Tambudza, leading Tarzan of the Apes toward the camp ofthe Russian, moved very slowly along the winding junglepath, for she was old and her legs stiff with rheumatism.

So it was that the runners dispatched by M'ganwazam to warnRokoff that the white giant was in his village and that hewould be slain that night reached the Russian's camp beforeTarzan and his ancient guide had covered half the distance.

The guides found the white man's camp in a turmoil. Rokoff had that morning been discovered stunned and bleedingwithin his tent. When he had recovered his senses and realizedthat Jane Clayton had escaped, his rage was boundless.

Rushing about the camp with his rifle, he had sought toshoot down the native sentries who had allowed the youngwoman to elude their vigilance, but several of the otherwhites, realizing that they were already in a precariousposition owing to the numerous desertions that Rokoff'scruelty had brought about, seized and disarmed him.

Then came the messengers from M'ganwazam, but scarcehad they told their story and Rokoff was preparing to departwith them for their village when other runners, panting fromthe exertions of their swift flight through the jungle, rushedbreathless into the firelight, crying that the great white gianthad escaped from M'ganwazam and was already on his wayto wreak vengeance against his enemies.

Instantly confusion reigned within the encircling boma.The blacks belonging to Rokoff's safari were terror-stricken at thethought of the proximity of the white giant who hunted throughthe jungle with a fierce pack of apes and panthers at his heels.

Before the whites realized what had happened the superstitiousfears of the natives had sent them scurrying into the bush--their own carriers as well as the messengers from M'ganwazam--but even in their haste they had not neglected to take with themevery article of value upon which they could lay their hands.

Thus Rokoff and the seven white sailors found themselvesdeserted and robbed in the midst of a wilderness.

The Russian, following his usual custom, berated his companions,laying all the blame upon their shoulders for the events whichhad led up to the almost hopeless condition in which they nowfound themselves; but the sailors were in no mood to brookhis insults and his cursing.

In the midst of this tirade one of them drew a revolver and firedpoint-blank at the Russian. The fellow's aim was poor, buthis act so terrified Rokoff that he turned and fled for his tent.

As he ran his eyes chanced to pass beyond the boma to theedge of the forest, and there he caught a glimpse of thatwhich sent his craven heart cold with a fear that almostexpunged his terror of the seven men at his back, who by thistime were all firing in hate and revenge at his retreating figure.

What he saw was the giant figure of an almost naked whiteman emerging from the bush.

Darting into his tent, the Russian did not halt in his flight,but kept right on through the rear wall, taking advantage ofthe long slit that Jane Clayton had made the night before.

The terror-stricken Muscovite scurried like a hunted rabbitthrough the hole that still gaped in the boma's wall at thepoint where his own prey had escaped, and as Tarzan approachedthe camp upon the opposite side Rokoff disappeared into thejungle in the wake of Jane Clayton.

As the ape-man entered the boma with old Tambudza at his elbowthe seven sailors, recognizing him, turned and fled in theopposite direction. Tarzan saw that Rokoff was not among them,and so he let them go their way--his business was with the Russian,whom he expected to find in his tent. As to the sailors, he wassure that the jungle would exact from them expiation for theirvillainies, nor, doubtless, was he wrong, for his were the lastwhite man's eyes to rest upon any of them.

Finding Rokoff's tent empty, Tarzan was about to set outin search of the Russian when Tambudza suggested to himthat the departure of the white man could only have resultedfrom word reaching him from M'ganwazam that Tarzan wasin his village.

"He has doubtless hastened there," argued the old woman."If you would find him let us return at once."

Tarzan himself thought that this would probably prove tobe the fact, so he did not waste time in an endeavour to locatethe Russian's trail, but, instead, set out briskly for the villageof M'ganwazam, leaving Tambudza to plod slowly in his wake.

His one hope was that Jane was still safe and with Rokoff. If this was the case, it would be but a matter of an hour ormore before he should be able to wrest her from the Russian.

He knew now that M'ganwazam was treacherous and thathe might have to fight to regain possession of his wife. He wished that Mugambi, Sheeta, Akut, and the balance of thepack were with him, for he realized that single-handed itwould be no child's play to bring Jane safely from the clutchesof two such scoundrels as Rokoff and the wily M'ganwazam.

