when Tarzan realized their condition more fully, he ordered a halt; and the party went into camp upon the banks of a river.
As time had never been a matter of consequence to the ape-man, delays, except in cases of immediate emergency, gave him no concern. He could wait there for one day, or two days, or as long as was necessary while his warriors recuperated; nor would he leave them while they needed someone to hunt for them. He made them rest therefore while he foraged for food.
The day after they had left the village of Udalo , a lone warrior trotted into the clearing and approached the gates of the kraal. The white plume of the Waziri waved above his head; and in his hand he carried a split stick, in the end of which an envelope was inserted.
When warriors met him at the gates, he asked to see the chief; and they took him to Udalo, but not without misgivings; for he bore a marked resemblance to the ten prisoners who had escaped them.
Udalo eyed the warrior sullenly. 'Who are you?' he demanded, 'and what do you want in the village of Udalo ?
'I am a Waziri,' replied the man. 'I bear a message for the big bwana, Tarzan. The sun has risen many times since he left his country to come here in search of the Kavuru. I have followed to bring this message to him. Have you seen him?'
'He has been here, but he has gone,' said Udalo, sullenly.
'When did he go, and in which direction?' asked the messenger.
'He went away yesterday with ten Waziri warriors. They took the trail toward the north. You will follow him?'
'Yes.'
'I will give you food before you go, and when you find Tarzan tell him that Udalo treated you well.' The fear of the Lord of the Jungle was in the heart of Udalo, the chief.
It was mid-day of the following day. The Waziri lay resting in their camp beside the river. Tarzan squatted at the base of a tree fashioning arrows for his quiver. Little Nkima perched upon one of his shoulders, busily occupied by that age-old simian pastime of searching for fleas upon his belly. He was vastly contented.
Presently the ape-man raised his head and looked toward the south where the trail debauched upon the clearing where they were encamped.
'Someone comes,' he said.
The Waziri stirred themselves. Some of them seized their weapons and started to rise, but Tarzan reassured them.
'There is no danger,' he said; 'there is only one. He comes boldly, and not by stealth.'
'Who could it be?' asked Muviro. 'We have seen no one in all this lonely country since we left the Bukena village.'
The ape-man shrugged. 'We shall have to wait,' he said, 'until our eyes tell us, for he is down-wind from us.'
Little Nkima, noting the listening attitudes of the others, abandoned the pursuit of a singularly notable specimen and following the example of the Waziri, stared intently toward the south.
'Something comes?' he asked Tarzan.
'Yes.'
Little Nkima slipped quickly down behind Tarzan's back, and peered anxiously across his left shoulder. 'Something is coming to eat little Nkima?' he demanded.
He glanced up into the tree behind him, gauging the distance to the lowest branch, and debated in his little mind the wisdom of discretion. However, feeling reasonably safe in his present sanctuary, he stood his ground; and a moment later a lone warrior trotted into the clearing. At sight of the party encamped there, he voiced his pleasure in a series of savage whoops; and the Waziri returned his greeting in kind, for he was the runner bearing a message for Tarzan.
As he came forward with the message in the split stick to deliver it to Tarzan, little Nkima evinced great interest and as the message was handed to his master he seized the stick and commenced to scold and jabber when Tarzan took the envelope from it.
The ape-man removed the message and dropped the envelope to the ground, whereupon little Nkima sprang upon it and occupied himself in a futile endeavor to make it remain upright on the end of the stick as the messenger had carried it.
The Waziri were looking expectantly at Tarzan as he read the message, for messages delivered in the depths of the forest were rare indeed.
As he read, Tarzan's brow clouded; and when he had finished he turned to Muviro.
'There is bad news, bwana?' asked the black.
'The mem-sahib left London for Nairobi in an aeroplane,' he said; 'that was just before the big storm. You remember, Muviro, that after the storm broke we heard an aeroplane circling above?'
'Yes, bwana.'
'We thought then that it was in great danger. Perhaps that was the ship in which the mem-sahib rode.'
'It went away,' Muviro reminded him, 'and we did not hear it again. Perhaps it went on to Nairobi .'
'Perhaps,' said the ape-man, 'but it was a very bad storm and the pilot was lost. Either that, or he was in trouble and looking for a landing place; otherwise he would not have been circling as he was.'
For some time Tarzan sat in thought, and then the silence was broken by Muviro. 'You will go back at once to Nairobi , bwana?' he asked.
'What good would it do?' asked the ape-man. 'If they reached Nairobi , she is safe; if they did not, where might I search? In an hour an aeroplane might fly as far as one could travel on the ground in a day; perhaps, if they had trouble, it flew for many hours after we heard it before it came down; and if the pilot were lost, there is no telling in what direction it went. The chances are that I should never find it; even if I did, it would be too late. Then, too, it may as easily be that it came down in the direction we are going as in any other direction.'
'Then we may continue to search for my daughter, Buira?' asked Muviro.
'Yes,' said Tarzan. 'As soon as you are rested and well again, we shall go on toward the country of the Kavuru.'
Little Nkima was becoming more and more excited and irritable. Notwithstanding all his efforts, the envelope would not remain upright upon the end of the stick. He chattered and scolded, but it availed him nothing; and then Tarzan noticed him, and taking the stick from him spread the slit end open and inserted the envelope.
Nkima watched him intently, his head cocked upon one side. Tarzan repeated the operation several times, and then he handed the envelope and the stick to Nkima.
An adept in mimicry, the monkey re-enacted all that he had watched Tarzan do; and after a few trials succeeded in inserting the envelope into the end of the stick.
His achievement filled him with enthusiasm and pride. Jabbering excitedly, he leaped from Waziri to Waziri until all had examined the marvel that little Nkima had wrought; nor did his excitement soon subside, and in the exuberance of his spirits he went racing through the trees clinging tightly to the stick that bore the envelope in its end. Tarzan and the Waziri laughed at his antics.
'Little Nkima is proud because he has learned a new trick,' said one.
'He thinks now he is a great witch-doctor among the monkeys,' said Muviro.
'It is like many of the useless things that man learns,' said Tarzan. 'It will never do him nor anyone else any good; but if it makes him happy, that is enough.'
For three days more the Waziri rested, and then Muviro said that they were ready to continue on toward the north.
In the meantime, Tarzan had dispatched the runner back to Nairobi with a message for Jane and also one to the authorities there, asking them to make a search for the ship in the event that it had not already arrived.
Little Nkima was still intrigued by his new accomplishment. He would sit for an hour at a time taking the envelope out of the stick and putting it back in, and he never permitted it out of his possession. Wherever he went, he carried the stick and the envelope with him.
Having been several days in this camp, and having seen no danger, Nkima, always restless, had formed the habit of wandering farther and farther away. He found some other little monkeys of his own species with whom he tried to make friends; but in this he succeeded only partially; the males bared their teeth and chattered at him,
