Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs (epub ebook reader txt) 📕

pace Bukawai set; but the old witch-doctor, an outcast from the society of man, diseased, shunned, hated, feared, was far from possessing an angelic temper.

Nature had given him few of the kindlier characteristics of man, and these few Fate had eradicated entirely.

Shrewd, cunning, cruel, vindictive, was Bukawai, the witch-doctor.

 

Frightful tales were whispered of the cruel tortures he inflicted upon his victims. Children were frightened into obedience by the threat of his name. Often had Tibo been thus frightened, and now he was reaping a grisly harvest of terror from the seeds his mother had innocently sown.

The darkness, the presence of the dreaded witch-doctor, the pain of the contusions, with a haunting premonition of the future, and the fear of the hyenas combined to almost paralyze the child. He stumbled and reeled until Bukawai was dragging rather than leading him.

 

Presently Tibo saw a faint lightness ahead of them, and a moment later they emerged into a roughly circular chamber to which a little daylight filtered through a rift in the rocky ceiling. The hyenas were there ahead of them, waiting. As Bukawai entered with Tibo, the beasts slunk toward them, baring yellow fangs.

They were hungry. Toward Tibo they came, and one snapped at his naked legs. Bukawai seized a stick from the floor of the chamber and struck a vicious blow at the beast, at the same time mumbling forth a volley of execrations.

The hyena dodged and ran to the side of the chamber, where he stood growling. Bukawai took a step toward the creature, which bristled with rage at his approach. Fear and hatred shot from its evil eyes, but, fortunately for Bukawai, fear predominated.

 

Seeing that he was unnoticed, the second beast made a short, quick rush for Tibo. The child screamed and darted after the witch-doctor, who now turned his attention to the second hyena. This one he reached with his heavy stick, striking it repeatedly and driving it to the wall.

There the two carrion-eaters commenced to circle the chamber while the human carrion, their master, now in a perfect frenzy of demoniacal rage, ran to and fro in an effort to intercept them, striking out with his cudgel and lashing them with his tongue, calling down upon them the curses of whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and describing in lurid figures the ignominy of their ancestors.

 

Several times one or the other of the beasts would turn to make a stand against the witch-doctor, and then Tibo would hold his breath in agonized terror, for never in his brief life had he seen such frightful hatred depicted upon the countenance of man or beast; but always fear overcame the rage of the savage creatures, so that they resumed their flight, snarling and bare-fanged, just at the moment that Tibo was certain they would spring at Bukawai’s throat.

 

At last the witch-doctor tired of the futile chase.

With a snarl quite as bestial as those of the beast, he turned toward Tibo. “I go to collect the ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the two pieces of copper wire that your mother will pay for the medicine I shall make to bring you back to her,” he said. “You will stay here.

There,” and he pointed toward the passage which they had followed to the chamber, “I will leave the hyenas.

If you try to escape, they will eat you.”

 

He cast aside the stick and called to the beasts.

They came, snarling and slinking, their tails between their legs. Bukawai led them to the passage and drove them into it. Then he dragged a rude lattice into place before the opening after he, himself, had left the chamber. “This will keep them from you,” he said.

“If I do not get the ten fat goats and the other things, they shall at least have a few bones after I am through.”

And he left the boy to think over the meaning of his all-too-suggestive words.

 

When he was gone, Tibo threw himself upon the earth floor and broke into childish sobs of terror and loneliness.

He knew that his mother had no ten fat goats to give and that when Bukawai returned, little Tibo would be killed and eaten. How long he lay there he did not know, but presently he was aroused by the growling of the hyenas. They had returned through the passage and were glaring at him from beyond the lattice. He could see their yellow eyes blazing through the darkness.

They reared up and clawed at the barrier. Tibo shivered and withdrew to the opposite side of the chamber. He saw the lattice sag and sway to the attacks of the beasts.

Momentarily he expected that it would fall inward, letting the creatures upon him.

 

Wearily the horror-ridden hours dragged their slow way.

Night came, and for a time Tibo slept, but it seemed that the hungry beasts never slept. Always they stood just beyond the lattice growling their hideous growls or laughing their hideous laughs. Through the narrow rift in the rocky roof above him, Tibo could see a few stars, and once the moon crossed. At last daylight came again.

Tibo was very hungry and thirsty, for he had not eaten since the morning before, and only once upon the long march had he been permitted to drink, but even hunger and thirst were almost forgotten in the terror of his position.

 

It was after daylight that the child discovered a second opening in the walls of the subterranean chamber, almost opposite that at which the hyenas still stood glaring hungrily at him. It was only a narrow slit in the rocky wall. It might lead in but a few feet, or it might lead to freedom! Tibo approached it and looked within. He could see nothing. He extended his arm into the blackness, but he dared not venture farther.

