 For
more than a year Jane and Tarzan lived happily with Chita in their treetop
home. Jane learned to know and to love the animals and to speak their language.
She fashioned dresses of soft skin to match Tarzan's leopard skin clothing.
She taught Tarzan to speak a few words of her language. Together they swam
in the shaded streams, raced along the trails and swayed in the branches
of the trees.
Then, one day when they were returning home from a
hunting trip, they heard the strange sound of gunfire and the growl of
battling gorillas. Quickly Tarzan swung through the trees until he looked
down upon a long safari of natives led by two white men, fighting an army
of maddened gorillas.
Tarzan's cry rang above the noise of the battle. The
guns were silenced and the gorillas stood motionless. Tarzan dropped rapidly
to the ground. Sternly he ordered the animals back into the jungle and
walked forward to meet the white men.
"Tarzan," cried one, rushing toward him, "Don't you
remember me. I'm Holt. Harry Holt."
"Holt," Tarzan repeated, smiling, "Holt."
"And this is Martin, my friend," Holt explained.
"Martin-my friend," Tarzan repeated slowly. "Holt.
Tarzan. Martin-my friend," he continued, pointing to each one in turn.
The three men looked upward as the leaves parted and
Jane appeared on a low branch above their heads. Tarzan held his arms and
the girl slipped down into them.
"Jane," Holt cried.
"Harry," she exclaimed in glad surprise. "Is it really
you?"
Holt introduced "Martin-my friend" and the three chatted
gaily as they walked to the camp of the safari with Tarzan stepping silently
at Jane's side.
"Aren't you homesick, Jane?" Holt asked when they were
sitting before the fire.
"Not a bit," the girl answered proudly, "I love Tarzan
and I'm happy. I never want to go back to the other world. I guess that
I belong to Tarzan and his jungle."
Then Holt told her that he had come back with Martin
and the huge safari to find again the Burial Ground of the Elephants and
to carry away the ivory.
"Tarzan is our only hope of finding the way," he said.
"You will persuade him to take us there, won't you Jane?"
Jane promised. As they talked, Tarzan arose and quietly
slipped away into the jungle.
"He has gone to build a house for us in the trees,"
Jane smiled. "We always have our little sky mansions wherever we go."
"And we have a brought a surprise for you Jane," Holt
said. He pointed to a trunk standing beside his tent. Slowly Jane opened
it and gasped at what she saw. There were lovely dresses, perfumes, powders,
all the things which she had not seen for so long a time.
Holt persuaded her to go into the tent and put on one
of the dresses. When she came back, wearing a trailing evening gown, Holt
turned on a portable phonograph and Jane danced with Martin to its melodies.
"Doesn't this make you want to go back to England?"
Martin asked.
"No," Jane answered, "I couldn't be happy away from
Tarzan."
When Tarzan appeared noiselessly from the darkness,
he stared with surprised fright at the phonograph. Suddenly he sprang upon
it and slashed it with his knife. Jane, smiling, stopped him and explained
to him that it was not a strange animal. Then he noticed her changed clothes
and smelled the sweet odor of the perfume. With a smile he swung her up
through the branches to the little house he had built high above the camp
of the safari.
The next morning they started on their long, weary
journey to the secret tomb of the elephants. Above the safari, in the treetops,
travelled Tarzan and Jane to show the men the way. When Jane's lovely,
trailing dress caught in the branches, she suddenly threw it away and put
on her skin clothing. Tarzan smiled happily.
When they made camp that night the natives cut stout
poles and tested them for strength under Martin's direction. Tarzan sat
by the fire and watched with eyes which did not understand until Jane explained
that the poles would carry the tusks of the dead elephants away from the
Burial Ground.
"No," Tarzan said, "No!" He broke one of the poles
in his steel-strong fingers and walked away from the camp.
"The elephants are Tarzan's friends," Jane explained
to Holt and Martin, "I hadn't thought of that before. I know he will not
like it if you disturb their resting place."
"But he must go with us, Jane," Holt pleaded. "We can't
find the place without him. Please ask him to do it."
Tarzan refused to go on to the Burial Ground. Holt
understood and was willing to turn back. But Martin insisted on pushing
forward without Tarzan. As they talked, Saidi, their native gun-bearer,
ran into camp to tell them that the elephants were grazing near by. Martin
seized is gun and ordered the natives to follow him. He remembered Holt's
story of the dying elephant which had led them to the Burial Ground.
   
