A BARBED SHAFT KILLS
KRASKI spent a sleepless night. He could not help but realize that
sooner or later Tarzan would discover the loss of his pouch of diamonds,
and that he would return and demand an accounting of the four Londoners
he had befriended. And so it was that as the first streak of dawn
lighted the eastern horizon, the Russian arose from his pallet of dried
grasses within the hut that had been assigned him and Bluber by the
chief, and crept stealthily out into the village street.
“God!” he muttered to himself. “There is only one chance in a thousand
that I can reach the coast alone, but this,” and he pressed his hand
over the bag of diamonds that lay within his shirt—“but this, this is
worth every effort, even to the sacrifice of life—the fortune of a
thousand kings—my God, what could I not do with it in London, and
Paris, and New York!”
Stealthily he slunk from the village, and presently the verdure of the
jungle beyond closed about Carl Kraski, the Russian, as he disappeared
forever from the lives of his companions.
Bluber was the first to discover the absence of Kraski, for, although
there was no love between the two, they had been thrown together owing
to the friendship of Peebles and Throck.
“Have you seen Carl this morning?” he asked Peebles as the three men
gathered around the pot containing the unsavory stew that had been
brought to them for their breakfast.
“No,” said Peebles. “He must be asleep yet.”
“He is not in the hut,” replied Bluber. “He vas not dere ven I woke up.”
“He can take care of himself,” growled Throck, resuming his breakfast.
“You’ll likely find him with some of the ladies,” and he grinned in
appreciation of his little joke on Kraski’s well-known weakness.
They had finished their breakfast and were attempting to communicate
with some of the warriors, in an effort to learn when the chief proposed
that they should set forth for the coast, and still Kraski had not made
an appearance. By this time Bluber was considerably concerned, not at
all for Kraski’s safety, but for his own, since, if something could
happen to Kraski in this friendly village in the still watches of the
night, a similar fate might overtake him, and when he made this
suggestion to the others it gave them food for thought, too, so that
there were three rather apprehensive men who sought an audience with the
chief.
By means of signs and pidgin English, and distorted native dialect, a
word or two of which each of the three understood, they managed to
convey to the chief the information that Kraski had disappeared, and
that they wanted to know what had become of him.
The chief was, of course, as much puzzled as they, and immediately
instituted a thorough search of the village, with the result that it was
soon found that Kraski was not within the palisade, and shortly
afterward footprints were discovered leading through the village gateway
into the jungle.
“_Mein Gott!_” exclaimed Bluber, “he vent out dere, und he vent alone,
in der middle of der night. He must have been crazy.”
“Gord!” cried Throck, “what did he want to do that for?”
“You ain’t missed nothin’, have you?” asked Peebles of the other two.
“’E might ’ave stolen somethin’.”
“_Oi! Oi!_ Vot have ve got to steal?” cried Bluber. “Our guns, our
ammunition—dey are here beside us. He did not take them. Beside dose ve
have nothing of value except my tventy guinea suit.”
“But what did ’e do it for?” demanded Peebles.
“’E must ’ave been walkin’ in ’is bloomin’ sleep,” said Throck. And that
was as near to an explanation of Kraski’s mysterious disappearance as
the three could reach. An hour later they set out toward the coast under
the protection of a company of the chief’s warriors.
Kraski, his rifle slung over his shoulder, moved doggedly along the
jungle trail, a heavy automatic pistol grasped in his right hand. His
ears were constantly strained for the first intimation of pursuit as
well as for whatever other dangers might lurk before or upon either
side. Alone in the mysterious jungle he was experiencing a nightmare of
terror, and with each mile that he traveled the value of the diamonds
became less and less by comparison with the frightful ordeal that he
realized he must pass through before he could hope to reach the coast.
Once Histah, the snake, swinging from a lowhung branch across the trail,
barred his way, and the man dared not fire at him for fear of attracting
the attention of possible pursuers to his position. He was forced,
therefore, to make a detour through the tangled mass of underbrush which
grew closely upon either side of the narrow trail. When he reached it
again, beyond the snake, his clothing was more torn and tattered than
before, and his flesh was scratched and cut and bleeding from the
innumerable thorns past which he had been compelled to force his way. He
was soaked with perspiration and panting from exhaustion, and his
clothing was filled with ants whose vicious attacks upon his flesh
rendered him half mad with pain.
