"Hit ain't your fault, Mr. Brown," said Tibbs soothingly. "You only done what any man would 'ave done. We hall of us promised to hobey Lady Greystoke, hand she told you not to kill 'im. Though, if you'll pardon my saying so, Hi think the blighter ought to have been killed long ago."
The rumble of a lion's roar echoed through the darkening forest awakening the men to the dangers of the coming night. Brown groaned.
"If I only knew where they were! If I just knew they was alive. If he hasn't killed 'em; just think of 'em back there somewheres in the dark with only that—that pansy to look after 'em," The gloom of Brown's mood was reflected in his voice.
"You don't really think 'e'd kill Lady Greystoke, do you?" demanded Tibbs, horrified. It was quite one thing to kill a lady's maid, but another, an unthinkable thing, to kill a titled lady. Tibbs' viewpoint on such matters was largely a matter of heredity (his people had been serving people as far back as any of them knew) and training and habit of thought. His snobbishness was the snobbishness of the serving class, ingrained and ineradicable.
"No, I don't think he'd kill her, unless she resisted him; and there ain't no question about that. But he did have good reason to want to kill poor little Annette. If it was him that got her, she's dead all right. God, if I could only lay my hands on him! What say we back track tomorrow and keep on huntin' 'till we find him. We may never find them, but it would be some satisfaction to find him. What do you say, Tibbsy? I'll let you help me kill him."
"Hi've never been one that believed in bloodshed, Mr. Brown; but Hi do say, hand Hi'm not ashamed of hit, that hif 'e killed Lady Greystoke and Annette Hi'd like nothing better than to do 'im in all by my bloomin' self; but, Mr. Brown, Hi don't think we ought to turn back. Hi think we should carry on just like milady told us to, hand get 'elp to come back 'ere hand search for them—some one that knows the country."
"I suppose you're right, Tibbsy. We couldn't find the Empire State building if it was wandering around in this man's jungle, let alone a couple of girls."
A lion roared again, nearer this time.
"I reckon we'd better climb a tree, Tibbsy, and wait for daylight. It don't look like sleepin' on the ground was goin' to be very healthy."
"My father always said it was most un'ealthy. 'E got rheumatism something terrible sleeping on the ground in the Crimea ."
"Then let's climb," said Brown. "I don't want to get rheumatism."
Chapter 22 Stalked by Numa
NKIMA SPENT a night of terror. Sheeta, the leopard, prowled on the ground, climbed through the trees. Nkima clung to the loftiest branch that would support his weight and shivered from cold and terror throughout the long night. But at last day dawned, and with the first lessening of the terrifying darkness he swung off through the trees in search of Tarzan and the Waziri. And still he clung to the little cleft stick with the bit of paper fluttering from its tip.
He had not gone far when he heard the voices of men. His little heart beat wildly as he sped in the direction of the sound. So anxious was he to find Tarzan that he had no place in his mind for any doubt that the voices he heard might be those of others than his friends. Nor were they.
Chattering and screaming, Nkima dropped plummetlike from high branches to alight upon the shoulder of his friend. One arm encircled Tarzan's neck, and from the little clenched paw the cleft stick brought the fluttering bit of paper directly in front of the ape-man's eyes. He saw writing upon it, handwriting that even in a brief glance he recognized. Yet he could not believe. It was incredible, preposterous to even imagine that little Nkima bore a message penned by Jane. The remarkable similarity between this handwriting and hers could be nothing more than a fantastic coincidence.
Before Nkima could again escape him Tarzan slipped the message from the stick; and, while the monkey chattered and scolded, scanned it hurriedly. The Waziri, watching him, saw sudden concern mirrored in his expression.
"Where did you get this, Nkima?" demanded the ape-man. "Who gave it to you?"
Nkima stopped scolding and scratched his head. Where did he get it? He could not recall. Many things had happened since then. His memory was a long, dim corridor; and this event a tiny thing at the far end.
"Something is wrong, Bwana?" asked Muviro. "Nkima has brought you bad news?"
"It is a message from Lady Greystoke. She and a party of friends were forced down in an aeroplane. They are lost somewhere without provisions or weapons."
He turned his attention again to Nkima. "Who gave you this?" he demanded. "Was it a she?—a Tarmangani?"
Slowly Nkima was recollecting. "It was not a Tarmangani," he said.
"A Gomangani?"
"It was not a Gomangani."
"Who did give it to you, then?"
Now Nkima recalled. "No one gave it to Nkima. Nkima found it in a wala."
"What does he say, Bwana?" asked Muviro; for Nkima had spoken in the language of his people, which only Tarzan, among men, understands.
"He says he found it in a 'nest'," explained the Lord of the Jungle. "That might mean a house, or a hut, or a shelter, the lair of a wild beast, or the nest of a bird. I will find out."
"Nkima, what built the nest in which you found this?"
"Tarmangani. The Gomangani do not build a wala like it."
"Where is it? Try to recall. You must take me to it. Where was it?"
Nkima waved a paw loosely in the general direction of the West.
"You will take Tarzan to this nest," said the ape-man.
Instantly Nkima was all excitement. He felt quite important. He hopped to the ground and pulled on Tarzan's leg.
"Come with Nkima," he begged.
"Lead your warriors toward the north until you find the village of the Kavuru," Tarzan directed Muviro. "If they are unfriendly, and you cannot enter their village to recover Buira, wait for me there. If you find her and take her away, leave some sign that will tell me so. You understand?"
"Yes, Bwana."
"Then Nkima and I go to search for Lady Greystoke."
It was not by a direct route that Nkima led Tarzan toward the shelter in which he had found the message, but a circuitous one that retraced his wanderings. Each of his mischances and adventures of the preceding days was a landmark on the back trail, and thus slowly he found his way back toward the shelter.
At one point he told Tarzan he had seen a strange Tarman-gani with a she-Tarmangani; and Tarzan was almost convinced that it might have been Jane, the captive of a Kavuru. He was tempted to give up the search for the shelter where the message had been found and attempt to trail the man and the woman; but Nkima could not tell him in which direction they had gone, the spoor had disappeared, and his judgment told him that the place to start his search for Jane was at some point at which he might be positive she had been.
It required infinite patience to endure the vagaries of Nkima's memory and his inability to hold for long to a fixed continuity of thought; but most beasts are patient, and in this respect Tarzan was like his fellows of the jungle. His reward came eventually when Nkima proudly led him down through the trees to the camp that the marooned fliers had made—the camp where Nkima had found the note.
Here Tarzan found indisputable evidence that Jane had indeed been a member of the ill-starred company, and plain before him lay the trail that they had taken toward the east. No longer was he dependent upon Nkima, and with renewed hope he swung off into the unknown country that had swallowed his mate.
Retribution is seldom swift or well directed, yet perhaps in his terror Prince Alexis Sborov was tasting the immediate fruits of his misdeeds through a punishment scarcely less drastic than death itself; for Sborov was an arrant coward, and he was suffering as only a coward might as he trembled alone in the menacing silence of the mysterious jungle.