Story of the Phantom (7 page)

"Tell me," said Kit.

"Ask your father. Let him tell you," replied Guran.

Kit decided he would ask that night at dinner. As was usual in fair weather, they ate in the clearing before the Skull Throne. On rainy days, the meals were taken inside the Skull Cave. This was a special feast, wild boar. Kit himself had shot this dangerous animal several days before with a pygmy arrow. He had been hunting with Guran and his friends when the beast rushed him.

"He could have been killed!" his horrified mother said, clutching him when she heard the news.

"But he wasn't," said his father proudly.

"To Kit, for providing this beautiful meal," said his father raising his wooden cup in a toast. The juice of fruits, or spring water, were the only beverages in the Deep Woods. Sitting in the shadows of the campfire, Guran and the other pygmies snapped their fingers in the clicking sound they made to signify approval. Kit noticed that Old Man Moze was seated with Guran. That was unusual. The Teller of Tales rarely came out of his own little cave in the woods. As his father carved the juicy porker with his long hunting knife, Kit decided this was the time.

"Father, could you tell me a story?" he asked.

"Which story?" said his father busy at his task. Kit liked to hear his favorites again and again.

"A new story," he said.

"Hmm," said his father, considering. "Perhaps the tale of your great great grandfather and the Sultan of Pukmar."

"No. Your own story. How you met mother."

That surprised his father. He glanced at beautiful mother sitting in the flickering campfire light.

"Did you tell him about that?"

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"Not I," she said smiling.

He looked into the shadows.

"Guran?" he said.

"I told him only to ask about the tale. I told him not," he said grinning.

"Maybe another time," said the Twentieth.-

"Please, father," said Kit.

"Oh tell him," said beautiful mother. "It was a marvelous thing."

"Well, it was a simple matter. Your mother and her father were lost in the jungle. He was an explorer.

Some explorer! Didn't know north from south," he chuckled.

"My father was a scholar, a scientist," said his mother defensively.

"Right, and a famous one. An archeologist," he said, passing a portion of meat to her on a wooden plate. "That's a man who digs up the ruins of ancient cities, Kit. He was looking for the lost city of Pheenix, said to be buried in this jungle. But he never found it. I've heard rumors of it since in the land of the Oogaan . . ."

"Father, what did you do?" demanded Kit impatiently.

"A simple matter, son," said his father passing a portion to him. "I found them and led them out.

They went home. I didn't see your mother for another year," he added, and for some reason glanced at a chain that hung on a corner of the Skull Throne.

"Is that all?" demanded Kit.

"That's all," said his father, starting to eat.

"Oh, there was much more. Tell the boy," laughed his mother.

"We had a little trouble with a local tribe who lived in the trees, but it wasn't much."

"Lived in the trees? Like monkeys?" said Kit.

"Something like that," mumbled the Twentieth now busy with his meat.

'What else?" demanded Kit.

Kit looked helplessly toward Guran.

"Nothing else."

"That's no story," he said.

"Right. There isn't much to tell about it," said his father, as his mother shook her head hopelessly.

A thin voice came from the shadows. It was Old Man Moze, the Teller of Tales. Like most primitive people who had no writing and thus kept no written records, the pygmies kept track of their own 30

history verbally. There was more than one Teller of Tales, and these men were the books, the libraries, the records, and the histories of the tribe as they passed down the tales from generation to generation. Of all the Tellers, Old Man Moze was the oldest and knew the most. There were thousands of tales in orderly files in his mind, and, on all occasions, great or small, he brought forth a suitable one. No one, including Old Man Moze, knew how old he was. His face and body looked as though it were skillfully carved out of shining mahogany. His long hair and beard shone a dazzling white in the firelight as he stepped forward and leaned on his knobby staff.

"But there is much to tell about it, O Ghost Who Walks," said Old Man Moze. "Have I not told the great adventure to my people these many times, and shall I not tell it now to this son, this fruit of your loins, this pride of the Skull Cave, this inheritor of the grand tradition, this future Keeper of the Peace?"

Kit and Guran grinned at each other. They loved to hear Old Man Moze talk. He talked so strangely.

"I don't think it's necessary to hear it all now, Old Man Moze," said his father, paying close attention to his plate. "Perhaps another time."

"Now!" shouted Kit.

"Now," said his mother smiling. "Please tell us all the tale, Old Man Moze."

The old man bowed to her, a courtly bow like a nobleman in a palace, and his old bones creaked like a rusty hinge. He sat on a log near the fire, and, sipping spring water from a wooden cup, began the tale in his reedy singsong fashion.

THE ROPE PEOPLE

Word came to us that a white man and his daughter were lost near the great trees. It was said they searched for the lost city of Pheenix, which was a hopeless thing, since all know that this evil city was destroyed by the gods and buried deep from the sight of men so that the memory of those bad people would be gone forever. And so it is. (Kit glanced at Guran; the lost city of Pheenix? That was something he'd like to hear about, too.)

So the Phantom set out from this place to find the lost people, and save them from the terrors of the jungle. And mounted on his fiery steed called Lightning ("The sire of Thunder," said his father to Kit, interrupting), he made his way to the place of the Great Trees. ("This part of the jungle was new to me, Kit," said his father. "The trees there are gigantic. They almost touch the sky.") Old Man Moze did not seem to mind interruptions. He simply halted the narrative, like a needle being lifted from a phonograph record, and when the interruption was over, the needle was returned to the record and he simply went on as though there had been no pause at all.

