Текст книги "Tarzan. Complete Collection"

Автор книги: Edgar Burroughs

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS TARZAN AND THE TARZAN TWINS

WITH JAD-BAL-JA THE GOLDEN LION A TARZAN BOOK FOR YOUNG READERS First published by Whitman Publishing Co., Racine, Wisconsin, Mar 1936

TABLE OF CONTENTS

                      Chapter One—Back To The Jungle

                      Chapter Two—The Storm

                      Chapter Three—The Sun Worshippers

                      Chapter Four—Danger Ahead

                      Chapter Five—To The Rescue!

                      Chapter Six—The Twins' Plan

                      Chapter Seven—In The Nick Of Time

                      Chapter Eight—The Tarzan Trio

                      Chapter Nine—The Ambush

                      Chapter Ten—Filled With Despair

                      Chapter Eleven—Striking From The Rear

                      Chapter Twelve—The Sacrifice

                      Chapter Thirteen—The End

CHAPTER ONE—BACK TO THE JUNGLE

"Golly, but he's a whopper, isn't he?" exclaimed Dick.

"Gee, isn't he a beaut?" cried Doc. "I'll bet he could kill an elephant, almost."

"What's his name?" asked Dick.

"This is Jad-bal-ja," replied Tarzan of the Apes.

"The Golden Lion!" shouted Doc. "Not really—is he?"

"Yes, the Golden Lion," Tarzan assured them.

The three stood before a stout cage that stood in the rear of Tarzan's bungalow on his African estate the day following the arrival there of the Tarzan Twins after their rescue from the fierce Bagalla cannibals, who had captured Dick and Doc after they had wandered away from the derailed train that had been carrying them on a visit to Tarzan of the Apes, who was distantly related to Dick's father.

It had been this relationship, coupled with a remarkable resemblance between the two boys, that had won for them the name of Tarzan Twins from their fellows at the English school they attended. Perhaps their resemblance to one another was not so strange after all, if we consider the fact that the boys' mothers were twin sisters.

And not only that.

One of them had married an American and remained in her native country—this was Doc's mother—and the other had married an Englishman and sailed away across the Atlantic to live in England, where Dick was born on the very same day that Doc was born in America.

And now, after passing through such adventures as come to very few boys in this world, Dick and Doc were safe under the protection of the famous ape-man and while they were looking forward to many interesting experiences, they were sure that from now on they would be perfectly safe and that never again would they be in such distressing danger as that from which they had just escaped.

Nor were they sorry, for while they were normal boys and, like all normal boys, loved adventure, they had discovered that there was a limit beyond which adventure was no longer enjoyable, and that limit lay well upon the safe side of cannibal flesh pots.

It was well for Dick and Doc, as it is, perhaps, for all of us, that they could not look into the future.

"Gee, you're not going to let him out, are you?" demanded Doc, as Tarzan of the Apes slipped the bolt that secured the door of Jad-bal-ja's cage.

"Why, yes," replied the ape-man. "He is seldom confined when I am at home, other than at night. It would scarcely be necessary even then were it not for the fact that some of my people, filled with an instinctive fear of lions, would not dare venture from their huts at night were Jad-bal-ja abroad. And then, too," he added, "there is something that they will always remember, that I am prone to forget—that, after all, a lion is always a lion. To me Jad-bal-ja is friend and companion, so much so that sometimes I forget that he is not a man, or that I am not a lion."

"He looks fierce," said Doc.

"Won't he bite us?" asked Dick.

"When I am with him he will harm no one unless I tell him to," replied Tarzan, as he swung the cage door wide.

Dick and Doc stood as rigid as pewter soldiers as the great, tawny beast stepped majestically from his cage. The round yellow eyes, the terrifying eyes, surveyed them, and Tarzan spoke in a language that the boys did not understand as Jad-bal-ja advanced and sniffed their clothing and their hands.

"I am telling him that you are my friends," explained Tarzan of the Apes, "and that he must never harm you in the least."

"I hope he understands you," said Doc, and Tarzan smiled.

"We will take a walk," he said, "and presently the lion will become accustomed to you. Pay no attention to him. Do not touch him, unless he comes and rubs his head against you, which he will not. It is his way of showing affection for me and my family—a mark which he has not bestowed upon others."

"Don't worry," said Dick. "I'll not touch him if I can help it!"

