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ERB’S GREAT IMPOSTERS: FLORA HAWKES AND ESTEBAN MIRANDA IN TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION Chapter 2 A Commentary By Woodrow Edgar Nichols, Jr. |
ERB was so enamored with the “kindness” treatment of animals he devoted an entire chapter to it, the one we are about to review. This was a theme 10 years earlier in 1912 that ERB had championed in A Princess of Mars, where he discusses making friends with the fierce Martian hound, Woola, ordered by the Green Martians to guard John Carter and keep him from escaping. It does not take long for Carter to test Woola’s loyalty to the Greens:It also occurred to me that this would be an excellent opportunity to test the qualities of Woola. I was convinced that the brute loved me; I had seen more evidences of affection in him than to any other Martian animal, man or beast, and I was sure that gratitude for the acts that had twice saved his life would more than outweigh his loyalty to the duty imposed upon him by cruel and loveless masters.Carter then disobeys the Green’s instruction to stay in the city limits when he heads off for the distant hills ordering Woola to follow him, which he does without too much resistance. I’m glad that ERB never changed his mind about being kind to animals. His love for animals comes through clearly in his fiction. So, get a good feel for Jad-bal-ja in this chapter, for it will be awhile before he comes back into the picture.
As I approached the boundary line Woola ran anxiously before me, and thrust his body against my legs. His expression was pleading rather than ferocious, nor did he bare his great tusks or utter his fearful gutteral warnings. Denied the friendship and companionship of my kind, I had developed considerable affection for Woola and Sola, for the normal earthly man must have some outlet for his natural affection, and so I decided upon an appeal to the like instinct in this great brute, sure that I would not be disappointed.
I have never petted nor fondled him, but now I sat upon the ground and putting my arms around his heavy neck I stroked and coaxed him, talking in my newly acquired Martian tongue as I would have to my hound at home, as I would have talked to any other friend among the lower animals. His response to my manifestation of affection was remarkable to a degree; he stretched his great mouth to its full width, baring the entire expanse of his upper rows of tusks and wrinkling his snout until his great eyes were almost hidden by the folds of flesh. If you have ever seen a collie smile you may have some idea of Woola’s facial distortion.
He threw himself upon his back and fairly wallowed at my feet; jumped up and sprang upon me, rolling me upon the ground by his great weight; then wriggling and squirming around me like a playful puppy presenting its back for the petting it craves. (A Princess of Mars, Chapter X.)
John Carter and Woola by David Burton
Chapter Two: The Training of Jad-Bal-Ja
And so Tarzan of the Apes, and Jane Clayton, and Korak came home after a long absence and with them came Jad-bal-ja, the golden lion, and Za, the bitch. Among the first to meet them and to welcome them home was old Muviro, father of Wasimbu, who had given his life in defense of the home and wife of the ape-man.“Ah, Bwana,” cried his faithful friend, “my old eyes are made young again by the sight of you. It has been long that you have been gone, but though many doubted that you would return, old Muviro knew that the great world held nothing that might overcome you. And so he knew, too, that you would return to the home of your love and the land where your faithful Waziri awaited you; but that she, whom we have mourned as dead, should have returned is beyond belief, and great shall be the rejoicing in the huts of the Waziri tonight. And the earth shall tremble to the dancing feet of the warriors and the heavens ring with the glad cries of their women, since the three they love most on earth have come back to them."
The savvy reader will recall that ERB originally had killed off Jane in Tarzan the Untamed, but his editors and readers would have none of this, which was only due to ERB’s frustration over Emma’s whole-hearted belief that ERB had her in mind whenever he wrote of Jane. Thus, she was slow to realize that ERB had another woman in mind when he wrote the Erotic Trilogy. Killing her off should have tipped her off in 1918, but she eventually understood and thus would not let ERB touch her again after 1924.
This is the bane of all writers of fiction. Other people don’t really understand thecreative process and believe that all fictional characters are based on real people the author knows. While in my opinion, this belief is partially true – after all, it’ s my thesis in the Erotic Trilogy, and don’t forget, ERB and his family used to act out roles from his books at parties, each picking the part of the character they believed were them in his fiction – but sometimes the author invents a character based on a stereotype or on this or that from various people he has known or observed in his own personal experience. In other words, a character doesn’t have to be based on a real person. And for those with understanding, fictional characters, if they are well-drawn, can take on a life of their own, sometimes in a totally contradictory manner from what the author originally intended. This is a kind of spooky aspect of the creative process, but it is very real.
