The Tarzan Twins E-Book

Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 92

Beschreibung

The Tarzan Twins - Edgar Rice Burroughs - Two schoolboys, Dick and Doc, are cousins who resemble each other because their mothers are twins. As Dick is also related to Tarzan through his father, they become known as the Tarzan Twins. Invited to visit Tarzan's African estate, they become lost in the jungle and are imprisoned by cannibals, from whom they escape. They are then reunited with their host, who introduces them to his pet lion, Jad-bal-ja. Subsequently, they become involved in an adventure involving exiles from the lost city of Opar, who have kidnapped Gretchen von Harben, the daughter of a missionary.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Tarzan Twins

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Introduction

The Tarzan Twins, like all well-behaved twins, were born on the same day and, although they were not as "alike as two peas," still they resembled one another quite closely enough to fulfil that particular requirement of twinship; but even there they commenced breaking the rules that have been governing twins during the past several millions of years, for Dick had a shock of the blackest sort of black hair, while Doc's hair was the sunny hue of molasses candy. Their noses were alike, their blue eyes were alike; alike were their chins and their mouths. Perhaps Doc's eyes twinkled more and his mouth smiled more than Dick's for Dick did much of his twinkling and smiling inside and inside the boys were very much alike, indeed. But in one respect they shattered every rule that has been laid down for twins from the very beginning of time, for Dick had been born in England and Doc in America; a fact which upsets everything right at the beginning of the story and proves, without any shadow of a doubt, that they were not twins at all.

Why then did they look so much alike and why did everyone call them the Tarzan Twins? One could almost start a guessing contest with a conundrum like this, but the trouble is that no one would guess the correct solution, though the answer is quite simple. Dick's mother and Doc's mother were sisters—twin sisters—and they looked so much alike that they looked more alike than two peas, and as each boy resembled his mother—the result was—they resembled each other. Their mothers were American girls. One of them married an American and stayed at home—that was Doc's mother; and the other married an Englishman and sailed away to live on another continent in another hemisphere—and she was Dick's mother. When the boys were old enough to go away to school their parents had a brilliant idea, which was that the boys should receive half of their education in America and half in England. And this story will prove that the best laid plans of mice and mothers sometimes go wrong, for no one planned that the boys should get any of their education in Africa, whereas, as a matter of fact, Fate was arranging that they should learn more in the jungles of the Dark Continent than was ever between the covers of any school book.

When they were fourteen years old, Dick and Doc were attending an excellent English school where there were a great many future dukes and earls and arch-bishops and lord mayors, who, when they saw how much Dick and Doc resembled one another, called them "The Twins." Later, when they learned that Dick's father was distantly related to Lord Greystoke, who is famous all over the world as Tarzan of the Apes, the boys commenced to call Dick and Doc, "The Tarzan Twins"—so that is how the nickname grew and became attached to them.

As everyone knows tar means white in the language of the great apes, and go means black, so Doc, with his light hair, was known as Tarzan-tar and Dick, whose hair was black, was called Tarzan-go. It was all right to be called Tarzan-tar and Tarzan-go, until the other boys began to make fun of them because they could climb trees no better than many another boy and, while they were fair in athletic sports, they did not excel. It was right there and then that Dick and Doc decided that they would live up to their new names, for they did not enjoy being laughed at and made fun of, any more than any other normal, red-blooded boy does. It is simply staggering to discover what a boy can accomplish if he makes up his mind to it and so it was not long before Dick and Doc did excel in nearly all athletic sports and when it came to climbing trees—well, Tarzan himself would have had no reason to be ashamed of them. Though their scholastic standing may have suffered a little in the following months of athletic effort, their muscles did not, and as vacation time approached, Dick and Doc had become as hard as nails and as active as a couple of manus, which you will know, if your education has not been neglected, is the ape-word for monkeys.

Then it was that the big surprise came in a letter that Dick received from his mother. Tarzan of the Apes had invited them all to visit him and spend two months on his great African estate! The boys were so excited that they talked until three o'clock the next morning and flunked in all their classes that day. The disappointment that followed later when it was learned that Dick's father, who was an army officer, could not get leave of absence and Dick's mother would not go without him; the letters and cablegrams that were exchanged between England and America, and England and Africa; the frantic appeals of the boys to their parents are interesting only in the result they effected; which was that the boys were to go by themselves, Tarzan of the Apes having promised to meet them at the end of the railway with fifty of his own Waziri warriors, thus assuring their safe passage through savage Africa to the far-away home of the ape-man. And this brings us to the beginning of our story.

