Beasts of Tarzan | Page 9

this would come to me."
He went on deck then, locking the cabin-door upon his prisoner, and
for several days she did not see him. The truth of the matter being that
Nikolas Rokoff was so poor a sailor that the heavy seas the Kincaid
encountered from the very beginning of her voyage sent the Russian to
his berth with a bad attack of sea-sickness.
During this time her only visitor was an uncouth Swede, the Kincaid's
unsavoury cook, who brought her meals to her. His name was Sven
Anderssen, his one pride being that his patronymic was spelt with a
double "s."
The man was tall and raw-boned, with a long yellow moustache, an
unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with
one grimy thumb buried deep in the lukewarm stew, that seemed, from
the frequency of its repetition, to constitute the pride of his culinary art,
was sufficient to take away the girl's appetite.

His small, blue, close-set eyes never met hers squarely. There was a
shiftiness of his whole appearance that even found expression in the
cat-like manner of his gait, and to it all a sinister suggestion was added
by the long slim knife that always rested at his waist, slipped through
the greasy cord that supported his soiled apron. Ostensibly it was but an
implement of his calling; but the girl could never free herself of the
conviction that it would require less provocation to witness it put to
other and less harmless uses.
His manner toward her was surly, yet she never failed to meet him with
a pleasant smile and a word of thanks when he brought her food to her,
though more often than not she hurled the bulk of it through the tiny
cabin port the moment that the door closed behind him.
During the days of anguish that followed Jane Clayton's imprisonment,
but two questions were uppermost in her mind--the whereabouts of her
husband and her son. She fully believed that the baby was aboard the
Kincaid, provided that he still lived, but whether Tarzan had been
permitted to live after having been lured aboard the evil craft she could
not guess.
She knew, of course, the deep hatred that the Russian felt for the
Englishman, and she could think of but one reason for having him
brought aboard the ship--to dispatch him in comparative safety in
revenge for his having thwarted Rokoff's pet schemes, and for having
been at last the means of landing him in a French prison.
Tarzan, on his part, lay in the darkness of his cell, ignorant of the fact
that his wife was a prisoner in the cabin almost above his head.
The same Swede that served Jane brought his meals to him, but, though
on several occasions Tarzan had tried to draw the man into
conversation, he had been unsuccessful. He had hoped to learn through
this fellow whether his little son was aboard the Kincaid, but to every
question upon this or kindred subjects the fellow returned but one reply,
"Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard." So after several attempts
Tarzan gave it up.

For weeks that seemed months to the two prisoners the little steamer
forged on they knew not where. Once the Kincaid stopped to coal, only
immediately to take up the seemingly interminable voyage.
Rokoff had visited Jane Clayton but once since he had locked her in the
tiny cabin. He had come gaunt and hollow-eyed from a long siege of
sea-sickness. The object of his visit was to obtain from her her personal
cheque for a large sum in return for a guarantee of her personal safety
and return to England.
"When you set me down safely in any civilized port, together with my
son and my husband," she replied, "I will pay you in gold twice the
amount you ask; but until then you shall not have a cent, nor the
promise of a cent under any other conditions."
"You will give me the cheque I ask," he replied with a snarl, "or neither
you nor your child nor your husband will ever again set foot within any
port, civilized or otherwise."
"I would not trust you," she replied. "What guarantee have I that you
would not take my money and then do as you pleased with me and
mine regardless of your promise?"
"I think you will do as I bid," he said, turning to leave the cabin.
"Remember that I have your son--if you chance to hear the agonized
wail of a tortured child it may console you to reflect that it is because
of your stubbornness that the baby suffers--and that it is your baby."
"You would not do it!" cried the girl. "You would not--could not be so
fiendishly cruel!"