And possibly the root of this dissatisfaction lay in the fact that
he realized that were he again to have the same opportunity he
would still find it as impossible to slay a woman as it had been
in Wilhelmstal that night.
Tarzan blamed this weakness, as he considered it, upon his association
with the effeminizing influences of civilization, for in the bottom
of his savage heart he held in contempt both civilization and its
representatives--the men and women of the civilized countries of
the world. Always was he comparing their weaknesses, their vices,
their hypocrisies, and their little vanities with the open,
primitive ways of his ferocious jungle mates, and all the while
there battled in that same big heart with these forces another mighty
force--Tarzan's love and loyalty for his friends of the civilized
world.
The ape-man, reared as he had been by savage beasts amid savage
beasts, was slow to make friends. Acquaintances he numbered by the
hundreds; but of friends he had few. These few he would have died
for as, doubtless, they would have died for him; but there were
none of these fighting with the British forces in East Africa, and
so, sickened and disgusted by the sight of man waging his cruel
and inhuman warfare, Tarzan determined to heed the insistent call
of the remote jungle of his youth, for the Germans were now on the
run and the war in East Africa was so nearly over that he realized
that his further services would be of negligible value.
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