Chapter 27

Korak screamed commands to his huge protector, in an effort to halt him; but all to no avail. Meriem raced toward the bordering trees with all the speed that lay in her swift, little feet; but Tantor, for all his huge bulk, drove down upon her with the rapidity of an express train.

Korak lay where he could see the whole frightful tragedy. The cold sweat broke out upon his body. His heart seemed to have stopped its beating. Meriem might reach the trees before Tantor overtook her, but even her agility would not carry her beyond the reach of that relentless trunk--she would be dragged down and tossed. Korak could picture the whole frightful scene. Then Tantor would follow her up, goring the frail, little body with his relentless tusks, or trampling it into an unrecognizable mass beneath his ponderous feet.

He was almost upon her now. Korak wanted to close his eyes, but could not. His throat was dry and parched. Never in all his savage existence had he suffered such blighting terror--never before had he known what terror meant. A dozen more strides and the brute would seize her. What was that? Korak’s eyes started from their sockets. A strange figure had leaped from the tree the shade of which Meriem already had reached--leaped beyond the girl straight into the path of the charging elephant. It was a naked white giant. Across his shoulder a coil of rope was looped. In the band of his gee string was a hunting knife. Otherwise he was unarmed. With naked hands he faced the maddening Tantor. A sharp command broke from the stranger’s lips--the great beast halted in his tracks--and Meriem swung herself upward into the tree to safety. Korak breathed a sigh of relief not unmixed with wonder. He fastened his eyes upon the face of Meriem’s deliverer and as recognition slowly filtered into his understanding they went wide in incredulity and surprise.

Tantor, still rumbling angrily, stood swaying to and fro close before the giant white man. Then the latter stepped straight beneath the upraised trunk and spoke a low word of command. The great beast ceased his muttering. The savage light died from his eyes, and as the stranger stepped forward toward Korak, Tantor trailed docilely at his heels.

Meriem was watching, too, and wondering. Suddenly the man turned toward her as though recollecting her presence after a moment of forgetfulness. “Come! Meriem,” he called, and then she recognized him with a startled: “Bwana!” Quickly the girl dropped from the tree and ran to his side. Tantor cocked a questioning eye at the white giant, but receiving a warning word let Meriem approach. Together the two walked to where Korak lay, his eyes wide with wonder and filled with a pathetic appeal for forgiveness, and, mayhap, a glad thankfulness for the miracle that had brought these two of all others to his side.

“Jack!” cried the white giant, kneeling at the ape-man’s side.

“Father!” came chokingly from The Killer’s lips. “Thank God that it was you. No one else in all the jungle could have stopped Tantor.”

Quickly the man cut the bonds that held Korak, and as the youth leaped to his feet and threw his arms about his father, the older man turned toward Meriem.

“I thought,” he said, sternly, “that I told you to return to the farm.”

Korak was looking at them wonderingly. In his heart was a great yearning to take the girl in his arms; but in time he remembered the other--the dapper young English gentleman--and that he was but a savage, uncouth ape-man.

Meriem looked up pleadingly into Bwana’s eyes.

“You told me,” she said, in a very small voice, “that my place was beside the man I loved,” and she turned her eyes toward Korak all filled with the wonderful light that no other man had yet seen in them, and that none other ever would.

The Killer started toward her with outstretched arms; but suddenly he fell upon one knee before her, instead, and lifting her hand to his lips kissed it more reverently than he could have kissed the hand of his country’s queen.

A rumble from Tantor brought the three, all jungle bred, to instant alertness. Tantor was looking toward the trees behind them, and as their eyes followed his gaze the head and shoulders of a great ape appeared amidst the foliage. For a moment the creature eyed them, and then from its throat rose a loud scream of recognition and of joy, and a moment later the beast had leaped to the ground, followed by a score of bulls like himself, and was waddling toward them, shouting in the primordial tongue of the anthropoid:

“Tarzan has returned! Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle!”

It was Akut, and instantly he commenced leaping and bounding about the trio, uttering hideous shrieks and mouthings that to any other human beings might have indicated the most ferocious rage; but these three knew that the king of the apes was doing homage to a king greater than himself. In his wake leaped his shaggy bulls, vying with one another as to which could spring the highest and which utter the most uncanny sounds.

Korak laid his hand affectionately upon his father’s shoulder.

“There is but one Tarzan,” he said. “There can never be another.”

Two days later the three dropped from the trees on the edge of the plain across which they could see the smoke rising from the bungalow and the cook house chimneys. Tarzan of the Apes had regained his civilized clothing from the tree where he had hidden it, and as Korak refused to enter the presence of his mother in the savage half-raiment that he had worn so long and as Meriem would not leave him, for fear, as she explained, that he would change his mind and run off into the jungle again, the father went on ahead to the bungalow for horses and clothes.

My Dear met him at the gate, her eyes filled with questioning and sorrow, for she saw that Meriem was not with him.

“Where is she?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Muviri told me that she disobeyed your instructions and ran off into the jungle after you had left them. Oh, John, I cannot bear to lose her, too!” And Lady Greystoke broke down and wept, as she pillowed her head upon the broad breast where so often before she had found comfort in the great tragedies of her life.

Lord Greystoke raised her head and looked down into her eyes, his own smiling and filled with the light of happiness.

“What is it, John?” she cried. “You have good news--do not keep me waiting for it.”

“I want to be quite sure that you can stand hearing the best news that ever came to either of us,” he said.

“Joy never kills,” she cried. “You have found--her?” She could not bring herself to hope for the impossible.

“Yes, Jane,” he said, and his voice was husky with emotion; “I have found her, and--HIM!”

“Where is he? Where are they?” she demanded.

“Out there at the edge of the jungle. He wouldn’t come to you in his savage leopard skin and his nakedness--he sent me to fetch him civilized clothing.”

She clapped her hands in ecstasy, and turned to run toward the bungalow. “Wait!” she cried over her shoulder. “I have all his little suits--I have saved them all. I will bring one to you.”

Tarzan laughed and called to her to stop.

“The only clothing on the place that will fit him,” he said, “is mine--if it isn’t too small for him--your little boy has grown, Jane.”

She laughed, too; she felt like laughing at everything, or at nothing. The world was all love and happiness and joy once more--the world that had been shrouded in the gloom of her great sorrow for so many years. So great was her joy that for the moment she forgot the sad message that awaited Meriem. She called to Tarzan after he had ridden away to prepare her for it, but he did not hear and rode on without knowing himself what the event was to which his wife referred.