KA-ZAR OF THE BEASTS

CHAPTER XI
Trajah the Elephant

Z

AR heard his tale in silence and then displayed his disapproval of the man-cub's foolish act of pity with a rumbling grunt. From her corner of the cave Sha spat disdainfully. But Ka-Zar only smiled. Such was the glory of his strength that he could afford to be magnanimous. Bardak, dead and the tale of his passing would be forgotten with him. Alive, he was an ever present testimony, to his, Ka-Zar's might.

The days passed into weeks, the weeks into months. Ka-Zar roamed the jungle with Zar at his side. Wallah the hippopotamus greeted them as they drank together in the first flush of dawn. Coiled on a hot rock, Sinassa the snake watched them from unblinking eyes as they rested themselves in the heat of mid day. And at eventide, Dikki the jackal slunk on their trail to gorge himself on their kill when they had had their fill.

Nothing transpired to disturb the serene flow of Ka-Zar's days. He made weekly pilgrimages to the little clearing by the lake that had been his home for his first ten years in the jungle. But by now the acute grief he had felt at his father's death had mellowed into a gentle melancholy. He had learned that it is the one inevitable rule of the jungle that all things must die. However, the realization of that fundamental truth in no way lessened his hate of the fat white man. The vow he had sworn over his father's grave was still in force.

Not that he had the slightest idea of the symbolism behind the gesture--but because his father had taught him to do so--he would gather flowers from the grassy floor of the glade and adorn the twin graves with them. The simple act gave him a strange, inexplicable pleasure.

However, even with the passage of months, Sha never fully accepted him as one of her own. Her attitude towards him was one of surly toleration and she gave him to understand that if it had not been for Zar, her master, she would have none of him. In addition to her instinctive fear and hate of the man cub, her emotions were now tinged with jealousy.

Ka-Zar understood Sha's feminine psychology and was secretly amused by it. But of late, the lioness, as she kept closer and closer to the cave, became more sullen, spiteful and unapproachable.

She became heavy of limb, her movements slow. And every night Zar would bring to her the tenderest quarter of a fresh kill.

It was early one morning at the beginning of the rainy season that Zar suggested to Ka-Zar that they absent themselves from the cave for a day or two.

The man cub understood and was glad. He growled his approval. He had never forgotten his early desire to make friends with Trajah the elephant. Here was an opportunity and he suggested to Zar that they go in search of the great gray beast and his herd.

Zar was familiar with the regular pilgrimages of the elephants. He knew where Trajah could be found and he readily agreed to lead Ka-Zar in that direction.

Glad to get away from Sha, who had been most surly and unfriendly of late, they set off. Their bellies were full and though several times they caught sight of easy quarry, they pressed steadily on.

They stopped once to drink their fill from a winding stream. Soon the rains would swell it to a rushing torrent. But now its rocky bed made for easier traveling than the dense undergrowth that crowded the jungle. They followed it.

A few minutes later, while still traversing the narrow ravine, they heard a loud crashing ahead of them. As they pulled up short, the trumpeting of a mighty elephant echoed through the air.

Zar snarled a single command. "Flee!"

Dumfounded, Ka-Zar watched the lord of the jungle make a single long leap, then scramble up the rocky side of the ravine. Ka-Zar could not believe his eyes nor his ears. Zar, ruler of the wilderness, and his proud brother--flee from a beast? It was incredible, unbelievable!

F

rom the safety of the high, sheer bank Zar urgently repeated warning. But before Ka-Zar could move, a great gray shape appeared at the head of the ravine.

The elephant was one of Trajah’s herd. Though not quite as large or as powerful as the mighty leader, this one was nevertheless an enormous beast. His huge ears waved, fan-like, on either side of his head. His trunk weaved slowly from side to side. A sinister, reddish gleam shone from his little eyes and a strange, musk-like smell wafted down wind to Ka-Zar's nostrils.

Ka-Zar had never seen those gleaming tusks impale a living creature, tearing out its vitals. He had never seen that snaky trunk wind about a victim, then shatter bone and flesh against a boulder or a tree trunk. He had never seen those huge feet trample a beaten enemy until only bloody pulp remained.

But instinct warned him vaguely of some such dire fate. And instantly he gauged the distance between the swaying beast and a towering daboukra tree whose immense bole rose up from the stream bed off to his right.

The elephant's piggish little eyes fastened on the strange two-legged creature in his path. Red flames of hate flared up in their depths. Flinging back his head, he trumpeted a shrill challenge. Then with tusks gleaming, he charged forward.

With incredible speed Ka-Zar dashed for the daboukra. Hand over hand, like Nono the monkey, he climbed swiftly up its smooth bole. He gained the lower branches just in time. The elephant's tusks missed him by scant inches. Hurriedly he climbed upward.

Below him, the elephant squealed his rage. He capered awkwardly for a moment about the trunk of the tree. Then setting his front feet firmly on the rocky ground, he braced his massive forehead against the bole of the dahoukra and pushed.

