Mr. Harold Moore was a
bilious-countenanced, studious young man. He took himself very
seriously, and life, and his work, which latter was the tutoring of
the young son of a British nobleman. He felt that his charge was
not making the progress that his parents had a right to expect, and
he was now conscientiously explaining this fact to the boy's
mother. "It's not that he isn't bright," he was saying; "if that
were true I should have hopes of succeeding, for then I might bring
to bear all my energies in overcoming his obtuseness; but the
trouble is that he is exceptionally intelligent, and learns so
quickly that I can find no fault in the matter of the preparation
of his lessons. What concerns me, however, is that fact that he
evidently takes no interest whatever in the subjects we are
studying. He merely accomplishes each lesson as a task to be rid of
as quickly as possible and I am sure that no lesson ever again
enters his mind until the hours of study and recitation once more
arrive. His sole interests seem to be feats of physical prowess and
the reading of everything that he can get hold of relative to
savage beasts and the lives and customs of uncivilized peoples; but
particularly do stories of animals appeal to him. He will sit for
hours together poring over the work of some African explorer, and
upon two occasions I have found him setting up in bed at night
reading Carl Hagenbeck's book on men and beasts."
The boy's mother tapped her foot nervously upon the hearth rug.
"You discourage this, of course?" she ventured.
Mr. Moore shuffled embarrassedly.
"I--ah--essayed to take the book from him," he replied, a slight
flush mounting his sallow cheek; "but--ah--your son is quite
muscular for one so young."
"He wouldn't let you take it?" asked the mother.
"He would not," confessed the tutor. "He was perfectly good
natured about it; but he insisted upon pretending that he was a
gorilla and that I was a chimpanzee attempting to steal food from
him. He leaped upon me with the most savage growls I ever heard,
lifted me completely above his head, hurled me upon his bed, and
after going through a pantomime indicative of choking me to death
he stood upon my prostrate form and gave voice to a most fearsome
shriek, which he explained was the victory cry of a bull ape. Then
he carried me to the door, shoved me out into the hall and locked
me from his room."
For several minutes neither spoke again. It was the boy's mother
who finally broke the silence.
"It is very necessary, Mr. Moore," she said, "that you do
everything in your power to discourage this tendency in Jack,
he--"; but she got no further. A loud "Whoop!" from the direction
of the window brought them both to their feet. The room was upon
the second floor of the house, and opposite the window to which
their attention had been attracted was a large tree, a branch of
which spread to within a few feet of the sill. Upon this branch now
they both discovered the subject of their recent conversation, a
tall, well-built boy, balancing with ease upon the bending limb and
uttering loud shouts of glee as he noted the terrified expressions
upon the faces of his audience.
The mother and tutor both rushed toward the window but before
they had crossed half the room the boy had leaped nimbly to the
sill and entered the apartment with them.
"'The wild man from Borneo has just come to town,'" he sang,
dancing a species of war dance about his terrified mother and
scandalized tutor, and ending up by throwing his arms about the
former's neck and kissing her upon either cheek.
"Oh, Mother," he cried, "there's a wonderful, educated ape being
shown at one of the music halls. Willie Grimsby saw it last night.
He says it can do everything but talk. It rides a bicycle, eats
with knife and fork, counts up to ten, and ever so many other
wonderful things, and can I go and see it too? Oh, please,
Mother--please let me."
Patting the boy's cheek affectionately, the mother shook her
head negatively. "No, Jack," she said; "you know I do not approve
of such exhibitions."
"I don't see why not, Mother," replied the boy. "All the other
fellows go and they go to the Zoo, too, and you'll never let me do
even that. Anybody'd think I was a girl--or a mollycoddle. Oh,
Father," he exclaimed, as the door opened to admit a tall gray-eyed
man. "Oh, Father, can't I go?"
"Go where, my son?" asked the newcomer.
"He wants to go to a music hall to see a trained ape," said the
mother, looking warningly at her husband.
