Chapter XVIII. The Jungle Toll

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

　　Early the following morning Tarzan awoke, and his firstthought of the new day, as the last of yesterday, was ofthe wonderful writing which lay hidden in his quiver.

　　Hurriedly he brought it forth, hoping against hope that hecould read what the beautiful white girl had written therethe preceding evening.

　　At the first glance he suffered a bitter disappointment;never before had he so yearned for anything as now he didfor the ability to interpret a message from that golden-haireddivinity who had come so suddenly and so unexpectedly intohis life.

　　What did it matter if the message were not intended forhim? It was an expression of her thoughts, and that wassufficient for Tarzan of the Apes.

　　And now to be baffled by strange, uncouth characters thelike of which he had never seen before! Why, they eventipped in the opposite direction from all that he had everexamined either in printed books or the difficult script ofthe few letters he had found.

　　Even the little bugs of the black book were familiarfriends, though their arrangement meant nothing to him; butthese bugs were new and unheard of.

　　For twenty minutes he pored over them, when suddenlythey commenced to take familiar though distorted shapes.Ah, they were his old friends, but badly crippled.

　　Then he began to make out a word here and a word there.His heart leaped for joy. He could read it, and he would.

　　In another half hour he was progressing rapidly, and, butfor an exceptional word now and again, he found it veryplain sailing.

　　Here is what he read:

　　West Coast of Africa, about 10x degrees southlatitude. (So Mr. Clayton says.)February 3 (?), 1909.

　　Dearest Hazel:

　　It seems foolish to write you a letter that you may neversee, but I simply must tell somebody of our awful experiencessince we sailed from Europe on the ill-fated Arrow.

　　If we never return to civilization, as now seems only toolikely, this will at least prove a brief record of the eventswhich led up to our final fate, whatever it may be.

　　As you know, we were supposed to have set out upon ascientific expedition to the Congo. Papa was presumed toentertain some wondrous theory of an unthinkably ancientcivilization, the remains of which lay buried somewhere in theCongo valley. But after we were well under sail the truthcame out.

　　It seems that an old bookworm who has a book and curioshop in Baltimore discovered between the leaves of a very oldSpanish manuscript a letter written in 1550 detailing theadventures of a crew of mutineers of a Spanish galleon boundfrom Spain to South America with a vast treasure of "doubloons"and "pieces of eight," I suppose, for they certainlysound weird and piraty.

　　The writer had been one of the crew, and the letter was tohis son, who was, at the very time the letter was written,master of a Spanish merchantman.

　　Many years had elapsed since the events the letter narratedhad transpired, and the old man had become a respected citizenof an obscure Spanish town, but the love of gold was stillso strong upon him that he risked all to acquaint his son withthe means of attaining fabulous wealth for them both.

　　The writer told how when but a week out from Spain the crewhad mutinied and murdered every officer and man who opposedthem; but they defeated their own ends by this very act, forthere was none left competent to navigate a ship at sea.

　　They were blown hither and thither for two months, untilsick and dying of scurvy, starvation, and thirst, they hadbeen wrecked on a small islet.

　　The galleon was washed high upon the beach where shewent to pieces; but not before the survivors, who numberedbut ten souls, had rescued one of the great chests of treasure.

　　This they buried well up on the island, and for three yearsthey lived there in constant hope of being rescued.

　　One by one they sickened and died, until only one manwas left, the writer of the letter.

　　The men had built a boat from the wreckage of the galleon,but having no idea where the island was located theyhad not dared to put to sea.

　　When all were dead except himself, however, the awfulloneliness so weighed upon the mind of the sole survivor thathe could endure it no longer, and choosing to risk death uponthe open sea rather than madness on the lonely isle, he setsail in his little boat after nearly a year of solitude.

　　Fortunately he sailed due north, and within a week was inthe track of the Spanish merchantmen plying between theWest Indies and Spain, and was picked up by one of thesevessels homeward bound.

　　The story he told was merely one of shipwreck in which allbut a few had perished, the balance, except himself, dyingafter they reached the island. He did not mention the mutinyor the chest of buried treasure.

　　The master of the merchantman assured him that from theposition at which they had picked him up, and the prevailingwinds for the past week he could have been on no other islandthan one of the Cape Verde group, which lie off theWest Coast of Africa in about 16x or 17x north latitude.

