Hello,Welcome!Log In to My AccountorCreate Account

When Tarzan of the Apes realized that he was in thegrip of the great jaws of a crocodile he did not, as anordinary man might have done, give up all hope and resignhimself to his fate.

Instead, he filled his lungs with air before the huge reptiledragged him beneath the surface, and then, with all the mightof his great muscles, fought bitterly for freedom. But out ofhis native element the ape-man was too greatly handicappedto do more than excite the monster to greater speed as itdragged its prey swiftly through the water.

Tarzan's lungs were bursting for a breath of pure fresh air. He knew that he could survive but a moment more, and inthe last paroxysm of his suffering he did what he could toavenge his own death.

His body trailed out beside the slimy carcass of his captor,and into the tough armour the ape-man attempted to plungehis stone knife as he was borne to the creature's horrid den.

His efforts but served to accelerate the speed of the crocodile,and just as the ape-man realized that he had reached the limitof his endurance he felt his body dragged to a muddy bed andhis nostrils rise above the water's surface. All about himwas the blackness of the pit--the silence of the grave.

For a moment Tarzan of the Apes lay gasping for breathupon the slimy, evil-smelling bed to which the animal hadborne him. Close at his side he could feel the cold, hardplates of the creatures coat rising and falling as though withspasmodic efforts to breathe.

For several minutes the two lay thus, and then a suddenconvulsion of the giant carcass at the man's side, a tremor,and a stiffening brought Tarzan to his knees beside the crocodile. To his utter amazement he found that the beast was 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. He found that he was imprisoned in a subterraneanchamber amply large enough to have accommodated a dozen ormore of the huge animals such as the one that haddragged him thither.

He realized that he was in the creature's hidden nest farunder the bank of the stream, and that doubtless the onlymeans of ingress or egress lay through the submerged openingthrough which the crocodile had brought him.

His first thought, of course, was of escape, but that hecould make his way to the surface of the river beyond andthen to the shore seemed highly improbable. There might beturns and windings in the neck of the passage, or, most tobe feared, he might meet another of the slimy inhabitants ofthe retreat upon his journey outward.

Even should he reach the river in safety, there was still thedanger of his being again attacked before he could effect asafe landing. Still there was no alternative, and, filling hislungs with the close and reeking air of the chamber, Tarzanof the Apes dived into the dark and watery hole which hecould not see but had felt out and found with his feet and legs.

The leg which had been held within the jaws of the crocodilewas badly lacerated, but the bone had not been broken,nor were the muscles or tendons sufficiently injured to renderit useless. It gave him excruciating pain, that was all.

But Tarzan of the Apes was accustomed to pain, and gaveit no further thought when he found that the use of his legswas not greatly impaired by the sharp teeth of the monster.

Rapidly he crawled and swam through the passage whichinclined downward and finally upward to open at last intothe river bottom but a few feet from the shore line. As theape-man reached the surface he saw the heads of two greatcrocodiles but a short distance from him. They were makingrapidly in his direction, and with a superhuman effort theman struck out for the overhanging branches of a near-by tree.

Nor was he a moment too soon, for scarcely had he drawnhimself to the safety of the limb than two gaping mouthssnapped venomously below him. For a few minutes Tarzanrested in the tree that had proved the means of his salvation. His eyes scanned the river as far down-stream as the tortuouschannel would permit, but there was no sign of the Russianor his dugout.

When he had rested and bound up his wounded leg he startedon in pursuit of the drifting canoe. He found himselfupon the opposite of the river to that at which he hadentered the stream, but as his quarry was upon the bosomof the water it made little difference to the ape-manupon which side he took up the pursuit.

To his intense chagrin he soon found that his leg was morebadly injured than he had thought, and that its conditionseriously impeded his progress. It was only with the greatestdifficulty that he could proceed faster than a walk upon theground, and in the trees he discovered that it not only impededhis progress, but rendered travelling distinctly dangerous.

From the old negress, Tambudza, Tarzan had gathered a suggestionthat now filled his mind with doubts and misgivings. When theold woman had told him of the child's death she had also addedthat the white woman, though grief-stricken, had confided to herthat the baby was not hers.