Creeping through the bushes, followed by Holt,
Martin came upon a peaceful scene, two grown elephants and a baby feeding
beside a water hole. Before Holt could stop him, Martin fired, wounding
one of the beasts. The injured elephant staggered into the jungle.
"Hurry, Saidi," Martin ordered. "Get the boys. We'll
follow the trail. You brought me out here, Holt, with the promise of wealth
in ivory. Are you going with me or will you stay with Tarzan?"
"I'll go with you," Holt answered shortly.
As the two men started on the trail, Tarzan dropped
from the trees in their path. Martin raised his gun. But Tarzan quickly
grabbed it from his hand and broke it into two pieces. Then he seized Martin
and held him above his head, poised to hurl him to the ground.
"Stop, Tarzan, please," Jane cried, running to his
side.
Seeing her tears, Tarzan dropped the man to the ground.
Martin scrambled to his feet and led the safari along the trail of the
wounded elephant. Holt lingered for a minute, then followed Martin. The
safari disappeared.
    
For many days Holt, Martin and the natives
followed the wounded elephant until they stood, at last, in the hidden
tomb. Their eyes glittered greedily at the sight of the piles of precious
ivory. Martin ordered the weary natives to load the tusks on poles so they
could be carried away.
As they finished tying the last tusk to the heavily-laden
poles, the trumpeting of the elephants shattered the torch-lighted silence
of the tomb. Tarzan's cry rang above the angry roars of the animals. A
horde of the huge beasts surged through the entrance. Tarzan leaped from
back to back, urging them onward.
Frantically the safari dashed for the narrow passage-way
at the opposite end of the tomb. Again Tarzan's cry echoed against the
rocky walls. Through the other entrance a second army of elephants thundered
into the little valley. The trapped, terror-stricken men stood still. Martin
pointed his gun toward Tarzan but Holt struck it from his hand.
    
