The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Beasts of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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The best plush dolls for 7 year olds under 25 dollarsBeasts of Tarzan

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

To Joan Burroughs

Contents

CHAPTER I.
Kidnapped

“The entire affair is shrouded in mystery,” said D’Arnot.“I have it on the best of authority that neither the police nor thespecial agents of the general staff have the faintest conception of how it wasaccomplished. All they know, all that anyone knows, is that Nikolas Rokoff hasescaped.”

John Clayton, Lord Greystoke—he who had been “Tarzan of theApes”—sat in silence in the apartments of his friend, LieutenantPaul D’Arnot, in Paris, gazing meditatively at the toe of his immaculateboot.

His mind revolved many memories, recalled by the escape of his arch-enemy fromthe French military prison to which he had been sentenced for life upon thetestimony of the ape-man.

He thought of the lengths to which Rokoff had once gone to compass his death,and he realized that what the man had already done would doubtless be asnothing by comparison with what he would wish and plot to do now that he wasagain free.

Tarzan had recently brought his wife and infant son to London to escape thediscomforts and dangers of the rainy season upon their vast estate inUziri—the land of the savage Waziri warriors whose broad African domainsthe ape-man had once ruled.

He had run across the Channel for a brief visit with his old friend, but thenews of the Russian’s escape had already cast a shadow upon his outing,so that though he had but just arrived he was already contemplating animmediate return to London.

“It is not that I fear for myself, Paul,” he said at last.“Many times in the past have I thwarted Rokoff’s designs upon mylife; but now there are others to consider. Unless I misjudge the man, he wouldmore quickly strike at me through my wife or son than directly at me, for hedoubtless realizes that in no other way could he inflict greater anguish uponme. I must go back to them at once, and remain with them until Rokoff isrecaptured—or dead.”

As these two talked in Paris, two other men were talking together in a littlecottage upon the outskirts of London. Both were dark, sinister-looking men.

One was bearded, but the other, whose face wore the pallor of long confinementwithin doors, had but a few days’ growth of black beard upon his face. Itwas he who was speaking.

“You must needs shave off that beard of yours, Alexis,” he said tohis companion. “With it he would recognize you on the instant. We mustseparate here in the hour, and when we meet again upon the deck of the Kincaid,let us hope that we shall have with us two honoured guests who littleanticipate the pleasant voyage we have planned for them.

“In two hours I should be upon my way to Dover with one of them, and bytomorrow night, if you follow my instructions carefully, you should arrive withthe other, provided, of course, that he returns to London as quickly as Ipresume he will.

“There should be both profit and pleasure as well as other good things toreward our efforts, my dear Alexis. Thanks to the stupidity of the French, theyhave gone to such lengths to conceal the fact of my escape for these many daysthat I have had ample opportunity to work out every detail of our littleadventure so carefully that there is little chance of the slightest hitchoccurring to mar our prospects. And now good-bye, and good luck!”

Three hours later a messenger mounted the steps to the apartment of LieutenantD’Arnot.

“A telegram for Lord Greystoke,” he said to the servant whoanswered his summons. “Is he here?”

The man answered in the affirmative, and, signing for the message, carried itwithin to Tarzan, who was already preparing to depart for London.

Tarzan tore open the envelope, and as he read his face went white.

“Read it, Paul,” he said, handing the slip of paper toD’Arnot. “It has come already.”

The Frenchman took the telegram and read:

“Jack stolen from the garden through complicity of new servant. Come atonce.—JANE.”

As Tarzan leaped from the roadster that had met him at the station and ran upthe steps to his London town house he was met at the door by a dry-eyed butalmost frantic woman.

Quickly Jane Porter Clayton narrated all that she had been able to learn of thetheft of the boy.

The baby’s nurse had been wheeling him in the sunshine on the walk beforethe house when a closed taxicab drew up at the corner of the street. The womanhad paid but passing attention to the vehicle, merely noting that it dischargedno passenger, but stood at the kerb with the motor running as though waitingfor a fare from the residence before which it had stopped.

Almost immediately the new houseman, Carl, had come running from the Greystokehouse, saying that the girl’s mistress wished to speak with her for amoment, and that she was to leave little Jack in his care until she returned.

The woman said that she entertained not the slightest suspicion of theman’s motives until she had reached the doorway of the house, when itoccurred to her to warn him not to turn the carriage so as to permit the sun toshine in the baby’s eyes.

As she turned about to call this to him she was somewhat surprised to see thathe was wheeling the carriage rapidly toward the corner, and at the same timeshe saw the door of the taxicab open and a swarthy face framed for a moment inthe aperture.

Intuitively, the danger to the child flashed upon her, and with a shriek shedashed down the steps and up the walk toward the taxicab, into which Carl wasnow handing the baby to the swarthy one within.

Just before she reached the vehicle, Carl leaped in beside his confederate,slamming the door behind him. At the same time the chauffeur attempted to starthis machine, but it was evident that something had gone wrong, as though thegears refused to mesh, and the delay caused by this, while he pushed the leverinto reverse and backed the car a few inches before again attempting to goahead, gave the nurse time to reach the side of the taxicab.

Leaping to the running-board, she had attempted to snatch the baby from thearms of the stranger, and here, screaming and fighting, she had clung to herposition even after the taxicab had got under way; nor was it until the machinehad passed the Greystoke residence at good speed that Carl, with a heavy blowto her face, had succeeded in knocking her to the pavement.

Her screams had attracted servants and members of the families from residencesnear by, as well as from the Greystoke home. Lady Greystoke had witnessed thegirl’s brave battle, and had herself tried to reach the rapidly passingvehicle, but had been too late.

That was all that anyone knew, nor did Lady Greystoke dream of the possibleidentity of the man at the bottom of the plot until her husband told her of theescape of Nikolas Rokoff from the French prison where they had hoped he waspermanently confined.

As Tarzan and his wife stood planning the wisest course to pursue, thetelephone bell rang in the library at their right. Tarzan quickly answered thecall in person.

“Lord Greystoke?” asked a man’s voice at the other end of theline.

“Yes.”

“Your son has been stolen,” continued the voice, “and I alonemay help you to recover him. I am conversant with the plot of those who tookhim. In fact, I was a party to it, and was to share in the reward, but now theyare trying to ditch me, and to be quits with them I will aid you to recover himon condition that you will not prosecute me for my part in the crime. What doyou say?”

“If you lead me to where my son is hidden,” replied the ape-man,“you need fear nothing from me.”

“Good,” replied the other. “But you must come alone to meetme, for it is enough that I must trust you. I cannot take the chance ofpermitting others to learn my identity.”

“Where and when may I meet you?” asked Tarzan.

The other gave the name and location of a public-house on the water-front atDover—a place frequented by sailors.

“Come,” he concluded, “about ten o’clock tonight. Itwould do no good to arrive earlier. Your son will be safe enough in themeantime, and I can then lead you secretly to where he is hidden. But be sureto come alone, and under no circumstances notify Scotland Yard, for I know youwell and shall be watching for you.

“Should any other accompany you, or should I see suspicious characterswho might be agents of the police, I shall not meet you, and your last chanceof recovering your son will be gone.”

Without more words the man rang off.

Tarzan repeated the gist of the conversation to his wife. She begged to beallowed to accompany him, but he insisted that it might result in theman’s carrying out his threat of refusing to aid them if Tarzan did notcome alone, and so they parted, he to hasten to Dover, and she, ostensibly towait at home until he should notify her of the outcome of his mission.

Little did either dream of what both were destined to pass through before theyshould meet again, or the far-distant—but why anticipate?

For ten minutes after the ape-man had left her Jane Clayton walked restlesslyback and forth across the silken rugs of the library. Her mother heart ached,bereft of its first-born. Her mind was in an anguish of hopes and fears.

Though her judgment told her that all would be well were her Tarzan to go alonein accordance with the mysterious stranger’s summons, her intuition wouldnot permit her to lay aside suspicion of the gravest dangers to both herhusband and her son.

The more she thought of the matter, the more convinced she became that therecent telephone message might be but a ruse to keep them inactive until theboy was safely hidden away or spirited out of England. Or it might be that ithad been simply a bait to lure Tarzan into the hands of the implacable Rokoff.

With the lodgment of this thought she stopped in wide-eyed terror. Instantly itbecame a conviction. She glanced at the great clock ticking the minutes in thecorner of the library.

It was too late to catch the Dover train that Tarzan was to take. There wasanother, later, however, that would bring her to the Channel port in time toreach the address the stranger had given her husband before the appointed hour.

Summoning her maid and chauffeur, she issued instructions rapidly. Ten minuteslater she was being whisked through the crowded streets toward the railwaystation.

It was nine-forty-five that night that Tarzan entered the squalid“pub” on the water-front in Dover. As he passed into theevil-smelling room a muffled figure brushed past him toward the street.

“Come, my lord!” whispered the stranger.

The ape-man wheeled about and followed the other into the ill-lit alley, whichcustom had dignified with the title of thoroughfare. Once outside, the fellowled the way into the darkness, nearer a wharf, where high-piled bales, boxes,and casks cast dense shadows. Here he halted.

“Where is the boy?” asked Greystoke.

“On that small steamer whose lights you can just see yonder,”replied the other.

In the gloom Tarzan was trying to peer into the features of his companion, buthe did not recognize the man as one whom he had ever before seen. Had heguessed that his guide was Alexis Paulvitch he would have realized that naughtbut treachery lay in the man’s heart, and that danger lurked in the pathof every move.

“He is unguarded now,” continued the Russian. “Those who tookhim feel perfectly safe from detection, and with the exception of a couple ofmembers of the crew, whom I have furnished with enough gin to silence themeffectually for hours, there is none aboard the Kincaid. We can go aboard, getthe child, and return without the slightest fear.”

Tarzan nodded.

“Let’s be about it, then,” he said.

His guide led him to a small boat moored alongside the wharf. The two menentered, and Paulvitch pulled rapidly toward the steamer. The black smokeissuing from her funnel did not at the time make any suggestion toTarzan’s mind. All his thoughts were occupied with the hope that in a fewmoments he would again have his little son in his arms.

At the steamer’s side they found a monkey-ladder dangling close abovethem, and up this the two men crept stealthily. Once on deck they hastened aftto where the Russian pointed to a hatch.

“The boy is hidden there,” he said. “You had better go downafter him, as there is less chance that he will cry in fright than should hefind himself in the arms of a stranger. I will stand on guard here.”

So anxious was Tarzan to rescue the child that he gave not the slightestthought to the strangeness of all the conditions surrounding the Kincaid. Thather deck was deserted, though she had steam up, and from the volume of smokepouring from her funnel was all ready to get under way made no impression uponhim.

With the thought that in another instant he would fold that precious littlebundle of humanity in his arms, the ape-man swung down into the darkness below.Scarcely had he released his hold upon the edge of the hatch than the heavycovering fell clattering above him.

Instantly he knew that he was the victim of a plot, and that far from rescuinghis son he had himself fallen into the hands of his enemies. Though heimmediately endeavoured to reach the hatch and lift the cover, he was unable todo so.

Striking a match, he explored his surroundings, finding that a littlecompartment had been partitioned off from the main hold, with the hatch abovehis head the only means of ingress or egress. It was evident that the room hadbeen prepared for the very purpose of serving as a cell for himself.

There was nothing in the compartment, and no other occupant. If the child wason board the Kincaid he was confined elsewhere.

For over twenty years, from infancy to manhood, the ape-man had roamed hissavage jungle haunts without human companionship of any nature. He had learnedat the most impressionable period of his life to take his pleasures and hissorrows as the beasts take theirs.

So it was that he neither raved nor stormed against fate, but instead waitedpatiently for what might next befall him, though not by any means without aneye to doing the utmost to succour himself. To this end he examined his prisoncarefully, tested the heavy planking that formed its walls, and measured thedistance of the hatch above him.

And while he was thus occupied there came suddenly to him the vibration ofmachinery and the throbbing of the propeller.

The ship was moving! Where to and to what fate was it carrying him?

And even as these thoughts passed through his mind there came to his ears abovethe din of the engines that which caused him to go cold with apprehension.

Clear and shrill from the deck above him rang the scream of a frightened woman.

CHAPTER II.
Marooned

As Tarzan and his guide had disappeared into the shadows upon the dark wharfthe figure of a heavily veiled woman had hurried down the narrow alley to theentrance of the drinking-place the two men had just quitted.

Here she paused and looked about, and then as though satisfied that she had atlast reached the place she sought, she pushed bravely into the interior of thevile den.

A score of half-drunken sailors and wharf-rats looked up at the unaccustomedsight of a richly gowned woman in their midst. Rapidly she approached theslovenly barmaid who stared half in envy, half in hate, at her more fortunatesister.

“Have you seen a tall, well-dressed man here, but a minute since,”she asked, “who met another and went away with him?”

The girl answered in the affirmative, but could not tell which way the two hadgone. A sailor who had approached to listen to the conversation vouchsafed theinformation that a moment before as he had been about to enter the“pub” he had seen two men leaving it who walked toward the wharf.

“Show me the direction they went,” cried the woman, slipping a coininto the man’s hand.

The fellow led her from the place, and together they walked quickly toward thewharf and along it until across the water they saw a small boat just pullinginto the shadows of a near-by steamer.

“There they be,” whispered the man.

“Ten pounds if you will find a boat and row me to that steamer,”cried the woman.

“Quick, then,” he replied, “for we gotta go it if we’regoin’ to catch the Kincaid afore she sails. She’s had steam up forthree hours an’ jest been a-waitin’ fer that one passenger. I wasa-talkin’ to one of her crew ’arf an hour ago.”

As he spoke he led the way to the end of the wharf where he knew another boatlay moored, and, lowering the woman into it, he jumped in after and pushed off.The two were soon scudding over the water.

At the steamer’s side the man demanded his pay and, without waiting tocount out the exact amount, the woman thrust a handful of bank-notes into hisoutstretched hand. A single glance at them convinced the fellow that he hadbeen more than well paid. Then he assisted her up the ladder, holding his skiffclose to the ship’s side against the chance that this profitablepassenger might wish to be taken ashore later.

But presently the sound of the donkey engine and the rattle of a steel cable onthe hoisting-drum proclaimed the fact that the Kincaid’s anchor was beingraised, and a moment later the waiter heard the propellers revolving, andslowly the little steamer moved away from him out into the channel.

As he turned to row back to shore he heard a woman’s shriek from theship’s deck.

“That’s wot I calls rotten luck,” he soliloquized. “Imight jest as well of ’ad the whole bloomin’ wad.”

When Jane Clayton climbed to the deck of the Kincaid she found the shipapparently deserted. There was no sign of those she sought nor of any otheraboard, and so she went about her search for her husband and the child shehoped against hope to find there without interruption.

Quickly she hastened to the cabin, which was half above and half below deck. Asshe hurried down the short companion-ladder into the main cabin, on either sideof which were the smaller rooms occupied by the officers, she failed to notethe quick closing of one of the doors before her. She passed the full length ofthe main room, and then retracing her steps stopped before each door to listen,furtively trying each latch.

All was silence, utter silence there, in which the throbbing of her ownfrightened heart seemed to her overwrought imagination to fill the ship withits thunderous alarm.

One by one the doors opened before her touch, only to reveal empty interiors.In her absorption she did not note the sudden activity upon the vessel, thepurring of the engines, the throbbing of the propeller. She had reached thelast door upon the right now, and as she pushed it open she was seized fromwithin by a powerful, dark-visaged man, and drawn hastily into the stuffy,ill-smelling interior.

The sudden shock of fright which the unexpected attack had upon her drew asingle piercing scream from her throat; then the man clapped a hand roughlyover the mouth.

“Not until we are farther from land, my dear,” he said. “Thenyou may yell your pretty head off.”

Lady Greystoke turned to look into the leering, bearded face so close to hers.The man relaxed the pressure of his fingers upon her lips, and with a littlemoan of terror as she recognized him the girl shrank away from her captor.

“Nikolas Rokoff! M. Thuran!” she exclaimed.

“Your devoted admirer,” replied the Russian, with a low bow.

“My little boy,” she said next, ignoring the terms ofendearment—“where is he? Let me have him. How could you be socruel—even as you—Nikolas Rokoff—cannot be entirely devoid ofmercy and compassion? Tell me where he is. Is he aboard this ship? Oh, please,if such a thing as a heart beats within your breast, take me to my baby!”

“If you do as you are bid no harm will befall him,” replied Rokoff.“But remember that it is your own fault that you are here. You cameaboard voluntarily, and you may take the consequences. I little thought,”he added to himself, “that any such good luck as this would come tome.”

He went on deck then, locking the cabin-door upon his prisoner, and for severaldays she did not see him. The truth of the matter being that Nikolas Rokoff wasso poor a sailor that the heavy seas the Kincaid encountered from the verybeginning of her voyage sent the Russian to his berth with a bad attack ofsea-sickness.

During this time her only visitor was an uncouth Swede, the Kincaid’sunsavoury cook, who brought her meals to her. His name was Sven Anderssen, hisone pride being that his patronymic was spelt with a double “s.”

The man was tall and raw-boned, with a long yellow moustache, an unwholesomecomplexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with one grimy thumb burieddeep in the lukewarm stew, that seemed, from the frequency of its repetition,to constitute the pride of his culinary art, was sufficient to take away thegirl’s appetite.

His small, blue, close-set eyes never met hers squarely. There was a shiftinessof his whole appearance that even found expression in the cat-like manner ofhis gait, and to it all a sinister suggestion was added by the long slim knifethat always rested at his waist, slipped through the greasy cord that supportedhis soiled apron. Ostensibly it was but an implement of his calling; but thegirl could never free herself of the conviction that it would require lessprovocation to witness it put to other and less harmless uses.

His manner toward her was surly, yet she never failed to meet him with apleasant smile and a word of thanks when he brought her food to her, thoughmore often than not she hurled the bulk of it through the tiny cabin port themoment that the door closed behind him.

During the days of anguish that followed Jane Clayton’s imprisonment, buttwo questions were uppermost in her mind—the whereabouts of her husbandand her son. She fully believed that the baby was aboard the Kincaid, providedthat he still lived, but whether Tarzan had been permitted to live after havingbeen lured aboard the evil craft she could not guess.

She knew, of course, the deep hatred that the Russian felt for the Englishman,and she could think of but one reason for having him brought aboard theship—to dispatch him in comparative safety in revenge for his havingthwarted Rokoff’s pet schemes, and for having been at last the means oflanding him in a French prison.

Tarzan, on his part, lay in the darkness of his cell, ignorant of the fact thathis wife was a prisoner in the cabin almost above his head.

The same Swede that served Jane brought his meals to him, but, though onseveral occasions Tarzan had tried to draw the man into conversation, he hadbeen unsuccessful. He had hoped to learn through this fellow whether his littleson was aboard the Kincaid, but to every question upon this or kindred subjectsthe fellow returned but one reply, “Ay tank it blow purty soon purtyhard.” So after several attempts Tarzan gave it up.

For weeks that seemed months to the two prisoners the little steamer forged onthey knew not where. Once the Kincaid stopped to coal, only immediately to takeup the seemingly interminable voyage.

Rokoff had visited Jane Clayton but once since he had locked her in the tinycabin. He had come gaunt and hollow-eyed from a long siege of sea-sickness. Theobject of his visit was to obtain from her her personal cheque for a large sumin return for a guarantee of her personal safety and return to England.

“When you set me down safely in any civilized port, together with my sonand my husband,” she replied, “I will pay you in gold twice theamount you ask; but until then you shall not have a cent, nor the promise of acent under any other conditions.”

“You will give me the cheque I ask,” he replied with a snarl,“or neither you nor your child nor your husband will ever again set footwithin any port, civilized or otherwise.”

“I would not trust you,” she replied. “What guarantee have Ithat you would not take my money and then do as you pleased with me and mineregardless of your promise?”

“I think you will do as I bid,” he said, turning to leave thecabin. “Remember that I have your son—if you chance to hear theagonized wail of a tortured child it may console you to reflect that it isbecause of your stubbornness that the baby suffers—and that it is yourbaby.”

“You would not do it!” cried the girl. “You wouldnot—could not be so fiendishly cruel!”

“It is not I that am cruel, but you,” he returned, “for youpermit a paltry sum of money to stand between your baby and immunity fromsuffering.”

The end of it was that Jane Clayton wrote out a cheque of large denominationand handed it to Nikolas Rokoff, who left her cabin with a grin of satisfactionupon his lips.

The following day the hatch was removed from Tarzan’s cell, and as helooked up he saw Paulvitch’s head framed in the square of light abovehim.

“Come up,” commanded the Russian. “But bear in mind that youwill be shot if you make a single move to attack me or any other aboard theship.”

The ape-man swung himself lightly to the deck. About him, but at a respectfuldistance, stood a half-dozen sailors armed with rifles and revolvers. Facinghim was Paulvitch.

Tarzan looked about for Rokoff, who he felt sure must be aboard, but there wasno sign of him.

“Lord Greystoke,” commenced the Russian, “by your continuedand wanton interference with M. Rokoff and his plans you have at last broughtyourself and your family to this unfortunate extremity. You have only yourselfto thank. As you may imagine, it has cost M. Rokoff a large amount of money tofinance this expedition, and, as you are the sole cause of it, he naturallylooks to you for reimbursement.

“Further, I may say that only by meeting M. Rokoff’s just demandsmay you avert the most unpleasant consequences to your wife and child, and atthe same time retain your own life and regain your liberty.”

“What is the amount?” asked Tarzan. “And what assurance haveI that you will live up to your end of the agreement? I have little reason totrust two such scoundrels as you and Rokoff, you know.”

The Russian flushed.

“You are in no position to deliver insults,” he said. “Youhave no assurance that we will live up to our agreement other than my word, butyou have before you the assurance that we can make short work of you if you donot write out the cheque we demand.

“Unless you are a greater fool than I imagine, you should know that thereis nothing that would give us greater pleasure than to order these men to fire.That we do not is because we have other plans for punishing you that would beentirely upset by your death.”

“Answer one question,” said Tarzan. “Is my son on board thisship?”

“No,” replied Alexis Paulvitch, “your son is quite safeelsewhere; nor will he be killed until you refuse to accede to our fairdemands. If it becomes necessary to kill you, there will be no reason for notkilling the child, since with you gone the one whom we wish to punish throughthe boy will be gone, and he will then be to us only a constant source ofdanger and embarrassment. You see, therefore, that you may only save the lifeof your son by saving your own, and you can only save your own by giving us thecheque we ask.”

“Very well,” replied Tarzan, for he knew that he could trust themto carry out any sinister threat that Paulvitch had made, and there was a barechance that by conceding their demands he might save the boy.

That they would permit him to live after he had appended his name to the chequenever occurred to him as being within the realms of probability. But he wasdetermined to give them such a battle as they would never forget, and possiblyto take Paulvitch with him into eternity. He was only sorry that it was notRokoff.

He took his pocket cheque-book and fountain-pen from his pocket.

“What is the amount?” he asked.

Paulvitch named an enormous sum. Tarzan could scarce restrain a smile.

Their very cupidity was to prove the means of their undoing, in the matter ofthe ransom at least. Purposely he hesitated and haggled over the amount, butPaulvitch was obdurate. Finally the ape-man wrote out his cheque for a largersum than stood to his credit at the bank.

As he turned to hand the worthless slip of paper to the Russian his glancechanced to pass across the starboard bow of the Kincaid. To his surprise he sawthat the ship lay within a few hundred yards of land. Almost down to thewater’s edge ran a dense tropical jungle, and behind was higher landclothed in forest.

Paulvitch noted the direction of his gaze.

“You are to be set at liberty here,” he said.

Tarzan’s plan for immediate physical revenge upon the Russian vanished.He thought the land before him the mainland of Africa, and he knew that shouldthey liberate him here he could doubtless find his way to civilization withcomparative ease.

Paulvitch took the cheque.

“Remove your clothing,” he said to the ape-man. “Here youwill not need it.”

Tarzan demurred.

Paulvitch pointed to the armed sailors. Then the Englishman slowly divestedhimself of his clothing.

A boat was lowered, and, still heavily guarded, the ape-man was rowed ashore.Half an hour later the sailors had returned to the Kincaid, and the steamer wasslowly getting under way.

As Tarzan stood upon the narrow strip of beach watching the departure of thevessel he saw a figure appear at the rail and call aloud to attract hisattention.

The ape-man had been about to read a note that one of the sailors had handedhim as the small boat that bore him to the shore was on the point of returningto the steamer, but at the hail from the vessel’s deck he looked up.

He saw a black-bearded man who laughed at him in derision as he held high abovehis head the figure of a little child. Tarzan half started as though to rushthrough the surf and strike out for the already moving steamer; but realizingthe futility of so rash an act he halted at the water’s edge.

Thus he stood, his gaze riveted upon the Kincaid until it disappeared beyond aprojecting promontory of the coast.

From the jungle at his back fierce bloodshot eyes glared from beneath shaggyoverhanging brows upon him.

Little monkeys in the tree-tops chattered and scolded, and from the distance ofthe inland forest came the scream of a leopard.

But still John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, stood deaf and unseeing, suffering thepangs of keen regret for the opportunity that he had wasted because he had beenso gullible as to place credence in a single statement of the first lieutenantof his arch-enemy.

“I have at least,” he thought, “one consolation—theknowledge that Jane is safe in London. Thank Heaven she, too, did not fall intothe clutches of those villains.”

Behind him the hairy thing whose evil eyes had been watching him as a catwatches a mouse was creeping stealthily toward him.

Where were the trained senses of the savage ape-man?

Where the acute hearing?

Where the uncanny sense of scent?

CHAPTER III.
Beasts at Bay

Slowly Tarzan unfolded the note the sailor had thrust into his hand, and readit. At first it made little impression on his sorrow-numbed senses, but finallythe full purport of the hideous plot of revenge unfolded itself before hisimagination.

“This will explain to you” [the note read] “the exact natureof my intentions relative to your offspring and to you.

“You were born an ape. You lived naked in the jungles—to your ownwe have returned you; but your son shall rise a step above his sire. It is theimmutable law of evolution.

“The father was a beast, but the son shall be a man—he shall takethe next ascending step in the scale of progress. He shall be no naked beast ofthe jungle, but shall wear a loin-cloth and copper anklets, and, perchance, aring in his nose, for he is to be reared by men—a tribe of savagecannibals.

“I might have killed you, but that would have curtailed the full measureof the punishment you have earned at my hands.

“Dead, you could not have suffered in the knowledge of your son’splight; but living and in a place from which you may not escape to seek orsuccour your child, you shall suffer worse than death for all the years of yourlife in contemplation of the horrors of your son’s existence.

“This, then, is to be a part of your punishment for having dared to pityourself against

N. R.

“P.S.—The balance of your punishment has to do with what shallpresently befall your wife—that I shall leave to your imagination.”

As he finished reading, a slight sound behind him brought him back with a startto the world of present realities.

Instantly his senses awoke, and he was again Tarzan of the Apes.

As he wheeled about, it was a beast at bay, vibrant with the instinct ofself-preservation, that faced a huge bull-ape that was already charging downupon him.

The two years that had elapsed since Tarzan had come out of the savage forestwith his rescued mate had witnessed slight diminution of the mighty powers thathad made him the invincible lord of the jungle. His great estates in Uziri hadclaimed much of his time and attention, and there he had found ample field forthe practical use and retention of his almost superhuman powers; but naked andunarmed to do battle with the shaggy, bull-necked beast that now confronted himwas a test that the ape-man would scarce have welcomed at any period of hiswild existence.

But there was no alternative other than to meet the rage-maddened creature withthe weapons with which nature had endowed him.

Over the bull’s shoulder Tarzan could see now the heads and shoulders ofperhaps a dozen more of these mighty fore-runners of primitive man.

He knew, however, that there was little chance that they would attack him,since it is not within the reasoning powers of the anthropoid to be able toweigh or appreciate the value of concentrated action against anenemy—otherwise they would long since have become the dominant creaturesof their haunts, so tremendous a power of destruction lies in their mightythews and savage fangs.

With a low snarl the beast now hurled himself at Tarzan, but the ape-man hadfound, among other things in the haunts of civilized man, certain methods ofscientific warfare that are unknown to the jungle folk.

Whereas, a few years since, he would have met the brute rush with brute force,he now sidestepped his antagonist’s headlong charge, and as the brutehurtled past him swung a mighty right to the pit of the ape’s stomach.

With a howl of mingled rage and anguish the great anthropoid bent double andsank to the ground, though almost instantly he was again struggling to hisfeet.

Before he could regain them, however, his white-skinned foe had wheeled andpounced upon him, and in the act there dropped from the shoulders of theEnglish lord the last shred of his superficial mantle of civilization.

Once again he was the jungle beast revelling in bloody conflict with his kind.Once again he was Tarzan, son of Kala the she-ape.

His strong, white teeth sank into the hairy throat of his enemy as he soughtthe pulsing jugular.

Powerful fingers held the mighty fangs from his own flesh, or clenched and beatwith the power of a steam-hammer upon the snarling, foam-flecked face of hisadversary.

In a circle about them the balance of the tribe of apes stood watching andenjoying the struggle. They muttered low gutturals of approval as bits of whitehide or hairy bloodstained skin were torn from one contestant or the other. Butthey were silent in amazement and expectation when they saw the mighty whiteape wriggle upon the back of their king, and, with steel muscles tensed beneaththe armpits of his antagonist, bear down mightily with his open palms upon theback of the thick bullneck, so that the king ape could but shriek in agony andflounder helplessly about upon the thick mat of jungle grass.

As Tarzan had overcome the huge Terkoz that time years before when he had beenabout to set out upon his quest for human beings of his own kind and colour, sonow he overcame this other great ape with the same wrestling hold upon which hehad stumbled by accident during that other combat. The little audience offierce anthropoids heard the creaking of their king’s neck mingling withhis agonized shrieks and hideous roaring.

Then there came a sudden crack, like the breaking of a stout limb before thefury of the wind. The bullet-head crumpled forward upon its flaccid neckagainst the great hairy chest—the roaring and the shrieking ceased.

The little pig-eyes of the onlookers wandered from the still form of theirleader to that of the white ape that was rising to its feet beside thevanquished, then back to their king as though in wonder that he did not ariseand slay this presumptuous stranger.

They saw the new-comer place a foot upon the neck of the quiet figure at hisfeet and, throwing back his head, give vent to the wild, uncanny challenge ofthe bull-ape that has made a kill. Then they knew that their king was dead.

Across the jungle rolled the horrid notes of the victory cry. The littlemonkeys in the tree-tops ceased their chattering. The harsh-voiced,brilliant-plumed birds were still. From afar came the answering wail of aleopard and the deep roar of a lion.

It was the old Tarzan who turned questioning eyes upon the little knot of apesbefore him. It was the old Tarzan who shook his head as though to toss back aheavy mane that had fallen before his face—an old habit dating from thedays that his great shock of thick, black hair had fallen about his shoulders,and often tumbled before his eyes when it had meant life or death to him tohave his vision unobstructed.

The ape-man knew that he might expect an immediate attack on the part of thatparticular surviving bull-ape who felt himself best fitted to contend for thekingship of the tribe. Among his own apes he knew that it was not unusual foran entire stranger to enter a community and, after having dispatched the king,assume the leadership of the tribe himself, together with the fallenmonarch’s mates.

On the other hand, if he made no attempt to follow them, they might move slowlyaway from him, later to fight among themselves for the supremacy. That he couldbe king of them, if he so chose, he was confident; but he was not sure he caredto assume the sometimes irksome duties of that position, for he could see noparticular advantage to be gained thereby.

One of the younger apes, a huge, splendidly muscled brute, was edgingthreateningly closer to the ape-man. Through his bared fighting fangs thereissued a low, sullen growl.

Tarzan watched his every move, standing rigid as a statue. To have fallen backa step would have been to precipitate an immediate charge; to have rushedforward to meet the other might have had the same result, or it might have putthe bellicose one to flight—it all depended upon the young bull’sstock of courage.

To stand perfectly still, waiting, was the middle course. In this event thebull would, according to custom, approach quite close to the object of hisattention, growling hideously and baring slavering fangs. Slowly he wouldcircle about the other, as though with a chip upon his shoulder; and this hedid, even as Tarzan had foreseen.

It might be a bluff royal, or, on the other hand, so unstable is the mind of anape, a passing impulse might hurl the hairy mass, tearing and rending, upon theman without an instant’s warning.

As the brute circled him Tarzan turned slowly, keeping his eyes ever upon theeyes of his antagonist. He had appraised the young bull as one who had neverquite felt equal to the task of overthrowing his former king, but who one daywould have done so. Tarzan saw that the beast was of wondrous proportions,standing over seven feet upon his short, bowed legs.

His great, hairy arms reached almost to the ground even when he stood erect,and his fighting fangs, now quite close to Tarzan’s face, wereexceptionally long and sharp. Like the others of his tribe, he differed inseveral minor essentials from the apes of Tarzan’s boyhood.

At first the ape-man had experienced a thrill of hope at sight of the shaggybodies of the anthropoids—a hope that by some strange freak of fate hehad been again returned to his own tribe; but a closer inspection had convincedhim that these were another species.

As the threatening bull continued his stiff and jerky circling of the ape-man,much after the manner that you have noted among dogs when a strange caninecomes among them, it occurred to Tarzan to discover if the language of his owntribe was identical with that of this other family, and so he addressed thebrute in the language of the tribe of Kerchak.

“Who are you,” he asked, “who threatens Tarzan of theApes?”

The hairy brute looked his surprise.

“I am Akut,” replied the other in the same simple, primal tonguewhich is so low in the scale of spoken languages that, as Tarzan had surmised,it was identical with that of the tribe in which the first twenty years of hislife had been spent.

“I am Akut,” said the ape. “Molak is dead. I am king. Go awayor I shall kill you!”

“You saw how easily I killed Molak,” replied Tarzan. “So Icould kill you if I cared to be king. But Tarzan of the Apes would not be kingof the tribe of Akut. All he wishes is to live in peace in this country. Let usbe friends. Tarzan of the Apes can help you, and you can help Tarzan of theApes.”

“You cannot kill Akut,” replied the other. “None is so greatas Akut. Had you not killed Molak, Akut would have done so, for Akut was readyto be king.”

For answer the ape-man hurled himself upon the great brute who during theconversation had slightly relaxed his vigilance.

In the twinkling of an eye the man had seized the wrist of the great ape, andbefore the other could grapple with him had whirled him about and leaped uponhis broad back.

Down they went together, but so well had Tarzan’s plan worked out thatbefore ever they touched the ground he had gained the same hold upon Akut thathad broken Molak’s neck.

Slowly he brought the pressure to bear, and then as in days gone by he hadgiven Kerchak the chance to surrender and live, so now he gave to Akut—inwhom he saw a possible ally of great strength and resource—the option ofliving in amity with him or dying as he had just seen his savage and heretoforeinvincible king die.

“Ka-Goda?” whispered Tarzan to the ape beneath him.

It was the same question that he had whispered to Kerchak, and in the languageof the apes it means, broadly, “Do you surrender?”

Akut thought of the creaking sound he had heard just before Molak’s thickneck had snapped, and he shuddered.

He hated to give up the kingship, though, so again he struggled to freehimself; but a sudden torturing pressure upon his vertebra brought an agonized“ka-goda!” from his lips.

Tarzan relaxed his grip a trifle.

“You may still be king, Akut,” he said. “Tarzan told you thathe did not wish to be king. If any question your right, Tarzan of the Apes willhelp you in your battles.”

The ape-man rose, and Akut came slowly to his feet. Shaking his bullet head andgrowling angrily, he waddled toward his tribe, looking first at one and then atanother of the larger bulls who might be expected to challenge his leadership.