And in truth, great indeed was the rejoicing in the huts of the Waziri. And not for one night alone, but for many nights did the dancing and rejoicing continue until Tarzan was compelled to put a stop to the festivities that he and his family might gain a few hours of unbroken slumber. The ape-man found that not only had his faithful Waziri, under the equally faithful guidance of his English foreman, Jervis, completely rehabilitated his stables, corrals, and outbuildings as well as the native huts, but had restored the interior of the bungalow, so that in all outward appearances the place was precisely as it had been before the raid of the Germans.Jervis was at Nairobi on the business of the estate, and it was some days after their arrival that he returned to the ranch. His surprise and happiness were no less genuine than those of the Waziri. With the chief and warriors he sat for hours at the feet of the Big Bwana, listening to an account of the strange land of Pal-ul-don and the adventures that had befallen the three during Lord Greystoke’s captivity there, and with the Waziri he marveled at the queer pets the ape-man had brought back with him. That Tarzan might have fancied a mongrel native cur was strange enough, but that he should have adopted a cub of his hereditary enemies, Numa and Sabor, seemed beyond all belief. And equally surprising to them all was the manner of Tarzan’s education of the cub.
The golden lion and his foster mother occupied a corner of the ape-man’s bedroom, and many was the hour each day that he spent in training and educating the little spotted, yellow ball – all playfulnes and affection now, but one day to grow into a great, savage beast of prey.
As the days passed and the golden lion grew, Tarzan taught it many tricks – to fetch and carry, to lie motionless in hiding at his almost inaudible word of command, to move from point to point as he indicated, to hunt for hidden things by scent and to retrieve them, and when meat was added to its diet he fed it always in a way that brought grim smiles to the savage lips of the Waziri warriors, for Tarzan had built for him a dummy in the semblance of a man and the meat that the lion was to eat was fastened always at the throat of the dummy. Never did the manner of feeding vary. At a word from the ape-man the golden lion would crouch, belly to the ground, and then Tarzan would point at the dummy and whisper the single word “kill.”
I believe it is easy to discern what Tarzan had in mind here, especially the way the Waziri understood it: Tarzan was teaching the lion the easiest way to kill humans, associating the taste of meat with the killing of people.Nowadays, there is not too much that is politically correct about Tarzan...and thank God for that!
However hungry he might be, the lion learned never to move toward his meat until that single word had been uttered by its master; and then with a rush and a savage growl it dove straight for the flesh. While it was little it had difficulty at first in clambering up the dummy to the savory morsel fastened at the figure’s throat, but as it grew older and larger it gained the objective more easily, and finally a single leap would carry it to its goal and down would go the dummy upon its back with the young lion tearing at its throat.There was one lesson that, of all the others, was most difficult to learn and it is doubtful that any other than Tarzan of the Apes, reared by beasts, among beasts, could have overcome the savage blood-lust of the carnivore and rendered his natural instinct subservient to the will of his master. It took weeks and months of patient endeavor to accomplish this single item of the lion’s education, which consisted of teaching him that at the word “fetch” he must find any indicated object and return with it to his master, even the dummy with raw meat tied at its throat, and that he must not touch the meat nor harm the dummy or any other article that he was fetching, but place them carefully at the ape-man’s feet. Afterward he learned always to be sure of his reward, which usually consisted in a double portion of the meat that he loved best.
Lady Greystoke and Korak were often interesting spectators of the education of the golden lion, though the former expressed mystification as to the purpose of such elaborate training of the young cub and some misgivings as to the wisdom of the ape-man’s program.
“What in the world can you do with such a brute after he is grown?” she asked. “He bids fair to be a mighty Numa. Being accustomed to men he will be utterly fearless of them, and having fed always at the throat of a dummy he will look there at the throat of living men for his food thereafter.”
“He will feed only upon what I tell him to feed,” replied the ape-man.
“But you do not expect him to feed always upon men?” she interrogated, laughingly.
“He will never feed upon men.”
“But how can you prevent it, having taught him from cub-hood always to feed upon men?”
“I am afraid, Jane, that you underestimate the intelligence of a lion, or else I very much overestimate it. If your theory is correct the hardest part of my work is yet before me, but if I am right it is practically complete now. However, we will experiment a bit and see which is right. We shall take Jad-bal-ja out upon the plain with us this afternoon. Game is plentiful and we shall have no difficulty in ascertaining just how much control I have over young Numa after all.
“I’ll wager a hundred pounds,” said Korak, laughing, “that he does just what he jolly well pleases after he gets a taste of live blood.”
ERB, Master of Adventure, knew his readers bored easily. He knew how to grab and then hold his audience’s attention. He knew that at this moment it was time for a little action and suspense. How better to do that than to introduce a wager into the bargain. He also knew that he was getting into some morally objectionable material with the brutal training with the dummy. Jane was sure aware of it. After all, Korak must have partially agreed with her, because he was game that she was right. Who will win the bet? Yeah, I know, it’s a foregone conclusion, but it’s still fun just the same.
“You’re on, my son,” said the ape-man. “I think I am going to show you and your mother this afternoon what you or anyone else never dreamed could be accomplished.”
“Lord Greystoke, the world’s premier animal trainer!” cried Lady Greystoke, and Tarzan joined them in their laughter.