　　His letter described the island minutely, as well as thelocation of the treasure, and was accompanied by the crudest,funniest little old map you ever saw; with trees and rocks allmarked by scrawly X's to show the exact spot where thetreasure had been buried.

　　When papa explained the real nature of the expedition, myheart sank, for I know so well how visionary and impracticalthe poor dear has always been that I feared that he had againbeen duped; especially when he told me he had paid a thousanddollars for the letter and map.

　　To add to my distress, I learned that he had borrowed tenthousand dollars more from Robert Canler, and had given hisnotes for the amount.

　　Mr. Canler had asked for no security, and you know,dearie, what that will mean for me if papa cannot meetthem. Oh, how I detest that man!

　　We all tried to look on the bright side of things, but Mr.Philander, and Mr. Clayton--he joined us in London just forthe adventure--both felt as skeptical as I.

　　Well, to make a long story short, we found the island andthe treasure--a great iron-bound oak chest, wrapped in manylayers of oiled sailcloth, and as strong and firm as when ithad been buried nearly two hundred years ago.

　　It was simply filled with gold coin, and was so heavy thatfour men bent underneath its weight.

　　The horrid thing seems to bring nothing but murder andmisfortune to those who have anything to do with it, forthree days after we sailed from the Cape Verde Islands ourown crew mutinied and killed every one of their officers.

　　Oh, it was the most terrifying experience one couldimagine--I cannot even write of it.

　　They were going to kill us too, but one of them, the leader,named King, would not let them, and so they sailed southalong the coast to a lonely spot where they found a goodharbor, and here they landed and have left us.

　　They sailed away with the treasure to-day, but Mr. Claytonsays they will meet with a fate similar to the mutineers of theancient galleon, because King, the only man aboard whoknew aught of navigation, was murdered on the beach by oneof the men the day we landed.

　　I wish you could know Mr. Clayton; he is the dearest fellowimaginable, and unless I am mistaken he has fallen verymuch in love with me.

　　He is the only son of Lord Greystoke, and some day will inheritthe title and estates. In addition, he is wealthy in his ownright, but the fact that he is going to be an English Lordmakes me very sad--you know what my sentiments have alwaysbeen relative to American girls who married titled foreigners.Oh, if he were only a plain American gentleman!

　　But it isn't his fault, poor fellow, and in everything exceptbirth he would do credit to my country, and that is the greatestcompliment I know how to pay any man.

　　We have had the most weird experiences since we werelanded here. Papa and Mr. Philander lost in the jungle,and chased by a real lion.

　　Mr. Clayton lost, and attacked twice by wild beasts.Esmeralda and I cornered in an old cabin by a perfectly awfulman-eating lioness. Oh, it was simply "terrifical," as Esmeraldawould say.

　　But the strangest part of it all is the wonderful creaturewho rescued us. I have not seen him, but Mr. Clayton andpapa and Mr. Philander have, and they say that he is aperfectly god-like white man tanned to a dusky brown, with thestrength of a wild elephant, the agility of a monkey, and thebravery of a lion.

　　He speaks no English and vanishes as quickly and asmysteriously after he has performed some valorous deed, asthough he were a disembodied spirit.

　　Then we have another weird neighbor, who printed abeautiful sign in English and tacked it on the door of hiscabin, which we have preempted, warning us to destroy noneof his belongings, and signing himself "Tarzan of the Apes."

　　We have never seen him, though we think he is about, forone of the sailors, who was going to shoot Mr. Clayton in theback, received a spear in his shoulder from some unseenhand in the jungle.

　　The sailors left us but a meager supply of food, so, as wehave only a single revolver with but three cartridges left in it,we do not know how we can procure meat, though Mr. Philandersays that we can exist indefinitely on the wild fruit andnuts which abound in the jungle.

　　I am very tired now, so I shall go to my funny bed ofgrasses which Mr. Clayton gathered for me, but will add tothis from day to day as things happen.Lovingly,Jane Porter.

　　To Hazel Strong, Baltimore, MD.

　　Tarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finishedreading the letter. It was filled with so many new andwonderful things that his brain was in a whirl as he attemptedto digest them all.

　　So they did not know that he was Tarzan of the Apes. Hewould tell them.

