20 - Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Came Tarzan

Episode Transcript

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Chapter twenty of Tarzan the Untamed.This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
recordings are in the public domain.For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording byBill Moseley, Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar

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Burroughs. Chapter twenty came Tarzan.Just before dark that evening, an almost
exhausted flier entered the headquarters of ColonelCapell of these second Rhodesians and saluted,
where at Thompson asked the superior whatluck the others have all returned? Never

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saw a thing of Boldwick or hisplane. I guess we shall have to
give it up unless you were moresuccessful, I was replied the young officer.
I found the plane, No ejaculated, Colonel Capel. Where is it
any sign of old Wick? Itis in the rottenest hole in the ground

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you ever saw quite a bit inlandnarrow Gorge. Saw the plane all right,
but can't reach it. There wasa regular devil of a lion wandering
around it. I landed near theedge of the cliff and was going to
climb down and take a look atthe plane, but this fellow hung around
for an hour or more, andI finally had to give it up.
Do you think the lion's got Oldwick, asked the colonel. I doubt it,

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replied Lieutenant Thompson, from the factthat there was no indication that the
lion had fed anywhere about the plane. I arose after I found it was
impossible to get down around the planeand reconnoitered up and down the gorge several
miles to the south, I founda small wooded valley in the center of
which, please don't think me crazy, sir, is a regular city,

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streets, buildings, a central plazawith a lagoon, goods buildings with domes
and minarets, and all that sortof stuff. The elder officer looked at
the younger compassionately. You're all wroughtup, Thompson, he said, go
and take a good sleep. Youhave been on this job now for a
long while, and it must havegotten on your nerves. The young man

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shook his head a bit irritably.Pardon me, sir, he said,
but I am telling you the truth. I am not mistaken. I circled
over the place several times. Itmay be that Oldwick has found his way
there, or has been captured bythese people. Were there people in the
city, asked the Colonel, Yes, I saw them in the streets.

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Do you think cavalry could reach thevalley, asked the colonel. No,
replied Thompson. The country is allcut up with these deep, gorgeous even
infantry would have a devil of atime of it. And there is absolutely
no water that I could discover forat least stay two days March. It
was at this juncture that a bigVauxhall drew up in front of the headquarters

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of the Second Rhodesians, and amoment later General Smuts alighted and entered.
Colonel capell arose from his chair andsaluted his superior, and the young lieutenant
saluted and stood at attention. Iwas passing, said the General, and
I thought I would stop for achat. By the way. How is
the search for Lieutenant Smith Oldwick progressing? I see Thompson here, and I

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believe he was one of those detailedto the search. Yes, said Capel,
he was. He is the lastcome in. He found the lieutenant's
ship, and then he repeated whatLieutenant Thompson had reported to him. The
General sat down at the table withColonel Capell and, Together the two officers,
with the assistance of the flyer,marked the approximate location of the city,

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which Thompson had reported. He discoveredis a mighty rough country, remarked
Smuts. But we can't leave astone unturned until we have exhausted every resource
to find that boy. We willsend out a small force. A small
one will be more likely to succeedthan a large one. About one company,

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colonel, or say two, withsufficient motor lorries for transport of rations
and water. Put a good manin command, and let him establish a
base as far to the west asthe motors can travel. You can leave
one company there and send the otherforward. I am inclined to believe you
can establish your base within a day'smarch of the city. And if such

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is the case, the force yousend ahead should have no trouble on the
score of lack of water, asthere certainly must be water in the valley
where the city lies. Detail acouple of planes for reconnaissance and messenger service,
so that the base can keep intouch at all times with the advanced
party. When can your force moveout? We can load the lorries tonight,

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replied Capell And March about one o'clocktomorrow morning, Good said the general,
keep me advised, and, returningthe other salutes, he departed.
As Tarzan leaped for the vines,he realized that the lion was close upon
him, and that his life dependedupon the strength of the creepers clinging to