"Who, Ajax?" questioned the man.
The boy nodded.
"Well, I don't know that I blame you, my son," said the father,
"I wouldn't mind seeing him myself. They say he is very wonderful,
and that for an anthropoid he is unusually large. Let's all go,
Jane--what do you say?" And he turned toward his wife, but that
lady only shook her head in a most positive manner, and turning to
Mr. Moore asked him if it was not time that he and Jack were in the
study for the morning recitations. When the two had left she turned
toward her husband.
"John," she said, "something must be done to discourage Jack's
tendency toward anything that may excite the cravings for the
savage life which I fear he has inherited from you. You know from
your own experience how strong is the call of the wild at times.
You know that often it has necessitated a stern struggle on your
part to resist the almost insane desire which occasionally
overwhelms you to plunge once again into the jungle life that
claimed you for so many years, and at the same time you know,
better than any other, how frightful a fate it would be for Jack,
were the trail to the savage jungle made either alluring or easy to
him."
"I doubt if there is any danger of his inheriting a taste for
jungle life from me," replied the man, "for I cannot conceive that
such a thing may be transmitted from father to son. And sometimes,
Jane, I think that in your solicitude for his future you go a bit
too far in your restrictive measures. His love for animals--his
desire, for example, to see this trained ape--is only natural in a
healthy, normal boy of his age. Just because he wants to see Ajax
is no indication that he would wish to marry an ape, and even
should he, far be it from you Jane to have the right to cry
'shame!'" and John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, put an arm about his
wife, laughing good-naturedly down into her upturned face before he
bent his head and kissed her. Then, more seriously, he continued:
"You have never told Jack anything concerning my early life, nor
have you permitted me to, and in this I think that you have made a
mistake. Had I been able to tell him of the experiences of Tarzan
of the Apes I could doubtless have taken much of the glamour and
romance from jungle life that naturally surrounds it in the minds
of those who have had no experience of it. He might then have
profited by my experience, but now, should the jungle lust ever
claim him, he will have nothing to guide him but his own impulses,
and I know how powerful these may be in the wrong direction at
times."
But Lady Greystoke only shook her head as she had a hundred
other times when the subject had claimed her attention in the past.
"No, John," she insisted, "I shall never give my consent to the
implanting in Jack's mind of any suggestion of the savage life
which we both wish to preserve him from."
It was evening before the subject was again referred to and then
it was raised by Jack himself. He had been sitting, curled in a
large chair, reading, when he suddenly looked up and addressed his
father.
"Why," he asked, coming directly to the point, "can't I go and
see Ajax?"
"Your mother does not approve," replied his father.
"Do you?"
"That is not the question," evaded Lord Greystoke. "It is enough
that your mother objects."
"I am going to see him," announced the boy, after a few moments
of thoughtful silence. "I am not different from Willie Grimsby, or
any other of the fellows who have been to see him. It did not harm
them and it will not harm me. I could go without telling you; but I
would not do that. So I tell you now, beforehand, that I am going
to see Ajax."
There was nothing disrespectful or defiant in the boy's tone or
manner. His was merely a dispassionate statement of facts. His
father could scarce repress either a smile or a show of the
admiration he felt for the manly course his son had pursued.
"I admire your candor, Jack," he said. "Permit me to be candid,
as well. If you go to see Ajax without permission, I shall punish
you. I have never inflicted corporal punishment upon you, but I
warn you that should you disobey your mother's wishes in this
instance, I shall."
"Yes, sir," replied the boy; and then: "I shall tell you, sir,
when I have been to see Ajax."
Mr. Moore's room was next to that of his youthful charge, and it
was the tutor's custom to have a look into the boy's each evening
as the former was about to retire. This evening he was particularly
careful not to neglect his duty, for he had just come from a
conference with the boy's father and mother in which it had been
impressed upon him that he must exercise the greatest care to
prevent Jack visiting the music hall where Ajax was being shown.
