Chapter 18
Paulvitch Plots Revenge
As Jane and Tarzan stood upon the vessel's deck recounting to one
another the details of the various adventures through which each
had passed since they had parted in their London home, there glared
at them from beneath scowling brows a hidden watcher upon the shore.
Through the man's brain passed plan after plan whereby he might
thwart the escape of the Englishman and his wife, for so long as
the vital spark remained within the vindictive brain of Alexander
Paulvitch none who had aroused the enmity of the Russian might be
entirely safe.
Plan after plan he formed only to discard each either as impracticable, or
unworthy the vengeance his wrongs demanded. So warped by faulty
reasoning was the criminal mind of Rokoff's lieutenant that he
could not grasp the real truth of that which lay between himself
and the ape-man and see that always the fault had been, not with
the English lord, but with himself and his confederate.
And at the rejection of each new scheme Paulvitch arrived always
at the same conclusion--that he could accomplish naught while half
the breadth of the Ugambi separated him from the object of his
hatred.
But how was he to span the crocodile-infested waters? There was
no canoe nearer than the Mosula village, and Paulvitch was none too
sure that the Kincaid would still be at anchor in the river when
he returned should he take the time to traverse the jungle to the
distant village and return with a canoe. Yet there was no other
way, and so, convinced that thus alone might he hope to reach his
prey, Paulvitch, with a parting scowl at the two figures upon the
Kincaid's deck, turned away from the river.
Hastening through the dense jungle, his mind centred upon his one
fetich--revenge--the Russian forgot even his terror of the savage
world through which he moved.
Baffled and beaten at every turn of Fortune's wheel, reacted upon
time after time by his own malign plotting, the principal victim
of his own criminality, Paulvitch was yet so blind as to imagine
that his greatest happiness lay in a continuation of the plottings
and schemings which had ever brought 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 there presently crystallized within his brain a plan which
seemed more feasible than any that he had as yet considered.
He would come by night to the side of the Kincaid, and once aboard,
would search out the members of the ship's original crew who had
survived the terrors of this frightful expedition, and enlist them
in an attempt to wrest the vessel from Tarzan and his beasts.
In the cabin were arms and ammunition, and hidden in a secret
receptacle in the cabin table was one of those infernal machines,
the construction of which had occupied much of Paulvitch's spare
time when he had stood high in the confidence of the Nihilists of
his native land.
That was before he had sold them out for immunity and gold to the
police of Petrograd. Paulvitch winced as he recalled the denunciation
of him that had fallen from the lips of one of his former comrades
ere the poor devil expiated his political sins at the end of a
hempen rope.
But the infernal machine was the thing to think of now. He could
do much with that if he could but get his hands upon it. Within
the little hardwood case hidden in the cabin table rested sufficient
potential destructiveness to wipe out in the fraction of a second
every enemy aboard the Kincaid.
Paulvitch licked his lips in anticipatory joy, and urged his tired
legs to greater speed that he might not be too late to the ship's
anchorage to carry out his designs.
All depended, of course, upon when the Kincaid departed. The
Russian realized that nothing could be accomplished beneath the
light of day. Darkness must shroud his approach to the ship's side,
for should he be sighted by Tarzan 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 getting the Kincaid under way, and if it continued to blow until
night then the chances were all in his favour, for he knew that
there was little likelihood of the ape-man attempting to navigate
the tortuous channel of the Ugambi while darkness lay upon the
surface of the water, hiding the many bars and the numerous small
islands which are scattered over the expanse of the river's mouth.
It was well after noon when Paulvitch came to the Mosula village
upon the bank of the tributary of the Ugambi. Here he was received
with suspicion and unfriendliness by the native chief, who, like
all those who came in contact with Rokoff or Paulvitch, had suffered
in some manner from the greed, the cruelty, or the lust of the two
Muscovites.
When Paulvitch demanded the use of a canoe the chief grumbled a surly
refusal and ordered the white man from the village. Surrounded by
angry, muttering warriors who seemed to be but waiting some slight
pretext to transfix him with their 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 a warning never to show himself again in the vicinity of
their village.
Stifling his anger, Paulvitch slunk into the jungle; but once
beyond the sight of the warriors he paused and listened intently.
