So steady was the unblinking gaze that Dorsky became uneasy beneath it. “Well,” said Dorsky, “so you have come to, have you? What do you want?” The captive made no reply, but his eyes never left the other’s face. When he entered the tent, he saw the man lying where he had been left but now his eyes were open, and when they met those of the Russian, the latter had a sensation similar to that which one feels when he comes eye to eye with a wild beast that has been caught in a trap. The sound, which had come apparently from the tent in which the captive lay, had had a peculiar effect upon Dorsky, causing the flesh of his scalp to creep and a strange foreboding to fill him so that as he neared the tent, he went more slowly and held his revolver ready in his hand. “Come, we’ll have a look at him.” But the black held back, and the white man went on alone. “Perhaps the man in the tent has died, for such a noise may well have come from the throat of a ghost.” The fellow, wide-eyed and trembling, shook his head. “What was that?” Dorsky demanded of his black boy. The blacks, who had been talking animatedly, before their own shelters, went quickly quiet and seized their weapons. Then he turned his head so that he faced the opening in the tent, and from his lips burst a long, low cry the cry of a beast in distress.ĭorsky, who was lolling in a chair before his own tent, leaped to his feet. Tarzan strove again to snap the bonds that held him, but they would not yield. Hearing voices, he realized that he was not alone, though he was confident that there must be comparatively few men in camp.ĭeep in the jungle he heard an elephant trumpeting, and once, from far off, came faintly the roar of a lion. He knew, however, that at least one night had passed for the shadows that he could see through the tent opening indicated that the sun was high in the heavens, whereas it had been low in the west when last he saw it. He listened intently and sniffed the air, but he could detect no evidence of the teeming camp that he had seen when he had brought the girl back.
Tantor tarzan free#
He tried to wrench his wrists free from the cords that held them, but they resisted his every effort. He did not know what had happened, and at first be could not imagine where he was but, as recollection slowly returned and he recognized about him the canvas walls of a tent, he understood that in some way his enemies had captured him. When he tried to move, he discovered that his wrists and ankles were securely bound. He felt weak and sick, and his head ached horribly. It was the morning of the day following that upon which he had been shot before Tarzan regained consciousness. He pictured two splendid golden thrones upon one of them sat the Emperor Peter I, and upon the other the Empress Zora and so he dreamed through the long, hard marches toward the east. He saw a new Roman emperor ruling Europe, and himself as Emperor of Africa making an alliance with his new European power against all the balance of the world. Perhaps Zveri was a little mad, but then he was a disciple of mad men whose greed for power wrought distorted images in their minds, so that they could not differentiate between the rational and the bizarre and then, too, Zveri had for so long dreamed his dream of empire that he saw now only his goal and none of the insurmountable obstacles that beset his path. It was Zveri’s intention to make no more than a demonstration in the Italian colony, merely sufficient to arouse the anger of the Italians still further against the French and to give the fascist dictator the excuse which Zveri believed was all that he awaited to carry his mad dream of Italian conquest across Europe. “Long before you return, this stranger will have been removed.”Ī long and difficult march lay before the invaders, their route lying across south-eastern Abyssinia into Italian Somaliland, along five hundred miles of rough and savage country. “You need give the matter no further thought, Comrade,” replied Dorsky.
“It must appear that he escaped, or, at worst, that he met an accidental death.” “I leave this matter entirely in your hands,” he said. Dorsky and a handful of blacks were left behind to guard the prisoner and watch over the store of provisions and equipment that were to be left in the base camp.Īs the column had been preparing to march, Zveri gave his final instructions to Dorsky. EARLY the following morning the expedition filed out of camp, the savage black warriors arrayed in the uniforms of French Colonial Troops while Zveri, Romero, Ivitch, and Mori wore the uniforms of French oifficers, Zora Drinov accompanied the marching column for though she had asked to be permitted to remain and nurse Tarzan, Zveri would not permit her to do so, saying that he would not again let her out of his sight.
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