Part 7 (1/2)

A year had passed since the white le to take up his search for the only reht look for coreat apes For months the two had wandered eastward, deeper and deeper into the jungle The year had done htyhis woodcraft to a point where it verged upon the uncanny, perfecting his arboreal instincts, and training him in the use of both natural and artificial weapons

He had become at last a creature ofHe was still but a boy, yet so great was his strength that the powerful anthropoid hich he often engaged in ht as the bull ape fights, nor ever was there a teacher better fitted to instruct in the savage warfare of primordial man, or a pupil better equipped to profit by the lessons of a master

As the two searched for a band of the aled they lived upon the best the jungle afforded Antelope and zebra fell to the boy's spear, or were dragged down by the terful beasts of prey who leaped upon therowth beside the trail to the water hole or the ford

The pelt of a leopard covered the nakedness of the youth; but the wearing of it had not been dictated by any pro ofabout hiery of the beast that is inherent in each of us, but that flaly in this boy whose father had been raised a beast of prey He wore his leopard skin at first in response to a desire to parade a trophy of his prowess, for he had slain the leopard with his knife in a hand-to-hand combat He saw that the skin was beautiful, which appealed to his barbaric sense of ornamentation, and when it stiffened and later coe of how to cure or tan it ith sorrow and regret that he discarded it Later, when he chanced upon a lone, black warrior wearing the counterpart of it, soft and clinging and beautiful fro, it required but an instant to leap fro black, sink a keen blade into his heart and possess the rightly preserved hide

There were no after-qualht, nor does it take long to inculcate this axioardless of what his past training may have been That the black would have killed him had he had the chance the boy knew full well Neither he nor the black were any more sacred than the lion, or the buffalo, the zebra or the deer, or any other of the countless creatures who roah the dark le life, which was sought by reater nu that life So the boy smiled and donned the finery of the vanquished, and went his ith Akut, searching, always searching for the elusive anthropoids ere to welcome them with open arle, buried far froht of man, they came upon such another little natural arena as had witnessed the wild ceremony of the Du years before

First, at a great distance, they heard the beating of the drue tree when the boo sound smote upon their ears Both awoke at once Akut was the first to interpret the strange cadence

”The great apes!” he growled ”They dance the Duo to our people”

Months before Akut had given the boy a naiven name of Jack Korak is as near as it e of the apes it reat tree where he had been sleeping with his back braced against the steht filtering through the foliage froht

The ape, too, stood up, half squatting after the rowls rurowls of excited anticipation The boy growled in harround Close by, in the direction of the boo which they ht Half-erect, the great ape shuffled into the full glare of thein marked contrast to the aardness of his coy coat of the one brushi+ng against the s now, a reat English public school that was to see him no more He was happy and expectant Thewas about to be realized He was coed or flown along, retarded or spurred on as privation or adventure predo, had becorown to see of his determination to reach the coast and return to London had finally thrown the hope of realization so remotely into the future that it too now seemed little hts of London and civilization were crowded so far into the background of his brain that they ht as well have been non-existent Except for forreat, fierce creature at his side

In the exuberance of his joy he slapped his coer, half in play the anthropoid turned upon hi, hairy arms reached out to seize him, and, as they had done a thousand ti upon the sward, striking, growling and biting, though never closing their teeth in h pinch It ondrous practice for the tricks that he had learned at school, and many of these Akut learned to use and to foil And from the ape the boy learned the methods that had been handed down to Akut from so earth when ferns were trees and crocodiles were birds

But there was one art the boy possessed which Akut could not h he did achieve fair proficiency in it for an ape-boxing To have his bull-like charges stopped and crumpled with a suddenly planted fist upon the end of his snout, or a painful jolt in the short ribs, always surprised Akut It angered hihty jaws ca in the soft flesh of his friend than at any other, for he was still an ape, with an ape's short te his tore lasted, for when he lost his head and rushed madly into close quarters with the boy he discovered that the stinging hail of blows released upon him always found their mark and effectually stopped hi viciously, backing aith grinning jaws distended, to sulk for an hour or so

Tonight they did not box Just for a moment or two they wrestled playfully, until the scent of Sheeta, the panther, brought the through the jungle in front of therowled ly in chorus and the carnivore moved on

Then the two took up their journey toward the sound of the Du of the dru apes, and strong to their nostrils came the scent of their kind The lad trembled with excitement The hair down Akut's spine stiffened-the syer are often sile as they neared thetheir way forward, alert for sentinels Presently through a break in the foliage the scene burst upon the eager eyes of the boy To Akut it was a faled at the savage sight The great bulls were dancing in the ular circle about the flat-topped earthen dru top with sticks worn s the temper and customs of his kind, was too wise to make their presence known until the frenzy of the dance had passed After the drum was quiet and the bellies of the tribe well-filled he would hail them Then would come a parley, after which he and Korak would be accepted into ht be those ould object; but such could be overcome by brute force, of which he and the lad had an aht cause ever decreasing suspicion a others of the tribe; but eventually they would becoe apes

He hoped that they had been a those who had known Tarzan, for that would help in the introduction of the lad and in the consu of the apes It ith difficulty, however, that Akut kept the boy fro anthropoids-an act that would have meant the instant extermination of thereat apes work thee rites is of such a nature that even the ive them a wide berth at such times

As the ed horizon of the a of the drum decreased and lessened were the exertions of the dancers, until, at last, the final note was struck and the huge beasts turned to fall upon the feast they had dragged hither for the orgy

From what he had seen and heard Akut was able to explain to Korak that the rites proclai, and he pointed out to the boy the shi+p, no doubt, as many human rulers have come into theirs-by the murder of his predecessor

When the apes had filled their bellies and ht the bases of the trees to curl up in sleep Akut plucked Korak by the arm

”Come,” he whispered ”Come slowly Follow h the trees until he stood upon a bough overhanging one side of the amphitheater Here he stood in silence for a rowl Instantly a score of apes leaped to their feet Their savage little eyes sped quickly around the periphery of the clearing The king ape was the first to see the two figures upon the branch He gave voice to an o steps in the direction of the intruders His hair was bristling His legs were stiff, iait Behind him pressed a number of bulls

He stopped just a little before he ca Wary king! Here he stood rocking his in hideous grinnings, rurohich were slowly but steadily increasing to the proportions of roars Akut knew that he was planning an attack upon theht He had come with the boy to cast his lot with the tribe

”I am Akut,” he said ”This is Korak Korak is the son of Tarzan as king of the apes I, too, was king of the apes elt in the reat waters We have coreat hunters We areceased his rocking He eyed the pair froe and crafty His kingshi+p was very new and he was jealous of it He feared the encroache apes The sleek, brown, hairless body of the lad spelled ”rowled ”Go away, or I will kill you”