Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan the Untamed Edgar Rice Burroughs

The rain lasted for twenty-four hours and much of the time it fell in torrents so that when itceased, the trail he had been following was entirely obliterated. Cold and uncomfortable-it was asavage Tarzan who threaded the mazes of the soggy jungle. Manu, the monkey, shivering andchattering in the dank trees, scolded and fled at his approach. Even the panthers and the lions let thegrowling Tarmangani pass unmolested. When the sun shone again upon the second day and a wide, open plain let the full heat of Kuduflood the chilled, brown body, Tarzan's spirits rose; but it was still a sullen, surly brute that movedsteadily onward into the south where he hoped again to pick up the trail of the Germans. He wasnow in German East Africa and it was his intention to skirt the mountains west of Kilimanjaro, whose rugged peaks he was quite willing to give a wide berth, and then swing eastward along thesouth side of the range to the railway that led to Tanga, for his experience among men suggestedthat it was toward this railroad that German troops would be likely to converge. Two days later, from the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro, he heard the boom of cannon far awayto the east. The afternoon had been dull and cloudy and now as he was passing through a narrowgorge a few great drops of rain began to splatter upon his naked shoulders. Tarzan shook his headand growled his disapproval; then he cast his eyes about for shelter, for he had had quite enough ofthe cold and drenching. He wanted to hasten on in the direction of the booming noise, for he knewthat there would be Germans fighting against the English. For an instant his bosom swelled withpride at the thought that he was English and then he shook his head again viciously. "No!" hemuttered, "Tarzan of the Apes is not English, for the English are men and Tarzan is Tarmangani;"but he could not hide even from his sorrow or from his sullen hatred of mankind in general that hisheart warmed at the thought it was Englishmen who fought the Germans. His regret was that theEnglish were human and not great white apes as he again considered himself