed by thesewandering huntsmen. Now was the quiet, fierce solitude ofthe primeval forest broken by new, strange cries. No longerwas there safety for bird or beast. Man had come.

　　Other animals passed up and down the jungle by day andby night--fierce, cruel beasts--but their weaker neighborsonly fled from their immediate vicinity to return again whenthe danger was past.

　　With man it is different. When he comes many of the largeranimals instinctively leave the district entirely, seldomif ever to return; and thus it has always been with the greatanthropoids. They flee man as man flees a pestilence.

　　For a short time the tribe of Tarzan lingered in the vicinityof the beach because their new chief hated the thought ofleaving the treasured contents of the little cabin forever. Butwhen one day a member of the tribe discovered the blacks ingreat numbers on the banks of a little stream that had beentheir watering place for generations, and in the act of clearinga space in the jungle and erecting many huts, the apes wouldremain no longer; and so Tarzan led them inland for manymarches to a spot as yet undefiled by the foot of a human being.

　　Once every moon Tarzan would go swinging rapidly backthrough the swaying branches to have a day with his books,and to replenish his supply of arrows. This latter task wasbecoming more and more difficult, for the blacks had taken tohiding their supply away at night in granaries and living huts.

　　This necessitated watching by day on Tarzan's part todiscover where the arrows were being concealed.

　　Twice had he entered huts at night while the inmates laysleeping upon their mats, and stolen the arrows from the verysides of the warriors. But this method he realized to be toofraught with danger, and so he commenced picking up solitaryhunters with his long, deadly noose, stripping them of weaponsand ornaments and dropping their bodies from a high tree intothe village street during the still watches of the night.

　　These various escapades again so terrorized the blacks that,had it not been for the monthly respite between Tarzan'svisits, in which they had opportunity to renew hope that eachfresh incursion would prove the last, they soon would haveabandoned their new village.

　　The blacks had not as yet come upon Tarzan's cabin onthe distant beach, but the ape-man lived in constant dreadthat, while he was away with the tribe, they would discoverand despoil his treasure. So it came that he spent more andmore time in the vicinity of his father's last home, and lessand less with the tribe. Presently the members of his littlecommunity began to suffer on account of his neglect, fordisputes and quarrels constantly arose which only the kingmight settle peaceably.

　　At last some of the older apes spoke to Tarzan on the subject,and for a month thereafter he remained constantly withthe tribe.

　　The duties of kingship among the anthropoids are notmany or arduous.

　　In the afternoon comes Thaka, possibly, to complain thatold Mungo has stolen his new wife. Then must Tarzan summonall before him, and if he finds that the wife prefers hernew lord he commands that matters remain as they are, orpossibly that Mungo give Thaka one of his daughters in exchange.

　　Whatever his decision, the apes accept it as final, andreturn to their occupations satisfied.

　　Then comes Tana, shrieking and holding tight her sidefrom which blood is streaming. Gunto, her husband, hascruelly bitten her! And Gunto, summoned, says that Tana islazy and will not bring him nuts and beetles, or scratch hisback for him.

　　So Tarzan scolds them both and threatens Gunto with ataste of the death-bearing slivers if he abuses Tana further,and Tana, for her part, is compelled to promise betterattention to her wifely duties.

　　And so it goes, little family differences for the most part,which, if left unsettled would result finally in greaterfactional strife, and the eventual dismemberment of the tribe.

　　But Tarzan tired of it, as he found that kingship meant thecurtailment of his liberty. He longed for the little cabin andthe sun-kissed sea--for the cool interior of the well-builthouse, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.

　　As he had grown older, he found that he had grown awayfrom his people. Their interests and his were far removed.They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understandaught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passedthrough the active brain of their human king. So limited wastheir vocabulary that Tarzan could not even talk with themof the many new truths, and the great fields of thought thathis reading had opened up before his longing eyes, or makeknown ambitions which stirred his soul.

　　Among the tribe he no longer had friends as of old. A littlechild may find companionship in many strange and simplecreatures, but to a grown man there must be some semblanceof equality in intellect as the basis for agreeable association.

　　Had Kala lived, Tarzan would have sacrificed all else toremain near her, but now that she was dead, and the playfulfriends of his childhood grown into fierce and surly brutes hefelt that he much preferred the peace and solitude of hiscabin to the irksome duties of leadership amongst a horde ofwild beasts.

　　The hatred and jealousy of Terkoz, son of Tublat, didmuch to counteract the effect of Tarzan's desire to renouncehis kingship among the apes, for, stubborn young Englishmanthat he was, he could not bring himself to retreat in the faceof so malignant an enemy.

　　That Terkoz would be chosen leader in his stead he knewfull well, for time and again the ferocious brute hadestablished his claim to physical supremacy over thefew bull apes who had dared resent his savage bullying.

　　Tarzan would have liked to subdue the ugly beast withoutrecourse to knife or arrows. So much had his great strengthand agility increased in the period following his maturity thathe had come to believe that he might master the redoubtableTerkoz in a hand to hand fight were it not for the terribleadvantage the anthropoid's huge fighting fangs gave himover the poorly armed Tarzan.

　　The entire matter was taken out of Tarzan's hands one dayby force of circumstances, and his future left open to him, sothat he might go or stay without any stain upon his savageescutcheon.

　　It happened thus:

　　The tribe was feeding quietly, spread over a considerablearea, when a great screaming arose some distance east ofwhere Tarzan lay upon his belly beside a limpid brook,attempting to catch an elusive fish in his quick, brown hands.

　　With one accord the tribe swung rapidly toward the frightenedcries, and there found Terkoz holding an old female bythe hair and beating her unmercifully with his great hands.

