www.freeclassicebooks.com

From the old negress, Tambudza, Tarzan had gathered a suggestion that now

filled his mind with doubts and misgivings. When the old woman had told him of

the child's death she had also added that the white woman, though grief-stricken,

had confided to her that the baby was not hers.

Tarzan could see no reason for believing that Jane could have found it advisable

to deny her identity or that of the child; the only explanation that he could put

upon the matter was that, after all, the white woman who had accompanied his

son and the Swede into the jungle fastness of the interior had not been Jane at

all.

The more he gave thought to the problem, the more firmly convinced he became

that his son was dead and his wife still safe in London, and in ignorance of the

terrible fate that had overtaken her first-born.

After all, then, his interpretation of Rokoff's sinister taunt had been erroneous,

and he had been bearing the burden of a double apprehension needlessly--at

least so thought the ape-man. From this belief he garnered some slight surcease

from the numbing grief that the death of his little son had thrust upon him.

And such a death! Even the savage beast that was the real Tarzan, inured to the

sufferings and horrors of the grim jungle, shuddered as he contemplated the

hideous fate that had overtaken the innocent child.

As he made his way painfully towards the coast, he let his mind dwell so

constantly upon the frightful crimes which the Russian had perpetrated against

his loved ones that the great scar upon his forehead stood out almost

continuously in the vivid scarlet that marked the man's most relentless and

bestial moods of rage. At times he startled even himself and sent the lesser

creatures of the wild jungle scampering to their hiding places as involuntary roars

and growls rumbled from his throat.

Could he but lay his hand upon the Russian!

Twice upon the way to the coast bellicose natives ran threateningly from their

villages to bar his further progress, but when the awful cry of the bull-ape

thundered upon their affrighted ears, and the great white giant charged bellowing

upon them, they had turned and fled into the bush, nor ventured thence until he

had safely passed.

Though his progress seemed tantalizingly slow to the ape-man whose idea of

speed had been gained by such standards as the lesser apes attain, he made, as

a matter of fact, almost as rapid progress as the drifting canoe that bore Rokoff

on ahead of him, so that he came to the bay and within sight of the ocean just

119

The Beasts of Tarzan