Chapter XVII. Burials

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

　　As it was now quite light, the party, none of whom hadeaten or slept since the previous morning, began to bestirthemselves to prepare food.

　　The mutineers of the Arrow had landed a small supply ofdried meats, canned soups and vegetables, crackers, flour, tea,and coffee for the five they had marooned, and these werehurriedly drawn upon to satisfy the craving of long-famishedappetites.

　　The next task was to make the cabin habitable, and to thisend it was decided to at once remove the gruesome relics ofthe tragedy which had taken place there on some bygone day.

　　Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were deeply interestedin examining the skeletons. The two larger, they stated, hadbelonged to a male and female of one of the higher white races.

　　The smallest skeleton was given but passing attention, as itslocation, in the crib, left no doubt as to its having been theinfant offspring of this unhappy couple.

　　As they were preparing the skeleton of the man for burial,Clayton discovered a massive ring which had evidently encircledthe man's finger at the time of his death, for one of theslender bones of the hand still lay within the golden bauble.

　　Picking it up to examine it, Clayton gave a cry of astonishment,for the ring bore the crest of the house of Greystoke.

　　At the same time, Jane discovered the books in the cupboard,and on opening the fly-leaf of one of them saw thename, John Clayton, London. In a second book which shehurriedly examined was the single name, Greystoke.

　　"Why, Mr. Clayton," she cried, "what does this mean?Here are the names of some of your own people in these books."

　　"And here," he replied gravely, "is the great ring of thehouse of Greystoke which has been lost since my uncle, JohnClayton, the former Lord Greystoke, disappeared, presumablylost at sea."

　　"But how do you account for these things being here, inthis savage African jungle?" exclaimed the girl.

　　"There is but one way to account for it, Miss Porter," saidClayton. "The late Lord Greystoke was not drowned. Hedied here in this cabin and this poor thing upon the floor isall that is mortal of him."

　　"Then this must have been Lady Greystoke," said Janereverently, indicating the poor mass of bones upon the bed.

　　"The beautiful Lady Alice," replied Clayton, "of whose manyvirtues and remarkable personal charms I often have heardmy mother and father speak. Poor woman," he murmured sadly.

　　With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the lateLord and Lady Greystoke were buried beside their littleAfrican cabin, and between them was placed the tiny skeletonof the baby of Kala, the ape.

　　As Mr. Philander was placing the frail bones of the infantin a bit of sail cloth, he examined the skull minutely. Then hecalled Professor Porter to his side, and the two argued in lowtones for several minutes.

　　"Most remarkable, most remarkable," said Professor Porter.

　　"Bless me," said Mr. Philander, "we must acquaint Mr.Clayton with our discovery at once."

　　"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!" remonstrated ProfessorArchimedes Q. Porter. "`Let the dead past bury its dead.'"

　　And so the white-haired old man repeated the burial serviceover this strange grave, while his four companions stoodwith bowed and uncovered heads about him.

　　From the trees Tarzan of the Apes watched the solemnceremony; but most of all he watched the sweet face andgraceful figure of Jane Porter.

　　In his savage, untutored breast new emotions were stirring.He could not fathom them. He wondered why he felt sogreat an interest in these people--why he had gone to suchpains to save the three men. But he did not wonder why hehad torn Sabor from the tender flesh of the strange girl.

　　Surely the men were stupid and ridiculous and cowardly.Even Manu, the monkey, was more intelligent than they. Ifthese were creatures of his own kind he was doubtful if hispast pride in blood was warranted.

　　But the girl, ah--that was a different matter. He did notreason here. He knew that she was created to be protected,and that he was created to protect her.

　　He wondered why they had dug a great hole in the groundmerely to bury dry bones. Surely there was no sense in that;no one wanted to steal dry bones.

　　Had there been meat upon them he could have understood,for thus alone might one keep his meat from Dango, thehyena, and the other robbers of the jungle.

　　When the grave had been filled with earth the little partyturned back toward the cabin, and Esmeralda, still weepingcopiously for the two she had never heard of before today,and who had been dead twenty years, chanced to glance towardthe harbor. Instantly her tears ceased.

　　"Look at them low down white trash out there!" she shrilled,pointing toward the Arrow. "They-all's a desecratingus, right here on this here perverted island."