Chapter 1

1

A train wound slowly through mountains whose rugged slopes were green with verdure and out across a rolling, grassy veldt, tree dotted. From a carriage window, two boys, eager-eyed, excited, kept constant vigil. If there was anything to be seen they were determined not to miss it, and they knew that there should be many things to see.

"I'd like to know where all the animals are," said Dick, wearily. "I haven't seen a blamed thing since we started."

"Africa's just like all the one horse circuses," replied Doc. "They advertise the greatest collection of wild animals in captivity and when you get there all they have is a mangy lion and a couple of motheaten elephants."

"Golly! Wouldn't you like to see a real lion, or an elephant, or something?" sighed Dick.

"Look! Look!" exclaimed Doc suddenly. "There! There! See 'em?"

In the distance a small herd of springbok ran swiftly and gracefully across the veldt, the dainty little animals occasionally leaping high into the air. As the animals disappeared the boys again relapsed into attitudes of watchful waiting.

"I wish they'd been lions," said Dick.

The train, deserting the open country, entered a great forest, dark, gloomy, mysterious. Mighty trees, festooned with vines, rose from a tangle of riotous undergrowth along the right-of-way, hiding everything that lay beyond that impenetrable wall of flower-starred green,—a wall that added to the mystery of all that imagination could picture of the savage life moving silently behind it. There was no sign of life. The forest seemed like a dead thing. The monotony of it, as the hours passed, weighed heavily upon the boys.

"Say," said Doc, "I'm getting tired of looking at trees. I'm going to practice some of my magic tricks. Look at this one, Dick."

He drew a silver coin from his pocket, a shilling, and held it upon his open palm. "Ladies and gentlemen!" he declaimed. "We have here an ordinary silver shilling, worth twelve pence. Step right up and examine it, feel of it, bite it! You see that it is gen-u-ine. You will note that I have no accomplices. Now, ladies and gentlemen, watch me closely!"

He placed his other palm over the coin, hiding it, clasped his hands, blew upon them, raised them above his head.

"Abacadabra! Allo, presto, change ears and be gone! Now you see it, now you don't!" He opened his hands and held them palms up. The coin had vanished.

"Hurray!" shouted Dick, clapping his hands, as he had done a hundred times before, for Dick was always the audience.

Doc bowed very low, reached out and took the coin from Dick's ear, or so he made it appear. Then into one clenched fist, between the thumb and first finger, he inserted the stub of a lead pencil, shoving it down until it was out of sight. "Abacadabra! Allo! Presto! Change cars and be gone! Now you see it, now you don't!" Doc opened his hand and the pencil was gone.

"Hurray!" shouted Dick, clapping his hands, and both boys broke into laughter.

For an hour Doc practiced the several sleight of hand tricks he had mastered and Dick pretended to be an enthusiastic audience; anything was better than looking out of the windows at the endless row of silent trees.

Then, quite suddenly and without the slightest warning, the monotony was broken. Something happened. Something startling happened. There was a grinding of brakes. The railway carriage in which they rode seemed to leap into the air; it lurched and rocked and bumped, throwing both boys to the floor, and then, just as they were sure it was going to overturn, it came to a sudden stop, quite as though it had run into one of those great, silent trees.

The boys scrambled to their feet and looked out of the windows; then they hastened to get out of the car and when they reached the ground outside they saw excited passengers pouring from the train, asking excited questions, getting in everyone's way. It did not take Dick and Doc long to learn that the train, striking a defective rail, had run off the track and that it would be many hours before the journey could be resumed. For a while they stood about with the other passengers idly looking at the derailed carriages but this diversion soon palled and they turned their attention toward the jungle. Standing quietly upon the ground and looking at it was quite different from viewing it through the windows of a moving train. It became at once more interesting and more mysterious.

"I wonder what it is like in there," remarked Dick.

"It looks spooky," said Doc.

"I'd like to go in and see," said Dick.

"So would I," said Doc.

"There isn't any danger—we haven't seen a thing that could hurt a flea since we landed in Africa."

"And we wouldn't go in very far."

"Come on," said Dick.

"Hi, there!" called a man's voice. "Where you boys goin'?"

They turned to see one of the train guards who chanced to be passing.

"Nowhere," said Doc.

"Well whatever you do, don't go into the jungle," cautioned the man, moving on toward the head of the train.

"You'd be lost in no time."

"Lost!" scoffed Dick. "He must think we're a couple of zanies."