Chapter XXI. The Village of Torture

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

　　As the little expedition of sailors toiled through the densejungle searching for signs of Jane Porter, the futility oftheir venture became more and more apparent, but the griefof the old man and the hopeless eyes of the young Englishmanprevented the kind hearted D'Arnot from turning back.

　　He thought that there might be a bare possibility of findingher body, or the remains of it, for he was positive that shehad been devoured by some beast of prey. He deployed hismen into a skirmish line from the point where Esmeralda hadbeen found, and in this extended formation they pushed theirway, sweating and panting, through the tangled vines andcreepers. It was slow work. Noon found them but a fewmiles inland. They halted for a brief rest then, and afterpushing on for a short distance further one of the mendiscovered a well-marked trail.

　　It was an old elephant track, and D'Arnot after consultingwith Professor Porter and Clayton decided to follow it.

　　The path wound through the jungle in a northeasterlydirection, and along it the column moved in single file.

　　Lieutenant D'Arnot was in the lead and moving at a quickpace, for the trail was comparatively open. Immediatelybehind him came Professor Porter, but as he could not keeppace with the younger man D'Arnot was a hundred yards inadvance when suddenly a half dozen black warriors aroseabout him.

　　D'Arnot gave a warning shout to his column as the blacksclosed on him, but before he could draw his revolver he hadbeen pinioned and dragged into the jungle.

　　His cry had alarmed the sailors and a dozen of themsprang forward past Professor Porter, running up the trail totheir officer's aid.

　　They did not know the cause of his outcry, only that it wasa warning of danger ahead. They had rushed past the spotwhere D'Arnot had been seized when a spear hurled from thejungle transfixed one of the men, and then a volley of arrowsfell among them.

　　Raising their rifles they fired into the underbrush in thedirection from which the missiles had come.

　　By this time the balance of the party had come up, andvolley after volley was fired toward the concealed foe. It wasthese shots that Tarzan and Jane Porter had heard.

　　Lieutenant Charpentier, who had been bringing up the rearof the column, now came running to the scene, and on hearingthe details of the ambush ordered the men to follow him,and plunged into the tangled vegetation.

　　In an instant they were in a hand-to-hand fight with somefifty black warriors of Mbonga's village. Arrows and bulletsflew thick and fast.

　　Queer African knives and French gun butts mingled for amoment in savage and bloody duels, but soon the natives fledinto the jungle, leaving the Frenchmen to count their losses.

　　Four of the twenty were dead, a dozen others werewounded, and Lieutenant D'Arnot was missing. Night wasfalling rapidly, and their predicament was rendered doublyworse when they could not even find the elephant trail whichthey had been following.

　　There was but one thing to do, make camp where theywere until daylight. Lieutenant Charpentier ordered aclearing made and a circular abatis of underbrush constructedabout the camp.

　　This work was not completed until long after dark, themen building a huge fire in the center of the clearing to givethem light to work by.

　　When all was safe as possible against attack of wild beastsand savage men, Lieutenant Charpentier placed sentriesabout the little camp and the tired and hungry men threwthemselves upon the ground to sleep.

　　The groans of the wounded, mingled with the roaring andgrowling of the great beasts which the noise and firelight hadattracted, kept sleep, except in its most fitful form, from thetired eyes. It was a sad and hungry party that lay through thelong night praying for dawn.

　　The blacks who had seized D'Arnot had not waited to participatein the fight which followed, but instead had dragged theirprisoner a little way through the jungle and then struckthe trail further on beyond the scene of the fighting in whichtheir fellows were engaged.

　　They hurried him along, the sounds of battle growing fainterand fainter as they drew away from the contestants until theresuddenly broke upon D'Arnot's vision a good-sized clearingat one end of which stood a thatched and palisaded village.

　　It was now dusk, but the watchers at the gate saw theapproaching trio and distinguished one as a prisoner ere theyreached the portals.

　　A cry went up within the palisade. A great throng ofwomen and children rushed out to meet the party.

　　And then began for the French officer the most terrifyingexperience which man can encounter upon earth--the receptionof a white prisoner into a village of African cannibals.

　　To add to the fiendishness of their cruel savagery was thepoignant memory of still crueler barbarities practiced uponthem and theirs by the white officers of that arch hypocrite,Leopold II of Belgium, because of whose atrocities they hadfled the Congo Free State--a pitiful remnant of what oncehad been a mighty tribe.

　　They fell upon D'Arnot tooth and nail, beating him withsticks and stones and tearing at him with claw-like hands.Every vestige of clothing was torn from him, and the mercilessblows fell upon his bare and quivering flesh. But notonce did the Frenchman cry out in pain. He breathed a silentprayer that he be quickly delivered from his torture.

　　But the death he prayed for was not to be so easily had.Soon the warriors beat the women away from their prisoner.He was to be saved for nobler sport than this, and the firstwave of their passion having subsided they contented themselveswith crying out taunts and insults and spitting upon him.

　　Presently they reached the center of the village. ThereD'Arnot was bound securely to the great post from which nolive man had ever been released.