　　And, sure enough, the Arrow was being worked toward theopen sea, slowly, through the harbor's entrance.

　　"They promised to leave us firearms and ammunition,"said Clayton. "The merciless beasts!"

　　"It is the work of that fellow they call Snipes, I am sure,"said Jane. "King was a scoundrel, but he had a little sense ofhumanity. If they had not killed him I know that he wouldhave seen that we were properly provided for before they leftus to our fate."

　　"I regret that they did not visit us before sailing," saidProfessor Porter. "I had proposed requesting them to leave thetreasure with us, as I shall be a ruined man if that is lost."

　　Jane looked at her father sadly.

　　"Never mind, dear," she said. "It wouldn't have done anygood, because it is solely for the treasure that they killedtheir officers and landed us upon this awful shore."

　　"Tut, tut, child, tut, tut!" replied Professor Porter. "Youare a good child, but inexperienced in practical matters," andProfessor Porter turned and walked slowly away toward thejungle, his hands clasped beneath his long coat tails and hiseyes bent upon the ground.

　　His daughter watched him with a pathetic smile upon herlips, and then turning to Mr. Philander, she whispered:

　　"Please don't let him wander off again as he did yesterday.We depend upon you, you know, to keep a close watch upon him."

　　"He becomes more difficult to handle each day," replied Mr.Philander, with a sigh and a shake of his head. "I presumehe is now off to report to the directors of the Zoo thatone of their lions was at large last night. Oh, Miss Jane, youdon't know what I have to contend with."

　　"Yes, I do, Mr. Philander; but while we all love him, youalone are best fitted to manage him; for, regardless of whathe may say to you, he respects your great learning, and,therefore, has immense confidence in your judgment. Thepoor dear cannot differentiate between erudition and wisdom."

　　Mr. Philander, with a mildly puzzled expression on hisface, turned to pursue Professor Porter, and in his mind hewas revolving the question of whether he should feelcomplimented or aggrieved at Miss Porter's ratherbackhanded compliment.

　　Tarzan had seen the consternation depicted upon the facesof the little group as they witnessed the departure of theArrow; so, as the ship was a wonderful novelty to him inaddition, he determined to hasten out to the point of land at thenorth of the harbor's mouth and obtain a nearer view of theboat, as well as to learn, if possible, the direction of its flight.

　　Swinging through the trees with great speed, he reachedthe point only a moment after the ship had passed out of theharbor, so that he obtained an excellent view of the wondersof this strange, floating house.

　　There were some twenty men running hither and thitherabout the deck, pulling and hauling on ropes.

　　A light land breeze was blowing, and the ship had beenworked through the harbor's mouth under scant sail, but now thatthey had cleared the point every available shred of canvas wasbeing spread that she might stand out to sea as handily as possible.

　　Tarzan watched the graceful movements of the ship in raptadmiration, and longed to be aboard her. Presently his keeneyes caught the faintest suspicion of smoke on the far northernhorizon, and he wondered over the cause of such a thingout on the great water.

　　About the same time the look-out on the Arrow must havediscerned it, for in a few minutes Tarzan saw the sails beingshifted and shortened. The ship came about, and presently heknew that she was beating back toward land.

　　A man at the bows was constantly heaving into the sea arope to the end of which a small object was fastened. Tarzanwondered what the purpose of this action might be.

　　At last the ship came up directly into the wind; the anchorwas lowered; down came the sails. There was great scurryingabout on deck.

　　A boat was lowered, and in it a great chest was placed.Then a dozen sailors bent to the oars and pulled rapidlytoward the point where Tarzan crouched in the branches of a tree.

　　In the stern of the boat, as it drew nearer, Tarzan saw therat-faced man.

　　It was but a few minutes later that the boat touched thebeach. The men jumped out and lifted the great chest to thesand. They were on the north side of the point so that theirpresence was concealed from those at the cabin.

　　The men argued angrily for a moment. Then the rat-facedone, with several companions, ascended the low bluff onwhich stood the tree that concealed Tarzan. They lookedabout for several minutes.

　　"Here is a good place," said the rat-faced sailor, indicatinga spot beneath Tarzan's tree.