So, when he opened the boy's door at about half after nine, he was
greatly excited, though not entirely surprised to find the future
Lord Greystoke fully dressed for the street and about to crawl from
his open bed room window.
Mr. Moore made a rapid spring across the apartment; but the
waste of energy was unnecessary, for when the boy heard him within
the chamber and realized that he had been discovered he turned back
as though to relinquish his planned adventure.
"Where were you going?" panted the excited Mr. Moore.
"I am going to see Ajax," replied the boy, quietly.
"I am astonished," cried Mr. Moore; but a moment later he was
infinitely more astonished, for the boy, approaching close to him,
suddenly seized him about the waist, lifted him from his feet and
threw him face downward upon the bed, shoving his face deep into a
soft pillow.
"Be quiet," admonished the victor, "or I'll choke you."
Mr. Moore struggled; but his efforts were in vain. Whatever else
Tarzan of the Apes may or may not have handed down to his son he
had at least bequeathed him almost as marvelous a physique as he
himself had possessed at the same age. The tutor was as putty in
the boy's hands. Kneeling upon him, Jack tore strips from a sheet
and bound the man's hands behind his back. Then he rolled him over
and stuffed a gag of the same material between his teeth, securing
it with a strip wound about the back of his victim's head. All the
while he talked in a low, conversational tone.
"I am Waja, chief of the Waji," he explained, "and you are
Mohammed Dubn, the Arab sheik, who would murder my people and steal
my ivory," and he dexterously trussed Mr. Moore's hobbled ankles up
behind to meet his hobbled wrists. "Ah--ha! Villain! I have you in
me power at last. I go; but I shall return!" And the son of Tarzan
skipped across the room, slipped through the open window, and slid
to liberty by way of the down spout from an eaves trough.
Mr. Moore wriggled and struggled about the bed. He was sure that
he should suffocate unless aid came quickly. In his frenzy of
terror he managed to roll off the bed. The pain and shock of the
fall jolted him back to something like sane consideration of his
plight. Where before he had been unable to think intelligently
because of the hysterical fear that had claimed him he now lay
quietly searching for some means of escape from his dilemma. It
finally occurred to him that the room in which Lord and Lady
Greystoke had been sitting when he left them was directly beneath
that in which he lay upon the floor. He knew that some time had
elapsed since he had come up stairs and that they might be gone by
this time, for it seemed to him that he had struggled about the
bed, in his efforts to free himself, for an eternity. But the best
that he could do was to attempt to attract attention from below,
and so, after many failures, he managed to work himself into a
position in which he could tap the toe of his boot against the
floor. This he proceeded to do at short intervals, until, after
what seemed a very long time, he was rewarded by hearing footsteps
ascending the stairs, and presently a knock upon the door. Mr.
Moore tapped vigorously with his toe--he could not reply in any
other way. The knock was repeated after a moment's silence. Again
Mr. Moore tapped. Would they never open the door! Laboriously he
rolled in the direction of succor. If he could get his back against
the door he could then tap upon its base, when surely he must be
heard. The knocking was repeated a little louder, and finally a
voice called: "Mr. Jack!"
It was one of the house men--Mr. Moore recognized the fellow's
voice. He came near to bursting a blood vessel in an endeavor to
scream "come in" through the stifling gag. After a moment the man
knocked again, quite loudly and again called the boy's name.
Receiving no reply he turned the knob, and at the same instant a
sudden recollection filled the tutor anew with numbing terror--he
had, himself, locked the door behind him when he had entered the
room.
He heard the servant try the door several times and then depart.
Upon which Mr. Moore swooned.
In the meantime Jack was enjoying to the full the stolen
pleasures of the music hall. He had reached the temple of mirth
just as Ajax's act was commencing, and having purchased a box seat
was now leaning breathlessly over the rail watching every move of
the great ape, his eyes wide in wonder. The trainer was not slow to
note the boy's handsome, eager face, and as one of Ajax's biggest
hits consisted in an entry to one or more boxes during his
performance, ostensibly in search of a long-lost relative, as the
trainer explained, the man realized the effectiveness of sending
him into the box with the handsome boy, who, doubtless, would be
terror stricken by proximity to the shaggy, powerful beast.
