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The Swede saw the white man leap to his feet beside the corpse of his foe, and

placing one foot upon the broken neck lift his voice in the hideous challenge of

the victorious bull-ape.

Anderssen shuddered. Then Tarzan turned toward him. His face was cold and

cruel, and in the grey eyes the Swede read murder.

"Where is my wife?" growled the ape-man. "Where is the child?"

Anderssen tried to reply, but a sudden fit of coughing choked him. There was an

arrow entirely through his chest, and as he coughed the blood from his wounded

lung poured suddenly from his mouth and nostrils.

Tarzan stood waiting for the paroxysm to pass. Like a bronze image--cold, hard,

and relentless--he stood over the helpless man, waiting to wring such information

from him as he needed, and then to kill.

Presently the coughing and haemorrhage ceased, and again the wounded man

tried to speak. Tarzan knelt near the faintly moving lips.

"The wife and child!" he repeated. "Where are they?"

Anderssen pointed up the trail.

The Russian--he got them," he whispered.

How did you come here?" continued Tarzan. "Why are you not with Rokoff?"

They catch us," replied Anderssen, in a voice so low that the ape-man could just

distinguish the words. "They catch us. Ay fight, but my men they all run away.

Then they get me when Ay ban vounded. Rokoff he say leave me here for the

hyenas. That vas vorse than to kill. He tak your vife and kid."

What were you doing with them--where were you taking them?" asked Tarzan,

and then fiercely, leaping close to the fellow with fierce eyes blazing with the

passion of hate and vengeance that he had with difficulty controlled, "What harm

did you do to my wife or child? Speak quick before I kill you! Make your peace

with God! Tell me the worst, or I will tear you to pieces with my hands and teeth.

You have seen that I can do it!"

A look of wide-eyed surprise overspread Anderssen's face.

Why," he whispered, "Ay did not hurt them. Ay tried to save them from that

Russian. Your vife was kind to me on the Kincaid, and Ay hear that little baby

cry sometimes. Ay got a vife an' kid for my own by Christiania an' Ay couldn't

bear for to see them separated an' in Rokoff's hands any more. That vas all. Do

The Beasts of Tarzan