Chapter XXVI. The Height of Civilization

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

　　Another month brought them to a little group of buildingsat the mouth of a wide river, and there Tarzan saw manyboats, and was filled with the timidity of the wild thing bythe sight of many men.

　　Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises andthe odd ways of civilization, so that presently none mightknow that two short months before, this handsome Frenchmanin immaculate white ducks, who laughed and chattedwith the gayest of them, had been swinging naked throughprimeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which,raw, was to fill his savage belly.

　　The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a monthbefore, Tarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did thepolished D'Arnot.

　　So apt a pupil had he been that the young Frenchman had laboredassiduously to make of Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentlemanin so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.

　　"God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend," D'Arnot hadsaid; "but we want His works to show upon the exterior also."

　　As soon as they had reached the little port, D'Arnot hadcabled his government of his safety, and requested a three-months' leave, which had been granted.

　　He had also cabled his bankers for funds, and the enforcedwait of a month, under which both chafed, was due to theirinability to charter a vessel for the return to Tarzan's jungleafter the treasure.

　　During their stay at the coast town "Monsieur Tarzan" becamethe wonder of both whites and blacks because of severaloccurrences which to Tarzan seemed the merest of nothings.

　　Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck andterrorized the town, until his evil star had led him to where theblack-haired French giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.

　　Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, theNegro made straight for a party of four men sitting ata table sipping the inevitable absinthe.

　　Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and thenthe black spied Tarzan.

　　With a roar he charged the ape-man, while half a hundredheads peered from sheltering windows and doorways to witnessthe butchering of the poor Frenchman by the giant black.

　　Tarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy ofbattle always brought to his lips.

　　As the Negro closed upon him, steel muscles gripped theblack wrist of the uplifted knife-hand, and a single swiftwrench left the hand dangling below a broken bone.

　　With the pain and surprise, the madness left the blackman, and as Tarzan dropped back into his chair the fellowturned, crying with agony, and dashed wildly toward thenative village.

　　On another occasion as Tarzan and D'Arnot sat at dinnerwith a number of other whites, the talk fell upon lions andlion hunting.

　　Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the king of beasts--some maintaining that he was an arrant coward, but allagreeing that it was with a feeling of greater security thatthey gripped their express rifles when the monarch of thejungle roared about a camp at night.

　　D'Arnot and Tarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret,and so none other than the French officer knew of theape-man's familiarity with the beasts of the jungle.

　　"Monsieur Tarzan has not expressed himself," said one ofthe party. "A man of his prowess who has spent some time inAfrica, as I understand Monsieur Tarzan has, must have hadexperiences with lions--yes?"

　　"Some," replied Tarzan, dryly. "Enough to know that eachof you are right in your judgment of the characteristics of thelions--you have met. But one might as well judge all blacksby the fellow who ran amuck last week, or decide that allwhites are cowards because one has met a cowardly white.

　　"There is as much individuality among the lower orders,gentlemen, as there is among ourselves. Today we may go outand stumble upon a lion which is over-timid--he runs awayfrom us. To-morrow we may meet his uncle or his twinbrother, and our friends wonder why we do not return fromthe jungle. For myself, I always assume that a lion isferocious, and so I am never caught off my guard."

　　"There would be little pleasure in hunting," retorted thefirst speaker, "if one is afraid of the thing he hunts."

　　D'Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!

　　"I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear," saidTarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men,but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge thatthe hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have toharm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gunbearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I shouldnot feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasureof the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increasedsafety which I felt."

　　"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would preferto go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, tokill the king of beasts," laughed the other, good naturedly,but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.

　　"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan.

　　Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distantjungle, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the listswith him.

　　"There is your opportunity, Monsieur Tarzan," banteredthe Frenchman.

　　"I am not hungry," said Tarzan simply.

　　The men laughed, all but D'Arnot. He alone knew that asavage beast had spoken its simple reason through the lips ofthe ape-man.

　　"But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go outthere naked, armed only with a knife and a piece of rope,"said the banterer. "Is it not so?"

　　"No," replied Tarzan. "Only a fool performs any actwithout reason."

　　"Five thousand francs is a reason," said the other. "Iwager you that amount you cannot bring back a lion fromthe jungle under the conditions we have named--naked andarmed only with a knife and a piece of rope."

　　Tarzan glanced toward D'Arnot and nodded his head.

　　"Make it ten thousand," said D'Arnot.

　　"Done," replied the other.

　　Tarzan arose.

　　"I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement,so that if I do not return before daylight I shall havesomething to wear through the streets."

　　"You are not going now," exclaimed the wagerer--"at night?"

　　"Why not?" asked Tarzan. "Numa walks abroad at night--it will be easier to find him."

　　"No," said the other, "I do not want your blood upon myhands. It will be foolhardy enough if you go forth by day."

　　"I shall go now," replied Tarzan, and went to his room forhis knife and rope.

　　The men accompanied him to the edge of the jungle,where he left his clothes in a small storehouse.