"What does 'Jad-bal-ja' mean?" asked Doc, as the four passed through the gate and out onto the rolling veldt that stretched away to the hills on one side and to the forest and the jungle on the other.

"It is taken from the language of the tailed people of Pal-ul-don," explained Tarzan. "Jad means the; bal is their word for either gold or golden, and ja is lion. I found him, a tiny cub, beside his dead mother, after I had escaped from Pal-ul-don, and was returning home. Even then, he had an unusually golden hue and the language of Pal-ul-don, being fresh in my mind, I named him Jad-bal-ja, The Golden Lion."

As they walked the boys asked a thousand questions which Tarzan answered good-naturedly and to the best of his ability, which was excellent, inasmuch as the boys confined their questions rather closely to Tarzan's life in the jungle, which seemed to them quite the most interesting subject in the world.

"What do you boys want to do?" asked Tarzan. "We have the whole day before us."

"I should like to go into the jungle," said Dick, rather wistfully.

"Me too," said Doc.

"I should think that you boys had had enough of the jungle for a while," laughed the ape-man.

"There is a fascination about it that I cannot explain," replied Dick. "I am afraid of the jungle and yet I want to go back into it."

"I sure like to be in it with you," said Doc, looking adoringly at Tarzan. "How long would it take us to walk over there?"

"About two hours. Could you stand it and the return journey?"

"Could we? I'll say we could," cried Dick.

"How about you, Doc?" demanded Tarzan.

"Sure!"

"All right," said the ape-man, "and if we don't want to come back tonight we don't have to. The jungle gives food and shelter to its people—and freedom. That is why I love it."

"Let's go," said the Tarzan Twins, speaking together almost in the same breath.

Tarzan nodded and led the way.

In high spirits they crossed the veldt, the great lion pacing at the side of its savage master, the two lads drinking in every word of jungle lore that fell from the lips of the ape-man.

Tarzan and the twins wore loin cloths and head bands and carried the simplest and most primitive of weapons—each had a bow and arrows, a spear and a knife. Tarzan, in addition, carried the grass rope that long habit had made almost a part of him.

As the cannibals had stolen the clothing that Dick and Doc had worn when they were captured and as their trunks were still at the rail head, there had really been nothing else for the boys to wear other than the primitive apparel in which they were garbed; but, if the truth were known, they were more than satisfied and would have scorned such symbols of effete civilization as pants and shirts.

Their life with the cannibals and their flight through the jungle had accustomed them to scant attire and had already somewhat hardened their youthful bodies against the rigors of the primeval world that beckoned to them from beyond the borders of the veldt.

With light hearts and eager faces they left the veldt behind and entered the gloomy corridors of the African jungle.

Safe in the companionship of the giant man and the great lion that accompanied them, they were troubled by no fears whatever.

CHAPTER TWO—THE STORM

Deep into the jungle the ape-man led them, while overhead Manu the monkey chattered and scolded, reproaching Tarzan for bringing Numa the lion to disturb his peace; but neither Tarzan nor Jad-bal-ja paid any attention to the little monkey, and now the two boys noticed that Tarzan had grown suddenly silent. He answered their questions shortly or not at all and there was a serious expression upon his face. Often he watched Jad-bal-ja attentively and often he paused to sniff the air or to listen.

Presently he turned to the boys.

"Something is wrong in the jungle," he said. "Jad-bal-ja has sensed it. I do not yet know what it is. Have you noticed that he has become nervous? He has sensed something that even I cannot as yet sense. I think it lies up wind from us and that would be natural since the scent of Jad-bal-ja, the flesh eater, is keen indeed. Remain here with Jad-bal-ja while I go and investigate. It may be nothing. A storm is coming—that I have sensed for the past hour—and it may be only the coming storm that has affected the nerves of the Golden Lion. In the jungle, however, he who would live must know—he may not guess."

The two boys watched the giant ape-man swing away through the lower branches of the jungle trees and a moment later they were alone with the great cat that paced nervously to and fro, occasionally eyeing them through those cruel, round, yellow eyes that looked anything but friendly and reassuring to the twins.

"Gee," said Doc, "I wish Tarzan had taken him along with him."

"He left him here to guard us, you poor ninny," snapped Dick, his tone of voice plainly evidencing his own nervousness.

