Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"Go your way back to your own villages in the Urambi country. I
shall know where to find you if I want you. If your Bwana is dead,
you shall be punished," and swinging into the branches of the lower
terrace, Tarzan disappeared from the sight of the unhappy blacks in
the direction of the Wiramwazi, while Nkima, screaming shrilly, raced
through the trees to overtake him.
From his conversation with the deserting members of von Harben's
safari, Tarzan was convinced that the young man had been traitorously
abandoned and that in all likelihood he was making his way alone back
upon the trail of the deserters.
Not knowing Erich von Harben, Tarzan could not have guessed that the
young man would push on alone into the unknown and forbidding depths
of the Wiramwazi, but assumed on the contrary that he would adopt the
more prudent alternative and seek to overtake his men as rapidly as
possible. Believing this, the ape-man followed back along the trail of
the blacks, expecting momentarily to meet von Harben.
This plan greatly reduced his speed, but even so he traveled with so
much greater rapidity than the blacks that he came to the slopes of the
Wiramwazi upon the third day after he had interviewed the remnants of
von Harben's safari.
It was with great difficulty that he finally located the point at
which von Harben had been abandoned by his men, as a heavy rain and
wind-storm had obliterated the trail, but at last he stumbled upon the
tent, which had blown down, but nowhere could he see any signs of von
Harben's trail.
Not having come upon any signs of the white man in the jungle or any
indication that he had followed his fleeing safari, Tarzan was forced
to the conclusion that if von Harben was not indeed dead he must have
faced the dangers of the unknown alone and now be either dead or alive
somewhere within the mysterious fastnesses of the Wiramwazi.
"Nkima," said the ape-man, "the Tarmangani have a saying that when it
is futile to search for a thing, it is like hunting for a needle in a
haystack. Do you believe, Nkima, that in this great mountain range we
shall find our needle?"
"Let us go home," said Nkima, "where it is warm. Here the wind blows
and up there it is colder. It is no place for little Manu, the monkey."
"Nevertheless, Nkima, there is where we are going."
The monkey looked up toward the frowning heights above. "Little Nkima
is afraid," he said. "It is in such places that Sheeta, the panther,
lairs."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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