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the city walls. But to hisintense relief, he found the stems as
large around as a man's arm,and the tendrils, which had fastened themselves
to the wall so firmly fixed thathis weight upon the stem appeared to have
no appreciable effect upon them. Heheard Numa's baffled roar as the lion slipped

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downward, clawing futilely at the leafycreepers, and then with the agility of
the apes who had reared him,Tarzan bounded nimbly aloft to the summit of
the wall. A few feet belowhim was the flat roof of the adjoining
building, and as he dropped toit, his back was toward the niche,

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from which an embrasure looked out uponthe gardens and the forest beyond,
so that he did not see thefigure crouching there in the dark shadow.
But if he did not see.He was not long in ignorance of the
fact that he was not alone,for scarcely had his feet touched the roof,
when a heavy body leaped upon himfrom behind, and brawny arms encircled

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him about the waist. Taken ata disadvantage and lifted from his feet,
the ape Man was for the timebeing helpless. Whatever the creature was that
had seized him, it apparently hada well defined purpose in mind, for
it walked directly toward the edge ofthe roof, so that it was soon
apparent to Tarzan that he was tobe hurled to the pavement below, a

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most efficacious manner of disposing of anintruder, that he would be either maimed
or killed. The ape Man wasconfident, but he had no intention of
permitting his assailant to carry out theplan. Tarzan's arms and legs were free,

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but he was in such a disadvantageousposition that he could not use them
to any good effect. His onlyhope lay in throwing the creature off its
balance. To this end, Tarzanstraightened his body and leaned as far back
against his captor as he could,and then suddenly lunged forward the result was
as satisfactory as he could possibly havehoped. The great weight of the ape

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man, thrown suddenly out from anerect position, caused the other also to
lunge violently forward, with the resultthat to save himself he involuntarily released his
grasp. Catlike in his movements,the ape man had no sooner touched the
roof than he was upon his feetagain facing his adversary, a man almost
as large as himself, an armedwith a saber, which he now whipped

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from its scabbard. Tarzan, however, had no mind to allow the use
of this formidable weapon, and sohe dove for the other's legs beneath the
vicious cut that was directed at himfrom the side, and as a football
player tackles on a posing runner,Tarzan tackled his antagonist, carrying him backward
several yards and throwing him heavily tothe roof upon his back. No sooner

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had the man touched the roof thanthe ape man was upon his chest.
One brawny hand sought and found thesword wrist, and the other the throat
of the yellow Tunic guardsman. Untilthen the fellow had fought in silence,
but just as Tarzan's fingers touched histhroat, he emitted a single piercing shriek
that the brown fingers cut off almostinstantly. The fellow struggled to escape the

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clutch of the naked creature upon hisbreast, but equally as well might he
have fought to escape the talons ofNuma the lion. Gradually his struggles lessened,
His pin point eyes popped from theirsockets, rolling hardly upward, while
from his foam flecked lips, hisswollen tongue protruded. As his struggles ceased,

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Tarzan arose, and, placing afoot upon the carcass of his kill,
was upon the point of screaming forthhis victory cry, when the thought
that the work before him required theutmost caution sealed his lips. Walking to
the edge of the roof, helooked down into the narrow, winding street

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below. At intervals, apparently ateach street intersection, an oil flare sputtered
dimly from brackets set in the wallsa trifle higher than a man's head.
For the most part, the windingalleys were in dense shadow, and even
in the immediate vicinity of the flares, the illumination was far from brilliant.

