Tarzan of the Apes / Тарзан – приёмыш обезьян
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“Close and bolt the door, Alice,” cried Clayton. “I can finish this fellow with my ax.”
But he knew he was facing a horrible death, and so did she.
The ape was huge. Over the brute's shoulder Clayton could see the doorway of his cabin, just twenty paces distant, and a great wave of horror and fear swept over him as he saw his young wife emerge, armed with one of his rifles.
She had always been afraid of firearms, and would never touch them, but now she rushed toward the ape with the fearlessness of a lioness protecting its young.
“Back, Alice,” shouted Clayton, “for God's sake, go back.”
But she did not return.
Clayton swung his ax with all his mighty strength, but the powerful brute seized it in those terrible hands, and tearing it from Clayton's grasp threw it far to one side.
But suddenly there was a loud report and a bullet entered the ape's back between his shoulders.
Throwing Clayton to the ground the beast turned upon his new enemy. There before him stood the terrified girl vainly trying to fire another bullet into the animal's body; but she did not understand the mechanism of the rifle. The ape sprung toward Alice, and she fainted.
Almost simultaneously, Clayton regained his feet and rushed forward to drag the ape from his wife's prostrate form. But then the beast fell to the ground – it was dead.
The bullet had done its work.
A hasty examination of his wife revealed no marks upon her, and Clayton decided that the huge brute had died the instant he had sprung toward Alice.
Gently he lifted his wife's still unconscious form, and bore her to the little cabin, but it was fully two hours before she regained consciousness.
Her first words filled Clayton with anxiety.
For some time after regaining her senses, Alice gazed wonderingly about the interior of the little cabin, and then, with a satisfied sigh, said:
“O, John, it is so good to be home! I have had an awful dream, dear. I thought we were no longer in London, but in some horrible place where great beasts attacked us.”
“There, there[23], Alice,” he said, stroking her forehead, “try to sleep again, and do not worry your head about bad dreams.”
That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin.
Lady Greystoke never recovered from the shock of the great ape's attack, and, though she lived for a year after her baby was born, she was never again outside the cabin, nor did she ever fully realize that she was not in England.
Clayton continued working hard to beautify the interior of the cabin. Skins of lion and panther covered the floor. Cupboards and bookcases lined the walls. Odd vases made by his own hand from the clay of the region held beautiful tropical flowers. Curtains of grass and bamboo covered the windows.
Clayton loved the work because it was for her and the tiny life that had come to cheer them.
During the year that followed, Clayton was several times attacked by the great apes which now seemed to continually fill the vicinity of the cabin; but as he never again left the cabin without both rifle and revolvers he had little fear of the huge beasts.
He had strengthened the window protections and fitted a unique wooden lock to the cabin door, so that when he hunted, he had no fear that any animal could break into the little home.
In his leisure Clayton read, often aloud to his wife, from the store of books he had brought for their new home.
Among these were many for little children – picture books, readers – for they had known that their little child would be old enough for such before they might hope to return to England.
At other times, Clayton wrote in his diary which he had always been accustomed to keep in French, and in which he recorded the details of their strange life. This book he kept locked in a little metal box.
A year from the day her little son was born Lady Alice passed quietly away in the night. So peaceful was her end that it was hours before Clayton could awake to a realization that his wife was dead.
The last entry in his diary was made the morning following her death:
My little son is crying for food – O Alice, Alice, what shall I do?
Chapter 4
THE APES
In the forest of the table-land a mile back from the ocean old Kerchak the Ape was in rage among his people.
The younger and lighter members of his tribe dashed to the higher branches of the great trees to escape his uncontrolled anger.
And then Kerchak saw Kala, who, returning from a search for food with her young babe, was ignorant of the state of the mighty male's temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of her fellows caused her to run madly for safety.
But Kerchak was so close that he had almost grasped her ankle if she had not made a furious leap far into space from one tree to another.
She made the leap successfully, but as she grasped the branch of the further tree the sudden shake loosened the hold of the tiny babe where it clung frantically to her neck, and she saw how the little thing fell to the ground thirty feet below.
With a low cry of dismay, Kala rushed to its side, thoughtless now of the danger from Kerchak; but when she gathered the little thing, life had left it.
With low moans, she sat cuddling the body to her; Kerchak didn't attempt to attack her. With the death of the babe, his fit of demoniacal rage passed as suddenly as it had seized him.
Kerchak was a huge king ape, weighing perhaps three hundred and fifty pounds. His forehead was extremely low, his eyes were bloodshot, small and close set to his flat nose; his ears were large and thin, but smaller than most of his kind.
His awful temper and his mighty strength made him supreme among the little tribe into which he had been born twenty years before.
Old Tantor, the elephant, alone of all the wild savage life, did not fear him – and Kerchak feared only Tantor. When Tantor trumpeted, the great ape rushed with his fellows high among the trees of the second terrace.
The tribe of anthropoids over which Kerchak ruled with an iron hand, numbered about six or eight families. Each family consisted of an adult male with his females and their young, numbering in all about sixty or seventy apes.
Kala was the youngest mate of a male called Tublat, meaning broken nose, and the child she had seen dashed to death was her first; for she was just nine or ten years old.
She was large and powerful – a splendid animal, with a round, high forehead, which meant more intelligence than most of her kind possessed. So, also, she had a great capacity for mother love and mother sorrow.
But she was still an ape, a huge, fierce, terrible beast of a species like the gorilla, yet more intelligent.
When the tribe saw that Kerchak's rage had ceased they came slowly down from their retreats and pursued again the various occupations which he had interrupted. They had passed an hour or so thus when Kerchak called them together and commanded them to follow him toward the sea.
They traveled for the most part upon the ground, and all the way Kala carried her little dead baby hugged closely to her breast.
It was shortly after noon when they reached a ridge overlooking the beach where below them lay the tiny cottage which was Kerchak's goal.
Kerchak wanted to have the white ape's thunder-stick bringing death and explore the interior of the mysterious den. He wanted, very, very much, to feel his teeth sink into the neck of the queer animal that he had learned to hate and fear, and because of this, he came often with his tribe to watch, waiting for a time when the white ape should be off his guard.
Today there was no sign of the man about, and from where they watched they could see that the cabin door was open. Slowly, cautiously, and noiselessly they crept through the jungle toward the little cabin.
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Notes
1
каучук
2
подданные
3
Ради неё
4
каботажная торговля
5
зашагал по направлению к корме
6
polish brasses – (мор.) драить медяшки (полировать латунные части оснастки)
7
(ид.) помяните моё слово
8
(ид.) избивают до потери сознания
9
(ид.) на днях
10
(ид.) держите язык за зубами
11
Будь по-твоему
12
сходной люк
13
отвечать за последствия
14
(ид.) и бровью не повёл
15
как скажу, так и будет
16
(мор.) вперёдсмотрящий
17
пригодно для жилья
18
сложенный в несколько раз
19
сидели по-турецки
20
пародия
21
держали их нервы в напряжении
22
человек-зверь
23
(ид.) тише, тише