But none did so; instead, they drew away as he approached, and presently thewhole pack moved off into the jungle, and Tarzan was left alone once more uponthe beach.

The ape-man was sore from the wounds that Molak had inflicted upon him, but hewas inured to physical suffering and endured it with the calm and fortitude ofthe wild beasts that had taught him to lead the jungle life after the manner ofall those that are born to it.

His first need, he realized, was for weapons of offence and defence, for hisencounter with the apes, and the distant notes of the savage voices of Numa thelion, and Sheeta, the panther, warned him that his was to be no life ofindolent ease and security.

It was but a return to the old existence of constant bloodshed anddanger—to the hunting and the being hunted. Grim beasts would stalk him,as they had stalked him in the past, and never would there be a moment, bysavage day or by cruel night, that he might not have instant need of such crudeweapons as he could fashion from the materials at hand.

Upon the shore he found an out-cropping of brittle, igneous rock. By dint ofmuch labour he managed to chip off a narrow sliver some twelve inches long by aquarter of an inch thick. One edge was quite thin for a few inches near thetip. It was the rudiment of a knife.

With it he went into the jungle, searching until he found a fallen tree of acertain species of hardwood with which he was familiar. From this he cut asmall straight branch, which he pointed at one end.

Then he scooped a small, round hole in the surface of the prostrate trunk. Intothis he crumbled a few bits of dry bark, minutely shredded, after which heinserted the tip of his pointed stick, and, sitting astride the bole of thetree, spun the slender rod rapidly between his palms.

After a time a thin smoke rose from the little mass of tinder, and a momentlater the whole broke into flame. Heaping some larger twigs and sticks upon thetiny fire, Tarzan soon had quite a respectable blaze roaring in the enlargingcavity of the dead tree.

Into this he thrust the blade of his stone knife, and as it became superheatedhe would withdraw it, touching a spot near the thin edge with a drop ofmoisture. Beneath the wetted area a little flake of the glassy material wouldcrack and scale away.

Thus, very slowly, the ape-man commenced the tedious operation of putting athin edge upon his primitive hunting-knife.

He did not attempt to accomplish the feat all in one sitting. At first he wascontent to achieve a cutting edge of a couple of inches, with which he cut along, pliable bow, a handle for his knife, a stout cudgel, and a goodly supplyof arrows.

These he cached in a tall tree beside a little stream, and here also heconstructed a platform with a roof of palm-leaves above it.

When all these things had been finished it was growing dusk, and Tarzan felt astrong desire to eat.

He had noted during the brief incursion he had made into the forest that ashort distance up-stream from his tree there was a much-used watering place,where, from the trampled mud of either bank, it was evident beasts of all sortsand in great numbers came to drink. To this spot the hungry ape-man made hissilent way.

Through the upper terrace of the tree-tops he swung with the grace and ease ofa monkey. But for the heavy burden upon his heart he would have been happy inthis return to the old free life of his boyhood.

Yet even with that burden he fell into the little habits and manners of hisearly life that were in reality more a part of him than the thin veneer ofcivilization that the past three years of his association with the white men ofthe outer world had spread lightly over him—a veneer that only hid thecrudities of the beast that Tarzan of the Apes had been.

Could his fellow-peers of the House of Lords have seen him then they would haveheld up their noble hands in holy horror.

Silently he crouched in the lower branches of a great forest giant thatoverhung the trail, his keen eyes and sensitive ears strained into the distantjungle, from which he knew his dinner would presently emerge.

Nor had he long to wait.

Scarce had he settled himself to a comfortable position, his lithe, muscularlegs drawn well up beneath him as the panther draws his hindquarters inpreparation for the spring, than Bara, the deer, came daintily down to drink.

But more than Bara was coming. Behind the graceful buck came another which thedeer could neither see nor scent, but whose movements were apparent to Tarzanof the Apes because of the elevated position of the ape-man’s ambush.

He knew not yet exactly the nature of the thing that moved so stealthilythrough the jungle a few hundred yards behind the deer; but he was convincedthat it was some great beast of prey stalking Bara for the selfsame purpose asthat which prompted him to await the fleet animal. Numa, perhaps, or Sheeta,the panther.

In any event, Tarzan could see his repast slipping from his grasp unless Baramoved more rapidly toward the ford than at present.

Even as these thoughts passed through his mind some noise of the stalker in hisrear must have come to the buck, for with a sudden start he paused for aninstant, trembling, in his tracks, and then with a swift bound dashed straightfor the river and Tarzan. It was his intention to flee through the shallow fordand escape upon the opposite side of the river.

Not a hundred yards behind him came Numa.

Tarzan could see him quite plainly now. Below the ape-man Bara was about topass. Could he do it? But even as he asked himself the question the hungry manlaunched himself from his perch full upon the back of the startled buck.

In another instant Numa would be upon them both, so if the ape-man were to dinethat night, or ever again, he must act quickly.

Scarcely had he touched the sleek hide of the deer with a momentum that sentthe animal to its knees than he had grasped a horn in either hand, and with asingle quick wrench twisted the animal’s neck completely round, until hefelt the vertebrae snap beneath his grip.

The lion was roaring in rage close behind him as he swung the deer across hisshoulder, and, grasping a foreleg between his strong teeth, leaped for thenearest of the lower branches that swung above his head.

With both hands he grasped the limb, and, at the instant that Numa sprang, drewhimself and his prey out of reach of the animal’s cruel talons.

There was a thud below him as the baffled cat fell back to earth, and thenTarzan of the Apes, drawing his dinner farther up to the safety of a higherlimb, looked down with grinning face into the gleaming yellow eyes of the otherwild beast that glared up at him from beneath, and with taunting insultsflaunted the tender carcass of his kill in the face of him whom he had cheatedof it.

With his crude stone knife he cut a juicy steak from the hindquarters, andwhile the great lion paced, growling, back and forth below him, Lord Greystokefilled his savage belly, nor ever in the choicest of his exclusive London clubshad a meal tasted more palatable.

The warm blood of his kill smeared his hands and face and filled his nostrilswith the scent that the savage carnivora love best.

And when he had finished he left the balance of the carcass in a high fork ofthe tree where he had dined, and with Numa trailing below him, still keen forrevenge, he made his way back to his tree-top shelter, where he slept until thesun was high the following morning.

CHAPTER IV.
Sheeta

The next few days were occupied by Tarzan in completing his weapons andexploring the jungle. He strung his bow with tendons from the buck upon whichhe had dined his first evening upon the new shore, and though he would havepreferred the gut of Sheeta for the purpose, he was content to wait untilopportunity permitted him to kill one of the great cats.

He also braided a long grass rope—such a rope as he had used so manyyears before to tantalize the ill-natured Tublat, and which later had developedinto a wondrous effective weapon in the practised hands of the little ape-boy.

A sheath and handle for his hunting-knife he fashioned, and a quiver forarrows, and from the hide of Bara a belt and loin-cloth. Then he set out tolearn something of the strange land in which he found himself. That it was nothis old familiar west coast of the African continent he knew from the fact thatit faced east—the rising sun came up out of the sea before the thresholdof the jungle.

But that it was not the east coast of Africa he was equally positive, for hefelt satisfied that the Kincaid had not passed through the Mediterranean, theSuez Canal, and the Red Sea, nor had she had time to round the Cape of GoodHope. So he was quite at a loss to know where he might be.

Sometimes he wondered if the ship had crossed the broad Atlantic to deposit himupon some wild South American shore; but the presence of Numa, the lion,decided him that such could not be the case.

As Tarzan made his lonely way through the jungle paralleling the shore, he feltstrong upon him a desire for companionship, so that gradually he commenced toregret that he had not cast his lot with the apes. He had seen nothing of themsince that first day, when the influences of civilization were still paramountwithin him.

Now he was more nearly returned to the Tarzan of old, and though he appreciatedthe fact that there could be little in common between himself and the greatanthropoids, still they were better than no company at all.

Moving leisurely, sometimes upon the ground and again among the lower branchesof the trees, gathering an occasional fruit or turning over a fallen log insearch of the larger bugs, which he still found as palatable as of old, Tarzanhad covered a mile or more when his attention was attracted by the scent ofSheeta up-wind ahead of him.

Now Sheeta, the panther, was one whom Tarzan was exceptionally glad to fall inwith, for he had it in mind not only to utilize the great cat’s stronggut for his bow, but also to fashion a new quiver and loin-cloth from pieces ofhis hide. So, whereas the ape-man had gone carelessly before, he now became thepersonification of noiseless stealth.

Swiftly and silently he glided through the forest in the wake of the savagecat, nor was the pursuer, for all his noble birth, one whit less savage thanthe wild, fierce thing he stalked.

As he came closer to Sheeta he became aware that the panther on his part wasstalking game of his own, and even as he realized this fact there came to hisnostrils, wafted from his right by a vagrant breeze, the strong odour of acompany of great apes.

The panther had taken to a large tree as Tarzan came within sight of him, andbeyond and below him Tarzan saw the tribe of Akut lolling in a little, naturalclearing. Some of them were dozing against the boles of trees, while othersroamed about turning over bits of bark from beneath which they transferred theluscious grubs and beetles to their mouths.

Akut was the closest to Sheeta.

The great cat lay crouched upon a thick limb, hidden from the ape’s viewby dense foliage, waiting patiently until the anthropoid should come withinrange of his spring.

Tarzan cautiously gained a position in the same tree with the panther and alittle above him. In his left hand he grasped his slim stone blade. He wouldhave preferred to use his noose, but the foliage surrounding the huge catprecluded the possibility of an accurate throw with the rope.

Akut had now wandered quite close beneath the tree wherein lay the waitingdeath. Sheeta slowly edged his hind paws along the branch still further beneathhim, and then with a hideous shriek he launched himself toward the great ape.The barest fraction of a second before his spring another beast of prey abovehim leaped, its weird and savage cry mingling with his.

As the startled Akut looked up he saw the panther almost above him, and alreadyupon the panther’s back the white ape that had bested him that day nearthe great water.

The teeth of the ape-man were buried in the back of Sheeta’s neck and hisright arm was round the fierce throat, while the left hand, grasping a slenderpiece of stone, rose and fell in mighty blows upon the panther’s sidebehind the left shoulder.

Akut had just time to leap to one side to avoid being pinioned beneath thesebattling monsters of the jungle.

With a crash they came to earth at his feet. Sheeta was screaming, snarling,and roaring horribly; but the white ape clung tenaciously and in silence to thethrashing body of his quarry.

Steadily and remorselessly the stone knife was driven home through the glossyhide—time and again it drank deep, until with a final agonized lunge andshriek the great feline rolled over upon its side and, save for the spasmodicjerking of its muscles, lay quiet and still in death.

Then the ape-man raised his head, as he stood over the carcass of his kill, andonce again through the jungle rang his wild and savage victory challenge.

Akut and the apes of Akut stood looking in startled wonder at the dead body ofSheeta and the lithe, straight figure of the man who had slain him.

Tarzan was the first to speak.

He had saved Akut’s life for a purpose, and, knowing the limitations ofthe ape intellect, he also knew that he must make this purpose plain to theanthropoid if it were to serve him in the way he hoped.

“I am Tarzan of the Apes,” he said, “Mighty hunter. Mightyfighter. By the great water I spared Akut’s life when I might have takenit and become king of the tribe of Akut. Now I have saved Akut from deathbeneath the rending fangs of Sheeta.

“When Akut or the tribe of Akut is in danger, let them call to Tarzanthus”—and the ape-man raised the hideous cry with which the tribeof Kerchak had been wont to summon its absent members in times of peril.

“And,” he continued, “when they hear Tarzan call to them, letthem remember what he has done for Akut and come to him with great speed. Shallit be as Tarzan says?”

“Huh!” assented Akut, and from the members of his tribe there rosea unanimous “Huh.”

Then, presently, they went to feeding again as though nothing had happened, andwith them fed John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.

He noticed, however, that Akut kept always close to him, and was often lookingat him with a strange wonder in his little bloodshot eyes, and once he did athing that Tarzan during all his long years among the apes had never beforeseen an ape do—he found a particularly tender morsel and handed it toTarzan.

As the tribe hunted, the glistening body of the ape-man mingled with the brown,shaggy hides of his companions. Oftentimes they brushed together in passing,but the apes had already taken his presence for granted, so that he was as muchone of them as Akut himself.

If he came too close to a she with a young baby, the former would bare hergreat fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a truculent youngbull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while the former was eating.But in those things the treatment was no different from that which theyaccorded any other member of the tribe.

Tarzan on his part felt very much at home with these fierce, hairy progenitorsof primitive man. He skipped nimbly out of reach of each threateningfemale—for such is the way of apes, if they be not in one of theiroccasional fits of bestial rage—and he growled back at the truculentyoung bulls, baring his canine teeth even as they. Thus easily he fell backinto the way of his early life, nor did it seem that he had ever tastedassociation with creatures of his own kind.

For the better part of a week he roamed the jungle with his new friends, partlybecause of a desire for companionship and partially through a well-laid plan toimpress himself indelibly upon their memories, which at best are none too long;for Tarzan from past experience knew that it might serve him in good stead tohave a tribe of these powerful and terrible beasts at his call.

When he was convinced that he had succeeded to some extent in fixing hisidentity upon them he decided to again take up his exploration. To this end heset out toward the north early one day, and, keeping parallel with the shore,travelled rapidly until almost nightfall.

When the sun rose the next morning he saw that it lay almost directly to hisright as he stood upon the beach instead of straight out across the water asheretofore, and so he reasoned that the shore line had trended toward the west.All the second day he continued his rapid course, and when Tarzan of the Apessought speed, he passed through the middle terrace of the forest with therapidity of a squirrel.

That night the sun set straight out across the water opposite the land, andthen the ape-man guessed at last the truth that he had been suspecting.

Rokoff had set him ashore upon an island.

He might have known it! If there was any plan that would render his positionmore harrowing he should have known that such would be the one adopted by theRussian, and what could be more terrible than to leave him to a lifetime ofsuspense upon an uninhabited island?

Rokoff doubtless had sailed directly to the mainland, where it would be acomparatively easy thing for him to find the means of delivering the infantJack into the hands of the cruel and savage foster-parents, who, as his notehad threatened, would have the upbringing of the child.

Tarzan shuddered as he thought of the cruel suffering the little one mustendure in such a life, even though he might fall into the hands of individualswhose intentions toward him were of the kindest. The ape-man had had sufficientexperience with the lower savages of Africa to know that even there may befound the cruder virtues of charity and humanity; but their lives were at bestbut a series of terrible privations, dangers, and sufferings.

Then there was the horrid after-fate that awaited the child as he grew tomanhood. The horrible practices that would form a part of his life-trainingwould alone be sufficient to bar him forever from association with those of hisown race and station in life.

A cannibal! His little boy a savage man-eater! It was too horrible tocontemplate.

The filed teeth, the slit nose, the little face painted hideously. Tarzangroaned. Could he but feel the throat of the Russ fiend beneath his steelfingers!

And Jane!

What tortures of doubt and fear and uncertainty she must be suffering. He feltthat his position was infinitely less terrible than hers, for he at least knewthat one of his loved ones was safe at home, while she had no idea of thewhereabouts of either her husband or her son.

It is well for Tarzan that he did not guess the truth, for the knowledge wouldhave but added a hundredfold to his suffering.

As he moved slowly through the jungle his mind absorbed by his gloomy thoughts,there presently came to his ears a strange scratching sound which he could nottranslate.

Cautiously he moved in the direction from which it emanated, presently comingupon a huge panther pinned beneath a fallen tree.

As Tarzan approached, the beast turned, snarling, toward him, struggling toextricate itself; but one great limb across its back and the smaller entanglingbranches pinioning its legs prevented it from moving but a few inches in anydirection.

The ape-man stood before the helpless cat fitting an arrow to his bow that hemight dispatch the beast that otherwise must die of starvation; but even as hedrew back the shaft a sudden whim stayed his hand.

Why rob the poor creature of life and liberty, when it would be so easy a thingto restore both to it! He was sure from the fact that the panther moved all itslimbs in its futile struggle for freedom that its spine was uninjured, and forthe same reason he knew that none of its limbs were broken.

Relaxing his bowstring, he returned the arrow to the quiver and, throwing thebow about his shoulder, stepped closer to the pinioned beast.

On his lips was the soothing, purring sound that the great cats themselves madewhen contented and happy. It was the nearest approach to a friendly advancethat Tarzan could make in the language of Sheeta.

The panther ceased his snarling and eyed the ape-man closely. To lift thetree’s great weight from the animal it was necessary to come within reachof those long, strong talons, and when the tree had been removed the man wouldbe totally at the mercy of the savage beast; but to Tarzan of the Apes fear wasa thing unknown.

Having decided, he acted promptly.

Unhesitatingly, he stepped into the tangle of branches close to thepanther’s side, still voicing his friendly and conciliatory purr. The catturned his head toward the man, eyeing him steadily—questioningly. Thelong fangs were bared, but more in preparedness than threat.

Tarzan put a broad shoulder beneath the bole of the tree, and as he did so hisbare leg pressed against the cat’s silken side, so close was the man tothe great beast.

Slowly Tarzan extended his giant thews.

The great tree with its entangling branches rose gradually from the panther,who, feeling the encumbering weight diminish, quickly crawled from beneath.Tarzan let the tree fall back to earth, and the two beasts turned to look uponone another.

A grim smile lay upon the ape-man’s lips, for he knew that he had takenhis life in his hands to free this savage jungle fellow; nor would it havesurprised him had the cat sprung upon him the instant that it had beenreleased.

But it did not do so. Instead, it stood a few paces from the tree watching theape-man clamber out of the maze of fallen branches.

Once outside, Tarzan was not three paces from the panther. He might have takento the higher branches of the trees upon the opposite side, for Sheeta cannotclimb to the heights to which the ape-man can go; but something, a spirit ofbravado perhaps, prompted him to approach the panther as though to discover ifany feeling of gratitude would prompt the beast to friendliness.

As he approached the mighty cat the creature stepped warily to one side, andthe ape-man brushed past him within a foot of the dripping jaws, and as hecontinued on through the forest the panther followed on behind him, as a houndfollows at heel.

For a long time Tarzan could not tell whether the beast was following out offriendly feelings or merely stalking him against the time he should be hungry;but finally he was forced to believe that the former incentive it was thatprompted the animal’s action.

Later in the day the scent of a deer sent Tarzan into the trees, and when hehad dropped his noose about the animal’s neck he called to Sheeta, usinga purr similar to that which he had utilized to pacify the brute’ssuspicions earlier in the day, but a trifle louder and more shrill.

It was similar to that which he had heard panthers use after a kill when theyhad been hunting in pairs.

Almost immediately there was a crashing of the underbrush close at hand, andthe long, lithe body of his strange companion broke into view.

At sight of the body of Bara and the smell of blood the panther gave forth ashrill scream, and a moment later two beasts were feeding side by side upon thetender meat of the deer.

For several days this strangely assorted pair roamed the jungle together.

When one made a kill he called the other, and thus they fed well and often.

On one occasion as they were dining upon the carcass of a boar that Sheeta haddispatched, Numa, the lion, grim and terrible, broke through the tangledgrasses close beside them.

With an angry, warning roar he sprang forward to chase them from their kill.Sheeta bounded into a near-by thicket, while Tarzan took to the low branches ofan overhanging tree.

Here the ape-man unloosed his grass rope from about his neck, and as Numa stoodabove the body of the boar, challenging head erect, he dropped the sinuousnoose about the maned neck, drawing the stout strands taut with a sudden jerk.At the same time he called shrilly to Sheeta, as he drew the struggling lionupward until only his hind feet touched the ground.

Quickly he made the rope fast to a stout branch, and as the panther, in answerto his summons, leaped into sight, Tarzan dropped to the earth beside thestruggling and infuriated Numa, and with a long sharp knife sprang upon him atone side even as Sheeta did upon the other.

The panther tore and rent Numa upon the right, while the ape-man struck homewith his stone knife upon the other, so that before the mighty clawing of theking of beasts had succeeded in parting the rope he hung quite dead andharmless in the noose.

And then upon the jungle air there rose in unison from two savage throats thevictory cry of the bull-ape and the panther, blended into one frightful anduncanny scream.

As the last notes died away in a long-drawn, fearsome wail, a score of paintedwarriors, drawing their long war-canoe upon the beach, halted to stare in thedirection of the jungle and to listen.

CHAPTER V.
Mugambi

By the time that Tarzan had travelled entirely about the coast of the island,and made several trips inland from various points, he was sure that he was theonly human being upon it.

Nowhere had he found any sign that men had stopped even temporarily upon thisshore, though, of course, he knew that so quickly does the rank vegetation ofthe tropics erase all but the most permanent of human monuments that he mightbe in error in his deductions.

The day following the killing of Numa, Tarzan and Sheeta came upon the tribe ofAkut. At sight of the panther the great apes took to flight, but after a timeTarzan succeeded in recalling them.

It had occurred to him that it would be at least an interesting experiment toattempt to reconcile these hereditary enemies. He welcomed anything that wouldoccupy his time and his mind beyond the filling of his belly and the gloomythoughts to which he fell prey the moment that he became idle.

To communicate his plan to the apes was not a particularly difficult matter,though their narrow and limited vocabulary was strained in the effort; but toimpress upon the little, wicked brain of Sheeta that he was to hunt with andnot for his legitimate prey proved a task almost beyond the powers of theape-man.

Tarzan, among his other weapons, possessed a long, stout cudgel, and afterfastening his rope about the panther’s neck he used this instrumentfreely upon the snarling beast, endeavouring in this way to impress upon itsmemory that it must not attack the great, shaggy manlike creatures that hadapproached more closely once they had seen the purpose of the rope aboutSheeta’s neck.

That the cat did not turn and rend Tarzan is something of a miracle which maypossibly be accounted for by the fact that twice when it turned growling uponthe ape-man he had rapped it sharply upon its sensitive nose, inculcating inits mind thereby a most wholesome fear of the cudgel and the ape-beasts behindit.

It is a question if the original cause of his attachment for Tarzan was stillat all clear in the mind of the panther, though doubtless some subconscioussuggestion, superinduced by this primary reason and aided and abetted by thehabit of the past few days, did much to compel the beast to tolerate treatmentat his hands that would have sent it at the throat of any other creature.

Then, too, there was the compelling force of the manmind exerting its powerfulinfluence over this creature of a lower order, and, after all, it may have beenthis that proved the most potent factor in Tarzan’s supremacy over Sheetaand the other beasts of the jungle that had from time to time fallen under hisdomination.

Be that as it may, for days the man, the panther, and the great apes roamedtheir savage haunts side by side, making their kills together and sharing themwith one another, and of all the fierce and savage band none was more terriblethan the smooth-skinned, powerful beast that had been but a few short monthsbefore a familiar figure in many a London drawing room.

Sometimes the beasts separated to follow their own inclinations for an hour ora day, and it was upon one of these occasions when the ape-man had wanderedthrough the tree-tops toward the beach, and was stretched in the hot sun uponthe sand, that from the low summit of a near-by promontory a pair of keen eyesdiscovered him.

For a moment the owner of the eyes looked in astonishment at the figure of thesavage white man basking in the rays of that hot, tropic sun; then he turned,making a sign to some one behind him. Presently another pair of eyes werelooking down upon the ape-man, and then another and another, until a full scoreof hideously trapped, savage warriors were lying upon their bellies along thecrest of the ridge watching the white-skinned stranger.

They were down wind from Tarzan, and so their scent was not carried to him, andas his back was turned half toward them he did not see their cautious advanceover the edge of the promontory and down through the rank grass toward thesandy beach where he lay.

Big fellows they were, all of them, their barbaric headdresses and grotesquelypainted faces, together with their many metal ornaments and gorgeously colouredfeathers, adding to their wild, fierce appearance.

Once at the foot of the ridge, they came cautiously to their feet, and, benthalf-double, advanced silently upon the unconscious white man, their heavywar-clubs swinging menacingly in their brawny hands.

The mental suffering that Tarzan’s sorrowful thoughts induced had theeffect of numbing his keen, perceptive faculties, so that the advancing savageswere almost upon him before he became aware that he was no longer alone uponthe beach.

So quickly, though, were his mind and muscles wont to react in unison to theslightest alarm that he was upon his feet and facing his enemies, even as herealized that something was behind him. As he sprang to his feet the warriorsleaped toward him with raised clubs and savage yells, but the foremost wentdown to sudden death beneath the long, stout stick of the ape-man, and then thelithe, sinewy figure was among them, striking right and left with a fury,power, and precision that brought panic to the ranks of the blacks.

For a moment they withdrew, those that were left of them, and consultedtogether at a short distance from the ape-man, who stood with folded arms, ahalf-smile upon his handsome face, watching them. Presently they advanced uponhim once more, this time wielding their heavy war-spears. They were betweenTarzan and the jungle, in a little semicircle that closed in upon him as theyadvanced.

There seemed to the ape-man but slight chance to escape the final charge whenall the great spears should be hurled simultaneously at him; but if he haddesired to escape there was no way other than through the ranks of the savagesexcept the open sea behind him.

His predicament was indeed most serious when an idea occurred to him thataltered his smile to a broad grin. The warriors were still some little distanceaway, advancing slowly, making, after the manner of their kind, a frightful dinwith their savage yells and the pounding of their naked feet upon the ground asthey leaped up and down in a fantastic war dance.

Then it was that the ape-man lifted his voice in a series of wild, weirdscreams that brought the blacks to a sudden, perplexed halt. They looked at oneanother questioningly, for here was a sound so hideous that their own frightfuldin faded into insignificance beside it. No human throat could have formedthose bestial notes, they were sure, and yet with their own eyes they had seenthis white man open his mouth to pour forth his awful cry.

But only for a moment they hesitated, and then with one accord they again tookup their fantastic advance upon their prey; but even then a sudden crashing inthe jungle behind them brought them once more to a halt, and as they turned tolook in the direction of this new noise there broke upon their startled visionsa sight that may well have frozen the blood of braver men than the Wagambi.

Leaping from the tangled vegetation of the jungle’s rim came a hugepanther, with blazing eyes and bared fangs, and in his wake a score of mighty,shaggy apes lumbering rapidly toward them, half erect upon their short, bowedlegs, and with their long arms reaching to the ground, where their hornyknuckles bore the weight of their ponderous bodies as they lurched from side toside in their grotesque advance.

The beasts of Tarzan had come in answer to his call.

Before the Wagambi could recover from their astonishment the frightful hordewas upon them from one side and Tarzan of the Apes from the other. Heavy spearswere hurled and mighty war-clubs wielded, and though apes went down never torise, so, too, went down the men of Ugambi.

Sheeta’s cruel fangs and tearing talons ripped and tore at the blackhides. Akut’s mighty yellow tusks found the jugular of more than onesleek-skinned savage, and Tarzan of the Apes was here and there and everywhere,urging on his fierce allies and taking a heavy toll with his long, slim knife.

In a moment the blacks had scattered for their lives, but of the score that hadcrept down the grassy sides of the promontory only a single warrior managed toescape the horde that had overwhelmed his people.

This one was Mugambi, chief of the Wagambi of Ugambi, and as he disappeared inthe tangled luxuriousness of the rank growth upon the ridge’s summit onlythe keen eyes of the ape-man saw the direction of his flight.

Leaving his pack to eat their fill upon the flesh of their victims—fleshthat he could not touch—Tarzan of the Apes pursued the single survivor ofthe bloody fray. Just beyond the ridge he came within sight of the fleeingblack, making with headlong leaps for a long war-canoe that was drawn well upupon the beach above the high tide surf.

Noiseless as the fellow’s shadow, the ape-man raced after theterror-stricken black. In the white man’s mind was a new plan, awakenedby sight of the war-canoe. If these men had come to his island from another, orfrom the mainland, why not utilize their craft to make his way to the countryfrom which they had come? Evidently it was an inhabited country, and no doubthad occasional intercourse with the mainland, if it were not itself upon thecontinent of Africa.

A heavy hand fell upon the shoulder of the escaping Mugambi before he was awarethat he was being pursued, and as he turned to do battle with his assailantgiant fingers closed about his wrists and he was hurled to earth with a giantastride him before he could strike a blow in his own defence.

In the language of the West Coast, Tarzan spoke to the prostrate man beneathhim.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Mugambi, chief of the Wagambi,” replied the black.

“I will spare your life,” said Tarzan, “if you will promiseto help me to leave this island. What do you answer?”

“I will help you,” replied Mugambi. “But now that you havekilled all my warriors, I do not know that even I can leave your country, forthere will be none to wield the paddles, and without paddlers we cannot crossthe water.”

Tarzan rose and allowed his prisoner to come to his feet. The fellow was amagnificent specimen of manhood—a black counterpart in physique of thesplendid white man whom he faced.

“Come!” said the ape-man, and started back in the direction fromwhich they could hear the snarling and growling of the feasting pack. Mugambidrew back.

“They will kill us,” he said.

“I think not,” replied Tarzan. “They are mine.”

Still the black hesitated, fearful of the consequences of approaching theterrible creatures that were dining upon the bodies of his warriors; but Tarzanforced him to accompany him, and presently the two emerged from the jungle infull view of the grisly spectacle upon the beach. At sight of the men thebeasts looked up with menacing growls, but Tarzan strode in among them,dragging the trembling Wagambi with him.

As he had taught the apes to accept Sheeta, so he taught them to adopt Mugambias well, and much more easily; but Sheeta seemed quite unable to understandthat though he had been called upon to devour Mugambi’s warriors he wasnot to be allowed to proceed after the same fashion with Mugambi. However,being well filled, he contented himself with walking round the terror-strickensavage, emitting low, menacing growls the while he kept his flaming, balefuleyes riveted upon the black.

Mugambi, on his part, clung closely to Tarzan, so that the ape-man could scarcecontrol his laughter at the pitiable condition to which the chief’s fearhad reduced him; but at length the white took the great cat by the scruff ofthe neck and, dragging it quite close to the Wagambi, slapped it sharply uponthe nose each time that it growled at the stranger.

At the sight of the thing—a man mauling with his bare hands one of themost relentless and fierce of the jungle carnivora—Mugambi’s eyesbulged from their sockets, and from entertaining a sullen respect for the giantwhite man who had made him prisoner, the black felt an almost worshipping aweof Tarzan.

The education of Sheeta progressed so well that in a short time Mugambi ceasedto be the object of his hungry attention, and the black felt a degree more ofsafety in his society.

To say that Mugambi was entirely happy or at ease in his new environment wouldnot be to adhere strictly to the truth. His eyes were constantly rollingapprehensively from side to side as now one and now another of the fierce packchanced to wander near him, so that for the most of the time it was principallythe whites that showed.

Together Tarzan and Mugambi, with Sheeta and Akut, lay in wait at the ford fora deer, and when at a word from the ape-man the four of them leaped out uponthe affrighted animal the black was sure that the poor creature died of frightbefore ever one of the great beasts touched it.

Mugambi built a fire and cooked his portion of the kill; but Tarzan, Sheeta,and Akut tore theirs, raw, with their sharp teeth, growling among themselveswhen one ventured to encroach upon the share of another.

It was not, after all, strange that the white man’s ways should have beenso much more nearly related to those of the beasts than were the savage blacks.We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and when the seeming necessity forschooling ourselves in new ways ceases to exist, we fall naturally and easilyinto the manners and customs which long usage has implanted ineradicably withinus.

Mugambi from childhood had eaten no meat until it had been cooked, whileTarzan, on the other hand, had never tasted cooked food of any sort until hehad grown almost to manhood, and only within the past three or four years hadhe eaten cooked meat. Not only did the habit of a lifetime prompt him to eat itraw, but the craving of his palate as well; for to him cooked flesh was spoiledflesh when compared with the rich and juicy meat of a fresh, hot kill.

That he could, with relish, eat raw meat that had been buried by himself weeksbefore, and enjoy small rodents and disgusting grubs, seems to us who have beenalways “civilized” a revolting fact; but had we learned inchildhood to eat these things, and had we seen all those about us eat them,they would seem no more sickening to us now than do many of our greatestdainties, at which a savage African cannibal would look with repugnance andturn up his nose.

For instance, there is a tribe in the vicinity of Lake Rudolph that will eat nosheep or cattle, though its next neighbors do so. Near by is another tribe thateats donkey-meat—a custom most revolting to the surrounding tribes thatdo not eat donkey. So who may say that it is nice to eat snails andfrogs’ legs and oysters, but disgusting to feed upon grubs and beetles,or that a raw oyster, hoof, horns, and tail, is less revolting than the sweet,clean meat of a fresh-killed buck?

The next few days Tarzan devoted to the weaving of a barkcloth sail with whichto equip the canoe, for he despaired of being able to teach the apes to wieldthe paddles, though he did manage to get several of them to embark in the frailcraft which he and Mugambi paddled about inside the reef where the water wasquite smooth.

During these trips he had placed paddles in their hands, when they attempted toimitate the movements of him and Mugambi, but so difficult is it for them longto concentrate upon a thing that he soon saw that it would require weeks ofpatient training before they would be able to make any effective use of thesenew implements, if, in fact, they should ever do so.

There was one exception, however, and he was Akut. Almost from the first heshowed an interest in this new sport that revealed a much higher plane ofintelligence than that attained by any of his tribe. He seemed to grasp thepurpose of the paddles, and when Tarzan saw that this was so he took much painsto explain in the meagre language of the anthropoid how they might be used tothe best advantage.

From Mugambi Tarzan learned that the mainland lay but a short distance from theisland. It seemed that the Wagambi warriors had ventured too far out in theirfrail craft, and when caught by a heavy tide and a high wind from off-shorethey had been driven out of sight of land. After paddling for a whole night,thinking that they were headed for home, they had seen this land at sunrise,and, still taking it for the mainland, had hailed it with joy, nor had Mugambibeen aware that it was an island until Tarzan had told him that this was thefact.

The Wagambi chief was quite dubious as to the sail, for he had never seen sucha contrivance used. His country lay far up the broad Ugambi River, and this wasthe first occasion that any of his people had found their way to the ocean.

Tarzan, however, was confident that with a good west wind he could navigate thelittle craft to the mainland. At any rate, he decided, it would be preferableto perish on the way than to remain indefinitely upon this evidently unchartedisland to which no ships might ever be expected to come.

And so it was that when the first fair wind rose he embarked upon his cruise,and with him he took as strange and fearsome a crew as ever sailed under asavage master.

Mugambi and Akut went with him, and Sheeta, the panther, and a dozen greatmales of the tribe of Akut.

CHAPTER VI.
A Hideous Crew

The war-canoe with its savage load moved slowly toward the break in the reefthrough which it must pass to gain the open sea. Tarzan, Mugambi, and Akutwielded the paddles, for the shore kept the west wind from the little sail.

Sheeta crouched in the bow at the ape-man’s feet, for it had seemed bestto Tarzan always to keep the wicked beast as far from the other members of theparty as possible, since it would require little or no provocation to send himat the throat of any than the white man, whom he evidently now looked upon ashis master.

In the stern was Mugambi, and just in front of him squatted Akut, while betweenAkut and Tarzan the twelve hairy apes sat upon their haunches, blinkingdubiously this way and that, and now and then turning their eyes longingly backtoward shore.

All went well until the canoe had passed beyond the reef. Here the breezestruck the sail, sending the rude craft lunging among the waves that ran higherand higher as they drew away from the shore.

With the tossing of the boat the apes became panic-stricken. They first moveduneasily about, and then commenced grumbling and whining. With difficulty Akutkept them in hand for a time; but when a particularly large wave struck thedugout simultaneously with a little squall of wind their terror broke allbounds, and, leaping to their feet, they all but overturned the boat beforeAkut and Tarzan together could quiet them. At last calm was restored, andeventually the apes became accustomed to the strange antics of their craft,after which no more trouble was experienced with them.