Once again in the clear he tore his clothing from him and sought
frantically to rid himself of the torturing pests.
So thick were the myriad ants upon his clothing that he dared not
attempt to reclaim it. Only the sack of diamonds, his ammunition and his
weapons did he snatch from the ravening horde whose numbers were rapidly
increasing, apparently by millions, as they sought to again lay hold
upon him and devour him.
Shaking the bulk of the ants from the articles he had retrieved, Kraski
dashed madly along the trail as naked as the day he was born, and when,
a half hour later, stumbling and at last falling exhausted, he lay
panting upon the damp jungle earth, he realized the utter futility of
his mad attempt to reach the coast alone, even more fully than he ever
could have under any other circumstances, since there is nothing that so
paralyzes the courage and self-confidence of a civilized man as to be
deprived of his clothing.
However scant the protection that might have been afforded by the torn
and tattered garments he had discarded, he could not have felt more
helpless had he lost his weapons and ammunition instead, for, to such an
extent are we the creatures of habit and environment. It was, therefore,
a terrified Kraski, already foredoomed to failure, who crawled fearfully
along the jungle trail.
That night, hungry and cold, he slept in the crotch of a great tree
while the hunting carnivore roared, and coughed, and growled through the
blackness of the jungle about him. Shivering with terror he started
momentarily to fearful wakefulness, and when, from exhaustion, he would
doze again it was not to rest but to dream of horrors that a sudden roar
would merge into reality. Thus the long hours of a frightful night
dragged out their tedious length, until it seemed that dawn would never
come. But come it did, and once again he took up his stumbling way
toward the west.
Reduced by fear and fatigue and pain to a state bordering upon half
consciousness, he blundered on, with each passing hour becoming
perceptibly weaker, for he had been without food or water since he had
deserted his companions more than thirty hours before.
Noon was approaching. Kraski was moving but slowly now with frequent
rests, and it was during one of these that there came to his numbed
sensibilities an insistent suggestion of the voices of human beings not
far distant. Quickly he shook himself and attempted to concentrate his
waning faculties. He listened intently, and presently with a renewal of
strength he arose to his feet.
There was no doubt about it. He heard voices but a short distance away
and they sounded not like the tones of natives, but rather those of
Europeans. Yet he was still careful, and so he crawled cautiously
forward, until at a turning of the trail he saw before him a clearing
dotted with trees which bordered the banks of a muddy stream. Near the
edge of the river was a small hut thatched with grasses and surrounded
by a rude palisade and further protected by an outer boma of thorn
bushes.
It was from the direction of the hut that the voices were coming, and
now he clearly discerned a woman’s voice raised in protest and in anger,
and replying to it the deep voice of a man.
Slowly the eyes of Carl Kraski went wide in incredulity, not unmixed
with terror, for the tones of the voice of the man he heard were the
tones of the dead Esteban Miranda, and the voice of the woman was that
of the missing Flora Hawkes, whom he had long since given up as dead
also. But Carl Kraski was no great believer in the supernatural.
Disembodied spirits need no huts or palisades, or bomas of thorns. The
owners of those voices were as live—as material—as he.
He started forward toward the hut, his hatred of Esteban and his
jealousy almost forgotten in the relief he felt in the realization that
he was to again have the companionship of creatures of his own kind. He
had moved, however, but a few steps from the edge of the jungle when the
woman’s voice came again to his ear, and with it the sudden realization
of his nakedness. He paused in thought, looking about him, and presently
he was busily engaged gathering the long, broad-leaved jungle grasses,
from which he fabricated a rude but serviceable skirt, which he fastened
about his waist with a twisted rope of the same material. Then with a
feeling of renewed confidence he moved forward toward the hut. Fearing
that they might not recognize him at first, and, taking him for an
enemy, attack him, Kraski, before he reached the entrance to the
palisade, called Esteban by name. Immediately the Spaniard came from the
hut, followed by the girl. Had Kraski not heard his voice and recognized
him by it, he would have thought him Tarzan of the Apes, so close was
the remarkable resemblance.
