Usula ran to him and raised him upon his knees, but the man only laughed and babbled like a child. At his side, caught over one of the horns of the buffalo, was the Big Bwana's golden locket with the great diamonds set in it Usula replaced it about the man's neck. He built a strong shelter for him nearby and hunted food, and for many days he remained until the man's strength came back; but his mind did not come back. And thus, in this condition, the faithful Usula led home his master.
They found many wounds and bruises upon his body and his head, some old, some new, some trivial, some serious; and they sent to England for a great surgeon to come out to Africa and seek to mend the poor thing that once had been Tarzan of the Apes.
The dogs that had once loved Lord Greystoke slunk from this brainless creature. Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion, growled when the man was wheeled near his cage.
Korak the Killer paced the floor in dumb despair, for his mother was on her way from England , and what would be the effect upon her of this awful blow? He hesitated even to contemplate it.
Khamis, the witch doctor, had searched untiringly for Uhha, his daughter, since the river devil had stolen her from the village of Obebe the cannibal. He had made pilgrimages to other villages, some of them remote from his own country, but he had found no trace of her or her abductor.
He was returning from another fruitless search that had extended far to the east of the village of Obebe , skirting the Great Thorn Forest a few miles north of the Ugogo. It was early morning. He had just broken his lonely camp and set out upon the last leg of his homeward journey when his keen old eyes discovered something lying at the edge of a small open space a hundred yards to his right. He had just a glimpse of something that was not of the surrounding vegetation. He did not know what it was; but instinct bade him investigate. Moving cautiously nearer he presently identified the thing as a human knee just showing above the low grass that covered the dealing. He crept closer and suddenly his eyes narrowed and his breath made a single, odd little sound as it sucked idly between his lips in mechanical reaction to surprise, for what he saw was the body of the river devil lying upon its back, one knee flexed—the knee that he had seen above the grasses.
His spear advanced and ready he approached until he stood above the motionless body. Was the river devil dead, or was he asleep? Placing the point of his spear against the brown breast Khamis prodded. The devil did not awaken. He was not asleep, then! nor did he appear to be dead. Khamis knelt and placed an ear above the other's heart He was not dead!
The witch doctor thought quickly. In his heart he did not believe in river devils, yet there was a chance that there might be such things and perhaps this one was shamming unconsciousness, or temporarily absent from the flesh it assumed as a disguise that it might go among men without arousing suspicion. But, too, it was the abductor of his daughter. That thought filled him with rage and with courage. He must force the truth from those lips even though the creature were a Devil.
He unwound a bit of fiber rope from about his waist and, turning the body over upon its back, quickly bound the wrists behind it Then he sat down beside it to wait. It was an hour before signs of returning consciousness appeared, then the river devil opened his eyes.
'Where is Uhha, my daughter?' demanded the witch doctor.
The river devil tried to free his arms, but they were too tightly bound. He made no reply to Khamis' question. It was as though he had not heard it. He ceased struggling and lay back again, resting. After a while he opened his eyes once more and lay looking at Khamis, but he did not speak.
'Get up!' commanded the witch doctor and prodded him with a spear.
The river devil rolled over on his side, flexed his right knee, raised on one elbow and finally got to his feet. Khamis prodded him in the direction of the trail. Toward dusk they arrived at the village of Obebe .
When the warriors and the women and the children saw who it was that Khamis was bringing to the village they became very much excited, and had it not been for the witch doctor, of whom they were afraid, they would have knifed and stoned the prisoner to death before he was fairly inside the village gates; but Khamis did not want the river devil killed—not yet. He wanted first to force from him the truth concerning Uhha. So far he had been unable to get a word out of his prisoner. Incessant questioning, emphasized by many prods of the spear point had elicited nothing.
Khamis threw his prisoner into the same hut from which the River Devil had escaped; but he bound him securely and placed two warriors on guard. He had no mind to lose him again. Obebe came to see him. He, too, questioned him; but the river devil only looked blankly in the face of the chief.
'I will make him speak,' said Obebe. 'After we have finished eating, we will have him out and make him speak. I know many ways.'
'You must not kill him,' said the witch doctor. 'He knows what became of Uhha, and until be tells me no one shall kill him.'
'He will speak before he dies,' said Obebe.
'He is a river devil and will never die,' said Khamis, reverting to the old controversy.
'He is Tarzan,' cried Obebe, and the two were still arguing after they had passed out of hearing of the prisoner lying in the filth of the hut.
After they had eaten he saw them heating irons in a fire near the hut of the witch doctor, who was squatting before the entrance working rapidly with numerous charms—bits of wood wrapped in leaves, pieces of stone, some pebbles, a zebra's tail.
Villagers were congregating about Khamis until presently the prisoner could no longer see him. A little later a black boy came and spoke to his guards, and he was taken out and pushed roughly toward the hut of the witch doctor.
Obebe was there, as he saw after the guards had opened a way through the throng and he stood beside the fire in the center of the circle. It was only a small fire; just enough to keep a couple of irons hot.
'Where is Uhha, my daughter?' demanded Khamis.
The river devil did not answer. Not once had he spoken since Khamis had captured him.
'Burn out one of his eyes,' said Obebe. 'That will make him speak!'
'Cut out his tongue!' screamed a woman. 'Cut out his tongue.'
'Then he cannot speak at all, you fool,' cried Khamis.
The witch doctor arose and put the question again, but received no reply. Then he struck the river devil a heavy blow in the face. Khamis had lost his temper, so that he did not fear even a river devil.
'You will answer me now!' he screamed, and stooping he seized a red-hot iron.
'The right eye first!' shrilled Obebe.
The doctor came to the bungalow of the ape-man. Lady Greystoke brought him with her. They were three tired and dusty travelers as they dismounted at last before the rose-embowered entrance—the famous London surgeon, Lady Greystoke, and Flora Hawkes, her maid. The surgeon and Lady Greystoke went immediately to the room where Tarzan sat in an improvised wheelchair. He looked up at them blankly as they entered.
'Don't you know me, John?' asked the woman.
Her son took her by the shoulders and led her away, weeping.
'He does not know any of us,' he said. 'Wait until after the operation, mother, before you see him again. You can do him no good and to see him this way is too hard upon you.'
The great surgeon made his examination. There was pressure on the brain from a recent fracture of the skull. An operation would relieve the pressure and might restore the patient's mind and memory. It was worth attempting.
Nurses and two doctors from Nairobi , engaged the day they arrived there, followed Lady Greystoke and the London surgeon, reaching the bungalow the day after their arrival. The operation took place the following morning.
Lady Greystoke, Korak and Meriem were awaiting, in an adjoining room, the verdict of the surgeon. Was the operation a failure or a success? They sat mutely staring at the door leading into the improvised operating room. At last it opened, after what seemed ages, but was only perhaps, an hour. The surgeon entered the room where they sat their eyes, dumbly pleading, asked him the question that their lips dared not voice.
'I cannot tell you anything as yet,' he said, 'other than that the operation, as an operation, was successful. What the result of it will be only time will tell. I have given orders that no one is to enter his room, other than the nurses for ten days. They are instructed not to speak to him or allow him to speak for the same length of time; but he will not wish to speak, for I shall keep him in a semiconscious condition, by means of drugs, until the ten days