The trip was uneventful, the wind held, and after ten hours’ steadysailing the black shadows of the coast loomed close before the straining eyesof the ape-man in the bow. It was far too dark to distinguish whether they hadapproached close to the mouth of the Ugambi or not, so Tarzan ran in throughthe surf at the closest point to await the dawn.

The dugout turned broadside the instant that its nose touched the sand, andimmediately it rolled over, with all its crew scrambling madly for the shore.The next breaker rolled them over and over, but eventually they all succeededin crawling to safety, and in a moment more their ungainly craft had beenwashed up beside them.

The balance of the night the apes sat huddled close to one another for warmth;while Mugambi built a fire close to them over which he crouched. Tarzan andSheeta, however, were of a different mind, for neither of them feared thejungle night, and the insistent craving of their hunger sent them off into theStygian blackness of the forest in search of prey.

Side by side they walked when there was room for two abreast. At other times insingle file, first one and then the other in advance. It was Tarzan who firstcaught the scent of meat—a bull buffalo—and presently the two camestealthily upon the sleeping beast in the midst of a dense jungle of reedsclose to a river.

Closer and closer they crept toward the unsuspecting beast, Sheeta upon hisright side and Tarzan upon his left nearest the great heart. They had huntedtogether now for some time, so that they worked in unison, with only low,purring sounds as signals.

For a moment they lay quite silent near their prey, and then at a sign from theape-man Sheeta sprang upon the great back, burying his strong teeth in thebull’s neck. Instantly the brute sprang to his feet with a bellow of painand rage, and at the same instant Tarzan rushed in upon his left side with thestone knife, striking repeatedly behind the shoulder.

One of the ape-man’s hands clutched the thick mane, and as the bull racedmadly through the reeds the thing striking at his life was dragged beside him.Sheeta but clung tenaciously to his hold upon the neck and back, biting deep inan effort to reach the spine.

For several hundred yards the bellowing bull carried his two savageantagonists, until at last the blade found his heart, when with a final bellowthat was half-scream he plunged headlong to the earth. Then Tarzan and Sheetafeasted to repletion.

After the meal the two curled up together in a thicket, the man’s blackhead pillowed upon the tawny side of the panther. Shortly after dawn they awokeand ate again, and then returned to the beach that Tarzan might lead thebalance of the pack to the kill.

When the meal was done the brutes were for curling up to sleep, so Tarzan andMugambi set off in search of the Ugambi River. They had proceeded scarce ahundred yards when they came suddenly upon a broad stream, which the Negroinstantly recognized as that down which he and his warriors had paddled to thesea upon their ill-starred expedition.

The two now followed the stream down to the ocean, finding that it emptied intoa bay not over a mile from the point upon the beach at which the canoe had beenthrown the night before.

Tarzan was much elated by the discovery, as he knew that in the vicinity of alarge watercourse he should find natives, and from some of these he had littledoubt but that he should obtain news of Rokoff and the child, for he feltreasonably certain that the Russian would rid himself of the baby as quickly aspossible after having disposed of Tarzan.

He and Mugambi now righted and launched the dugout, though it was a mostdifficult feat in the face of the surf which rolled continuously in upon thebeach; but at last they were successful, and soon after were paddling up thecoast toward the mouth of the Ugambi. Here they experienced considerabledifficulty in making an entrance against the combined current and ebb tide, butby taking advantage of eddies close in to shore they came about dusk to a pointnearly opposite the spot where they had left the pack asleep.

Making the craft fast to an overhanging bough, the two made their way into thejungle, presently coming upon some of the apes feeding upon fruit a littlebeyond the reeds where the buffalo had fallen. Sheeta was not anywhere to beseen, nor did he return that night, so that Tarzan came to believe that he hadwandered away in search of his own kind.

Early the next morning the ape-man led his band down to the river, and as hewalked he gave vent to a series of shrill cries. Presently from a greatdistance and faintly there came an answering scream, and a half-hour later thelithe form of Sheeta bounded into view where the others of the pack wereclambering gingerly into the canoe.

The great beast, with arched back and purring like a contented tabby, rubbedhis sides against the ape-man, and then at a word from the latter spranglightly to his former place in the bow of the dugout.

When all were in place it was discovered that two of the apes of Akut weremissing, and though both the king ape and Tarzan called to them for the betterpart of an hour, there was no response, and finally the boat put off withoutthem. As it happened that the two missing ones were the very same who hadevinced the least desire to accompany the expedition from the island, and hadsuffered the most from fright during the voyage, Tarzan was quite sure thatthey had absented themselves purposely rather than again enter the canoe.

As the party were putting in for the shore shortly after noon to search forfood a slender, naked savage watched them for a moment from behind the densescreen of verdure which lined the river’s bank, then he melted awayup-stream before any of those in the canoe discovered him.

Like a deer he bounded along the narrow trail until, filled with the excitementof his news, he burst into a native village several miles above the point atwhich Tarzan and his pack had stopped to hunt.

“Another white man is coming!” he cried to the chief who squattedbefore the entrance to his circular hut. “Another white man, and with himare many warriors. They come in a great war-canoe to kill and rob as did theblack-bearded one who has just left us.”

Kaviri leaped to his feet. He had but recently had a taste of the whiteman’s medicine, and his savage heart was filled with bitterness and hate.In another moment the rumble of the war-drums rose from the village, calling inthe hunters from the forest and the tillers from the fields.

Seven war-canoes were launched and manned by paint-daubed, befeatheredwarriors. Long spears bristled from the rude battle-ships, as they slidnoiselessly over the bosom of the water, propelled by giant muscles rollingbeneath glistening, ebony hides.

There was no beating of tom-toms now, nor blare of native horn, for Kaviri wasa crafty warrior, and it was in his mind to take no chances, if they could beavoided. He would swoop noiselessly down with his seven canoes upon the singleone of the white man, and before the guns of the latter could inflict muchdamage upon his people he would have overwhelmed the enemy by force of numbers.

Kaviri’s own canoe went in advance of the others a short distance, and asit rounded a sharp bend in the river where the swift current bore it rapidly onits way it came suddenly upon the thing that Kaviri sought.

So close were the two canoes to one another that the black had only anopportunity to note the white face in the bow of the oncoming craft before thetwo touched and his own men were upon their feet, yelling like mad devils andthrusting their long spears at the occupants of the other canoe.

But a moment later, when Kaviri was able to realize the nature of the crew thatmanned the white man’s dugout, he would have given all the beads and ironwire that he possessed to have been safely within his distant village. Scarcelyhad the two craft come together than the frightful apes of Akut rose, growlingand barking, from the bottom of the canoe, and, with long, hairy arms faroutstretched, grasped the menacing spears from the hands of Kaviri’swarriors.

The blacks were overcome with terror, but there was nothing to do other than tofight. Now came the other war-canoes rapidly down upon the two craft. Theiroccupants were eager to join the battle, for they thought that their foes werewhite men and their native porters.

They swarmed about Tarzan’s craft; but when they saw the nature of theenemy all but one turned and paddled swiftly up-river. That one came too closeto the ape-man’s craft before its occupants realized that their fellowswere pitted against demons instead of men. As it touched Tarzan spoke a few lowwords to Sheeta and Akut, so that before the attacking warriors could draw awaythere sprang upon them with a blood-freezing scream a huge panther, and intothe other end of their canoe clambered a great ape.

At one end the panther wrought fearful havoc with his mighty talons and long,sharp fangs, while Akut at the other buried his yellow canines in the necks ofthose that came within his reach, hurling the terror-stricken blacks overboardas he made his way toward the centre of the canoe.

Kaviri was so busily engaged with the demons that had entered his own craftthat he could offer no assistance to his warriors in the other. A giant of awhite devil had wrested his spear from him as though he, the mighty Kaviri, hadbeen but a new-born babe. Hairy monsters were overcoming his fighting men, anda black chieftain like himself was fighting shoulder to shoulder with thehideous pack that opposed him.

Kaviri battled bravely against his antagonist, for he felt that death hadalready claimed him, and so the least that he could do would be to sell hislife as dearly as possible; but it was soon evident that his best was quitefutile when pitted against the superhuman brawn and agility of the creaturethat at last found his throat and bent him back into the bottom of the canoe.

Presently Kaviri’s head began to whirl—objects became confused anddim before his eyes—there was a great pain in his chest as he struggledfor the breath of life that the thing upon him was shutting off for ever. Thenhe lost consciousness.

When he opened his eyes once more he found, much to his surprise, that he wasnot dead. He lay, securely bound, in the bottom of his own canoe. A greatpanther sat upon its haunches, looking down upon him.

Kaviri shuddered and closed his eyes again, waiting for the ferocious creatureto spring upon him and put him out of his misery of terror.

After a moment, no rending fangs having buried themselves in his tremblingbody, he again ventured to open his eyes. Beyond the panther kneeled the whitegiant who had overcome him.

The man was wielding a paddle, while directly behind him Kaviri saw some of hisown warriors similarly engaged. Back of them again squatted several of thehairy apes.

Tarzan, seeing that the chief had regained consciousness, addressed him.

“Your warriors tell me that you are the chief of a numerous people, andthat your name is Kaviri,” he said.

“Yes,” replied the black.

“Why did you attack me? I came in peace.”

“Another white man ‘came in peace’ three moons ago,”replied Kaviri; “and after we had brought him presents of a goat andcassava and milk, he set upon us with his guns and killed many of my people,and then went on his way, taking all of our goats and many of our young men andwomen.”

“I am not as this other white man,” replied Tarzan. “I shouldnot have harmed you had you not set upon me. Tell me, what was the face of thisbad white man like? I am searching for one who has wronged me. Possibly thismay be the very one.”

“He was a man with a bad face, covered with a great, black beard, and hewas very, very wicked—yes, very wicked indeed.”

“Was there a little white child with him?” asked Tarzan, his heartalmost stopped as he awaited the black’s answer.

“No, bwana,” replied Kaviri, “the white child was not withthis man’s party—it was with the other party.”

“Other party!” exclaimed Tarzan. “What other party?”

“With the party that the very bad white man was pursuing. There was awhite man, woman, and the child, with six Mosula porters. They passed up theriver three days ahead of the very bad white man. I think that they wererunning away from him.”

A white man, woman, and child! Tarzan was puzzled. The child must be his littleJack; but who could the woman be—and the man? Was it possible that one ofRokoff’s confederates had conspired with some woman—who hadaccompanied the Russian—to steal the baby from him?

If this was the case, they had doubtless purposed returning the child tocivilization and there either claiming a reward or holding the little prisonerfor ransom.

But now that Rokoff had succeeded in chasing them far inland, up the savageriver, there could be little doubt but that he would eventually overhaul them,unless, as was still more probable, they should be captured and killed by thevery cannibals farther up the Ugambi, to whom, Tarzan was now convinced, it hadbeen Rokoff’s intention to deliver the baby.

As he talked to Kaviri the canoes had been moving steadily up-river toward thechief’s village. Kaviri’s warriors plied the paddles in the threecanoes, casting sidelong, terrified glances at their hideous passengers. Threeof the apes of Akut had been killed in the encounter, but there were, withAkut, eight of the frightful beasts remaining, and there was Sheeta, thepanther, and Tarzan and Mugambi.

Kaviri’s warriors thought that they had never seen so terrible a crew inall their lives. Momentarily they expected to be pounced upon and torn asunderby some of their captors; and, in fact, it was all that Tarzan and Mugambi andAkut could do to keep the snarling, ill-natured brutes from snapping at theglistening, naked bodies that brushed against them now and then with themovements of the paddlers, whose very fear added incitement to the beasts.

At Kaviri’s camp Tarzan paused only long enough to eat the food that theblacks furnished, and arrange with the chief for a dozen men to man the paddlesof his canoe.

Kaviri was only too glad to comply with any demands that the ape-man might makeif only such compliance would hasten the departure of the horrid pack; but itwas easier, he discovered, to promise men than to furnish them, for when hispeople learned his intentions those that had not already fled into the jungleproceeded to do so without loss of time, so that when Kaviri turned to pointout those who were to accompany Tarzan, he discovered that he was the onlymember of his tribe left within the village.

Tarzan could not repress a smile.

“They do not seem anxious to accompany us,” he said; “butjust remain quietly here, Kaviri, and presently you shall see your peopleflocking to your side.”

Then the ape-man rose, and, calling his pack about him, commanded that Mugambiremain with Kaviri, and disappeared in the jungle with Sheeta and the apes athis heels.

For half an hour the silence of the grim forest was broken only by the ordinarysounds of the teeming life that but adds to its lowering loneliness. Kaviri andMugambi sat alone in the palisaded village, waiting.

Presently from a great distance came a hideous sound. Mugambi recognized theweird challenge of the ape-man. Immediately from different points of thecompass rose a horrid semicircle of similar shrieks and screams, punctuated nowand again by the blood-curdling cry of a hungry panther.

CHAPTER VII.
Betrayed

The two savages, Kaviri and Mugambi, squatting before the entrance toKaviri’s hut, looked at one another—Kaviri with ill-concealedalarm.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“It is Bwana Tarzan and his people,” replied Mugambi. “Butwhat they are doing I know not, unless it be that they are devouring yourpeople who ran away.”

Kaviri shuddered and rolled his eyes fearfully toward the jungle. In all hislong life in the savage forest he had never heard such an awful, fearsome din.

Closer and closer came the sounds, and now with them were mingled the terrifiedshrieks of women and children and of men. For twenty long minutes theblood-curdling cries continued, until they seemed but a stone’s throwfrom the palisade. Kaviri rose to flee, but Mugambi seized and held him, forsuch had been the command of Tarzan.

A moment later a horde of terrified natives burst from the jungle, racingtoward the shelter of their huts. Like frightened sheep they ran, and behindthem, driving them as sheep might be driven, came Tarzan and Sheeta and thehideous apes of Akut.

Presently Tarzan stood before Kaviri, the old quiet smile upon his lips.

“Your people have returned, my brother,” he said, “and nowyou may select those who are to accompany me and paddle my canoe.”

Tremblingly Kaviri tottered to his feet, calling to his people to come fromtheir huts; but none responded to his summons.

“Tell them,” suggested Tarzan, “that if they do not come Ishall send my people in after them.”

Kaviri did as he was bid, and in an instant the entire population of thevillage came forth, their wide and frightened eyes rolling from one to anotherof the savage creatures that wandered about the village street.

Quickly Kaviri designated a dozen warriors to accompany Tarzan. The poorfellows went almost white with terror at the prospect of close contact with thepanther and the apes in the narrow confines of the canoes; but when Kaviriexplained to them that there was no escape—that Bwana Tarzan would pursuethem with his grim horde should they attempt to run away from theduty—they finally went gloomily down to the river and took their placesin the canoe.

It was with a sigh of relief that their chieftain saw the party disappear abouta headland a short distance up-river.

For three days the strange company continued farther and farther into the heartof the savage country that lies on either side of the almost unexplored Ugambi.Three of the twelve warriors deserted during that time; but as several of theapes had finally learned the secret of the paddles, Tarzan felt no dismaybecause of the loss.

As a matter of fact, he could have travelled much more rapidly on shore, but hebelieved that he could hold his own wild crew together to better advantage bykeeping them to the boat as much as possible. Twice a day they landed to huntand feed, and at night they slept upon the bank of the mainland or on one ofthe numerous little islands that dotted the river.

Before them the natives fled in alarm, so that they found only desertedvillages in their path as they proceeded. Tarzan was anxious to get in touchwith some of the savages who dwelt upon the river’s banks, but so far hehad been unable to do so.

Finally he decided to take to the land himself, leaving his company to followafter him by boat. He explained to Mugambi the thing that he had in mind, andtold Akut to follow the directions of the black.

“I will join you again in a few days,” he said. “Now I goahead to learn what has become of the very bad white man whom I seek.”

At the next halt Tarzan took to the shore, and was soon lost to the view of hispeople.

The first few villages he came to were deserted, showing that news of thecoming of his pack had travelled rapidly; but toward evening he came upon adistant cluster of thatched huts surrounded by a rude palisade, within whichwere a couple of hundred natives.

The women were preparing the evening meal as Tarzan of the Apes poised abovethem in the branches of a giant tree which overhung the palisade at one point.

The ape-man was at a loss as to how he might enter into communication withthese people without either frightening them or arousing their savage love ofbattle. He had no desire to fight now, for he was upon a much more importantmission than that of battling with every chance tribe that he should happen tomeet with.

At last he hit upon a plan, and after seeing that he was concealed from theview of those below, he gave a few hoarse grunts in imitation of a panther. Alleyes immediately turned upward toward the foliage above.

It was growing dark, and they could not penetrate the leafy screen whichshielded the ape-man from their view. The moment that he had won theirattention he raised his voice to the shriller and more hideous scream of thebeast he personated, and then, scarce stirring a leaf in his descent, droppedto the ground once again outside the palisade, and, with the speed of a deer,ran quickly round to the village gate.

Here he beat upon the fibre-bound saplings of which the barrier wasconstructed, shouting to the natives in their own tongue that he was a friendwho wished food and shelter for the night.

Tarzan knew well the nature of the black man. He was aware that the gruntingand screaming of Sheeta in the tree above them would set their nerves on edge,and that his pounding upon their gate after dark would still further add totheir terror.

That they did not reply to his hail was no surprise, for natives are fearful ofany voice that comes out of the night from beyond their palisades, attributingit always to some demon or other ghostly visitor; but still he continued tocall.

“Let me in, my friends!” he cried. “I am a white man pursuingthe very bad white man who passed this way a few days ago. I follow to punishhim for the sins he has committed against you and me.

“If you doubt my friendship, I will prove it to you by going into thetree above your village and driving Sheeta back into the jungle before he leapsamong you. If you will not promise to take me in and treat me as a friend Ishall let Sheeta stay and devour you.”

For a moment there was silence. Then the voice of an old man came out of thequiet of the village street.

“If you are indeed a white man and a friend, we will let you come in; butfirst you must drive Sheeta away.”

“Very well,” replied Tarzan. “Listen, and you shall hearSheeta fleeing before me.”

The ape-man returned quickly to the tree, and this time he made a great noiseas he entered the branches, at the same time growling ominously after themanner of the panther, so that those below would believe that the great beastwas still there.

When he reached a point well above the village street he made a greatcommotion, shaking the tree violently, crying aloud to the panther to flee orbe killed, and punctuating his own voice with the screams and mouthings of anangry beast.

Presently he raced toward the opposite side of the tree and off into thejungle, pounding loudly against the boles of trees as he went, and voicing thepanther’s diminishing growls as he drew farther and farther away from thevillage.

A few minutes later he returned to the village gate, calling to the nativeswithin.

“I have driven Sheeta away,” he said. “Now come and admit meas you promised.”

For a time there was the sound of excited discussion within the palisade, butat length a half-dozen warriors came and opened the gates, peering anxiouslyout in evident trepidation as to the nature of the creature which they shouldfind waiting there. They were not much relieved at sight of an almost nakedwhite man; but when Tarzan had reassured them in quiet tones, protesting hisfriendship for them, they opened the barrier a trifle farther and admitted him.

When the gates had been once more secured the self-confidence of the savagesreturned, and as Tarzan walked up the village street toward the chief’shut he was surrounded by a host of curious men, women, and children.

From the chief he learned that Rokoff had passed up the river a week previous,and that he had horns growing from his forehead, and was accompanied by athousand devils. Later the chief said that the very bad white man had remaineda month in his village.

Though none of these statements agreed with Kaviri’s, that the Russianwas but three days gone from the chieftain’s village and that hisfollowing was much smaller than now stated, Tarzan was in no manner surprisedat the discrepancies, for he was quite familiar with the savage mind’sstrange manner of functioning.

What he was most interested in knowing was that he was upon the right trail,and that it led toward the interior. In this circumstance he knew that Rokoffcould never escape him.

After several hours of questioning and cross-questioning the ape-man learnedthat another party had preceded the Russian by several days—threewhites—a man, a woman, and a little man-child, with several Mosulas.

Tarzan explained to the chief that his people would follow him in a canoe,probably the next day, and that though he might go on ahead of them the chiefwas to receive them kindly and have no fear of them, for Mugambi would see thatthey did not harm the chief’s people, if they were accorded a friendlyreception.

“And now,” he concluded, “I shall lie down beneath this treeand sleep. I am very tired. Permit no one to disturb me.”

The chief offered him a hut, but Tarzan, from past experience of nativedwellings, preferred the open air, and, further, he had plans of his own thatcould be better carried out if he remained beneath the tree. He gave as hisreason a desire to be close at hand should Sheeta return, and after thisexplanation the chief was very glad to permit him to sleep beneath the tree.

Tarzan had always found that it stood him in good stead to leave with nativesthe impression that he was to some extent possessed of more or less miraculouspowers. He might easily have entered their village without recourse to thegates, but he believed that a sudden and unaccountable disappearance when hewas ready to leave them would result in a more lasting impression upon theirchildlike minds, and so as soon as the village was quiet in sleep he rose, and,leaping into the branches of the tree above him, faded silently into the blackmystery of the jungle night.

All the balance of that night the ape-man swung rapidly through the upper andmiddle terraces of the forest. When the going was good there he preferred theupper branches of the giant trees, for then his way was better lighted by themoon; but so accustomed were all his senses to the grim world of his birth thatit was possible for him, even in the dense, black shadows near the ground, tomove with ease and rapidity. You or I walking beneath the arcs of Main Street,or Broadway, or State Street, could not have moved more surely or with a tenththe speed of the agile ape-man through the gloomy mazes that would have baffledus entirely.

At dawn he stopped to feed, and then he slept for several hours, taking up thepursuit again toward noon.

Twice he came upon natives, and, though he had considerable difficulty inapproaching them, he succeeded in each instance in quieting both their fearsand bellicose intentions toward him, and learned from them that he was upon thetrail of the Russian.

Two days later, still following up the Ugambi, he came upon a large village.The chief, a wicked-looking fellow with the sharp-filed teeth that often denotethe cannibal, received him with apparent friendliness.

The ape-man was now thoroughly fatigued, and had determined to rest for eightor ten hours that he might be fresh and strong when he caught up with Rokoff,as he was sure he must do within a very short time.

The chief told him that the bearded white man had left his village only themorning before, and that doubtless he would be able to overtake him in a shorttime. The other party the chief had not seen or heard of, so he said.

Tarzan did not like the appearance or manner of the fellow, who seemed, thoughfriendly enough, to harbour a certain contempt for this half-naked white manwho came with no followers and offered no presents; but he needed the rest andfood that the village would afford him with less effort than the jungle, andso, as he knew no fear of man, beast, or devil, he curled himself up in theshadow of a hut and was soon asleep.

Scarcely had he left the chief than the latter called two of his warriors, towhom he whispered a few instructions. A moment later the sleek, black bodieswere racing along the river path, up-stream, toward the east.

In the village the chief maintained perfect quiet. He would permit no one toapproach the sleeping visitor, nor any singing, nor loud talking. He wasremarkably solicitous lest his guest be disturbed.

Three hours later several canoes came silently into view from up the Ugambi.They were being pushed ahead rapidly by the brawny muscles of their blackcrews. Upon the bank before the river stood the chief, his spear raised in ahorizontal position above his head, as though in some manner of predeterminedsignal to those within the boats.

And such indeed was the purpose of his attitude—which meant that thewhite stranger within his village still slept peacefully.

In the bows of two of the canoes were the runners that the chief had sent forththree hours earlier. It was evident that they had been dispatched to follow andbring back this party, and that the signal from the bank was one that had beendetermined upon before they left the village.

In a few moments the dugouts drew up to the verdure-clad bank. The nativewarriors filed out, and with them a half-dozen white men. Sullen, ugly-lookingcustomers they were, and none more so than the evil-faced, black-bearded manwho commanded them.

“Where is the white man your messengers report to be with you?” heasked of the chief.

“This way, bwana,” replied the native. “Carefully have I keptsilence in the village that he might be still asleep when you returned. I donot know that he is one who seeks you to do you harm, but he questioned meclosely about your coming and your going, and his appearance is as that of theone you described, but whom you believed safe in the country which you calledJungle Island.

“Had you not told me this tale I should not have recognized him, and thenhe might have gone after and slain you. If he is a friend and no enemy, then noharm has been done, bwana; but if he proves to be an enemy, I should like verymuch to have a rifle and some ammunition.”

“You have done well,” replied the white man, “and you shallhave the rifle and ammunition whether he be a friend or enemy, provided thatyou stand with me.”

“I shall stand with you, bwana,” said the chief, “and nowcome and look upon the stranger, who sleeps within my village.”

So saying, he turned and led the way toward the hut, in the shadow of which theunconscious Tarzan slept peacefully.

Behind the two men came the remaining whites and a score of warriors; but theraised forefingers of the chief and his companion held them all to perfectsilence.

As they turned the corner of the hut, cautiously and upon tiptoe, an ugly smiletouched the lips of the white as his eyes fell upon the giant figure of thesleeping ape-man.

The chief looked at the other inquiringly. The latter nodded his head, tosignify that the chief had made no mistake in his suspicions. Then he turned tothose behind him and, pointing to the sleeping man, motioned for them to seizeand bind him.

A moment later a dozen brutes had leaped upon the surprised Tarzan, and soquickly did they work that he was securely bound before he could make half aneffort to escape.

Then they threw him down upon his back, and as his eyes turned toward the crowdthat stood near, they fell upon the malign face of Nikolas Rokoff.

A sneer curled the Russian’s lips. He stepped quite close to Tarzan.

“Pig!” he cried. “Have you not learned sufficient wisdom tokeep away from Nikolas Rokoff?”

Then he kicked the prostrate man full in the face.

“That for your welcome,” he said.

“Tonight, before my Ethiop friends eat you, I shall tell you what hasalready befallen your wife and child, and what further plans I have for theirfutures.”

CHAPTER VIII.
The Dance of Death

Through the luxuriant, tangled vegetation of the Stygian jungle night a greatlithe body made its way sinuously and in utter silence upon its soft paddedfeet. Only two blazing points of yellow-green flame shone occasionally with thereflected light of the equatorial moon that now and again pierced the softlysighing roof rustling in the night wind.

Occasionally the beast would stop with high-held nose, sniffing searchingly. Atother times a quick, brief incursion into the branches above delayed itmomentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To its sensitive nostrilscame the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender four-footed creature, bringingthe slaver of hunger to the cruel, drooping jowl.

But steadfastly it kept on its way, strangely ignoring the cravings of appetitethat at another time would have sent the rolling, fur-clad muscles flying atsome soft throat.

All that night the creature pursued its lonely way, and the next day it haltedonly to make a single kill, which it tore to fragments and devoured withsullen, grumbling rumbles as though half famished for lack of food.

It was dusk when it approached the palisade that surrounded a large nativevillage. Like the shadow of a swift and silent death it circled the village,nose to ground, halting at last close to the palisade, where it almost touchedthe backs of several huts. Here the beast sniffed for a moment, and then,turning its head upon one side, listened with up-pricked ears.

What it heard was no sound by the standards of human ears, yet to the highlyattuned and delicate organs of the beast a message seemed to be borne to thesavage brain. A wondrous transformation was wrought in the motionless mass ofstatuesque bone and muscle that had an instant before stood as though carvedout of the living bronze.

As if it had been poised upon steel springs, suddenly released, it rose quicklyand silently to the top of the palisade, disappearing, stealthily and cat-like,into the dark space between the wall and the back of an adjacent hut.

In the village street beyond women were preparing many little fires andfetching cooking-pots filled with water, for a great feast was to be celebratedere the night was many hours older. About a stout stake near the centre of thecircling fires a little knot of black warriors stood conversing, their bodiessmeared with white and blue and ochre in broad and grotesque bands. Greatcircles of colour were drawn about their eyes and lips, their breasts andabdomens, and from their clay-plastered coiffures rose gay feathers and bits oflong, straight wire.

The village was preparing for the feast, while in a hut at one side of thescene of the coming orgy the bound victim of their bestial appetites laywaiting for the end. And such an end!

Tarzan of the Apes, tensing his mighty muscles, strained at the bonds thatpinioned him; but they had been re-enforced many times at the instigation ofthe Russian, so that not even the ape-man’s giant brawn could budge them.

Death!

Tarzan had looked the Hideous Hunter in the face many a time, and smiled. Andhe would smile again tonight when he knew the end was coming quickly; but nowhis thoughts were not of himself, but of those others—the dear ones whomust suffer most because of his passing.

Jane would never know the manner of it. For that he thanked Heaven; and he wasthankful also that she at least was safe in the heart of the world’sgreatest city. Safe among kind and loving friends who would do their best tolighten her misery.

But the boy!

Tarzan writhed at the thought of him. His son! And now he—the mighty Lordof the Jungle—he, Tarzan, King of the Apes, the only one in all the worldfitted to find and save the child from the horrors that Rokoff’s evilmind had planned—had been trapped like a silly, dumb creature. He was todie in a few hours, and with him would go the child’s last chance ofsuccour.

Rokoff had been in to see and revile and abuse him several times during theafternoon; but he had been able to wring no word of remonstrance or murmur ofpain from the lips of the giant captive.

So at last he had given up, reserving his particular bit of exquisite mentaltorture for the last moment, when, just before the savage spears of thecannibals should for ever make the object of his hatred immune to furthersuffering, the Russian planned to reveal to his enemy the true whereabouts ofhis wife whom he thought safe in England.

Dusk had fallen upon the village, and the ape-man could hear the preparationsgoing forward for the torture and the feast. The dance of death he couldpicture in his mind’s eye—for he had seen the thing many times inthe past. Now he was to be the central figure, bound to the stake.

The torture of the slow death as the circling warriors cut him to bits with thefiendish skill, that mutilated without bringing unconsciousness, had no terrorsfor him. He was inured to suffering and to the sight of blood and to crueldeath; but the desire to live was no less strong within him, and until the lastspark of life should flicker and go out, his whole being would remain quickwith hope and determination. Let them relax their watchfulness but for aninstant, he knew that his cunning mind and giant muscles would find a way toescape—escape and revenge.

As he lay, thinking furiously on every possibility of self-salvation, therecame to his sensitive nostrils a faint and a familiar scent. Instantly everyfaculty of his mind was upon the alert. Presently his trained ears caught thesound of the soundless presence without—behind the hut wherein he lay.His lips moved, and though no sound came forth that might have been appreciableto a human ear beyond the walls of his prison, yet he realized that the onebeyond would hear. Already he knew who that one was, for his nostrils had toldhim as plainly as your eyes or mine tell us of the identity of an old friendwhom we come upon in broad daylight.

An instant later he heard the soft sound of a fur-clad body and padded feetscaling the outer wall behind the hut and then a tearing at the poles whichformed the wall. Presently through the hole thus made slunk a great beast,pressing its cold muzzle close to his neck.

It was Sheeta, the panther.

The beast snuffed round the prostrate man, whining a little. There was a limitto the interchange of ideas which could take place between these two, and soTarzan could not be sure that Sheeta understood all that he attempted tocommunicate to him. That the man was tied and helpless Sheeta could, of course,see; but that to the mind of the panther this would carry any suggestion ofharm in so far as his master was concerned, Tarzan could not guess.

What had brought the beast to him? The fact that he had come augured well forwhat he might accomplish; but when Tarzan tried to get Sheeta to gnaw his bondsasunder the great animal could not seem to understand what was expected of him,and, instead, but licked the wrists and arms of the prisoner.

Presently there came an interruption. Some one was approaching the hut. Sheetagave a low growl and slunk into the blackness of a far corner. Evidently thevisitor did not hear the warning sound, for almost immediately he entered thehut—a tall, naked, savage warrior.

He came to Tarzan’s side and pricked him with a spear. From the lips ofthe ape-man came a weird, uncanny sound, and in answer to it there leaped fromthe blackness of the hut’s farthermost corner a bolt of fur-clad death.Full upon the breast of the painted savage the great beast struck, buryingsharp talons in the black flesh and sinking great yellow fangs in the ebonthroat.

There was a fearful scream of anguish and terror from the black, and mingledwith it was the hideous challenge of the killing panther. Then camesilence—silence except for the rending of bloody flesh and the crunchingof human bones between mighty jaws.

The noise had brought sudden quiet to the village without. Then there came thesound of voices in consultation.

High-pitched, fear-filled voices, and deep, low tones of authority, as thechief spoke. Tarzan and the panther heard the approaching footsteps of manymen, and then, to Tarzan’s surprise, the great cat rose from across thebody of its kill, and slunk noiselessly from the hut through the aperturethrough which it had entered.

The man heard the soft scraping of the body as it passed over the top of thepalisade, and then silence. From the opposite side of the hut he heard thesavages approaching to investigate.

He had little hope that Sheeta would return, for had the great cat intended todefend him against all comers it would have remained by his side as it heardthe approaching savages without.

Tarzan knew how strange were the workings of the brains of the mighty carnivoraof the jungle—how fiendishly fearless they might be in the face ofcertain death, and again how timid upon the slightest provocation. There wasdoubt in his mind that some note of the approaching blacks vibrating with fearhad struck an answering chord in the nervous system of the panther, sending himslinking through the jungle, his tail between his legs.

The man shrugged. Well, what of it? He had expected to die, and, after all,what might Sheeta have done for him other than to maul a couple of his enemiesbefore a rifle in the hands of one of the whites should have dispatched him!

If the cat could have released him! Ah! that would have resulted in a verydifferent story; but it had proved beyond the understanding of Sheeta, and nowthe beast was gone and Tarzan must definitely abandon hope.

The natives were at the entrance to the hut now, peering fearfully into thedark interior. Two in advance held lighted torches in their left hands andready spears in their right. They held back timorously against those behind,who were pushing them forward.

The shrieks of the panther’s victim, mingled with those of the great cat,had wrought mightily upon their poor nerves, and now the awful silence of thedark interior seemed even more terribly ominous than had the frightfulscreaming.

Presently one of those who was being forced unwillingly within hit upon a happyscheme for learning first the precise nature of the danger which menaced himfrom the silent interior. With a quick movement he flung his lighted torch intothe centre of the hut. Instantly all within was illuminated for a brief secondbefore the burning brand was dashed out against the earth floor.

There was the figure of the white prisoner still securely bound as they hadlast seen him, and in the centre of the hut another figure equally asmotionless, its throat and breasts horribly torn and mangled.

The sight that met the eyes of the foremost savages inspired more terror withintheir superstitious breasts than would the presence of Sheeta, for they sawonly the result of a ferocious attack upon one of their fellows.

Not seeing the cause, their fear-ridden minds were free to attribute theghastly work to supernatural causes, and with the thought they turned,screaming, from the hut, bowling over those who stood directly behind them inthe exuberance of their terror.

For an hour Tarzan heard only the murmur of excited voices from the far end ofthe village. Evidently the savages were once more attempting to work up theirflickering courage to a point that would permit them to make another invasionof the hut, for now and then came a savage yell, such as the warriors give tobolster up their bravery upon the field of battle.

But in the end it was two of the whites who first entered, carrying torches andguns. Tarzan was not surprised to discover that neither of them was Rokoff. Hewould have wagered his soul that no power on earth could have tempted thatgreat coward to face the unknown menace of the hut.

When the natives saw that the white men were not attacked they, too, crowdedinto the interior, their voices hushed with terror as they looked upon themutilated corpse of their comrade. The whites tried in vain to elicit anexplanation from Tarzan; but to all their queries he but shook his head, a grimand knowing smile curving his lips.

At last Rokoff came.