"All right, but I can't help but remember what he said about him."

"What did he say about him, except that he wouldn't hurt anyone unless Tarzan told him to?" demanded Dick.

"Yes, smarty, but he also said, 'When Tarzan is with him,' but that isn't what I remember most," retorted Doc.

"Well, then, what is it you remember so fine?"

"Tarzan said: 'After all a lion is always a lion!'"

"You would remember something like that!" growled Dick.

"I believe," said Doc, "that I'll just climb this tree for the fun of it."

"Fraidy-cat!"

"Fraidy-cat nothing! I'm not afraid. I just want to practice climbing. You can't ever tell when it will come in handy, especially in the jungle."

"Suppose he doesn't want us to climb?" Dick nodded in the direction of Jad-bal-ja.

"Why shouldn't he want us to climb?" demanded Doc.

"Well, if he's thinking of being a lion, and is hungry, I guess that would be a pretty good reason for him not to want us to climb."

"Who said I could think of things? I never would have thought of anything like that. It took you to do it."

"Oh, any time you weren't thinking of the same thing yourself," scoffed Dick.

"Well, I wasn't thinking it out loud, anyway," retorted Doc.

Dick said no more.

Jad-bal-ja was moving about restlessly. It was quite obvious that he was nervous. His great head erect, his ears up-pricked, he looked off into the jungle in the direction that Tarzan had gone; then he turned and strode a small circle, whining.

Then suddenly the lion's yellow-green eyes fell upon the two boys and he opened his mouth, exposing huge fangs, and voiced a low roar.

"W-what do you suppose he did that for?" whispered Doc.

"Maybe he's just trying to talk to us," suggested Dick.

"I wish I knew whether it was a threat or a promise," said Doc, beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable and painfully uncertain of the future.

"Maybe we had better climb the tree after all," whispered Dick. "Perhaps we could see Tarzan if we climbed high enough."

"You go first," said Doc.

"No," expostulated Dick. "You go first—it was your idea."

"But if he saw me escaping he might go for you," suggested Doc.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Dick. "Here are two trees just about the same size. You stroll sort of nonchalant-like over to one of them and I'll say 'climb,' and then we'll both climb as fast as we can. What do you say, shall we do it?"

"I say hop to it and the sooner the quicker," was Doc's answer.

"There! He's looking the other way now. Now's the time!"

The two boys, glancing fearfully over their shoulders, walked slowly toward their respective trees. If they were nervous, who may blame them? A forest lion at large in his grim jungle is a terrifying creature; so terrifying, in fact, that some persons, meeting one in the jungle, have been known to kneel in a paralysis of fear, waiting for the great beast to come and devour them, offering now defense and no resistance.

Jad-bal-ja, hearing the boy's footfalls, turned his fierce eyes upon them. Doc gasped. Dick tried to swallow, but failed. His throat was suddenly dry and parched. They were but a few steps from the trees they had selected and they did not stop. Their greatest difficulty was to restrain a desire to run.

Jad-bal-ja eyed them questioningly, then he started slowly toward them. Now the boys were at the foot of their respective trees.

"Climb!" gasped Dick, and in the instant both were scrambling up the boles of the trees as fast as they could go.

Jad-bal-ja halted in his tracks and watched them. Upon his wrinkled face was an expression that might have been pained surprise, and when the boys reached the safety of branches that swung high above the ground and looked down they saw the lion squatting upon his haunches staring steadily upward at them.

"There!" cried Dick. "I knew he wouldn't hurt us. He never tried to stop us at all. Golly, but you're sure a fraidy-cat. I'd hate to have Tarzan come back and find us up here."

"All right, if you're so brave, go on down. I don't care who finds me here. I'd rather be up here all in one piece than scattered around down there on the ground," was Doc's reply.

"Aw, shucks, he wouldn't hurt a flea," insisted Dick. "Look at him."

"Maybe he wouldn't, but I am not so unappetizing as a flea."

"You haven't the nerve of one anyway," Dick scoffed tauntingly.

"All right, instead of talking so much, why don't you go on down and play with him?"

"I guess I will."

Doc laughed raucously.

"All right, watch me!" cried Dick, making ostentatious preparations to descend.

Doc watched him intently. Dick slid from the branch upon which he had been sitting, grasped the bole of the tree with both arms and prepared to slide down to the ground.