For a moment the two stood looking at the strange apparition before
them.
“Don’t you know me?” asked Kraski. “I am Carl—Carl Kraski. You know me,
Flora.”
“Carl!” exclaimed the girl, and started to leap forward, but Esteban
grasped her by the wrist and held her back.
“What are you doing here, Kraski?” asked the Spaniard in a surly tone.
“I am trying to make my way to the coast,” replied the Russian. “I am
nearly dead from starvation and exposure.”
“The way to the coast is there,” said the Spaniard, and pointed down the
trail toward the west. “Keep moving, Kraski, it is not healthy for you
here.”
“You mean to say that you will send me on without food or water?”
demanded the Russian.
“There is water,” said Esteban, pointing at the river, “and the jungle
is full of food for one with sufficient courage and intelligence to
gather it.”
“You cannot send him away,” cried the girl. “I did not think it possible
that even you could be so cruel,” and then, turning to the Russian, “O
Carl,” she cried, “do not go. Save me! Save me from this beast!”
“Then stand aside,” cried Kraski, and as the girl wrenched herself free
from the grasp of Miranda the Russian leveled his automatic and fired
point-blank at the Spaniard. The bullet missed its target; the empty
shell jammed in the breach and as Kraski pulled the trigger again with
no result he glanced at his weapon and, discovering its uselessness,
hurled it from him with an oath. As he strove frantically to bring his
rifle into action Esteban threw back his spear hand with the short,
heavy spear that he had learned by now so well to use, and before the
other could press the trigger of his rifle the barbed shaft tore through
his chest and heart. Without a sound Carl Kraski sank dead at the foot
of his enemy and his rival, while the woman both had loved, each in his
own selfish or brutal way, sank sobbing to the ground in the last and
deepest depths of despair.
Seeing that the other was dead, Esteban stepped forward and wrenched his
spear from Kraski’s body and also relieved his dead enemy of his
ammunition and weapons. As he did so his eyes fell upon a little bag
made of skins which Kraski had fastened to his waist by the grass rope
he had recently fashioned to uphold his primitive skirt.
The Spaniard felt of the bag and tried to figure out the nature of its
contents, coming to the conclusion that it was ammunition, but he did
not examine it closely until he had carried the dead man’s weapons into
his hut, where he had also taken the girl, who crouched in a corner,
sobbing.
“Poor Carl! Poor Carl!” she moaned, and then to the man facing her: “You
beast!”
“Yes,” he cried, with a laugh, “I am a beast. I am Tarzan of the Apes,
and that dirty Russian dared to call me Esteban. I am Tarzan! I am
Tarzan of the Apes!” he repeated in a loud scream. “Who dares call me
otherwise dies. I will show them. I will show them,” he mumbled.
The girl looked at him with wide and flaming eyes and shuddered.
“Mad,” she muttered. “Mad! My God—alone in the jungle with a maniac!”
And, in truth, in one respect was Esteban Miranda mad—mad with the
madness of the artist who lives the part he plays. And for so long, now,
had Esteban Miranda played the part, and so really proficient had he
become in his interpretation of the noble character, that he believed
himself Tarzan, and in outward appearance he might have deceived the
ape-man’s best friend. But within that godlike form was the heart of a
cur and the soul of a craven.
“He would have stolen Tarzan’s mate,” muttered Esteban. “Tarzan, Lord of
the Jungle! Did you see how I slew him, with a single shaft? You could
love a weakling, could you, when you could have the love of the great
Tarzan!”
“I loathe you,” said the girl. “You are indeed a beast. You are lower
than the beasts.”
“You are mine, though,” said the Spaniard, “and you shall never be
another’s—first I would kill you—but let us see what the Russian had
in his little bag of hides, it feels like ammunition enough to kill a
regiment,” and he untied the thongs that held the mouth of the bag
closed and let some of the contents spill out upon the floor of the hut.
As the sparkling stones rolled scintillant before their astonished eyes,
the girl gasped in incredulity.
“Holy Mary!” exclaimed the Spaniard, “they are diamonds.”
“Hundreds of them,” murmured the girl. “Where could he have gotten
them?”
