The Son of Tarzan quotes

Straggling upon the outskirts were the thatched huts of natives, picturesque in their primeval savagery, harmonizing with the background of tropical jungle and accentuating the squalid hideousness of the white man’s pioneer architecture.

The boy, leaning over the rail, was looking far beyond the man-made town deep into the God-made jungle.

A little shiver of anticipation tingled his spine, and then, quite without volition, he found himself gazing into the loving eyes of his mother and the strong face of the father which mirrored, beneath its masculine strength, a love no less than the mother’s eyes …

He was half-frantic with despair. What were they to do? In the morning they would be discovered and killed.

For all his inherited size and strength he was, after all, only a little boy⁠—a frightened, homesick little boy⁠—reasoning faultily from the meager experience of childhood.

He could think of but a single glaring fact—they had killed a fellow man, and they were among savage strangers, thirsting for the blood of the first victim whom fate cast into their clutches. This much he had gleaned from penny-dreadfuls.

Even now he could see the beauty of the mother reflected in the childish lines of little Jeanne’s face, and both those faces would be smiling up into his as he swung from his tired mount late the following afternoon.

Already he could feel a soft cheek pressed close to each of his⁠—velvet against leather.

His reverie was broken in upon by the voice of a sentry summoning a noncommissioned officer. Captain Jacot raised his eyes. The sun had not yet set;

The sentry was pointing in this direction, and the corporal, through narrowed lids, was searching the distance. Captain Jacot rose to his feet.

He was not a man content to see through the eyes of others. He must see for himself.

Usually he saw things long before others were aware that there was anything to see—a trait that had won for him the sobriquet of Hawk. Now he saw, just beyond the long shadows, a dozen specks rising and falling among the sands.

But when she was alone she was happy, playing with Geeka, or decking her hair with wild flowers, or making ropes of grasses.

She was always busy and always singing⁠—when they left her alone.

No amount of cruelty appeared sufficient to crush the innate happiness and sweetness from her full little heart. Only when The Sheik was near was she quiet and subdued. Him she feared with a fear that was at times almost hysterical terror.

But when she was alone she was happy, playing with Geeka, or decking her hair with wild flowers, or making ropes of grasses. She was always busy and always singing—when they left her alone.

No amount of cruelty appeared sufficient to crush the innate happiness and sweetness from her full little heart.

Only when The Sheik was near was she quiet and subdued. Him she feared with a fear that was at times almost hysterical terror.

She dared not cry aloud, since that would have brought The Sheik upon her again.

The anguish in her little heart was not alone the anguish of physical pain; but that infinitely more pathetic anguish⁠—of love denied a childish heart that yearns for love.

Little Meriem could scarce recall any other existence than that of the stern cruelty of The Sheik and Mabunu. Dimly, in the back of her childish memory there lurked a blurred recollection of a gentle mother;

The sooner you learn to know it the better; but keep close to the trees, as we go around him, for Numa often does that which he is least expected to do. And keep your ears and your eyes and your nose open.

Remember always that there may be an enemy behind every bush, in every tree and amongst every clump of jungle grass.

While you are avoiding Numa do not run into the jaws of Sabor, his mate. Follow me,” and Akut set off in a wide circle about the water hole and the crouching lion.

“It is thus,” he said, “that jungle folk die. We go cautiously for a lifetime, and then, just for an instant, we forget, and—” he ground his teeth in mimicry of the crunching of great jaws in flesh. “It is a lesson,” he resumed. “

You have learned that you may not for too long keep your eyes and your ears and your nose all bent in the same direction.

”

But no two lions are necessarily alike in character or temper. They differ as greatly as do individuals of the human family.

Because ten lions act similarly under similar conditions one cannot say that the eleventh lion will do likewise⁠—the chances are that he will not.

The lion is a creature of high nervous development. He thinks, therefore he reasons. Having a nervous system and brains he is the possessor of temperament, which is affected variously by extraneous causes. One day the boy met the eleventh lion.

Louder and louder came the beating of the drum. Now, at last, they could hear the growling of the dancing 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 symptoms of happiness and anger are often similar.

