Dear Reader:
Welcome to the fourth volume of Miss Jane Clemons’s adventures in the jungles of Africa.
If you have already read the first three volumes, you need not continue with this introductory epistle, and can move directly to the first chapter. For those who have not enjoyed Entwined, Entangled or Enthralled , please feel free to read on below.
During the late 19 th century, the British indulged in much exploration of Africa, searching not only for gold and gemstones, but also for knowledge of this fascinating Dark Continent.
Professor Everett Clemons, the famous lepidopterist, and his daughter Jane were two of the most famous British citizens to embark on these travels, and although Jane published a book of her drawings and notations about the butterflies her father studied during these trips, there remained little information about her own thoughts and adventures—until now.
For, not long ago, I was fortunate enough to come upon an old trunk filled with Professor Clemons’s journals and butterfly specimens, and there, within, I also found the treasure of Miss Jane Clemons’s personal (and highly intimate) journals. They detail her experiences in the jungle—being captured by natives, being abandoned by her fiancé Jonathan—as well as her passionate relationship with the wild man of the jungle known as Zaren.
Incidentally, after careful analysis and research, I have come to believe the jungle man Zaren—whom Jane eventually brought back to London for a time and who was quite well received by Society—was the inspiration for Edgar Rice Burroughs’s well-known Tarzan character (a thesis, unfortunately, that is sharply denied by descendants of Mr. Burroughs).
I leave the reader to his or her own conclusions regarding this theory.
Because there were so many volumes of Jane’s journals, I have chosen to publish a series of short segments over time in order to make them publicly available as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I do hope you’ll indulge my decision to follow the popular form of literature from this era and publish Jane’s journals as a serialized collection. Not only does this enable me to be more efficient in releasing sections of her work (for it is quite an arduous task to pore over the very intimate and detailed descriptions of her experiences), but it also allows you the reader to experience the story in segments rather than in one overwhelming gulp.
I must also warn you: I have kept with the tradition of the times, ending each serialized episode on a cliffhanger.
The previous volume ended with Zaren helping Jane to escape from a small village of natives who believed she was a Fertility and Sex Goddess. The man known only as Cold Eyes was the leader of the tribe, and he agreed to take Jane (for her so-called powers) in exchange for giving her worthless fiancé Jonathan the map to a diamond mine. We don’t expect to see or hear from Jonathan again, for the map led to a mad lioness’s den…and we heard the feline roar as she attacked the encroacher.
As Jane and Zaren swing from tree to tree in their escape from Cold Eyes and his companions, something happens to Zaren and they begin to tumble down through the trees…
I hope you find Jane’s adventures enlightening, exciting, and titillating as we follow her further adventures as a young woman in the Madagascar jungle.
Colette Gale
December 2013
~*~
— I—
Jane felt Zaren jolt with a low grunt. She looked down to see an arrow protruding from the side of his torso. Before she could react, he jerked again sharply and then they were falling through the air.
She stifled a scream, clinging to him while grasping wildly for a vine, a branch—anything that might slow their descent. Her fingers closed over one of the thick ropes, but she could not manage the weight of their fall. The vine slid through her grip, burning and rough, and then they were tumbling once more.
Zaren grunted and gasped, then moved
Welcome to the fourth volume of Miss Jane Clemons’s adventures in the jungles of Africa.
If you have already read the first three volumes, you need not continue with this introductory epistle, and can move directly to the first chapter. For those who have not enjoyed Entwined, Entangled or Enthralled , please feel free to read on below.
During the late 19 th century, the British indulged in much exploration of Africa, searching not only for gold and gemstones, but also for knowledge of this fascinating Dark Continent.
Professor Everett Clemons, the famous lepidopterist, and his daughter Jane were two of the most famous British citizens to embark on these travels, and although Jane published a book of her drawings and notations about the butterflies her father studied during these trips, there remained little information about her own thoughts and adventures—until now.
For, not long ago, I was fortunate enough to come upon an old trunk filled with Professor Clemons’s journals and butterfly specimens, and there, within, I also found the treasure of Miss Jane Clemons’s personal (and highly intimate) journals. They detail her experiences in the jungle—being captured by natives, being abandoned by her fiancé Jonathan—as well as her passionate relationship with the wild man of the jungle known as Zaren.
Incidentally, after careful analysis and research, I have come to believe the jungle man Zaren—whom Jane eventually brought back to London for a time and who was quite well received by Society—was the inspiration for Edgar Rice Burroughs’s well-known Tarzan character (a thesis, unfortunately, that is sharply denied by descendants of Mr. Burroughs).
I leave the reader to his or her own conclusions regarding this theory.
Because there were so many volumes of Jane’s journals, I have chosen to publish a series of short segments over time in order to make them publicly available as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I do hope you’ll indulge my decision to follow the popular form of literature from this era and publish Jane’s journals as a serialized collection. Not only does this enable me to be more efficient in releasing sections of her work (for it is quite an arduous task to pore over the very intimate and detailed descriptions of her experiences), but it also allows you the reader to experience the story in segments rather than in one overwhelming gulp.
I must also warn you: I have kept with the tradition of the times, ending each serialized episode on a cliffhanger.
The previous volume ended with Zaren helping Jane to escape from a small village of natives who believed she was a Fertility and Sex Goddess. The man known only as Cold Eyes was the leader of the tribe, and he agreed to take Jane (for her so-called powers) in exchange for giving her worthless fiancé Jonathan the map to a diamond mine. We don’t expect to see or hear from Jonathan again, for the map led to a mad lioness’s den…and we heard the feline roar as she attacked the encroacher.
As Jane and Zaren swing from tree to tree in their escape from Cold Eyes and his companions, something happens to Zaren and they begin to tumble down through the trees…
I hope you find Jane’s adventures enlightening, exciting, and titillating as we follow her further adventures as a young woman in the Madagascar jungle.
Colette Gale
December 2013
~*~
— I—
Jane felt Zaren jolt with a low grunt. She looked down to see an arrow protruding from the side of his torso. Before she could react, he jerked again sharply and then they were falling through the air.
She stifled a scream, clinging to him while grasping wildly for a vine, a branch—anything that might slow their descent. Her fingers closed over one of the thick ropes, but she could not manage the weight of their fall. The vine slid through her grip, burning and rough, and then they were tumbling once more.
Zaren grunted and gasped, then moved
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