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There
were naked children running and playing in the village street.
There were women grinding dried plantain in crude stone mortars,
while others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flour.
Out in the fields he could see still other women hoeing, weeding,
or gathering.
All
wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and many
were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets.
Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire,
while several were further ornamented by huge nose rings.
Tarzan
of the Apes looked with growing wonder at these strange creatures.
Dozing in the shade he saw several men, while at the extreme
outskirts of the clearing he occasionally caught glimpses of armed
warriors apparently guarding the village against surprise from an
attacking enemy.
He
noticed that the women alone worked.
Nowhere was there evidence of a man tilling the fields or
performing any of the homely duties of the village.
Finally
his eyes rested upon a woman directly beneath him.
Before
her was a small cauldron standing over a low fire and in it bubbled a
thick, reddish, tarry mass. On
one side of her lay a quantity of wooden arrows the points of which she
dipped into the seething substance, then laying them upon a narrow rack of
boughs which stood upon her other side.
Tarzan
of the Apes was fascinated. Here
was the secret of the terrible destructiveness of The Archer's tiny
missiles. He noted the extreme care which the woman took that none of the
matter should touch her hands, and once when a particle spattered upon one
of her fingers he saw her plunge the member into a vessel of water and
quickly rub the tiny stain away with a handful of leaves.
Tarzan
knew nothing of poison, but his shrewd reasoning told him that it was this
deadly stuff that killed, and not the little arrow, which was merely the
messenger that carried it into the body of its victim.
How
he should like to have more of those little death-dealing slivers.
If the woman would only leave her work for an instant he could drop
down, gather up a handful, and be back in the tree again before she drew
three breaths.
As
he was trying to think out some plan to distract her attention he heard a
wild cry from across the clearing. He
looked and saw a black warrior standing beneath the very tree in which he
had killed the murderer of Kala an hour before.
The
fellow was shouting and waving his spear above his head.
Now and again he would point to something on the ground before him.
The
village was in an uproar instantly. Armed
men rushed from the interior of many a hut and raced madly across the
clearing toward the excited sentry. After
them trooped the old men, and the women and children until, in a moment,
the village was deserted.
Tarzan
of the Apes knew that they had found the body of his victim, but that
interested him far less than the fact that no one remained in the village
to prevent his taking a supply of the arrows which lay below him.
Quickly
and noiselessly he dropped to the ground beside the cauldron of poison.
For a moment he stood motionless, his quick, bright eyes scanning
the interior of the palisade.
No
one was in sight. His eyes
rested upon the open doorway of a nearby hut.
He would take a look within, thought Tarzan, and so, cautiously, he
approached the low thatched building.
For
a moment he stood without, listening intently.
There was no sound, and he glided into the semi-darkness of the
interior.
Weapons
hung against the walls--long spears, strangely shaped knives, a couple of
narrow shields. In the center
of the room was a cooking pot, and at the far end a litter of dry grasses
covered by woven mats which evidently served the owners as beds and
bedding. Several human skulls
lay upon the floor.
Tarzan
of the Apes felt of each article, hefted the spears, smelled of them, for
he "saw" largely through his sensitive and highly trained
nostrils. He determined to
own one of these long, pointed sticks, but he could not take one on this
trip because of the arrows he meant to carry.
As
he took each article from the walls, he placed it in a pile in the center
of the room. On top of all he
placed the cooking pot, inverted, and on top of this he laid one of the
grinning skulls, upon which he fastened the headdress of the dead Kulonga.
Then
he stood back, surveyed his work, and grinned. Tarzan of the Apes enjoyed
a joke.
But
now he heard, outside, the sounds of many voices, and long mournful howls,
and mighty wailing. He was
startled. Had he remained too long? Quickly
he reached the doorway and peered down the village street toward the
village gate.
The
natives were not yet in sight, though he could plainly hear them
approaching across the plantation. They
must be very near.
Like
a flash he sprang across the opening to the pile of arrows. Gathering up
all he could carry under one arm, he overturned the seething cauldron with
a kick, and disappeared into the foliage above just as the first of the
returning natives entered the gate at the far end of the village street.
Then he turned to watch the proceeding below, poised like some wild
bird ready to take swift wing at the first sign of danger.
The
natives filed up the street, four of them bearing the dead body of Kulonga.
Behind trailed the women, uttering strange cries and weird
lamentation. On they came to
the portals of Kulonga's hut, the very one in which Tarzan had wrought his
depredations.
Scarcely
had half a dozen entered the building ere they came rushing out in wild,
jabbering confusion. The
others hastened to gather about. There
was much excited gesticulating, pointing, and chattering; then several of
the warriors approached and peered within.
Finally
an old fellow with many ornaments of metal about his arms and legs, and a
necklace of dried human hands depending upon his chest, entered the hut.
It
was Mbonga, the king, father of Kulonga.
For
a few moments all was silent. Then
Mbonga emerged, a look of mingled wrath and superstitious fear writ upon
his hideous countenance. He
spoke a few words to the assembled warriors, and in an instant the men
were flying through the little village searching minutely every hut and
corner within the palisades.
Scarcely
had the search commenced than the overturned cauldron was discovered, and
with it the theft of the poisoned arrows.
Nothing more they found, and it was a thoroughly awed and
frightened group of savages which huddled around their king a few moments
later. Mbonga could explain
nothing of the strange events that had taken place.
The finding of the still warm body of Kulonga--on the very verge of
their fields and within easy earshot of the village--knifed and stripped
at the door of his father's home, was in itself sufficiently mysterious,
but these last awesome discoveries within the village, within the dead
Kulonga's own hut, filled their hearts with dismay, and conjured in their
poor brains only the most frightful of superstitious explanations.
They
stood in little groups, talking in low tones, and ever casting affrighted
glances behind them from their great rolling eyes.
Tarzan
of the Apes watched them for a while from his lofty perch in the great
tree. There was much in their
demeanor which he could not understand, for of superstition he was
ignorant, and of fear of any kind he had but a vague conception.
The
sun was high in the heavens. Tarzan
had not broken fast this day, and it was many miles to where lay the
toothsome remains of Horta the boar.
So
he turned his back upon the village of Mbonga and melted away into the
leafy fastness of the forest.
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