Then above the clamor came the sound of Jane's voice,
calling to Tarzan. He commanded the elephants to be quiet. Through the
path which they opened for her, Jane rode into the tomb on the back of
an elephant. She held little Chita in her arms. Tarzan followed her as
she jumped from the elephant to the ground and ran to Holt and Martin.
"Don't you understand?" she asked them. "The elephants
are Tarzan's friends. He loves them and they love him. He will not let
you disturb their burial ground."
"Will Tarzan lead us safely out of here if we do not
touch the ivory?" Martin asked, craftily pretending friendliness.
"Of course," Jane answered. Then she turned to Tarzan,
"They understand now, Tarzan. They will go back. They don't want the ivory."
Tarzan smiled. He then sounded his call. This time
it had a note of command in its gentleness. The elephants turned slowly
and left the Burial Ground.
Martin suggested that they remain there for the night,
so the safari made its camp in the quiet of the little valley. Tarzan,
Jane and Chita slept in the soft moss on a ledge overlooking the silent
tomb.
With the first rosy gray of the dawn, Tarzan slipped
from his mossy bed, aroused the sleeping Saidi and told him in gestures
that he would hunt meat for breakfast. As Tarzan disappeared through the
entrance, Martin walked out of his tent. Saidi told him that Tarzan had
gone to the jungle in search of fresh meat.
"I'd like to watch him hunt," Martin said, "But I won't
disturb him. See, Saidi, I'm not even taking a gun." But as soon as he
was out of Saidi's sight, Martin tightened his belt around the revolver
which he had hidden beneath his shirt.
At the edge of the crocodile-filled stream, the two
men came face to face. Suddenly a crocodile slipped from the river, its
angry head turned toward Martin.
"Martin-my friend," Tarzan shouted in warning. At the
sound of his voice, the crocodile slid back into the water. Tarzan plunged
into the river. With a quick slash of his knife he wounded the animal and
came hastily back to shore.
As he stepped from the water and smiled, Martin raised
his revolver and fired straight at Tarzan's body. With a look of surprised
bewilderment, Tarzan dropped his knife and fell backward into the river.
Again and again Martin fired at the spot where Tarzan had sunk beneath
the water. Then he flung his revolver into the middle of the stream.
Martin returned breathlessly to camp to tell of Tarzan's
tragic death in a fight with a crocodile. "If only I had had a gun with
me," Martin murmured sadly.
The sorrowing natives searched the underbrush along
the stream and came back to camp, bringing with them only Tarzan's knife,
mute evidence of the owner's death.
Sadly and silently, bearing its load of ivory, the
safari started back toward civilization. Since Tarzan was gone, Jane did
not care about the ivory. She walked slowly, leaning against Holt. Martin
mercilessly whipped the overloaded natives forward.
But little Chita did not go with the safari. Jane,
in her grief, did not notice the little small monkey's absence from her
side. Along the riverbank ran the frantic Chita, calling to Tarzan. Suddenly
her bright eyes saw a hand lying among the grasses. She parted the leaves.
There lay Tarzan, unconscious and bleeding from a wound in his shoulder.
Swiftly Chita ran through the trees, screaming for the apes. She led them
to Tarzan. In their strong arms they lifted him and carried him to his
treetop home.
Then little Chita returned to the safari and tried
to tell Jane what had happened. But the heartsick girl was too numb with
grief to notice the monkey's chatter.
    
As the weary, footsore safari struggled along
the rough trail, it was suddenly stopped by a rain of arrows from the trees.
The Lion Men, a savage, cruel tribe of jungle warriors, leered down upon
them. The safari dropped the ivory and huddled together in fear. From the
trees the savages roared their summons to the lions in the jungle. Slowly
the underbrush around the terrified safari was filled with the tawny beasts.
Once more Chita crept away from Jane. Unseen, she fled
into the jungle. Straight to Tarzan's house she hurried. He listened to
her excited chatter, called together his army of apes and raced through
the trees behind Chita.
  
With the coming of darkness
the Lion Men and the lions charged the safari and the fighting was furious
and desperate.
Then, ringing above the clamor of the battle,
came the cry of Tarzan as he reached the fray with his army of apes. The
apes fell upon the Lion Men in the trees in a desperate hand-to-hand fight.
  
Again Tarzan's call echoed through the night
-- a weird call with a strange compelling note. It was answered by the
trumpeting of his elephant friends.
Jane forgot all danger and rushed happily toward Tarzan
whom she had thought was dead.
A Lion Man hurled a spear at her running figure. But
Hold saw it and flung himself directly in its path.
As Holt fell lifeless to the ground, the spear in his
heart, Tarzan leaped from the tree and seized Jane in his arms.
The Lion Men fled before the mad onrush of the apes.
The lions, hearing the battle cry of the elephants as they rushed in a
great herd to help Tarzan, gave up the fight and slunk away into the jungle.
Martin, in desperate fear of Tarzan, raised his gun
and pointed it toward the tall figure in the leopard skin. As Martin pulled
the trigger, an elephant seized him in his trunk and hurled him with bone-crushing
force against a tree. Martin dropped to the ground and lay motionless.
The bullet sped on until it buried itself harmlessly in a branch.
At Tarzan's words of quiet command, the elephants picked
up the ivory and lumbered off into the forest, carrying it back to its
resting place.
Then, hand in hand and smiling into each other's eyes,
Tarzan and Jane with brave little Chita, swung through the branches to
their treetop home where they would find safety and happiness.
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