Chapter 13

Beasts of Tarzan

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER 13, BEASTS OF TARZAN by Edgar R. Burroughs
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Escape


For a moment Rokoff stood sneering down upon Jane Clayton,
then his eyes fell to the little bundle in her lap. Jane had
drawn one corner of the blanket over the child's face, so that
to one who did not know the truth it seemed but to be sleeping.

"You have gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble," said Rokoff,
"to bring the child to this village. If you had attended to your
own affairs I should have brought it here myself.

"You would have been spared the dangers and fatigue of the journey.
But I suppose I must thank you for relieving me of the inconvenience
of having to care for a young infant on the march.

"This is the village to which the child was destined from
the first. M'ganwazam will rear him carefully, making a good
cannibal of him, and if you ever chance to return to civilization
it will doubtless afford you much food for thought as you compare
the luxuries and comforts of your life with the details of the life
your son is living in the village of the Waganwazam.

"Again I thank you for bringing him here for me, and now I must ask you
to surrender him to me, that I may turn him over to his foster parents."
As he concluded Rokoff held out his hands for the child, a nasty grin of
vindictiveness upon his lips.

To his surprise Jane Clayton rose and, without a word of protest,
laid the little bundle in his arms.

"Here is the child," she said. "Thank God he is beyond
your power to harm."

Grasping the import of her words, Rokoff snatched the blanket
from the child's face to seek confirmation of his fears.
Jane Clayton watched his expression closely.

She had been puzzled for days for an answer to the question
of Rokoff's knowledge of the child's identity. If she had
been in doubt before the last shred of that doubt was wiped
away as she witnessed the terrible anger of the Russian as he
looked upon the dead face of the baby and realized that at
the last moment his dearest wish for vengeance had been
thwarted by a higher power.

Almost throwing the body of the child back into Jane Clayton's arms,
Rokoff stamped up and down the hut, pounding the air with his
clenched fists and cursing terribly. At last he halted in front
of the young woman, bringing his face down close to hers.

"You are laughing at me," he shrieked. "You think that
you have beaten me--eh? I'll show you, as I have shown the
miserable ape you call `husband,' what it means to interfere
with the plans of Nikolas Rokoff.

"You have robbed me of the child. I cannot make him the
son of a cannibal chief, but"--and he paused as though to
let the full meaning of his threat sink deep--"I can make the
mother the wife of a cannibal, and that I shall do--after I
have finished with her myself."

If he had thought to wring from Jane Clayton any
sign of terror he failed miserably. She was beyond that.
Her brain and nerves were numb to suffering and shock.

To his surprise a faint, almost happy smile touched her lips.
She was thinking with thankful heart that this poor little
corpse was not that of her own wee Jack, and that--best of all--
Rokoff evidently did not know the truth.

She would have liked to have flaunted the fact in his face,
but she dared not. If he continued to believe that the child
had been hers, so much safer would be the real Jack wherever
he might be. She had, of course, no knowledge of the whereabouts
of her little son--she did not know, even, that he still
lived, and yet there was the chance that he might.

It was more than possible that without Rokoff's knowledge
this child had been substituted for hers by one of the Russian's
confederates, and that even now her son might be safe
with friends in London, where there were many, both able
and willing, to have paid any ransom which the traitorous
conspirator might have asked for the safe release of Lord
Greystoke's son.

She had thought it all out a hundred times since she had
discovered that the baby which Anderssen had placed in her
arms that night upon the Kincaid was not her own, and it had
been a constant and gnawing source of happiness to her to
dream the whole fantasy through in its every detail.

No, the Russian must never know that this was not her baby.
She realized that her position was hopeless--with Anderssen
and her husband dead there was no one in all the world with
a desire to succour her who knew where she might be found.

Rokoff's threat, she realized, was no idle one. That he
would do, or attempt to do, all that he had promised, she
was perfectly sure; but at the worst it meant but a little earlier
release from the hideous anguish that she had been enduring.
She must find some way to take her own life before the Russian
could harm her further.