"Aw, don't, Dick," cried Doc. "Please don't. Better not take any chances."

"All right," said Dick, "if you don't want me to, I won't," and he climbed back onto his branch again, to perch there safely.

"Gee, but it's getting dark," exclaimed Doc. "Do you suppose it's as late as that?"

"It must be the storm that Tarzan said was coming. Yes, look up there!"

Through a break in the dense foliage overhead, black, angry clouds could be seen billowing low above the forest. The gloom of the jungle deepened. The air became very quiet—breathless—as though the heart of Nature had momentarily ceased to beat. Presently the tree tops bent as though pressed down by a mighty palm. Then they whipped back. The wind shrieked, the trees waved wildly against the racing clouds, the lightning flashed—jagged, blinding lightning—and then the thunder crashed and roared and with it came the rain, not in drops, but in great sheets and gusts, borne on the frothing teeth of the hurricane.

The two boys were separated by a distance of scarce twenty feet, yet they could neither see nor hear one another, though each shouted at the top of his lungs in an effort to assure himself that the other was still safe and sound.

Branches, torn from great trees, hurtled through the air. Patriarchs of the jungle crashed to the earth, carrying lesser trees with them and adding to the horrid pandemonium that reigned supreme.

Dick and Doc clung with difficulty to their perilous perches, each sure that the other was dead and that he would soon join him. It seemed beyond the remotest possibility that any living thing could escape the fury of that titanic Saturnalia.

For an hour the storm raged, and then gradually it abated, but the rain still beat down, the wind still whined and moaned through the stricken jungle and the intense darkness persisted in only a slightly lessened degree.

Shivering with cold, the boys sat with bowed heads, the rain beating upon their naked backs, and waited. What they waited for they scarcely knew or dared to think.

Each boy thought that he was alone. Each was sure that Tarzan had been killed or injured in the terrific storm. Each wondered how he was to find his way alone back to the bungalow.

Dick raised his head and looked hopelessly about. Through the gloom and the rain he looked sorrowfully in the direction of the branch upon which Doc had been sitting when the storm broke. Dimly he discerned a figure hunched up miserably in an endeavor to avoid buffeting from the storm.

"Doc!" he cried.

The figure was electrified to life. It straightened and wheeled about.

"Dick!"

"Gee!" exclaimed Dick. "I thought you were surely gone."

"And I thought you were gone. I yelled my head off at you for an hour."

"I never heard you. Didn't you hear me?" Dick said in amazement.

"No. I guess nobody could hear anything in that awful racket. Say, did you ever hear anything like it?" demanded Doc.

"I should say not, and I don't want to ever again, either."

"What had we better do?" asked Doc. "Do you suppose Tarzan could find us now?"

"He could if—"

"If what?"

"If he is alive."

"Gee, you don't suppose—?" Doc hesitated.

"I don't see how we ever lived through it," said Dick. "Why the whole forest was tumbling down all around us."

"I'm cold," said Doc.

"I'm nearly frozen," said Dick.

The two boys shivered, their teeth chattering.

"We can't stay here, Dick. We'd die of exposure."

"What'll we do?"

"We've got to keep moving. We've got to keep our blood circulating."

"Do you suppose we could find the way back to the bungalow?" demanded Dick.

"I didn't pay much attention to directions when we came in here," admitted Doc. "I just depended on Tarzan; but we've got to do something. We can't sit here until we die of pneumonia. Let's beat it."

Simultaneously the two boys looked searchingly at the ground beneath them. Then they looked back questioningly at one another.

"Do you see him?" asked Dick.

"No," replied Doc. "Do you suppose he's gone? If not, where is he?"

"He might be hiding in the brush."

"Oh, well," said Doc, "you're not afraid so we might as well go on down."

"I think I'll practice swinging through the trees," said Dick.

Doc grinned. Cold and miserable as he was, he could not help it.

"All right," he agreed, "I'll practice with you. Which way do we go?"

CHAPTER THREE—THE SUN WORSHIPPERS

Cowering from the storm, twenty frightful men huddled close for warmth, crouching beneath the scant protection of a rude shelter, hastily thrown together at the first warning of the impending deluge.

Matted hair covered their heads and faces, almost concealing their close-set, wicked eyes, and black hair grew no less profusely upon their shapeless bodies, their long, gorilla-like arms and their short, crooked, stubby legs.

