and he had been bearing the burden of a double apprehension
needlessly--at least so thought the ape-man. From this belief he
garnered some slight surcease from the numbing grief that the death of
his little son had thrust upon him.
And such a death! Even the savage beast that was the real Tarzan,
inured to the sufferings and horrors of the grim jungle, shuddered as
he contemplated the hideous fate that had overtaken the innocent child.
As he made his way painfully towards the coast, he let his mind dwell
so constantly upon the frightful crimes which the Russian had
perpetrated against his loved ones that the great scar upon his
forehead stood out almost continuously in the vivid scarlet that marked
the man's most relentless and bestial moods of rage. At times he
startled even himself and sent the lesser creatures of the wild jungle
scampering to their hiding places as involuntary 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 their villages to bar his further progress, but when the awful cry
of the bull-ape thundered upon their affrighted ears, and the great
white giant charged bellowing upon them, they had turned and fled into
the bush, nor ventured thence until he had safely passed.
Though his progress seemed tantalizingly slow to the ape-man whose idea
of speed had been gained by such standards as the lesser apes attain,
he made, as a matter of fact, almost as rapid progress as the drifting
canoe that bore Rokoff on ahead of him, so that he came to the bay and
within sight of the ocean just after darkness had fallen upon the same
day that Jane Clayton and the Russian ended their flights from the
interior.
The darkness lowered so heavily upon the black river and the encircling
jungle that Tarzan, even with eyes accustomed to much use after dark,
could make out nothing a few yards from him. His idea was to search
the shore that night for signs of the Russian and the woman who he was
certain must have preceded Rokoff down the Ugambi. That the Kincaid or
other ship lay at anchor but a hundred yards 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 noise that he had not at first perceived--the stealthy dip of paddles
in the water some distance from the shore, and about opposite the point
at which he
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