Just now she wanted time--time to think and prepare herself
for the end. She felt that she could not take the last,
awful step until she had exhausted every possibility of escape.
She did not care to live unless she might find her way
back to her own child, but slight as such a hope appeared
she would not admit its impossibility until the last moment
had come, and she faced the fearful reality of choosing between
the final alternatives--Nikolas Rokoff on one hand and
self-destruction upon the other.

"Go away!" she said to the Russian. "Go away and leave me
in peace with my dead. Have you not brought sufficient misery
and anguish upon me without attempting to harm me further?
What wrong have I ever done you that you should persist
in persecuting me?"

"You are suffering for the sins of the monkey you chose
when you might have had the love of a gentleman--of Nikolas
Rokoff," he replied. "But where is the use in discussing
the matter? We shall bury the child here, and you will
return with me at once to my own camp. Tomorrow I shall
bring you back and turn you over to your new husband--the
lovely M'ganwazam. Come!"

He reached out for the child. Jane, who was on her feet
now, turned away from him.

"I shall bury the body," she said. "Send some men to dig
a grave outside the village."

Rokoff was anxious to have the thing over and get back to
his camp with his victim. He thought he saw in her apathy a
resignation to her fate. Stepping outside the hut, he motioned
her to follow him, and a moment later, with his men, he
escorted Jane beyond the village, where beneath a great tree
the blacks scooped a shallow grave.

Wrapping the tiny body in a blanket, Jane laid it tenderly
in the black hole, and, turning her head that she might not
see the mouldy earth falling upon the pitiful little bundle,
she breathed a prayer beside the grave of the nameless waif
that had won its way to the innermost recesses of her heart.

Then, dry-eyed but suffering, she rose and followed the Russian
through the Stygian blackness of the jungle, along the winding,
leafy corridor that led from the village of M'ganwazam, the
black cannibal, to the camp of Nikolas Rokoff, the white fiend.

Beside them, in the impenetrable thickets that fringed the path,
rising to arch above it and shut out the moon, the girl could
hear the stealthy, muffled footfalls of great beasts, and ever
round about them rose the deafening roars of hunting lions,
until the earth trembled to the mighty sound.

The porters lighted torches now and waved them upon either
hand to frighten off the beasts of prey. Rokoff urged
them to greater speed, and from the quavering note in his
voice Jane Clayton knew that he was weak from terror.

The sounds of the jungle night recalled most vividly the
days and nights that she had spent in a similar jungle with
her forest god--with the fearless and unconquerable Tarzan
of the Apes. Then there had been no thoughts of terror,
though the jungle noises were new to her, and the roar of a
lion had seemed the most awe-inspiring sound upon the great earth.

How different would it be now if she knew that he was
somewhere there in the wilderness, seeking her! Then, indeed,
would there be that for which to live, and every reason
to believe that succour was close at hand--but he was dead!
It was incredible that it should be so.

There seemed no place in death for that great body and
those mighty thews. Had Rokoff been the one to tell her of
her lord's passing she would have known that he lied.
There could be no reason, she thought, why M'ganwazam should
have deceived her. She did not know that the Russian had
talked with the savage a few minutes before the chief had
come to her with his tale.

At last they reached the rude boma that Rokoff's porters
had thrown up round the Russian's camp. Here they found
all in turmoil. She did not know what it was all about,
but she saw that Rokoff was very angry, and from bits of
conversation which she could translate she gleaned that there
had been further desertions while he had been absent, and that
the deserters had taken the bulk of his food and ammunition.

When he had done venting his rage upon those who remained
he returned to where Jane stood under guard of a couple
of his white sailors. He grasped her roughly by the arm
and started to drag her toward his tent. The girl struggled
and fought to free herself, while the two sailors stood by,
laughing at the rare treat.

Rokoff did not hesitate to use rough methods when he found
that he was to have difficulty in carrying out his designs.
Repeatedly he struck Jane Clayton in the face, until at
last, half-conscious, she was dragged within his tent.