　　"It is as good as any," replied one of his companions."If they catch us with the treasure aboard it will all beconfiscated anyway. We might as well bury it here on thechance that some of us will escape the gallows to comeback and enjoy it later."

　　The rat-faced one now called to the men who had remainedat the boat, and they came slowly up the bank carryingpicks and shovels.

　　"Hurry, you!" cried Snipes.

　　"Stow it!" retorted one of the men, in a surly tone. "You'reno admiral, you damned shrimp."

　　"I'm Cap'n here, though, I'll have you to understand, youswab," shrieked Snipes, with a volley of frightful oaths.

　　"Steady, boys," cautioned one of the men who had notspoken before. "It ain't goin' to get us nothing by fightin'amongst ourselves."

　　"Right enough," replied the sailor who had resentedSnipes' autocratic tones; "but it ain't a-goin' to get nobodynothin' to put on airs in this bloomin' company neither."

　　"You fellows dig here," said Snipes, indicating a spot beneaththe tree. "And while you're diggin', Peter kin be a-makin'of a map of the location so's we kin find it again. You,Tom, and Bill, take a couple more down and fetch up the chest."

　　"Wot are you a-goin' to do?" asked he of the previousaltercation. "Just boss?"

　　"Git busy there," growled Snipes. "You didn't think yourCap'n was a-goin' to dig with a shovel, did you?"

　　The men all looked up angrily. None of them liked Snipes,and this disagreeable show of authority since he hadmurdered King, the real head and ringleader of the mutineers,had only added fuel to the flames of their hatred.

　　"Do you mean to say that you don't intend to take a shovel,and lend a hand with this work? Your shoulder's not hurt soall-fired bad as that," said Tarrant, the sailor who hadbefore spoken.

　　"Not by a damned sight," replied Snipes, fingering the buttof his revolver nervously.

　　"Then, by God," replied Tarrant, "if you won't take ashovel you'll take a pickax."

　　With the words he raised his pick above his head, and, witha mighty blow, he buried the point in Snipes' brain.

　　For a moment the men stood silently looking at the resultof their fellow's grim humor. Then one of them spoke.

　　"Served the skunk jolly well right," he said.

　　One of the others commenced to ply his pick to theground. The soil was soft and he threw aside the pick andgrasped a shovel; then the others joined him. There was nofurther comment on the killing, but the men worked in a betterframe of mind than they had since Snipes had assumed command.

　　When they had a trench of ample size to bury the chest,Tarrant suggested that they enlarge it and inter Snipes' bodyon top of the chest.

　　"It might 'elp fool any as 'appened to be diggin''ereabouts," he explained.

　　The others saw the cunning of the suggestion, and so thetrench was lengthened to accommodate the corpse, and in thecenter a deeper hole was excavated for the box, which wasfirst wrapped in sailcloth and then lowered to its place, whichbrought its top about a foot below the bottom of the grave.Earth was shovelled in and tramped down about the chestuntil the bottom of the grave showed level and uniform.

　　Two of the men rolled the rat-faced corpse unceremoniouslyinto the grave, after first stripping it of its weapons andvarious other articles which the several members of the partycoveted for their own.

　　They then filled the grave with earth and tramped upon ituntil it would hold no more.

　　The balance of the loose earth was thrown far and wide,and a mass of dead undergrowth spread in as natural a manneras possible over the new-made grave to obliterate all signsof the ground having been disturbed.

　　Their work done the sailors returned to the small boat, andpulled off rapidly toward the Arrow.

　　The breeze had increased considerably, and as the smokeupon the horizon was now plainly discernible in considerablevolume, the mutineers lost no time in getting under full sailand bearing away toward the southwest.

　　Tarzan, an interested spectator of all that had taken place, satspeculating on the strange actions of these peculiar creatures.

　　Men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than thebeasts of the jungle! How fortunate was he who lived in thepeace and security of the great forest!

　　Tarzan wondered what the chest they had buried contained.If they did not want it why did they not merely throwit into the water? That would have been much easier.

　　Ah, he thought, but they do want it. They have hidden ithere because they intend returning for it later.

　　Tarzan dropped to the ground and commenced to examinethe earth about the excavation. He was looking to see if thesecreatures had dropped anything which he might like to own.Soon he discovered a spade hidden by the underbrush whichthey had laid upon the grave.

