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At the same instant Tarzan felt mighty jaws close upon his right leg. He tried to
struggle free and raise himself over the side of the boat. His efforts would have
succeeded had not this unexpected interruption galvanized the malign brain of
the Russian into instant action with its sudden promise of deliverance and
revenge.
Like a venomous snake the man leaped toward the stern of the boat, and with a
single swift blow struck Tarzan across the head with the heavy paddle. The ape-
man's fingers slipped from their hold upon the gunwale.
There was a short struggle at the surface, and then a swirl of waters, a little eddy,
and a burst of bubbles soon smoothed out by the flowing current marked for the
instant the spot where Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle, disappeared from
the sight of men beneath the gloomy waters of the dark and forbidding Ugambi.
Weak from terror, Rokoff sank shuddering into the bottom of the dugout. For a
moment he could not realize the good fortune that had befallen him--all that he
could see was the figure of a silent, struggling white man disappearing beneath
the surface of the river to unthinkable death in the slimy mud of the bottom.
Slowly all that it meant to him filtered into the mind of the Russian, and then a
cruel smile of relief and triumph touched his lips; but it was short-lived, for just
as he was congratulating himself that he was now comparatively safe to proceed
upon his way to the coast unmolested, a mighty pandemonium rose from the
river-bank close by.
As his eyes sought the authors of the frightful sound he saw standing upon the
shore, glaring at him with hate-filled eyes, a devil-faced panther surrounded by
the hideous apes of Akut, and in the forefront of them a giant black warrior who
shook his fist at him, threatening him with terrible death.
The nightmare of that flight down the Ugambi with the hideous horde racing after
him by day and by night, now abreast of him, now lost in the mazes of the jungle
far behind for hours and once for a whole day, only to reappear again upon his
trail grim, relentless, and terrible, reduced the Russian from a strong and robust
man to an emaciated, white-haired, fear-gibbering thing before ever the bay and
the ocean broke upon his hopeless vision.
Past populous villages he had fled. Time and again warriors had put out in their
canoes to intercept him, but each time the hideous horde had swept into view to
send the terrified natives shrieking back to the shore to lose themselves in the
jungle.
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