Rokoff's boy had lighted the Russian's lamp, and now at
a word from his master he made himself scarce. Jane had
sunk to the floor in the middle of the enclosure. Slowly her
numbed senses were returning to her and she was commencing
to think very fast indeed. Quickly her eyes ran round the
interior of the tent, taking in every detail of its equipment
and contents.

Now the Russian was lifting her to her feet and attempting
to drag her to the camp cot that stood at one side of the tent.
At his belt hung a heavy revolver. Jane Clayton's eyes riveted
themselves upon it. Her palm itched to grasp the huge butt.
She feigned again to swoon, but through her half-closed lids
she waited her opportunity.

It came just as Rokoff was lifting her upon the cot. A noise
at the tent door behind him brought his head quickly about
and away from the girl. The butt of the gun was not an inch
from her hand. With a single, lightning-like move she
snatched the weapon from its holster, and at the same instant
Rokoff turned back toward her, realizing his peril.

She did not dare fire for fear the shot would bring his
people about him, and with Rokoff dead she would fall into
hands no better than his and to a fate probably even worse
than he alone could have imagined. The memory of the two brutes
who stood and laughed as Rokoff struck her was still vivid.

As the rage and fear-filled countenance of the Slav turned
toward her Jane Clayton raised the heavy revolver high above
the pasty face and with all her strength dealt the man a terrific
blow between the eyes.

Without a sound he sank, limp and unconscious, to the ground.
A moment later the girl stood beside him--for a moment at
least free from the menace of his lust.

Outside the tent she again heard the noise that had distracted
Rokoff's attention. What it was she did not know, but, fearing
the return of the servant and the discovery of her deed,
she stepped quickly to the camp table upon which burned the
oil lamp and extinguished the smudgy, evil-smelling flame.

In the total darkness of the interior she paused for a moment to
collect her wits and plan for the next step in her venture for freedom.

About her was a camp of enemies. Beyond these foes a black
wilderness of savage jungle peopled by hideous beasts of prey
and still more hideous human beasts.

There was little or no chance that she could survive even a few
days of the constant dangers that would confront her there;
but the knowledge that she had already passed through
so many perils unscathed, and that somewhere out in the
faraway world a little child was doubtless at that very moment
crying for her, filled her with determination to make
the effort to accomplish the seemingly impossible and cross
that awful land of horror in search of the sea and the remote
chance of succour she might find there.

Rokoff's tent stood almost exactly in the centre of the boma.
Surrounding it were the tents and shelters of his white
companions and the natives of his safari. To pass through
these and find egress through the boma seemed a task too
fraught with insurmountable obstacles to warrant even the
slightest consideration, and yet there was no other way.

To remain in the tent until she should be discovered would
be to set at naught all that she had risked to gain her freedom,
and so with stealthy step and every sense alert she approached
the back of the tent to set out upon the first stage
of her adventure.

Groping along the rear of the canvas wall, she found that
there was no opening there. Quickly she returned to the side
of the unconscious Russian. In his belt her groping fingers
came upon the hilt of a long hunting-knife, and with this she
cut a hole in the back wall of the tent.

Silently she stepped without. To her immense relief she
saw that the camp was apparently asleep. In the dim and
flickering light of the dying fires she saw but a single sentry,
and he was dozing upon his haunches at the opposite side of
the enclosure.

Keeping the tent between him and herself, she crossed
between the small shelters of the native porters to the
boma wall beyond.

Outside, in the darkness of the tangled jungle, she could
hear the roaring of lions, the laughing of hyenas, and the
countless, nameless noises of the midnight jungle.

For a moment she hesitated, trembling. The thought of the
prowling beasts out there in the darkness was appalling.
Then, with a sudden brave toss of her head, she attacked the
thorny boma wall with her delicate hands. Torn and bleeding
though they were, she worked on breathlessly until she had
made an opening through which she could worm her body,
and at last she stood outside the enclosure.

Behind her lay a fate worse than death, at the hands of
human beings.

Before her lay an almost certain fate--but it was only death--
sudden, merciful, and honourable death.

Without a tremor and without regret she darted away from the camp,
and a moment later the mysterious jungle had closed about her.