He could hear the voices of his escort as the men returned to the
village, and when he was sure that they were not following him he
wormed his way through the bushes to the edge of the river, still
determined some way to obtain a canoe.
Life itself depended upon his reaching the Kincaid and enlisting
the survivors of the ship's crew in his service, for to be abandoned
here amidst the dangers 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 him into the face of danger to accomplish his design, so
that it was a desperate man that lay hidden in the foliage beside
the little river searching with eager eyes for some sign of a small
canoe which might be easily handled by a single paddle.
Nor had the Russian long to wait before one of the awkward little
skiffs which the Mosula fashion came in sight upon the bosom of
the river. A youth was paddling lazily out into midstream from a
point beside the village. When he reached the channel he allowed
the sluggish current to carry him slowly along while he lolled
indolently in the bottom of his crude canoe.
All ignorant of the unseen enemy upon the river's bank the lad
floated slowly down the stream while Paulvitch followed along the
jungle path a few yards behind him.
A mile below the village the black boy dipped his paddle into the
water and forced his skiff toward the bank. Paulvitch, elated by
the chance which had drawn the youth to the same side of the river
as that along which he followed rather than to the opposite side
where he would have been beyond the stalker's reach, hid in the
brush close beside the point at which it was evident the skiff would
touch the bank of the slow-moving stream, which seemed jealous of
each fleeting instant which drew it nearer to the broad and muddy
Ugambi where it must for ever lose its identity in the larger stream
that would presently cast its waters into the great ocean.
Equally indolent were the motions of the Mosula youth as he drew
his skiff beneath an overhanging limb of a great tree that leaned
down to implant a farewell kiss upon the bosom of the departing
water, caressing with green fronds 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 the stature of its owner, while the crafty brain
weighed the chances of the white man should physical encounter with
the black become necessary.
Only direct necessity could drive Alexander Paulvitch to personal
conflict; but it was indeed dire necessity which goaded him on to
action now.
There was time, just time enough, to reach the Kincaid by nightfall.
Would the black fool never quit his skiff? Paulvitch squirmed
and fidgeted. The lad yawned and stretched. With exasperating
deliberateness he examined the arrows in his quiver, tested his
bow, and looked to the edge upon the hunting-knife in his loin-cloth.
Again he stretched and yawned, glanced up at the river-bank, shrugged
his shoulders, and lay down in the bottom of his canoe for a little
nap before he plunged into the jungle after the prey he had come
forth to hunt.
Paulvitch half rose, and with tensed muscles stood glaring down
upon his unsuspecting victim. The boy's lids drooped and closed.
Presently his breast rose and fell to the deep breaths of slumber.
The time had come!
The Russian crept stealthily nearer. A branch rustled beneath
his weight and the lad stirred in his sleep. Paulvitch drew his
revolver and levelled it upon the black. For a moment he remained
in rigid quiet, and then again the youth relapsed into undisturbed
slumber.
The white man crept closer. He could not chance a shot until there
was no risk of missing. Presently he leaned close above the Mosula.
The cold steel of the revolver in his hand insinuated itself nearer
and nearer to the breast of the unconscious lad. Now it stopped
but a few inches above the strongly beating heart.
But the pressure of a finger lay between the harmless boy and
eternity. The soft bloom of youth still lay upon the brown cheek,
a smile half parted the beardless lips. Did any qualm of conscience
point its disquieting finger of reproach at the murderer?
To all such was Alexander Paulvitch immune. A sneer curled
his bearded lip as his forefinger closed upon the trigger of his
revolver. There was a loud report. A little hole appeared above
the heart of the sleeping boy, a little hole about which lay a
blackened rim of powder-burned flesh.
The youthful body half rose to a sitting posture. The smiling
lips tensed to the nervous shock of a momentary agony which the
conscious mind never apprehended, and then the dead sank limply
back into that deepest of slumbers from which there is no awakening.
The killer dropped quickly into the skiff beside the killed.
Ruthless hands seized the dead boy heartlessly and raised him to
the low gunwale. A little shove, 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 sole possession of the
white man--more savage than the youth whose life he had taken.