Silently they crept through the jungle as they neared the meeting place of the apes. Now they were in the trees, worming their way forward, alert for sentinels. Presently through a break in the foliage the scene burst upon the eager eyes of the boy.

“Come,” he said. “

The jungle is kinder than man.

You shall live in the jungle and Korak and Akut will protect you.”

These root words were so similar to those in use among the great anthropoids as to suggest that the language of the Manus was the mother tongue. At best it lent itself to but material and sordid exchange.

Dreams, aspirations, hopes, the past, the future held no place in the conversation of Manu, the monkey.

All was of the present—particularly of filling his belly and catching lice.

At best it lent itself to but material and sordid exchange. Dreams, aspirations, hopes, the past, the future held no place in the conversation of Manu, the monkey.

All was of the present⁠—particularly of filling his belly and catching lice.

Poor food was this to nourish the mental appetite of a girl just upon the brink of womanhood. And so, finding Manu only amusing as an occasional playfellow or pet, Meriem poured out her sweetest soul thoughts into the deaf ears of Geeka’s ivory head.

Geeka was a perfect little savage; but at heart she was unchanged, being the same omnivorous listener as of yore.

An excellent trait in Geeka was that she never interrupted in order to talk about herself.

Today was no exception. She had been listening attentively to Meriem for an hour, propped against the bole of a tree while her lithe, young mistress stretched catlike and luxurious along a swaying branch before her.

A sinuous trunk undulated toward him, touching his brown hide in a half caress. Korak slapped the great shoulder affectionately as he went by. For years he had been upon good terms with Tantor and his people.

Of all the jungle folk he loved best the mighty pachyderm⁠—the most peaceful and at the same time the most terrible of them all.

The gentle gazelle feared him not, yet Numa, lord of the jungle, gave him a wide berth. Among the younger bulls, the cows and the calves Korak wound his way.

For years he had been upon good terms with Tantor and his people. Of all the jungle folk he loved best the mighty pachyderm—the most peaceful and at the same time the most terrible of them all.

The gentle gazelle feared him not, yet Numa, lord of the jungle, gave him a wide berth.

Among the younger bulls, the cows and the calves Korak wound his way. Now and then another trunk would run out to touch him, and once a playful calf grasped his legs and upset him.

Nor am I afraid of the leopard or the lion. When my time comes I shall die. It may be that a leopard or a lion shall kill me, or it may be a tiny bug no bigger than the end of my littlest finger.

When the lion leaps upon me, or the little bug stings me I shall be afraid⁠—oh, then I shall be terribly afraid, I know; but life would be very miserable indeed were I to spend it in terror of the thing that has not yet happened.

If it be the lion my terror shall be short of life; but if it be the little bug I may suffer for days before I die. And so I fear the lion least of all. He is great and noisy.

He must have the confirmatory evidence of his nose before venturing to rely too implicitly upon the testimony of his ears and eyes. Korak stood perfectly still. To have advanced then might have precipitated an immediate attack, or, as easily, a panic of flight.

Wild beasts are creatures of nerves.

It is a relatively simple thing to throw them into a species of hysteria which may induce either a mania for murder, or symptoms of apparent abject cowardice—it is a question, however, if a wild animal ever is actually a coward.

In manner he was suave and courteous to all—if possible a trifle more punctilious toward those he considered of meaner clay than toward the few he mentally admitted to equality.

Nature had favored him with a splendid physique and a handsome face, and also with sufficient good judgment to appreciate that while he might enjoy the contemplation of his superiority to the masses, there was little likelihood of the masses being equally entranced by the same cause.

And so he easily maintained the reputation of being a most democratic and likeable fellow, and indeed he was likable. Just a shade of his egotism was occasionally apparent—never sufficient to become a burden to his associates. And this, briefly, was the Hon.

Now, at the sound of the kid’s bleat, all the well remembered thrills recurred.

Instantly she was all excitement to play again the game of hide and seek with death.

Quickly she loosened her riding skirt and tossed it aside—it was a heavy handicap to successful travel in the trees.

She was most beautiful and very desirable; but what did he know of her? Was she not altogether impossible? Was the scene that he had but just witnessed not sufficient proof of her impossibility?

