Tarzan and the Golden Lion quotes

Korak and Jane laughed. “That’ll be fine,” commented the former.

“Lord Greystoke, foster mother to the son of Numa,” laughed Jane.

Tarzan smiled with them, but he did not cease his attentions toward the cub. Reaching out suddenly he caught the little lion by the scruff of its neck and then stroking it gently he talked to it in a low, crooning tone.

Tarzan looked solemnly at his son and closed one eye.

“Your mother never can learn to appreciate the fine qualities of the anthropoids. One might almost think that she objected to the suggestion that she had mated with one of them.”

“John Clayton, I shall never speak to you again if you don’t stop saying such hideous things. I am ashamed of you. It is bad enough that you are an unregenerate wild-man, without trying to suggest that you may be an ape into the bargain.”

He sniffed at it and growled, and with bared fangs he eyed the three wickedly. The ape-man pushed him away with his open palm and the lion growled again angrily and snapped at him.

Quick is Numa, quick is Bara, the deer, but Tarzan of the Apes is lightning.

So swiftly did he strike, and so heavily, that Jad-bal-ja was falling on his back almost in the very instant that he had growled at his master. Swiftly he came to his feet again and the two stood facing one another.

In the romping young, he saw again Neeta and his other childhood playmates and in the adults all the great, savage brutes he had feared in youth and conquered in manhood.

The ways of man may change but the ways of the ape are the same, yesterday, today and forever.

He watched them in silence for some minutes. How glad they would be to see him when they discovered his identity! For Tarzan of the Apes was known the length and the breadth of the great jungle as the friend and protector of the Mangani.

The dago there”—and he indicated Esteban—“because his face and his figure filled the bill. There don’t any of us need no brains for this work, and there ain’t any of us got any more brains than we need.

Flora’s the brains of this outfit, and the sooner everyone understands that and takes orders from her, the better off we’ll all be.

She’s been to Africa with this Lord Greystoke feller before—you wuz his wife’s maid, wasn’t you, Flora? And she knows somethin’ about the country and the natives and the animals, and there don’t none of us know nuttin’.”

His evil eyes glared glassily, the while he bared his tusks in a savage grimace, and from his deep lungs rumbled forth an ominous roar, at the sound of which the Gomangani trembled in unfeigned terror. The ape-man knit his brows in thought.

Never before had he been called upon to witness so remarkable a scene of the abasement of man before a beast.

Presently the procession continued upon its way descending the staircase and turning to the right along a path through the garden, and when it had passed them the Gomangani and the Bolgani arose and resumed their interrupted duties.

Alone, now, and relieved of the responsibility of La, Tarzan might easily make his way by night through the valley of Opar and to safety beyond the barrier. But perhaps such a thought never entered his head.

Gratitude and loyalty were marked characteristics of the ape-man.

La had saved him from the fanaticism and intrigue of her people. She had saved him at a cost of all that was most dear to her, power and position, peace and safety.

The ape-man’s self-confidence was in no measure blundering egotism. Knowing his limitations, he knew that he would have little or no chance against even a few Bolgani were he to be discovered within their palace, where all was familiar to them and strange to him.

Behind him was the open window, and the silent jungle night, and freedom. Ahead danger, predestined failure; and, quite likely, death.

Which should he choose? For a moment he stood in silent thought, and then, raising his head and squaring his great shoulders, he shook his black locks defiantly and stepped boldly toward the nearest door.

From the attitude of mind which you hold toward them one would think them some manner of supermen—they are only beasts, my friend, and if we remain loyal to our cause we shall overcome them.”

“Beasts they may be,” replied the old man, “but they are beasts with the brains of men⁠—their cunning and their cruelty are diabolical.”

A long silence ensued, broken only by the nervous whisperings of the Gomangani, whose morale, it was evident, was slowly disintegrating under the nervous strain of the enforced wait, and the failure of their fellows of the forest to come quickly to their aid.

To this was added the demoralizing effect of speculation upon what the Bolgani were planning or what plan they already were putting into effect.

The very silence of the gorilla-men was more terrible than the din of actual assault.

La was the first of the whites to break the silence.

“Even so, it is sufficient to account for us,” replied the old man.

“Perhaps you are right,” said Tarzan, “but at least we shall have a bully fight.”

“What is that!”

You will find no friends left back there from whence you came. You will find deceit, and hypocrisy, and greed, and avarice, and cruelty. You will find that no one will be interested in you and that you will be interested in no one there.

I, Tarzan of the Apes, have left my jungle and gone to the cities built by men, but always I have been disgusted and been glad to return to my jungle⁠—to the noble beasts that are honest in their loves and in their hates⁠—to the freedom and genuineness of nature.

“If you return you will be disappointed, and you will realize that you have thrown away an opportunity of accomplishing a work well worth your while. These poor creatures need you.

“The Waziri returned and told her that I was missing,” he soliloquized, “and now she has set out with them to search for me.” He turned to the lion.

“Well, Jad-bal-ja, once again we turn away from home⁠—but no, where she is is home.”

The direction that the trail led rather mystified Tarzan of the Apes, as it was not along the direct route toward Opar, but in a rather more southerly direction.

And for so long, now, had Esteban Miranda played the part, and so really proficient had he become in his interpretation of the noble character, that he believed himself Tarzan, and in outward appearance he might have deceived the ape-man’s best friend.

But within that godlike form was the heart of a cur and the soul of a craven.

“He would have stolen Tarzan’s mate,” muttered Esteban. “Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle! Did you see how I slew him, with a single shaft? You could love a weakling, could you, when you could have the love of the great Tarzan!”

Without a word Tarzan turned back toward the jungle, and in another moment the blacks and the three Europeans saw the leafy sea of foliage swallow the ape-man and the golden lion.

“Gord help Kraski!” exclaimed Peebles.

“Wot do yer suppose he wants with a bag o’ stones?” inquired Throck. “ ’E must be a bit balmy, I’ll say.”

“I should have discovered the deception in a few minutes I have no doubt, but in the flickering light of the campfire, and influenced as I was by the great joy of seeing Lord Greystoke again,

I believed quickly that which I wanted to believe.

”

At last the ape-man returned to the two women.

“That is the end of the man who would be Tarzan,” he said.

“Do you think he is dead?” asked Jane.

Jane Clayton put her arm about the girl’s shoulder.

“Avarice has been the cause of many crimes since the world began,”

she said, “and when crime is invoked in its aid it assumes its most repulsive aspect and brings most often its own punishment, as you, Flora, may well testify. For my part I forgive you. I imagine that you have learned your lesson.”