At night they slept where darkness overtook them, lying
upon the ground, and sometimes covering their heads, and
more seldom their bodies, with the great leaves of the
elephant's ear. Two or three might lie cuddled in each other's
arms for additional warmth if the night were chill, and thus
Tarzan had slept in Kala's arms nightly for all these years.
That the huge, fierce brute loved this child of another race
is beyond question, and he, too, gave to the great, hairy beast
all the affection that would have belonged to his fair young
mother had she lived.
When he was disobedient she cuffed him, it is true, but she
was never cruel to him, and was more often caressing him
than chastising him.
Tublat, her mate, always hated Tarzan, and on several
occasions had come near ending his youthful career.
Tarzan on his part never lost an opportunity to show that
he fully reciprocated his foster father's sentiments, and
whenever he could safely annoy him or make faces at him or hurl
insults upon him from the safety of his mother's arms, or the
slender branches of the higher trees, he did so.
His superior intelligence and cunning permitted him to invent
a thousand diabolical tricks to add to the burdens of
Tublat's life.
Early in his boyhood he had learned to form ropes by
twisting and tying long grasses together, and with these he
was forever tripping Tublat or attempting to hang him from
some overhanging branch.
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