Kraski nodded. “I understand,” he said, and, turning, left the tent.
He had taken but a step when the girl recalled him. “Do not let him see me. Do not let him guess that I am here or that you know me.”
The man nodded and left her. Approaching the tense figures before the fire he greeted Tarzan with a pleasant smile and a cheery word.
“Welcome,” he said, “we are always glad to see a stranger in our camp. Sit down. Hand the gentleman a stool, John,” he said to Peebles.
The ape-man eyed Kraski as he had eyed the others. There was no answering friendly light in his eyes responding to the Russian’s greeting.
“I have been trying to find out what your party is doing here,” he said sharply to the Russian, “but they still insist that I am someone whom I am not. They are either fools or knaves, and I intend to find out which, and deal with them accordingly.”
“Come, come,” cried Kraski, soothingly. “There must be some mistake, I am sure. But tell me, who are you?”
“I am Tarzan of the Apes,” replied the ape-man. “No hunters enter this part of Africa without my permission. That fact is so well known that there is no chance of your having passed the coast without having been so advised. I seek an explanation, and that quickly.”
“Ah, you are Tarzan of the Apes,” exclaimed Kraski. “Fortunate indeed are we, for now may we be set straight upon our way, and escape from our frightful dilemma is assured. We are lost, sir, inextricably lost, due to the ignorance or knavery of our guide, who deserted us several weeks ago. Surely we knew of you; who does not know of Tarzan of the Apes? But it was not our intention to cross the boundaries of your territory. We were searching farther south for specimens of the fauna of the district, which our good friend and employer, here, Mr. Adolph Bluber, is collecting at great expense for presentation to a museum in his home city in America. Now I am sure that you can tell us where we are and direct us upon our proper course.”
Peebles, Throck, and Bluber stood fascinated by Kraski’s glib lies, but it was the German Jew who first rose to the occasion. Too thick were the skulls of the English pugs to grasp quickly the clever ruse of the Russian.
“Vy yes,” said the oily Bluber, rubbing his palms together, “dot iss it, yust vot I vas going to tell you.”
Tarzan turned sharply upon him. “Then what was all this talk about Esteban?” he asked. “Was it not by that name that these others addressed me?”
“Ah,” cried Bluber, “John will haf his leetle joke. He iss ignorant of Africa; he has neffer been here before. He t’ought perhaps dat you vere a native. John he calls all der natives Esteban, und he has great jokes by himself mit dem, because he knows dey cannot onderstand vot he says. Hey John, iss it not so, vot it iss I say?” But the shrewd Bluber did not wait for John to reply. “You see,” he went on, “ve are lost, und you take us ouid mit dis jungle, ve pay you anyt’ing—you name your own price.”
The ape-man only half believed him, yet he was somewhat mollified by their evidently friendly intentions. Perhaps after all they were telling him a half-truth and had, really, wandered into his territory unwittingly. That, however, he would find out definitely from their native carriers, from whom his own Waziri would wean the truth. But the matter of his having been mistaken for Esteban still piqued his curiosity, also he was still desirous of learning the identity of the slayer of Gobu, the great ape.
“Please sit down,” urged Kraski. “We were about to have coffee and we should be delighted to have you join us. We meant no wrong in coming here, and I can assure you that we will gladly and willingly make full amends to you, or to whomever else we may have unintentionally wronged.”
To take coffee with these men would do no harm. Perhaps he had wronged them, but however that might be a cup of their coffee would place no great obligation upon him. Flora had been right in her assertion that if Tarzan of the Apes had any weakness whatsoever it was for an occasional cup of black coffee late at night. He did not accept the proffered campstool, but squatted, ape-fashion, before them, the flickering light of the beast fires playing upon his bronzed hide and bringing into relief the gracefully contoured muscles of his godlike frame. Not as the muscles of the blacksmith or the professional strong man were the muscles of Tarzan of the Apes, but rather those of Mercury or Apollo, so symmetrically balanced were their proportions, suggesting only the great strength that lay in them. Trained to speed and agility were they as well as to strength, and thus, clothing as they did his giant frame, they imparted to him the appearance of a demigod.
Throck, Peebles, and Bluber sat watching him in spellbound fascination, while Kraski walked over to the cook fire to arrange for the coffee. The two Englishmen were as yet only half awakened to the fact that they had mistaken this newcomer for another, and as it was, Peebles still scratched his head and grumbled to himself in inarticulate half-denial of Kraski’s assumption of the new identity of Tarzan. Bluber was inwardly terror-stricken. His keener intelligence had quickly grasped the truth of Kraski’s recognition of the man for what he was rather than for what Peebles and Throck thought him to be, and, as Bluber knew nothing of Flora’s plan, he was in quite a state of funk as he tried to visualize the outcome of Tarzan’s discovery of them at the very threshold of Opar. He did not realize, as did Flora,
