Now I have saved Akut from
death beneath the rending fangs of Sheeta.
"When Akut or the tribe of Akut is in danger, let them call to
Tarzan thus"--and the ape-man raised the hideous cry with which
the tribe of Kerchak had been wont to summon its absent members in
times of peril.
"And," he continued, "when they hear Tarzan call to them, let them
remember what he has done for Akut and come to him with great speed.
Shall it be as Tarzan says?"
"Huh!" assented Akut, and from the members of his tribe there rose
a unanimous "Huh."
Then, presently, they went to feeding again as though nothing had
happened, and with them fed John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
He noticed, however, that Akut kept always close to him, and was
often looking at him with a strange wonder in his little bloodshot
eyes, and once he did a thing that Tarzan during all his long
years among the apes had never before seen an ape do--he found a
particularly tender morsel and handed it to Tarzan.
As the tribe hunted, the glistening body of the ape-man mingled
with the brown, shaggy hides of his companions. Oftentimes they
brushed together in passing, but the apes had already taken his
presence for granted, so that he was as much one of them as Akut
himself.
If he came too close to a she with a young baby, the former would
bare her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally
a truculent young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached
while the former was eating.
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