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Chapter 13 - Escape

For a moment Rokoff stood sneering down upon Jane Clayton, then his eyes fell

to the little bundle in her lap. Jane had drawn one corner of the blanket over the

child's face, so that to one who did not know the truth it seemed but to be

sleeping.

"You have gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble," said Rokoff, "to bring the

child to this village. If you had attended to your own affairs I should have

brought it here myself.

"You would have been spared the dangers and fatigue of the journey. But I

suppose I must thank you for relieving me of the inconvenience of having to care

for a young infant on the march.

This is the village to which the child was destined from the first. M'ganwazam

will rear him carefully, making a good cannibal of him, and if you ever chance to

return to civilization it will doubtless afford you much food for thought as you

compare the luxuries and comforts of your life with the details of the life your son

is living in the village of the Waganwazam.

"Again I thank you for bringing him here for me, and now I must ask you to

surrender him to me, that I may turn him over to his foster parents." As he

concluded Rokoff held out his hands for the child, a nasty grin of vindictiveness

upon his lips.

To his surprise Jane Clayton rose and, without a word of protest, laid the little

bundle in his arms.

Here is the child," she said. "Thank God he is beyond your power to harm."

Grasping the import of her words, Rokoff snatched the blanket from the child's

face to seek confirmation of his fears. Jane Clayton watched his expression

closely.

She had been puzzled for days for an answer to the question of Rokoff's

knowledge of the child's identity. If she had been in doubt before the last shred of

that doubt was wiped away as she witnessed the terrible anger of the Russian as

he looked upon the dead face of the baby and realized that at the last moment his

dearest wish for vengeance had been thwarted by a higher power.

Almost throwing the body of the child back into Jane Clayton's arms, Rokoff

stamped up and down the hut, pounding the air with his clenched fists and

The Beasts of Tarzan