His face grew very white as his eyes rested upon the bloody thing grinning upat him from the floor, the face set in a death mask of excruciating horror.

“Come!” he said to the chief. “Let us get to work and finishthis demon before he has an opportunity to repeat this thing upon more of yourpeople.”

The chief gave orders that Tarzan should be lifted and carried to the stake;but it was several minutes before he could prevail upon any of his men to touchthe prisoner.

At last, however, four of the younger warriors dragged Tarzan roughly from thehut, and once outside the pall of terror seemed lifted from the savage hearts.

A score of howling blacks pushed and buffeted the prisoner down the villagestreet and bound him to the post in the centre of the circle of little firesand boiling cooking-pots.

When at last he was made fast and seemed quite helpless and beyond the faintesthope of succour, Rokoff’s shrivelled wart of courage swelled to its usualproportions when danger was not present.

He stepped close to the ape-man, and, seizing a spear from the hands of one ofthe savages, was the first to prod the helpless victim. A little stream ofblood trickled down the giant’s smooth skin from the wound in his side;but no murmur of pain passed his lips.

The smile of contempt upon his face seemed to infuriate the Russian. With avolley of oaths he leaped at the helpless captive, beating him upon the facewith his clenched fists and kicking him mercilessly about the legs.

Then he raised the heavy spear to drive it through the mighty heart, and stillTarzan of the Apes smiled contemptuously upon him.

Before Rokoff could drive the weapon home the chief sprang upon him and draggedhim away from his intended victim.

“Stop, white man!” he cried. “Rob us of this prisoner and ourdeath-dance, and you yourself may have to take his place.”

The threat proved most effective in keeping the Russian from further assaultsupon the prisoner, though he continued to stand a little apart and hurl tauntsat his enemy. He told Tarzan that he himself was going to eat theape-man’s heart. He enlarged upon the horrors of the future life ofTarzan’s son, and intimated that his vengeance would reach as well toJane Clayton.

“You think your wife safe in England,” said Rokoff. “Poorfool! She is even now in the hands of one not even of decent birth, and farfrom the safety of London and the protection of her friends. I had not meant totell you this until I could bring to you upon Jungle Island proof of her fate.

“Now that you are about to die the most unthinkably horrid death that itis given a white man to die—let this word of the plight of your wife addto the torments that you must suffer before the last savage spear-thrustreleases you from your torture.”

The dance had commenced now, and the yells of the circling warriors drownedRokoff’s further attempts to distress his victim.

The leaping savages, the flickering firelight playing upon their paintedbodies, circled about the victim at the stake.

To Tarzan’s memory came a similar scene, when he had rescuedD’Arnot from a like predicament at the last moment before the finalspear-thrust should have ended his sufferings. Who was there now to rescue him?In all the world there was none able to save him from the torture and thedeath.

The thought that these human fiends would devour him when the dance was donecaused him not a single qualm of horror or disgust. It did not add to hissufferings as it would have to those of an ordinary white man, for all his lifeTarzan had seen the beasts of the jungle devour the flesh of their kills.

Had he not himself battled for the grisly forearm of a great ape at thatlong-gone Dum-Dum, when he had slain the fierce Tublat and won his niche in therespect of the Apes of Kerchak?

The dancers were leaping more closely to him now. The spears were commencing tofind his body in the first torturing pricks that prefaced the more seriousthrusts.

It would not be long now. The ape-man longed for the last savage lunge thatwould end his misery.

And then, far out in the mazes of the weird jungle, rose a shrill scream.

For an instant the dancers paused, and in the silence of the interval thererose from the lips of the fast-bound white man an answering shriek, morefearsome and more terrible than that of the jungle-beast that had roused it.

For several minutes the blacks hesitated; then, at the urging of Rokoff andtheir chief, they leaped in to finish the dance and the victim; but ere everanother spear touched the brown hide a tawny streak of green-eyed hate andferocity bounded from the door of the hut in which Tarzan had been imprisoned,and Sheeta, the panther, stood snarling beside his master.

For an instant the blacks and the whites stood transfixed with terror. Theireyes were riveted upon the bared fangs of the jungle cat.

Only Tarzan of the Apes saw what else there was emerging from the dark interiorof the hut.

CHAPTER IX.
Chivalry or Villainy

From her cabin port upon the Kincaid, Jane Clayton had seen her husband rowedto the verdure-clad shore of Jungle Island, and then the ship once moreproceeded upon its way.

For several days she saw no one other than Sven Anderssen, the Kincaid’staciturn and repellent cook. She asked him the name of the shore upon which herhusband had been set.

“Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard,” replied the Swede, andthat was all that she could get out of him.

She had come to the conclusion that he spoke no other English, and so sheceased to importune him for information; but never did she forget to greet himpleasantly or to thank him for the hideous, nauseating meals he brought her.

Three days from the spot where Tarzan had been marooned the Kincaid came toanchor in the mouth of a great river, and presently Rokoff came to JaneClayton’s cabin.

“We have arrived, my dear,” he said, with a sickening leer.“I have come to offer you safety, liberty, and ease. My heart has beensoftened toward you in your suffering, and I would make amends as best I may.

“Your husband was a brute—you know that best who found him naked inhis native jungle, roaming wild with the savage beasts that were his fellows.Now I am a gentleman, not only born of noble blood, but raised gently as befitsa man of quality.

“To you, dear Jane, I offer the love of a cultured man and associationwith one of culture and refinement, which you must have sorely missed in yourrelations with the poor ape that through your girlish infatuation you marriedso thoughtlessly. I love you, Jane. You have but to say the word and no furthersorrows shall afflict you—even your baby shall be returned to youunharmed.”

Outside the door Sven Anderssen paused with the noonday meal he had beencarrying to Lady Greystoke. Upon the end of his long, stringy neck his littlehead was cocked to one side, his close-set eyes were half closed, his ears, soexpressive was his whole attitude of stealthy eavesdropping, seemed truly to becocked forward—even his long, yellow, straggly moustache appeared toassume a sly droop.

As Rokoff closed his appeal, awaiting the reply he invited, the look ofsurprise upon Jane Clayton’s face turned to one of disgust. She fairlyshuddered in the fellow’s face.

“I would not have been surprised, M. Rokoff,” she said, “hadyou attempted to force me to submit to your evil desires, but that you shouldbe so fatuous as to believe that I, wife of John Clayton, would come to youwillingly, even to save my life, I should never have imagined. I have known youfor a scoundrel, M. Rokoff; but until now I had not taken you for afool.”

Rokoff’s eyes narrowed, and the red of mortification flushed out thepallor of his face. He took a step toward the girl, threateningly.

“We shall see who is the fool at last,” he hissed, “when Ihave broken you to my will and your plebeian Yankee stubbornness has cost youall that you hold dear—even the life of your baby—for, by the bonesof St. Peter, I’ll forego all that I had planned for the brat and cut itsheart out before your very eyes. You’ll learn what it means to insultNikolas Rokoff.”

Jane Clayton turned wearily away.

“What is the use,” she said, “of expatiating upon the depthsto which your vengeful nature can sink? You cannot move me either by threats ordeeds. My baby cannot judge yet for himself, but I, his mother, can foreseethat should it have been given him to survive to man’s estate he wouldwillingly sacrifice his life for the honour of his mother. Love him as I do, Iwould not purchase his life at such a price. Did I, he would execrate my memoryto the day of his death.”

Rokoff was now thoroughly angered because of his failure to reduce the girl toterror. He felt only hate for her, but it had come to his diseased mind that ifhe could force her to accede to his demands as the price of her life and herchild’s, the cup of his revenge would be filled to brimming when he couldflaunt the wife of Lord Greystoke in the capitals of Europe as his mistress.

Again he stepped closer to her. His evil face was convulsed with rage anddesire. Like a wild beast he sprang upon her, and with his strong fingers ather throat forced her backward upon the berth.

At the same instant the door of the cabin opened noisily. Rokoff leaped to hisfeet, and, turning, faced the Swede cook.

Into the fellow’s usually foxy eyes had come an expression of utterstupidity. His lower jaw drooped in vacuous harmony. He busied himself inarranging Lady Greystoke’s meal upon the tiny table at one side of hercabin.

The Russian glared at him.

“What do you mean,” he cried, “by entering here withoutpermission? Get out!”

The cook turned his watery blue eyes upon Rokoff and smiled vacuously.

“Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard,” he said, and then he beganrearranging the few dishes upon the little table.

“Get out of here, or I’ll throw you out, you miserableblockhead!” roared Rokoff, taking a threatening step toward the Swede.

Anderssen continued to smile foolishly in his direction, but one ham-like pawslid stealthily to the handle of the long, slim knife that protruded from thegreasy cord supporting his soiled apron.

Rokoff saw the move and stopped short in his advance. Then he turned towardJane Clayton.

“I will give you until tomorrow,” he said, “to reconsideryour answer to my offer. All will be sent ashore upon one pretext or anotherexcept you and the child, Paulvitch and myself. Then without interruption youwill be able to witness the death of the baby.”

He spoke in French that the cook might not understand the sinister portent ofhis words. When he had done he banged out of the cabin without another look atthe man who had interrupted him in his sorry work.

When he had gone, Sven Anderssen turned toward Lady Greystoke—the idioticexpression that had masked his thoughts had fallen away, and in its place wasone of craft and cunning.

“Hay tank Ay ban a fool,” he said. “Hay ben the fool. Aysavvy Franch.”

Jane Clayton looked at him in surprise.

“You understood all that he said, then?”

Anderssen grinned.

“You bat,” he said.

“And you heard what was going on in here and came to protect me?”

“You bane good to me,” explained the Swede. “Hay treat melike darty dog. Ay help you, lady. You yust vait—Ay help you. Ay ban VastCoast lots times.”

“But how can you help me, Sven,” she asked, “when all thesemen will be against us?”

“Ay tank,” said Sven Anderssen, “it blow purty soon purtyhard,” and then he turned and left the cabin.

Though Jane Clayton doubted the cook’s ability to be of any materialservice to her, she was nevertheless deeply grateful to him for what he alreadyhad done. The feeling that among these enemies she had one friend brought thefirst ray of comfort that had come to lighten the burden of her miserableapprehensions throughout the long voyage of the Kincaid.

She saw no more of Rokoff that day, nor of any other until Sven came with herevening meal. She tried to draw him into conversation relative to his plans toaid her, but all that she could get from him was his stereotyped prophecy as tothe future state of the wind. He seemed suddenly to have relapsed into hiswonted state of dense stupidity.

However, when he was leaving her cabin a little later with the empty dishes hewhispered very low, “Leave on your clothes an’ roll up yourblankets. Ay come back after you purty soon.”

He would have slipped from the room at once, but Jane laid her hand upon hissleeve.

“My baby?” she asked. “I cannot go without him.”

“You do wot Ay tal you,” said Anderssen, scowling. “Ay banhalpin’ you, so don’t you gat too fonny.”

When he had gone Jane Clayton sank down upon her berth in utter bewilderment.What was she to do? Suspicions as to the intentions of the Swede swarmed herbrain. Might she not be infinitely worse off if she gave herself into his powerthan she already was?

No, she could be no worse off in company with the devil himself than withNikolas Rokoff, for the devil at least bore the reputation of being agentleman.

She swore a dozen times that she would not leave the Kincaid without her baby,and yet she remained clothed long past her usual hour for retiring, and herblankets were neatly rolled and bound with stout cord, when about midnightthere came a stealthy scratching upon the panels of her door.

Swiftly she crossed the room and drew the bolt. Softly the door swung open toadmit the muffled figure of the Swede. On one arm he carried a bundle,evidently his blankets. His other hand was raised in a gesture commandingsilence, a grimy forefinger upon his lips.

He came quite close to her.

“Carry this,” he said. “Do not make some noise when you seeit. It ban your kid.”

Quick hands snatched the bundle from the cook, and hungry mother arms foldedthe sleeping infant to her breast, while hot tears of joy ran down her cheeksand her whole frame shook with the emotion of the moment.

“Come!” said Anderssen. “We got no time to vaste.”

He snatched up her bundle of blankets, and outside the cabin door his own aswell. Then he led her to the ship’s side, steadied her descent of themonkey-ladder, holding the child for her as she climbed to the waiting boatbelow. A moment later he had cut the rope that held the small boat to thesteamer’s side, and, bending silently to the muffled oars, was pullingtoward the black shadows up the Ugambi River.

Anderssen rowed on as though quite sure of his ground, and when after half anhour the moon broke through the clouds there was revealed upon their left themouth of a tributary running into the Ugambi. Up this narrow channel the Swedeturned the prow of the small boat.

Jane Clayton wondered if the man knew where he was bound. She did not know thatin his capacity as cook he had that day been rowed up this very stream to alittle village where he had bartered with the natives for such provisions asthey had for sale, and that he had there arranged the details of his plan forthe adventure upon which they were now setting forth.

Even though the moon was full, the surface of the small river was quite dark.The giant trees overhung its narrow banks, meeting in a great arch above thecentre of the river. Spanish moss dropped from the gracefully bending limbs,and enormous creepers clambered in riotous profusion from the ground to theloftiest branch, falling in curving loops almost to the water’s placidbreast.

Now and then the river’s surface would be suddenly broken ahead of themby a huge crocodile, startled by the splashing of the oars, or, snorting andblowing, a family of hippos would dive from a sandy bar to the cool, safedepths of the bottom.

From the dense jungles upon either side came the weird night cries of thecarnivora—the maniacal voice of the hyena, the coughing grunt of thepanther, the deep and awful roar of the lion. And with them strange, uncannynotes that the girl could not ascribe to any particular nightprowler—more terrible because of their mystery.

Huddled in the stern of the boat she sat with her baby strained close to herbosom, and because of that little tender, helpless thing she was happiertonight than she had been for many a sorrow-ridden day.

Even though she knew not to what fate she was going, or how soon that fatemight overtake her, still was she happy and thankful for the moment, howeverbrief, that she might press her baby tightly in her arms. She could scarce waitfor the coming of the day that she might look again upon the bright face of herlittle, black-eyed Jack.

Again and again she tried to strain her eyes through the blackness of thejungle night to have but a tiny peep at those beloved features, but only thedim outline of the baby face rewarded her efforts. Then once more she wouldcuddle the warm, little bundle close to her throbbing heart.

It must have been close to three o’clock in the morning that Anderssenbrought the boat’s nose to the shore before a clearing where could bedimly seen in the waning moonlight a cluster of native huts encircled by athorn boma.

At the village gate they were admitted by a native woman, the wife of the chiefwhom Anderssen had paid to assist him. She took them to the chief’s hut,but Anderssen said that they would sleep without upon the ground, and so, herduty having been completed, she left them to their own devices.

The Swede, after explaining in his gruff way that the huts were doubtlessfilthy and vermin-ridden, spread Jane’s blankets on the ground for her,and at a little distance unrolled his own and lay down to sleep.

It was some time before the girl could find a comfortable position upon thehard ground, but at last, the baby in the hollow of her arm, she dropped asleepfrom utter exhaustion. When she awoke it was broad daylight.

About her were clustered a score of curious natives—mostly men, for amongthe aborigines it is the male who owns this characteristic in its mostexaggerated form. Instinctively Jane Clayton drew the baby more closely to her,though she soon saw that the blacks were far from intending her or the childany harm.

In fact, one of them offered her a gourd of milk—a filthy, smoke-begrimedgourd, with the ancient rind of long-curdled milk caked in layers within itsneck; but the spirit of the giver touched her deeply, and her face lightenedfor a moment with one of those almost forgotten smiles of radiance that hadhelped to make her beauty famous both in Baltimore and London.

She took the gourd in one hand, and rather than cause the giver pain raised itto her lips, though for the life of her she could scarce restrain the qualm ofnausea that surged through her as the malodorous thing approached her nostrils.

It was Anderssen who came to her rescue, and taking the gourd from her, drank aportion himself, and then returned it to the native with a gift of blue beads.

The sun was shining brightly now, and though the baby still slept, Jane couldscarce restrain her impatient desire to have at least a brief glance at thebeloved face. The natives had withdrawn at a command from their chief, who nowstood talking with Anderssen, a little apart from her.

As she debated the wisdom of risking disturbing the child’s slumber bylifting the blanket that now protected its face from the sun, she noted thatthe cook conversed with the chief in the language of the Negro.

What a remarkable man the fellow was, indeed! She had thought him ignorant andstupid but a short day before, and now, within the past twenty-four hours, shehad learned that he spoke not only English but French as well, and theprimitive dialect of the West Coast.

She had thought him shifty, cruel, and untrustworthy, yet in so far as she hadreason to believe he had proved himself in every way the contrary since the daybefore. It scarce seemed credible that he could be serving her from motivespurely chivalrous. There must be something deeper in his intentions and plansthan he had yet disclosed.

She wondered, and when she looked at him—at his close-set, shifty eyesand repulsive features, she shuddered, for she was convinced that no loftycharacteristics could be hid behind so foul an exterior.

As she was thinking of these things the while she debated the wisdom ofuncovering the baby’s face, there came a little grunt from the wee bundlein her lap, and then a gurgling coo that set her heart in raptures.

The baby was awake! Now she might feast her eyes upon him.

Quickly she snatched the blanket from before the infant’s face; Anderssenwas looking at her as she did so.

He saw her stagger to her feet, holding the baby at arm’s length fromher, her eyes glued in horror upon the little chubby face and twinkling eyes.

Then he heard her piteous cry as her knees gave beneath her, and she sank tothe ground in a swoon.

CHAPTER X.
The Swede

As the warriors, clustered thick about Tarzan and Sheeta, realized that it wasa flesh-and-blood panther that had interrupted their dance of death, they tookheart a trifle, for in the face of all those circling spears even the mightySheeta would be doomed.

Rokoff was urging the chief to have his spearmen launch their missiles, and theblack was upon the instant of issuing the command, when his eyes strayed beyondTarzan, following the gaze of the ape-man.

With a yell of terror the chief turned and fled toward the village gate, and ashis people looked to see the cause of his fright, they too took to theirheels—for there, lumbering down upon them, their huge forms exaggeratedby the play of moonlight and camp fire, came the hideous apes of Akut.

The instant the natives turned to flee the ape-man’s savage cry rang outabove the shrieks of the blacks, and in answer to it Sheeta and the apes leapedgrowling after the fugitives. Some of the warriors turned to battle with theirenraged antagonists, but before the fiendish ferocity of the fierce beasts theywent down to bloody death.

Others were dragged down in their flight, and it was not until the village wasempty and the last of the blacks had disappeared into the bush that Tarzan wasable to recall his savage pack to his side. Then it was that he discovered tohis chagrin that he could not make one of them, not even the comparativelyintelligent Akut, understand that he wished to be freed from the bonds thatheld him to the stake.

In time, of course, the idea would filter through their thick skulls, but inthe meanwhile many things might happen—the blacks might return in forceto regain their village; the whites might readily pick them all off with theirrifles from the surrounding trees; he might even starve to death before thedull-witted apes realized that he wished them to gnaw through his bonds.

As for Sheeta—the great cat understood even less than the apes; but yetTarzan could not but marvel at the remarkable characteristics this beast hadevidenced. That it felt real affection for him there seemed little doubt, fornow that the blacks were disposed of it walked slowly back and forth about thestake, rubbing its sides against the ape-man’s legs and purring like acontented tabby. That it had gone of its own volition to bring the balance ofthe pack to his rescue, Tarzan could not doubt. His Sheeta was indeed a jewelamong beasts.

Mugambi’s absence worried the ape-man not a little. He attempted to learnfrom Akut what had become of the black, fearing that the beasts, freed from therestraint of Tarzan’s presence, might have fallen upon the man anddevoured him; but to all his questions the great ape but pointed back in thedirection from which they had come out of the jungle.

The night passed with Tarzan still fast bound to the stake, and shortly afterdawn his fears were realized in the discovery of naked black figures movingstealthily just within the edge of the jungle about the village. The blackswere returning.

With daylight their courage would be equal to the demands of a charge upon thehandful of beasts that had routed them from their rightful abodes. The resultof the encounter seemed foregone if the savages could curb their superstitiousterror, for against their overwhelming numbers, their long spears and poisonedarrows, the panther and the apes could not be expected to survive a reallydetermined attack.

That the blacks were preparing for a charge became apparent a few momentslater, when they commenced to show themselves in force upon the edge of theclearing, dancing and jumping about as they waved their spears and shoutedtaunts and fierce warcries toward the village.

These manoeuvres Tarzan knew would continue until the blacks had workedthemselves into a state of hysterical courage sufficient to sustain them for ashort charge toward the village, and even though he doubted that they wouldreach it at the first attempt, he believed that at the second or the third theywould swarm through the gateway, when the outcome could not be aught than theextermination of Tarzan’s bold, but unarmed and undisciplined, defenders.

Even as he had guessed, the first charge carried the howling warriors but ashort distance into the open—a shrill, weird challenge from the ape-manbeing all that was necessary to send them scurrying back to the bush. For halfan hour they pranced and yelled their courage to the sticking-point, and againessayed a charge.

This time they came quite to the village gate, but when Sheeta and the hideousapes leaped among them they turned screaming in terror, and again fled to thejungle.

Again was the dancing and shouting repeated. This time Tarzan felt no doubtthey would enter the village and complete the work that a handful of determinedwhite men would have carried to a successful conclusion at the first attempt.

To have rescue come so close only to be thwarted because he could not make hispoor, savage friends understand precisely what he wanted of them was mostirritating, but he could not find it in his heart to place blame upon them.They had done their best, and now he was sure they would doubtless remain todie with him in a fruitless effort to defend him.

The blacks were already preparing for the charge. A few individuals hadadvanced a short distance toward the village and were exhorting the others tofollow them. In a moment the whole savage horde would be racing across theclearing.

Tarzan thought only of the little child somewhere in this cruel, relentlesswilderness. His heart ached for the son that he might no longer seek tosave—that and the realization of Jane’s suffering were all thatweighed upon his brave spirit in these that he thought his last moments oflife. Succour, all that he could hope for, had come to him in the instant ofhis extremity—and failed. There was nothing further for which to hope.

The blacks were half-way across the clearing when Tarzan’s attention wasattracted by the actions of one of the apes. The beast was glaring toward oneof the huts. Tarzan followed his gaze. To his infinite relief and delight hesaw the stalwart form of Mugambi racing toward him.

The huge black was panting heavily as though from strenuous physical exertionand nervous excitement. He rushed to Tarzan’s side, and as the first ofthe savages reached the village gate the native’s knife severed the lastof the cords that bound Tarzan to the stake.

In the street lay the corpses of the savages that had fallen before the packthe night before. From one of these Tarzan seized a spear and knob stick, andwith Mugambi at his side and the snarling pack about him, he met the natives asthey poured through the gate.

Fierce and terrible was the battle that ensued, but at last the savages wererouted, more by terror, perhaps, at sight of a black man and a white fightingin company with a panther and the huge fierce apes of Akut, than because oftheir inability to overcome the relatively small force that opposed them.

One prisoner fell into the hands of Tarzan, and him the ape-man questioned inan effort to learn what had become of Rokoff and his party. Promised hisliberty in return for the information, the black told all he knew concerningthe movements of the Russian.

It seemed that early in the morning their chief had attempted to prevail uponthe whites to return with him to the village and with their guns destroy theferocious pack that had taken possession of it, but Rokoff appeared toentertain even more fears of the giant white man and his strange companionsthan even the blacks themselves.

Upon no conditions would he consent to returning even within sight of thevillage. Instead, he took his party hurriedly to the river, where they stole anumber of canoes the blacks had hidden there. The last that had been seen ofthem they had been paddling strongly up-stream, their porters fromKaviri’s village wielding the blades.

So once more Tarzan of the Apes with his hideous pack took up his search forthe ape-man’s son and the pursuit of his abductor.

For weary days they followed through an almost uninhabited country, only tolearn at last that they were upon the wrong trail. The little band had beenreduced by three, for three of Akut’s apes had fallen in the fighting atthe village. Now, with Akut, there were five great apes, and Sheeta wasthere—and Mugambi and Tarzan.

The ape-man no longer heard rumors even of the three who had precededRokoff—the white man and woman and the child. Who the man and woman werehe could not guess, but that the child was his was enough to keep him hot uponthe trail. He was sure that Rokoff would be following this trio, and so he feltconfident that so long as he could keep upon the Russian’s trail he wouldbe winning so much nearer to the time he might snatch his son from the dangersand horrors that menaced him.

In retracing their way after losing Rokoff’s trail Tarzan picked it upagain at a point where the Russian had left the river and taken to the brush ina northerly direction. He could only account for this change on the ground thatthe child had been carried away from the river by the two who now hadpossession of it.

Nowhere along the way, however, could he gain definite information that mightassure him positively that the child was ahead of him. Not a single native theyquestioned had seen or heard of this other party, though nearly all had haddirect experience with the Russian or had talked with others who had.

It was with difficulty that Tarzan could find means to communicate with thenatives, as the moment their eyes fell upon his companions they fledprecipitately into the bush. His only alternative was to go ahead of his packand waylay an occasional warrior whom he found alone in the jungle.

One day as he was thus engaged, tracking an unsuspecting savage, he came uponthe fellow in the act of hurling a spear at a wounded white man who crouched ina clump of bush at the trail’s side. The white was one whom Tarzan hadoften seen, and whom he recognized at once.

Deep in his memory was implanted those repulsive features—the close-seteyes, the shifty expression, the drooping yellow moustache.

Instantly it occurred to the ape-man that this fellow had not been among thosewho had accompanied Rokoff at the village where Tarzan had been a prisoner. Hehad seen them all, and this fellow had not been there. There could be but oneexplanation—he it was who had fled ahead of the Russian with the womanand the child—and the woman had been Jane Clayton. He was sure now of themeaning of Rokoff’s words.

The ape-man’s face went white as he looked upon the pasty, vice-markedcountenance of the Swede. Across Tarzan’s forehead stood out the broadband of scarlet that marked the scar where, years before, Terkoz had torn agreat strip of the ape-man’s scalp from his skull in the fierce battle inwhich Tarzan had sustained his fitness to the kingship of the apes of Kerchak.

The man was his prey—the black should not have him, and with the thoughthe leaped upon the warrior, striking down the spear before it could reach itsmark. The black, whipping out his knife, turned to do battle with this newenemy, while the Swede, lying in the bush, witnessed a duel, the like of whichhe had never dreamed to see—a half-naked white man battling with ahalf-naked black, hand to hand with the crude weapons of primeval man at first,and then with hands and teeth like the primordial brutes from whose loins theirforebears sprung.

For a time Anderssen did not recognize the white, and when at last it dawnedupon him that he had seen this giant before, his eyes went wide in surprisethat this growling, rending beast could ever have been the well-groomed Englishgentleman who had been a prisoner aboard the Kincaid.

An English nobleman! He had learned the identity of the Kincaid’sprisoners from Lady Greystoke during their flight up the Ugambi. Before, incommon with the other members of the crew of the steamer, he had not known whothe two might be.

The fight was over. Tarzan had been compelled to kill his antagonist, as thefellow would not surrender.

The Swede saw the white man leap to his feet beside the corpse of his foe, andplacing one foot upon the broken neck lift his voice in the hideous challengeof the victorious bull-ape.

Anderssen shuddered. Then Tarzan turned toward him. His face was cold andcruel, and in the grey eyes the Swede read murder.

“Where is my wife?” growled the ape-man. “Where is thechild?”

Anderssen tried to reply, but a sudden fit of coughing choked him. There was anarrow entirely through his chest, and as he coughed the blood from his woundedlung poured suddenly from his mouth and nostrils.

Tarzan stood waiting for the paroxysm to pass. Like a bronze image—cold,hard, and relentless—he stood over the helpless man, waiting to wringsuch information from him as he needed, and then to kill.

Presently the coughing and haemorrhage ceased, and again the wounded man triedto speak. Tarzan knelt near the faintly moving lips.

“The wife and child!” he repeated. “Where are they?”

Anderssen pointed up the trail.

“The Russian—he got them,” he whispered.

“How did you come here?” continued Tarzan. “Why are you notwith Rokoff?”

“They catch us,” replied Anderssen, in a voice so low that theape-man could just distinguish the words. “They catch us. Ay fight, butmy men they all run away. Then they get me when Ay ban vounded. Rokoff he sayleave me here for the hyenas. That vas vorse than to kill. He tak your vife andkid.”

“What were you doing with them—where were you taking them?”asked Tarzan, and then fiercely, leaping close to the fellow with fierce eyesblazing with the passion of hate and vengeance that he had with difficultycontrolled, “What harm did you do to my wife or child? Speak quick beforeI kill you! Make your peace with God! Tell me the worst, or I will tear you topieces with my hands and teeth. You have seen that I can do it!”

A look of wide-eyed surprise overspread Anderssen’s face.

“Why,” he whispered, “Ay did not hurt them. Ay tried to savethem from that Russian. Your vife was kind to me on the Kincaid, and Ay hearthat little baby cry sometimes. Ay got a vife an’ kid for my own byChristiania an’ Ay couldn’t bear for to see them separatedan’ in Rokoff’s hands any more. That vas all. Do Ay look like Ayban here to hurt them?” he continued after a pause, pointing to the arrowprotruding from his breast.

There was something in the man’s tone and expression that convincedTarzan of the truth of his assertions. More weighty than anything else was thefact that Anderssen evidently seemed more hurt than frightened. He knew he wasgoing to die, so Tarzan’s threats had little effect upon him; but it wasquite apparent that he wished the Englishman to know the truth and not to wronghim by harbouring the belief that his words and manner indicated that he hadentertained.

The ape-man instantly dropped to his knees beside the Swede.

“I am sorry,” he said very simply. “I had looked for none butknaves in company with Rokoff. I see that I was wrong. That is past now, and wewill drop it for the more important matter of getting you to a place of comfortand looking after your wounds. We must have you on your feet again as soon aspossible.”

The Swede, smiling, shook his head.

“You go on an’ look for the vife an’ kid,” he said.“Ay ban as gude as dead already; but”—hehesitated—“Ay hate to think of the hyenas. Von’t you finishup this job?”

Tarzan shuddered. A moment ago he had been upon the point of killing this man.Now he could no more have taken his life than he could have taken the life ofany of his best friends.

He lifted the Swede’s head in his arms to change and ease his position.

Again came a fit of coughing and the terrible haemorrhage. After it was overAnderssen lay with closed eyes.

Tarzan thought that he was dead, until he suddenly raised his eyes to those ofthe ape-man, sighed, and spoke—in a very low, weak whisper.

“Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard!” he said, and died.

CHAPTER XI.
Tambudza

Tarzan scooped a shallow grave for the Kincaid’s cook, beneath whoserepulsive exterior had beaten the heart of a chivalrous gentleman. That was allhe could do in the cruel jungle for the man who had given his life in theservice of his little son and his wife.

Then Tarzan took up again the pursuit of Rokoff. Now that he was positive thatthe woman ahead of him was indeed Jane, and that she had again fallen into thehands of the Russian, it seemed that with all the incredible speed of his fleetand agile muscles he moved at but a snail’s pace.

It was with difficulty that he kept the trail, for there were many pathsthrough the jungle at this point—crossing and crisscrossing, forking andbranching in all directions, and over them all had passed natives innumerable,coming and going. The spoor of the white men was obliterated by that of thenative carriers who had followed them, and over all was the spoor of othernatives and of wild beasts.

It was most perplexing; yet Tarzan kept on assiduously, checking his sense ofsight against his sense of smell, that he might more surely keep to the righttrail. But, with all his care, night found him at a point where he was positivethat he was on the wrong trail entirely.

He knew that the pack would follow his spoor, and so he had been careful tomake it as distinct as possible, brushing often against the vines and creepersthat walled the jungle-path, and in other ways leaving his scent-spoor plainlydiscernible.

As darkness settled a heavy rain set in, and there was nothing for the baffledape-man to do but wait in the partial shelter of a huge tree until morning; butthe coming of dawn brought no cessation of the torrential downpour.

For a week the sun was obscured by heavy clouds, while violent rain and windstorms obliterated the last remnants of the spoor Tarzan constantly thoughvainly sought.

During all this time he saw no signs of natives, nor of his own pack, themembers of which he feared had lost his trail during the terrific storm. As thecountry was strange to him, he had been unable to judge his course accurately,since he had had neither sun by day nor moon nor stars by night to guide him.

When the sun at last broke through the clouds in the fore-noon of the seventhday, it looked down upon an almost frantic ape-man.

For the first time in his life, Tarzan of the Apes had been lost in the jungle.That the experience should have befallen him at such a time seemed cruel beyondexpression. Somewhere in this savage land his wife and son lay in the clutchesof the arch-fiend Rokoff.

What hideous trials might they not have undergone during those seven awful daysthat nature had thwarted him in his endeavours to locate them? Tarzan knew theRussian, in whose power they were, so well that he could not doubt but that theman, filled with rage that Jane had once escaped him, and knowing that Tarzanmight be close upon his trail, would wreak without further loss of timewhatever vengeance his polluted mind might be able to conceive.

But now that the sun shone once more, the ape-man was still at a loss as towhat direction to take. He knew that Rokoff had left the river in pursuit ofAnderssen, but whether he would continue inland or return to the Ugambi was aquestion.

The ape-man had seen that the river at the point he had left it was growingnarrow and swift, so that he judged that it could not be navigable even forcanoes to any great distance farther toward its source. However, if Rokoff hadnot returned to the river, in what direction had he proceeded?

From the direction of Anderssen’s flight with Jane and the child Tarzanwas convinced that the man had purposed attempting the tremendous feat ofcrossing the continent to Zanzibar; but whether Rokoff would dare so dangerousa journey or not was a question.

Fear might drive him to the attempt now that he knew the manner of horriblepack that was upon his trail, and that Tarzan of the Apes was following him towreak upon him the vengeance that he deserved.

At last the ape-man determined to continue toward the northeast in the generaldirection of German East Africa until he came upon natives from whom he mightgain information as to Rokoff’s whereabouts.

The second day following the cessation of the rain Tarzan came upon a nativevillage the inhabitants of which fled into the bush the instant their eyes fellupon him. Tarzan, not to be thwarted in any such manner as this, pursued them,and after a brief chase caught up with a young warrior. The fellow was so badlyfrightened that he was unable to defend himself, dropping his weapons andfalling upon the ground, wide-eyed and screaming as he gazed on his captor.

It was with considerable difficulty that the ape-man quieted the fellow’sfears sufficiently to obtain a coherent statement from him as to the cause ofhis uncalled-for terror.

From him Tarzan learned, by dint of much coaxing, that a party of whites hadpassed through the village several days before. These men had told them of aterrible white devil that pursued them, warning the natives against it and thefrightful pack of demons that accompanied it.

The black had recognized Tarzan as the white devil from the descriptions givenby the whites and their black servants. Behind him he had expected to see ahorde of demons disguised as apes and panthers.

In this Tarzan saw the cunning hand of Rokoff. The Russian was attempting tomake travel as difficult as possible for him by turning the natives against himin superstitious fear.

The native further told Tarzan that the white man who had led the recentexpedition had promised them a fabulous reward if they would kill the whitedevil. This they had fully intended doing should the opportunity presentitself; but the moment they had seen Tarzan their blood had turned to water, asthe porters of the white men had told them would be the case.

Finding the ape-man made no attempt to harm him, the native at last recoveredhis grasp upon his courage, and, at Tarzan’s suggestion, accompanied thewhite devil back to the village, calling as he went for his fellows to returnalso, as “the white devil has promised to do you no harm if you come backright away and answer his questions.”

One by one the blacks straggled into the village, but that their fears were notentirely allayed was evident from the amount of white that showed about theeyes of the majority of them as they cast constant and apprehensive sidelongglances at the ape-man.

