www.freeclassicebooks.com

but the black's spear and arrows were never so sure of results as the rope and

knife of the ape-man.

Finally the men shirked their work, going off into the jungle by twos to explore

and to hunt. All this time the camp had had no sight of Sheeta, or Akut and the

other great apes, though Tarzan had sometimes met them in the jungle as he

hunted.

And as matters tended from bad to worse in the camp of the castaways upon the

east coast of Jungle Island, another camp came into being upon the north coast.

Here, in a little cove, lay a small schooner, the Cowrie, whose decks had but a few

days since run red with the blood of her officers and the loyal members of her

crew, for the Cowrie had fallen upon bad days when it had shipped such men as

Gust and Momulla the Maori and that arch-fiend Kai Shang of Fachan.

There were others, too, ten of them all told, the scum of the South Sea ports; but

Gust and Momulla and Kai Shang were the brains and cunning of the company.

It was they who had instigated the mutiny that they might seize and divide the

catch of pearls which constituted the wealth of the Cowrie's cargo.

It was Kai Shang who had murdered the captain as he lay asleep in his berth,

and it had been Momulla the Maori who had led the attack upon the officer of the

watch.

Gust, after his own peculiar habit, had found means to delegate to the others the

actual taking of life. Not that Gust entertained any scruples on the subject, other

than those which induced in him a rare regard for his own personal safety.

There is always a certain element of risk to the assassin, for victims of deadly

assault are seldom prone to die quietly and considerately. There is always a

certain element of risk to go so far as to dispute the issue with the murderer. It

was this chance of dispute which Gust preferred to forgo.

But now that the work was done the Swede aspired to the position of highest

command among the mutineers. He had even gone so far as to appropriate and

wear certain articles belonging to the murdered captain of the Cowrie--articles of

apparel which bore upon them the badges and insignia of authority.

Kai Shang was peeved. He had no love for authority, and certainly not the

slightest intention of submitting to the domination of an ordinary Swede sailor.

The seeds of discontent were, therefore, already planted in the camp of the

mutineers of the Cowrie at the north edge of Jungle Island. But Kai Shang

realized that he must act with circumspection, for Gust alone of the motley horde

146

The Beasts of Tarzan