CHAPTER XIX



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 cept stealthily
out inrto 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 Trock, "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 constantly strained for the first
intimation of pursuit as well as for whatever other dangers
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
realized he must pass through before he could hope to reach
the coast.

Once Histah, the snake, swinging from a hung 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 the 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, 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 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,
broadleaved 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
breech 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 drew 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 hung 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.