　　In his tree he had constructed a rude shelter of leaves andboughs, beneath which, protected from the rain, he hadplaced the few treasures brought from the cabin. Amongthese were some pencils.

　　He took one, and beneath Jane Porter's signature he wrote:

　　I am Tarzan of the ApesHe thought that would be sufficient. Later he would returnthe letter to the cabin.

　　In the matter of food, thought Tarzan, they had no need toworry--he would provide, and he did.

　　The next morning Jane found her missing letter in theexact spot from which it had disappeared two nights before.She was mystified; but when she saw the printed words beneathher signature, she felt a cold, clammy chill run up herspine. She showed the letter, or rather the last sheetwith the signature, to Clayton.

　　"And to think," she said, "that uncanny thing was probablywatching me all the time that I was writing--oo! It makes meshudder just to think of it."

　　"But he must be friendly," reassured Clayton, "for he hasreturned your letter, nor did he offer to harm you, and unlessI am mistaken he left a very substantial memento of hisfriendship outside the cabin door last night, for I just foundthe carcass of a wild boar there as I came out."

　　From then on scarcely a day passed that did not bring itsoffering of game or other food. Sometimes it was a youngdeer, again a quantity of strange, cooked food--cassavacakes pilfered from the village of Mbonga--or a boar, orleopard, and once a lion.

　　Tarzan derived the greatest pleasure of his life in huntingmeat for these strangers. It seemed to him that no pleasureon earth could compare with laboring for the welfare andprotection of the beautiful white girl.

　　Some day he would venture into the camp in daylight andtalk with these people through the medium of the little bugswhich were familiar to them and to Tarzan.

　　But he found it difficult to overcome the timidity of thewild thing of the forest, and so day followed day withoutseeing a fulfillment of his good intentions.

　　The party in the camp, emboldened by familiarity, wanderedfarther and yet farther into the jungle in search of nutsand fruit.

　　Scarcely a day passed that did not find Professor Porterstraying in his preoccupied indifference toward the jaws ofdeath. Mr. Samuel T. Philander, never what one might callrobust, was worn to the shadow of a shadow through theceaseless worry and mental distraction resultant from hisHerculean efforts to safeguard the professor.

　　A month passed. Tarzan had finally determined to visit thecamp by daylight.

　　It was early afternoon. Clayton had wandered to the pointat the harbor's mouth to look for passing vessels. Here hekept a great mass of wood, high piled, ready to be ignited asa signal should a steamer or a sail top the far horizon.

　　Professor Porter was wandering along the beach south ofthe camp with Mr. Philander at his elbow, urging him to turnhis steps back before the two became again the sport of somesavage beast.

　　The others gone, Jane and Esmeralda had wandered into thejungle to gather fruit, and in their search were led fartherand farther from the cabin.

　　Tarzan waited in silence before the door of the little houseuntil they should return. His thoughts were of the beautifulwhite girl. They were always of her now. He wondered if shewould fear him, and the thought all but caused him to relinquishhis plan.

　　He was rapidly becoming impatient for her return, that hemight feast his eyes upon her and be near her, perhaps touchher. The ape-man knew no god, but he was as near toworshipping his divinity as mortal man ever comes to worship.While he waited he passed the time printing a message toher; whether he intended giving it to her he himself could nothave told, but he took infinite pleasure in seeing his thoughtsexpressed in print--in which he was not so uncivilized afterall. He wrote:

　　I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You aremine. We live here together always in my house. I will bringyou the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats thatroam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of thejungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of thejungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter.When you see this you will know that it is for you and thatTarzan of the Apes loves you.

　　As he stood, straight as a young Indian, by the door, waitingafter he had finished the message, there came to his keenears a familiar sound. It was the passing of a great apethrough the lower branches of the forest.

　　For an instant he listened intently, and then from the junglecame the agonized scream of a woman, and Tarzan of theApes, dropping his first love letter upon the ground, shot likea panther into the forest.

　　Clayton, also, heard the scream, and Professor Porter andMr. Philander, and in a few minutes they came panting tothe cabin, calling out to each other a volley of excitedquestions as they approached. A glance within confirmedtheir worst fears.

　　Jane and Esmeralda were not there.

　　Instantly, Clayton, followed by the two old men, plungedinto the jungle, calling the girl's name aloud. For half anhour they stumbled on, until Clayton, by merest chance,came upon the prostrate form of Esmeralda.

