Chapter 14
Alone in the Jungle
Tambudza, leading Tarzan of the Apes toward the camp of the Russian,
moved very slowly along the winding jungle path, for she was old
and her legs stiff with rheumatism.
So it was that the runners dispatched by M'ganwazam to warn Rokoff
that the white giant was in his village and that he would be slain
that night reached the Russian's camp before Tarzan and his ancient
guide had covered half the distance.
The guides found the white man's camp in a turmoil. Rokoff had
that morning been discovered stunned and bleeding within his tent.
When he had recovered his senses and realized that Jane Clayton
had escaped, his rage was boundless.
Rushing about the camp with his rifle, he had sought to shoot down
the native sentries who had allowed the young woman to elude their
vigilance, but several of the other whites, realizing that they were
already in a precarious position owing 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
their story and Rokoff was preparing to depart with them for their
village when other runners, panting from the exertions of their swift
flight through the jungle, rushed breathless into the firelight,
crying that the great white giant had escaped from M'ganwazam and
was already on his way to wreak vengeance against his enemies.
Instantly confusion reigned within the encircling boma. The blacks
belonging to Rokoff's safari were terror-stricken at the thought
of the proximity of the white giant who hunted through the jungle
with a fierce pack of apes and panthers at his heels.
Before the whites realized what had happened the superstitious
fears of the natives had sent them scurrying into the bush--their
own carriers as well as the messengers from M'ganwazam--but even in
their haste they had not neglected to take with them every article
of value upon which they could lay their hands.
Thus Rokoff and the seven white sailors found themselves deserted
and robbed in the midst of a wilderness.
The Russian, following his usual custom, berated his companions,
laying all the blame upon their shoulders for the events which had
led up to the almost hopeless condition in which they now found
themselves; but the sailors were in no mood to brook his insults
and his cursing.
In the midst of this tirade one of them drew a revolver and fired
point-blank at the Russian. The fellow's aim was poor, but his
act so terrified Rokoff 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 a fear that almost expunged his terror of
the seven men at his back, who by this time 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 the bush.
Darting into his tent, the Russian did not halt in his flight, but
kept right on through the rear wall, taking advantage of the long
slit that Jane Clayton had made the night before.
The terror-stricken Muscovite scurried like a hunted rabbit through
the hole that still gaped in the boma's wall at the point where
his own prey had escaped, and as Tarzan approached the camp upon
the opposite side Rokoff disappeared into the jungle in the wake
of Jane Clayton.
As the ape-man entered the boma with old Tambudza at his elbow the
seven sailors, recognizing him, turned and fled in the opposite
direction. Tarzan saw that Rokoff was not among them, and so he
let them go their way--his business was with the Russian, whom he
expected to find in his tent. As to the sailors, he was sure that
the jungle would exact from them expiation for their villainies,
nor, doubtless, was he wrong, for his were the last white man's
eyes to rest upon any of them.
Finding Rokoff's tent empty, Tarzan was about to set out in search
of the Russian when Tambudza suggested to him that the departure
of the white man could only have resulted from word reaching him
from M'ganwazam that Tarzan was in his village.
"He has doubtless hastened there," argued the old woman. "If you
would find him let us return at once."
Tarzan himself thought that this would probably prove to be the fact,
so he did not waste time in an endeavour to locate the Russian's
trail, but, instead, set out briskly for the village of M'ganwazam,
leaving Tambudza to plod slowly in his wake.
His one hope was that Jane was still safe and with Rokoff. If this
was the case, it would be but a matter of an hour or more before
he should be able to wrest her from the Russian.
He knew now that M'ganwazam was treacherous and that he might have
to fight 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-handed it would be no child's play to bring
Jane safely from the clutches of two such scoundrels as Rokoff and
the wily M'ganwazam.
To his surprise he found no sign of either Rokoff or Jane in the
village, and as he could not trust the word of the chief, he wasted
no time in futile inquiry. So sudden and unexpected had been
his return, and so quickly had he vanished into the jungle after
learning that those he sought were not among the Waganwazam, that
old M'ganwazam had no time to prevent his going.
Swinging through the trees, he hastened back to the deserted camp
he had so recently left, for here, he knew, was the logical place
to take up the trail of Rokoff and Jane.
Arrived at the boma, he circled carefully about the outside of the
enclosure until, opposite a break in the thorny wall, he came to
indications that something had recently passed into the jungle.
His acute sense of smell told him that both of those he sought had
fled from the camp in this direction, and a 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 narrow game-trail, fearful that the next moment would bring her
face to face with some savage beast or equally savage man. As she
ran on, hoping against hope that she had 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 loosely piled brush--to her dying day that little spot of jungle
would be indelibly impressed upon her memory. It was where Anderssen
had hidden her--where he had given up his life in the vain effort
to save her from Rokoff.
At sight of it she recalled the rifle and ammunition that the man
had thrust upon her at the last moment. Until now she had forgotten
them entirely. Still clutched in her hand was the revolver she
had snatched from Rokoff's belt, but that could contain at most
not over six cartridges--not enough to 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 hope that the treasure remained where she had left it; but, to
her infinite relief and joy, her hand came at once upon the barrel
of the heavy weapon and then upon the bandoleer of cartridges.
As she threw the latter about her shoulder and felt the weight of
the big game-gun in her hand a sudden sense of security suffused
her. It was with new hope and a feeling almost of assured success
that she again set forward upon her journey.
That night she slept in the crotch of a tree, as Tarzan had so
often told her that he was accustomed to doing, and early the next
morning was upon her way again. Late in the afternoon, as she was
about to cross a little clearing, she was startled at the sight of
a huge ape coming from the jungle upon the opposite side.
