Tarzan the Untamed | Page 6

long journey drew to its close and he was passing
through the last stretch of heavy forest that bounded his estate upon the
east, and then this was traversed and he stood upon the plain's edge
looking out across his broad lands towards his home.
At the first glance his eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed. Even at
that distance he could see that something was amiss. A thin spiral of
smoke arose at the right of the bungalow where the barns had stood, but
there were no barns there now, and from the bungalow chimney from
which smoke should have arisen, there arose nothing.
Once again Tarzan of the Apes was speeding onward, this time even
more swiftly than before, for he was goaded now by a nameless fear,
more product of intuition than of reason. Even as the beasts, Tarzan of
the Apes seemed to possess a sixth sense. Long before he reached the
bungalow, he had almost pictured the scene that finally broke upon his
view.
Silent and deserted was the vine-covered cottage. Smoldering embers
marked the site of his great barns. Gone were the thatched huts of his
sturdy retainers, empty the fields, the pastures, and corrals. Here and
there vultures rose and circled above the carcasses of men and beasts.

It was with a feeling as nearly akin to terror as he ever had experienced
that the ape-man finally forced himself to enter his home. The first
sight that met his eyes set the red haze of hate and bloodlust across his
vision, for there, crucified against the wall of the living-room, was
Wasimbu, giant son of the faithful Muviro and for over a year the
personal bodyguard of Lady Jane.
The overturned and shattered furniture of the room, the brown pools of
dried blood upon the floor, and prints of bloody hands on walls and
woodwork evidenced something of the frightfulness of the battle that
had been waged within the narrow confines of the apartment. Across
the baby grand piano lay the corpse of another black warrior, while
before the door of Lady Jane's boudoir were the dead bodies of three
more of the faithful Greystoke servants.
The door of this room was closed. With drooping shoulders and dull
eyes Tarzan stood gazing dumbly at the insensate panel which hid from
him what horrid secret he dared not even guess.
Slowly, with leaden feet, he moved toward the door. Gropingly his
hand reached for the knob. Thus he stood for another long minute, and
then with a sudden gesture he straightened his giant frame, threw back
his mighty shoulders and, with fearless head held high, swung back the
door and stepped across the threshold into the room which held for him
the dearest memories and associations of his life. No change of
expression crossed his grim and stern-set features as he strode across
the room and stood beside the little couch and the inanimate form
which lay face downward upon it; the still, silent thing that had pulsed
with life and youth and love.
No tear dimmed the eye of the ape-man, but the God who made him
alone could know the thoughts that passed through that still half-savage
brain. For a long time he stood there just looking down upon the dead
body, charred beyond recognition, and then he stooped and lifted it in
his arms. As he turned the body over and saw how horribly death had
been meted he plumbed, in that instant, the uttermost depths of grief
and horror and hatred.

Nor did he require the evidence of the broken German rifle in the outer
room, or the torn and blood-stained service cap upon the floor, to tell
him who had been the perpetrators of this horrid and useless crime.
For a moment he had hoped against hope that the blackened corpse was
not that of his mate, but when his eyes discovered and recognized the
rings upon her fingers the last faint ray of hope forsook him.
In silence, in love, and in reverence he buried, in the little rose garden
that had been Jane Clayton's pride and love, the poor, charred form and
beside it the great black warriors who had given their lives so futilely in
their mistress' protection.
At one side of the house Tarzan found other newly made graves and in
these he sought final evidence of the identity of the real perpetrators of
the atrocities that had been committed there in his absence.
Here he disinterred the bodies of a dozen German askaris and found
upon their uniforms the insignia of the company and regiment to which
they had belonged. This was enough for the ape-man. White officers
had commanded these men, nor would it be a difficult task to discover
who they were.
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