　　He stopped beside her, feeling for her pulse and thenlistening for her heartbeats. She lived. He shook her.

　　"Esmeralda!" he shrieked in her ear. "Esmeralda! For God'ssake, where is Miss Porter? What has happened? Esmeralda!"

　　Slowly Esmeralda opened her eyes. She saw Clayton. Shesaw the jungle about her.

　　"Oh, Gaberelle!" she screamed, and fainted again.

　　By this time Professor Porter and Mr. Philander had come up.

　　"What shall we do, Mr. Clayton?" asked the old professor."Where shall we look? God could not have been so cruel asto take my little girl away from me now."

　　"We must arouse Esmeralda first," replied Clayton. "Shecan tell us what has happened. Esmeralda!" he cried again,shaking the black woman roughly by the shoulder.

　　"O Gaberelle, I want to die!" cried the poor woman, butwith eyes fast closed. "Let me die, dear Lord, don't letme see that awful face again."

　　"Come, come, Esmeralda," cried Clayton.

　　"The Lord isn't here; it's Mr. Clayton. Open your eyes."

　　Esmeralda did as she was bade.

　　"O Gaberelle! Thank the Lord," she said.

　　"Where's Miss Porter? What happened?" questioned Clayton.

　　"Ain't Miss Jane here?" cried Esmeralda, sitting up withwonderful celerity for one of her bulk. "Oh, Lord, now Iremember! It must have took her away," and the Negresscommenced to sob, and wail her lamentations.

　　"What took her away?" cried Professor Porter.

　　"A great big giant all covered with hair."

　　"A gorilla, Esmeralda?" questioned Mr. Philander, and thethree men scarcely breathed as he voiced the horrible thought.

　　"I thought it was the devil; but I guess it must have beenone of them gorilephants. Oh, my poor baby, my poor littlehoney," and again Esmeralda broke into uncontrollable sobbing.

　　Clayton immediately began to look about for tracks, but hecould find nothing save a confusion of trampled grasses inthe close vicinity, and his woodcraft was too meager for thetranslation of what he did see.

　　All the balance of the day they sought through the jungle;but as night drew on they were forced to give up in despairand hopelessness, for they did not even know in whatdirection the thing had borne Jane.

　　It was long after dark ere they reached the cabin, and a sadand grief-stricken party it was that sat silently within thelittle structure.

　　Professor Porter finally broke the silence. His tones wereno longer those of the erudite pedant theorizing upon theabstract and the unknowable; but those of the man of action--determined, but tinged also by a note of indescribablehopelessness and grief which wrung an answering pang fromClayton's heart.

　　"I shall lie down now," said the old man, "and try to sleep.Early to-morrow, as soon as it is light, I shall take what foodI can carry and continue the search until I have found Jane. Iwill not return without her."

　　His companions did not reply at once. Each was immersedin his own sorrowful thoughts, and each knew, as did the oldprofessor, what the last words meant--Professor Porterwould never return from the jungle.

　　At length Clayton arose and laid his hand gently uponProfessor Porter's bent old shoulder.

　　"I shall go with you, of course," he said.

　　"I knew that you would offer--that you would wish to go,Mr. Clayton; but you must not. Jane is beyond humanassistance now. What was once my dear little girl shallnot lie alone and friendless in the awful jungle.

　　"The same vines and leaves will cover us, the same rains beatupon us; and when the spirit of her mother is abroad, it willfind us together in death, as it has always found us in life.

　　"No; it is I alone who may go, for she was my daughter--all that was left on earth for me to love."

　　"I shall go with you," said Clayton simply.

　　The old man looked up, regarding the strong, handsome faceof William Cecil Clayton intently. Perhaps he read there thelove that lay in the heart beneath--the love for his daughter.

　　He had been too preoccupied with his own scholarlythoughts in the past to consider the little occurrences, thechance words, which would have indicated to a more practicalman that these young people were being drawn more andmore closely to one another. Now they came back to him,one by one.

　　"As you wish," he said.

　　"You may count on me, also," said Mr. Philander.

　　"No, my dear old friend," said Professor Porter. "We may notall go. It would be cruelly wicked to leave poor Esmeralda herealone, and three of us would be no more successful than one.

　　"There be enough dead things in the cruel forest as it is.Come--let us try to sleep a little."