The chief was among the first to return to the village, and as it was he thatTarzan was most anxious to interview, he lost no time in entering into apalaver with the black.

The fellow was short and stout, with an unusually low and degraded countenanceand apelike arms. His whole expression denoted deceitfulness.

Only the superstitious terror engendered in him by the stories poured into hisears by the whites and blacks of the Russian’s party kept him fromleaping upon Tarzan with his warriors and slaying him forthwith, for he and hispeople were inveterate maneaters. But the fear that he might indeed be a devil,and that out there in the jungle behind him his fierce demons waited to do hisbidding, kept M’ganwazam from putting his desires into action.

Tarzan questioned the fellow closely, and by comparing his statements withthose of the young warrior he had first talked with he learned that Rokoff andhis safari were in terror-stricken retreat in the direction of the far EastCoast.

Many of the Russian’s porters had already deserted him. In that veryvillage he had hanged five for theft and attempted desertion. Judging, however,from what the Waganwazam had learned from those of the Russian’s blackswho were not too far gone in terror of the brutal Rokoff to fear even to speakof their plans, it was apparent that he would not travel any great distancebefore the last of his porters, cooks, tent-boys, gun-bearers, askari, and evenhis headman, would have turned back into the bush, leaving him to the mercy ofthe merciless jungle.

M’ganwazam denied that there had been any white woman or child with theparty of whites; but even as he spoke Tarzan was convinced that he lied.Several times the ape-man approached the subject from different angles, butnever was he successful in surprising the wily cannibal into a directcontradiction of his original statement that there had been no women orchildren with the party.

Tarzan demanded food of the chief, and after considerable haggling on the partof the monarch succeeded in obtaining a meal. He then tried to draw out othersof the tribe, especially the young man whom he had captured in the bush, butM’ganwazam’s presence sealed their lips.

At last, convinced that these people knew a great deal more than they had toldhim concerning the whereabouts of the Russian and the fate of Jane and thechild, Tarzan determined to remain overnight among them in the hope ofdiscovering something further of importance.

When he had stated his decision to the chief he was rather surprised to notethe sudden change in the fellow’s attitude toward him. From apparentdislike and suspicion M’ganwazam became a most eager and solicitous host.

Nothing would do but that the ape-man should occupy the best hut in thevillage, from which M’ganwazam’s oldest wife was forthwithsummarily ejected, while the chief took up his temporary abode in the hut ofone of his younger consorts.

Had Tarzan chanced to recall the fact that a princely reward had been offeredthe blacks if they should succeed in killing him, he might have more quicklyinterpreted M’ganwazam’s sudden change in front.

To have the white giant sleeping peacefully in one of his own huts wouldgreatly facilitate the matter of earning the reward, and so the chief wasurgent in his suggestions that Tarzan, doubtless being very much fatigued afterhis travels, should retire early to the comforts of the anything but invitingpalace.

As much as the ape-man detested the thought of sleeping within a native hut, hehad determined to do so this night, on the chance that he might be able toinduce one of the younger men to sit and chat with him before the fire thatburned in the centre of the smoke-filled dwelling, and from him draw the truthshe sought. So Tarzan accepted the invitation of old M’ganwazam,insisting, however, that he much preferred sharing a hut with some of theyounger men rather than driving the chief’s old wife out in the cold.

The toothless old hag grinned her appreciation of this suggestion, and as theplan still better suited the chief’s scheme, in that it would permit himto surround Tarzan with a gang of picked assassins, he readily assented, sothat presently Tarzan had been installed in a hut close to the village gate.

As there was to be a dance that night in honour of a band of recently returnedhunters, Tarzan was left alone in the hut, the young men, as M’ganwazamexplained, having to take part in the festivities.

As soon as the ape-man was safely installed in the trap, M’Ganwazamcalled about him the young warriors whom he had selected to spend the nightwith the white devil!

None of them was overly enthusiastic about the plan, since deep in theirsuperstitious hearts lay an exaggerated fear of the strange white giant; butthe word of M’ganwazam was law among his people, so not one dared refusethe duty he was called upon to perform.

As M’ganwazam unfolded his plan in whispers to the savages squattingabout him the old, toothless hag, to whom Tarzan had saved her hut for thenight, hovered about the conspirators ostensibly to replenish the supply offirewood for the blaze about which the men sat, but really to drink in as muchof their conversation as possible.

Tarzan had slept for perhaps an hour or two despite the savage din of therevellers when his keen senses came suddenly alert to a suspiciously stealthymovement in the hut in which he lay. The fire had died down to a little heap ofglowing embers, which accentuated rather than relieved the darkness thatshrouded the interior of the evil-smelling dwelling, yet the trained senses ofthe ape-man warned him of another presence creeping almost silently toward himthrough the gloom.

He doubted that it was one of his hut mates returning from the festivities, forhe still heard the wild cries of the dancers and the din of the tom-toms in thevillage street without. Who could it be that took such pains to conceal hisapproach?

As the presence came within reach of him the ape-man bounded lightly to theopposite side of the hut, his spear poised ready at his side.

“Who is it,” he asked, “that creeps upon Tarzan of the Apes,like a hungry lion out of the darkness?”

“Silence, bwana!” replied an old cracked voice. “It isTambudza—she whose hut you would not take, and thus drive an old womanout into the cold night.”

“What does Tambudza want of Tarzan of the Apes?” asked the ape-man.

“You were kind to me to whom none is now kind, and I have come to warnyou in payment of your kindness,” answered the old hag.

“Warn me of what?”

“M’ganwazam has chosen the young men who are to sleep in the hutwith you,” replied Tambudza. “I was near as he talked with them,and heard him issuing his instructions to them. When the dance is run well intothe morning they are to come to the hut.

“If you are awake they are to pretend that they have come to sleep, butif you sleep it is M’ganwazam’s command that you be killed. If youare not then asleep they will wait quietly beside you until you do sleep, andthen they will all fall upon you together and slay you. M’ganwazam isdetermined to win the reward the white man has offered.”

“I had forgotten the reward,” said Tarzan, half to himself, andthen he added, “How may M’ganwazam hope to collect the reward nowthat the white men who are my enemies have left his country and gone he knowsnot where?”

“Oh, they have not gone far,” replied Tambudza.“M’ganwazam knows where they camp. His runners could quicklyovertake them—they move slowly.”

“Where are they?” asked Tarzan.

“Do you wish to come to them?” asked Tambudza in way of reply.

Tarzan nodded.

“I cannot tell you where they lie so that you could come to the placeyourself, but I could lead you to them, bwana.”

In their interest in the conversation neither of the speakers had noticed thelittle figure which crept into the darkness of the hut behind them, nor didthey see it when it slunk noiselessly out again.

It was little Buulaoo, the chief’s son by one of his youngerwives—a vindictive, degenerate little rascal who hated Tambudza, and wasever seeking opportunities to spy upon her and report her slightest breach ofcustom to his father.

“Come, then,” said Tarzan quickly, “let us be on ourway.”

This Buulaoo did not hear, for he was already legging it up the village streetto where his hideous sire guzzled native beer, and watched the evolutions ofthe frantic dancers leaping high in the air and cavorting wildly in theirhysterical capers.

So it happened that as Tarzan and Tambudza sneaked warily from the village andmelted into the Stygian darkness of the jungle two lithe runners took their wayin the same direction, though by another trail.

When they had come sufficiently far from the village to make it safe for themto speak above a whisper, Tarzan asked the old woman if she had seen aught of awhite woman and a little child.

“Yes, bwana,” replied Tambudza, “there was a woman with themand a little child—a little white piccaninny. It died here in our villageof the fever and they buried it!”

CHAPTER XII.
A Black Scoundrel

When Jane Clayton regained consciousness she saw Anderssen standing over her,holding the baby in his arms. As her eyes rested upon them an expression ofmisery and horror overspread her countenance.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “You ban sick?”

“Where is my baby?” she cried, ignoring his questions.

Anderssen held out the chubby infant, but she shook her head.

“It is not mine,” she said. “You knew that it was not mine.You are a devil like the Russian.”

Anderssen’s blue eyes stretched in surprise.

“Not yours!” he exclaimed. “You tole me the kid aboard theKincaid ban your kid.”

“Not this one,” replied Jane dully. “The other. Where is theother? There must have been two. I did not know about this one.”

“There vasn’t no other kid. Ay tank this ban yours. Ay am verysorry.”

Anderssen fidgeted about, standing first on one foot and then upon the other.It was perfectly evident to Jane that he was honest in his protestations ofignorance of the true identity of the child.

Presently the baby commenced to crow, and bounce up and down in theSwede’s arms, at the same time leaning forward with little handsout-reaching toward the young woman.

She could not withstand the appeal, and with a low cry she sprang to her feetand gathered the baby to her breast.

For a few minutes she wept silently, her face buried in the baby’s soiledlittle dress. The first shock of disappointment that the tiny thing had notbeen her beloved Jack was giving way to a great hope that after all somemiracle had occurred to snatch her baby from Rokoff’s hands at the lastinstant before the Kincaid sailed from England.

Then, too, there was the mute appeal of this wee waif alone and unloved in themidst of the horrors of the savage jungle. It was this thought more than anyother that had sent her mother’s heart out to the innocent babe, whilestill she suffered from disappointment that she had been deceived in itsidentity.

“Have you no idea whose child this is?” she asked Anderssen.

The man shook his head.

“Not now,” he said. “If he ain’t ban your kid, Aydon’ know whose kid he do ban. Rokoff said it was yours. Ay tank he tankso, too.

“What do we do with it now? Ay can’t go back to the Kincaid. Rokoffwould have me shot; but you can go back. Ay take you to the sea, and then someof these black men they take you to the ship—eh?”

“No! no!” cried Jane. “Not for the world. I would rather diethan fall into the hands of that man again. No, let us go on and take this poorlittle creature with us. If God is willing we shall be saved in one way oranother.”

So they again took up their flight through the wilderness, taking with them ahalf-dozen of the Mosulas to carry provisions and the tents that Anderssen hadsmuggled aboard the small boat in preparation for the attempted escape.

The days and nights of torture that the young woman suffered were so mergedinto one long, unbroken nightmare of hideousness that she soon lost all trackof time. Whether they had been wandering for days or years she could not tell.The one bright spot in that eternity of fear and suffering was the little childwhose tiny hands had long since fastened their softly groping fingers firmlyabout her heart.

In a way the little thing took the place and filled the aching void that thetheft of her own baby had left. It could never be the same, of course, but yet,day by day, she found her mother-love, enveloping the waif more closely untilshe sometimes sat with closed eyes lost in the sweet imagining that the littlebundle of humanity at her breast was truly her own.

For some time their progress inland was extremely slow. Word came to them fromtime to time through natives passing from the coast on hunting excursions thatRokoff had not yet guessed the direction of their flight. This, and the desireto make the journey as light as possible for the gently bred woman, keptAnderssen to a slow advance of short and easy marches with many rests.

The Swede insisted upon carrying the child while they travelled, and incountless other ways did what he could to help Jane Clayton conserve herstrength. He had been terribly chagrined on discovering the mistake he had madein the identity of the baby, but once the young woman became convinced that hismotives were truly chivalrous she would not permit him longer to upbraidhimself for the error that he could not by any means have avoided.

At the close of each day’s march Anderssen saw to the erection of acomfortable shelter for Jane and the child. Her tent was always pitched in themost favourable location. The thorn boma round it was the strongest and mostimpregnable that the Mosula could construct.

Her food was the best that their limited stores and the rifle of the Swedecould provide, but the thing that touched her heart the closest was the gentleconsideration and courtesy which the man always accorded her.

That such nobility of character could lie beneath so repulsive an exteriornever ceased to be a source of wonder and amazement to her, until at last theinnate chivalry of the man, and his unfailing kindliness and sympathytransformed his appearance in so far as Jane was concerned until she saw onlythe sweetness of his character mirrored in his countenance.

They had commenced to make a little better progress when word reached them thatRokoff was but a few marches behind them, and that he had at last discoveredthe direction of their flight. It was then that Anderssen took to the river,purchasing a canoe from a chief whose village lay a short distance from theUgambi upon the bank of a tributary.

Thereafter the little party of fugitives fled up the broad Ugambi, and so rapidhad their flight become that they no longer received word of their pursuers. Atthe end of canoe navigation upon the river, they abandoned their canoe and tookto the jungle. Here progress became at once arduous, slow, and dangerous.

The second day after leaving the Ugambi the baby fell ill with fever. Anderssenknew what the outcome must be, but he had not the heart to tell Jane Claytonthe truth, for he had seen that the young woman had come to love the childalmost as passionately as though it had been her own flesh and blood.

As the baby’s condition precluded farther advance, Anderssen withdrew alittle from the main trail he had been following and built a camp in a naturalclearing on the bank of a little river.

Here Jane devoted her every moment to caring for the tiny sufferer, and asthough her sorrow and anxiety were not all that she could bear, a further blowcame with the sudden announcement of one of the Mosula porters who had beenforaging in the jungle adjacent that Rokoff and his party were camped quiteclose to them, and were evidently upon their trail to this little nook whichall had thought so excellent a hiding-place.

This information could mean but one thing, and that they must break camp andfly onward regardless of the baby’s condition. Jane Clayton knew thetraits of the Russian well enough to be positive that he would separate herfrom the child the moment that he recaptured them, and she knew that separationwould mean the immediate death of the baby.

As they stumbled forward through the tangled vegetation along an old and almostovergrown game trail the Mosula porters deserted them one by one.

The men had been staunch enough in their devotion and loyalty as long as theywere in no danger of being overtaken by the Russian and his party. They hadheard, however, so much of the atrocious disposition of Rokoff that they hadgrown to hold him in mortal terror, and now that they knew he was close uponthem their timid hearts would fortify them no longer, and as quickly aspossible they deserted the three whites.

Yet on and on went Anderssen and the girl. The Swede went ahead, to hew a waythrough the brush where the path was entirely overgrown, so that on this marchit was necessary that the young woman carry the child.

All day they marched. Late in the afternoon they realized that they had failed.Close behind them they heard the noise of a large safari advancing along thetrail which they had cleared for their pursuers.

When it became quite evident that they must be overtaken in a short timeAnderssen hid Jane behind a large tree, covering her and the child with brush.

“There is a village about a mile farther on,” he said to her.“The Mosula told me its location before they deserted us. Ay try to leadthe Russian off your trail, then you go on to the village. Ay tank the chiefban friendly to white men—the Mosula tal me he ban. Anyhow, that was allwe can do.

“After while you get chief to tak you down by the Mosula village at thesea again, an’ after a while a ship is sure to put into the mouth of theUgambi. Then you be all right. Gude-by an’ gude luck to you, lady!”

“But where are you going, Sven?” asked Jane. “Why can’tyou hide here and go back to the sea with me?”

“Ay gotta tal the Russian you ban dead, so that he don’t luke foryou no more,” and Anderssen grinned.

“Why can’t you join me then after you have told him that?”insisted the girl.

Anderssen shook his head.

“Ay don’t tank Ay join anybody any more after Ay tal the Russianyou ban dead,” he said.

“You don’t mean that you think he will kill you?” asked Jane,and yet in her heart she knew that that was exactly what the great scoundrelwould do in revenge for his having been thwarted by the Swede. Anderssen didnot reply, other than to warn her to silence and point toward the path alongwhich they had just come.

“I don’t care,” whispered Jane Clayton. “I shall notlet you die to save me if I can prevent it in any way. Give me your revolver. Ican use that, and together we may be able to hold them off until we can findsome means of escape.”

“It won’t work, lady,” replied Anderssen. “They wouldonly get us both, and then Ay couldn’t do you no good at all. Think ofthe kid, lady, and what it would be for you both to fall into Rokoff’shands again. For his sake you must do what Ay say. Here, take my rifle andammunition; you may need them.”

He shoved the gun and bandoleer into the shelter beside Jane. Then he was gone.

She watched him as he returned along the path to meet the oncoming safari ofthe Russian. Soon a turn in the trail hid him from view.

Her first impulse was to follow. With the rifle she might be of assistance tohim, and, further, she could not bear the terrible thought of being left aloneat the mercy of the fearful jungle without a single friend to aid her.

She started to crawl from her shelter with the intention of running afterAnderssen as fast as she could. As she drew the baby close to her she glanceddown into its little face.

How red it was! How unnatural the little thing looked. She raised the cheek tohers. It was fiery hot with fever!

With a little gasp of terror Jane Clayton rose to her feet in the jungle path.The rifle and bandoleer lay forgotten in the shelter beside her. Anderssen wasforgotten, and Rokoff, and her great peril.

All that rioted through her fear-mad brain was the fearful fact that thislittle, helpless child was stricken with the terrible jungle-fever, and thatshe was helpless to do aught to allay its sufferings—sufferings that weresure to come during ensuing intervals of partial consciousness.

Her one thought was to find some one who could help her—some woman whohad had children of her own—and with the thought came recollection of thefriendly village of which Anderssen had spoken. If she could but reachit—in time!

There was no time to be lost. Like a startled antelope she turned and fled upthe trail in the direction Anderssen had indicated.

From far behind came the sudden shouting of men, the sound of shots, and thensilence. She knew that Anderssen had met the Russian.

A half-hour later she stumbled, exhausted, into a little thatched village.Instantly she was surrounded by men, women, and children. Eager, curious,excited natives plied her with a hundred questions, no one of which she couldunderstand or answer.

All that she could do was to point tearfully at the baby, now wailing piteouslyin her arms, and repeat over and over,“Fever—fever—fever.”

The blacks did not understand her words, but they saw the cause of her trouble,and soon a young woman had pulled her into a hut and with several others wasdoing her poor best to quiet the child and allay its agony.

The witch doctor came and built a little fire before the infant, upon which heboiled some strange concoction in a small earthen pot, making weird passesabove it and mumbling strange, monotonous chants. Presently he dipped azebra’s tail into the brew, and with further mutterings and incantationssprinkled a few drops of the liquid over the baby’s face.

After he had gone the women sat about and moaned and wailed until Jane thoughtthat she should go mad; but, knowing that they were doing it all out of thekindness of their hearts, she endured the frightful waking nightmare of thoseawful hours in dumb and patient suffering.

It must have been well toward midnight that she became conscious of a suddencommotion in the village. She heard the voices of the natives raised incontroversy, but she could not understand the words.

Presently she heard footsteps approaching the hut in which she squatted beforea bright fire with the baby on her lap. The little thing lay very still now,its lids, half-raised, showed the pupils horribly upturned.

Jane Clayton looked into the little face with fear-haunted eyes. It was not herbaby—not her flesh and blood—but how close, how dear the tiny,helpless thing had become to her. Her heart, bereft of its own, had gone out tothis poor, little, nameless waif, and lavished upon it all the love that hadbeen denied her during the long, bitter weeks of her captivity aboard theKincaid.

She saw that the end was near, and though she was terrified at contemplation ofher loss, still she hoped that it would come quickly now and end the sufferingsof the little victim.

The footsteps she had heard without the hut now halted before the door. Therewas a whispered colloquy, and a moment later M’ganwazam, chief of thetribe, entered. She had seen but little of him, as the women had taken her inhand almost as soon as she had entered the village.

M’ganwazam, she now saw, was an evil-appearing savage with every mark ofbrutal degeneracy writ large upon his bestial countenance. To Jane Clayton helooked more gorilla than human. He tried to converse with her, but withoutsuccess, and finally he called to some one without.

In answer to his summons another Negro entered—a man of very differentappearance from M’ganwazam—so different, in fact, that Jane Claytonimmediately decided that he was of another tribe. This man acted asinterpreter, and almost from the first question that M’ganwazam put toher, Jane felt an intuitive conviction that the savage was attempting to drawinformation from her for some ulterior motive.

She thought it strange that the fellow should so suddenly have becomeinterested in her plans, and especially in her intended destination when herjourney had been interrupted at his village.

Seeing no reason for withholding the information, she told him the truth; butwhen he asked if she expected to meet her husband at the end of the trip, sheshook her head negatively.

Then he told her the purpose of his visit, talking through the interpreter.

“I have just learned,” he said, “from some men who live bythe side of the great water, that your husband followed you up the Ugambi forseveral marches, when he was at last set upon by natives and killed. ThereforeI have told you this that you might not waste your time in a long journey ifyou expected to meet your husband at the end of it; but instead could turn andretrace your steps to the coast.”

Jane thanked M’ganwazam for his kindness, though her heart was numb withsuffering at this new blow. She who had suffered so much was at last beyondreach of the keenest of misery’s pangs, for her senses were numbed andcalloused.

With bowed head she sat staring with unseeing eyes upon the face of the baby inher lap. M’ganwazam had left the hut. Sometime later she heard a noise atthe entrance—another had entered. One of the women sitting opposite herthrew a faggot upon the dying embers of the fire between them.

With a sudden flare it burst into renewed flame, lighting up the hut’sinterior as though by magic.

The flame disclosed to Jane Clayton’s horrified gaze that the baby wasquite dead. How long it had been so she could not guess.

A choking lump rose to her throat, her head drooped in silent misery upon thelittle bundle that she had caught suddenly to her breast.

For a moment the silence of the hut was unbroken. Then the native woman brokeinto a hideous wail.

A man coughed close before Jane Clayton and spoke her name.

With a start she raised her eyes to look into the sardonic countenance ofNikolas Rokoff.

CHAPTER XIII.
Escape

For a moment Rokoff stood sneering down upon Jane Clayton, then his eyes fellto the little bundle in her lap. Jane had drawn one corner of the blanket overthe child’s face, so that to one who did not know the truth it seemed butto be sleeping.

“You have gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble,” saidRokoff, “to bring the child to this village. If you had attended to yourown affairs I should have brought it here myself.

“You would have been spared the dangers and fatigue of the journey. But Isuppose I must thank you for relieving me of the inconvenience of having tocare for a young infant on the march.

“This is the village to which the child was destined from the first.M’ganwazam will rear him carefully, making a good cannibal of him, and ifyou ever chance to return to civilization it will doubtless afford you muchfood for thought as you compare the luxuries and comforts of your life with thedetails of the life your son is living in the village of the Waganwazam.

“Again I thank you for bringing him here for me, and now I must ask youto surrender him to me, that I may turn him over to his foster parents.”As he concluded Rokoff held out his hands for the child, a nasty grin ofvindictiveness upon his lips.

To his surprise Jane Clayton rose and, without a word of protest, laid thelittle bundle in his arms.

“Here is the child,” she said. “Thank God he is beyond yourpower to harm.”

Grasping the import of her words, Rokoff snatched the blanket from thechild’s face to seek confirmation of his fears. Jane Clayton watched hisexpression closely.

She had been puzzled for days for an answer to the question of Rokoff’sknowledge of the child’s identity. If she had been in doubt before thelast shred of that doubt was wiped away as she witnessed the terrible anger ofthe Russian as he looked upon the dead face of the baby and realized that atthe last moment his dearest wish for vengeance had been thwarted by a higherpower.

Almost throwing the body of the child back into Jane Clayton’s arms,Rokoff stamped up and down the hut, pounding the air with his clenched fistsand cursing terribly. At last he halted in front of the young woman, bringinghis face down close to hers.

“You are laughing at me,” he shrieked. “You think that youhave beaten me—eh? I’ll show you, as I have shown the miserable apeyou call ‘husband,’ what it means to interfere with the plans ofNikolas Rokoff.

“You have robbed me of the child. I cannot make him the son of a cannibalchief, but”—and he paused as though to let the full meaning of histhreat sink deep—“I can make the mother the wife of a cannibal, andthat I shall do—after I have finished with her myself.”

If he had thought to wring from Jane Clayton any sign of terror he failedmiserably. She was beyond that. Her brain and nerves were numb to suffering andshock.

To his surprise a faint, almost happy smile touched her lips. She was thinkingwith thankful heart that this poor little corpse was not that of her own weeJack, and that—best of all—Rokoff evidently did not know the truth.

She would have liked to have flaunted the fact in his face, but she dared not.If he continued to believe that the child had been hers, so much safer would bethe real Jack wherever he might be. She had, of course, no knowledge of thewhereabouts of her little son—she did not know, even, that he stilllived, and yet there was the chance that he might.

It was more than possible that without Rokoff’s knowledge this child hadbeen substituted for hers by one of the Russian’s confederates, and thateven now her son might be safe with friends in London, where there were many,both able and willing, to have paid any ransom which the traitorous conspiratormight have asked for the safe release of Lord Greystoke’s son.

She had thought it all out a hundred times since she had discovered that thebaby which Anderssen had placed in her arms that night upon the Kincaid was nother own, and it had been a constant and gnawing source of happiness to her todream the whole fantasy through in its every detail.

No, the Russian must never know that this was not her baby. She realized thather position was hopeless—with Anderssen and her husband dead there wasno one in all the world with a desire to succour her who knew where she mightbe found.

Rokoff’s threat, she realized, was no idle one. That he would do, orattempt to do, all that he had promised, she was perfectly sure; but at theworst it meant but a little earlier release from the hideous anguish that shehad been enduring. She must find some way to take her own life before theRussian could harm her further.

Just now she wanted time—time to think and prepare herself for the end.She felt that she could not take the last, awful step until she had exhaustedevery possibility of escape. She did not care to live unless she might find herway back to her own child, but slight as such a hope appeared she would notadmit its impossibility until the last moment had come, and she faced thefearful reality of choosing between the final alternatives—Nikolas Rokoffon one hand and self-destruction upon the other.

“Go away!” she said to the Russian. “Go away and leave me inpeace with my dead. Have you not brought sufficient misery and anguish upon mewithout attempting to harm me further? What wrong have I ever done you that youshould persist in persecuting me?”

“You are suffering for the sins of the monkey you chose when you mighthave had the love of a gentleman—of Nikolas Rokoff,” he replied.“But where is the use in discussing the matter? We shall bury the childhere, and you will return with me at once to my own camp. Tomorrow I shallbring you back and turn you over to your new husband—the lovelyM’ganwazam. Come!”

He reached out for the child. Jane, who was on her feet now, turned away fromhim.

“I shall bury the body,” she said. “Send some men to dig agrave outside the village.”

Rokoff was anxious to have the thing over and get back to his camp with hisvictim. He thought he saw in her apathy a resignation to her fate. Steppingoutside the hut, he motioned her to follow him, and a moment later, with hismen, he escorted Jane beyond the village, where beneath a great tree the blacksscooped a shallow grave.

Wrapping the tiny body in a blanket, Jane laid it tenderly in the black hole,and, turning her head that she might not see the mouldy earth falling upon thepitiful little bundle, she breathed a prayer beside the grave of the namelesswaif that had won its way to the innermost recesses of her heart.

Then, dry-eyed but suffering, she rose and followed the Russian through theStygian blackness of the jungle, along the winding, leafy corridor that ledfrom the village of M’ganwazam, the black cannibal, to the camp ofNikolas Rokoff, the white fiend.

Beside them, in the impenetrable thickets that fringed the path, rising to archabove it and shut out the moon, the girl could hear the stealthy, muffledfootfalls of great beasts, and ever round about them rose the deafening roarsof hunting lions, until the earth trembled to the mighty sound.

The porters lighted torches now and waved them upon either hand to frighten offthe beasts of prey. Rokoff urged them to greater speed, and from the quaveringnote in his voice Jane Clayton knew that he was weak from terror.

The sounds of the jungle night recalled most vividly the days and nights thatshe had spent in a similar jungle with her forest god—with the fearlessand unconquerable Tarzan of the Apes. Then there had been no thoughts ofterror, though the jungle noises were new to her, and the roar of a lion hadseemed the most awe-inspiring sound upon the great earth.

How different would it be now if she knew that he was somewhere there in thewilderness, seeking her! Then, indeed, would there be that for which to live,and every reason to believe that succour was close at hand—but he wasdead! It was incredible that it should be so.

There seemed no place in death for that great body and those mighty thews. HadRokoff been the one to tell her of her lord’s passing she would haveknown that he lied. There could be no reason, she thought, why M’ganwazamshould have deceived her. She did not know that the Russian had talked with thesavage a few minutes before the chief had come to her with his tale.

At last they reached the rude boma that Rokoff’s porters had thrown upround the Russian’s camp. Here they found all in turmoil. She did notknow what it was all about, but she saw that Rokoff was very angry, and frombits of conversation which she could translate she gleaned that there had beenfurther desertions while he had been absent, and that the deserters had takenthe bulk of his food and ammunition.

When he had done venting his rage upon those who remained he returned to whereJane stood under guard of a couple of his white sailors. He grasped her roughlyby the arm and started to drag her toward his tent. The girl struggled andfought to free herself, while the two sailors stood by, laughing at the raretreat.

Rokoff did not hesitate to use rough methods when he found that he was to havedifficulty in carrying out his designs. Repeatedly he struck Jane Clayton inthe face, until at last, half-conscious, she was dragged within his tent.

Rokoff’s boy had lighted the Russian’s lamp, and now at a word fromhis master he made himself scarce. Jane had sunk to the floor in the middle ofthe enclosure. Slowly her numbed senses were returning to her and she wascommencing to think very fast indeed. Quickly her eyes ran round the interiorof the tent, taking in every detail of its equipment and contents.

Now the Russian was lifting her to her feet and attempting to drag her to thecamp cot that stood at one side of the tent. At his belt hung a heavy revolver.Jane Clayton’s eyes riveted themselves upon it. Her palm itched to graspthe huge butt. She feigned again to swoon, but through her half-closed lids shewaited her opportunity.

It came just as Rokoff was lifting her upon the cot. A noise at the tent doorbehind him brought his head quickly about and away from the girl. The butt ofthe gun was not an inch from her hand. With a single, lightning-like move shesnatched the weapon from its holster, and at the same instant Rokoff turnedback toward her, realizing his peril.

She did not dare fire for fear the shot would bring his people about him, andwith Rokoff dead she would fall into hands no better than his and to a fateprobably even worse than he alone could have imagined. The memory of the twobrutes who stood and laughed as Rokoff struck her was still vivid.

As the rage and fear-filled countenance of the Slav turned toward her JaneClayton raised the heavy revolver high above the pasty face and with all herstrength dealt the man a terrific blow between the eyes.

Without a sound he sank, limp and unconscious, to the ground. A moment laterthe girl stood beside him—for a moment at least free from the menace ofhis lust.

Outside the tent she again heard the noise that had distracted Rokoff’sattention. What it was she did not know, but, fearing the return of the servantand the discovery of her deed, she stepped quickly to the camp table upon whichburned the oil lamp and extinguished the smudgy, evil-smelling flame.

In the total darkness of the interior she paused for a moment to collect herwits and plan for the next step in her venture for freedom.

About her was a camp of enemies. Beyond these foes a black wilderness of savagejungle peopled by hideous beasts of prey and still more hideous human beasts.

There was little or no chance that she could survive even a few days of theconstant dangers that would confront her there; but the knowledge that she hadalready passed through so many perils unscathed, and that somewhere out in thefaraway world a little child was doubtless at that very moment crying for her,filled her with determination to make the effort to accomplish the seeminglyimpossible and cross that awful land of horror in search of the sea and theremote chance of succour she might find there.

Rokoff’s tent stood almost exactly in the centre of the boma. Surroundingit were the tents and shelters of his white companions and the natives of hissafari. To pass through these and find egress through the boma seemed a tasktoo fraught with insurmountable obstacles to warrant even the slightestconsideration, and yet there was no other way.

To remain in the tent until she should be discovered would be to set at naughtall that she had risked to gain her freedom, and so with stealthy step andevery sense alert she approached the back of the tent to set out upon the firststage of her adventure.

Groping along the rear of the canvas wall, she found that there was no openingthere. Quickly she returned to the side of the unconscious Russian. In his belther groping fingers came upon the hilt of a long hunting-knife, and with thisshe cut a hole in the back wall of the tent.

Silently she stepped without. To her immense relief she saw that the camp wasapparently asleep. In the dim and flickering light of the dying fires she sawbut a single sentry, and he was dozing upon his haunches at the opposite sideof the enclosure.

Keeping the tent between him and herself, she crossed between the smallshelters of the native porters to the boma wall beyond.

Outside, in the darkness of the tangled jungle, she could hear the roaring oflions, the laughing of hyenas, and the countless, nameless noises of themidnight jungle.

For a moment she hesitated, trembling. The thought of the prowling beasts outthere in the darkness was appalling. Then, with a sudden brave toss of herhead, she attacked the thorny boma wall with her delicate hands. Torn andbleeding though they were, she worked on breathlessly until she had made anopening through which she could worm her body, and at last she stood outsidethe enclosure.

Behind her lay a fate worse than death, at the hands of human beings.

Before her lay an almost certain fate—but it was only death—sudden,merciful, and honourable death.

Without a tremor and without regret she darted away from the camp, and a momentlater the mysterious jungle had closed about her.

CHAPTER XIV.
Alone in the Jungle

Tambudza, leading Tarzan of the Apes toward the camp of the Russian, moved veryslowly along the winding jungle path, for she was old and her legs stiff withrheumatism.

So it was that the runners dispatched by M’ganwazam to warn Rokoff thatthe white giant was in his village and that he would be slain that nightreached the Russian’s camp before Tarzan and his ancient guide hadcovered half the distance.

The guides found the white man’s camp in a turmoil. Rokoff had thatmorning been discovered stunned and bleeding within his tent. When he hadrecovered his senses and realized that Jane Clayton had escaped, his rage wasboundless.

Rushing about the camp with his rifle, he had sought to shoot down the nativesentries who had allowed the young woman to elude their vigilance, but severalof the other whites, realizing that they were already in a precarious positionowing to the numerous desertions that Rokoff’s cruelty had brought about,seized and disarmed him.

Then came the messengers from M’ganwazam, but scarce had they told theirstory and Rokoff was preparing to depart with them for their village when otherrunners, panting from the exertions of their swift flight through the jungle,rushed breathless into the firelight, crying that the great white giant hadescaped from M’ganwazam and was already on his way to wreak vengeanceagainst his enemies.

Instantly confusion reigned within the encircling boma. The blacks belonging toRokoff’s safari were terror-stricken at the thought of the proximity ofthe white giant who hunted through the jungle with a fierce pack of apes andpanthers at his heels.

Before the whites realized what had happened the superstitious fears of thenatives had sent them scurrying into the bush—their own carriers as wellas the messengers from M’ganwazam—but even in their haste they hadnot neglected to take with them every article of value upon which they couldlay their hands.

Thus Rokoff and the seven white sailors found themselves deserted and robbed inthe midst of a wilderness.

The Russian, following his usual custom, berated his companions, laying all theblame upon their shoulders for the events which had led up to the almosthopeless condition in which they now found themselves; but the sailors were inno mood to brook his insults and his cursing.

In the midst of this tirade one of them drew a revolver and fired point-blankat the Russian. The fellow’s aim was poor, but his act so terrifiedRokoff that he turned and fled for his tent.

As he ran his eyes chanced to pass beyond the boma to the edge of the forest,and there he caught a glimpse of that which sent his craven heart cold with afear that almost expunged his terror of the seven men at his back, who by thistime were all firing in hate and revenge at his retreating figure.

What he saw was the giant figure of an almost naked white man emerging from thebush.

Darting into his tent, the Russian did not halt in his flight, but kept righton through the rear wall, taking advantage of the long slit that Jane Claytonhad made the night before.

The terror-stricken Muscovite scurried like a hunted rabbit through the holethat still gaped in the boma’s wall at the point where his own prey hadescaped, and as Tarzan approached the camp upon the opposite side Rokoffdisappeared into the jungle in the wake of Jane Clayton.