To his surprise he found no sign of either Rokoff or Janein the village, and as he could not trust the word of the chief,he wasted no time in futile inquiry. So sudden and unexpectedhad been his return, and so quickly had he vanished into the jungleafter learning that those he sought were not among the Waganwazam,that old M'ganwazam had no time to prevent his going.

Swinging through the trees, he hastened back to the deserted camphe had so recently left, for here, he knew, was the logical placeto take up the trail of Rokoff and Jane.

Arrived at the boma, he circled carefully about the outsideof the enclosure until, opposite a break in the thorny wall,he came to indications that something had recently passedinto the jungle. His acute sense of smell told him that bothof those he sought had fled from the camp in this direction,and a moment later he had taken up the trail and was followingthe faint spoor.

Far ahead of him a terror-stricken young woman was slinkingalong a narrow game-trail, fearful that the next momentwould bring her face to face with some savage beast or equallysavage man. As she ran on, hoping against hope that she hadhit upon the direction that would lead her eventually to thegreat river, she came suddenly upon a familiar spot.

At one side of the trail, beneath a giant tree, lay a littleheap of loosely piled brush--to her dying day that little spotof jungle would be indelibly impressed upon her memory. It was where Anderssen had hidden her--where he had givenup his life in the vain effort to save her from Rokoff.

At sight of it she recalled the rifle and ammunition thatthe man had thrust upon her at the last moment. Until nowshe had forgotten them entirely. Still clutched in her handwas the revolver she had snatched from Rokoff's belt, butthat could contain at most not over six cartridges--not enoughto furnish her with food and protection both on the longjourney to the sea.

With bated breath she groped beneath the little mound,scarce daring to hope that the treasure remained where shehad left it; but, to her infinite relief and joy, her hand cameat once upon the barrel of the heavy weapon and then uponthe bandoleer of cartridges.

As she threw the latter about her shoulder and felt the weightof the big game-gun in her hand a sudden sense of securitysuffused her. It was with new hope and a feeling almost ofassured success that she again set forward upon her journey.

That night she slept in the crotch of a tree, as Tarzan hadso often told her that he was accustomed to doing, and earlythe next morning was upon her way again. Late in the afternoon,as she was about to cross a little clearing, she was startledat the sight of a huge ape coming from the jungle upon theopposite side.

The wind was blowing directly across the clearing betweenthem, and Jane lost no time in putting herself downwindfrom the huge creature. Then she hid in a clump of heavybush and watched, holding the rifle ready for instant use.

To her consternation she saw that the apes were pausing in thecentre of the clearing. They came together in a little knot,where they stood looking backward, as though in expectationof the coming of others of their tribe. Jane wished that they would go on, for she knew that atany moment some little, eddying gust of wind might carryher scent down to their nostrils, and then what would theprotection of her rifle amount to in the face of those giganticmuscles and mighty fangs?

Her eyes moved back and forth between the apes and the edgeof the jungle toward which they were gazing until at lastshe perceived the object of their halt and the thing thatthey awaited. They were being stalked.

Of this she was positive, as she saw the lithe, sinewy formof a panther glide noiselessly from the jungle at the point atwhich the apes had emerged but a moment before.

Quickly the beast trotted across the clearing towardthe anthropoids. Jane wondered at their apparent apathy,and a moment later her wonder turned to amazement as she sawthe great cat come quite close to the apes, who appearedentirely unconcerned by its presence, and, squatting downin their midst, fell assiduously to the business of preening,which occupies most of the waking hours of the cat family.

If the young woman was surprised by the sight of these naturalenemies fraternizing, it was with emotions little short of fearfor her own sanity that she presently saw a tall, muscular warriorenter the clearing and join the group of savage beasts assembled there.

At first sight of the man she had been positive that he wouldbe torn to pieces, and she had half risen from her shelter,raising her rifle to her shoulder to do what she could toavert the man's terrible fate.

Now she saw that he seemed actually conversing with the beasts--issuing orders to them.

Presently the entire company filed on across the clearingand disappeared in the jungle upon the opposite side.

With a gasp of mingled incredulity and relief Jane Claytonstaggered to her feet and fled on away from the terrible hordethat had just passed her, while a half-mile behind her anotherindividual, following the same trail as she, lay frozen withterror behind an ant-hill as the hideous band passed quiteclose to him.

