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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.
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