Phobeg looked at his companion for a long time. One could almost see the laborious effort of cerebration going on beneath that thick skull. Then he shook his head. "That is not what we were talking about at all," he grumbled. "Now I have forgotten. I never saw anyone as stupid as you. When they called you a wild man they must have meant a crazy man. And I have got to remain locked in here with you for no one knows how long."
"You can always get rid of me," said Tarzan quite seriously.
"How can I get rid of you?" demanded the Cathnean.
"You can twist my neck, like this." Tarzan mimicked the pantomime in which Phobeg had explained how he rid himself of his enemies.
"I could do it," boasted Phobeg, "but then they would kill me. No, I shall let you live."
"Thanks," said Tarzan.
"Or at least while we are locked up here together," added Phobeg.
Experience had taught Tarzan that the more stupid or ignorant the man the more egotistical he was likely to be, but he had never before encountered such an example of crass stupidity and stupendous egotism as Phobeg presented. To be locked up at all with this brainless mass of flesh was bad enough in itself; but to be on bad terms with it at the same time would make matters infinitely less bearable, and so Tarzan determined to brook everything other than actual physical abuse that he might lighten the galling burden of incarceration.
Loss of liberty represented for Tarzan, as it does for all creatures endowed with brains, the acme of misery, more to be avoided than physical pain, yet, with stoic fortitude he accepted his fate without a murmur of protest; and while his body was confined between the narrow confines of four walls of stone his memories roved the jungle and the veldt and lived again the freedom and the experiences of the past.
He recalled the days of his childhood when fierce Kala, the she-ape that had suckled him at her hairy breast in his infancy, had protected him from the dangers of their savage life; and he recalled her gentleness and her patience with this backward child who must still be carried in her arms long after the balus of her companion shes were able to scurry through the trees seeking their own food and even able to protect themselves against their enemies by flight if nothing more.