Part 25 (1/2)

As Jane and Tarzan stood upon the vessel's deck recounting to one another the details of the various adventures through which each had passed since they had parted in their London ho brows a hidden watcher upon the shore

Through the ht thwart the escape of the English as the vital spark remained within the vindictive brain of Alexander Paulvitch none who had aroused the enht be entirely safe

Plan after plan he formed only to discard each either as is de was the crirasp the real truth of that which lay between himself and the ape-lish lord, but with himself and his confederate

And at the rejection of each new scheme Paulvitch arrived always at the saht while half the breadth of the Ugambi separated him from the object of his hatred

But hoas he to span the crocodile-infested waters? There was no canoe nearer than the Mosula village, and Paulvitch was none too sure that the Kincaid would still be at anchor in the river when he returned should he take the tie and return with a canoe Yet there was no other way, and so, convinced that thus alonescowl at the two figures upon the Kincaid's deck, turned away frole, his ot even his terror of the savage world through which he moved

Baffled and beaten at every turn of Fortune's wheel, reacted upon ti, the principal victim of his own crireatest happiness lay in a continuation of the plottings and scheht him and Rokoff to disaster, and the latter finally to a hideous death

As the Russian stue there presently crystallized within his brain a plan which seemed more feasible than any that he had as yet considered

He would coht to the side of the Kincaid, and once aboard, would search out the inal creho had survived the terrors of this frightful expedition, and enlist them in an attempt to wrest the vessel from Tarzan and his beasts

In the cabin were arms and ammunition, and hidden in a secret receptacle in the cabin table was one of those infernal machines, the construction of which had occupied h in the confidence of the Nihilists of his native land

That was before he had sold therad Paulvitch winced as he recalled the denunciation of him that had fallen from the lips of one of his former comrades ere the poor devil expiated his political sins at the end of a he to think of now He could do et his hands upon it Within the little hardwood case hidden in the cabin table rested sufficient potential destructiveness to wipe out in the fraction of a second every enemy aboard the Kincaid

Paulvitch licked his lips in anticipatory joy, and urged his tired legs to greater speed that he e to carry out his designs

All depended, of course, upon when the Kincaid departed The Russian realized that nothing could be accoht of day Darkness must shroud his approach to the shi+p's side, for should he be sighted by Tarzan or Lady Greystoke he would have no chance to board the vessel

The gale that was bloas, he believed, the cause of the delay in getting the Kincaid under way, and if it continued to blow until night then the chances were all in his favour, for he knew that there was little likelihood of the ape-a the many bars and the numerous small islands which are scattered over the expanse of the river's mouth

It ell after noon when Paulvitch cae upon the bank of the tributary of the Ugambi Here he was received with suspicion and unfriendliness by the native chief, who, like all those who came in contact with Rokoff or Paulvitch, had suffered in soreed, the cruelty, or the lust of the two Muscovites

When Paulvitch derumbled a surly refusal and ordered the whitewarriors who seeht pretext to transfix hiht else than withdraw

A dozen fightinghiain in the vicinity of their village

Stifling his anger, Paulvitch slunk into the jungle; but once beyond the sight of the warriors he paused and listened intently He could hear the voices of his escort as the e, and when he was sure that they were not following hie of the river, still determined some way to obtain a canoe

Life itself depended upon his reaching the Kincaid and enlisting the survivors of the shi+p's crew in his service, for to be abandoned here ale where he had won the enmity of the natives was, he well knew, practically equivalent to a sentence of death

A desire for revenge acted as an almost equally powerful incentive to spur hin, so that it was a desperate e beside the little river searching with eager eyes for soht be easily handled by a single paddle

Nor had the Russian long to wait before one of the aard little skiffs which the Mosula fashi+on ca lazily out into e When he reached the channel he allowed the sluggish current to carry hi while he lolled indolently in the bottonorant of the unseen enemy upon the river's bank the lad floated slowly down the streale path a few yards behind hie the black boy dipped his paddle into the water and forced his skiff toward the bank Paulvitch, elated by the chance which had drawn the youth to the sa which he followed rather than to the opposite side where he would have been beyond the stalker's reach, hid in the brush close beside the point at which it was evident the skiff would touch the bank of the slow- instant which drew it nearer to the broad and aer streareat ocean

Equally indolent were the motions of the Mosula youth as he drew his skiff beneath an overhanging lireat tree that leaned down to i water, caressing with green fronds the soft breast of its languorous love