It was night when he halted outside the palisaded village of the Arab raider.Perched in the branches of a great tree he gazed down upon the life within the enclosure.To this place had the spoor led him.His quarry must be within; but how was he to find him among so many huts? Tarzan, although cognizant of his mighty powers, realized also his limitations.He knew that he could not successfully cope with great numbers in open battle.He must resort to the stealth and trickery of the wild beast, if he were to succeed.
Sitting in the safety of his tree, munching upon the leg bone of Horta, the boar, Tarzan waited a favorable opportunity to enter the village.For awhile he gnawed at the bulging, round ends of the large bone, splintering off small pieces between his strong jaws, and sucking at the delicious marrow within; but all the time he cast repeated glances into the village.He saw white-robed figures, and half-naked blacks; but not once did he see one who resembled the stealer of the gems.
Patiently he waited until the streets were deserted by all save the sentries at the gates, then he dropped lightly to the ground, circled to the opposite side of the village and approached the palisade.
At his side hung a long, rawhide rope--a natural and more dependable evolution from the grass rope of his childhood.Loosening this, he spread the noose upon the ground behind him, and with a quick movement of his wrist tossed the coils over one of the sharpened projections of the summit of the palisade.
Drawing the noose taut, he tested the solidity of its hold.Satisfied, the ape-man ran nimbly up the vertical wall, aided by the rope which he clutched in both hands.Once at the top it required but a moment to gather the dangling rope once more into its coils, make it fast again at his waist, take a quick glance downward within the palisade, and, assured that no one lurked directly beneath him, drop softly to the ground.
Now he was within the village.Before him stretched a series of tents and native huts.The business of exploring each of them would be fraught with danger;
but danger was only a natural factor of each day's life--it never appalled Tarzan.The chances appealed to him--the chances of life and death, with his prowess and his faculties pitted against those of a worthy antagonist.
It was not necessary that he enter each habitation--
through a door, a window or an open chink, his nose told him whether or not his prey lay within.For some time he found one disappointment following upon the heels of another in quick succession.No spoor of the Belgian was discernible.But at last he came to a tent where the smell of the thief was strong.Tarzan listened, his ear close to the canvas at the rear, but no sound came from within.
At last he cut one of the pin ropes, raised the bottom of the canvas, and intruded his head within the interior.All was quiet and dark.Tarzan crawled cautiously within--the scent of the Belgian was strong;
but it was not live scent.Even before he had examined the interior minutely, Tarzan knew that no one was within it.
In one corner he found a pile of blankets and clothing scattered about; but no pouch of pretty pebbles.
A careful examination of the balance of the tent revealed nothing more, at least nothing to indicate the presence of the jewels; but at the side where the blankets and clothing lay, the ape-man discovered that the tent wall had been loosened at the bottom, and presently he sensed that the Belgian had recently passed out of the tent by this avenue.
Tarzan was not long in following the way that his prey had fled.The spoor led always in the shadow and at the rear of the huts and tents of the village--it was quite evident to Tarzan that the Belgian had gone alone and secretly upon his mission.Evidently he feared the inhabitants of the village, or at least his work had been of such a nature that he dared not risk detection.
At the back of a native hut the spoor led through a small hole recently cut in the brush wall and into the dark interior beyond.Fearlessly, Tarzan followed the trail.On hands and knees, he crawled through the small aperture.Within the hut his nostrils were assailed by many odors; but clear and distinct among them was one that half aroused a latent memory of the past--it was the faint and delicate odor of a woman.
With the cognizance of it there rose in the breast of the ape-man a strange uneasiness--the result of an irresistible force which he was destined to become acquainted with anew--the instinct which draws the male to his mate.
In the same hut was the scent spoor of the Belgian, too, and as both these assailed the nostrils of the ape-man, mingling one with the other, a jealous rage leaped and burned within him, though his memory held before the mirror of recollection no image of the she to which he had attached his desire.
Like the tent he had investigated, the hut, too, was empty, and after satisfying himself that his stolen pouch was secreted nowhere within, he left, as he had entered, by the hole in the rear wall.
Here he took up the spoor of the Belgian, followed it across the clearing, over the palisade, and out into the dark jungle beyond.