　　A number of the women scattered to their several huts tofetch pots and water, while others built a row of fires onwhich portions of the feast were to be boiled while the balancewould be slowly dried in strips for future use, as theyexpected the other warriors to return with many prisoners.The festivities were delayed awaiting the return of the warriorswho had remained to engage in the skirmish with the white men,so that it was quite late when all were in the village,and the dance of death commenced to circle around thedoomed officer.

　　Half fainting from pain and exhaustion, D'Arnot watched frombeneath half-closed lids what seemed but the vagary of delirium,or some horrid nightmare from which he must soon awake.

　　The bestial faces, daubed with color--the huge mouths andflabby hanging lips--the yellow teeth, sharp filed--the rolling,demon eyes--the shining naked bodies--the cruel spears.Surely no such creatures really existed upon earth--he mustindeed be dreaming.

　　The savage, whirling bodies circled nearer. Now a spearsprang forth and touched his arm. The sharp pain and thefeel of hot, trickling blood assured him of the awfulreality of his hopeless position.

　　Another spear and then another touched him. He closedhis eyes and held his teeth firm set--he would not cry out.

　　He was a soldier of France, and he would teach thesebeasts how an officer and a gentleman died.

　　Tarzan of the Apes needed no interpreter to translate thestory of those distant shots. With Jane Porter's kisses stillwarm upon his lips he was swinging with incredible rapiditythrough the forest trees straight toward the village of Mbonga.

　　He was not interested in the location of the encounter, forhe judged that that would soon be over. Those who werekilled he could not aid, those who escaped would not needhis assistance.

　　It was to those who had neither been killed or escaped thathe hastened. And he knew that he would find them by thegreat post in the center of Mbonga village.

　　Many times had Tarzan seen Mbonga's black raiding partiesreturn from the northward with prisoners, and alwayswere the same scenes enacted about that grim stake,beneath the flaring light of many fires.

　　He knew, too, that they seldom lost much time beforeconsummating the fiendish purpose of their captures.He doubted that he would arrive in time to do morethan avenge.

　　On he sped. Night had fallen and he traveled high alongthe upper terrace where the gorgeous tropic moon lighted thedizzy pathway through the gently undulating branches of thetree tops.

　　Presently he caught the reflection of a distant blaze. It layto the right of his path. It must be the light from the campfire the two men had built before they were attacked--Tarzanknew nothing of the presence of the sailors.

　　So sure was Tarzan of his jungle knowledge that he did notturn from his course, but passed the glare at a distance of ahalf mile. It was the camp fire of the Frenchmen.

　　In a few minutes more Tarzan swung into the trees aboveMbonga's village. Ah, he was not quite too late! Or, was he?He could not tell. The figure at the stake was very still, yetthe black warriors were but pricking it.

　　Tarzan knew their customs. The death blow had not beenstruck. He could tell almost to a minute how far the dancehad gone.

　　In another instant Mbonga's knife would sever one of thevictim's ears--that would mark the beginning of the end, forvery shortly after only a writhing mass of mutilated fleshwould remain.

　　There would still be life in it, but death then would be theonly charity it craved.

　　The stake stood forty feet from the nearest tree. Tarzancoiled his rope. Then there rose suddenly above the fiendishcries of the dancing demons the awful challenge of the ape-man.

　　The dancers halted as though turned to stone.

　　The rope sped with singing whir high above the heads ofthe blacks. It was quite invisible in the flaring lightsof the camp fires.

　　D'Arnot opened his eyes. A huge black, standing directly beforehim, lunged backward as though felled by an invisible hand.

　　Struggling and shrieking, his body, rolling from side toside, moved quickly toward the shadows beneath the trees.

　　The blacks, their eyes protruding in horror, watched spellbound.

　　Once beneath the trees, the body rose straight into the air,and as it disappeared into the foliage above, the terrifiednegroes, screaming with fright, broke into a mad race for thevillage gate.

　　D'Arnot was left alone.

　　He was a brave man, but he had felt the short hairs bristleupon the nape of his neck when that uncanny cry rose uponthe air.

　　As the writhing body of the black soared, as though byunearthly power, into the dense foliage of the forest, D'Arnotfelt an icy shiver run along his spine, as though death hadrisen from a dark grave and laid a cold and clammy finger onhis flesh.

　　As D'Arnot watched the spot where the body had enteredthe tree he heard the sounds of movement there.

　　The branches swayed as though under the weight of aman's body--there was a crash and the black came sprawlingto earth again,--to lie very quietly where he had fallen.

　　Immediately after him came a white body, but this onealighted erect.

　　D'Arnot saw a clean-limbed young giant emerge from theshadows into the firelight and come quickly toward him.

　　What could it mean? Who could it be? Some new creatureof torture and destruction, doubtless.

　　D'Arnot waited. His eyes never left the face of the advancingman. Nor did the other's frank, clear eyes waver beneathD'Arnot's fixed gaze.

　　D'Arnot was reassured, but still without much hope,though he felt that that face could not mask a cruel heart.

　　Without a word Tarzan of the Apes cut the bonds whichheld the Frenchman. Weak from suffering and loss of blood,he would have fallen but for the strong arm that caught him.

　　He felt himself lifted from the ground. There was a sensationas of flying, and then he lost consciousness.