Tarzan slept late into the following forenoon, for he had been very tired from the labors and exertion of the long night and day upon the ocean, and the jungle jaunt that had brought into play muscles that he had scarce used for nearly two years.When he awoke he ran to the brook first to drink.
Then he took a plunge into the sea, swimming about for a quarter of an hour.Afterward he returned to his cabin, and breakfasted off the flesh of Horta.This done, he buried the balance of the carcass in the soft earth outside the cabin, for his evening meal.
Once more he took his rope and vanished into the jungle.
This time he hunted nobler quarry--man; although had you asked him his own opinion he could have named a dozen other denizens of the jungle which he considered far the superiors in nobility of the men he hunted.Today Tarzan was in quest of weapons.He wondered if the women and children had remained in Mbonga's village after the punitive expedition from the French cruiser had massacred all the warriors in revenge for D'Arnot's supposed death.He hoped that he should find warriors there, for he knew not how long a quest he should have to make were the village deserted.
The ape-man traveled swiftly through the forest, and about noon came to the site of the village, but to his disappointment found that the jungle had overgrown the plantain fields and that the thatched huts had fallen in decay.There was no sign of man.He clambered about among the ruins for half an hour, hoping that he might discover some forgotten weapon, but his search was without fruit, and so he took up his quest once more, following up the stream, which flowed from a southeasterly direction.He knew that near fresh water he would be most likely to find another settlement.
As he traveled he hunted as he had hunted with his ape people in the past, as Kala had taught him to hunt, turning over rotted logs to find some toothsome vermin, running high into the trees to rob a bird's nest, or pouncing upon a tiny rodent with the quickness of a cat.There were other things that he ate, too, but the less detailed the account of an ape's diet, the better--and Tarzan was again an ape, the same fierce, brutal anthropoid that Kala had taught him to be, and that he had been for the first twenty years of his life.
Occasionally he smiled as he recalled some friend who might even at the moment be sitting placid and immaculate within the precincts of his select Parisian club--just as Tarzan had sat but a few months before; and then he would stop, as though turned suddenly to stone as the gentle breeze carried to his trained nostrils the scent of some new prey or a formidable enemy.
That night he slept far inland from his cabin, securely wedged into the crotch of a giant tree, swaying a hundred feet above the ground.He had eaten heartily again--this time from the flesh of Bara, the deer, who had fallen prey to his quick noose.
Early the next morning he resumed his journey, always following the course of the stream.For three days he continued his quest, until he had come to a part of the jungle in which he never before had been.Occasionally upon the higher ground the forest was much thinner, and in the far distance through the trees he could see ranges of mighty mountains, with wide plains in the foreground.Here, in the open spaces, were new game--countless antelope and vast herds of zebra.Tarzan was entranced--he would make a long visit to this new world.
On the morning of the fourth day his nostrils were suddenly surprised by a faint new scent.It was the scent of man, but yet a long way off.The ape-man thrilled with pleasure.
Every sense was on the alert as with crafty stealth he moved quickly through the trees, up-wind, in the direction of his prey.Presently he came upon it--a lone warrior treading softly through the jungle.