Bukawai never would have left open a way of escape, Tibo reasoned, so this passage must lead either nowhere or to some still more hideous danger.

 

To the boy’s fear of the actual dangers which menaced him—Bukawai and the two hyenas—his superstition added countless others quite too horrible even to name, for in the lives of the blacks, through the shadows of the jungle day and the black horrors of the jungle night, flit strange, fantastic shapes peopling the already hideously peopled forests with menacing figures, as though the lion and the leopard, the snake and the hyena, and the countless poisonous insects were not quite sufficient to strike terror to the hearts of the poor, simple creatures whose lot is cast in earth’s most fearsome spot.

 

And so it was that little Tibo cringed not only from real menaces but from imaginary ones. He was afraid even to venture upon a road that might lead to escape, lest Bukawai had set to watch it some frightful demon of the jungle.

 

But the real menaces suddenly drove the imaginary ones from the boy’s mind, for with the coming of daylight the half-famished hyenas renewed their efforts to break down the frail barrier which kept them from their prey.

Rearing upon their hind feet they clawed and struck at the lattice. With wide eyes Tibo saw it sag and rock.

Not for long, he knew, could it withstand the assaults of these two powerful and determined brutes. Already one corner had been forced past the rocky protuberance of the entrance way which had held it in place. A shaggy forearm protruded into the chamber. Tibo trembled as with ague, for he knew that the end was near.

 

Backing against the farther wall he stood flattened out as far from the beasts as he could get. He saw the lattice give still more. He saw a savage, snarling head forced past it, and grinning jaws snapping and gaping toward him.

In another instant the pitiful fabric would fall inward, and the two would be upon him, rending his flesh from his bones, gnawing the bones themselves, fighting for possession of his entrails.

 

*

 

Bukawai came upon Momaya outside the palisade of Mbonga, the chief. At sight of him the woman drew back in revulsion, then she flew at him, tooth and nail; but Bukawai threatening her with a spear held her at a safe distance.

 

“Where is my baby?” she cried. “Where is my little Tibo?”

 

Bukawai opened his eyes in well-simulated amazement.

“Your baby!” he exclaimed. “What should I know of him, other than that I rescued him from the white god of the jungle and have not yet received my pay.

I come for the goats and the sleeping mat and the piece of copper wire the length of a tall man’s arm from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers.” “Offal of a hyena!”

shrieked Momaya. “My child has been stolen, and you, rotting fragment of a man, have taken him. Return him to me or I shall tear your eyes from your head and feed your heart to the wild hogs.”

 

Bukawai shrugged his shoulders. “What do I know about your child?” he asked. “I have not taken him. If he is stolen again, what should Bukawai know of the matter? Did Bukawai steal him before? No, the white jungle god stole him, and if he stole him once he would steal him again.

It is nothing to me. I returned him to you before and I have come for my pay. If he is gone and you would have him returned, Bukawai will return him—for ten fat goats, a new sleeping mat and two pieces of copper wire the length of a tall man’s arm from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers, and Bukawai will say nothing more about the goats and the sleeping mat and the copper wire which you were to pay for the first medicine.”

 

“Ten fat goats!” screamed Momaya. “I could not pay you ten fat goats in as many years. Ten fat goats, indeed!”

 

“Ten fat goats,” repeated Bukawai. “Ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat and two pieces of copper wire the length of—”

 

Momaya stopped him with an impatient gesture.

“Wait! she cried. “I have no goats. You waste your breath.

Stay here while I go to my man. He has but three goats, yet something may be done. Wait!”

 

Bukawai sat down beneath a tree. He felt quite content, for he knew that he should have either payment or revenge.

He did not fear harm at the hands of these people of another tribe, although he well knew that they must fear and hate him. His leprosy alone would prevent their laying hands upon him, while his reputation as a witch-doctor rendered him doubly immune from attack.

He was planning upon compelling them to drive the ten goats to the mouth of his cave when Momaya returned.

With her were three warriors— Mbonga, the chief, Rabba Kega, the village witch-doctor, and Ibeto, Tibo’s father.

They were not pretty men even under ordinary circumstances, and now, with their faces marked by anger, they well might have inspired terror in the heart of anyone; but if Bukawai felt any fear, he did not betray it.

Instead he greeted them with an insolent stare, intended to awe them, as they came and squatted in a semi-circle before him.

 

“Where is Ibeto’s son?” asked Mbonga.

 

“How should I know?” returned Bukawai. “Doubtless the white devil-god has him. If I am paid I will make strong medicine and then we shall know where is Ibeto’s son, and shall get him back again. It was my medicine which got him back the last time, for which I got no pay.”

 

“I have my own witch-doctor to make medicine,”

replied Mbonga with