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anything like this in Africa, and he had seen much.
Jad-bal-ja was lying against the cave wall beside the buffalo leg, eyeing
it with a hungry intensity.
"Leave it be," Tarzan said. Jad-bal-ja let out a disgruntled rumble,
moved away from the meat, and lay on the other side of the cavern wall.
Nkima offered a squeak, went silent, and hung tightly to Tarzan. Outside, the
wind screamed and moaned and tore at the jungle. Rain pounded the earth as
if it were being whipped by the gods with a cat-of-nine-tails.
Hunt groaned and rolled over. He sat up slowly and felt his chin. "You
hit me," he said.
"If you want to complain, I can do it again."
"No. No complaints. But why?"
"You talk too much."
"Where is this place?"
"A cave. An old lion's den. I assumed Jad-bal-ja would know a place."
Hunt noted the lion and became nervous. "You're sure that lion's safe."
"Safe enough."
"That's not the answer I was looking for."
"Life is full of disappointments, my young friend. Stay in the jungle
awhile and there will be many more. What is, is."
"Man," Hunt said. "Listen to that wind. Usha. He is one hacked-off
rascal ... Hey, I'm cold. I can't believe it. I'm in Africa, and I'm cold."
"Like I said, you talk too much. Stay where you are. Jad-bal-ja will
protect you."
"The lion?"
"Yes."
"Are you certain he won't think you're leaving him a warm dinner? He
could misunderstand, you know? You're gone, he thinks, oh, this fella's mine.
Maybe I should go with you. Or you take the lion and leave me the monkey."
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r r
Tarzan did not answer. He spoke a word to the lion, picked up the
buffalo leg, and with the unusually silent Nkima still clinging to his neck,
followed the path by the creek.
Hunt squatted in his spot and looked at Jad-bal-ja. Jad-bal-ja put his
head between his paws and looked at Hunt. Hunt thought he saw a sparkle in
the lion's eyes. Or perhaps it was a glint of hunger.
"Easy, kitty," Hunt said.
The lion continued to stare, never taking his eyes off Hunt. Hunt
decided not to look at the lion. He studied the cavern walls and the odd
formations and wondered about Small. He felt guilty for running off and
leaving Small like that, but it hadn't been intentional. He was merely running
and had not meant for them to become separated. He hoped those two
gorillas, Wilson and Cannon, had not caught Small. He had heard shots, but
liked to think, like the shots that were fired at him, they had missed.
Then again, if the shots hadn't killed Small, the storm might be doing
the job right now. The wild man had been right to flee before it, find shelter.
Hunt rubbed his jaw where Tarzan had struck him. The wild man had been
right to slug him. He had been close to panic.
Who was this wild man? He seemed to know the jungle as well as the
animals, and he spoke to the animals. Was that possible? It certainly seemed
to be.
Hunt eased a glance at Jad-bal-ja. He hoped, if the wild man truly spoke
to the animals, his words carried some weight. What if the lion decided to
disobey the wild man and eat him anyway?
Heavens, thought Hunt. Don't think that way. Don't think about that at
all.
Exhaustion came over Hunt suddenly. He stretched out on the ground
as far away from the lion as possible, and with the sound of the storm
screaming outside, the soft breathing of the lion filling the cavern, Hunt fell
asleep.
9
TARZAN HAD NOT gone far behind the strange and glittery formations when
he came to a huge glowing chamber. Nearly transparent stalactites of
gleaming calcium dripped from its roof. The floor of the cave sloped
downward, and below Tarzan could see stacks of skulls on either side of the
cavern wall, arranged neatly from floor to ceiling. In fact, the walls
themselves appeared to be made of skulls. The skulls, like the cavern walls,
glowed with green phosphorescence, and there were splatters of red ocher
and lines of charcoal on them.
As Tarzan came closer and the glow became brighter, he saw designs
had been drawn on many of the skulls with the ocher and charcoal. No, on
closer examination, they were not designs, but sticklike drawings of what
appeared to be some kind of insect. A praying mantis perhaps. On each of the
skulls the insect appeared in some different position. Something about the
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r r
arrangements struck a chord with Tarzan, but he couldn't quite place it. All of
the skulls had holes at the top of the cranium. It looked as if something small
and sharp had poked through the bone.
Beyond the skulls, arranged neatly, were stacks of leg and arm bones,
and in yet another pile were collapsed rib bones. Tarzan touched one of the
bones. It was petrified and permeated with the sparkly calcium. Near the
bones were stacks of pottery and chipped fragments of flint.
The path wound deeper into the cavern, and for some distance beyond,
the ape-man could see the stacks of glowing skulls and bones. Lying amongst
the bones were stacked weapons. Spearheads. Knives. Tarzan bent to
examine the weapons and was surprised to see that the knives were made of
metal, not flint. The metal was bronze. The blades were huge, almost like
bowie knives. The wood or bone sheathing on the hilts had long since rotted
away. Tarzan picked up two of the knives, rubbed the nervous Nkima's head,
and started back to join Hunt and Jad-bal-ja.
He found Hunt asleep. Tarzan bent and scooped water from the stream
and washed his face, removed the dried blood from his neck and chest. He lay
against the great lion and cradled Nkima in his arms. In spite of all that had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]