Tarzan could see no reason for believing that Jane couldhave found it advisable to deny her identity or that of thechild; the only explanation that he could put upon the matterwas that, after all, the white woman who had accompaniedhis son and the Swede into the jungle fastness of the interiorhad not been Jane at all.

The more he gave thought to the problem, the more firmlyconvinced he became that his son was dead and his wife stillsafe in London, and in ignorance of the terrible fate that hadovertaken her first-born.

After all, then, his interpretation of Rokoff's sinister taunthad been erroneous, and he had been bearing the burden of adouble apprehension needlessly--at least so thought the ape-man. From this belief he garnered some slight surcease from thenumbing grief that the death of his little son had thrust upon him.

And such a death! Even the savage beast that was the realTarzan, inured to the sufferings and horrors of the grim jungle,shuddered as he contemplated the hideous fate that hadovertaken the innocent child.

As he made his way painfully towards the coast, he let hismind dwell so constantly upon the frightful crimes which theRussian had perpetrated against his loved ones that the greatscar upon his forehead stood out almost continuously in thevivid scarlet that marked the man's most relentless and bestialmoods of rage. At times he startled even himself and sent thelesser creatures of the wild jungle scampering to their hidingplaces 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 ranthreateningly from their villages to bar his further progress,but when the awful cry of the bull-ape thundered upon theiraffrighted ears, and the great white giant charged bellowingupon 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-manwhose idea of speed had been gained by such standards as thelesser apes attain, he made, as a matter of fact, almost asrapid progress as the drifting canoe that bore Rokoff onahead of him, so that he came to the bay and within sight ofthe ocean just after darkness had fallen upon the same day thatJane Clayton and the Russian ended their flights from the interior.

The darkness lowered so heavily upon the black river andthe encircling jungle that Tarzan, even with eyes accustomedto much use after dark, could make out nothing a few yardsfrom him. His idea was to search the shore that night forsigns of the Russian and the woman who he was certain musthave preceded Rokoff down the Ugambi. That the Kincaidor other ship lay at anchor but a hundred yards from him hedid not dream, for no light showed on board the steamer.

Even as he commenced his search his attention was suddenlyattracted by a noise that he had not at first perceived--the stealthy dip of paddles in the water some distance fromthe shore, and about opposite the point at which he stood. Motionless as a statue he stood listening to the faint sound.

Presently it ceased, to be followed by a shuffling noise thatthe ape-man's trained ears could interpret as resulting frombut a single cause--the scraping of leather-shod feet upon therounds of a ship's monkey-ladder. And yet, as far as he couldsee, there was no ship there--nor might there be one withina thousand miles.

As he stood thus, peering out into the darkness of thecloud-enshrouded night, there came to him from across thewater, like a slap in the face, so sudden and unexpected wasit, the sharp staccato of an exchange of shots and then thescream of a woman.

Wounded though he was, and with the memory of his recenthorrible experience still strong upon him, Tarzan of the Apesdid not hesitate as the notes of that frightened cry rose shrilland piercing upon the still night air. With a bound he clearedthe intervening bush--there was a splash as the water closedabout him--and then, with powerful strokes, he swam outinto the impenetrable night with no guide save the memoryof an illusive cry, and for company the hideous denizensof an equatorial river.

The boat that had attracted Jane's attention as she stoodguard upon the deck of the Kincaid had been perceived byRokoff upon one bank and Mugambi and the horde upon the other. The cries of the Russian had brought the dugout first to him,and then, after a conference, it had been turned toward theKincaid, but before ever it covered half the distance betweenthe shore and the steamer a rifle had spoken from the latter'sdeck and one of the sailors in the bow of the canoe had crumpledand fallen into the water.

After that they went more slowly, and presently, when Jane's riflehad found another member of the party, the canoe withdrew to the shore,where it lay as long as daylight lasted.

The savage, snarling pack upon the opposite shore had beendirected in their pursuit by the black warrior, Mugambi,chief of the Wagambi. Only he knew which might be foe andwhich friend of their lost master.

Could they have reached either the canoe or the Kincaidthey would have made short work of any whom they foundthere, but the gulf of black water intervening shut them offfrom farther advance as effectually as though it had been thebroad ocean that separated them from their prey.

