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paddles, though he did manage to get several of them to embark in the frail craft

which he and Mugambi paddled about inside the reef where the water was quite

smooth.

During these trips he had placed paddles in their hands, when they attempted to

imitate the movements of him and Mugambi, but so difficult is it for them long to

concentrate upon a thing that he soon saw that it would require weeks of patient

training before they would be able to make any effective use of these new

implements, if, in fact, they should ever do so.

There was one exception, however, and he was Akut. Almost from the first he

showed an interest in this new sport that revealed a much higher plane of

intelligence than that attained by any of his tribe. He seemed to grasp the

purpose of the paddles, and when Tarzan saw that this was so he took much

pains to explain in the meagre language of the anthropoid how they might be

used to the best advantage.

From Mugambi Tarzan learned that the mainland lay but a short distance from

the island. It seemed that the Wagambi warriors had ventured too far out in their

frail craft, and when caught by a heavy tide and a high wind from off-shore they

had been driven out of sight of land. After paddling for a whole night, thinking

that they were headed for home, they had seen this land at sunrise, and, still

taking it for the mainland, had hailed it with joy, nor had Mugambi been aware

that it was an island until Tarzan had told him that this was the fact.

The Wagambi chief was quite dubious as to the sail, for he had never seen such a

contrivance used. His country lay far up the broad Ugambi River, and this was

the first occasion that any of his people had found their way to the ocean.

Tarzan, however, was confident that with a good west wind he could navigate the

little craft to the mainland. At any rate, he decided, it would be preferable to

perish on the way than to remain indefinitely upon this evidently uncharted

island to which no ships might ever be expected to come.

And so it was that when the first fair wind rose he embarked upon his cruise, and

with him he took as strange and fearsome a crew as ever sailed under a savage

master.

Mugambi and Akut went with him, and Sheeta, the panther, and a dozen great

males of the tribe of Akut.

The Beasts of Tarzan