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In the restricted area of his vision, he could see that there were still
a few of these strange inhabitants movingabout the narrow thoroughfares. To prosecute his
search for the young officer and thegirl, he must be able to move
about the city as freely as possible. But to pass beneath one of the
corner flares, naked as he wasexcept for a loincloth, and in every

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other respect markedly different from the inhabitantsof the city, would be but to
court almost immediate discovery. As thesethoughts flashed through his mind and he cast
about for some feasible plan of action, his eyes fell upon the corpse upon
the roof near him, and immediatelythere occurred to him the possibility of disguising

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himself in the raiment of his conqueredadversary. It required but a few moments
for the ape man to clothe himselfin the tights, sandals, and parrot
emblazoned yellow tunic of the dead soldier. Around his waist, he buckled the
saber belt, but beneath the tuniche retained the hunting knife of his dead

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father. His other weapons he couldnot lightly discard, and so, in
the hope that he might eventually recoverthem, he carried them to the edge
of the wall and dropped them amongthe foliage at its base. At the
last moment, he found it difficultto part with his rope, which,
with his knife, was his mostaccustomed weapon, and one which he had

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used for the greatest length of time. He found that by removing the saber
belt, he could wind the ropearound his waist beneath his tunic, and
then replacing the belt, still retainit entirely concealed from chance observation. At
last, satisfactorily disguised, and witheven his shock of black hair, adding

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to the very similitude of his likenessto the natives of the city, he
sought for some means of reaching thestreet below. While he might have risked
a drop from the eaves of theroof, he feared to do so lest
he attract the attention of passers byand probable discovery. The roofs of the

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buildings varied in height, but asthe ceilings were all low, he found
that he could easily travel along theroof tops, and this he did for
some little distance until he suddenly discoveredjust ahead of him several figures reclining upon
the roof of a nearby building.He had noticed openings in each roof,

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evidently giving ingress to the apartments below, and now his advance cut off by
those ahead of him, he decidedto risk the chance of reaching the street
through the interior of one of thebuildings. Approaching one of the openings,
he leaned over the black hole andlistened for sounds of life in the apartment
below. Neither his ears nor hisnose registered evidence of the presence of any

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living creature in the immediate vicinity,and so, without further hesitation, the
ape man lowered his body through theaperture and was about to drop when his
foot came in contact with the rungof a ladder, which he immediately took
advantage of to descend to the floorof the room below. Here all was

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almost total darkness until his eyes becameaccustomed to the interior, the darkness of
which was slightly alleviated by the reflectedlight from a distant street flare which shone
intermittently through the narrow windows fronting thethoroughfare. Finally assured that the apartment was
unoccupied, Tarzan sought for a stairwayto the ground floor. He found in

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a dark hallway upon which the roomopened a flight of narrow stone steps leading
downward toward the street. Chance favoredhim so that he reached the shadows of
the arcade without encountering any of theinmates of the house. Once on the
street, he was not at aloss as to the direction in which he

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wished to go, for he hadtracked the two Europeans practically to the gate,
which he felt assured must have giventhem entry to the city. His
keen sense of direction and location madeit possible for him to judge with considerable
accuracy the point within the city wherehe might hope to pick up the spoor
of those whom he sought. Thefirst need, however, was to discover

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a street paralleling the northern wall alongwhich he could make his way in the
direction of the gate he had seenfrom the forest. Realizing that his greatest
hope of success lay in the boldnessof his operations, he moved off in
the direction of the nearest street flare, without making any other attempt at concealment
than keeping in the shadows of thearcade, which he judged, would draw

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no particular attention to him, inthat he saw other pedestrians doing likewise.
The few he passed gave him noheed, and he had almost reached the
nearest intersection when he saw several menwearing yellow tunics identical to that which he
had taken from his prisoner. Theywere coming directly toward him, and the

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ape man saw that should he continueon, he would meet them directly at
the intersection of the two streets,in the full light of the flare.
His first inclination was to go steadilyon, for personally he had no objection
to chancing a scrimmage with them,But a sudden recollection of the girl,
possibly a helpless prisoner, in thehands of these people, caused him to

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seek some other and less hazardous planof action. He had almost emerged from
the shadow of the arcade into thefull light of the flare, and the
approaching men were but a few yardsfrom him when he suddenly kneeled and pretended
to adjust the wrappings of his sandals, wrappings which, by the way,
he was not at all sure thathe had adjusted as their makers had intended

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them to be adjusted. He wasstill kneeling. When the soldiers came abreast
of him, Like the others hehad passed, they paid no attention to
him, and the moment they werebehind him, he continued upon his way,
turning to the right at the intersectionof the two streets. The street

