KA-ZAR OF THE BEASTS

CHAPTER VII
Zar the Mighty

J

OHN RAND never recovered mentally from the blow that the falling jungle giant had struck him. Though rational in every other respect, to the end of his days he labored under the delusion that the jungle was his home. He liked to believe that this tract of wilderness belonged to him and since no one was there to refute him, the notion grew until it became an absolute conviction.

The outward manifestations of civilization fell rapidly from him. His beard became a luxuriant growth that Zar the lion might have envied. His supply of ammunition became exhausted and in its place he managed to fashion ingenious weapons from the remains of the plane. Together he and David survived--and thrived.

At the age of eight, David was a husky lad, already destined to become taller and mightier than his powerful father. Some latent impulse had made John Rand teach his son to read and write. With the aid of a charred stick, blackened by fire, David had reluctantly learned his A B C's. But even such simple schooling was not to his liking.

Clad simply in a soft hide draped about his loins, equipped with a crude but efficient knife, a long bow, a quiver of arrows and a stout spear fashioned by his father, he preferred to roam the forest. He could swim like Nyassa the fish, climb with all the agility of Nono the monkey. With any of his weapons he could strike as swiftly as Sinassa the big snake. He knew now why his father had fired at N'Jaga the leopard and why he had killed the emerald green reptile. He accepted the code of the jungle. Kill only when necessary--for food, or for one's own life.

He had been only three on that fateful day when their plane had crashed to the clearing. All details of his life before that day faded swiftly from his memory. And they were never recalled, for John Rand never mentioned them. David never learned of other white men, of big ships that sailed the seas, of speeding trains and crowded cities. Such things were buried in John Rand's past and such words never crossed his lips.

Only the lonely grave of Constance remained as a symbol of what had been. It became part of John Rand's obsession to linger near that hallowed spot, to spend long brooding hours there and to protect it from the ravages of weather and prowling beast.

Occasionally the sight of the grave brought a puzzled look to David's eyes. He would screw up his face and try to grasp a memory that eluded him. But in the end he gave up the effort and the vague thoughts came no more to plague him.

The early kinship that he had felt for the animals had grown with the years. He had met and made friends with many of them. They talked with him and soon he began to understand them. He learned, with strange guttural sounds, to imitate their language and from that day a new and happier life opened up before him.

Nono, the little monkey, was his constant companion. He would snatch things when David was not looking, scamper up into the topmost branches and taunt his friend. When David shook his fist and laughed, Nono would toss sticks at him. Then, in a sudden change of mood, he would scramble down again, swing lightly up onto David's shoulder and cling to the boy's neck with spidery hands.

No longer was the lad a helpless youngster who needed constant looking after. Wise in the ways of the jungle, David went off alone on long expeditions into the forest. He had his first sight of Trajah, the elephant, and wondered what it would be like to climb upon that, towering gray back and ride in state through the jungle. Some day, he vowed, Trajah would also become his friend and his desire would be gratified. He met Quog, the wild pig, and stayed that beast's startled flight with a guttural call. While swimming in the lake, he was in turn startled by a great beast that rose snorting from the shallows. And so he made the acquaintance of Wal-lah, the hippopotamus.

O

n many of these trips Nono accompanied him, sometimes riding on his shoulder, sometimes swinging through the vines and branches that overhung the jungle floor. And several times, though he did not know it, he had another companion. A flitting, tawny shape kept pace with him, silent as a shadow. Zar, the lion, had never forgotten the stick that spurted flame and roared. Neither had he forgotten his first instinctive knowledge that these strange two-legged creatures somehow menaced his jungle supremacy.

Still patient and watchful, biding his time, Zar had watched the cub grow to be big and strong. Some day, he sensed, the issue must be decided. No rival must stand before him.

Sha, the lioness, his regal mate, was less cautious. Twice David had seen her, once departing gorged from a kill, another at twilight when she drank from the edge of the lake. Remembering the charge of N'Jaga, he realized that here was a still more formidable enemy. He fingered his crude weapons--and wondered.

But the gods of the jungle were nothing if not capricious. And the outcome of the first meeting between Zar and David was a surprising one.

It had been a hot, sultry day. There was meat at the camp to last them several days and a fire already prepared against the coming night. John Rand was busy fashioning a new spear. Young David, footloose and fancy-free, had wandered deep into the jungle in the hope of finding Trajah the elephant.