As the ape-man entered the boma with old Tambudza at his elbow the sevensailors, recognizing him, turned and fled in the opposite direction. Tarzan sawthat Rokoff was not among them, and so he let them go their way—hisbusiness was with the Russian, whom he expected to find in his tent. As to thesailors, he was sure that the jungle would exact from them expiation for theirvillainies, nor, doubtless, was he wrong, for his were the last whiteman’s eyes to rest upon any of them.

Finding Rokoff’s tent empty, Tarzan was about to set out in search of theRussian when Tambudza suggested to him that the departure of the white mancould only have resulted from word reaching him from M’ganwazam thatTarzan was in his village.

“He has doubtless hastened there,” argued the old woman. “Ifyou would find him let us return at once.”

Tarzan himself thought that this would probably prove to be the fact, so he didnot waste time in an endeavour to locate the Russian’s trail, but,instead, set out briskly for the village of M’ganwazam, leaving Tambudzato plod slowly in his wake.

His one hope was that Jane was still safe and with Rokoff. If this was thecase, it would be but a matter of an hour or more before he should be able towrest her from the Russian.

He knew now that M’ganwazam was treacherous and that he might have tofight to regain possession of his wife. He wished that Mugambi, Sheeta, Akut,and the balance of the pack were with him, for he realized that single-handedit would be no child’s play to bring Jane safely from the clutches of twosuch scoundrels as Rokoff and the wily M’ganwazam.

To his surprise he found no sign of either Rokoff or Jane in the village, andas he could not trust the word of the chief, he wasted no time in futileinquiry. So sudden and unexpected had been his return, and so quickly had hevanished into the jungle after learning that those he sought were not among theWaganwazam, that old M’ganwazam had no time to prevent his going.

Swinging through the trees, he hastened back to the deserted camp he had sorecently left, for here, he knew, was the logical place to take up the trail ofRokoff and Jane.

Arrived at the boma, he circled carefully about the outside of the enclosureuntil, opposite a break in the thorny wall, he came to indications thatsomething had recently passed into the jungle. His acute sense of smell toldhim that both of those he sought had fled from the camp in this direction, anda moment later he had taken up the trail and was following the faint spoor.

Far ahead of him a terror-stricken young woman was slinking along a narrowgame-trail, fearful that the next moment would bring her face to face with somesavage beast or equally savage man. As she ran on, hoping against hope that shehad hit upon the direction that would lead her eventually to the great river,she came suddenly upon a familiar spot.

At one side of the trail, beneath a giant tree, lay a little heap of looselypiled brush—to her dying day that little spot of jungle would beindelibly impressed upon her memory. It was where Anderssen had hiddenher—where he had given up his life in the vain effort to save her fromRokoff.

At sight of it she recalled the rifle and ammunition that the man had thrustupon her at the last moment. Until now she had forgotten them entirely. Stillclutched in her hand was the revolver she had snatched from Rokoff’sbelt, but that could contain at most not over six cartridges—not enoughto furnish her with food and protection both on the long journey to the sea.

With bated breath she groped beneath the little mound, scarce daring to hopethat the treasure remained where she had left it; but, to her infinite reliefand joy, her hand came at once upon the barrel of the heavy weapon and thenupon the bandoleer of cartridges.

As she threw the latter about her shoulder and felt the weight of the biggame-gun in her hand a sudden sense of security suffused her. It was with newhope and a feeling almost of assured success that she again set forward uponher journey.

That night she slept in the crotch of a tree, as Tarzan had so often told herthat he was accustomed to doing, and early the next morning was upon her wayagain. Late in the afternoon, as she was about to cross a little clearing, shewas startled at the sight of a huge ape coming from the jungle upon theopposite side.

The wind was blowing directly across the clearing between them, and Jane lostno time in putting herself downwind from the huge creature. Then she hid in aclump of heavy bush and watched, holding the rifle ready for instant use.

To her consternation she saw that the apes were pausing in the centre of theclearing. They came together in a little knot, where they stood lookingbackward, as though in expectation of the coming of others of their tribe. Janewished that they would go on, for she knew that at any moment some little,eddying gust of wind might carry her scent down to their nostrils, and thenwhat would the protection of her rifle amount to in the face of those giganticmuscles and mighty fangs?

Her eyes moved back and forth between the apes and the edge of the jungletoward which they were gazing until at last she perceived the object of theirhalt and the thing that they awaited. They were being stalked.

Of this she was positive, as she saw the lithe, sinewy form of a panther glidenoiselessly from the jungle at the point at which the apes had emerged but amoment before.

Quickly the beast trotted across the clearing toward the anthropoids. Janewondered at their apparent apathy, and a moment later her wonder turned toamazement as she saw the great cat come quite close to the apes, who appearedentirely unconcerned by its presence, and, squatting down in their midst, fellassiduously to the business of preening, which occupies most of the wakinghours of the cat family.

If the young woman was surprised by the sight of these natural enemiesfraternizing, it was with emotions little short of fear for her own sanity thatshe presently saw a tall, muscular warrior enter the clearing and join thegroup of savage beasts assembled there.

At first sight of the man she had been positive that he would be torn topieces, and she had half risen from her shelter, raising her rifle to hershoulder to do what she could to avert the man’s terrible fate.

Now she saw that he seemed actually conversing with the beasts—issuingorders to them.

Presently the entire company filed on across the clearing and disappeared inthe jungle upon the opposite side.

With a gasp of mingled incredulity and relief Jane Clayton staggered to herfeet and fled on away from the terrible horde that had just passed her, while ahalf-mile behind her another individual, following the same trail as she, layfrozen with terror behind an ant-hill as the hideous band passed quite close tohim.

This one was Rokoff; but he had recognized the members of the awful aggregationas allies of Tarzan of the Apes. No sooner, therefore, had the beasts passedhim than he rose and raced through the jungle as fast as he could go, in orderthat he might put as much distance as possible between himself and thesefrightful beasts.

So it happened that as Jane Clayton came to the bank of the river, down whichshe hoped to float to the ocean and eventual rescue, Nikolas Rokoff was but ashort distance in her rear.

Upon the bank the girl saw a great dugout drawn half-way from the water andtied securely to a near-by tree.

This, she felt, would solve the question of transportation to the sea could shebut launch the huge, unwieldy craft. Unfastening the rope that had moored it tothe tree, Jane pushed frantically upon the bow of the heavy canoe, but for allthe results that were apparent she might as well have been attempting to shovethe earth out of its orbit.

She was about winded when it occurred to her to try working the dugout into thestream by loading the stern with ballast and then rocking the bow back andforth along the bank until the craft eventually worked itself into the river.

There were no stones or rocks available, but along the shore she foundquantities of driftwood deposited by the river at a slightly higher stage.These she gathered and piled far in the stern of the boat, until at last, toher immense relief, she saw the bow rise gently from the mud of the bank andthe stern drift slowly with the current until it again lodged a few feetfarther down-stream.

Jane found that by running back and forth between the bow and stern she couldalternately raise and lower each end of the boat as she shifted her weight fromone end to the other, with the result that each time she leaped to the sternthe canoe moved a few inches farther into the river.

As the success of her plan approached more closely to fruition she became sowrapped in her efforts that she failed to note the figure of a man standingbeneath a huge tree at the edge of the jungle from which he had just emerged.

He watched her and her labours with a cruel and malicious grin upon his swarthycountenance.

The boat at last became so nearly free of the retarding mud and of the bankthat Jane felt positive that she could pole it off into deeper water with oneof the paddles which lay in the bottom of the rude craft. With this end in viewshe seized upon one of these implements and had just plunged it into the riverbottom close to the shore when her eyes happened to rise to the edge of thejungle.

As her gaze fell upon the figure of the man a little cry of terror rose to herlips. It was Rokoff.

He was running toward her now and shouting to her to wait or he wouldshoot—though as he was entirely unarmed it was difficult to discover justhow he intended making good his threat.

Jane Clayton knew nothing of the various misfortunes that had befallen theRussian since she had escaped from his tent, so she believed that his followersmust be close at hand.

However, she had no intention of falling again into the man’s clutches.She would rather die at once than that that should happen to her. Anotherminute and the boat would be free.

Once in the current of the river she would be beyond Rokoff’s power tostop her, for there was no other boat upon the shore, and no man, and certainlynot the cowardly Rokoff, would dare to attempt to swim the crocodile-infestedwater in an effort to overtake her.

Rokoff, on his part, was bent more upon escape than aught else. He would gladlyhave forgone any designs he might have had upon Jane Clayton would she butpermit him to share this means of escape that she had discovered. He wouldpromise anything if she would let him come aboard the dugout, but he did notthink that it was necessary to do so.

He saw that he could easily reach the bow of the boat before it cleared theshore, and then it would not be necessary to make promises of any sort. Notthat Rokoff would have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promiseshe might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having to sue forfavour with one who had so recently assaulted and escaped him.

Already he was gloating over the days and nights of revenge that would be hiswhile the heavy dugout drifted its slow way to the ocean.

Jane Clayton, working furiously to shove the boat beyond his reach, suddenlyrealized that she was to be successful, for with a little lurch the dugoutswung quickly into the current, just as the Russian reached out to place hishand upon its bow.

His fingers did not miss their goal by a half-dozen inches. The girl almostcollapsed with the reaction from the terrific mental, physical, and nervousstrain under which she had been labouring for the past few minutes. But, thankHeaven, at last she was safe!

Even as she breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving, she saw a suddenexpression of triumph lighten the features of the cursing Russian, and at thesame instant he dropped suddenly to the ground, grasping firmly upon somethingwhich wriggled through the mud toward the water.

Jane Clayton crouched, wide-eyed and horror-stricken, in the bottom of the boatas she realized that at the last instant success had been turned to failure,and that she was indeed again in the power of the malignant Rokoff.

For the thing that the man had seen and grasped was the end of the trailingrope with which the dugout had been moored to the tree.

CHAPTER XV.
Down the Ugambi

Halfway between the Ugambi and the village of the Waganwazam, Tarzan came uponthe pack moving slowly along his old spoor. Mugambi could scarce believe thatthe trail of the Russian and the mate of his savage master had passed so closeto that of the pack.

It seemed incredible that two human beings should have come so close to themwithout having been detected by some of the marvellously keen and alert beasts;but Tarzan pointed out the spoor of the two he trailed, and at certain pointsthe black could see that the man and the woman must have been in hiding as thepack passed them, watching every move of the ferocious creatures.

It had been apparent to Tarzan from the first that Jane and Rokoff were nottravelling together. The spoor showed distinctly that the young woman had beena considerable distance ahead of the Russian at first, though the farther theape-man continued along the trail the more obvious it became that the man wasrapidly overhauling his quarry.

At first there had been the spoor of wild beasts over the footprints of JaneClayton, while upon the top of all Rokoff’s spoor showed that he hadpassed over the trail after the animals had left their records upon the ground.But later there were fewer and fewer animal imprints occurring between those ofJane’s and the Russian’s feet, until as he approached the river theape-man became aware that Rokoff could not have been more than a few hundredyards behind the girl.

He felt they must be close ahead of him now, and, with a little thrill ofexpectation, he leaped rapidly forward ahead of the pack. Swinging swiftlythrough the trees, he came out upon the river-bank at the very point at whichRokoff had overhauled Jane as she endeavoured to launch the cumbersome dugout.

In the mud along the bank the ape-man saw the footprints of the two he sought,but there was neither boat nor people there when he arrived, nor, at firstglance, any sign of their whereabouts.

It was plain that they had shoved off a native canoe and embarked upon thebosom of the stream, and as the ape-man’s eye ran swiftly down the courseof the river beneath the shadows of the overarching trees he saw in thedistance, just as it rounded a bend that shut it off from his view, a driftingdugout in the stern of which was the figure of a man.

Just as the pack came in sight of the river they saw their agile leader racingdown the river’s bank, leaping from hummock to hummock of the swampyground that spread between them and a little promontory which rose just wherethe river curved inward from their sight.

To follow him it was necessary for the heavy, cumbersome apes to make a widedetour, and Sheeta, too, who hated water. Mugambi followed after them asrapidly as he could in the wake of the great white master.

A half-hour of rapid travelling across the swampy neck of land and over therising promontory brought Tarzan, by a short cut, to the inward bend of thewinding river, and there before him upon the bosom of the stream he saw thedugout, and in its stern Nikolas Rokoff.

Jane was not with the Russian.

At sight of his enemy the broad scar upon the ape-man’s brow burnedscarlet, and there rose to his lips the hideous, bestial challenge of thebull-ape.

Rokoff shuddered as the weird and terrible alarm fell upon his ears. Coweringin the bottom of the boat, his teeth chattering in terror, he watched the manhe feared above all other creatures upon the face of the earth as he ranquickly to the edge of the water.

Even though the Russian knew that he was safe from his enemy, the very sight ofhim threw him into a frenzy of trembling cowardice, which became frantichysteria as he saw the white giant dive fearlessly into the forbidding watersof the tropical river.

With steady, powerful strokes the ape-man forged out into the stream toward thedrifting dugout. Now Rokoff seized one of the paddles lying in the bottom ofthe craft, and, with terrorwide eyes still glued upon the living death thatpursued him, struck out madly in an effort to augment the speed of the unwieldycanoe.

And from the opposite bank a sinister ripple, unseen by either man, movedsteadily toward the half-naked swimmer.

Tarzan had reached the stern of the craft at last. One hand upstretched graspedthe gunwale. Rokoff sat frozen with fear, unable to move a hand or foot, hiseyes riveted upon the face of his Nemesis.

Then a sudden commotion in the water behind the swimmer caught his attention.He saw the ripple, and he knew what caused it.

At the same instant Tarzan felt mighty jaws close upon his right leg. He triedto struggle free and raise himself over the side of the boat. His efforts wouldhave succeeded had not this unexpected interruption galvanized the malign brainof the Russian into instant action with its sudden promise of deliverance andrevenge.

Like a venomous snake the man leaped toward the stern of the boat, and with asingle swift blow struck Tarzan across the head with the heavy paddle. Theape-man’s fingers slipped from their hold upon the gunwale.

There was a short struggle at the surface, and then a swirl of waters, a littleeddy, and a burst of bubbles soon smoothed out by the flowing current markedfor the instant the spot where Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle,disappeared from the sight of men beneath the gloomy waters of the dark andforbidding Ugambi.

Weak from terror, Rokoff sank shuddering into the bottom of the dugout. For amoment he could not realize the good fortune that had befallen him—allthat he could see was the figure of a silent, struggling white man disappearingbeneath the surface of the river to unthinkable death in the slimy mud of thebottom.

Slowly all that it meant to him filtered into the mind of the Russian, and thena cruel smile of relief and triumph touched his lips; but it was short-lived,for just as he was congratulating himself that he was now comparatively safe toproceed upon his way to the coast unmolested, a mighty pandemonium rose fromthe river-bank close by.

As his eyes sought the authors of the frightful sound he saw standing upon theshore, glaring at him with hate-filled eyes, a devil-faced panther surroundedby the hideous apes of Akut, and in the forefront of them a giant black warriorwho shook his fist at him, threatening him with terrible death.

The nightmare of that flight down the Ugambi with the hideous horde racingafter him by day and by night, now abreast of him, now lost in the mazes of thejungle far behind for hours and once for a whole day, only to reappear againupon his trail grim, relentless, and terrible, reduced the Russian from astrong and robust man to an emaciated, white-haired, fear-gibbering thingbefore ever the bay and the ocean broke upon his hopeless vision.

Past populous villages he had fled. Time and again warriors had put out intheir canoes to intercept him, but each time the hideous horde had swept intoview to send the terrified natives shrieking back to the shore to losethemselves in the jungle.

Nowhere in his flight had he seen aught of Jane Clayton. Not once had his eyesrested upon her since that moment at the river’s brim his hand had closedupon the rope attached to the bow of her dugout and he had believed her safelyin his power again, only to be thwarted an instant later as the girl snatchedup a heavy express rifle from the bottom of the craft and levelled it full athis breast.

Quickly he had dropped the rope then and seen her float away beyond his reach,but a moment later he had been racing up-stream toward a little tributary inthe mouth of which was hidden the canoe in which he and his party had come thusfar upon their journey in pursuit of the girl and Anderssen.

What had become of her?

There seemed little doubt in the Russian’s mind, however, but that shehad been captured by warriors from one of the several villages she would havebeen compelled to pass on her way down to the sea. Well, he was at least rid ofmost of his human enemies.

But at that he would gladly have had them all back in the land of the livingcould he thus have been freed from the menace of the frightful creatures whopursued him with awful relentlessness, screaming and growling at him every timethey came within sight of him. The one that filled him with the greatest terrorwas the panther—the flaming-eyed, devil-faced panther whose grinning jawsgaped wide at him by day, and whose fiery orbs gleamed wickedly out across thewater from the Cimmerian blackness of the jungle nights.

The sight of the mouth of the Ugambi filled Rokoff with renewed hope, forthere, upon the yellow waters of the bay, floated the Kincaid at anchor. He hadsent the little steamer away to coal while he had gone up the river, leavingPaulvitch in charge of her, and he could have cried aloud in his relief as hesaw that she had returned in time to save him.

Frantically he alternately paddled furiously toward her and rose to his feetwaving his paddle and crying aloud in an attempt to attract the attention ofthose on board. But loud as he screamed his cries awakened no answeringchallenge from the deck of the silent craft.

Upon the shore behind him a hurried backward glance revealed the presence ofthe snarling pack. Even now, he thought, these manlike devils might yet find away to reach him even upon the deck of the steamer unless there were thosethere to repel them with firearms.

What could have happened to those he had left upon the Kincaid? Where wasPaulvitch? Could it be that the vessel was deserted, and that, after all, hewas doomed to be overtaken by the terrible fate that he had been flying fromthrough all these hideous days and nights? He shivered as might one upon whosebrow death has already laid his clammy finger.

Yet he did not cease to paddle frantically toward the steamer, and at last,after what seemed an eternity, the bow of the dugout bumped against the timbersof the Kincaid. Over the ship’s side hung a monkey-ladder, but as theRussian grasped it to ascend to the deck he heard a warning challenge fromabove, and, looking up, gazed into the cold, relentless muzzle of a rifle.

After Jane Clayton, with rifle levelled at the breast of Rokoff, had succeededin holding him off until the dugout in which she had taken refuge had driftedout upon the bosom of the Ugambi beyond the man’s reach, she had lost notime in paddling to the swiftest sweep of the channel, nor did she for longdays and weary nights cease to hold her craft to the most rapidly moving partof the river, except when during the hottest hours of the day she had been wontto drift as the current would take her, lying prone in the bottom of the canoe,her face sheltered from the sun with a great palm leaf.

Thus only did she gain rest upon the voyage; at other times she continuallysought to augment the movement of the craft by wielding the heavy paddle.

Rokoff, on the other hand, had used little or no intelligence in his flightalong the Ugambi, so that more often than not his craft had drifted in theslow-going eddies, for he habitually hugged the bank farthest from that alongwhich the hideous horde pursued and menaced him.

Thus it was that, though he had put out upon the river but a short timesubsequent to the girl, yet she had reached the bay fully two hours ahead ofhim. When she had first seen the anchored ship upon the quiet water, JaneClayton’s heart had beat fast with hope and thanksgiving, but as she drewcloser to the craft and saw that it was the Kincaid, her pleasure gave place tothe gravest misgivings.

It was too late, however, to turn back, for the current that carried her towardthe ship was much too strong for her muscles. She could not have forced theheavy dugout up-stream against it, and all that was left her was to attempteither to make the shore without being seen by those upon the deck of theKincaid, or to throw herself upon their mercy—otherwise she must be sweptout to sea.

She knew that the shore held little hope of life for her, as she had noknowledge of the location of the friendly Mosula village to which Anderssen hadtaken her through the darkness of the night of their escape from the Kincaid.

With Rokoff away from the steamer it might be possible that by offering thosein charge a large reward they could be induced to carry her to the nearestcivilized port. It was worth risking—if she could make the steamer atall.

The current was bearing her swiftly down the river, and she found that only bydint of the utmost exertion could she direct the awkward craft toward thevicinity of the Kincaid. Having reached the decision to board the steamer, shenow looked to it for aid, but to her surprise the decks appeared to be emptyand she saw no sign of life aboard the ship.

The dugout was drawing closer and closer to the bow of the vessel, and yet nohail came over the side from any lookout aboard. In a moment more, Janerealized, she would be swept beyond the steamer, and then, unless they lowereda boat to rescue her, she would be carried far out to sea by the current andthe swift ebb tide that was running.

The young woman called loudly for assistance, but there was no reply other thanthe shrill scream of some savage beast upon the jungle-shrouded shore.Frantically Jane wielded the paddle in an effort to carry her craft closealongside the steamer.

For a moment it seemed that she should miss her goal by but a few feet, but atthe last moment the canoe swung close beneath the steamer’s bow and Janebarely managed to grasp the anchor chain.

Heroically she clung to the heavy iron links, almost dragged from the canoe bythe strain of the current upon her craft. Beyond her she saw a monkey-ladderdangling over the steamer’s side. To release her hold upon the chain andchance clambering to the ladder as her canoe was swept beneath it seemed beyondthe pale of possibility, yet to remain clinging to the anchor chain appearedequally as futile.

Finally her glance chanced to fall upon the rope in the bow of the dugout, and,making one end of this fast to the chain, she succeeded in drifting the canoeslowly down until it lay directly beneath the ladder. A moment later, her rifleslung about her shoulders, she had clambered safely to the deserted deck.

Her first task was to explore the ship, and this she did, her rifle ready forinstant use should she meet with any human menace aboard the Kincaid. She wasnot long in discovering the cause of the apparently deserted condition of thesteamer, for in the forecastle she found the sailors, who had evidently beenleft to guard the ship, deep in drunken slumber.

With a shudder of disgust she clambered above, and to the best of her abilityclosed and made fast the hatch above the heads of the sleeping guard. Next shesought the galley and food, and, having appeased her hunger, she took her placeon deck, determined that none should board the Kincaid without first havingagreed to her demands.

For an hour or so nothing appeared upon the surface of the river to cause heralarm, but then, about a bend up-stream, she saw a canoe appear in which sat asingle figure. It had not proceeded far in her direction before she recognizedthe occupant as Rokoff, and when the fellow attempted to board he found a riflestaring him in the face.

When the Russian discovered who it was that repelled his advance he becamefurious, cursing and threatening in a most horrible manner; but, finding thatthese tactics failed to frighten or move the girl, he at last fell to pleadingand promising.

Jane had but a single reply for his every proposition, and that was thatnothing would ever persuade her to permit Rokoff upon the same vessel with her.That she would put her threats into action and shoot him should he persist inhis endeavour to board the ship he was convinced.

So, as there was no other alternative, the great coward dropped back into hisdugout and, at imminent risk of being swept to sea, finally succeeded in makingthe shore far down the bay and upon the opposite side from that on which thehorde of beasts stood snarling and roaring.

Jane Clayton knew that the fellow could not alone and unaided bring his heavycraft back up-stream to the Kincaid, and so she had no further fear of anattack by him. The hideous crew upon the shore she thought she recognized asthe same that had passed her in the jungle far up the Ugambi several daysbefore, for it seemed quite beyond reason that there should be more than onesuch a strangely assorted pack; but what had brought them down-stream to themouth of the river she could not imagine.

Toward the day’s close the girl was suddenly alarmed by the shouting ofthe Russian from the opposite bank of the stream, and a moment later, followingthe direction of his gaze, she was terrified to see a ship’s boatapproaching from up-stream, in which, she felt assured, there could be onlymembers of the Kincaid’s missing crew—only heartless ruffians andenemies.

CHAPTER XVI.
In the Darkness of the Night

When Tarzan of the Apes realized that he was in the grip of the great jaws of acrocodile he did not, as an ordinary man might have done, give up all hope andresign himself to his fate.

Instead, he filled his lungs with air before the huge reptile dragged himbeneath the surface, and then, with all the might of his great muscles, foughtbitterly for freedom. But out of his native element the ape-man was too greatlyhandicapped to do more than excite the monster to greater speed as it draggedits prey swiftly through the water.

Tarzan’s lungs were bursting for a breath of pure fresh air. He knew thathe could survive but a moment more, and in the last paroxysm of his sufferinghe did what he could to avenge his own death.

His body trailed out beside the slimy carcass of his captor, and into the tougharmour the ape-man attempted to plunge his stone knife as he was borne to thecreature’s horrid den.

His efforts but served to accelerate the speed of the crocodile, and just asthe ape-man realized that he had reached the limit of his endurance he felt hisbody dragged to a muddy bed and his nostrils rise above the water’ssurface. All about him was the blackness of the pit—the silence of thegrave.

For a moment Tarzan of the Apes lay gasping for breath upon the slimy,evil-smelling bed to which the animal had borne him. Close at his side he couldfeel the cold, hard plates of the creature’s coat rising and falling asthough with spasmodic efforts to breathe.

For several minutes the two lay thus, and then a sudden convulsion of the giantcarcass at the man’s side, a tremor, and a stiffening brought Tarzan tohis knees beside the crocodile. To his utter amazement he found that the beastwas dead. The slim knife had found a vulnerable spot in the scaly armour.

Staggering to his feet, the ape-man groped about the reeking, oozy den. Hefound that he was imprisoned in a subterranean chamber amply large enough tohave accommodated a dozen or more of the huge animals such as the one that haddragged him thither.

He realized that he was in the creature’s hidden nest far under the bankof the stream, and that doubtless the only means of ingress or egress laythrough the submerged opening through which the crocodile had brought him.

His first thought, of course, was of escape, but that he could make his way tothe surface of the river beyond and then to the shore seemed highly improbable.There might be turns and windings in the neck of the passage, or, most to befeared, he might meet another of the slimy inhabitants of the retreat upon hisjourney outward.

Even should he reach the river in safety, there was still the danger of hisbeing again attacked before he could effect a safe landing. Still there was noalternative, and, filling his lungs with the close and reeking air of thechamber, Tarzan of the Apes dived into the dark and watery hole which he couldnot see but had felt out and found with his feet and legs.

The leg which had been held within the jaws of the crocodile was badlylacerated, but the bone had not been broken, nor were the muscles or tendonssufficiently injured to render it useless. It gave him excruciating pain, thatwas all.

But Tarzan of the Apes was accustomed to pain, and gave it no further thoughtwhen he found that the use of his legs was not greatly impaired by the sharpteeth of the monster.

Rapidly he crawled and swam through the passage which inclined downward andfinally upward to open at last into the river bottom but a few feet from theshore line. As the ape-man reached the surface he saw the heads of two greatcrocodiles but a short distance from him. They were making rapidly in hisdirection, and with a superhuman effort the man struck out for the overhangingbranches of a near-by tree.

Nor was he a moment too soon, for scarcely had he drawn himself to the safetyof the limb than two gaping mouths snapped venomously below him. For a fewminutes Tarzan rested in the tree that had proved the means of his salvation.His eyes scanned the river as far down-stream as the tortuous channel wouldpermit, but there was no sign of the Russian or his dugout.

When he had rested and bound up his wounded leg he started on in pursuit of thedrifting canoe. He found himself upon the opposite of the river to that atwhich he had entered the stream, but as his quarry was upon the bosom of thewater it made little difference to the ape-man upon which side he took up thepursuit.

To his intense chagrin he soon found that his leg was more badly injured thanhe had thought, and that its condition seriously impeded his progress. It wasonly with the greatest difficulty that he could proceed faster than a walk uponthe ground, and in the trees he discovered that it not only impeded hisprogress, but rendered travelling distinctly dangerous.

From the old negress, Tambudza, Tarzan had gathered a suggestion that nowfilled his mind with doubts and misgivings. When the old woman had told him ofthe child’s death she had also added that the white woman, thoughgrief-stricken, had confided to her that the baby was not hers.

Tarzan could see no reason for believing that Jane could have found itadvisable to deny her identity or that of the child; the only explanation thathe could put upon the matter was that, after all, the white woman who hadaccompanied his son and the Swede into the jungle fastness of the interior hadnot been Jane at all.

The more he gave thought to the problem, the more firmly convinced he becamethat his son was dead and his wife still safe in London, and in ignorance ofthe terrible fate that had overtaken her first-born.

After all, then, his interpretation of Rokoff’s sinister taunt had beenerroneous, and he had been bearing the burden of a double apprehensionneedlessly—at least so thought the ape-man. From this belief he garneredsome slight surcease from the numbing grief that the death of his little sonhad thrust upon him.

And such a death! Even the savage beast that was the real Tarzan, inured to thesufferings and horrors of the grim jungle, shuddered as he contemplated thehideous fate that had overtaken the innocent child.

As he made his way painfully towards the coast, he let his mind dwell soconstantly upon the frightful crimes which the Russian had perpetrated againsthis loved ones that the great scar upon his forehead stood out almostcontinuously in the vivid scarlet that marked the man’s most relentlessand bestial moods of rage. At times he startled even himself and sent thelesser creatures of the wild jungle scampering to their hiding places asinvoluntary roars and growls rumbled from his throat.

Could he but lay his hand upon the Russian!

Twice upon the way to the coast bellicose natives ran threateningly from theirvillages to bar his further progress, but when the awful cry of the bull-apethundered upon their affrighted ears, and the great white giant chargedbellowing upon them, they had turned and fled into the bush, nor venturedthence until he had safely passed.

Though his progress seemed tantalizingly slow to the ape-man whose idea ofspeed had been gained by such standards as the lesser apes attain, he made, asa matter of fact, almost as rapid progress as the drifting canoe that boreRokoff on ahead of him, so that he came to the bay and within sight of theocean just after darkness had fallen upon the same day that Jane Clayton andthe Russian ended their flights from the interior.

The darkness lowered so heavily upon the black river and the encircling junglethat Tarzan, even with eyes accustomed to much use after dark, could make outnothing a few yards from him. His idea was to search the shore that night forsigns of the Russian and the woman who he was certain must have preceded Rokoffdown the Ugambi. That the Kincaid or other ship lay at anchor but a hundredyards from him he did not dream, for no light showed on board the steamer.

Even as he commenced his search his attention was suddenly attracted by a noisethat he had not at first perceived—the stealthy dip of paddles in thewater some distance from the shore, and about opposite the point at which hestood. Motionless as a statue he stood listening to the faint sound.

Presently it ceased, to be followed by a shuffling noise that theape-man’s trained ears could interpret as resulting from but a singlecause—the scraping of leather-shod feet upon the rounds of a ship’smonkey-ladder. And yet, as far as he could see, there was no shipthere—nor might there be one within a thousand miles.

As he stood thus, peering out into the darkness of the cloud-enshrouded night,there came to him from across the water, like a slap in the face, so sudden andunexpected was it, the sharp staccato of an exchange of shots and then thescream of a woman.

Wounded though he was, and with the memory of his recent horrible experiencestill strong upon him, Tarzan of the Apes did not hesitate as the notes of thatfrightened cry rose shrill and piercing upon the still night air. With a boundhe cleared the intervening bush—there was a splash as the water closedabout him—and then, with powerful strokes, he swam out into theimpenetrable night with no guide save the memory of an illusive cry, and forcompany the hideous denizens of an equatorial river.

The boat that had attracted Jane’s attention as she stood guard upon thedeck of the Kincaid had been perceived by Rokoff upon one bank and Mugambi andthe horde upon the other. The cries of the Russian had brought the dugout firstto him, and then, after a conference, it had been turned toward the Kincaid,but before ever it covered half the distance between the shore and the steamera rifle had spoken from the latter’s deck and one of the sailors in thebow of the canoe had crumpled and fallen into the water.

After that they went more slowly, and presently, when Jane’s rifle hadfound another member of the party, the canoe withdrew to the shore, where itlay as long as daylight lasted.

The savage, snarling pack upon the opposite shore had been directed in theirpursuit by the black warrior, Mugambi, chief of the Wagambi. Only he knew whichmight be foe and which friend of their lost master.

Could they have reached either the canoe or the Kincaid they would have madeshort work of any whom they found there, but the gulf of black waterintervening shut them off from farther advance as effectually as though it hadbeen the broad ocean that separated them from their prey.

Mugambi knew something of the occurrences which had led up to the landing ofTarzan upon Jungle Island and the pursuit of the whites up the Ugambi. He knewthat his savage master sought his wife and child who had been stolen by thewicked white man whom they had followed far into the interior and now back tothe sea.

He believed also that this same man had killed the great white giant whom hehad come to respect and love as he had never loved the greatest chiefs of hisown people. And so in the wild breast of Mugambi burned an iron resolve to winto the side of the wicked one and wreak vengeance upon him for the murder ofthe ape-man.

But when he saw the canoe come down the river and take in Rokoff, when he sawit make for the Kincaid, he realized that only by possessing himself of a canoecould he hope to transport the beasts of the pack within striking distance ofthe enemy.

So it happened that even before Jane Clayton fired the first shot intoRokoff’s canoe the beasts of Tarzan had disappeared into the jungle.

After the Russian and his party, which consisted of Paulvitch and the severalmen he had left upon the Kincaid to attend to the matter of coaling, hadretreated before her fire, Jane realized that it would be but a temporaryrespite from their attentions which she had gained, and with the convictioncame a determination to make a bold and final stroke for freedom from themenacing threat of Rokoff’s evil purpose.

With this idea in view she opened negotiations with the two sailors she hadimprisoned in the forecastle, and having forced their consent to her plans,upon pain of death should they attempt disloyalty, she released them just asdarkness closed about the ship.

With ready revolver to compel obedience, she let them up one by one, searchingthem carefully for concealed weapons as they stood with hands elevated abovetheir heads. Once satisfied that they were unarmed, she set them to workcutting the cable which held the Kincaid to her anchorage, for her bold planwas nothing less than to set the steamer adrift and float with her out into theopen sea, there to trust to the mercy of the elements, which she was confidentwould be no more merciless than Nikolas Rokoff should he again capture her.

There was, too, the chance that the Kincaid might be sighted by some passingship, and as she was well stocked with provisions and water—the men hadassured her of this fact—and as the season of storm was well over, shehad every reason to hope for the eventual success of her plan.

The night was deeply overcast, heavy clouds riding low above the jungle and thewater—only to the west, where the broad ocean spread beyond theriver’s mouth, was there a suggestion of lessening gloom.

It was a perfect night for the purposes of the work in hand.

Her enemies could not see the activity aboard the ship nor mark her course asthe swift current bore her outward into the ocean. Before daylight broke theebb-tide would have carried the Kincaid well into the Benguela current whichflows northward along the coast of Africa, and, as a south wind was prevailing,Jane hoped to be out of sight of the mouth of the Ugambi before Rokoff couldbecome aware of the departure of the steamer.

Standing over the labouring seamen, the young woman breathed a sigh of reliefas the last strand of the cable parted and she knew that the vessel was on itsway out of the maw of the savage Ugambi.

With her two prisoners still beneath the coercing influence of her rifle, sheordered them upon deck with the intention of again imprisoning them in theforecastle; but at length she permitted herself to be influenced by theirpromises of loyalty and the arguments which they put forth that they could beof service to her, and permitted them to remain above.

For a few minutes the Kincaid drifted rapidly with the current, and then, witha grinding jar, she stopped in midstream. The ship had run upon a low-lying barthat splits the channel about a quarter of a mile from the sea.

For a moment she hung there, and then, swinging round until her bow pointedtoward the shore, she broke adrift once more.

At the same instant, just as Jane Clayton was congratulating herself that theship was once more free, there fell upon her ears from a point up the riverabout where the Kincaid had been anchored the rattle of musketry and awoman’s scream—shrill, piercing, fear-laden.

The sailors heard the shots with certain conviction that they announced thecoming of their employer, and as they had no relish for the plan that wouldconsign them to the deck of a drifting derelict, they whispered together ahurried plan to overcome the young woman and hail Rokoff and their companionsto their rescue.