Mugambi knew something of the occurrences which had led up tothe landing of Tarzan upon Jungle Island and the pursuit ofthe whites up the Ugambi. He knew that his savage mastersought his wife and child who had been stolen by the wickedwhite man whom they had followed far into the interior andnow back to the sea.

He believed also that this same man had killed the greatwhite giant whom he had come to respect and love as he hadnever loved the greatest chiefs of his own people. And so inthe wild breast of Mugambi burned an iron resolve to win tothe side of the wicked one and wreak vengeance upon himfor the murder of the ape-man.

But when he saw the canoe come down the river and take in Rokoff,when he saw it make for the Kincaid, he realized that only bypossessing himself of a canoe could he hope to transport the beastsof the pack within striking distance of the 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 Paulvitchand the several men he had left upon the Kincaid to attendto the matter of coaling, had retreated before her fire,Jane realized that it would be but a temporary respite fromtheir attentions which she had gained, and with the convictioncame a determination to make a bold and final stroke forfreedom from the menacing threat of Rokoff's evil purpose.

With this idea in view she opened negotiations with the twosailors she had imprisoned in the forecastle, and havingforced their consent to her plans, upon pain of death shouldthey attempt disloyalty, she released them just as darknessclosed about the ship.

With ready revolver to compel obedience, she let them upone by one, searching them carefully for concealed weaponsas they stood with hands elevated above their heads. Oncesatisfied that they were unarmed, she set them to work cuttingthe cable which held the Kincaid to her anchorage, for her boldplan was nothing less than to set the steamer adrift and floatwith her out into the open sea, there to trust to the mercyof the elements, which she was confident would be no moremerciless than Nikolas Rokoff should he again capture her.

There was, too, the chance that the Kincaid might be sightedby some passing ship, and as she was well stocked withprovisions and water--the men had assured her of this fact--and as the season of storm was well over, she had everyreason to hope for the eventual success of her plan.

The night was deeply overcast, heavy clouds ridinglow above the jungle and the water--only to the west,where the broad ocean spread beyond the river'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 normark her course as the swift current bore her outward intothe ocean. Before daylight broke the ebb-tide would havecarried the Kincaid well into the Benguela current whichflows northward along the coast of Africa, and, as a southwind was prevailing, Jane hoped to be out of sight of themouth of the Ugambi before Rokoff could become aware ofthe departure of the steamer.

Standing over the labouring seamen, the young womanbreathed a sigh of relief as the last strand of the cable partedand she knew that the vessel was on its way out of the mawof the savage Ugambi.

With her two prisoners still beneath the coercing influenceof her rifle, she ordered them upon deck with the intentionof again imprisoning them in the forecastle; but at length shepermitted herself to be influenced by their promises of loyaltyand the arguments which they put forth that they could be ofservice to her, and permitted them to remain above.

For a few minutes the Kincaid drifted rapidly with the current,and then, with a grinding jar, she stopped in midstream. The ship had run upon a low-lying bar that splits the channelabout a quarter of a mile from the sea.

For a moment she hung there, and then, swinging round untilher bow pointed toward the shore, she broke adrift once more.

At the same instant, just as Jane Clayton was congratulatingherself that the ship was once more free, there fell uponher ears from a point up the river about where the Kincaidhad been anchored the rattle of musketry and a woman'sscream--shrill, piercing, fear-laden.

The sailors heard the shots with certain conviction thatthey announced the coming of their employer, and as theyhad no relish for the plan that would consign them to thedeck of a drifting derelict, they whispered together a hurriedplan to overcome the young woman and hail Rokoff and theircompanions to their rescue.

It seemed that fate would play into their hands, for withthe reports of the guns Jane Clayton's attention had beendistracted from her unwilling assistants, and instead ofkeeping one eye upon them as she had intended doing, she ranto the bow of the Kincaid to peer through the darkness towardthe source of the disturbance upon the river's bosom.

Seeing that she was off her guard, the two sailors creptstealthily upon her from behind.

The scraping upon the deck of the shoes of one of themstartled the girl to a sudden appreciation of her danger,but the warning had come too late.

As she turned, both men leaped upon her and bore herto the deck, and as she went down beneath them she saw,outlined against the lesser gloom of the ocean, the figure ofanother man clamber over the side of the Kincaid.

After all her pains her heroic struggle for freedom had failed. With a stifled sob she gave up the unequal battle.