Tarzan and the Ant Men quotes

After he had learned their language and thus come to a realization of the accident of fate that had guided his destiny by so narrow a margin from the cooking pots of the cannibals he was less eager to proclaim himself Tarzan of the Apes.

Instead he let drop mysterious suggestions that he was, indeed, none other than the river devil.

The witch doctor was delighted, and everyone was fooled except Obebe, who was old and wise and did not believe in river devils, and the witch doctor who was old and wise and did not believe in them either, but realized that they were excellent …

“How, baba,” she asked her father, when he had returned to the hut, later in the day, “does the river devil destroy those who harm him?”

“As the fish in the river, so are the ways of the river devil⁠—without number,” replied Khamis.

“He might send the fish from the river and the game from the jungle and cause our crops to die. Then we should starve. He might bring the fire out of the sky at night and strike dead all the people of Obebe.”

Evidently she knew how much of mercy she might expect. She did not fall upon her knees in an attitude of supplication—not she. Instead she tore a handful of the pebble-missiles from her girdle in a vain attempt to defend herself.

Futilest of futilities!

The huge, destroying bludgeon had not even paused, but swinging in a great circle fell crushingly upon the skull of The Second Woman.

Tarzan cast a quick glance behind him. There crouched the Alalus lad, trembling in fear. Beyond was the rear wall of the corral, one of the great stone slabs of which tilted slightly outward.

Slow is the mind of man, slower his eye by comparison with the eye and the mind of the trapped beast seeking escape.

So quick was the ape-man that he was gone before The Third Woman had guessed that he was contemplating flight, and with him had gone the eldest Alalus boy.

Numa, baffled, roared terribly as he returned to glare up at the ape-man perched above him. Tarzan smiled.

“Son of Dango, the hyena,” he taunted, “go hungry until you learn to hunt,”

and casting a broken branch contemptuously in the lion’s face the ape-man vanished among the leafy branches bearing his kill lightly across one broad shoulder.

… he was dining upon a certain occasion, were horrified when they learned that in common with many of the African tribes and the apes he ate caterpillars, and they voiced their horror between mouthfuls of the snails they were eating with relish at the time.

The provincial American scoffs at the French for eating frogs’ legs, the while he munches upon the leg of a pig!

The Eskimo eat raw blubber, the Amazonians, both white and native, eat the contents of the stomachs of parrots and monkeys and consider them delicacies, the Chinese coolie asks not how his meat came by its death, nor how long since, and there is a …

The provincial American scoffs at the French for eating frogs’ legs, the while he munches upon the leg of a pig!

The Eskimo eat raw blubber, the Amazonians, both white and native, eat the contents of the stomachs of parrots and monkeys and consider them delicacies, the Chinese coolie asks not how his meat came by its death, nor how long since, and there is a man in New York, an estimable and otherwise harmless man, who eats Limburger cheese on Bartlett pears.

The following day, with sufficient meat to last them several days, Tarzan set to work upon his weapons and his loincloth.

The ape-man smiled as he idly pondered the events of the past few minutes—

Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle, hiding among the trees to escape the notice of three women! But such women!

He knew little about them or their ways as yet, but what he did know was sufficient to convince him that they were as formidable foes as ever he had encountered and that while he remained weaponless he was no match against their great bludgeons …

There was no shouting and no singing, but on the face of every warrior who passed close enough for the ape-man to discern his features was an expression of exalted rapture.

No need here for war cries or battle hymns to bolster the questionable courage of the weak⁠—there were no weak.

The pounding of the hoofs of the advancing Veltopismakusian horde had ceased. It was evident that their scouts had discovered that the intended surprise had failed.

Tarzan asked a nearby officer if, perchance, the enemy had abandoned his intention of attacking at all. The man smiled and shook his head.

“Minunians never abandon an attack,” he said.

As Tarzan’s eyes wandered over the city’s ten domes, illuminated now by the rays of the rising sun, he saw in each of the numerous window embrasures, that pierced the domes at regular intervals at each of their thirty odd floors, a warrior stationed at …

Only man she feared; but in this she was not unlike all other created things.

