59 pages 1 hour read

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan of the Apes

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1912

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Chapters 17-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary

The group of marooned people investigates the cabin that night and buries the skeletons after Professor Porter determines them to be a white male and female and an infant. Jane discovers the name John Clayton in some of the books and realizes that this must be the cabin of William Cecil Clayton’s uncle who vanished at sea. They realize that the skeletons must be John and Alice. Tarzan watches the burial with confusion, having only ever buried a body to save its meat for later eating. The sailors of the Arrow prepare to leave, and Professor Porter reveals that they mutinied in order to steal a treasure. Tarzan follows the ship down the coast out of curiosity and watches the sailors bury a chest beneath a tree. The sailors kill Snipes for refusing to help them dig the hole. They throw his body on top of the chest before returning to the ship. Tarzan realizes that the chest must contain something valuable and that the sailors must intend to come back for it later. He decides to move the chest and reburies it in the Dum-Dum amphitheater of the apes. He returns to the cabin and watches Jane through the window, enchanted by her beauty.

Related Titles

By Edgar Rice Burroughs