The Tarzan Twins follows Dick and Doc, two American cousins traveling by train across Africa, whose journey is interrupted when their train derails near a dense, unexplored jungle. Restless and curious, the boys sneak away from the stalled train to explore the forest, following a path that leads them deeper and deeper among chattering monkeys until they lose track of both time and direction. When a lion's roar sends them fleeing along the wrong fork of a game trail, they become hopelessly lost. Confronted directly by a black-maned lion, the boys narrowly escape by climbing into the trees, inspired by Dick's famous cousin, Tarzan of the Apes. Attempting to travel by swinging from tree to tree as Tarzan does, they only succeed in disorienting themselves further, spending a miserable, cold night huddled in the branches while the jungle's nocturnal life prowls beneath them. The next day, hungry and lost, they stumble upon a beaten trail, only to be tracked and captured by Zopinga, a warrior of the cannibalistic Bagalla tribe, who marches them into his chief's palisaded village. Imprisoned in a filthy hut, the boys meet two fellow captives: Bulala, a good-natured but ignorant West Coast black who once worked as a camp cook, and Ukundo, a shrewd pygmy deeply versed in jungle lore. From them the boys learn, with mounting horror, that the Bagalla intend to fatten and eventually eat all four prisoners. Stripped of their clothing and possessions by the grasping chief, Galla Galla, the boys manage to preserve their pocketknives by having Doc—an amateur magician—perform sleight-of-hand tricks that convince the superstitious villagers he is a powerful witch-doctor, his "big medicine" far outmatching that of the tribe's jealous, hostile witch-doctor, Intamo. Doc's trickery earns the captives greater freedom within the village, but Intamo, eager to expose the fraud and rid himself of a rival, persuades Galla Galla to crack open the skull of Paabu, a village youth Doc had previously "enchanted" by pretending to hide the knives inside his ear. To save Paabu's life, Doc stages an even bolder illusion, appearing to transfer the hidden "medicine" into Intamo's own head, thoroughly humiliating the witch-doctor before the entire tribe. As a cannibal feast approaches, with Bulala scheduled to be killed and eaten first, Paabu—grateful to Doc for saving him—secretly warns the boys that Intamo plans to poison their food and later smuggles them weapons in exchange for one of Doc's knives, believing it holds magical power. That night, as the boys and Ukundo prepare to flee, Intamo sneaks up to murder Doc with a club, but Ukundo kills the witch-doctor first. The group frees Bulala from his hut and breaks out through the village gate under a hail of spears and barking dogs, escaping into the jungle darkness. Their flight is fraught with danger: in the pitch-black forest, a charging lion is accidentally impaled on Dick's spear when the boy blindly thrusts it outward in self-defense, an event the exhausted boys don't fully understand until dawn reveals the dead lion with Dick's weapon in its chest. Proud of his unwitting trophy, Dick cuts off the lion's tail as a souvenir. Battered, barefoot, and starving, the four continue their trek toward Ukundo's homeland, but are soon surrounded in open country by a large party of pursuing Bagalla warriors. Resigned to fight to the death rather than be taken alive, the boys and their companions make a desperate stand—only to be saved at the last instant by the sudden arrival of Tarzan of the Apes and his loyal Waziri warriors, who had been searching the region for the missing boys. The Bagalla scatter in terror at the sight of the ape-man, and Tarzan and his men rout the attackers with arrows and spears. Tarzan greets his young cousin Dick and Doc with pride, commending their courage in standing their ground against the cannibals, and promises that Bulala and Ukundo will be rewarded for their loyalty and bravery once the party reaches safety. Asked what he desires most after his ordeal, the irrepressible Doc answers simply that he wants a whole apple pie—a comic, boyish note that closes the adventure on the same lighthearted tone with which it began, even as the narrative affirms the deeper theme running through the boys' ordeal: that courage, ingenuity, and loyal friendship, rather than mere luck, are what allow them to survive the jungle's very real dangers and return safely to the protection of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.
By Edgar Rice Burroughs · First published 1927 · Genre: Adventure, Survival, Action · 11 chapters