Man alone of all the creations of God is universally hated and feared and not only by the lower orders but by his own kind, for of them all man alone joys in the death of others⁠—the great coward who, of all creation, fears death the most.

And so the little negro girl lay watching the Spaniard and her eyes glittered, for in his occupation she saw a means to her revenge.

Gofoloso was evidently perturbed in spirit—he spoke rapidly. “By the way, my good Vestako, I just happened to recall that the other day you admired one of my slaves. I have intended giving him to you. If you will accept him he is yours.”

“I admire a hundred of your slaves,” said Vestako, softly.

“They are yours, Vestako,” said Gofoloso. “Come with me now and select them. It is a pleasure to make my friend so trifling a present.”

War and work, the two most distasteful things in the world, are, nevertheless, the most essential to the happiness and the existence of a people. Peace reduces the necessity for labor, and induces slothfulness. War compels labor, that her ravages may be effaced.

Peace turns us into fat worms. War makes men of us.

”

The ape-man turned to see one of the slaves with whom he had been working eyeing him quizzically, and smiled.

“I am a Zertalacolol to my masters,” he replied.

The other raised his brows. “I see,” he said. “Perhaps you are wise. I shall not be the one to betray you,” and passed on about his business.

Komodoflorensal smiled.

“Human egotism would not permit you to attribute this change to an opposite cause from that to which you have ascribed it,”

he said.

Komodoflorensal shook his head.

“Hope is a beautiful thing, my friend,”

he said, “but if you were a Minunian you would know that under such circumstances as we find ourselves it is a waste of mental energy. Look at these bars,” and he walked to the window and shook the heavy irons that spanned the embrasure.

“Why not?” asked the prince.

“Because, since they expect to remove us to the quarries tomorrow, it follows that we must escape tonight,” explained Tarzan.

When Tarzan had eaten his fill he arose and walked to the window, where he removed the bars and, taking the one that he had selected for himself, crawled through the passage that led to the opposite end of the embrasure, for even so close …

… and snatched a rapier from the side of one of the drunken nobles—a substitution of weapons that would render Komodoflorensal a dangerous opponent anywhere in Minuni, for there was no better swordsman among all the warlike clans of Trohanadalmakus, whose blades were famed throughout Minuni.

Facing, with only an iron rod, two skilled swordsmen placed Tarzan of the Apes at a disadvantage

that might have proved his undoing had it not been for the presence of Komodoflorensal, who, no sooner than he had appropriated a weapon, leaped forward and engaged one of the warriors. The other pressed Tarzan fiercely.

but we may not remain here. These gentlemen have served us well, and themselves, too, for their faithlessness and debauchery saved their lives, while the two who followed in sobriety the path of duty were destroyed.”

“Matters are strangely ordered,” commented Komodoflorensal.

“In Minuni as elsewhere,” agreed Tarzan, leading the way to the door of the chamber which they found opened into a corridor instead of into another chamber as they had rather expected would be the fact at a point thus close to the central shaft.

“What was that?” asked his friend.

“I was just thinking of my simple, honest jungle and God’s creatures that men call beasts.”

“What should they call them?” demanded Komodoflorensal.

“What should they call them?” demanded Komodoflorensal.

“If judged by the standards that men themselves make, and fail to observe, they should be called demigods,” replied the ape-man.

“I believe I get your point,” laughed the other; “but think! had a lion guarded the entrance to this quarry no gold piece would have let us pass. The frailties of man are not without their virtues;

He struggled and struck at the thing that held him—a thing so powerful that he knew it could not be human, and then a low voice, cold and terrifying, whispered in his ear.

“Die, Caraftap!” it said.

“Meet the fate that you deserve and that you well knew you deserved when you said that you dared not return to the quarters of the slaves of Zoanthrohago after betraying two of your number. Die, Caraftap!

Janzara stood above the spot trembling with anger and staring down at the place where the ape-man had disappeared. She shook as an aspen shakes in the breeze—shook in the mad tempest of her own passions.

“If you will not come to me you shall never go to another!” she screamed

, and then she turned and saw Komodoflorensal and Talaskar running toward her. What followed occurred so quickly that it would be impossible to record the facts in the brief time that they actually consumed.