He rode among the great trees and soon found their tracks, and being a keen huntsman, had no difficulty in following their trail. He found them at last, before a small campfire such as this one-an old man and his beautiful young daughter with golden hair-(Old Man Moze nodded to Kit's mother at this, and permitted himself a slight smile, which looked like a slow crack in old porcelain. Beautiful mother smiled graciously at the compliment.) It must be said they were surprised and frightened at the sight of this big masked stranger. (Beautiful mother nodded vigorously at that.) But he greeted them with his calm voice and assured them he was their friend and had come to aid them. And they were reassured and happy, for they had been afraid in the jungle night, and it is fortunate they had not suffered injury or death before this. Their luggage bearers had deserted them days before, being

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afraid to enter this unknown part of the jungle.

Then a curious thing happened, a thing such as one had never seen before. Ropes dropped from high above, from the great trees, ropes with loops on the ends, and dropped so swiftly and accurately about their shoulders and arms that the old man and his daughter were pulled up into the air before anyone knew. A rope had not fallen upon the Phantom, but he leaped to the girl's rope, and, clinging to it, was hoisted into the air with her. (That was scary, but thrilling," said his mother laughing.

"Shh," said Kit, annoyed to have the narrative broken.) They were pulled high up, far above the ground so that their campfire was only a tiny flicker below, like a star. Up, up, up, into the leafy boughs that seemed to touch the sky. (Old Man Moze was very dramatic when he told this tale. His eyes flashed, his hands gestured like an actor.) High in the trees, they found themselves in a strange village, for that is what was there. A village like many another, save that it was built on platforms resting on heavy ropes among the high branches. Yes, there were huts up there, and a clear place where the women pounded the nuts that made their bread, and where they carved their meat. They had no fire in this place for fear of destroying the trees, and ate uncooked meats. There were children there, and nursing mothers. And ropes were stretched from one platform to another, and the people walked on these ropes in an amazing and fearless manner. If one fell, as sometimes happened, there were ropes below to catch them.

It was amazing to see men, women, and children perched like birds on the ropes so high in the air. A boy suddenly slipped and fell into the air as the captives arrived. He caught himself on a line below, laughing, and none but the captives even looked at him.

While still hanging in the air on the rope of the girl, other strands were flung out at the Phantom, binding him securely, so that he could not use his weapons. On reaching the top, the weapons were taken from his belt. They were brought before the chief, who told them strangers were not permitted in this land of the Rope People. Trespassers were killed, by being dropped to the ground from this great height. A quick death, as if dropped from a cloud. But the chief and all the warriors looked at the Phantom with excitement, and with suspicion.

"By your garb, you would pretend to be the Phantom, himself," said the chief, to the amazement of the Phantom who had never known the Rope People.

"I do not pretend, I am," he replied.

"How can you be, when you profess ignorance of us and our ways? And yet if you are truly the Phantom you would know us well."

This puzzled the Twentieth but he did not question it. There was some mystery here. It was soon explained. The chief and leaders led him to a large hut. There on the wall were a series of drawings crudely done, as though by a child, not like the work of good artists. But the Twentieth clearly recognized the figures drawn there. There were four drawings of the Phantom. In the first, he stood on a poorly drawn elephant. In the second he was holding a great boulder over his head. In the third he was running, pursued by warriors with spears. And in the last he faced a man twice his height, a giant.

"Now," said the chief of the Rope People, "if you are the Phantom as you pretend to be, you will recognize that these are the feats you performed when you came here before. In the first picture, you are seen capturing an elephant with your bare hands. In the second, you are shown moving a great boulder. In the third, you avoided capture by our armed hunters for a full day. And in the last, you 32

defeated the champion of the jungle in a battle to the death."

The Twentieth was baffled and puzzled for he had never before seen these Rope People, nor had he performed these feats. But he realized the truth.

("Yes," broke in the Twentieth as he listened to Old Man Moze. "I realized they were talking about my father, not me. He had done all these things. From what I had read and heard of my ancestors, I believe it is true to say that my father was the strongest man of all the Phantom line. As a child, I saw him lift a horse as big as Thunder and carry him across a brook. But he never told me about these Rope People or the feats he performed there." Kit glanced at Guran, who nodded. The Phantom men did not talk about their accomplishments. They entered the facts in the Chronicles and left the talk to their descendants).

"Thus he realized that his father had been there and done these amazing things," continued Old Man Moze, as though there had been no interruption.

"Then," said the chief of the Rope People, "we cannot believe you are the Phantom, for that was many years ago and he would be an old man by now, but you are a strong young man. After he performed those deeds we made a pact of friendship with him. But we have no pact with you because you cannot be the Phantom."

"But I am the Phantom," said the masked man.

"Then, to save your life and the lives of the man and the girl, you must prove you are the Phantom. If you cannot prove it, you will all be thrown to the ground, to your deaths." And it was a long way to the ground, as from a cloud in the sky.

"What must I do to prove this to you?" he asked. And the chief said, "You must do again these feats you did then." And there was nothing else for him to do, or the girl and the old man would die. And he would die. So he - agreed.

("How could you capture an elephant with no weapons, and all those other things?" cried Kit, anxious and worried as though the events had not yet happened. "I worried about that myself, Kit.

These things seemed difficult or impossible. But there was no way out," replied his father.) And so he was lowered on a rope to the ground far below. The girl and her father remained in the village in the treetops. And his first task, to capture an elephant with no weapons, had to be accomplished by sundown, or the prisoners would be dashed to the earth, as from a cloud. So he thought and thought and an idea came to him. And he searched among the trees and bushes until he found what he needed, a special kind of tough jungle vine called Banga. And he found a sharp stone-for he had no other tool-and he pounded this vine until he had cut it, for it was the toughest and hardest of all jungle vines. (The listening pygmies nodded at the name, for they knew this vine.) And then he searched until he found the trail that the elephants make to their waterhole. And he found it.