Casting off the tie rope and seizing the paddle, Paulvitch bent
feverishly to the 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 the current of the larger stream. Constantly the Russian
strained his eyes into the increasing darkness ahead in vain
endeavour to pierce the black shadows which lay between him and
the anchorage of the Kincaid.
Was the ship still riding there upon the waters of the Ugambi, or
had the ape-man at last persuaded himself of the safety of venturing
forth into the abating storm? As Paulvitch forged ahead with the
current he asked himself these questions, and many more beside,
not the least disquieting of which were those which related to his
future should it chance that the Kincaid had already steamed 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 the water, and he had become convinced that the ship had left
her moorings and that he had already passed the spot at which she
had lain earlier in the day, when there appeared before him beyond
a projecting point which he had but just rounded the flickering
light from a ship's lantern.
Alexander Paulvitch could scarce restrain an exclamation of triumph.
The Kincaid 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 hope ahead of him. Silently he drifted down the muddy waters
of the Ugambi, occasionally dipping his paddle's blade gently into
the current that he might guide his primitive craft to the vessel's
side.
As he approached more closely the dark bulk of a ship loomed before
him out of the blackness of the night. No sound came from the
vessel's deck. Paulvitch drifted, unseen, close to the Kincaid's
side. Only the momentary scraping of his canoe's nose against the
ship's planking broke the silence of the night.
Trembling with nervous excitement, the Russian remained motionless
for several minutes; but there was no sound from the great bulk
above him to indicate that his coming had been noted.
Stealthily he worked his craft forward until the stays of the
bowsprit were directly above him. He could just reach them. To
make his canoe fast there was the 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 pack which tenanted the ship induced cold tremors along
the spine of the cowardly prowler; but life itself depended upon
the success of his venture, and so he was 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
crept stealthily toward the forecastle. All was silence. The
hatch was raised, and as the man peered downward he saw one of the
Kincaid's crew reading by the light of the smoky lantern depending
from the ceiling of the crew's quarters.
Paulvitch knew the man well, a surly cut-throat upon whom he figured
strongly in the carrying out of the plan which he had conceived.
Gently the Russ lowered himself through the aperture to the rounds
of the ladder which led into the forecastle.
He kept his eyes turned upon the reading man, ready to warn him to
silence the moment that the fellow discovered him; but so deeply
immersed was the sailor in the magazine that the Russian came,
unobserved, to the forecastle floor.
There he turned and whispered the reader's name. The man raised
his eyes from the magazine--eyes that went wide for a moment as
they fell upon the familiar countenance of Rokoff's lieutenant,
only to narrow instantly in a scowl of disapproval.
"The devil!" he ejaculated. "Where did you come from? We all
thought you were done for and gone where you ought to have gone a
long time ago. His lordship will be mighty pleased to see you."
Paulvitch crossed to the sailor's side. A friendly smile lay on
the Russian's lips, and his right hand was extended in greeting,
as though the other might have been a dear and long lost friend.
The sailor ignored the proffered 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 his beasts--then there will be
no danger from the law when we get back to civilization. We can
sneak in on them while they sleep--that is Greystoke, his wife,
and that black scoundrel, Mugambi. Afterward it will be a simple
matter to clean up the beasts. Where are they?"
"They're below," replied the sailor; "but just let me tell you
something, Paulvitch. You haven't got no more show to turn us men
against the Englishman than nothing. We had all we wanted of you
and that other beast. He's dead, an' if I don't miss my guess a
whole lot you'll be dead too before long. You two treated us like
dogs, and if you 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 seemed to have occurred to him, he spoke again.
"Unless," he said, "you can make it worth my while to let you go
before the Englishman finds you here."
"You wouldn't turn me away in the jungle, would you?" asked Paulvitch.
"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 here they'd probably
cut your heart out of you before the Englishman got a chance at
you at all. It's mighty lucky for you that I'm the one to be awake
now and not none of the others."
"You're crazy," cried Paulvitch. "Don't you know that the Englishman
will have you all hanged when he gets you back where the law 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 nobody to 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 his listener either fabulous rewards or condign
punishment; but the other was obdurate. [condign: of equal value]
He made it plain to the Russian that there were but two plans open
to him--either he must consent to being turned over immediately
to Lord Greystoke, or he must pay to the sailor, as a price for
permission to quit the Kincaid unmolested, every cent of money and
article of value upon his person and in his cabin.