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he now took was at this pointso extremely winding that for the most part
it received no benefit from the flaresat either corner, so that he was
forced practically to grope his way inthe dense shadows of the arcade. The
street became a little straighter just beforehe reached the next flare. As he
came within sight of it, hesaw a silhouetted against a patch of light,

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the figure of a lion. Thebeast was coming slowly down the street
in Tarzan's direction. A woman crossedthe way directly in front of it,
and the lion paid no attention toher, nor she to the lion.
An instant later, a little childran after the woman, and so close

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did he run before the lion,that the beast was forced to turn out
of its way a step to avoidcolliding with the little one. The ape
man grinned and crossed quickly to theopposite side. Of the street, for
his delicate senses indicated that at thispoint the breeze, stirring through the city's
streets and deflected by the opposite wall, would now blow from the lion toward

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him as the beast passed, Whereasif he remained upon the side of the
street upon which he had been walkingwhen he discovered the carnivore, his scent
would have been borne to the nostrilsof the animal. And Tarzan was sufficiently
jungle wise to realize that while hemight deceive the eyes of man and beast,
he could not so easily disguise fromthe nostrils of one of the great

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cats that he was a creature ofa different species from the inhabitants of the
city, the only human beings,possibly that Numa was familiar with. In
him, the cat would recognize astranger and therefore an enemy, and Tarzan
had no desire to be delayed byan encounter with a savage lion. His

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ruse worked successfully, the lion passinghim with not more than a side glance
in his direction. He had proceededfor some little distance and had about reached
a point where he judged he wouldfind the street which led up from the
city gate. When at an intersectionof two streets, his nostrils caught the
scent spoor of the girl out ofa maze of other scent spores, the

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ape man picked the familiar odor ofthe girl, and a second later that
of Smith Oldwick. He had beenforced to accomplish it, however, by
bending very low at each street intersection, in repeated attention to his sandal wrappings,
bringing his nostrils as close to thepavement as possible. As he advanced

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along the street through which the twohad been conducted earlier in the day,
he noted, as had they,the change in the type of buildings as
he passed from a residence district intothat portion occupied by shops and bazaars.
Here the number of flares was increased, so that they appeared not only as
street intersections, but midway between aswell, and there were many more people

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abroad. The shops were opened andlighted, for with the setting of the
sun, the intense heat of theday had given place to a pleasant coolness.
Here also the number of lions roamingloose through the thoroughfares increased, and
also for the first time, Tarzannoted the idiosyncrasies of the people. Once

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he was nearly upset by a nakedman running rapidly through the streets, screaming
at the top of his voice.And again he nearly stumbled over a woman
who was making her way in theshadows of one of the arcades upon all
fours. At first the ape manthought she was hunting for something she had
done dropped, But as he drewto one side to watch her, he

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saw that she was doing nothing ofthe kind. That she had merely elected
to walk upon her hands and kneesrather than erect upon her feet. In
another block, he saw two creaturesstruggling upon the roof of an adjacent building,
until finally one of them, wrenchinghimself free from the grasp of the
other, gave his adversary a mightypush, which hurled him to the pavement

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below, where he lay motionless uponthe dusty road for an instant. A
wild shriek re echoed through the cityfrom the lungs of the victor, and
then, without an instant's hesitation,the fellow leaped head first to the street.
Beside the body of his victim.A lion moved out from the dense
shadows of a doorway and approached thetwo bloody and lifeless things before him.

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Tarzan wondered what effect the odor ofblood would have upon the beast, and
was surprised to see that the animalonly sniffed at the corpses and the hot
red blood, and then lay downbeside the two dead men. He had
passed the line but a short distancewhen his attention was called to the figure
of a man lowering himself laboriously fromthe roof of a building upon the east

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side of the thoroughfare. Tarzan's curiositywas aroused. End of Chapter twenty recording
by Bill Moseley, Bernardo, Texas, U s a.