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At one side of the house Tarzan found other newly made graves and in these he
sought final evidence of the identity of the real perpetrators of the atrocities that
had been committed there in his absence.
Here he disinterred the bodies of a dozen German askaris and found upon their
uniforms the insignia of the company and regiment to which they had belonged.
This was enough for the ape-man. White officers had commanded these men, nor
would it be a difficult task to discover who they were.
Returning to the rose garden, he stood among the Hun trampled blooms and
bushes above the grave of his dead-with bowed head he stood there in a last mute
farewell. As the sun sank slowly behind the towering forests of the west, he
turned slowly away upon the still-distinct trail of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and
his blood-stained company.
His was the suffering of the dumb brute--mute; but though voiceless no less
poignant. At first his vast sorrow numbed his other faculties of thought--his brain
was overwhelmed by the calamity to such an extent that it reacted to but a single
objective suggestion: She is dead! She is dead! She is dead! Again and again this
phrase beat monotonously upon his brain--a dull, throbbing pain, yet
mechanically his feet followed the trail of her slayer while, subconsciously, his
every sense was upon the alert for the ever-present perils of the jungle.
Gradually the labor of his great grief brought forth another emotion so real, so
tangible, that it seemed a companion walking at his side. It was Hate--and it
brought to him a measure of solace and of comfort, for it was a sublime hate that
ennobled him as it has ennobled countless thousands since-hatred for Germany
and Germans. It centered about the slayer of his mate, of course; but it included
everything German, animate or inanimate. As the thought took firm hold upon
him he paused and raising his face to Goro, the moon, cursed with upraised hand
the authors of the hideous crime that had been perpetrated in that once peaceful
bungalow behind him; and he cursed their progenitors, their progeny, and all
their kind the while he took silent oath to war upon them relentlessly until death
overtook him.
There followed almost immediately a feeling of content, for, where before his
future at best seemed but a void, now it was filled with possibilities the
contemplation of which brought him, if not happiness, at least a surcease of
absolute grief, for before him lay a great work that would occupy his time.
Stripped not only of all the outward symbols of civilization, Tarzan had also
reverted morally and mentally to the status of the savage beast he had been
reared. Never had his civilization been more than a veneer put on for the sake of
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