“I do not know and I do not care,” said Esteban. “They are mine. They
are all mine—I am rich, Flora. I am rich, and if you are a good girl
you shall share my wealth with me.”
Flora Hawkes’s eyes narrowed. Awakened within her breast was the
always-present greed that dominated her being, and beside it, and
equally as powerful now to dominate her, her hatred for the Spaniard.
Could he have known it, possession of those gleaming baubles had
crystallized at last in the mind of the woman a determination she had
long fostered to slay the Spaniard while he slept. Heretofore she had
been afraid of being left alone in the jungle, but now the desire to
possess this great wealth overcame her terror.
Tarzan, ranging the jungle, picked up the trail of the various bands of
west coast boys and the fleeing slaves of the dead Arabs, and
overhauling each in turn he prosecuted his search for Luvini, awing the
blacks into truthfulness and leaving them in a state of terror when he
departed. Each and every one, they told him the same story. There was
none who had seen Luvini since the night of the battle and the fire, and
each was positive that he must have escaped with some other band.
So thoroughly occupied had the ape-man’s mind been during the past few
days with his sorrow and his search that lesser considerations had gone
neglected, with the result that he had not noted that the bag containing
the diamonds was missing. In fact, he had practically forgotten the
diamonds when, by the merest vagary of chance his mind happened to
revert to them, and then it was that he suddenly realized that they were
missing, but when he had lost them, or the circumstances surrounding the
loss, he could not recall.
“Those rascally Europeans,” he muttered to Jad-bal-ja, “they must have
taken them,” and suddenly with the thought the scarlet scar flamed
brilliantly upon his forehead, as just anger welled within him against
the perfidy and ingratitude of the men he had succored. “Come,” he said
to Jad-bal-ja, “as we search for Luvini we shall search for these others
also.” And so it was that Peebles and Throck and Bluber had traveled but
a short distance toward the coast when, during a noon-day halt, they
were surprised to see the figure of the ape-man moving majestically
toward them while, at his side, paced the great, black-maned lion.
Tarzan made no acknowledgment of their exuberant greeting, but came
forward in silence to stand at last with folded arms before them. There
was a grim, accusing expression upon his countenance that brought the
chill of fear to Bluber’s cowardly heart, and blanched the faces of the
two hardened English pugs.
“What is it?” they chorused. “What is wrong? What has happened?”
“I have come for the bag of stones you took from me,” said Tarzan
simply.
Each of the three eyed his companion suspiciously.
“I do not understand vot you mean, Mr. Tarzan,” purred Bluber, rubbing
his palms together. “I am sure dere is some mistake, unless—” he cast a
furtive and suspicious glance in the direction of Peebles and Throck.
“I don’t know nothin’ about no bag of stones,” said Peebles, “but I will
say as ’ow you can’t trust no Jew.”
“I don’t trust any of you,” said Tarzan. “I will give you five seconds
to hand over the bag of stones, and if you don’t produce it in that time
I shall have you thoroughly searched.”
“Sure,” cried Bluber, “search me, search me, by all means. Vy, Mr.
Tarzan, I vouldn’t take notting from you for notting.”
“There’s something wrong here,” growled Throck. “I ain’t got nothin’ of
yours and I’m sure these two haven’t neither.”
“Where is the other?” asked Tarzan.
“Oh, Kraski? He disappeared the same night you brought us to that
village. We hain’t seen him since—that’s it; I got it now—we wondered
why he left, and now I see it as plain as the face on me nose. It was
him that stole that bag of stones. That’s what he done. We’ve been
tryin’ to figure out ever since he left what he stole, and now I see it
plain enough.”
“Sure,” exclaimed Peebles. “That’s it, and ’ere we are, ’n that’s that.”
“Ve might have knowed it, ve might have knowed it,” agreed Bluber.
“But nevertheless I’m going to have you all searched,” said Tarzan, and
when the head-man came and Tarzan had explained what he desired, the
three whites were quickly stripped and searched. Even their few
belongings were thoroughly gone through, but no bag of stones was
revealed.
Without a word Tarzan turned back toward the jungle, and in another
moment the blacks and the three Europeans saw the leafy sea of foliage
swallow the ape-man and the golden lion.