It seemed that fate would play into their hands, for with the reports of theguns Jane Clayton’s attention had been distracted from her unwillingassistants, and instead of keeping one eye upon them as she had intended doing,she ran to the bow of the Kincaid to peer through the darkness toward thesource of the disturbance upon the river’s bosom.

Seeing that she was off her guard, the two sailors crept stealthily upon herfrom behind.

The scraping upon the deck of the shoes of one of them startled the girl to asudden appreciation of her danger, but the warning had come too late.

As she turned, both men leaped upon her and bore her to the deck, and as shewent down beneath them she saw, outlined against the lesser gloom of the ocean,the figure of another man clamber over the side of the Kincaid.

After all her pains her heroic struggle for freedom had failed. With a stifledsob she gave up the unequal battle.

CHAPTER XVII.
On the Deck of the “Kincaid”

When Mugambi had turned back into the jungle with the pack he had a definitepurpose in view. It was to obtain a dugout wherewith to transport the beasts ofTarzan to the side of the Kincaid. Nor was he long in coming upon the objectwhich he sought.

Just at dusk he found a canoe moored to the bank of a small tributary of theUgambi at a point where he had felt certain that he should find one.

Without loss of time he piled his hideous fellows into the craft and shoved outinto the stream. So quickly had they taken possession of the canoe that thewarrior had not noticed that it was already occupied. The huddled figuresleeping in the bottom had entirely escaped his observation in the darkness ofthe night that had now fallen.

But no sooner were they afloat than a savage growling from one of the apesdirectly ahead of him in the dugout attracted his attention to a shivering andcowering figure that trembled between him and the great anthropoid. ToMugambi’s astonishment he saw that it was a native woman. With difficultyhe kept the ape from her throat, and after a time succeeded in quelling herfears.

It seemed that she had been fleeing from marriage with an old man she loathedand had taken refuge for the night in the canoe she had found upon theriver’s edge.

Mugambi did not wish her presence, but there she was, and rather than lose timeby returning her to the shore the black permitted her to remain on board thecanoe.

As quickly as his awkward companions could paddle the dugout down-stream towardthe Ugambi and the Kincaid they moved through the darkness. It was withdifficulty that Mugambi could make out the shadowy form of the steamer, but ashe had it between himself and the ocean it was much more apparent than to oneupon either shore of the river.

As he approached it he was amazed to note that it seemed to be receding fromhim, and finally he was convinced that the vessel was moving down-stream. Justas he was about to urge his creatures to renewed efforts to overtake thesteamer the outline of another canoe burst suddenly into view not three yardsfrom the bow of his own craft.

At the same instant the occupants of the stranger discovered the proximity ofMugambi’s horde, but they did not at first recognize the nature of thefearful crew. A man in the bow of the oncoming boat challenged them just as thetwo dugouts were about to touch.

For answer came the menacing growl of a panther, and the fellow found himselfgazing into the flaming eyes of Sheeta, who had raised himself with hisforepaws upon the bow of the boat, ready to leap in upon the occupants of theother craft.

Instantly Rokoff realized the peril that confronted him and his fellows. Hegave a quick command to fire upon the occupants of the other canoe, and it wasthis volley and the scream of the terrified native woman in the canoe withMugambi that both Tarzan and Jane had heard.

Before the slower and less skilled paddlers in Mugambi’s canoe couldpress their advantage and effect a boarding of the enemy the latter had turnedswiftly down-stream and were paddling for their lives in the direction of theKincaid, which was now visible to them.

The vessel after striking upon the bar had swung loose again into a slow-movingeddy, which returns up-stream close to the southern shore of the Ugambi only tocircle out once more and join the downward flow a hundred yards or so fartherup. Thus the Kincaid was returning Jane Clayton directly into the hands of herenemies.

It so happened that as Tarzan sprang into the river the vessel was not visibleto him, and as he swam out into the night he had no idea that a ship drifted soclose at hand. He was guided by the sounds which he could hear coming from thetwo canoes.

As he swam he had vivid recollections of the last occasion upon which he hadswum in the waters of the Ugambi, and with them a sudden shudder shook theframe of the giant.

But, though he twice felt something brush his legs from the slimy depths belowhim, nothing seized him, and of a sudden he quite forgot about crocodiles inthe astonishment of seeing a dark mass loom suddenly before him where he hadstill expected to find the open river.

So close was it that a few strokes brought him up to the thing, when to hisamazement his outstretched hand came in contact with a ship’s side.

As the agile ape-man clambered over the vessel’s rail there came to hissensitive ears the sound of a struggle at the opposite side of the deck.

Noiselessly he sped across the intervening space.

The moon had risen now, and, though the sky was still banked with clouds, alesser darkness enveloped the scene than that which had blotted out all sightearlier in the night. His keen eyes, therefore, saw the figures of two mengrappling with a woman.

That it was the woman who had accompanied Anderssen toward the interior he didnot know, though he suspected as much, as he was now quite certain that thiswas the deck of the Kincaid upon which chance had led him.

But he wasted little time in idle speculation. There was a woman in danger ofharm from two ruffians, which was enough excuse for the ape-man to project hisgiant thews into the conflict without further investigation.

The first that either of the sailors knew that there was a new force at workupon the ship was the falling of a mighty hand upon a shoulder of each. As ifthey had been in the grip of a fly-wheel, they were jerked suddenly from theirprey.

“What means this?” asked a low voice in their ears.

They were given no time to reply, however, for at the sound of that voice theyoung woman had sprung to her feet and with a little cry of joy leaped towardtheir assailant.

“Tarzan!” she cried.

The ape-man hurled the two sailors across the deck, where they rolled, stunnedand terrified, into the scuppers upon the opposite side, and with anexclamation of incredulity gathered the girl into his arms.

Brief, however, were the moments for their greeting.

Scarcely had they recognized one another than the clouds above them parted toshow the figures of a half-dozen men clambering over the side of the Kincaid tothe steamer’s deck.

Foremost among them was the Russian. As the brilliant rays of the equatorialmoon lighted the deck, and he realized that the man before him was LordGreystoke, he screamed hysterical commands to his followers to fire upon thetwo.

Tarzan pushed Jane behind the cabin near which they had been standing, and witha quick bound started for Rokoff. The men behind the Russian, at least two ofthem, raised their rifles and fired at the charging ape-man; but those behindthem were otherwise engaged—for up the monkey-ladder in their rear wasthronging a hideous horde.

First came five snarling apes, huge, manlike beasts, with bared fangs andslavering jaws; and after them a giant black warrior, his long spear gleamingin the moonlight.

Behind him again scrambled another creature, and of all the horrid horde it wasthis they most feared—Sheeta, the panther, with gleaming jaws agape andfiery eyes blazing at them in the mightiness of his hate and of his blood lust.

The shots that had been fired at Tarzan missed him, and he would have been uponRokoff in another instant had not the great coward dodged backward between histwo henchmen, and, screaming in hysterical terror, bolted forward toward theforecastle.

For the moment Tarzan’s attention was distracted by the two men beforehim, so that he could not at the time pursue the Russian. About him the apesand Mugambi were battling with the balance of the Russian’s party.

Beneath the terrible ferocity of the beasts the men were soon scampering in alldirections—those who still lived to scamper, for the great fangs of theapes of Akut and the tearing talons of Sheeta already had found more than asingle victim.

Four, however, escaped and disappeared into the forecastle, where they hoped tobarricade themselves against further assault. Here they found Rokoff, and,enraged at his desertion of them in their moment of peril, no less than at theuniformly brutal treatment it had been his wont to accord them, they gloatedupon the opportunity now offered them to revenge themselves in part upon theirhated employer.

Despite his prayers and grovelling pleas, therefore, they hurled him bodily outupon the deck, delivering him to the mercy of the fearful things from whichthey had themselves just escaped.

Tarzan saw the man emerge from the forecastle—saw and recognized hisenemy; but another saw him even as soon.

It was Sheeta, and with grinning jaws the mighty beast slunk silently towardthe terror-stricken man.

When Rokoff saw what it was that stalked him his shrieks for help filled theair, as with trembling knees he stood, as one paralyzed, before the hideousdeath that was creeping upon him.

Tarzan took a step toward the Russian, his brain burning with a raging fire ofvengeance. At last he had the murderer of his son at his mercy. His was theright to avenge.

Once Jane had stayed his hand that time that he sought to take the law into hisown power and mete to Rokoff the death that he had so long merited; but thistime none should stay him.

His fingers clenched and unclenched spasmodically as he approached thetrembling Russ, beastlike and ominous as a brute of prey.

Presently he saw that Sheeta was about to forestall him, robbing him of thefruits of his great hate.

He called sharply to the panther, and the words, as if they had broken ahideous spell that had held the Russian, galvanized him into sudden action.With a scream he turned and fled toward the bridge.

After him pounced Sheeta the panther, unmindful of his master’s warningvoice.

Tarzan was about to leap after the two when he felt a light touch upon his arm.Turning, he found Jane at his elbow.

“Do not leave me,” she whispered. “I am afraid.”

Tarzan glanced behind her.

All about were the hideous apes of Akut. Some, even, were approaching the youngwoman with bared fangs and menacing guttural warnings.

The ape-man warned them back. He had forgotten for the moment that these werebut beasts, unable to differentiate his friends and his foes. Their savagenatures were roused by their recent battle with the sailors, and now all fleshoutside the pack was meat to them.

Tarzan turned again toward the Russian, chagrined that he should have to forgothe pleasure of personal revenge—unless the man should escape Sheeta. Butas he looked he saw that there could be no hope of that. The fellow hadretreated to the end of the bridge, where he now stood trembling and wide-eyed,facing the beast that moved slowly toward him.

The panther crawled with belly to the planking, uttering uncanny mouthings.Rokoff stood as though petrified, his eyes protruding from their sockets, hismouth agape, and the cold sweat of terror clammy upon his brow.

Below him, upon the deck, he had seen the great anthropoids, and so had notdared to seek escape in that direction. In fact, even now one of the brutes wasleaping to seize the bridge-rail and draw himself up to the Russian’sside.

Before him was the panther, silent and crouched.

Rokoff could not move. His knees trembled. His voice broke in inarticulateshrieks. With a last piercing wail he sank to his knees—and then Sheetasprang.

Full upon the man’s breast the tawny body hurtled, tumbling the Russianto his back.

As the great fangs tore at the throat and chest, Jane Clayton turned away inhorror; but not so Tarzan of the Apes. A cold smile of satisfaction touched hislips. The scar upon his forehead that had burned scarlet faded to the normalhue of his tanned skin and disappeared.

Rokoff fought furiously but futilely against the growling, rending fate thathad overtaken him. For all his countless crimes he was punished in the briefmoment of the hideous death that claimed him at the last.

After his struggles ceased Tarzan approached, at Jane’s suggestion, towrest the body from the panther and give what remained of it decent humanburial; but the great cat rose snarling above its kill, threatening even themaster it loved in its savage way, so that rather than kill his friend of thejungle, Tarzan was forced to relinquish his intentions.

All that night Sheeta, the panther, crouched upon the grisly thing that hadbeen Nikolas Rokoff. The bridge of the Kincaid was slippery with blood. Beneaththe brilliant tropic moon the great beast feasted until, when the sun rose thefollowing morning, there remained of Tarzan’s great enemy only gnawed andbroken bones.

Of the Russian’s party, all were accounted for except Paulvitch. Fourwere prisoners in the Kincaid’s forecastle. The rest were dead.

With these men Tarzan got up steam upon the vessel, and with the knowledge ofthe mate, who happened to be one of those surviving, he planned to set out inquest of Jungle Island; but as the morning dawned there came with it a heavygale from the west which raised a sea into which the mate of the Kincaid darednot venture. All that day the ship lay within the shelter of the mouth of theriver; for, though night witnessed a lessening of the wind, it was thoughtsafer to wait for daylight before attempting the navigation of the windingchannel to the sea.

Upon the deck of the steamer the pack wandered without let or hindrance by day,for they had soon learned through Tarzan and Mugambi that they must harm no oneupon the Kincaid; but at night they were confined below.

Tarzan’s joy had been unbounded when he learned from his wife that thelittle child who had died in the village of M’ganwazam was not their son.Who the baby could have been, or what had become of their own, they could notimagine, and as both Rokoff and Paulvitch were gone, there was no way ofdiscovering.

There was, however, a certain sense of relief in the knowledge that they mightyet hope. Until positive proof of the baby’s death reached them there wasalways that to buoy them up.

It seemed quite evident that their little Jack had not been brought aboard theKincaid. Anderssen would have known of it had such been the case, but he hadassured Jane time and time again that the little one he had brought to hercabin the night he aided her to escape was the only one that had been aboardthe Kincaid since she lay at Dover.

CHAPTER XVIII.
Paulvitch Plots Revenge

As Jane and Tarzan stood upon the vessel’s deck recounting to one anotherthe details of the various adventures through which each had passed since theyhad parted in their London home, there glared at them from beneath scowlingbrows a hidden watcher upon the shore.

Through the man’s brain passed plan after plan whereby he might thwartthe escape of the Englishman and his wife, for so long as the vital sparkremained within the vindictive brain of Alexander Paulvitch none who hadaroused the enmity of the Russian might be entirely safe.

Plan after plan he formed only to discard each either as impracticable, orunworthy the vengeance his wrongs demanded. So warped by faulty reasoning wasthe criminal mind of Rokoff’s lieutenant that he could not grasp the realtruth of that which lay between himself and the ape-man and see that always thefault had been, not with the English lord, but with himself and hisconfederate.

And at the rejection of each new scheme Paulvitch arrived always at the sameconclusion—that he could accomplish naught while half the breadth of theUgambi separated him from the object of his hatred.

But how was he to span the crocodile-infested waters? There was no canoe nearerthan the Mosula village, and Paulvitch was none too sure that the Kincaid wouldstill be at anchor in the river when he returned should he take the time totraverse the jungle to the distant village and return with a canoe. Yet therewas no other way, and so, convinced that thus alone might he hope to reach hisprey, Paulvitch, with a parting scowl at the two figures upon theKincaid’s deck, turned away from the river.

Hastening through the dense jungle, his mind centred upon his onefetich—revenge—the Russian forgot even his terror of the savageworld through which he moved.

Baffled and beaten at every turn of Fortune’s wheel, reacted upon timeafter time by his own malign plotting, the principal victim of his owncriminality, Paulvitch was yet so blind as to imagine that his greatesthappiness lay in a continuation of the plottings and schemings which had everbrought him and Rokoff to disaster, and the latter finally to a hideous death.

As the Russian stumbled on through the jungle toward the Mosula village therepresently crystallized within his brain a plan which seemed more feasible thanany that he had as yet considered.

He would come by night to the side of the Kincaid, and once aboard, wouldsearch out the members of the ship’s original crew who had survived theterrors of this frightful expedition, and enlist them in an attempt to wrestthe vessel from Tarzan and his beasts.

In the cabin were arms and ammunition, and hidden in a secret receptacle in thecabin table was one of those infernal machines, the construction of which hadoccupied much of Paulvitch’s spare time when he had stood high in theconfidence of the Nihilists of his native land.

That was before he had sold them out for immunity and gold to the police ofPetrograd. Paulvitch winced as he recalled the denunciation of him that hadfallen from the lips of one of his former comrades ere the poor devil expiatedhis political sins at the end of a hempen rope.

But the infernal machine was the thing to think of now. He could do much withthat if he could but get his hands upon it. Within the little hardwood casehidden in the cabin table rested sufficient potential destructiveness to wipeout in the fraction of a second every enemy aboard the Kincaid.

Paulvitch licked his lips in anticipatory joy, and urged his tired legs togreater speed that he might not be too late to the ship’s anchorage tocarry out his designs.

All depended, of course, upon when the Kincaid departed. The Russian realizedthat nothing could be accomplished beneath the light of day. Darkness mustshroud his approach to the ship’s side, for should he be sighted byTarzan or Lady Greystoke he would have no chance to board the vessel.

The gale that was blowing was, he believed, the cause of the delay in gettingthe Kincaid under way, and if it continued to blow until night then the chanceswere all in his favour, for he knew that there was little likelihood of theape-man attempting to navigate the tortuous channel of the Ugambi whiledarkness lay upon the surface of the water, hiding the many bars and thenumerous small islands which are scattered over the expanse of theriver’s mouth.

It was well after noon when Paulvitch came to the Mosula village upon the bankof the tributary of the Ugambi. Here he was received with suspicion andunfriendliness by the native chief, who, like all those who came in contactwith Rokoff or Paulvitch, had suffered in some manner from the greed, thecruelty, or the lust of the two Muscovites.

When Paulvitch demanded the use of a canoe the chief grumbled a surly refusaland ordered the white man from the village. Surrounded by angry, mutteringwarriors who seemed to be but waiting some slight pretext to transfix him withtheir menacing spears the Russian could do naught else than withdraw.

A dozen fighting men led him to the edge of the clearing, leaving him with awarning never to show himself again in the vicinity of their village.

Stifling his anger, Paulvitch slunk into the jungle; but once beyond the sightof the warriors he paused and listened intently. He could hear the voices ofhis escort as the men returned to the village, and when he was sure that theywere not following him he wormed his way through the bushes to the edge of theriver, still determined some way to obtain a canoe.

Life itself depended upon his reaching the Kincaid and enlisting the survivorsof the ship’s crew in his service, for to be abandoned here amidst thedangers of the African jungle where he had won the enmity of the natives was,he well knew, practically equivalent to a sentence of death.

A desire for revenge acted as an almost equally powerful incentive to spur himinto the face of danger to accomplish his design, so that it was a desperateman that lay hidden in the foliage beside the little river searching with eagereyes for some sign of a small canoe which might be easily handled by a singlepaddle.

Nor had the Russian long to wait before one of the awkward little skiffs whichthe Mosula fashion came in sight upon the bosom of the river. A youth waspaddling lazily out into midstream from a point beside the village. When hereached the channel he allowed the sluggish current to carry him slowly alongwhile he lolled indolently in the bottom of his crude canoe.

All ignorant of the unseen enemy upon the river’s bank the lad floatedslowly down the stream while Paulvitch followed along the jungle path a fewyards behind him.

A mile below the village the black boy dipped his paddle into the water andforced his skiff toward the bank. Paulvitch, elated by the chance which haddrawn the youth to the same side of the river as that along which he followedrather than to the opposite side where he would have been beyond thestalker’s reach, hid in the brush close beside the point at which it wasevident the skiff would touch the bank of the slow-moving stream, which seemedjealous of each fleeting instant which drew it nearer to the broad and muddyUgambi where it must for ever lose its identity in the larger stream that wouldpresently cast its waters into the great ocean.

Equally indolent were the motions of the Mosula youth as he drew his skiffbeneath an overhanging limb of a great tree that leaned down to implant afarewell kiss upon the bosom of the departing water, caressing with greenfronds the soft breast of its languorous love.

And, snake-like, amidst the concealing foliage lay the malevolent Russ. Cruel,shifty eyes gloated upon the outlines of the coveted canoe, and measured thestature of its owner, while the crafty brain weighed the chances of the whiteman should physical encounter with the black become necessary.

Only direct necessity could drive Alexander Paulvitch to personal conflict; butit was indeed dire necessity which goaded him on to action now.

There was time, just time enough, to reach the Kincaid by nightfall. Would theblack fool never quit his skiff? Paulvitch squirmed and fidgeted. The ladyawned and stretched. With exasperating deliberateness he examined the arrowsin his quiver, tested his bow, and looked to the edge upon the hunting-knife inhis loin-cloth.

Again he stretched and yawned, glanced up at the river-bank, shrugged hisshoulders, and lay down in the bottom of his canoe for a little nap before heplunged into the jungle after the prey he had come forth to hunt.

Paulvitch half rose, and with tensed muscles stood glaring down upon hisunsuspecting victim. The boy’s lids drooped and closed. Presently hisbreast rose and fell to the deep breaths of slumber. The time had come!

The Russian crept stealthily nearer. A branch rustled beneath his weight andthe lad stirred in his sleep. Paulvitch drew his revolver and levelled it uponthe black. For a moment he remained in rigid quiet, and then again the youthrelapsed into undisturbed slumber.

The white man crept closer. He could not chance a shot until there was no riskof missing. Presently he leaned close above the Mosula. The cold steel of therevolver in his hand insinuated itself nearer and nearer to the breast of theunconscious lad. Now it stopped but a few inches above the strongly beatingheart.

But the pressure of a finger lay between the harmless boy and eternity. Thesoft bloom of youth still lay upon the brown cheek, a smile half parted thebeardless lips. Did any qualm of conscience point its disquieting finger ofreproach at the murderer?

To all such was Alexander Paulvitch immune. A sneer curled his bearded lip ashis forefinger closed upon the trigger of his revolver. There was a loudreport. A little hole appeared above the heart of the sleeping boy, a littlehole about which lay a blackened rim of powder-burned flesh.

The youthful body half rose to a sitting posture. The smiling lips tensed tothe nervous shock of a momentary agony which the conscious mind neverapprehended, and then the dead sank limply back into that deepest of slumbersfrom which there is no awakening.

The killer dropped quickly into the skiff beside the killed. Ruthless handsseized the dead boy heartlessly and raised him to the low gunwale. A littleshove, a splash, some widening ripples broken by the sudden surge of a dark,hidden body from the slimy depths, and the coveted canoe was in the solepossession of the white man—more savage than the youth whose life he hadtaken.

Casting off the tie rope and seizing the paddle, Paulvitch bent feverishly tothe task of driving the skiff downward toward the Ugambi at top speed.

Night had fallen when the prow of the bloodstained craft shot out into thecurrent of the larger stream. Constantly the Russian strained his eyes into theincreasing darkness ahead in vain endeavour to pierce the black shadows whichlay between him and the anchorage of the Kincaid.

Was the ship still riding there upon the waters of the Ugambi, or had theape-man at last persuaded himself of the safety of venturing forth into theabating storm? As Paulvitch forged ahead with the current he asked himselfthese questions, and many more beside, not the least disquieting of which werethose which related to his future should it chance that the Kincaid had alreadysteamed away, leaving him to the merciless horrors of the savage wilderness.

In the darkness it seemed to the paddler that he was fairly flying over thewater, and he had become convinced that the ship had left her moorings and thathe had already passed the spot at which she had lain earlier in the day, whenthere appeared before him beyond a projecting point which he had but justrounded the flickering light from a ship’s lantern.

Alexander Paulvitch could scarce restrain an exclamation of triumph. TheKincaid had not departed! Life and vengeance were not to elude him after all.

He stopped paddling the moment that he descried the gleaming beacon of hopeahead of him. Silently he drifted down the muddy waters of the Ugambi,occasionally dipping his paddle’s blade gently into the current that hemight guide his primitive craft to the vessel’s side.

As he approached more closely the dark bulk of a ship loomed before him out ofthe blackness of the night. No sound came from the vessel’s deck.Paulvitch drifted, unseen, close to the Kincaid’s side. Only themomentary scraping of his canoe’s nose against the ship’s plankingbroke the silence of the night.

Trembling with nervous excitement, the Russian remained motionless for severalminutes; but there was no sound from the great bulk above him to indicate thathis coming had been noted.

Stealthily he worked his craft forward until the stays of the bowsprit weredirectly above him. He could just reach them. To make his canoe fast there wasthe work of but a minute or two, and then the man raised himself quietly aloft.

A moment later he dropped softly to the deck. Thoughts of the hideous packwhich tenanted the ship induced cold tremors along the spine of the cowardlyprowler; but life itself depended upon the success of his venture, and so hewas enabled to steel himself to the frightful chances which lay before him.

No sound or sign of watch appeared upon the ship’s deck. Paulvitch creptstealthily toward the forecastle. All was silence. The hatch was raised, and asthe man peered downward he saw one of the Kincaid’s crew reading by thelight of the smoky lantern depending from the ceiling of the crew’squarters.

Paulvitch knew the man well, a surly cut-throat upon whom he figured stronglyin the carrying out of the plan which he had conceived. Gently the Russ loweredhimself through the aperture to the rounds of the ladder which led into theforecastle.

He kept his eyes turned upon the reading man, ready to warn him to silence themoment that the fellow discovered him; but so deeply immersed was the sailor inthe magazine that the Russian came, unobserved, to the forecastle floor.

There he turned and whispered the reader’s name. The man raised his eyesfrom the magazine—eyes that went wide for a moment as they fell upon thefamiliar countenance of Rokoff’s lieutenant, only to narrow instantly ina scowl of disapproval.

“The devil!” he ejaculated. “Where did you come from? We allthought you were done for and gone where you ought to have gone a long timeago. His lordship will be mighty pleased to see you.”

Paulvitch crossed to the sailor’s side. A friendly smile lay on theRussian’s lips, and his right hand was extended in greeting, as thoughthe other might have been a dear and long lost friend. The sailor ignored theproffered hand, nor did he return the other’s smile.

“I’ve come to help you,” explained Paulvitch.“I’m going to help you get rid of the Englishman and hisbeasts—then there will be no danger from the law when we get back tocivilization. We can sneak in on them while they sleep—that is Greystoke,his wife, and that black scoundrel, Mugambi. Afterward it will be a simplematter to clean up the beasts. Where are they?”

“They’re below,” replied the sailor; “but just let metell you something, Paulvitch. You haven’t got no more show to turn usmen against the Englishman than nothing. We had all we wanted of you and thatother beast. He’s dead, an’ if I don’t miss my guess a wholelot you’ll be dead too before long. You two treated us like dogs, and ifyou think we got any love for you you better forget it.”

“You mean to say that you’re going to turn against me?”demanded Paulvitch.

The other nodded, and then after a momentary pause, during which an idea seemedto have occurred to him, he spoke again.

“Unless,” he said, “you can make it worth my while to let yougo before the Englishman finds you here.”

“You wouldn’t turn me away in the jungle, would you?” askedPaulvitch. “Why, I’d die there in a week.”

“You’d have a chance there,” replied the sailor. “Here,you wouldn’t have no chance. Why, if I woke up my maties herethey’d probably cut your heart out of you before the Englishman got achance at you at all. It’s mighty lucky for you that I’m the one tobe awake now and not none of the others.”

“You’re crazy,” cried Paulvitch. “Don’t you knowthat the Englishman will have you all hanged when he gets you back where thelaw can get hold of you?”

“No, he won’t do nothing of the kind,” replied the sailor.“He’s told us as much, for he says that there wasn’t nobodyto blame but you and Rokoff—the rest of us was just tools. See?”

For half an hour the Russian pleaded or threatened as the mood seized him.Sometimes he was upon the verge of tears, and again he was promising hislistener either fabulous rewards or condign punishment; but the other wasobdurate. [condign: of equal value]

He made it plain to the Russian that there were but two plans open tohim—either he must consent to being turned over immediately to LordGreystoke, or he must pay to the sailor, as a price for permission to quit theKincaid unmolested, every cent of money and article of value upon his personand in his cabin.

“And you’ll have to make up your mind mighty quick,” growledthe man, “for I want to turn in. Come now, choose—his lordship orthe jungle?”

“You’ll be sorry for this,” grumbled the Russian.

“Shut up,” admonished the sailor. “If you get funny I maychange my mind, and keep you here after all.”

Now Paulvitch had no intention of permitting himself to fall into the hands ofTarzan of the Apes if he could possibly avoid it, and while the terrors of thejungle appalled him they were, to his mind, infinitely preferable to thecertain death which he knew he merited and for which he might look at the handsof the ape-man.

“Is anyone sleeping in my cabin?” he asked.

The sailor shook his head. “No,” he said; “Lord and LadyGreystoke have the captain’s cabin. The mate is in his own, and thereain’t no one in yours.”

“I’ll go and get my valuables for you,” said Paulvitch.

“I’ll go with you to see that you don’t try any funnybusiness,” said the sailor, and he followed the Russian up the ladder tothe deck.

At the cabin entrance the sailor halted to watch, permitting Paulvitch to goalone to his cabin. Here he gathered together his few belongings that were tobuy him the uncertain safety of escape, and as he stood for a moment beside thelittle table on which he had piled them he searched his brain for some feasibleplan either to ensure his safety or to bring revenge upon his enemies.

And presently as he thought there recurred to his memory the little black boxwhich lay hidden in a secret receptacle beneath a false top upon the tablewhere his hand rested.

The Russian’s face lighted to a sinister gleam of malevolent satisfactionas he stooped and felt beneath the table top. A moment later he withdrew fromits hiding-place the thing he sought. He had lighted the lantern swinging fromthe beams overhead that he might see to collect his belongings, and now he heldthe black box well in the rays of the lamplight, while he fingered at the claspthat fastened its lid.

The lifted cover revealed two compartments within the box. In one was amechanism which resembled the works of a small clock. There also was a littlebattery of two dry cells. A wire ran from the clockwork to one of the poles ofthe battery, and from the other pole through the partition into the othercompartment, a second wire returning directly to the clockwork.

Whatever lay within the second compartment was not visible, for a cover layover it and appeared to be sealed in place by asphaltum. In the bottom of thebox, beside the clockwork, lay a key, and this Paulvitch now withdrew andfitted to the winding stem.

Gently he turned the key, muffling the noise of the winding operation bythrowing a couple of articles of clothing over the box. All the time helistened intently for any sound which might indicate that the sailor or anotherwere approaching his cabin; but none came to interrupt his work.

When the winding was completed the Russian set a pointer upon a small dial atthe side of the clockwork, then he replaced the cover upon the black box, andreturned the entire machine to its hiding-place in the table.

A sinister smile curled the man’s bearded lips as he gathered up hisvaluables, blew out the lamp, and stepped from his cabin to the side of thewaiting sailor.

“Here are my things,” said the Russian; “now let mego.”

“I’ll first take a look in your pockets,” replied the sailor.“You might have overlooked some trifling thing that won’t be of nouse to you in the jungle, but that’ll come in mighty handy to a poorsailorman in London. Ah! just as I feared,” he ejaculated an instantlater as he withdrew a roll of bank-notes from Paulvitch’s inside coatpocket.

The Russian scowled, muttering an imprecation; but nothing could be gained byargument, and so he did his best to reconcile himself to his loss in theknowledge that the sailor would never reach London to enjoy the fruits of histhievery.

It was with difficulty that Paulvitch restrained a consuming desire to tauntthe man with a suggestion of the fate that would presently overtake him and theother members of the Kincaid’s company; but fearing to arouse thefellow’s suspicions, he crossed the deck and lowered himself in silenceinto his canoe.

A minute or two later he was paddling toward the shore to be swallowed up inthe darkness of the jungle night, and the terrors of a hideous existence fromwhich, could he have had even a slight foreknowledge of what awaited him in thelong years to come, he would have fled to the certain death of the open searather than endure it.

The sailor, having made sure that Paulvitch had departed, returned to theforecastle, where he hid away his booty and turned into his bunk, while in thecabin that had belonged to the Russian there ticked on and on through thesilences of the night the little mechanism in the small black box which heldfor the unconscious sleepers upon the ill-starred Kincaid the coming vengeanceof the thwarted Russian.

CHAPTER XIX.
The Last of the “Kincaid”

Shortly after the break of day Tarzan was on deck noting the condition of theweather. The wind had abated. The sky was cloudless. Every condition seemedideal for the commencement of the return voyage to Jungle Island, where thebeasts were to be left. And then—home!

The ape-man aroused the mate and gave instructions that the Kincaid sail at theearliest possible moment. The remaining members of the crew, safe in LordGreystoke’s assurance that they would not be prosecuted for their sharein the villainies of the two Russians, hastened with cheerful alacrity to theirseveral duties.

The beasts, liberated from the confinement of the hold, wandered about thedeck, not a little to the discomfiture of the crew in whose minds thereremained a still vivid picture of the savagery of the beasts in conflict withthose who had gone to their deaths beneath the fangs and talons which even nowseemed itching for the soft flesh of further prey.

Beneath the watchful eyes of Tarzan and Mugambi, however, Sheeta and the apesof Akut curbed their desires, so that the men worked about the deck amongstthem in far greater security than they imagined.

At last the Kincaid slipped down the Ugambi and ran out upon the shimmeringwaters of the Atlantic. Tarzan and Jane Clayton watched the verdure-cladshore-line receding in the ship’s wake, and for once the ape-man left hisnative soil without one single pang of regret.

No ship that sailed the seven seas could have borne him away from Africa toresume his search for his lost boy with half the speed that the Englishmanwould have desired, and the slow-moving Kincaid seemed scarce to move at all tothe impatient mind of the bereaved father.

Yet the vessel made progress even when she seemed to be standing still, andpresently the low hills of Jungle Island became distinctly visible upon thewestern horizon ahead.

In the cabin of Alexander Paulvitch the thing within the black box ticked,ticked, ticked, with apparently unending monotony; but yet, second by second, alittle arm which protruded from the periphery of one of its wheels came nearerand nearer to another little arm which projected from the hand which Paulvitchhad set at a certain point upon the dial beside the clockwork. When those twoarms touched one another the ticking of the mechanism would cease—forever.

Jane and Tarzan stood upon the bridge looking out toward Jungle Island. The menwere forward, also watching the land grow upward out of the ocean. The beastshad sought the shade of the galley, where they were curled up in sleep. All wasquiet and peace upon the ship, and upon the waters.

Suddenly, without warning, the cabin roof shot up into the air, a cloud ofdense smoke puffed far above the Kincaid, there was a terrific explosion whichshook the vessel from stem to stern.

Instantly pandemonium broke loose upon the deck. The apes of Akut, terrified bythe sound, ran hither and thither, snarling and growling. Sheeta leaped hereand there, screaming out his startled terror in hideous cries that sent the iceof fear straight to the hearts of the Kincaid’s crew.

Mugambi, too, was trembling. Only Tarzan of the Apes and his wife retainedtheir composure. Scarce had the debris settled than the ape-man was among thebeasts, quieting their fears, talking to them in low, pacific tones, strokingtheir shaggy bodies, and assuring them, as only he could, that the immediatedanger was over.

An examination of the wreckage showed that their greatest danger, now, lay infire, for the flames were licking hungrily at the splintered wood of thewrecked cabin, and had already found a foothold upon the lower deck through agreat jagged hole which the explosion had opened.

By a miracle no member of the ship’s company had been injured by theblast, the origin of which remained for ever a total mystery to all butone—the sailor who knew that Paulvitch had been aboard the Kincaid and inhis cabin the previous night. He guessed the truth; but discretion sealed hislips. It would, doubtless, fare none too well for the man who had permitted thearch enemy of them all aboard the ship in the watches of the night, where laterhe might set an infernal machine to blow them all to kingdom come. No, the mandecided that he would keep this knowledge to himself.

As the flames gained headway it became apparent to Tarzan that whatever hadcaused the explosion had scattered some highly inflammable substance upon thesurrounding woodwork, for the water which they poured in from the pump seemedrather to spread than to extinguish the blaze.

Fifteen minutes after the explosion great, black clouds of smoke were risingfrom the hold of the doomed vessel. The flames had reached the engine-room, andthe ship no longer moved toward the shore. Her fate was as certain as thoughthe waters had already closed above her charred and smoking remains.

“It is useless to remain aboard her longer,” remarked the ape-manto the mate. “There is no telling but there may be other explosions, andas we cannot hope to save her, the safest thing which we can do is to take tothe boats without further loss of time and make land.”

Nor was there other alternative. Only the sailors could bring away anybelongings, for the fire, which had not yet reached the forecastle, hadconsumed all in the vicinity of the cabin which the explosion had notdestroyed.