"And you'll have to make up your mind mighty quick," growled the
man, "for I want to turn in. Come now, choose--his lordship or
the jungle?"
"You'll be sorry for this," grumbled the Russian.
"Shut up," admonished the sailor. "If you get funny I may change
my mind, and keep you here after all."
Now Paulvitch had no intention of permitting himself to fall into
the hands of Tarzan of the Apes if he could possibly avoid it,
and while the terrors of the jungle appalled him they were, to his
mind, infinitely preferable to the certain death which he knew he
merited and for which he might look at the hands of the ape-man.
"Is anyone sleeping in my cabin?" he asked.
The sailor shook his head. "No," he said; "Lord and Lady Greystoke
have the captain's cabin. The mate is in his own, and there ain'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 funny business,"
said the sailor, and he followed the Russian up the ladder to the
deck.
At the cabin entrance the sailor halted to watch, permitting
Paulvitch to go alone to his cabin. Here he gathered together his
few belongings that were to buy him the uncertain safety of escape,
and as he stood for a moment beside the little table on which he
had piled them he searched his brain for some feasible plan 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 box which lay hidden in a secret receptacle beneath a false
top upon the table where his hand rested.
The Russian's face lighted to a sinister gleam of malevolent
satisfaction as he stooped and felt beneath the table top. A
moment later he withdrew from its hiding-place the thing he sought.
He had lighted the lantern swinging from the beams overhead that
he might see to collect his belongings, and now he held the black
box well in the rays of the lamplight, while he fingered at the
clasp that fastened its lid.
The lifted cover revealed two compartments within the box. In one
was a mechanism which resembled the works of a small clock. There
also was a little battery of two dry cells. A wire ran from the
clockwork to one of the poles of the battery, and from the other
pole through the partition into the other compartment, a second
wire returning directly to the clockwork.
Whatever lay within the second compartment was not visible, for a
cover lay over it and appeared to be sealed in place by asphaltum.
In the bottom of the box, beside the clockwork, lay a key, and this
Paulvitch now withdrew and fitted to the winding stem.
Gently he turned the key, muffling the noise of the winding operation
by throwing a couple of articles of clothing over the box. All the
time he listened intently for any sound which might indicate that
the sailor or another were approaching his cabin; but none came to
interrupt his work.
When the winding was completed the Russian set a pointer upon a small
dial at the side of the clockwork, then he replaced the cover upon
the black box, and returned the entire machine to its hiding-place
in the table.
A sinister smile curled the man's bearded lips as he gathered up
his valuables, blew out the lamp, and stepped from his cabin to
the side of the waiting sailor.
"Here are my things," said the Russian; "now let me go."
"I'll first take a look in your pockets," replied the sailor. "You
might have overlooked some trifling thing that won't be of no use
to you in the jungle, but that'll come in mighty handy to a poor
sailorman in London. Ah! just as I feared," he ejaculated an instant
later as he withdrew a roll of bank-notes from Paulvitch's inside
coat pocket.
The Russian scowled, muttering an imprecation; but nothing could
be gained by argument, and so he did his best to reconcile himself
to his loss in the knowledge that the sailor would never reach
London to enjoy the fruits of his thievery.
It was with difficulty that Paulvitch restrained a consuming desire
to taunt the man with a suggestion of the fate that would presently
overtake him and the other members of the Kincaid's company; but
fearing to arouse the fellow's suspicions, he crossed the deck and
lowered himself in silence into his canoe.
A minute or two later he was paddling toward the shore to be
swallowed up in the darkness of the jungle night, and the terrors
of a hideous existence from which, could he have had even a slight
foreknowledge of what awaited him in the long years to come, he
would have fled to the certain death of the open sea rather than
endure it.
The sailor, having made sure that Paulvitch had departed, returned
to the forecastle, where he hid away his booty and turned into his
bunk, while in the cabin that had belonged to the Russian there
ticked on and on through the silences of the night the little
mechanism in the small black box which held for the unconscious
sleepers upon the ill-starred Kincaid the coming vengeance of the
thwarted Russian.