“Gord help Kraski!” exclaimed Peebles.
“Wot do yer suppose he wants with a bag o’ stones?” inquired Throck. “’E
must be a bit balmy, I’ll say.”
“Balmy nudding,” exclaimed Bluber. “Dere is but vun kind of stones in
Africa vot Kraski would steal and run off into der jungle alone
mit—diamonds.”
Peebles and Throck opened their eyes in surprise. “The damned Russian!”
exclaimed the former. “He double-crossed us, that’s what ’e did.”
“He likely as not saved our lives, says hi,” said Throck. “If this ape
feller had found Kraski and the diamonds with us we’d of all suffered
alike—you couldn’t ’a’ made ’im believe we didn’t ’ave a ’and in it.
And Kraski wouldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ to help us out.”
“I ’opes ’e catches the beggar!” exclaimed Peebles, fervently.
They were startled into silence a moment later by the sight of Tarzan
returning to the camp, but he paid no attention to the whites, going
instead directly to the head-man, with whom he conferred for several
minutes. Then, once more, he turned and left.
Acting on information gained from the head-man, Tarzan struck off
through the jungle in the general direction of the village where he had
left the four whites in charge of the chief, and from which Kraski had
later escaped alone. He moved rapidly, leaving Jad-bal-ja to follow
behind, covering the distance to the village in a comparatively short
time, since he moved almost in an air line through the trees, where
there was no matted undergrowth to impede his progress.
Outside the village gate he took up Kraski’s spoor, now almost
obliterated, it is true, but still legible to the keen perceptive
faculties of the ape-man. This he followed swiftly, since Kraski had
clung tenaciously to the open trail that wound in a general westward
direction.
The sun had dropped almost to the western tree-tops, when Tarzan came
suddenly upon a clearing beside a sluggish stream, near the banks of
which stood a small, rude hut, surrounded by a palisade and a thorn
boma.
The ape-man paused and listened, sniffing the air with his sensitive
nostrils, and then on noiseless feet he crossed the clearing toward the
hut. In the grass outside the palisade lay the dead body of a white man,
and a single glance told the ape-man that it was the fugitive whom he
sought. Instantly he realized the futility of searching the corpse for
the bag of diamonds, since it was a foregone conclusion that they were
now in the possession of whoever had slain the Russian. A perfunctory
examination revealed the fact that he was right in so far as the absence
of the diamonds was concerned.
Both inside the hut and outside the palisade were indications of the
recent presence of a man and woman, the spoor of the former tallying
with that of the creature who had killed Gobu, the great ape, and hunted
Bara, the deer, upon the preserves of the ape-man. But the woman—who
was she? It was evident that she had been walking upon sore, tired feet,
and that in lieu of shoes she wore bandages of cloth.
Tarzan followed the spoor of the man and the woman where it led from the
hut into the jungle. As it progressed it became apparent that the woman
had been lagging behind, and that she had commenced to limp more and
more painfully. Her progress was very slow, and Tarzan could see that
the man had not waited for her, but that he had been, in some places, a
considerable distance ahead of her.
And so it was that Esteban had forged far ahead of Flora Hawkes, whose
bruised and bleeding feet would scarce support her.
“Wait for me, Esteban,” she had pleaded. “Do not desert me. Do not leave
me alone here in this terrible jungle.”
“Then keep up with me,” growled the Spaniard. “Do you think that with
this fortune in my possession I am going to wait here forever in the
middle of the jungle for someone to come and take it away from me? No, I
am going on to the coast as fast as I can. If you can keep up, well and
good. If you cannot, that is your own lookout.”
“But you could not desert me. Even you, Esteban, could not be such a
beast after all that you have forced me to do for you.”
The Spaniard laughed. “You are nothing more to me,” he said, “than an
old glove. With this,” and he held the sack of diamonds before him, “I
can purchase the finest gloves in the capitals of the world—new
gloves,” and he laughed grimly at his little joke.
“Esteban, Esteban,” she cried, “come back, come back. I can go no
farther. Do not leave me. Please come back and save me.” But he only
laughed at her, and as a turn of the trail shut him from her sight, she
sank helpless and exhausted to the ground.