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Chapter III - In the German Lines

Tarzan was not yet fully revenged. There were many millions of Germans yet

alive--enough to keep Tarzan pleasantly occupied the balance of his life, and yet

not enough, should he kill them all, to recompense him for the great loss he had

suffered--nor could the death of all those million Germans bring back his loved

one.

While in the German camp in the Pare Mountains, which lie just east of the

boundary line between German and British East Africa, Tarzan had overheard

enough to suggest that the British were getting the worst of the fighting in Africa.

At first he had given the matter but little thought, since, after the death of his

wife, the one strong tie that had held him to civilization, he had renounced all

mankind, considering himself no longer man, but ape.

After accounting for Schneider as satisfactorily as lay within his power he circled

Kilimanjaro and hunted in the foothills to the north of that mightiest of

mountains as he had discovered that in the neighborhood of the armies there was

no hunting at all. Some pleasure he derived through conjuring mental pictures

from time to time of the German he had left in the branches of the lone tree at the

bottom of the high-walled gulch in which was penned the starving lion. He could

imagine the man's mental anguish as he became weakened from hunger and

maddened by thirst, knowing that sooner or later he must slip exhausted to the

ground where waited the gaunt man-eater. Tarzan wondered if Schneider would

have the courage to descend to the little rivulet for water should Numa leave the

gulch and enter the cave, and then he pictured the mad race for the tree again

when the lion charged out to seize his prey as he was certain to do, since the

clumsy German could not descend to the rivulet without making at least some

slight noise that would attract Numa's attention.

But even this pleasure palled, and more and more the ape-man found himself

thinking of the English soldiers fighting against heavy odds and especially of the

fact that it was Germans who were beating them. The thought made him lower

his head and growl and it worried him not a little--a bit, perhaps, because he was

finding it difficult to forget that he was an Englishman when he wanted only to be

an ape. And at last the time came when he could not longer endure the thought

of Germans killing Englishmen while he hunted in safety a bare march away.

His decision made, he set out in the direction of the German camp, no well-

defined plan formulated; but with the general idea that once near the field of

operations he might find an opportunity to harass the German command as he so

well knew how to do. His way took him along the gorge close to the gulch in

Tarzan the Untamed