The Story Behind the Cover—The Leopard Men!

by Unknown Author

Originally appearing in White Princess of the Jungle comics #3 in 1951.

Taanda, the White Princess of the Tauruti tribe, gazed across the flickering firelight into the troubled eyes of Chief Upatani, her foster father.

"It is as if the gods of the jungle wreak vengeance upon us for our many sins," Upatani said gloomily. "For three moons now, the spotted-killer-of-the-night has slain Tauruti tribesmen and Tauruti cattle, and for three moons, we have been unable to trap him."

Taanda, too, was troubled. The Tauruti tribe had adopted her as an infant and had raised her in the African jungle when her white father and mother had been killed by marauding natives. These people whose lives and the property was being threatened were her brothers and sisters. "But not once, o chief, has any of our warriors seen the spotted-killer-of-the night," she said, stirring the coals of the fire with a stick. "Are you certain that it is the spotted-killer-cat?"

Chief Upatani looked at his foster daughter as if she had suddenly lost her senses. He had gone on his first leopard hunt at the tender age of six and could not conceive that anyone could question his knowledge of the great cats. "Are not the marks of the claws upon the throats, of the slain?" he asked in mild astonishment. "Are not the bodies ripped by the fangs? It is the spotted-killer-of-the-night, but such a one as to be almost an evil spirit who knows how to drift by his hunters in the jungle without being seen!"

Taanda bowed her head in sorrow at the older man's discomfort. The flames leaped high for an instant and reflected tawnily in her copper hair. Then she looked up.

Let me take Koru, my little brother," she said. "Together, we are mightier than any beast in the jungle and slier than all the evil spirits."

Upatani trembled, for Koru was his beloved son, the destined ruler of the Tauruti tribe after the old man died. Then he saw the fearless light in the girl's eyes, and he felt better. He reached out and touched her white shoulder with a wrinkled brown hand.

"So be it, my daughter," he said.

Koru ran lightly and effortlessly by Taanda's side. Without hesitation, they glided through the thick growth of the Gongo jungle, finding openings in the matted vegetation which the eye could not see. Taanda's little brother was almost as tall as she, and strong bands of muscle rippled smoothly under his gleaming brown skin as he ran. Suddenly Taanda stopped running, and the boy slowed also and looked at her questioningly.

"It is in this part of the jungle that our men and cattle were slain," Taanda said. "Now, we must begin our search. Koru will take one part of the jungle and Taanda the other. When the sun is low in the sky, we shall meet here and share what we have found."

Koru nodded. Then his white teeth flashed in a smile, and he turned and melted into the jungle shadows.

All that day, Taanda searched the jungle for traces of a killer leopard. But the jungle life was serene and unmarked by terror. The chatter of the monkeys was bold and audacious, and the parrots and other jungle fowl spoke raucously from the low-hanging vines. Taanda knew that the first sign of a killer beast in the area would have been the sudden quiet which stole over the small creatures of the wilderness as they crept into hiding in fear of their lives. So at dusk, it was with no new knowledge that she slipped back to the site at which she had arranged the meeting with Koru. But the prince of the Taururi was not there when she arrived, and she waited with an increasingly heavy heart as the hours slipped by and he did not put in an appearance.

When the African night had poured inkily into the jungle, she decided to wait no longer, and, moving cautiously, she advanced into that part of the jungle into which Koru had disappeared earlier in the day.

She had not traveled far before she heard the drums. They throbbed through the night in wild beating that sang of torture and savagery, and Taanda's blood froze as she recognized the primitive rhythm of—the WITCH MEN! Taanda had heard the old crones of the Tauruti speak in tones of hushed fear of the witch men of the Congo-and of their practice of taking a new animal god every ten years and worshiping the animal idol with blood sacrifices! Soon she was close enough to hear the bowling and yelping of the savages, and it was with cold dread that she recognized the animal noises they made, for they were imitating the noises of the leopard, the spotted-killer-of-the-night!

With pounding heart, Taanda crept through the vegetation and peered into the clearing where the Leopard Men danced. And what she saw made her shudder in terror! Tied to a tree trunk adorned with five sun-bleached skulls was Koru, and dancing wildly around him in blood-lust were the Leopard Men of the Congo!

The Leopard Men were a sight to instill awe and trepidation into even so stout a heart as that possessed by the White Princess. Each savage was dressed in the pelt of a killer cat, with the horrible feline head of the beast fastened to each man's forehead by the two terrible front fangs.

Even as Taanda watched, the cultists' leader stopped dancing and waited in front of Koru until the tumult had died down. Then, holding the sharpened claws of a leopards paw within an inch of the bound boy's throat, the Leopard man spoke. His dialect was of a West African tribe, but Taanda understood him quickly.

"You will live until dawn," he said, fixing Koru with a beady stare. "And then, if the rising sun does not save you—you will die!"

Immediately the savage howling of the leopard filled the clearing eerily, and Taanda shrank back into the protective shadows of the brush.

The night which followed was a long one for the White Princess. She lay outside the little clearing and watched the horrible revelry as the natives danced to the pulsing beating of the tom-toms. And gradually, a plan was formulated in her mind.

Dawn was slow in coming to the Congo. But finally, the first rays of the early morning sun shone through the foliage and made the sweat-drenched figures of the dancers gleam dully in the early light. At a signal from the leader, the drums ceased. Sharpened claw in hand, he danced slowly toward Koru. When he was directly in front of the boy, he started to whirl, and each turn brought the deadly claws closer and closer to the unprotected throat of the prince of the Tauruti.

Taanda knew that if she were to act, the time had come. Carefully she loosened the knife in her belt and then bounded into the clearing. In a moment, she had reached the side of the leader of the Leopard men. The startled savage started to grapple with her, but once and then again, her keen blade flashed in the sunlight, and he fell at her feet, gasping in a death-rattle. The White Princess whirled to face the shocked Leopard Men.

"Tam, the sun goddess!" she screamed.

The sun seemed to lend credence to her words. It turned the redness of her hair into a fiery mist that contrasted dramatically with the whiteness of her skin.

"It is she!" a frightened savage cried. "'It is she! The sun-goddess has saved him! Aeiiee, we are lost!"

In a flash, the others had taken up the cry, and in another moment, they were fleeing the clearing, abandoning drums and spears in their frantic efforts to escape the supernatural. Quickly, Taanda cut Koru's bonds, and the two of them ran like antelope through the jungle until the startled shouts had faded in the distance.

Only then did they slow down. Taanda was satisfied. By nightfall, the tribesmen of the Tauruti would be hunting the last remnants of the Leopard Men into the very heart of the jungle. And the White Princess could sleep that night, secure in the knowledge that she had saved her people from another menace.

END