Chapter 4

The Apes



In the forest of the table-land a mile back from the ocean

old Kerchak the Ape was on a rampage of rage among his people.



The younger and lighter members of his tribe scampered to

the higher branches of the great trees to escape his wrath;

risking their lives upon branches that scarce supported their

weight rather than face old Kerchak in one of his fits of

uncontrolled anger.



The other males scattered in all directions, but not before

the infuriated brute had felt the vertebra of one snap between

his great, foaming jaws.



A luckless young female slipped from an insecure hold

upon a high branch and came crashing to the ground almost

at Kerchak's feet.



With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece

from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously

upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until

her skull was crushed to a jelly.



And then he spied Kala, who, returning from a search for

food with her young babe, was ignorant of the state of the

mighty male's temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of

her fellows caused her to scamper madly for safety.



But Kerchak was close upon her, so close that he had almost

grasped her ankle had she not made a furious leap far into

space from one tree to another--a perilous chance which

apes seldom if ever take, unless so closely pursued by danger

that there is no alternative.



She made the leap successfully, but as she grasped the limb

of the further tree the sudden jar loosened the hold of the

tiny babe where it clung frantically to her neck, and she saw

the little thing hurled, turning and twisting, to the ground

thirty feet below.



With a low cry of dismay Kala rushed headlong to its side,

thoughtless now of the danger from Kerchak; but when she

gathered the wee, mangled form to her bosom life had left it.



With low moans, she sat cuddling the body to her; nor did

Kerchak attempt to molest her. With the death of the babe his

fit of demoniacal rage passed as suddenly as it had seized him.



Kerchak was a huge king ape, weighing perhaps three hundred

and fifty pounds. His forehead was extremely low and receding,

his eyes bloodshot, small and close set to his coarse, flat

nose; his ears large and thin, but smaller than most of his kind.



His awful temper and his mighty strength made him supreme

among the little tribe into which he had been born some

twenty years before.



Now that he was in his prime, there was no simian in all the

mighty forest through which he roved that dared contest his

right to rule, nor did the other and larger animals molest him.



Old Tantor, the elephant, alone of all the wild savage life,

feared him not--and he alone did Kerchak fear. When Tantor

trumpeted, the great ape scurried with his fellows high

among the trees of the second terrace.



The tribe of anthropoids over which Kerchak ruled with an

iron hand and bared fangs, numbered some six or eight families,

each family consisting of an adult male with his females and

their young, numbering in all some sixty or seventy apes.



Kala was the youngest mate of a male called Tublat,

meaning broken nose, and the child she had seen dashed to

death was her first; for she was but nine or ten years old.



Notwithstanding her youth, she was large and powerful--a

splendid, clean-limbed animal, with a round, high forehead,

which denoted more intelligence than most of her kind

possessed. So, also, she had a great capacity for mother love

and mother sorrow.



But she was still an ape, a huge, fierce, terrible beast of a

species closely allied to the gorilla, yet more intelligent;

which, with the strength of their cousin, made her kind the

most fearsome of those awe-inspiring progenitors of man.



When the tribe saw that Kerchak's rage had ceased they

came slowly down from their arboreal retreats and pursued

again the various occupations which he had interrupted.



The young played and frolicked about among the trees and

bushes. Some of the adults lay prone upon the soft mat of

dead and decaying vegetation which covered the ground,

while others turned over pieces of fallen branches and clods

of earth in search of the small bugs and reptiles which

formed a part of their food.



Others, again, searched the surrounding trees for fruit,

nuts, small birds, and eggs.



They had passed an hour or so thus when Kerchak called

them together, and, with a word of command to them to

follow him, set off toward the sea.



They traveled for the most part upon the ground, where it

was open, following the path of the great elephants whose

comings and goings break the only roads through those

tangled mazes of bush, vine, creeper, and tree. When they

walked it was with a rolling, awkward motion, placing the

knuckles of their closed hands upon the ground and swinging

their ungainly bodies forward.



But when the way was through the lower trees they moved

more swiftly, swinging from branch to branch with the agility

of their smaller cousins, the monkeys. And all the way Kala

carried her little dead baby hugged closely to her breast.



It was shortly after noon when they reached a ridge

overlooking the beach where below them lay the tiny cottage

which was Kerchak's goal.



He had seen many of his kind go to their deaths before the

loud noise made by the little black stick in the hands of the

strange white ape who lived in that wonderful lair, and Kerchak

had made up his brute mind to own that death-dealing

contrivance, and to explore the interior of the mysterious den.



He wanted, very, very much, to feel his teeth sink into the

neck of the queer animal that he had learned to hate and

fear, and because of this, he came often with his tribe to

reconnoiter, waiting for a time when the white ape should be

off his guard.



Of late they had quit attacking, or even showing themselves;

for every time they had done so in the past the little

stick had roared out its terrible message of death to some

member of the tribe.



Today there was no sign of the man about, and from

where they watched they could see that the cabin door was

open. Slowly, cautiously, and noiselessly they crept through

the jungle toward the little cabin.



There were no growls, no fierce screams of rage--the little

black stick had taught them to come quietly lest they awaken it.



On, on they came until Kerchak himself slunk stealthily to the

very door and peered within. Behind him were two males, and

then Kala, closely straining the little dead form to her breast.



Inside the den they saw the strange white ape lying half

across a table, his head buried in his arms; and on the bed

lay a figure covered by a sailcloth, while from a tiny rustic

cradle came the plaintive wailing of a babe.



Noiselessly Kerchak entered, crouching for the charge; and

then John Clayton rose with a sudden start and faced them.