His search had been unsuccessful. The sun dropped more swiftly toward the waiting mountain peak. A belated butterfly, large as a saucer and shimmering as a sapphire, floated across his path. A floating speck in the cloudless sky brought David's eyes upward. It circled downward in a tight spiral, grew larger as it descended. Then with wings slanted back Kru, the buzzard, dropped like a plummet toward the earth.

Curiously David veered off and made for the spot where Kru had landed. And a few moments later his arrival sent the ungainly bird flapping up from a carcass. The kill had been a small antelope and it was still fresh. Great chunks had been taken from one shoulder and haunch. And around the spot, the damp jungle floor was marked with the impressions of huge paws.

David dropped down to one knee and examined them. The pupils of his eyes, dilated and a strange tingling stirred at the nape of his neck. For the impressions had been made by a lion pair, and the larger, those of the male, were of monstrous size. Zar and his mate were in the vicinity.

David rose, cast a glance over his shoulder at the setting sun for his direction, and then proceeded, more cautiously now, toward the distant camp.

Twilight fell as he reached a swamp that he must traverse and he took to the lower branches of the trees. A good fifteen feet above the treacherous mire he traveled swiftly and safely, swinging from bough to bough as Nono had taught him; occasionally flying far through the air to catch the next stout limb.

Jacaru the crocodile slithered through the morass below him. Bats wheeled, ghost-like, past his head. In the dim light, sky, trees and underbrush were of a monotonous grayness. And the spell of the twilight, before the night came with its noisy life, lay like a hush over the land.

Then suddenly the stillness was rent by a mighty roar. And even before its echoes had died away, it came again. David crouched on a swaying limb and listened. He knew that bloodcurdling sound--he had heard it many times before. Only the deep-throated bellow of Zar could wake such echoes in the jungle. But this time, there was a new note in the stentorian call. David's keen ears told him that and more. He would have sworn it--that note was fear.

T

he roar had come from a spot not far before him. Without further hesitation, he redoubled his speed through the trees. And a moment later he halted in amazement.

For once the wise monarch of the jungle had erred--he had made a fatal misstep. Something far more treacherous than any living creature, had him in its grasp. Zar the mighty floundered in a patch of quicksand. And with each struggle to gain the safety of the bank, his massive tawny body sank lower into the slimy depths.

David took in the scene with one swift, all-inclusive glance. On the bank, strange whines issuing from her throat, crouched Sha. Helpless, she watched the death struggles of her fallen lord, but she dared not venture toward him. All around the quicksand was solid, grass-tufted land. But Zar was up to his haunches now and he could not hope to gain it. Even in the murky light David could see the hopeless light in the lion's amber eyes--and he could not resist the forlorn appeal.

He dropped lightly down from the tree. Zar's struggles ceased for a moment as his head swung in that direction. Sha growled, her tail lashed and she tensed her muscles for a spring.

But the desperate need of his situation did something strange to Zar's brain. Whether he realized that no enemy would come to attack him now, already doomed as he was, or whether the low words that David called out to him conveyed an unmistakable note of friendliness, will never be known. But Zar growled a peremptory command at his mate and she subsided again, whining.

David worked swiftly. With his knife he slashed desperately at boughs and brush, seized a great armful of the fallen branches and thrust them out across the morass toward the helpless lion. Exerting all his magnificent strength, Zar drew his right forepaw free of the clinging sands. Digging into the boughs, he drew himself slowly forward.

But as his tremendous weight shifted upon them, the tangle of boughs sank slowly but surely into the quicksand. Hastily David slashed down more, added them as fast as he could work to Zar's sinking foothold.

It was a matter of minutes in actual time, but it seemed eternity to the strange trio. Inch by inch Zar drew his tiring body from the quagmire that seemed reluctant to lose its prey. But David saw that they were cheating Death of its hold and he redoubled his efforts. And at last the lord of the jungle crawled across the settling boughs and gained the bank.

For a long moment in the dying twilight they faced each other across the quagmire. Sha nuzzled her master's draggled mane. From glowing eyes Zar surveyed the man cub as he stood, straddle-legged and breathing heavily, beneath the tree from which he had dropped.

And there a strange pact of truce was made. Zar growled--a low, rumbling note that held no enmity. David gave guttural answer to show that he understood. And then as night fell, the great beast turned and with his mate at his side, stalked silently into the jungle.

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