The wind was blowing directly across the clearing between them,
and Jane lost no time in putting herself downwind from the huge
creature. Then she hid in a clump 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 the clearing. They came together in a little knot, where they
stood looking backward, as though in expectation of the coming of
others of their tribe. Jane wished 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 then what would the
protection of her rifle amount to in the face of those gigantic
muscles and mighty fangs?
Her eyes moved back and forth between the apes and the edge of the
jungle toward which they were gazing until at last she perceived
the object of their halt 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 glide noiselessly from the jungle at the point at which
the apes had emerged but a moment before.
Quickly the beast trotted across the clearing toward the anthropoids.
Jane wondered at their apparent apathy, and a moment later her wonder
turned to amazement as she saw the great cat come quite close to
the apes, who appeared entirely unconcerned by its presence, and,
squatting down in their midst, fell assiduously to the business of
preening, which occupies most of the waking hours of the cat family.
If the young woman was surprised by the sight of these natural
enemies fraternizing, it was with emotions little short of fear
for her own sanity that she presently saw a tall, muscular warrior
enter the clearing and join the group of savage beasts assembled
there.
At first sight of the man she had been positive that he would be
torn to pieces, and she had half risen from her shelter, raising
her rifle to her shoulder to do what she could to avert the man's
terrible fate.
Now she saw that he seemed actually conversing with the beasts--issuing
orders to them.
Presently the entire company filed on across the clearing and
disappeared in the jungle upon the opposite side.
With a gasp of mingled incredulity and relief Jane Clayton staggered
to her feet and fled on away from the terrible horde that had
just passed her, while a half-mile behind her another individual,
following the same trail as she, lay frozen with terror behind an
ant-hill as the hideous band passed quite close to him.
This one was Rokoff; but he had recognized the members of the awful
aggregation as allies of Tarzan of the Apes. No sooner, therefore,
had the beasts passed him than he rose and raced through the jungle
as fast as he could go, in order that he might put as much distance
as possible between himself and these frightful beasts.
So it happened that as Jane Clayton came to the bank of the river,
down which she hoped to float to the ocean and eventual rescue,
Nikolas Rokoff was but a short distance in her rear.
Upon the bank the girl saw a great dugout drawn half-way from the
water and tied securely to a near-by tree.
This, she felt, would solve the question of transportation to the
sea could she but launch the huge, unwieldy craft. Unfastening
the rope that had moored it to the tree, Jane pushed frantically
upon the bow of the heavy canoe, but for all the results that were
apparent she might as well have been attempting to shove the earth
out of its orbit.
She was about winded when it occurred to her to try working the
dugout into the stream by loading the stern with ballast and then
rocking the bow back and forth along the bank until the craft
eventually worked itself into the river.
There were no stones or rocks available, but along the shore she
found quantities 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, to her immense relief, she saw the bow rise
gently from the mud of the bank and the stern drift slowly with
the current until it again lodged a few feet farther down-stream.
Jane found that by running back and forth between the bow and stern
she could alternately raise and lower each end of the boat as she
shifted her weight from one end to the other, with the result that
each time she leaped to the stern the canoe moved a few inches
farther into the river.
As the success of her plan approached more closely to fruition she
became so wrapped in her efforts that she failed to note the figure
of a man standing beneath 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 swarthy countenance.
The boat at last became so nearly free of the retarding mud and of
the bank that Jane felt positive that she could pole it off into
deeper water with one of the paddles which lay in the bottom of
the rude craft. With this end in view she seized upon one of these
implements and had just plunged it into the river bottom close to
the shore when her eyes happened to rise to the edge of the jungle.
As her gaze fell upon the figure of the man a little cry of terror
rose to her lips. It was Rokoff.
He was running toward her now and shouting to her to wait or he
would shoot--though he was entirely unarmed it was difficult to
discover just how he intended making good his threat.
Jane Clayton knew nothing of the various misfortunes that had
befallen the Russian since she had escaped from his tent, so she
believed that his followers must 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.
Another minute and the boat would be free.
Once in the current of the river she would be beyond Rokoff's power
to stop her, for there was no other boat upon the shore, and no
man, and certainly not the cowardly Rokoff, would dare to attempt
to swim the crocodile-infested water in an effort to overtake her.
Rokoff, on his part, was bent more upon escape than aught else. He
would gladly have forgone any designs he might have had upon Jane
Clayton would she but permit him to share this means of escape
that she had discovered. He would promise anything if she would
let him come aboard the dugout, but he did not think that it was
necessary to do so.
He saw that he could easily reach the bow of the boat before
it cleared the shore, and then it would not be necessary to make
promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff would have felt the slightest
compunction in ignoring any promises he might have made the girl,
but he disliked the idea of having to sue for favour with one who
had so recently assaulted and escaped him.
Already he was gloating over the days and nights of revenge that
would be his while the heavy dugout drifted its slow way to the
ocean.
Jane Clayton, working furiously to shove the boat beyond his reach,
suddenly realized that she was to be successful, for with a little
lurch the dugout swung quickly into the current, just as the Russian
reached out to place his hand upon its bow.
His fingers did not miss their goal by a half-dozen inches. The
girl almost collapsed with the reaction from the terrific mental,
physical, and nervous strain under which she had been labouring
for the past few minutes. But, thank Heaven, at last she was safe!
Even as she breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving, she saw a
sudden expression of triumph lighten the features of the cursing
Russian, and at the same instant he dropped suddenly to the ground,
grasping firmly upon something which wriggled through the mud toward
the water.
Jane Clayton crouched, wide-eyed and horror-stricken, in the bottom
of the boat as 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
trailing rope with which the dugout had been moored to the tree.