Two boats were lowered, and as there was no sea the landing was made withinfinite ease. Eager and anxious, the beasts of Tarzan sniffed the familiar airof their native island as the small boats drew in toward the beach, and scarcehad their keels grated upon the sand than Sheeta and the apes of Akut were overthe bows and racing swiftly toward the jungle. A half-sad smile curved the lipsof the ape-man as he watched them go.

“Good-bye, my friends,” he murmured. “You have been good andfaithful allies, and I shall miss you.”

“They will return, will they not, dear?” asked Jane Clayton, at hisside.

“They may and they may not,” replied the ape-man. “They havebeen ill at ease since they were forced to accept so many human beings intotheir confidence. Mugambi and I alone affected them less, for he and I are, atbest, but half human. You, however, and the members of the crew are far toocivilized for my beasts—it is you whom they are fleeing. Doubtless theyfeel that they cannot trust themselves in the close vicinity of so muchperfectly good food without the danger that they may help themselves to amouthful some time by mistake.”

Jane laughed. “I think they are just trying to escape you,” sheretorted. “You are always making them stop something which they see noreason why they should not do. Like little children they are doubtlessdelighted at this opportunity to flee from the zone of parental discipline. Ifthey come back, though, I hope they won’t come by night.”

“Or come hungry, eh?” laughed Tarzan.

For two hours after landing the little party stood watching the burning shipwhich they had abandoned. Then there came faintly to them from across the waterthe sound of a second explosion. The Kincaid settled rapidly almost immediatelythereafter, and sank within a few minutes.

The cause of the second explosion was less a mystery than that of the first,the mate attributing it to the bursting of the boilers when the flames hadfinally reached them; but what had caused the first explosion was a subject ofconsiderable speculation among the stranded company.

CHAPTER XX.
Jungle Island Again

The first consideration of the party was to locate fresh water and make camp,for all knew that their term of existence upon Jungle Island might be drawn outto months, or even years.

Tarzan knew the nearest water, and to this he immediately led the party. Herethe men fell to work to construct shelters and rude furniture while Tarzan wentinto the jungle after meat, leaving the faithful Mugambi and the Mosula womanto guard Jane, whose safety he would never trust to any member of theKincaid’s cut-throat crew.

Lady Greystoke suffered far greater anguish than any other of the castaways,for the blow to her hopes and her already cruelly lacerated mother-heart laynot in her own privations but in the knowledge that she might now never be ableto learn the fate of her first-born or do aught to discover his whereabouts, orameliorate his condition—a condition which imagination naturally picturedin the most frightful forms.

For two weeks the party divided the time amongst the various duties which hadbeen allotted to each. A daylight watch was maintained from sunrise to sunsetupon a bluff near the camp—a jutting shoulder of rock which overlookedthe sea. Here, ready for instant lighting, was gathered a huge pile of drybranches, while from a lofty pole which they had set in the ground therefloated an improvised distress signal fashioned from a red undershirt whichbelonged to the mate of the Kincaid.

But never a speck upon the horizon that might be sail or smoke rewarded thetired eyes that in their endless, hopeless vigil strained daily out across thevast expanse of ocean.

It was Tarzan who suggested, finally, that they attempt to construct a vesselthat would bear them back to the mainland. He alone could show them how tofashion rude tools, and when the idea had taken root in the minds of the menthey were eager to commence their labours.

But as time went on and the Herculean nature of their task became more and moreapparent they fell to grumbling, and to quarrelling among themselves, so thatto the other dangers were now added dissension and suspicion.

More than before did Tarzan now fear to leave Jane among the half brutes of theKincaid’s crew; but hunting he must do, for none other could so surely goforth and return with meat as he. Sometimes Mugambi spelled him at the hunting;but the black’s spear and arrows were never so sure of results as therope and knife of the ape-man.

Finally the men shirked their work, going off into the jungle by twos toexplore and to hunt. All this time the camp had had no sight of Sheeta, or Akutand the other great apes, though Tarzan had sometimes met them in the jungle ashe hunted.

And as matters tended from bad to worse in the camp of the castaways upon theeast coast of Jungle Island, another camp came into being upon the north coast.

Here, in a little cove, lay a small schooner, the Cowrie, whose decks had but afew days since run red with the blood of her officers and the loyal members ofher crew, for the Cowrie had fallen upon bad days when it had shipped such menas Gust and Momulla the Maori and that arch-fiend Kai Shang of Fachan.

There were others, too, ten of them all told, the scum of the South Sea ports;but Gust and Momulla and Kai Shang were the brains and cunning of the company.It was they who had instigated the mutiny that they might seize and divide thecatch of pearls which constituted the wealth of the Cowrie’s cargo.

It was Kai Shang who had murdered the captain as he lay asleep in his berth,and it had been Momulla the Maori who had led the attack upon the officer ofthe watch.

Gust, after his own peculiar habit, had found means to delegate to the othersthe actual taking of life. Not that Gust entertained any scruples on thesubject, other than those which induced in him a rare regard for his ownpersonal safety. There is always a certain element of risk to the assassin, forvictims of deadly assault are seldom prone to die quietly and considerately.There is always a certain element of risk to go so far as to dispute the issuewith the murderer. It was this chance of dispute which Gust preferred to forgo.

But now that the work was done the Swede aspired to the position of highestcommand among the mutineers. He had even gone so far as to appropriate and wearcertain articles belonging to the murdered captain of the Cowrie—articlesof apparel which bore upon them the badges and insignia of authority.

Kai Shang was peeved. He had no love for authority, and certainly not theslightest intention of submitting to the domination of an ordinary Swedesailor.

The seeds of discontent were, therefore, already planted in the camp of themutineers of the Cowrie at the north edge of Jungle Island. But Kai Shangrealized that he must act with circumspection, for Gust alone of the motleyhorde possessed sufficient knowledge of navigation to get them out of the SouthAtlantic and around the cape into more congenial waters where they might find amarket for their ill-gotten wealth, and no questions asked.

The day before they sighted Jungle Island and discovered the little land-lockedharbour upon the bosom of which the Cowrie now rode quietly at anchor, thewatch had discovered the smoke and funnels of a warship upon the southernhorizon.

The chance of being spoken to and investigated by a man-of-war appealed not atall to any of them, so they put into hiding for a few days until the dangershould have passed.

And now Gust did not wish to venture out to sea again. There was no telling, heinsisted, but that the ship they had seen was actually searching for them. KaiShang pointed out that such could not be the case since it was impossible forany human being other than themselves to have knowledge of what had transpiredaboard the Cowrie.

But Gust was not to be persuaded. In his wicked heart he nursed a schemewhereby he might increase his share of the booty by something like one hundredper cent. He alone could sail the Cowrie, therefore the others could not leaveJungle Island without him; but what was there to prevent Gust, with justsufficient men to man the schooner, slipping away from Kai Shang, Momulla theMaori, and some half of the crew when opportunity presented?

It was for this opportunity that Gust waited. Some day there would come amoment when Kai Shang, Momulla, and three or four of the others would be absentfrom camp, exploring or hunting. The Swede racked his brain for some planwhereby he might successfully lure from the sight of the anchored ship thosewhom he had determined to abandon.

To this end he organized hunting party after hunting party, but always thedevil of perversity seemed to enter the soul of Kai Shang, so that wilycelestial would never hunt except in the company of Gust himself.

One day Kai Shang spoke secretly with Momulla the Maori, pouring into the brownear of his companion the suspicions which he harboured concerning the Swede.Momulla was for going immediately and running a long knife through the heart ofthe traitor.

It is true that Kai Shang had no other evidence than the natural cunning of hisown knavish soul—but he imagined in the intentions of Gust what hehimself would have been glad to accomplish had the means lain at hand.

But he dared not let Momulla slay the Swede, upon whom they depended to guidethem to their destination. They decided, however, that it would do no harm toattempt to frighten Gust into acceding to their demands, and with this purposein mind the Maori sought out the self-constituted commander of the party.

When he broached the subject of immediate departure Gust again raised hisformer objection—that the warship might very probably be patrolling thesea directly in their southern path, waiting for them to make the attempt toreach other waters.

Momulla scoffed at the fears of his fellow, pointing out that as no one aboardany warship knew of their mutiny there could be no reason why they should besuspected.

“Ah!” exclaimed Gust, “there is where you are wrong. There iswhere you are lucky that you have an educated man like me to tell you what todo. You are an ignorant savage, Momulla, and so you know nothing ofwireless.”

The Maori leaped to his feet and laid his hand upon the hilt of his knife.

“I am no savage,” he shouted.

“I was only joking,” the Swede hastened to explain. “We areold friends, Momulla; we cannot afford to quarrel, at least not while old KaiShang is plotting to steal all the pearls from us. If he could find a man tonavigate the Cowrie he would leave us in a minute. All his talk about gettingaway from here is just because he has some scheme in his head to get rid ofus.”

“But the wireless,” asked Momulla. “What has the wireless todo with our remaining here?”

“Oh yes,” replied Gust, scratching his head. He was wondering ifthe Maori were really so ignorant as to believe the preposterous lie he wasabout to unload upon him. “Oh yes! You see every warship is equipped withwhat they call a wireless apparatus. It lets them talk to other ships hundredsof miles away, and it lets them listen to all that is said on these otherships. Now, you see, when you fellows were shooting up the Cowrie you did awhole lot of loud talking, and there isn’t any doubt but that thatwarship was a-lyin’ off south of us listenin’ to it all. Of coursethey might not have learned the name of the ship, but they heard enough to knowthat the crew of some ship was mutinying and killin’ her officers. So yousee they’ll be waiting to search every ship they sight for a long time tocome, and they may not be far away now.”

When he had ceased speaking the Swede strove to assume an air of composure thathis listener might not have his suspicions aroused as to the truth of thestatements that had just been made.

Momulla sat for some time in silence, eyeing Gust. At last he rose.

“You are a great liar,” he said. “If you don’t get uson our way by tomorrow you’ll never have another chance to lie, for Iheard two of the men saying that they’d like to run a knife into you andthat if you kept them in this hole any longer they’d do it.”

“Go and ask Kai Shang if there is not a wireless,” replied Gust.“He will tell you that there is such a thing and that vessels can talk toone another across hundreds of miles of water. Then say to the two men who wishto kill me that if they do so they will never live to spend their share of theswag, for only I can get you safely to any port.”

So Momulla went to Kai Shang and asked him if there was such an apparatus as awireless by means of which ships could talk with each other at great distances,and Kai Shang told him that there was.

Momulla was puzzled; but still he wished to leave the island, and was willingto take his chances on the open sea rather than to remain longer in themonotony of the camp.

“If we only had someone else who could navigate a ship!” wailed KaiShang.

That afternoon Momulla went hunting with two other Maoris. They hunted towardthe south, and had not gone far from camp when they were surprised by the soundof voices ahead of them in the jungle.

They knew that none of their own men had preceded them, and as all wereconvinced that the island was uninhabited, they were inclined to flee in terroron the hypothesis that the place was haunted—possibly by the ghosts ofthe murdered officers and men of the Cowrie.

But Momulla was even more curious than he was superstitious, and so he quelledhis natural desire to flee from the supernatural. Motioning his companions tofollow his example, he dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forwardstealthily and with quakings of heart through the jungle in the direction fromwhich came the voices of the unseen speakers.

Presently, at the edge of a little clearing, he halted, and there he breathed adeep sigh of relief, for plainly before him he saw two flesh-and-blood mensitting upon a fallen log and talking earnestly together.

One was Schneider, mate of the Kincaid, and the other was a seaman namedSchmidt.

“I think we can do it, Schmidt,” Schneider was saying. “Agood canoe wouldn’t be hard to build, and three of us could paddle it tothe mainland in a day if the wind was right and the sea reasonably calm. Thereain’t no use waiting for the men to build a big enough boat to take thewhole party, for they’re sore now and sick of working like slaves all daylong. It ain’t none of our business anyway to save the Englishman. Lethim look out for himself, says I.” He paused for a moment, and theneyeing the other to note the effect of his next words, he continued, “Butwe might take the woman. It would be a shame to leave a nice-lookin’piece like she is in such a Gott-forsaken hole as this here island.”

Schmidt looked up and grinned.

“So that’s how she’s blowin’, is it?” he asked.“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Wot’s in it for meif I help you?”

“She ought to pay us well to get her back to civilization,”explained Schneider, “an’ I tell you what I’ll do. I’lljust whack up with the two men that helps me. I’ll take half an’they can divide the other half—you an’ whoever the other bloke is.I’m sick of this place, an’ the sooner I get out of it the betterI’ll like it. What do you say?”

“Suits me,” replied Schmidt. “I wouldn’t know how toreach the mainland myself, an’ know that none o’ the other fellowswould, so’s you’re the only one that knows anything of navigationyou’re the fellow I’ll tie to.”

Momulla the Maori pricked up his ears. He had a smattering of every tongue thatis spoken upon the seas, and more than a few times had he sailed on Englishships, so that he understood fairly well all that had passed between Schneiderand Schmidt since he had stumbled upon them.

He rose to his feet and stepped into the clearing. Schneider and his companionstarted as nervously as though a ghost had risen before them. Schneider reachedfor his revolver. Momulla raised his right hand, palm forward, as a sign of hispacific intentions.

“I am a friend,” he said. “I heard you; but do not fear thatI will reveal what you have said. I can help you, and you can help me.”He was addressing Schneider. “You can navigate a ship, but you have noship. We have a ship, but no one to navigate it. If you will come with us andask no questions we will let you take the ship where you will after you havelanded us at a certain port, the name of which we will give you later. You cantake the woman of whom you speak, and we will ask no questions either. Is it abargain?”

Schneider desired more information, and got as much as Momulla thought best togive him. Then the Maori suggested that they speak with Kai Shang. The twomembers of the Kincaid’s company followed Momulla and his fellows to apoint in the jungle close by the camp of the mutineers. Here Momulla hid themwhile he went in search of Kai Shang, first admonishing his Maori companions tostand guard over the two sailors lest they change their minds and attempt toescape. Schneider and Schmidt were virtually prisoners, though they did notknow it.

Presently Momulla returned with Kai Shang, to whom he had briefly narrated thedetails of the stroke of good fortune that had come to them. The Chinaman spokeat length with Schneider, until, notwithstanding his natural suspicion of thesincerity of all men, he became quite convinced that Schneider was quite asmuch a rogue as himself and that the fellow was anxious to leave the island.

These two premises accepted there could be little doubt that Schneider wouldprove trustworthy in so far as accepting the command of the Cowrie wasconcerned; after that Kai Shang knew that he could find means to coerce the maninto submission to his further wishes.

When Schneider and Schmidt left them and set out in the direction of their owncamp, it was with feelings of far greater relief than they had experienced inmany a day. Now at last they saw a feasible plan for leaving the island upon aseaworthy craft. There would be no more hard labour at ship-building, and norisking their lives upon a crudely built makeshift that would be quite aslikely to go to the bottom as it would to reach the mainland.

Also, they were to have assistance in capturing the woman, or rather women, forwhen Momulla had learned that there was a black woman in the other camp he hadinsisted that she be brought along as well as the white woman.

As Kai Shang and Momulla entered their camp, it was with a realization thatthey no longer needed Gust. They marched straight to the tent in which theymight expect to find him at that hour of the day, for though it would have beenmore comfortable for the entire party to remain aboard the ship, they hadmutually decided that it would be safer for all concerned were they to pitchtheir camp ashore.

Each knew that in the heart of the others was sufficient treachery to make itunsafe for any member of the party to go ashore leaving the others inpossession of the Cowrie, so not more than two or three men at a time were everpermitted aboard the vessel unless all the balance of the company was theretoo.

As the two crossed toward Gust’s tent the Maori felt the edge of his longknife with one grimy, calloused thumb. The Swede would have felt far fromcomfortable could he have seen this significant action, or read what waspassing amid the convolutions of the brown man’s cruel brain.

Now it happened that Gust was at that moment in the tent occupied by the cook,and this tent stood but a few feet from his own. So that he heard the approachof Kai Shang and Momulla, though he did not, of course, dream that it had anyspecial significance for him.

Chance had it, though, that he glanced out of the doorway of the cook’stent at the very moment that Kai Shang and Momulla approached the entrance tohis, and he thought that he noted a stealthiness in their movements thatcomported poorly with amicable or friendly intentions, and then, just as theytwo slunk within the interior, Gust caught a glimpse of the long knife whichMomulla the Maori was then carrying behind his back.

The Swede’s eyes opened wide, and a funny little sensation assailed theroots of his hairs. Also he turned almost white beneath his tan. Quiteprecipitately he left the cook’s tent. He was not one who required adetailed exposition of intentions that were quite all too obvious.

As surely as though he had heard them plotting, he knew that Kai Shang andMomulla had come to take his life. The knowledge that he alone could navigatethe Cowrie had, up to now, been sufficient assurance of his safety; but quiteevidently something had occurred of which he had no knowledge that would makeit quite worth the while of his co-conspirators to eliminate him.

Without a pause Gust darted across the beach and into the jungle. He was afraidof the jungle; uncanny noises that were indeed frightful came forth from itsrecesses—the tangled mazes of the mysterious country back of the beach.

But if Gust was afraid of the jungle he was far more afraid of Kai Shang andMomulla. The dangers of the jungle were more or less problematical, while thedanger that menaced him at the hands of his companions was a perfectlywell-known quantity, which might be expressed in terms of a few inches of coldsteel, or the coil of a light rope. He had seen Kai Shang garrotte a man atPai-sha in a dark alleyway back of Loo Kotai’s place. He feared the rope,therefore, more than he did the knife of the Maori; but he feared them both toomuch to remain within reach of either. Therefore he chose the pitiless jungle.

CHAPTER XXI.
The Law of the Jungle

In Tarzan’s camp, by dint of threats and promised rewards, the ape-manhad finally succeeded in getting the hull of a large skiff almost completed.Much of the work he and Mugambi had done with their own hands in addition tofurnishing the camp with meat.

Schneider, the mate, had been doing considerable grumbling, and had at lastopenly deserted the work and gone off into the jungle with Schmidt to hunt. Hesaid that he wanted a rest, and Tarzan, rather than add to the unpleasantnesswhich already made camp life almost unendurable, had permitted the two men todepart without a remonstrance.

Upon the following day, however, Schneider affected a feeling of remorse forhis action, and set to work with a will upon the skiff. Schmidt also workedgood-naturedly, and Lord Greystoke congratulated himself that at last the menhad awakened to the necessity for the labour which was being asked of them andto their obligations to the balance of the party.

It was with a feeling of greater relief than he had experienced for many a daythat he set out that noon to hunt deep in the jungle for a herd of small deerwhich Schneider reported that he and Schmidt had seen there the day before.

The direction in which Schneider had reported seeing the deer was toward thesouth-west, and to that point the ape-man swung easily through the tangledverdure of the forest.

And as he went there approached from the north a half-dozen ill-featured menwho went stealthily through the jungle as go men bent upon the commission of awicked act.

They thought that they travelled unseen; but behind them, almost from themoment they quitted their own camp, a tall man crept upon their trail. In theman’s eyes were hate and fear, and a great curiosity. Why went Kai Shangand Momulla and the others thus stealthily toward the south? What did theyexpect to find there? Gust shook his low-browed head in perplexity. But hewould know. He would follow them and learn their plans, and then if he couldthwart them he would—that went without question.

At first he had thought that they searched for him; but finally his betterjudgment assured him that such could not be the case, since they hadaccomplished all they really desired by chasing him out of camp. Never wouldKai Shang or Momulla go to such pains to slay him or another unless it wouldput money into their pockets, and as Gust had no money it was evident that theywere searching for someone else.

Presently the party he trailed came to a halt. Its members concealed themselvesin the foliage bordering the game trail along which they had come. Gust, thathe might the better observe, clambered into the branches of a tree to the rearof them, being careful that the leafy fronds hid him from the view of hiserstwhile mates.

He had not long to wait before he saw a strange white man approach carefullyalong the trail from the south.

At sight of the new-comer Momulla and Kai Shang arose from their places ofconcealment and greeted him. Gust could not overhear what passed between them.Then the man returned in the direction from which he had come.

He was Schneider. Nearing his camp he circled to the opposite side of it, andpresently came running in breathlessly. Excitedly he hastened to Mugambi.

“Quick!” he cried. “Those apes of yours have caught Schmidtand will kill him if we do not hasten to his aid. You alone can call them off.Take Jones and Sullivan—you may need help—and get to him as quickas you can. Follow the game trail south for about a mile. I will remain here. Iam too spent with running to go back with you,” and the mate of theKincaid threw himself upon the ground, panting as though he was almost donefor.

Mugambi hesitated. He had been left to guard the two women. He did not knowwhat to do, and then Jane Clayton, who had heard Schneider’s story, addedher pleas to those of the mate.

“Do not delay,” she urged. “We shall be all right here. Mr.Schneider will remain with us. Go, Mugambi. The poor fellow must besaved.”

Schmidt, who lay hidden in a bush at the edge of the camp, grinned. Mugambi,heeding the commands of his mistress, though still doubtful of the wisdom ofhis action, started off toward the south, with Jones and Sullivan at his heels.

No sooner had he disappeared than Schmidt rose and darted north into thejungle, and a few minutes later the face of Kai Shang of Fachan appeared at theedge of the clearing. Schneider saw the Chinaman, and motioned to him that thecoast was clear.

Jane Clayton and the Mosula woman were sitting at the opening of theformer’s tent, their backs toward the approaching ruffians. The firstintimation that either had of the presence of strangers in camp was the suddenappearance of a half-dozen ragged villains about them.

“Come!” said Kai Shang, motioning that the two arise and followhim.

Jane Clayton sprang to her feet and looked about for Schneider, only to see himstanding behind the newcomers, a grin upon his face. At his side stood Schmidt.Instantly she saw that she had been made the victim of a plot.

“What is the meaning of this?” she asked, addressing the mate.

“It means that we have found a ship and that we can now escape fromJungle Island,” replied the man.

“Why did you send Mugambi and the others into the jungle?” sheinquired.

“They are not coming with us—only you and I, and the Mosulawoman.”

“Come!” repeated Kai Shang, and seized Jane Clayton’s wrist.

One of the Maoris grasped the black woman by the arm, and when she would havescreamed struck her across the mouth.

Mugambi raced through the jungle toward the south. Jones and Sullivan trailedfar behind. For a mile he continued upon his way to the relief of Schmidt, butno signs saw he of the missing man or of any of the apes of Akut.

At last he halted and called aloud the summons which he and Tarzan had used tohail the great anthropoids. There was no response. Jones and Sullivan came upwith the black warrior as the latter stood voicing his weird call. For anotherhalf-mile the black searched, calling occasionally.

Finally the truth flashed upon him, and then, like a frightened deer, hewheeled and dashed back toward camp. Arriving there, it was but a moment beforefull confirmation of his fears was impressed upon him. Lady Greystoke and theMosula woman were gone. So, likewise, was Schneider.

When Jones and Sullivan joined Mugambi he would have killed them in his anger,thinking them parties to the plot; but they finally succeeded in partiallyconvincing him that they had known nothing of it.

As they stood speculating upon the probable whereabouts of the women and theirabductor, and the purpose which Schneider had in mind in taking them from camp,Tarzan of the Apes swung from the branches of a tree and crossed the clearingtoward them.

His keen eyes detected at once that something was radically wrong, and when hehad heard Mugambi’s story his jaws clicked angrily together as he knittedhis brows in thought.

What could the mate hope to accomplish by taking Jane Clayton from a camp upona small island from which there was no escape from the vengeance of Tarzan? Theape-man could not believe the fellow such a fool, and then a slight realizationof the truth dawned upon him.

Schneider would not have committed such an act unless he had been reasonablysure that there was a way by which he could quit Jungle Island with hisprisoners. But why had he taken the black woman as well? There must have beenothers, one of whom wanted the dusky female.

“Come,” said Tarzan, “there is but one thing to do now, andthat is to follow the trail.”

As he finished speaking a tall, ungainly figure emerged from the jungle northof the camp. He came straight toward the four men. He was an entire stranger toall of them, not one of whom had dreamed that another human being than those oftheir own camp dwelt upon the unfriendly shores of Jungle Island.

It was Gust. He came directly to the point.

“Your women were stolen,” he said. “If you want ever to seethem again, come quickly and follow me. If we do not hurry the Cowrie will bestanding out to sea by the time we reach her anchorage.”

“Who are you?” asked Tarzan. “What do you know of the theftof my wife and the black woman?”

“I heard Kai Shang and Momulla the Maori plot with two men of your camp.They had chased me from our camp, and would have killed me. Now I will get evenwith them. Come!”

Gust led the four men of the Kincaid’s camp at a rapid trot through thejungle toward the north. Would they come to the sea in time? But a few moreminutes would answer the question.

And when at last the little party did break through the last of the screeningfoliage, and the harbour and the ocean lay before them, they realized that fatehad been most cruelly unkind, for the Cowrie was already under sail and movingslowly out of the mouth of the harbour into the open sea.

What were they to do? Tarzan’s broad chest rose and fell to the force ofhis pent emotions. The last blow seemed to have fallen, and if ever in all hislife Tarzan of the Apes had had occasion to abandon hope it was now that he sawthe ship bearing his wife to some frightful fate moving gracefully over therippling water, so very near and yet so hideously far away.

In silence he stood watching the vessel. He saw it turn toward the east andfinally disappear around a headland on its way he knew not whither. Then hedropped upon his haunches and buried his face in his hands.

It was after dark that the five men returned to the camp on the east shore. Thenight was hot and sultry. No slightest breeze ruffled the foliage of the treesor rippled the mirror-like surface of the ocean. Only a gentle swell rolledsoftly in upon the beach.

Never had Tarzan seen the great Atlantic so ominously at peace. He was standingat the edge of the beach gazing out to sea in the direction of the mainland,his mind filled with sorrow and hopelessness, when from the jungle close behindthe camp came the uncanny wail of a panther.

There was a familiar note in the weird cry, and almost mechanically Tarzanturned his head and answered. A moment later the tawny figure of Sheeta slunkout into the half-light of the beach. There was no moon, but the sky wasbrilliant with stars. Silently the savage brute came to the side of the man. Ithad been long since Tarzan had seen his old fighting companion, but the softpurr was sufficient to assure him that the animal still recalled the bondswhich had united them in the past.

The ape-man let his fingers fall upon the beast’s coat, and as Sheetapressed close against his leg he caressed and fondled the wicked head while hiseyes continued to search the blackness of the waters.

Presently he started. What was that? He strained his eyes into the night. Thenhe turned and called aloud to the men smoking upon their blankets in the camp.They came running to his side; but Gust hesitated when he saw the nature ofTarzan’s companion.

“Look!” cried Tarzan. “A light! A ship’s light! It mustbe the Cowrie. They are becalmed.” And then with an exclamation ofrenewed hope, “We can reach them! The skiff will carry us easily.”

Gust demurred. “They are well armed,” he warned. “We couldnot take the ship—just five of us.”

“There are six now,” replied Tarzan, pointing to Sheeta, “andwe can have more still in a half-hour. Sheeta is the equivalent of twenty men,and the few others I can bring will add full a hundred to our fightingstrength. You do not know them.”

The ape-man turned and raised his head toward the jungle, while there pealedfrom his lips, time after time, the fearsome cry of the bull-ape who wouldsummon his fellows.

Presently from the jungle came an answering cry, and then another and another.Gust shuddered. Among what sort of creatures had fate thrown him? Were not KaiShang and Momulla to be preferred to this great white giant who stroked apanther and called to the beasts of the jungle?

In a few minutes the apes of Akut came crashing through the underbrush and outupon the beach, while in the meantime the five men had been struggling with theunwieldy bulk of the skiff’s hull.

By dint of Herculean efforts they had managed to get it to the water’sedge. The oars from the two small boats of the Kincaid, which had been washedaway by an off-shore wind the very night that the party had landed, had been inuse to support the canvas of the sailcloth tents. These were hastilyrequisitioned, and by the time Akut and his followers came down to the waterall was ready for embarkation.

Once again the hideous crew entered the service of their master, and withoutquestion took up their places in the skiff. The four men, for Gust could not beprevailed upon to accompany the party, fell to the oars, using thempaddle-wise, while some of the apes followed their example, and presently theungainly skiff was moving quietly out to sea in the direction of the lightwhich rose and fell gently with the swell.

A sleepy sailor kept a poor vigil upon the Cowrie’s deck, while in thecabin below Schneider paced up and down arguing with Jane Clayton. The womanhad found a revolver in a table drawer in the room in which she had beenlocked, and now she kept the mate of the Kincaid at bay with the weapon.

The Mosula woman kneeled behind her, while Schneider paced up and down beforethe door, threatening and pleading and promising, but all to no avail.Presently from the deck above came a shout of warning and a shot. For aninstant Jane Clayton relaxed her vigilance, and turned her eyes toward thecabin skylight. Simultaneously Schneider was upon her.

The first intimation the watch had that there was another craft within athousand miles of the Cowrie came when he saw the head and shoulders of a manpoked over the ship’s side. Instantly the fellow sprang to his feet witha cry and levelled his revolver at the intruder. It was his cry and thesubsequent report of the revolver which threw Jane Clayton off her guard.

Upon deck the quiet of fancied security soon gave place to the wildestpandemonium. The crew of the Cowrie rushed above armed with revolvers,cutlasses, and the long knives that many of them habitually wore; but the alarmhad come too late. Already the beasts of Tarzan were upon the ship’sdeck, with Tarzan and the two men of the Kincaid’s crew.

In the face of the frightful beasts the courage of the mutineers wavered andbroke. Those with revolvers fired a few scattering shots and then raced forsome place of supposed safety. Into the shrouds went some; but the apes of Akutwere more at home there than they.

Screaming with terror the Maoris were dragged from their lofty perches. Thebeasts, uncontrolled by Tarzan who had gone in search of Jane, loosed the fullfury of their savage natures upon the unhappy wretches who fell into theirclutches.

Sheeta, in the meanwhile, had felt his great fangs sink into but a singlejugular. For a moment he mauled the corpse, and then he spied Kai Shang dartingdown the companionway toward his cabin.

With a shrill scream Sheeta was after him—a scream which awoke an almostequally uncanny cry in the throat of the terror-stricken Chinaman.

But Kai Shang reached his cabin a fraction of a second ahead of the panther,and leaping within slammed the door—just too late. Sheeta’s greatbody hurtled against it before the catch engaged, and a moment later Kai Shangwas gibbering and shrieking in the back of an upper berth.

Lightly Sheeta sprang after his victim, and presently the wicked days of KaiShang of Fachan were ended, and Sheeta was gorging himself upon tough andstringy flesh.

A moment scarcely had elapsed after Schneider leaped upon Jane Clayton andwrenched the revolver from her hand, when the door of the cabin opened and atall and half-naked white man stood framed within the portal.

Silently he leaped across the cabin. Schneider felt sinewy fingers at histhroat. He turned his head to see who had attacked him, and his eyes went widewhen he saw the face of the ape-man close above his own.

Grimly the fingers tightened upon the mate’s throat. He tried to scream,to plead, but no sound came forth. His eyes protruded as he struggled forfreedom, for breath, for life.

Jane Clayton seized her husband’s hands and tried to drag them from thethroat of the dying man; but Tarzan only shook his head.

“Not again,” he said quietly. “Before have I permittedscoundrels to live, only to suffer and to have you suffer for my mercy. Thistime we shall make sure of one scoundrel—sure that he will never againharm us or another,” and with a sudden wrench he twisted the neck of theperfidious mate until there was a sharp crack, and the man’s body laylimp and motionless in the ape-man’s grasp. With a gesture of disgustTarzan tossed the corpse aside. Then he returned to the deck, followed by Janeand the Mosula woman.

The battle there was over. Schmidt and Momulla and two others alone remainedalive of all the company of the Cowrie, for they had found sanctuary in theforecastle. The others had died, horribly, and as they deserved, beneath thefangs and talons of the beasts of Tarzan, and in the morning the sun rose on agrisly sight upon the deck of the unhappy Cowrie; but this time the blood whichstained her white planking was the blood of the guilty and not of the innocent.

Tarzan brought forth the men who had hidden in the forecastle, and withoutpromises of immunity from punishment forced them to help work thevessel—the only alternative was immediate death.

A stiff breeze had risen with the sun, and with canvas spread the Cowrie set intoward Jungle Island, where a few hours later, Tarzan picked up Gust and bidfarewell to Sheeta and the apes of Akut, for here he set the beasts ashore topursue the wild and natural life they loved so well; nor did they lose amoment’s time in disappearing into the cool depths of their belovedjungle.

That they knew that Tarzan was to leave them may be doubted—exceptpossibly in the case of the more intelligent Akut, who alone of all the othersremained upon the beach as the small boat drew away toward the schooner,carrying his savage lord and master from him.

And as long as their eyes could span the distance, Jane and Tarzan, standingupon the deck, saw the lonely figure of the shaggy anthropoid motionless uponthe surf-beaten sands of Jungle Island.

It was three days later that the Cowrie fell in with H.M. sloop-of-warShorewater, through whose wireless Lord Greystoke soon got in communicationwith London. Thus he learned that which filled his and his wife’s heartwith joy and thanksgiving—little Jack was safe at Lord Greystoke’stown house.

It was not until they reached London that they learned the details of theremarkable chain of circumstances that had preserved the infant unharmed.

It developed that Rokoff, fearing to take the child aboard the Kincaid by day,had hidden it in a low den where nameless infants were harboured, intending tocarry it to the steamer after dark.

His confederate and chief lieutenant, Paulvitch, true to the long years ofteaching of his wily master, had at last succumbed to the treachery and greedthat had always marked his superior, and, lured by the thoughts of the immenseransom that he might win by returning the child unharmed, had divulged thesecret of its parentage to the woman who maintained the foundling asylum.Through her he had arranged for the substitution of another infant, knowingfull well that never until it was too late would Rokoff suspect the trick thathad been played upon him.

The woman had promised to keep the child until Paulvitch returned to England;but she, in turn, had been tempted to betray her trust by the lure of gold, andso had opened negotiations with Lord Greystoke’s solicitors for thereturn of the child.

Esmeralda, the old Negro nurse whose absence on a vacation in America at thetime of the abduction of little Jack had been attributed by her as the cause ofthe calamity, had returned and positively identified the infant.

The ransom had been paid, and within ten days of the date of his kidnapping thefuture Lord Greystoke, none the worse for his experience, had been returned tohis father’s home.

And so that last and greatest of Nikolas Rokoff’s many rascalities hadnot only miserably miscarried through the treachery he had taught his onlyfriend, but it had resulted in the arch-villain’s death, and given toLord and Lady Greystoke a peace of mind that neither could ever have felt solong as the vital spark remained in the body of the Russian and his malign mindwas free to formulate new atrocities against them.

Rokoff was dead, and while the fate of Paulvitch was unknown, they had everyreason to believe that he had succumbed to the dangers of the jungle where lastthey had seen him—the malicious tool of his master.

And thus, in so far as they might know, they were to be freed for ever from themenace of these two men—the only enemies which Tarzan of the Apes everhad had occasion to fear, because they struck at him cowardly blows, throughthose he loved.

It was a happy family party that were reunited in Greystoke House the day thatLord Greystoke and his lady landed upon English soil from the deck of theShorewater.

Accompanying them were Mugambi and the Mosula woman whom he had found in thebottom of the canoe that night upon the bank of the little tributary of theUgambi.

The woman had preferred to cling to her new lord and master rather than returnto the marriage she had tried to escape.

Tarzan had proposed to them that they might find a home upon his vast Africanestates in the land of the Waziri, where they were to be sent as soon asopportunity presented itself.

Possibly we shall see them all there amid the savage romance of the grim jungleand the great plains where Tarzan of the Apes loves best to be.

Who knows?

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