High up in the tree Ka-Zar clung to his perch. The topmost branches quivered, swayed far over. Slowly but surely the elephant increased the pressure.

It seemed impossible that the immense jungle giant in which Ka-Zar had taken refuge, could be so shaken by a living beast. But that great gray shape below him was the most powerful creature that existed. The daboukra quivered along its entire length and when it cracked a series of staccato warnings, Ka-Zar realized that he was not safe.

Flattened until he was scarcely visible on the opposite bank of the ravine, Zar watched the titanic struggle. Ka-Zar clung to his thrashing perch and glanced swiftly around. There were many towering trees about him, but the distance between him and the nearest was just too great for him to negotiate.

With insane determination, squealing and grunting, the elephant continued his assault. A violent shudder racked the daboukra from topmost branch to root. It swayed far over, poised for a moment at a perilous angle and then with a grinding noise, headed in a great arc for the ground.

Ka-Zar had timed its fall to a fraction of a second. At just the right moment he let go his hold and with the impetus given him by the toppling daboukra, described a long parabola through the air. His outstretched arms caught the branches of the nearest tree and the sudden break in his flight almost tore him from his hold. He crashed against a limb with a force that knocked him breathless, but hung desperately on.

Recovering swiftly, he swung himself upward. Now he was on the outer fringe of the massed jungle and traveling swiftly through the leafy passages, he circled around to a point where he could gain the other bank and rejoin Zar.

T

he elephant trumpeted his frustrated rage. Then seeing that his victim had successfully escaped him, he suddenly wheeled and went plunging blindly off down the ravine.

Ka-Zar lay by the lion's side and recovered his breath. His narrow escape from death made him very thoughtful. He considered the matter in silence.

Here, then, was a beast who violated the code of the jungle. Trajah and his tribe did not eat meat, so that it was not for food that the elephant had tried to kill him. Neither was there a feud between them, an old score of vengeance to be settled. And the only other kill sanctioned by the jungle code--to slay in self defense--was out of the question in this case. The mighty elephant had no fear of this puny two-legged creature.

Why, then, had the great beast been so fiendishly intent upon stamping out his life? Ka-Zar was still pondering the matter when another crashing brought him up to a crouch. Together he and Zar peered over the edge of the bank.

In the same direction from which the other had come, a towering gray form appeared at the head of the ravine. Slowly, majestically it moved down the stream bed and Ka-Zar recognized Trajah himself. In his wake came his herd, crowding down the narrow ravine. Several of the females paused to drink and Trajah waited patiently beside them.

Ka-Zar jumped to his feet. His lungs expanded and he growled a greeting.

The heads of the herd swung up to look at him. Trajah surveyed him with the same majestic calm.

"I am Ka-Zar, brother of Zar," announced Ka-Zar.

Trajah acknowledged the introduction.

"We come in peace, went on Ka-Zar. "How is it, then, that one tried to slay me?"

A distant trumpeting sounded far down the stream. Trajah flapped a lazy ear. "That one was Tupat," he answered. "The madness has come upon him."

It was strange, after Ka-Zar's recent encounter with the enraged beast, how docile these huge gray monsters were. He realized that he had nothing to fear from them. Sliding down the steep bank, he walked boldly up to the great leader.

"Madness?" he repeated. He shook his head. He did not know that in one respect, his own father had gone mad. He did not know what it meant to lose one's senses.

Zar, though, had encountered mad elephants before. That was why he, the lord of the jungle, had recognized the strange note in Tupat's trumpeting and had sought refuge high up on the bank. Now he came down and stood beside his brother.

And so Ka-Zar learned how occasionally the strange madness descends upon a great gray beast and starts him tearing off into the jungle, uprooting giant trees and slaying all in his path. Sometimes, in his red blindness, he plunges over a cliff and dies. Usually the spell is short and, recovering, he rejoins his herd.

Trajah and his tribe were now following the rampaging Tupat. Slowly, for even they feared a brother when the killing lust was upon him. They would keep well behind him and soon he would quiet down and rejoin them.

Ka-Zar realized as he studied Trajah, that the elephant leader was possessed of a keen brain. And Trajah, in turn, seemed to know that this strange brother of the lion was not the silly, helpless creature that be looked. Zar and Ka-Zar lingered awhile with the herd. And when at last they departed on their homeward journey, Ka-Zar had made another, and valuable, friend.

T

hey were both tired and spent when at last they reached the cave. But Zar soon received the great satisfaction of knowing that in his absence he had become the father of two sturdy, clawing sons.

Ka-Zar was equally delighted. In an attempt to see them he peered into the cave and received a blow that sent him spinning backward. He picked himself up and rubbed himself ruefully. Sha's paw had lashed out with incredible speed and it was fortunate indeed that her claws had been sheathed.

Limping, he rejoined Zar, who had been wiser than he in not venturing too near. And that night they both stretched out before the entrance to the cave, to guard the tawny cubs that had come to bless the royal pair.

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