When the time came, therefore, for the ape to return from the
wings in reply to an encore the trainer directed its attention to
the boy who chanced to be the sole occupant of the box in which he
sat. With a spring the huge anthropoid leaped from the stage to the
boy's side; but if the trainer had looked for a laughable scene of
fright he was mistaken. A broad smile lighted the boy's features as
he laid his hand upon the shaggy arm of his visitor. The ape,
grasping the boy by either shoulder, peered long and earnestly into
his face, while the latter stroked his head and talked to him in a
low voice.
Never had Ajax devoted so long a time to an examination of
another as he did in this instance. He seemed troubled and not a
little excited, jabbering and mumbling to the boy, and now
caressing him, as the trainer had never seen him caress a human
being before. Presently he clambered over into the box with him and
snuggled down close to the boy's side. The audience was delighted;
but they were still more delighted when the trainer, the period of
his act having elapsed, attempted to persuade Ajax to leave the
box. The ape would not budge. The manager, becoming excited at the
delay, urged the trainer to greater haste, but when the latter
entered the box to drag away the reluctant Ajax he was met by bared
fangs and menacing growls.
The audience was delirious with joy. They cheered the ape. They
cheered the boy, and they hooted and jeered at the trainer and the
manager, which luckless individual had inadvertently shown himself
and attempted to assist the trainer.
Finally, reduced to desperation and realizing that this show of
mutiny upon the part of his valuable possession might render the
animal worthless for exhibition purposes in the future if not
immediately subdued, the trainer had hastened to his dressing room
and procured a heavy whip. With this he now returned to the box;
but when he had threatened Ajax with it but once he found himself
facing two infuriated enemies instead of one, for the boy had
leaped to his feet, and seizing a chair was standing ready at the
ape's side to defend his new found friend. There was no longer a
smile upon his handsome face. In his gray eyes was an expression
which gave the trainer pause, and beside him stood the giant
anthropoid growling and ready.
What might have happened, but for a timely interruption, may
only be surmised; but that the trainer would have received a severe
mauling, if nothing more, was clearly indicated by the attitudes of
the two who faced him.
***
It was a pale-faced man who rushed into the Greystoke library to
announce that he had found Jack's door locked and had been able to
obtain no response to his repeated knocking and calling other than
a strange tapping and the sound of what might have been a body
moving about upon the floor. Four steps at a time John Clayton took
the stairs that led to the floor above. His wife and the servant
hurried after him. Once he called his son's name in a loud voice;
but receiving no reply he launched his great weight, backed by all
the undiminished power of his giant muscles, against the heavy
door. With a snapping of iron butts and a splintering of wood the
obstacle burst inward.
At its foot lay the body of the unconscious Mr. Moore, across
whom it fell with a resounding thud. Through the opening leaped
Tarzan, and a moment later the room was flooded with light from a
dozen electric bulbs.
It was several minutes before the tutor was discovered, so
completely had the door covered him; but finally he was dragged
forth, his gag and bonds cut away, and a liberal application of
cold water had hastened returning consciousness.
"Where is Jack?" was John Clayton's first question, and then;
"Who did this?" as the memory of Rokoff and the fear of a second
abduction seized him.
Slowly Mr. Moore staggered to his feet. His gaze wandered about
the room. Gradually he collected his scattered wits. The details of
his recent harrowing experience returned to him.
"I tender my resignation, sir, to take effect at once," were his
first words. "You do not need a tutor for your son--what he needs
is a wild animal trainer."
"But where is he?" cried Lady Greystoke.
"He has gone to see Ajax."
It was with difficulty that Tarzan restrained a smile, and after
satisfying himself that the tutor was more scared than injured, he
ordered his closed car around and departed in the direction of a
certain well-known music hall.
