Beasts of Tarzan | Page 7

guessed that his guide was Alexis Paulvitch he
would have realized that naught but treachery lay in the man's heart,
and that danger lurked in the path of every move.
"He is unguarded now," continued the Russian. "Those who took him
feel perfectly safe from detection, and with the exception of a couple of
members of the crew, whom I have furnished with enough gin to
silence them effectually for hours, there is none aboard the Kincaid. We
can go aboard, get the child, and return without the slightest fear."
Tarzan nodded.
"Let's be about it, then," he said.
His guide led him to a small boat moored alongside the wharf. The two
men entered, and Paulvitch pulled rapidly toward the steamer. The
black smoke issuing from her funnel did not at the time make any
suggestion to Tarzan's mind. All his thoughts were occupied with the
hope that in a few moments he would again have his little son in his
arms.

At the steamer's side they found a monkey-ladder dangling close above
them, and up this the two men crept stealthily. Once on deck they
hastened aft to where the Russian pointed to a hatch.
"The boy is hidden there," he said. "You had better go down after him,
as there is less chance that he will cry in fright than should he find
himself in the arms of a stranger. I will stand on guard here."
So anxious was Tarzan to rescue the child that he gave not the slightest
thought to the strangeness of all the conditions surrounding the Kincaid.
That her deck was deserted, though she had steam up, and from the
volume of smoke pouring from her funnel was all ready to get under
way made no impression upon him.
With the thought that in another instant he would fold that precious
little bundle of humanity in his arms, the ape-man swung down into the
darkness below. Scarcely had he released his hold upon the edge of the
hatch than the heavy covering fell clattering above him.
Instantly he knew that he was the victim of a plot, and that far from
rescuing his son he had himself fallen into the hands of his enemies.
Though he immediately endeavoured to reach the hatch and lift the
cover, he was unable to do so.
Striking a match, he explored his surroundings, finding that a little
compartment had been partitioned off from the main hold, with the
hatch above his head the only means of ingress or egress. It was evident
that the room had been prepared for the very purpose of serving as a
cell for himself.
There was nothing in the compartment, and no other occupant. If the
child was on board the Kincaid he was confined elsewhere.
For over twenty years, from infancy to manhood, the ape-man had
roamed his savage jungle haunts without human companionship of any
nature. He had learned at the most impressionable period of his life to
take his pleasures and his sorrows as the beasts take theirs.

So it was that he neither raved nor stormed against fate, but instead
waited patiently for what might next befall him, though not by any
means without an eye to doing the utmost to succour himself. To this
end he examined his prison carefully, tested the heavy planking that
formed its walls, and measured the distance of the hatch above him.
And while he was thus occupied there came suddenly to him the
vibration of machinery and the throbbing of the propeller.
The ship was moving! Where to and to what fate was it carrying him?
And even as these thoughts passed through his mind there came to his
ears above the din of the engines that which caused him to go cold with
apprehension.
Clear and shrill from the deck above him rang the scream of a
frightened woman.
Chapter 2
Marooned
As Tarzan and his guide had disappeared into the shadows upon the
dark wharf the figure of a heavily veiled woman had hurried down the
narrow alley to the entrance of the drinking-place the two men had just
quitted.
Here she paused and looked about, and then as though satisfied that she
had at last reached the place she sought, she pushed bravely into the
interior of the vile den.
A score of half-drunken sailors and wharf-rats looked up at the
unaccustomed sight of a richly gowned woman in their midst. Rapidly
she approached the slovenly barmaid who stared half in envy, half in
hate, at her more fortunate sister.
"Have you seen a tall, well-dressed man here, but a minute since," she
asked, "who met another and went away with him?"

The girl answered in the affirmative, but could not tell which way the
two had gone. A sailor who