They were bent and crooked men with low brows and beast-like faces. Like gnomes or hobgoblins they seemed; but they were not. They were men of a sort, men of a low and degraded type, bearing down through countless ages more of the attributes of the ape-like men from whom we are all supposed to be descended than are apparent in normal men.

These twenty were outcasts from the golden city of Opar, where La, the High Priestess of The Flaming God, reigns supreme, since Cadj, the wicked High Priest, is dead.

They had been the followers of Cadj and traitors all to La, and now, with Cadj dead, they had fled Opar and were wandering the trackless jungle in search of some secluded spot where they might build themselves a new temple.

All night they crouched in the cold and wet, but with the first faint gleam of dawn they stirred, one by one, and looked about them.

Gulm was the first to rise to his feet. In one hand he carried a knotted cudgel. A leather cord about his thick waist supported a crude knife. From beneath beetling brows he glowered about him through the darkness. He turned his face toward the east. The rain ceased. The sky was cloudless.

Gulm kicked those nearest him. "Up," he commanded. "Up and make ready to greet the coming of the Flaming God who brings a new day."

His fellows stirred. One by one they arose, sluggishly, beast-like. Some of them growled almost like animals. The sky in the east grew rapidly lighter. The Equatorial day was rolling out of the black heavens with all its wonted suddenness. It revealed the hideous twenty—uncouth, filthy. But what is this? It is no gnarled and awful man that lies huddled in the mud at the center of the fetid pack. Its body and its limbs are symmetrical; it's skin is white, even through the mud that is caked upon it. Matted hair covers its shapely head, but it is not coarse, black hair—it is fine and silky and blond.

Prodded by some of the creatures near it, it arose, stiffly, painfully—a girl, a little white girl with golden hair.

"Hurry!" commanded Gulm.

Two of the frightful men seized the girl and dragged her from the shelter out into the open. Gulm pointed toward the east, and mechanically, dully, the girl faced the rising sun and stood motionless, almost automatically.

Behind her the twenty sun worshippers knelt in the mud, facing the east, and Gulm led them in a weird, savage chant as the great, red orb of day rose slowly above the unseen horizon.

From the heart of the dense forest they could not actually witness the rising sun, but Gulm timed the matutinal exercise so that it might coincide as closely as possible with the event.

The brief ceremony concluded, the men turned their attention to breakfast. Everything was too water-soaked from the recent rain to permit of fire making and so from dirty loin cloths, bits of raw or half-cooked meat were produced and squatting in the mud, the brutes ate a meager and a cold breakfast.

Gulm, swallowing, turned to one of his fellows to speak.

"How much further, Blk," he demanded, "to the place you found where we may build a new temple to carry on our worship?"

"One march, maybe two," replied the low-browed Blk indifferently.

"It must not be long," said Gulm. "If we do not soon construct a temple to the Flaming God and offer Him a sacrifice, in His anger He will destroy us all—every one of us!"

"Have we not found Him a new high priestess?" demanded another.

"Aye," assented Gulm, "but He must have His sacrifice. The Flaming God must eat and He looks to Gulm, His High Priest, to furnish Him His food, and Gulm looks to you, the lesser priests of the Flaming God, to find and fetch it. With Cadj dead and La turned against the ancient sacrificial customs of the ages, the Flaming God has only us to serve Him. He is very angry. All the hardships that we have endured since we were driven from Opar were but evidences of His displeasure. The storm of yesterday was, I feared, a sign of the termination of His mercy. Gulm believed that we were to be destroyed with all the world; but He has permitted us to live yet a while longer. He has given us another chance. But it was a sign—a sign that we must no longer ignore. The Flaming God must have a sacrifice. If no other can be found it must be one of us!"

His eyes roved savagely about among his fellows—eyes lit with the flaming maniacal fire of religious insanity.

Ulp glanced toward the little girl and jerked his head in her direction.

"Why not she?" he demanded, for he knew that, not being overly popular with Gulm, he might as readily be chosen by the high priest as another if it became necessary to choose a sacrifice from among their own ranks.

"No!" screamed Gulm and leaping upon Ulp he struck him down. "Who dares think harm to the High Priestess of The Flaming God should die."