　　But when he would have entered the blackness of theundergrowth they tried to dissuade him; and the wagerer wasmost insistent of all that he abandon his foolhardy venture.

　　"I will accede that you have won," he said, "and the tenthousand francs are yours if you will but give up thisfoolish attempt, which can only end in your death."

　　Tarzan laughed, and in another moment the jungle hadswallowed him.

　　The men stood silent for some moments and then slowlyturned and walked back to the hotel veranda.

　　Tarzan had no sooner entered the jungle than he took tothe trees, and it was with a feeling of exultant freedom thathe swung once more through the forest branches.

　　This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothinglike this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmedin by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were ahindrance and a nuisance.

　　At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner hehad been.

　　How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and thenmake toward the south and his own jungle and cabin.

　　Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling upwind. Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound ofpadded feet and the brushing of a huge, fur-clad bodythrough the undergrowth.

　　Tarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silentlystalked him until he came into a little patch of moonlight.

　　Then the quick noose settled and tightened about thetawny throat, and, as he had done it a hundred times in thepast, Tarzan made fast the end to a strong branch and, whilethe beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to theground behind him, and leaping upon the great back, plungedhis long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.

　　Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised hisvoice in the awesome victory cry of his savage tribe.

　　For a moment Tarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflictingemotions of loyalty to D'Arnot and a mighty lust for thefreedom of his own jungle. At last the vision of a beautifulface, and the memory of warm lips crushed to his dissolvedthe fascinating picture he had been drawing of his old life.

　　The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across hisshoulders and took to the trees once more.

　　The men upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.

　　They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects,and always the thing uppermost in the mind of eachhad caused the conversation to lapse.

　　"Mon Dieu," said the wagerer at length, "I can endure itno longer. I am going into the jungle with my express andbring back that mad man."

　　"I will go with you," said one.

　　"And I"--"And I"--"And I," chorused the others.

　　As though the suggestion had broken the spell of somehorrid nightmare they hastened to their various quarters, andpresently were headed toward the jungle--each one heavily armed.

　　"God! What was that?" suddenly cried one of the party, anEnglishman, as Tarzan's savage cry came faintly to their ears.

　　"I heard the same thing once before," said a Belgian,"when I was in the gorilla country. My carriers said itwas the cry of a great bull ape who has made a kill."

　　D'Arnot remembered Clayton's description of the awfulroar with which Tarzan had announced his kills, and he halfsmiled in spite of the horror which filled him to think thatthe uncanny sound could have issued from a human throat--from the lips of his friend.

　　As the party stood finally near the edge of the jungle,debating as to the best distribution of their forces, they werestartled by a low laugh near them, and turning, beheld advancingtoward them a giant figure bearing a dead lion uponits broad shoulders.

　　Even D'Arnot was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossiblethat the man could have so quickly dispatched a lion with thepitiful weapons he had taken, or that alone he could haveborne the huge carcass through the tangled jungle.

　　The men crowded about Tarzan with many questions, buthis only answer was a laughing depreciation of his feat.

　　To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcherfor his heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed sooften for food and for self-preservation that the act seemedanything but remarkable to him. But he was indeed a hero inthe eyes of these men--men accustomed to hunting big game.

　　Incidentally, he had won ten thousand francs, for D'Arnotinsisted that he keep it all.

　　This was a very important item to Tarzan, who was justcommencing to realize the power which lay beyond the littlepieces of metal and paper which always changed hands whenhuman beings rode, or ate, or slept, or clothed themselves, ordrank, or worked, or played, or sheltered themselves fromthe rain or cold or sun.

　　It had become evident to Tarzan that without money onemust die. D'Arnot had told him not to worry, since he hadmore than enough for both, but the ape-man was learningmany things and one of them was that people looked downupon one who accepted money from another without givingsomething of equal value in exchange.

　　Shortly after the episode of the lion hunt, D'Arnotsucceeded in chartering an ancient tub for the coastwisetrip to Tarzan's land-locked harbor.

　　It was a happy morning for them both when the little vesselweighed anchor and made for the open sea.

　　The trip to the beach was uneventful, and the morningafter they dropped anchor before the cabin, Tarzan, garbedonce more in his jungle regalia and carrying a spade, set outalone for the amphitheater of the apes where lay the treasure.

　　Late the next day he returned, bearing the great chest uponhis shoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel worked throughthe harbor's mouth and took up her northward journey.

　　Three weeks later Tarzan and D'Arnot were passengers onboard a French steamer bound for Lyons, and after a fewdays in that city D'Arnot took Tarzan to Paris.

　　The ape-man was anxious to proceed to America, butD'Arnot insisted that he must accompany him to Paris first,nor would he divulge the nature of the urgent necessity uponwhich he based his demand.

　　One of the first things which D'Arnot accomplished aftertheir arrival was to arrange to visit a high official of thepolice department, an old friend; and to take Tarzan with him.

　　Adroitly D'Arnot led the conversation from point to point untilthe policeman had explained to the interested Tarzan many ofthe methods in vogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.

　　Not the least interesting to Tarzan was the part played byfinger prints in this fascinating science.

