Jungle Tales of Tarzan | Page 8

the glade. He paused a moment, looking at them;
then, with a sorrowful grimace, he turned and faded away into the
labyrinth of leafy boughs and festooned moss out of which he had
come.
Tarzan wished to be as far away from the cause of his heartache as he
could. He was suffering the first pangs of blighted love, and he didn't
quite know what was the matter with him. He thought that he was
angry with Taug, and so he couldn't understand why it was that he had
run away instead of rushing into mortal combat with the destroyer of
his happiness.
He also thought that he was angry with Teeka, yet a vision of her many
beauties persisted in haunting him, so that he could only see her in the
light of love as the most desirable thing in the world.
The ape-boy craved affection. From babyhood until the time of her
death, when the poisoned arrow of Kulonga had pierced her savage
heart, Kala had represented to the English boy the sole object of love
which he had known.
In her wild, fierce way Kala had loved her adopted son, and Tarzan had
returned that love, though the outward demonstrations of it were no
greater than might have been expected from any other beast of the
jungle. It was not until he was bereft of her that the boy realized how
deep had been his attachment for his mother, for as such he looked
upon her.
In Teeka he had seen within the past few hours a substitute for
Kala--someone to fight for and to hunt for--someone to caress; but now

his dream was shattered. Something hurt within his breast. He placed
his hand over his heart and wondered what had happened to him.
Vaguely he attributed his pain to Teeka. The more he thought of Teeka
as he had last seen her, caressing Taug, the more the thing within his
breast hurt him.
Tarzan shook his head and growled; then on and on through the jungle
he swung, and the farther he traveled and the more he thought upon his
wrongs, the nearer he approached becoming an irreclaimable
misogynist.
Two days later he was still hunting alone--very morose and very
unhappy; but he was determined never to return to the tribe. He could
not bear the thought of seeing Taug and Teeka always together. As he
swung upon a great limb Numa, the lion, and Sabor, the lioness, passed
beneath him, side by side, and Sabor leaned against the lion and bit
playfully at his cheek. It was a half-caress. Tarzan sighed and hurled a
nut at them.
Later he came upon several of Mbonga's black warriors. He was upon
the point of dropping his noose about the neck of one of them, who was
a little distance from his companions, when he became interested in the
thing which occupied the savages. They were building a cage in the
trail and covering it with leafy branches. When they had completed
their work the structure was scarcely visible.
Tarzan wondered what the purpose of the thing might be, and why,
when they had built it, they turned away and started back along the trail
in the direction of their village.
It had been some time since Tarzan had visited the blacks and looked
down from the shelter of the great trees which overhung their palisade
upon the activities of his enemies, from among whom had come the
slayer of Kala.
Although he hated them, Tarzan derived considerable entertainment in
watching them at their daily life within the village, and especially at
their dances, when the fires glared against their naked bodies as they

leaped and turned and twisted in mimic warfare. It was rather in the
hope of witnessing something of the kind that he now followed the
warriors back toward their village, but in this he was disappointed, for
there was no dance that night.
Instead, from the safe concealment of his tree, Tarzan saw little groups
seated about tiny fires discussing the events of the day, and in the
darker corners of the village he descried isolated couples talking and
laughing together, and always one of each couple was a young man and
the other a young woman.
Tarzan cocked his head upon one side and thought, and before he went
to sleep that night, curled in the crotch of the great tree above the
village, Teeka filled his mind, and afterward she filled his dreams--she
and the young black men laughing and talking with the young black
women.
Taug, hunting alone, had wandered some distance from the balance of
the tribe. He was making his way slowly along an elephant path when
he discovered that it was blocked with undergrowth. Now Taug, come
into maturity, was