“It is not animal training,” said the ape-man. “The plan upon which I work would be impossible to anyone but Tarzan of the Apes. Let us take a hypothetical case to illustrate what I mean. There comes to you some creature whom you hate, whom by instinct and heredity you consider a deadly enemy. You are afraid of him. You understand no word that he speaks. Finally, by means sometimes brutal he impresses upon your mind his wishes. You may do the thing he wants, but do you do it with a spirit of unselfish loyalty? You do not – you do it under compulsion, hating the creature that forces his will upon you. At any moment that you felt it was in your power to do so, you would disobey him. You would even go further – you would turn upon him and destroy him. On the other hand, there comes to you one with whom you are familiar; he is a friend, a protector. He understands and speaks the language that you understand and speak. He has fed you, he has gained your confidence by kindness and protection, he asks you to do something for him. Do you refuse? No, you obey willingly. It is thus that the golden lion will obey me.”
“As long as it suits his purpose to do so,” commented Korak.
“Let me go a step farther then,” said the ape-man. “Suppose that this creature, whom you love and obey, has the power to punish, even to kill you, if it is necessary so to do to enforce his commands. How then about your obedience?”
“We’ll see,” said Korak, “how easily the golden lion will make one hundred pounds for me.”
That afternoon they set out across the plain, Jad-bal-ja following Tarzan’s horse’s heels. They dismounted at a little clump of trees some distance from the bungalow and from there proceeded onward warily toward a swale in which antelopes were usually to be found, moving up which they came cautiously to the heavy brush that bordered the swale upon their side. There was Tarzan, Jane, and Korak, and close beside Tarzan the golden lion – four jungle hunters – and of the four Jad-bal-ja, the lion, was the least accomplished. Stealthily they crawled through the brush, scarce a leaf rustling to their passage, until at last they looked down into the swale upon a small herd of antelope grazing peacefully below. Closest to them was an old buck, and him Tarzan pointed out in some mysterious manner to Jad-bal-ja.
“Fetch him,” he whispered, and the golden lion rumbled a scarce audible acknowledgement of the command.
Stealthily he worked his way through the brush. The antelopes fed on, unsuspecting. The distance separating the lion from his prey was over great for a successful charge, and so Jad-bal-ja waited, hiding in the brush, until the antelope should either graze closer to him or turn its back toward him. No sound came from the four watching the grazing herbivora, nor did the latter give any indication of a suspicion of the nearness of danger. The old buck moved closer to Jad-bal-ja. Almost imperceptibly the lion was gathering for the charge. The only noticeable movement was the twitching of his tail’s tip, and then, as lightning from the sky, as an arrow from a bow, he shot from immobility to tremendous speed in an instant. He was almost upon the buck before the latter realized the proximity of danger, and then it was too late, for scarcely had the antelope wheeled than the lion rose upon its hind legs and seized it, while the balance of the herd broke into precipitate flight.
“Now,” said Korak, “we shall see.”
“He will bring the antelope to me,” said Tarzan confidently.
The golden lion hesitated a moment, growling over the carcass of his kill. Then he seized it by the back and with his head turned to one side dragged it along the ground beside him, as he made his way slowly back to Tarzan. Through the brush he dragged the slain antelope until he had dropped it at the feet of his master, where he stood, looking up at the face of the ape-man with an expression that could not have been construed into aught but pride in his achievement and a plea for commendation.
Tarzan stroked his head and spoke to him in a low voice, praising him, and then, drawing his hunting knife, he cut the jugular of the antelope and let the blood from the carcass. Jane and Korak stood close, watching Jad-bal-ja – what would the lion do with the smell of fresh, hot blood in his nostrils? He sniffed at it and growled, and with bared fangs he eyed the three wickedly. The ape-man pushed him away with his open palm and the lion growled again angrily and snapped at him.
Quick is Numa, quick is Bara, the deer, but Tarzan of the Apes is lightning. So swiftly did he strike, and so heavily, that Jad-bal-ja was falling back almost in the very instant that he had growled at his master. Swiftly he came to his feet again and the two stood facing one another.
“Down!” commanded the ape-man. “Lie down, Jad-bal-ja!” His voice was low and firm.
The lion hesitated but for an instant, and then lay down as Tarzan of the Apes had taught him to do at the word of command. Tarzan turned and lifted the carcass of the antelope to his shoulder.
“Come,” he said to Jad-bal-ja, “Heel!” and without another glance at the carnivore he moved off toward the horses.“I might have known it,” said Korak, with a laugh, “and saved my hundred pounds.”
“Of course you might have known it,” said his mother.
And there you have chapter two. The lion has been prepared for his big role later in the story.
Until then, we will get to know the Great Imposters in chapter three.
ERBzine REFERENCES
Tarzan and the Golden Lion: ERB C.H.A.S.E.R. BibliographyALL THE WOODROW NICHOLS FEATURES IN ERBzine
www.ERBzine.com/nichols
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