of the Hindu, and hatred smoldered in his eyes.
Tarzan, watching from above, saw the young American issuing instructions to his men. The personality of this young stranger had impressed Tarzan favorably. He liked him as well as he could like any stranger, for deeply ingrained in the fiber of the ape-man was the wild beast suspicion of all strangers and especially of all white strangers. As he watched him now nothing else within the range of his vision escaped him. It was thus that he saw Raghunath Jafar emerge from his tent, carrying a rifle. Only Tarzan and little Nkima saw this, and only Tarzan placed any sinister interpretation upon it.
Raghunath Jafar walked directly away from camp and entered the jungle. Swinging silently through the trees, Tarzan of the Apes followed him. Jafar made a half circle of the camp just within the concealing verdure of the jungle, and then he halted. From where he stood the entire camp was visible to him, but his own position was concealed by foliage.
Colt was watching the disposition of his loads and the pitching of his tent. His men were busy with the various duties assigned to them by their headman. They were tired and there was little talking. For the most part they worked in silence, and an unusual quiet pervaded the scene-a quiet that was suddenly and unexpectedly shattered by an anguished scream and the report of a rifle, blending so closely that it was impossible to say which had preceded the other. A bullet whizzed by Colt's head and nipped the lobe off the ear of one of his men standing behind him. Instantly the peaceful activities of the camp were supplanted by pandemonium. For a moment there was a difference of opinion as to the direction from which the shot and the scream had come, and then Colt saw a wisp of smoke rising from the jungle just beyond the edge of camp.
'There it is,' he said, and started toward the point.
The headman of the askaris stopped him. 'Do not go, Bwana,' he said. 'Perhaps it is an enemy. Let us fire into the jungle first.'
'No,' said Colt, 'we will investigate first. Take some of your men in from the right, and I'll take the rest in from the left. We'll work around slowly through the jungle until we meet.'
'Yes, Bwana,' said the headman, and calling his men he gave the necessary instructions.
No sound of flight or any suggestion of a living presence greeted the two parties as they entered the jungle; nor had they discovered any signs of a marauder when, a few moments later, they made contact with one another. They were now formed in a half circle that bent back into the jungle and, at a word from Colt, they advanced toward the camp.
It was Colt who found Raghunath Jafar lying dead just at the edge of camp. His right hand grasped his rifle. Protruding from his heart was the shaft of a sturdy arrow.
The Negroes gathering around the corpse looked at one another questioningly and then back into the jungle and up into the trees. One of them examined the arrow. 'It is not like any arrow I have ever seen,' he said. 'It was not made by the hand of man.'
Immediately the blacks were filled with superstitious fears.
'The shot was meant for the bwana,' said one; 'therefore the demon who shot the arrow is a friend of our bwana. We need not be afraid.'
This explanation satisfied the blacks, but it did not satisfy Wayne Colt. He was puzzling over it as he walked back into camp, after giving orders that the Hindu be buried.
Zora Drinov was standing in the entrance to her tent, and as she saw him she came to meet him. 'What was it?' she asked. 'What happened?'
'Comrade Zveri will not kill Raghunath Jafar,' he said.
'Why?' she asked.
'Because Raghunath Jafar is already dead.'
'Who could have shot the arrow?' she asked, after he had told her of the manner of the Hindu's death.
'I haven't the remotest idea,' he admitted. 'It is an absolute mystery, but it means that the camp is being watched and that we must be very careful not to go into the jungle alone. The men believe that the arrow was fired to save me from an assassin's bullet; and while it is entirely possible that Jafar may have been intending to kill me, I believe that if I had gone into the jungle alone instead of him it would have been I that would be lying out there dead now. Have you been bothered at all by natives since you made camp here, or have you had any unpleasant experiences with them at all?'
'We have not seen a native since we entered this camp. We have often commented upon the fact that the country seems to be entirely deserted and uninhabited, notwithstanding the fact that it is filled with game.'
'This thing may help to account for the fact that it is uninhabited,' suggested Colt, 'or rather apparently uninhabited. We may have unintentionally invaded the country of some unusually ferocious tribe that takes this means of acquainting newcomers with the fact that they are persona non grata.'
'You say one of our men was wounded?' asked Zora.
'Nothing serious. He just had his ear nicked a little.'
'Was he near you?'
'He was standing right behind me,' replied Colt.
'I think there is no doubt that Jafar meant to kill you,' said Zora.
'Perhaps,' said Colt, 'but he did not succeed. He did not even kill my appetite; and if I can succeed in calming the excitement of my boy, we shall have supper presently.'
From a distance Tarzan and Nkima watched the burial of Raghunath Jafar and a little later saw the return of Kahiya and his askaris with Zora's boy Wamala, who had been sent out of camp by Jafar.
'Where,' said Tarzan to Nkima, 'are all the many Tarmangani and Gomangani that you told me were in this camp?'
'They have taken their thundersticks and gone away,' replied the little Manu. 'They are hunting for Nkima.'
Tarzan of the Apes smiled one of his rare smiles. 'We shall have to hunt them down and find out what they are about, Nkima,' he said.
'But it grows dark in the jungle soon,' pleaded Nkima, 'and then will Sabor, and Sheeta, and Numa, and Histah be abroad, and they, too, search for little Nkima.'
Darkness had fallen before Colt's boy announced supper, and in the meantime Tarzan, changing his plans, had returned to the trees above the camp. He was convinced that there was something irregular in the aims of the expedition whose base he had discovered. He knew from the size of the camp that it had contained many men. Where they had gone and for what purpose were matters that he must ascertain. Feeling that this expedition, whatever its purpose, might naturally be a principal topic of conversation in the camp, he sought a point of vantage wherefrom he might overhear the conversations that passed between the two white members of the party beneath him; and so it was that as Zora Drinov and Wayne Colt seated themselves at the supper table, Tarzan of the Apes crouched amid the foliage of a great tree just above them.
'You have passed through a rather trying ordeal today,' said Colt, 'but you do not appear to be any the worse for it. I should think that your nerves would be shaken.'
'I have passed through too much already in my life, Comrade Colt, to have any nerves left at all,' replied the girl.
'I suppose so,' said Colt. 'You must have passed through the revolution in Russia.'
'I was only a little girl at the time,' she explained, 'but I remember it quite distinctly.'
Colt was gazing at her intently. 'From your appearance,' he ventured, 'I imagine that you were not by birth of the proletariat.'
'My father was a laborer. He died in exile under the Tzarist regime. That was how I learned to hate everything monarchistic and capitalistic. And when I was offered this opportunity to join Comrade Zveri, I saw another field in which to encompass my revenge, while at the same time advancing the interests of my class throughout the world.'
'When I last saw Zveri in the United States,' said Colt, 'he evidently had not formulated the plans he is now carrying out, as he never mentioned any expedition of this sort. When I received orders to join him here, none of the details was imparted to me; and so I am rather in the dark as to what his purpose is.'
'It is only for good soldiers to obey,' the girl reminded him.
'Yes, I know that,' agreed Colt, 'but at the same time even a poor soldier may act more intelligently sometimes if he knows the objective.'