Ulp scrambled to his feet and ran quickly out of Gulm's reach.

"I did not think harm," Ulp cried; "I but asked a question."

"Ask no more questions," warned Gulm. "No more questions at all."

"No," promised Ulp.

"I shall see that you do not have the opportunity," Gulm assured him, "for if we do not soon find a more suitable sacrifice you will be chosen."

Gulm growled and was silent.

Ulp squatted on his heels in the mud and devoured the remainder of his breakfast. So slightly removed from the lower orders was he that the threat of imminent death did not affect his appetite. However, he did not wish to die and so his cunning, brutal brain was occupied with muddy schemings for diverting Gulm's dislike from him to some other unfortunate member of the band.

While the brute-men ate so also did the little girl. From a pocket of her torn and dishevelled clothing she took a bit of cooked meat that she had saved from the last meal.

Ravenous, overpowering hunger had long since broken down the last barrier of fastidiousness and lake any other starving animal she ate to live, little though her palate relished the cold, tough, unseasoned meat that formed the bulk of her diet.

Even through the dirt and the evidences of hardship and hunger that were written so plainly upon her face and figure it was quite apparent that the little golden-haired girl had been very pretty. Indeed, she was still very pretty, but in a wan, thin, hopeless way that yet suggested the rounding contours, the rosy cheeks, the happy, smiling countenance of another day.

No one, to look at her, could have thought it possible that she had always lived among these hideous men or that she was in any slightest way related to them.

Nor had she always lived among them, nor was she related to them.

For two months they had held her in captivity and, according to their standards, they had treated her well. In no way had they harmed her and they had protected her from the dangers and hardships of the jungle to the best of their abilities and to the extent of their limited knowledge.

They had let no savage beasts attack her, they served her with the choicest of their rough, scant food, they built a shelter for her at night, and during the storm they gathered thick about her that the warmth of their bodies might save her from the harmful results of her exposure to the cold rain.

They did not do these things because of any sentiments of kindness or humanity, since they were not endowed with such; but selfishly for the furtherance of their own ends because they believed that it pleased The Flaming God to be represented on earth by a high priestess and because they had been taught that this cruel God of theirs would accept no sacrifice except at the hands of a woman, or rather that he preferred to be thus served by a priestess rather than by a priest. Why, they did not know.

During the two months of her captivity they had taught the girl their crude and simple language, which is also the language of the great apes, though the vocabulary of the sun worshippers contains many words that are not in the vocabulary of the great apes.

They had taught her many of the simple duties of her office, leaving the more elaborate temple rites to the time that they should have located a new temple site and built their first altar.

They called her Kla, which is a contraction of the two words meaning New La, and already they worshipped her quite as fanatically as they had worshipped La herself.

The child, for Kla was only that, was no longer actually afraid of these terrible men, for she had learned that they would not harm her, but none the less was she unhappy and miserable among them, pining for her own home and her parents, longing for clean clothing, for the luxury of a bath, for good food and a warm bed; but most of all for the love and companionship and understanding of a people of her own kind—whom she was afraid she would never see again.

She did not hate Gulm or the others, for there had never been any hate in the heart of this little twelve-year-old girl, who was all sweetness and beauty and purity.

If they had searched the world over Gulm and his fellows could scarce have discovered another more fit to be a high priestess than was little Kla, had they been looking for a high priestess of love and charity and humanity; but the devotees of the Flaming God cared nothing for these attributes in their High Priestess and so after all Kla was not at all suited to their purpose, as they must surely discover when the time came that she must take part in some of the more terrible of their religious rites, and it was well for the little girl that she could not foresee all that was to be demanded of her in the days to come.

Breakfast concluded, the party set forth once more in the direction of the new temple site that Blk had discovered and toward which he had been guiding them for several days.

They had proceeded for perhaps an hour or possibly two when Blk, who was in the lead, suddenly halted, giving a signal that sent the entire twenty silently out of sight into the concealing verdure of the surrounding jungle.

Silence reigned. The soaking jungle steamed beneath the Equatorial sun. Faintly, from afar, came the sound of footfalls, but long before he could hear these Blk had known that something was approaching them along the great game trail they chanced to be following at the moment.

Some sense, unknown to the dim faculties of civilized men, had warned the jungle creature.

What was it that came down the game trail toward the twenty frightful men?