A woman who climbed trees and conversed with the baboons of the jungle! It was quite horrible!

Again the Hon. Morison mopped his brow. Meriem glanced toward him.

“It was horrible!” ejaculated the Hon. Morison.

“Horrible?” repeated Meriem, puckering her brows in bewilderment. “What was horrible about it? They are my friends. Is it horrible to talk with one’s friends?”

“You were really talking with them, then?” cried the Hon. Morison. “You understood them and they understood you?”

Morison shone to advantage, as, in truth, he did in most all manly sports. He was telling Meriem stories of London and Paris, of balls and banquets, of the wonderful women and their wonderful gowns, of the pleasures and pastimes of the rich and powerful.

The Hon. Morison was a past master in the art of insidious boasting.

His egotism was never flagrant or tiresome—he was never crude in it, for crudeness was a plebeianism that the Hon. Morison studiously avoided, yet the impression derived by a listener to the Hon.

The result was that all good sportsmen and all the natives loved and respected him.

His word was law where there had never been law before.

There was scarce a head man from coast to coast who would not heed the big Bwana’s commands in preference to those of the hunters who employed them, and so it was easy to turn back any undesirable stranger—Bwana had simply to threaten to order …

He had come a long way in search of man, for even in his youth he had tasted human flesh and while it was poor stuff by comparison with eland and zebra it was less difficult to kill.

In Numa’s estimation man was a slow-witted, slow-footed creature which commanded no respect unless accompanied by the acrid odor which spelled to the monarch’s sensitive nostrils the great noise and the blinding flash of an express rifle.

He caught the dangerous scent tonight; but he was ravenous to madness. He would face a dozen rifles, if necessary, to fill his empty belly.

Now that it was too late, he regretted it. For now Meriem, still living, had been revealed to him in a guise of progress and advancement that had carried her completely out of his life.

Death itself could not have further removed her from him.

In her new world she loved a man of her own kind. And Korak knew that it was right. She was not for him—not for the naked, savage ape. No, she was not for him; but he still was hers.

His clothes were tatters. But through the blood and the dirt and the rags a new Baynes shone forth—a handsomer Baynes than the dandy and the fop of yore.

In the heart and soul of every son of woman lies the germ of manhood and honor.

Remorse for a scurvy act, and an honorable desire to right the wrong he had done the woman he now knew he really loved had excited these germs to rapid growth in Morison Baynes—and the metamorphosis had taken place.

Sometimes lolling upon Tantor’s back, sometimes roaming the jungle in solitude, Korak made his way slowly toward the West and South.

He made but a few miles a day, for he had a whole lifetime before him and no place in particular to go.

Possibly he would have moved more rapidly but for the thought which continually haunted him that each mile he traversed carried him further and further away from Meriem—no longer his Meriem, as of yore, it is true! but still as dear to him as ever.

He had no particular business, however, with the old Sheik and so he did not propose following him—the further from men he could stay the better pleased he would be—he wished that he might never see a human face again.

Men always brought him sorrow and misery.

The river suggested fishing and so he dawdled upon its shores, catching fish after a fashion of his own devising and eating them raw.

The gate lay upon the east side of the camp, facing the river. Tantor and Korak approached from the north.

There was no gate there; but what cared Tantor or Korak for gates.

At a word from the ape man and raising his tender trunk high above the thorns Tantor breasted the boma, walking through it as though it had not existed. A dozen blacks squatted before their huts looked up at the noise of his approach.

The sensitive member felt and smelled back and forth along the body of the terrified Malbihn. Tantor uttered a low, rumbling sound. His little eyes blazed. At last he had recognized the creature who had killed his mate long years before.

Tantor, the elephant, never forgets and never forgives.

Malbihn saw in the demoniacal visage above him the murderous purpose of the beast. He shrieked aloud to Korak. “Help! Help! The devil is going to kill me!”

“What were you doing poaching in my country?” growled he.

“I was not aware that you owned Africa,” replied the Hon. Morison.

“I was searching for a young woman who had been abducted from the home of a friend. The abductor wounded me and I drifted down river in a canoe—I was on my way back to his camp when your men seized me.”