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.
