Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-16


cloudless sky--a huge, swoller
moon that seemed so close to eartf
that one might wonder that she die
not brush the grooming tree tops. II
was night, and Tarzan was abroad
in the jungle-Tarzan the ape-man
mighty fighter, mighty hunter. Why
he swung through the dark shadows
of the somber forest he could not
have told you. 1t was not that he
was hungry-he had fed we'll this
day, and in a safe cache were the
remains of his kill, ready against
the coming of a new appetite. Per-
Shaps it was the very joy of living
that urged him from his arboreal
couch to pit his muscles and his
senses against the jungle night and
then, too, Tarzan always was goad-
ed by an intense desire to know.
The jungle which is presided over
by Kudu, the sun, is a very different
Jungle from that of Goro, the moon.
The diurnal jungle has its own as
pect-its own lights and shades, its
own birds, its own blooms, its own
beasts; its noises are the noises of
the day. The lights and shades of
the nocturnal jungle are as different
as one might imagine the lights and
shades of another world to differ
from those of our world; its blooms
and its birds are not those of the
jungle of Kudu, the sun.
Tonight he had swung a wide
circle-toward the east first and then
toward the south, and now he was
rounding back again into the north.
His eyes, his ears and his keen
nostrils were ever on the alert.
Mingled with the sounds he knew
there were strange sounds-weird
sounds which he never heard until
after Kudu had sought his lair be-
low the far edge of the big water
sounds which belonged to Goro, the
moon-and to the mysterious period
of Goro's supremacy. These sounds
often caused Tarzan profound specu-
lation. They baffled him because he
thought that he knew his jungle so
well that there could be nothing
within it unfamiliar to him. Some
times he thought that as colors and
forms appeared to differ by night
from their familiar daylight aspects,
so sounds altered with the passage
of Kudu and the coming of Goro,
and these thoughts reused within
his brain a vague conjecture that
perhaps Goro and Kudu influenced
these changes. And what more nat
ural that eventually he came to
attribute to the sun and the moon
personalities as real as his own? The
sun was living creature and ruled
the day. The moon, endowed with !
brains and miraculous powers, ruled |
the night.
As Tarzan swung north again
upon his wide circle the scent of the
Gomangani came to his nostrils,
mixed with the acrid odor Of wood
smoke. The ape-man moved quickly |
in the direction from which the scent |
was borne down to him upon the |
gentle night wind. Presently the
ruddy sheen of a great fire filtered |
through the foliage to him ahead,
and when Tarzan came to halt in |
the trees near it he saw a party !
of half a dozen black warriors hud-
died close TO the blaze. 1t was
evidently a hunting party from the
village of Mbonga, the chief, caught
out in the jungle after dark. In a
rude circle about them they had con-
structed a thorn bona which, with
the aid of the fire, they apparently
hoped would discourage the advances
of the larger carnivora.
That hope was not conviction was
evidenced by the very palpable ter
ror in which they crouched, wide
eyed and trembling, for already |
Numa and Sabor were moaning
through the jungle toward them.
There were other creatures, too, in
the shadows beyond the freight I
Tarzan could see their yellow eyes
flaming there. The blacks saw them |,
and shivered. Then one arose and |
grasping a burning branch from the
fire hurled it at the eyes, which |
Immediately disappeared. The
black sat down again. Tarzan
watched and saw that it was several
minutes before the eyes began to
reappear in twos and fours.
Then came Numa, the lion, and
Sabor, his mate. The other eyes
scattered to right and left before the
menacing growls of the great cats,
and then the huge orbs of the man
eaters famed alone out of the dark
ness. Some of the blacks threw them
selves upon their faces and moaned;
but he who before had hurled the /.
burning branch now hurled another
straight at the faces of the hungry
lions, and they, too, disappeared as
had the lesser lights before them. /
Tarzan was much interested. He
saw a new reason for the mighty |.
fires maintained by the blacks-a |
reason in addition to those connected |
with warmth and light and cooking. |
The beasts of the jungle feared fire, |
and so fire was, in a measure, a pro-
a. l..