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One day as he was thus engaged, tracking an unsuspecting savage, he came
upon the fellow in the act of hurling a spear at a wounded white man who
crouched in a clump of bush at the trail's side. The white was one whom Tarzan
had often seen, and whom he recognized at once.
Deep in his memory was implanted those repulsive features--the close-set eyes,
the shifty expression, the drooping yellow moustache.
Instantly it occurred to the ape-man that this fellow had not been among those
who had accompanied Rokoff at the village where Tarzan had been a prisoner.
He had seen them all, and this fellow had not been there. There could be but one
explanation--he it was who had fled ahead of the Russian with the woman and
the child--and the woman had been Jane Clayton. He was sure now of the
meaning of Rokoff's words.
The ape-man's face went white as he looked upon the pasty, vice-marked
countenance of the Swede. Across Tarzan's forehead stood out the broad band of
scarlet that marked the scar where, years before, Terkoz had torn a great strip of
the ape-man's scalp from his skull in the fierce battle in which Tarzan had
sustained his fitness to the kingship of the apes of Kerchak.
The man was his prey--the black should not have him, and with the thought he
leaped upon the warrior, striking down the spear before it could reach its mark.
The black, whipping out his knife, turned to do battle with this new enemy, while
the Swede, lying in the bush, witnessed a duel, the like of which he had never
dreamed to see--a half-naked white man battling with a half-naked black, hand
to hand with the crude weapons of primeval man at first, and then with hands
and teeth like the primordial brutes from whose loins their forebears sprung.
For a time Anderssen did not recognize the white, and when at last it dawned
upon him that he had seen this giant before, his eyes went wide in surprise that
this growling, rending beast could ever have been the well-groomed English
gentleman who had been a prisoner aboard the Kincaid.
An English nobleman! He had learned the identity of the Kincaid's prisoners from
Lady Greystoke during their flight up the Ugambi. Before, in common with the
other members of the crew of the steamer, he had not known who the two might
be.
The fight was over. Tarzan had been compelled to kill his antagonist, as the
fellow would not surrender.
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