　　He seized it and attempted to use it as he had seen the sailorsdo. It was awkward work and hurt his bare feet, but hepersevered until he had partially uncovered the body. This hedragged from the grave and laid to one side.

　　Then he continued digging until he had unearthed the chest.This also he dragged to the side of the corpse. Then hefilled in the smaller hole below the grave, replaced the bodyand the earth around and above it, covered it over withunderbrush, and returned to the chest.

　　Four sailors had sweated beneath the burden of its weight--Tarzan of the Apes picked it up as though it had been anempty packing case, and with the spade slung to his back by apiece of rope, carried it off into the densest part of the jungle.

　　He could not well negotiate the trees with his awkward burden,but he kept to the trails, and so made fairly good time.

　　For several hours he traveled a little north of east until hecame to an impenetrable wall of matted and tangled vegetation.Then he took to the lower branches, and in another fifteenminutes he emerged into the amphitheater of the apes, wherethey met in council, or to celebrate the rites of the Dum-Dum.

　　Near the center of the clearing, and not far from thedrum, or altar, he commenced to dig. This was harder workthan turning up the freshly excavated earth at the grave, butTarzan of the Apes was persevering and so he kept at hislabor until he was rewarded by seeing a hole sufficiently deepto receive the chest and effectually hide it from view.

　　Why had he gone to all this labor without knowing thevalue of the contents of the chest?

　　Tarzan of the Apes had a man's figure and a man's brain,but he was an ape by training and environment. His braintold him that the chest contained something valuable, or themen would not have hidden it. His training had taught him toimitate whatever was new and unusual, and now the naturalcuriosity, which is as common to men as to apes, promptedhim to open the chest and examine its contents.

　　But the heavy lock and massive iron bands baffled both hiscunning and his immense strength, so that he was compelledto bury the chest without having his curiosity satisfied.

　　By the time Tarzan had hunted his way back to the vicinityof the cabin, feeding as he went, it was quite dark.

　　Within the little building a light was burning, for Claytonhad found an unopened tin of oil which had stood intact fortwenty years, a part of the supplies left with the Claytons byBlack Michael. The lamps also were still useable, and thusthe interior of the cabin appeared as bright as day to theastonished Tarzan.

　　He had often wondered at the exact purpose of the lamps.His reading and the pictures had told him what they were,but he had no idea of how they could be made to producethe wondrous sunlight that some of his pictures hadportrayed them as diffusing upon all surrounding objects.

　　As he approached the window nearest the door he saw thatthe cabin had been divided into two rooms by a roughpartition of boughs and sailcloth.

　　In the front room were the three men; the two older deepin argument, while the younger, tilted back against the wallon an improvised stool, was deeply engrossed in reading oneof Tarzan's books.

　　Tarzan was not particularly interested in the men, however,so he sought the other window. There was the girl. Howbeautiful her features! How delicate her snowy skin!

　　She was writing at Tarzan's own table beneath the window.Upon a pile of grasses at the far side of the room lay theNegress asleep.

　　For an hour Tarzan feasted his eyes upon her while shewrote. How he longed to speak to her, but he dared notattempt it, for he was convinced that, like the young man, shewould not understand him, and he feared, too, that he mightfrighten her away.

　　At length she arose, leaving her manuscript upon the table.She went to the bed upon which had been spread several layersof soft grasses. These she rearranged.

　　Then she loosened the soft mass of golden hair whichcrowned her head. Like a shimmering waterfall turned toburnished metal by a dying sun it fell about her oval face;in waving lines, below her waist it tumbled.

　　Tarzan was spellbound. Then she extinguished the lampand all within the cabin was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness.

　　Still Tarzan watched. Creeping close beneath the windowhe waited, listening, for half an hour. At last he wasrewarded by the sounds of the regular breathing within whichdenotes sleep.

　　Cautiously he intruded his hand between the meshes of thelattice until his whole arm was within the cabin. Carefully hefelt upon the desk. At last he grasped the manuscript uponwhich Jane Porter had been writing, and as cautiously withdrewhis arm and hand, holding the precious treasure.

　　Tarzan folded the sheets into a small parcel which hetucked into the quiver with his arrows. Then he melted awayinto the jungle as softly and as noiselessly as a shadow.