The sight that met his eyes must have frozen him with horror,

for there, within the door, stood three great bull apes,

while behind them crowded many more; how many he never

knew, for his revolvers were hanging on the far wall beside

his rifle, and Kerchak was charging.



When the king ape released the limp form which had been

John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, he turned his attention toward

the little cradle; but Kala was there before him, and

when he would have grasped the child she snatched it herself,

and before he could intercept her she had bolted through the

door and taken refuge in a high tree.



As she took up the little live baby of Alice Clayton she

dropped the dead body of her own into the empty cradle; for

the wail of the living had answered the call of universal

motherhood within her wild breast which the dead could not still.



High up among the branches of a mighty tree she hugged

the shrieking infant to her bosom, and soon the instinct that

was as dominant in this fierce female as it had been in the

breast of his tender and beautiful mother--the instinct of

mother love--reached out to the tiny man-child's half-formed

understanding, and he became quiet.



Then hunger closed the gap between them, and the son of

an English lord and an English lady nursed at the breast of

Kala, the great ape.



In the meantime the beasts within the cabin were warily

examining the contents of this strange lair.



Once satisfied that Clayton was dead, Kerchak turned his

attention to the thing which lay upon the bed, covered by a

piece of sailcloth.



Gingerly he lifted one corner of the shroud, but when he

saw the body of the woman beneath he tore the cloth roughly

from her form and seized the still, white throat in his huge,

hairy hands.



A moment he let his fingers sink deep into the cold flesh,

and then, realizing that she was already dead, he turned from

her, to examine the contents of the room; nor did he again

molest the body of either Lady Alice or Sir John.



The rifle hanging upon the wall caught his first attention; it

was for this strange, death-dealing thunder-stick that he had

yearned for months; but now that it was within his grasp he

scarcely had the temerity to seize it.



Cautiously he approached the thing, ready to flee

precipitately should it speak in its deep roaring tones,

as he had heard it speak before, the last words to those

of his kind who, through ignorance or rashness, had attacked

the wonderful white ape that had borne it.



Deep in the beast's intelligence was something which assured

him that the thunder-stick was only dangerous when in the

hands of one who could manipulate it, but yet it was several

minutes ere he could bring himself to touch it.



Instead, he walked back and forth along the floor before it,

turning his head so that never once did his eyes leave the

object of his desire.



Using his long arms as a man uses crutches, and rolling his

huge carcass from side to side with each stride, the great king

ape paced to and fro, uttering deep growls, occasionally

punctuated with the ear-piercing scream, than which there is

no more terrifying noise in all the jungle.




Presently he halted before the rifle. Slowly he raised a

huge hand until it almost touched the shining barrel, only to

withdraw it once more and continue his hurried pacing.



It was as though the great brute by this show of fearlessness,

and through the medium of his wild voice, was endeavoring

to bolster up his courage to the point which would permit

him to take the rifle in his hand.



Again he stopped, and this time succeeded in forcing his

reluctant hand to the cold steel, only to snatch it away almost

immediately and resume his restless beat.



Time after time this strange ceremony was repeated, but on each

occasion with increased confidence, until, finally, the rifle

was torn from its hook and lay in the grasp of the great brute.



Finding that it harmed him not, Kerchak began to examine

it closely. He felt of it from end to end, peered down the

black depths of the muzzle, fingered the sights, the breech,

the stock, and finally the trigger.



During all these operations the apes who had entered sat

huddled near the door watching their chief, while those outside

strained and crowded to catch a glimpse of what transpired within.



Suddenly Kerchak's finger closed upon the trigger. There was

a deafening roar in the little room and the apes at and beyond

the door fell over one another in their wild anxiety to escape.



Kerchak was equally frightened, so frightened, in fact, that he

quite forgot to throw aside the author of that fearful noise,

but bolted for the door with it tightly clutched in one hand.



As he passed through the opening, the front sight of the

rifle caught upon the edge of the inswung door with sufficient

force to close it tightly after the fleeing ape.



When Kerchak came to a halt a short distance from the cabin

and discovered that he still held the rifle, he dropped it

as he might have dropped a red hot iron, nor did he again

attempt to recover it--the noise was too much for his brute

nerves; but he was now quite convinced that the terrible stick

was quite harmless by itself if left alone.



It was an hour before the apes could again bring themselves

to approach the cabin to continue their investigations,

and when they finally did so, they found to their chagrin that

the door was closed and so securely fastened that they could

not force it.



The cleverly constructed latch which Clayton had made for

the door had sprung as Kerchak passed out; nor could the

apes find means of ingress through the heavily barred windows.



After roaming about the vicinity for a short time, they

started back for the deeper forests and the higher land from

whence they had come.



Kala had not once come to earth with her little adopted

babe, but now Kerchak called to her to descend with the rest,

and as there was no note of anger in his voice she dropped

lightly from branch to branch and joined the others on their

homeward march.



Those of the apes who attempted to examine Kala's

strange baby were repulsed with bared fangs and low

menacing growls, accompanied by words of warning from Kala.



When they assured her that they meant the child no harm

she permitted them to come close, but would not allow them

to touch her charge.



It was as though she knew that her baby was frail and delicate

and feared lest the rough hands of her fellows might injure

the little thing.



Another thing she did, and which made traveling an onerous

trial for her. Remembering the death of her own little

one, she clung desperately to the new babe, with one hand,

whenever they were upon the march.



The other young rode upon their mothers' backs; their little

arms tightly clasping the hairy necks before them, while

their legs were locked beneath their mothers' armpits.



Not so with Kala; she held the small form of the little

Lord Greystoke tightly to her breast, where the dainty hands

clutched the long black hair which covered that portion of

her body. She had seen one child fall from her back to a

terrible death, and she would take no further chances with this.

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