　　"But of what value are these imprints," asked Tarzan,"when, after a few years the lines upon the fingers areentirely changed by the wearing out of the old tissue and thegrowth of new?"

　　"The lines never change," replied the official. "From infancyto senility the fingerprints of an individual change onlyin size, except as injuries alter the loops and whorls. But ifimprints have been taken of the thumb and four fingers of bothhands one must needs lose all entirely to escape identification."

　　"It is marvelous," exclaimed D'Arnot. "I wonder what thelines upon my own fingers may resemble."

　　"We can soon see," replied the police officer, and ringing abell he summoned an assistant to whom he issued a few directions.

　　The man left the room, but presently returned with a littlehardwood box which he placed on his superior's desk.

　　"Now," said the officer, "you shall have your fingerprintsin a second."

　　He drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a littletube of thick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.

　　Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass, he spread it backand forth with the rubber roller until the entire surface of theglass was covered to his satisfaction with a very thin and uniformlayer of ink.

　　"Place the four fingers of your right hand upon the glass,thus," he said to D'Arnot. "Now the thumb. That is right.Now place them in just the same position upon this card,here, no--a little to the right. We must leave room for thethumb and the fingers of the left hand. There, that's it. Nowthe same with the left."

　　"Come, Tarzan," cried D'Arnot, "let's see what yourwhorls look like."

　　Tarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the officerduring the operation.

　　"Do fingerprints show racial characteristics?" he asked."Could you determine, for example, solely from fingerprintswhether the subject was Negro or Caucasian?"

　　"I think not," replied the officer.

　　"Could the finger prints of an ape be detected from thoseof a man?"

　　"Probably, because the ape's would be far simpler thanthose of the higher organism."

　　"But a cross between an ape and a man might show thecharacteristics of either progenitor?" continued Tarzan.

　　"Yes, I should think likely," responded the official; "butthe science has not progressed sufficiently to render it exactenough in such matters. I should hate to trust its findingsfurther than to differentiate between individuals. There it isabsolute. No two people born into the world probably have everhad identical lines upon all their digits. It is very doubtful ifany single fingerprint will ever be exactly duplicated by anyfinger other than the one which originally made it."

　　"Does the comparison require much time or labor?" asked D'Arnot.

　　"Ordinarily but a few moments, if the impressions are distinct."

　　D'Arnot drew a little black book from his pocket and commencedturning the pages.

　　Tarzan looked at the book in surprise. How did D'Arnotcome to have his book?

　　Presently D'Arnot stopped at a page on which were fivetiny little smudges.

　　He handed the open book to the policeman.

　　"Are these imprints similar to mine or Monsieur Tarzan'sor can you say that they are identical with either?"The officer drew a powerful glass from his desk andexamined all three specimens carefully, making notationsmeanwhile upon a pad of paper.

　　Tarzan realized now what was the meaning of their visit tothe police officer.

　　The answer to his life's riddle lay in these tiny marks.

　　With tense nerves he sat leaning forward in his chair, butsuddenly he relaxed and dropped back, smiling.

　　D'Arnot looked at him in surprise.

　　"You forget that for twenty years the dead body of thechild who made those fingerprints lay in the cabin of hisfather, and that all my life I have seen it lying there,"said Tarzan bitterly.

　　The policeman looked up in astonishment.

　　"Go ahead, captain, with your examination," said D'Arnot,"we will tell you the story later--provided Monsieur Tarzanis agreeable."

　　Tarzan nodded his head.

　　"But you are mad, my dear D'Arnot," he insisted. "Thoselittle fingers are buried on the west coast of Africa."

　　"I do not know as to that, Tarzan," replied D'Arnot. "It ispossible, but if you are not the son of John Clayton then howin heaven's name did you come into that God forsaken junglewhere no white man other than John Clayton had ever set foot?"

　　"You forget--Kala," said Tarzan.

　　"I do not even consider her," replied D'Arnot.

　　The friends had walked to the broad window overlookingthe boulevard as they talked. For some time they stood theregazing out upon the busy throng beneath, each wrapped inhis own thoughts.

　　"It takes some time to compare finger prints," thoughtD'Arnot, turning to look at the police officer.

　　To his astonishment he saw the official leaning back in hischair hastily scanning the contents of the little black diary.

　　D'Arnot coughed. The policeman looked up, and, catching hiseye, raised his finger to admonish silence. D'Arnot turnedback to the window, and presently the police officer spoke.

　　"Gentlemen," he said.

　　Both turned toward him.

　　"There is evidently a great deal at stake which must hingeto a greater or lesser extent upon the absolute correctness ofthis comparison. I therefore ask that you leave the entirematter in my hands until Monsieur Desquerc, our expertreturns. It will be but a matter of a few days."

　　"I had hoped to know at once," said D'Arnot. "MonsieurTarzan sails for America tomorrow."

　　"I will promise that you can cable him a report within twoweeks," replied the officer; "but what it will be I dare not say.There are resemblances, yet--well, we had better leave it forMonsieur Desquerc to solve."