village, nothing of which was left save a few piles of smoldering embers.
'Where was the hut in which the white woman was confined?' demanded Usula, as they entered the smoking ruins.
'Here,' said one of the blacks, and walked quickly a few paces beyond what had been the village gateway. Suddenly he halted and pointed at something which lay upon the ground. 'There,' he said, 'is the white woman you seek.'
Usula and the others pressed forward. Rage and grief contended for mastery of them as they beheld, lying before them, the charred remnants of a human body.
'It is she,' said Usula, turning away to hide his grief as the tears rolled down his ebon cheeks. The other Waziri were equally affected, for they all had loved the mate of the Big Bwana.
'Perhaps it is not she,' suggested one of them; 'perhaps it is another.'
'We can tell quickly,' cried a third. 'If her rings are among the ashes it is indeed she,' and he knelt and searched for the rings which Lady Greystoke habitually wore.
Usula shook his head despairingly. 'It is she,' he said, 'there is the very stake to which she was fastened'— he pointed to the blackened stub of a stake close beside the body—'and as for the rings, even if they are not there it will mean nothing, for Luvini would have taken them away from her as soon as he captured her. There was time for everyone else to leave the village except she, who was bound and could not leave—no, it cannot be another.'
The Waziri scooped a shallow grave and reverently deposited the ashes there, marking the spot with a little cairn of stones.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SPOOR OF REVENGE
As Tarzan of the Apes, adapting his speed to that of Jad-bal-ja, made his comparatively slow way toward home, he reviewed with varying emotions the experiences of the past week. While he had been unsuccessful in raiding the treasure vaults of Opar, the sack of diamonds which he carried compensated several-fold for this miscarriage of his plans. His only concern now was for the safety of his Waziri, and, perhaps, a troublesome desire to seek out the whites who had drugged him and mete out to them the punishment they deserved. In view, however, of his greater desire to return home he decided to make no effort at apprehending them for the time being at least.
Hunting together, feeding together, and sleeping together, the man and the great lion trod the savage jungle trails toward home. Yesterday they shared the meat of Bara, the deer, today they feasted upon the carcass of Horta, the boar, and between them there was little chance that either would go hungry.
They had come within a day's march of the bungalow when Tarzan discovered the spoor of a considerable body of warriors. As some men devour the latest stock-market quotations as though their very existence depended upon an accurate knowledge of them, so Tarzan of the Apes devoured every scrap of information that the jungle held for him, for, in truth, an accurate knowledge of all that this information could impart to him had been during his lifetime a sine qua non to his existence. So now he carefully examined the spoor that lay before him, several days old though it was and partially obliterated by the passage of beasts since it had been made, but yet legible enough to the keen eyes and nostrils of the ape-man. His partial indifference suddenly gave way to keen interest, for among the footprints of the great warriors he saw now and again the smaller one of a white woman—a loved footprint that he knew as well as you know your mother's face.
'The Waziri returned and told her that I was missing,' he soliloquized, 'and now she has set out with them to search for me.' He turned to the lion. 'Well, Jad-bal-ja, once again we turn away from home—but no, where she is is home.'
The direction that the trail led rather mystified Tarzan of the Apes, as it was not along the direct route toward Opar, but in a rather more southerly direction. On the sixth day his keen ears caught the sound of approaching men, and presently there was wafted to his nostrils the spoor of blacks. Sending Jad-bal-ja into a thicket to hide, Tarzan took to the trees and moved rapidly in the direction of the approaching negroes. As the distance between them lessened the scent became stronger, until, even before he saw them, Tarzan knew that they were Waziri, but the one effluvium that would have filled his soul with happiness was lacking.
It was a surprised Usula who, at the head of the sad and dejected Waziri, came at the turning of the trail suddenly face to face with his master.
'Tarzan of the Apes!' cried Usula. 'Is it indeed you?'
'It is none other,' replied the ape-man, 'but where is Lady Greystoke?'
'Ah, master, how can we tell you!' cried Usula.
'You do not mean—' cried Tarzan. 'It cannot be. Nothing could happen to her while she was guarded by my Waziri!'
The warriors hung their heads in shame and sorrow. 'We offer our lives for hers,' said Usula, simply. He threw down his spear and shield and, stretching his arms wide apart, bared his great breast to Tarzan. 'Strike, Bwana,' he said.
The ape-man turned away with bowed head. Presently he looked at Usula again. 'Tell me how it happened,' he said, 'and forget your foolish speech as I have forgotten the suggestion which prompted it.'
Briefly Usula narrated the events which had led up to the death of Jane, and when he was done Tarzan of the Apes spoke but three words, voicing a question which was typical of him.
'Where is Luvini?' he asked.
'Ah, that we do not know,' replied Usula.
'But I shall know,' said Tarzan of the Apes. 'Go upon your way, my children, back to your huts, and your women and your children, and when next you see Tarzan of the Apes you will know that Luvini is dead.'
They begged permission to accompany him, but he would not listen to them.
'You are needed at home at this time of year,' he said. 'Already have you been gone too long from the herds and fields. Return, then, and carry word to Korak, but tell him that it is my wish that he, too, remains at home—if I fail, then may he come and take up my unfinished work if he wishes to do so.' As he ceased speaking he turned back in the direction from which he had come, and whistled once a single, low, long-drawn note, and a moment later Jad-bal-ja, the golden lion, bounded into view along the jungle trail.
'The golden lion!' cried Usula. 'When he escaped from Keewazi, it was to search for his beloved Bwana.'
Tarzan nodded. 'He followed many marches to a strange country until he found me,' he said, and then he bid the Waziri good-bye and bent his steps once more away from home in search of Luvini and revenge.
John Peebles, wedged in the crotch of a tree, greeted the coming dawn with weary eyes. Near him was Dick Throck, similarly braced another crotch, while Kraski, more intelligent or therefore possessing more inventive genius, rigged a small platform of branches across two parallel boughs, upon which he lay in comparative comfort. Ten feet above him Bluber swung, half exhausted and wholly terrified, to a smaller branch, supported in something that approximated safety by a fork of the branch to which he clung.
'Gord,' groaned Peebles, 'hi'll let the bloody lions 'ave me before hi'll spend another such a night as this, an' 'ere we are, 'n that's that!'
'And blime, too,' said Throck, 'hi sleeps on the ground hafter this, lions or no lions.'
'If the combined intelligence of the three of you was equal to that of a walrus,' remarked Kraski, 'we might have slept in comparative safety and comfort last night on the ground.'
'Hey there, Bluber, Mister Kraski is spikin' to yer,' called Peebles in fine sarcasm, accenting the Mister.
'Oi! Oi! I don't care vot nobody says,' moaned Bluber.
''E wants us to build a 'ouse for 'im hevery night,' continued Peebles, 'while 'e stands abaht and tells us bloomin' well 'ow to do it, and 'im, bein' a fine gentleman, don't do no work.'
'Why should I do any work with my hands when you two big beasts haven't got anything else work with?' asked Kraski. 'You would all have starved by this time if I hadn't found food for you. And you'll be lion meat in the end, or die of exhaustion if you don't listen to me—not that it would be much loss.'
