controlled.
To a man not entirely blinded by passion, that might have meant something-it might have meant a grim determination to carry self-defense to the very length of death-but Raghunath Jafar saw only the woman of his desire, and stepping quickly forward he seized her.
Zora Drinov was young and lithe and strong, yet she was no match for the burly Hindu, whose layers of greasy fat belied the great physical strength beneath them. She tried to wrench herself free and escape from the tent, but he held her and dragged her back. Then she turned upon him in a fury and struck him repeatedly in the face, but he only enveloped her more closely in his embrace and bore her backward upon the cot.
Chapter 3: Out of the Grave
WAYNE COLT'S guide, who had been slightly in advance of the American, stopped suddenly and looked back with a broad smile. Then he pointed ahead. 'The camp, Bwana!' he exclaimed triumphantly.
'Thank the Lord!' exclaimed Colt with a sigh of relief.
'It is deserted,' said the guide.
'It does look that way, doesn't it?' agreed Colt. 'Let's have a look around,' and, followed by his men, he moved in among the tents. His tired porters threw down their loads and, with the askaris, sprawled at full length beneath the shade of the trees, while Colt, followed by Tony, commenced an investigation of the camp.
Almost immediately the young American's attention was attracted by the violent shaking of one of the tents. 'There is someone or something in there,' he said to Tony, as he walked briskly toward the entrance.
The sight within that met his eyes brought a sharp ejaculation to his lips-a man and woman struggling upon the ground, the former choking the bare throat of his victim while the girl struck feebly at his face with clenched fists.
So engrossed was Jafar in his unsuccessful attempt to subdue the girl that he was unaware of Colt's presence until a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder and he was jerked violently aside.
Consumed by maniacal fury, he leaped to his feet and struck at the American only to be met with a blow that sent him reeling backward. Again he charged and again he was struck heavily upon the face. This time he went to the ground, and as he staggered to his feet, Colt seized him, wheeled him around and hurtled him through the entrance of the tent, accelerating his departure with a well-timed kick. 'If he tries to come back, Tony, shoot him,' he snapped at the Filipino, and then turned to assist the girl to her feet. Half carrying her, he laid her on the cot and then, finding water in a bucket, bathed her forehead, her throat and her wrists.
Outside the tent Raghunath Jafar saw the porters and the askaris lying in the shade of a tree. He also saw Antonio Mori with a determined scowl upon his face and a revolver in his hand, and with an angry imprecation he turned and made his way toward his own tent, his face livid with anger and murder in his heart.
Presently Zora Drinov opened her eyes and looked up into the solicitous face of Wayne Colt, bending over her.
From the leafy seclusion of a tree above the camp, Tarzan of the Apes overlooked the scene below. A single, whispered syllable had silenced Nkima's scolding. Tarzan had noted the violent shaking of the tent that had attracted Colt's attention, and he had seen the precipitate ejection of the Hindu from its interior and the menacing attitude of the Filipino preventing Jafar's return to the conflict. These matters were of little interest to the ape-man. The quarrelings and defections of these people did not even arouse his curiosity. What he wished to learn was the reason for their presence here, and for the purpose of obtaining this information he had two plans. One was to keep them under constant surveillance until their acts divulged that which he wished to know. The other was to determine definitely the head of the expedition and then to enter the camp and demand the information he desired. But this he would not do until he had obtained sufficient information to give him an advantage. What was going on within the tent he did not know, nor did he care.
For several seconds after she opened her eyes Zora Drinov gazed intently into those of the man bent upon her. 'You must be the American,' she said finally.
'I am Wayne Colt,' he replied, 'and I take it from the fact that you guessed my identity that this is Comrade Zveri's camp.'
She nodded. 'You came just in time, Comrade Colt,' she said.
'Thank God for that,' he said.
'There is no God,' she reminded him.
Colt Hushed. 'We are creatures of heredity and habit,' he explained.
Zora Drinov smiled. 'That is true,' she said, 'but it is our business to break a great many bad habits not only for ourselves, but for the entire world.'
Since he had laid her upon the cot, Colt had been quietly appraising the girl. He had not known that there was a white woman in Zveri's camp, but had he it is certain that he would not have anticipated one at all like this girl. He would rather have visualized a female agitator capable of accompanying a band of men to the heart of Africa as a coarse and unkempt peasant woman of middle age; but this girl, from her head of glorious, wavy hair to her small well-shaped foot, suggested the antithesis of a peasant origin and, far from being unkempt, was as trig and smart as it were possible for a woman to be under such circumstances and, in addition, she was young and beautiful.
'Comrade Zveri is absent from camp?' he asked.
'Yes, he is away on a short expedition.'
'And there is no one to introduce us to one another?' he asked, with a smile.
'Oh, pardon me,' she said. 'I am Zora Drinov.'
'I had not anticipated such a pleasant surprise,' said Colt. 'I expected to find nothing but uninteresting men like myself. And who was the fellow I interrupted?'
'That was Raghunath Jafar, a Hindu.'
'He is one of us?' asked Colt.
'Yes,' replied the girl, 'but not for long-not after Peter Zveri returns.'
'You mean-?'
'I mean that Peter will kill him.'
Colt shrugged. 'It is what he deserves,' he said. 'Perhaps I should have done it.'
'No,' said the girl, 'leave that for Peter.'
'Were you left alone here in this camp without any protection?' demanded Colt.
'No. Peter left my boy and ten askaris, but in some way Jafar got them all out of camp.'
'You will be safe now,' he said. 'I shall see to that until Comrade Zveri returns. I am going now to make my camp, and I shall send two of my askaris to stand guard before your tent.'
'That is good of you,' she said, 'but I think now that you are here it will not be necessary.'
'I shall do it anyway,' he said. 'I shall feel safer.'
'And when you have made camp, will you come and have supper with me?' she asked, and then, 'Oh, I forgot, Jafar has sent my boy away, too. There is no one to cook for me.'
'Then, perhaps, you will dine with me,' he said. 'My boy is a fairly good cook.'
'I shall be delighted, Comrade Colt,' she replied.
As the American left the tent, Zora Drinov lay back upon the cot with half-closed eyes. How different the man had been from what she had expected. Recalling his features, and especially his eyes, she found it difficult to believe that such a man could be a traitor to his father or to his country, but then, she realized, many a man has turned against his own for a principle. With her own people it was different. They had never had a chance. They had always been ground beneath the heel of one tyrant or another. What they were doing they believed implicitly to be for their own and for their country's good. Among those of them who were motivated by honest conviction there could not fairly be brought any charge of treason, and yet, Russian though she was to the core, she could not help but look with contempt upon the citizens of other countries who turned against their governments to aid the ambitions of a foreign power. We may be willing to profit by the act of foreign mercenaries and traitors, but we cannot admire them.
As Colt crossed from Zora's tent to where his men lay to give the necessary instructions for the making of his camp, Raghunath Jafar watched him from the interior of his own tent. A malignant scowl clouded the countenance