　　As Tarzan approached he raised his hand aloft for Terkozto desist, for the female was not his, but belonged to a poorold ape whose fighting days were long over, and who, therefore,could not protect his family.

　　Terkoz knew that it was against the laws of his kind tostrike this woman of another, but being a bully, he had takenadvantage of the weakness of the female's husband to chastiseher because she had refused to give up to him a tenderyoung rodent she had captured.

　　When Terkoz saw Tarzan approaching without his arrows,he continued to belabor the poor woman in a studied effort toaffront his hated chieftain.

　　Tarzan did not repeat his warning signal, but insteadrushed bodily upon the waiting Terkoz.

　　Never had the ape-man fought so terrible a battle sincethat long-gone day when Bolgani, the great king gorilla hadso horribly manhandled him ere the new-found knife had, byaccident, pricked the savage heart.

　　Tarzan's knife on the present occasion but barely offset thegleaming fangs of Terkoz, and what little advantage the apehad over the man in brute strength was almost balanced bythe latter's wonderful quickness and agility.

　　In the sum total of their points, however, the anthropoidhad a shade the better of the battle, and had there been noother personal attribute to influence the final outcome,Tarzan of the Apes, the young Lord Greystoke, would have diedas he had lived--an unknown savage beast in equatorial Africa.

　　But there was that which had raised him far above his fellowsof the jungle--that little spark which spells the wholevast difference between man and brute--Reason. This it waswhich saved him from death beneath the iron muscles andtearing fangs of Terkoz.

　　Scarcely had they fought a dozen seconds ere they wererolling upon the ground, striking, tearing and rending--twogreat savage beasts battling to the death.

　　Terkoz had a dozen knife wounds on head and breast, andTarzan was torn and bleeding--his scalp in one place halftorn from his head so that a great piece hung down over oneeye, obstructing his vision.

　　But so far the young Englishman had been able to keepthose horrible fangs from his jugular and now, as they foughtless fiercely for a moment, to regain their breath, Tarzanformed a cunning plan. He would work his way to the other'sback and, clinging there with tooth and nail, drive his knifehome until Terkoz was no more.

　　The maneuver was accomplished more easily than he hadhoped, for the stupid beast, not knowing what Tarzan wasattempting, made no particular effort to prevent theaccomplishment of the design.

　　But when, finally, he realized that his antagonist wasfastened to him where his teeth and fists alike were uselessagainst him, Terkoz hurled himself about upon the ground soviolently that Tarzan could but cling desperately to theleaping, turning, twisting body, and ere he had struck ablow the knife was hurled from his hand by a heavy impactagainst the earth, and Tarzan found himself defenseless.

　　During the rollings and squirmings of the next few minutes,Tarzan's hold was loosened a dozen times until finallyan accidental circumstance of those swift and everchangingevolutions gave him a new hold with his right hand, which herealized was absolutely unassailable.

　　His arm was passed beneath Terkoz's arm from behindand his hand and forearm encircled the back of Terkoz'sneck. It was the half-Nelson of modern wrestling which theuntaught ape-man had stumbled upon, but superior reasonshowed him in an instant the value of the thing he haddiscovered. It was the difference to him between life and death.

　　And so he struggled to encompass a similar hold with theleft hand, and in a few moments Terkoz's bull neck wascreaking beneath a full-Nelson.

　　There was no more lunging about now. The two lay perfectlystill upon the ground, Tarzan upon Terkoz's back. Slowly thebullet head of the ape was being forced lower andlower upon his chest.

　　Tarzan knew what the result would be. In an instant theneck would break. Then there came to Terkoz's rescue thesame thing that had put him in these sore straits--a man'sreasoning power.

　　"If I kill him," thought Tarzan, "what advantage will it beto me? Will it not rob the tribe of a great fighter? And ifTerkoz be dead, he will know nothing of my supremacy,while alive he will ever be an example to the other apes."

　　"Ka-goda?" hissed Tarzan in Terkoz's ear, which, in apetongue, means, freely translated: "Do you surrender?"

　　For a moment there was no reply, and Tarzan added a fewmore ounces of pressure, which elicited a horrified shriekof pain from the great beast.

　　"Ka-goda?" repeated Tarzan.

　　"Ka-goda!" cried Terkoz.

　　"Listen," said Tarzan, easing up a trifle, but not releasinghis hold. "I am Tarzan, King of the Apes, mighty hunter,mighty fighter. In all the jungle there is none so great.

　　"You have said: `Ka-goda' to me. All the tribe have heard.Quarrel no more with your king or your people, for nexttime I shall kill you. Do you understand?"

　　"Huh," assented Terkoz.

　　"And you are satisfied?"

　　"Huh," said the ape.

　　Tarzan let him up, and in a few minutes all were back attheir vocations, as though naught had occurred to mar thetranquility of their primeval forest haunts.

　　But deep in the minds of the apes was rooted the convictionthat Tarzan was a mighty fighter and a strange creature.Strange because he had had it in his power to kill his enemy,but had allowed him to live--unharmed.

　　That afternoon as the tribe came together, as was theirwont before darkness settled on the jungle, Tarzan, hiswounds washed in the waters of the stream, called the oldmales about him.

　　"You have seen again to-day that Tarzan of the Apes isthe greatest among you," he said.

　　"Huh," they replied with one voice, "Tarzan is great."

　　"Tarzan," he continued, "is not an ape. He is not like hispeople. His ways are not their ways, and so Tarzan is goingback to the lair of his own kind by the waters of the greatlake which has no farther shore. You must choose another torule you, for Tarzan will not return."

　　And thus young Lord Greystoke took the first step towardthe goal which he had set--the finding of other white menlike himself.