This one was Rokoff; but he had recognized the membersof the awful aggregation as allies of Tarzan of the Apes. No sooner, therefore, had the beasts passed him than he rose andraced through the jungle as fast as he could go, in order thathe might put as much distance as possible between himselfand these frightful beasts.

So it happened that as Jane Clayton came to the bank of the river,down which she hoped to float to the ocean and eventual rescue,Nikolas Rokoff was but a short distance in her rear.

Upon the bank the girl saw a great dugout drawn half-wayfrom the water and tied securely to a near-by tree.

This, she felt, would solve the question of transportationto the sea could she but launch the huge, unwieldy craft. Unfastening the rope that had moored it to the tree, Janepushed frantically upon the bow of the heavy canoe, but forall the results that were apparent she might as well have beenattempting to shove the earth out of its orbit.

She was about winded when it occurred to her to try workingthe dugout into the stream by loading the stern with ballastand then rocking the bow back and forth along the bankuntil the craft eventually worked itself into the river.

There were no stones or rocks available, but along theshore she found quantities of driftwood deposited by the riverat a slightly higher stage. These she gathered and piled farin the stern of the boat, until at last, to her immense relief,she saw the bow rise gently from the mud of the bank andthe stern drift slowly with the current until it again lodged afew feet farther down-stream.

Jane found that by running back and forth between thebow and stern she could alternately raise and lower each endof the boat as she shifted her weight from one end to theother, with the result that each time she leaped to the sternthe canoe moved a few inches farther into the river.

As the success of her plan approached more closely tofruition she became so wrapped in her efforts that she failedto note the figure of a man standing beneath a huge tree atthe edge of the jungle from which he had just emerged.

He watched her and her labours with a cruel and maliciousgrin upon his swarthy countenance.

The boat at last became so nearly free of the retardingmud and of the bank that Jane felt positive that she couldpole it off into deeper water with one of the paddles whichlay in the bottom of the rude craft. With this end in view sheseized upon one of these implements and had just plunged itinto the river bottom close to the shore when her eyeshappened to rise to the edge of the jungle.

As her gaze fell upon the figure of the man a little cry ofterror rose to her lips. It was Rokoff.

He was running toward her now and shouting to her towait or he would shoot--though he was entirely unarmed itwas difficult to discover just how he intended making goodhis threat.

Jane Clayton knew nothing of the various misfortunes thathad befallen the Russian since she had escaped from his tent,so she believed that his followers must be close at hand.

However, she had no intention of falling again into theman's clutches. She would rather die at once than that thatshould happen to her. Another minute and the boat would be free.

Once in the current of the river she would be beyond Rokoff'spower to stop her, for there was no other boat uponthe shore, and no man, and certainly not the cowardly Rokoff,would dare to attempt to swim the crocodile-infestedwater in an effort to overtake her.

Rokoff, on his part, was bent more upon escape than aught else. He would gladly have forgone any designs he might havehad upon Jane Clayton would she but permit him to sharethis means of escape that she had discovered. He wouldpromise anything if she would let him come aboard the dugout,but he did not think that it was necessary to do so.

He saw that he could easily reach the bow of the boatbefore it cleared the shore, and then it would not benecessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff wouldhave felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promiseshe might have made the girl, but he disliked the idea of havingto sue for favour with one who had so recently assaultedand escaped him.

Already he was gloating over the days and nights of revengethat would be his while the heavy dugout drifted itsslow way to the ocean.

Jane Clayton, working furiously to shove the boat beyondhis reach, suddenly realized that she was to be successful,for with a little lurch the dugout swung quickly into thecurrent, just as the Russian reached out to place his handupon its bow.

His fingers did not miss their goal by a half-dozen inches. The girl almost collapsed with the reaction from the terrificmental, physical, and nervous strain under which she hadbeen labouring for the past few minutes. But, thank Heaven,at last she was safe!

Even as she breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving, shesaw a sudden expression of triumph lighten the features ofthe cursing Russian, and at the same instant he droppedsuddenly to the ground, grasping firmly upon something whichwriggled through the mud toward the water.

Jane Clayton crouched, wide-eyed and horror-stricken, inthe bottom of the boat as she realized that at the last instantsuccess had been turned to failure, and that she was indeedagain in the power of the malignant Rokoff.

For the thing that the man had seen and grasped was theend of the trailing rope with which the dugout had beenmoored to the tree.