In Tarzan's camp, by dint of threats and promised rewards,the ape-man had finally succeeded in getting the hull of alarge skiff almost completed. Much of the work he andMugambi had done with their own hands in addition tofurnishing the camp with meat.

Schneider, the mate, had been doing considerable grumbling,and had at last openly deserted the work and gone offinto the jungle with Schmidt to hunt. He said that he wanteda rest, and Tarzan, rather than add to the unpleasantnesswhich already made camp life almost unendurable, had permittedthe two men to depart without a remonstrance.

Upon the following day, however, Schneider affected a feelingof remorse for his action, and set to work with a will uponthe skiff. Schmidt also worked good-naturedly, and LordGreystoke congratulated himself that at last the men hadawakened to the necessity for the labour which was being asked ofthem and to their obligations to the balance of the party.

It was with a feeling of greater relief than he had experiencedfor many a day that he set out that noon to hunt deep in thejungle for a herd of small deer which Schneider reportedthat he and Schmidt had seen there the day before.

The direction in which Schneider had reported seeing thedeer was toward the south-west, and to that point the ape-manswung easily through the tangled verdure of the forest.

And as he went there approached from the north a half-dozenill-featured men who went stealthily through the jungleas go men bent upon the commission of a wicked act.

They thought that they travelled unseen; but behind them,almost from the moment they quitted their own camp, a tallman crept upon their trail. In the man's eyes were hate andfear, and a great curiosity. Why went Kai Shang and Momullaand the others thus stealthily toward the south? What didthey expect to find there? Gust shook his low-browedhead in perplexity. But he would know. He would followthem and learn their plans, and then if he could thwart themhe would--that went without question.

At first he had thought that they searched for him; butfinally his better judgment assured him that such could notbe the case, since they had accomplished all they reallydesired by chasing him out of camp. Never would Kai Shangor Momulla go to such pains to slay him or another unless itwould put money into their pockets, and as Gust had nomoney it was evident that they were searching for someone else.

Presently the party he trailed came to a halt. Its membersconcealed themselves in the foliage bordering the game trailalong which they had come. Gust, that he might the betterobserve, clambered into the branches of a tree to the rear ofthem, being careful that the leafy fronds hid him from theview of his erstwhile mates.

He had not long to wait before he saw a strange white manapproach carefully along the trail from the south.

At sight of the newcomer Momulla and Kai Shang arosefrom their places of concealment and greeted him. Gust couldnot overhear what passed between them. Then the man returnedin the direction from which he had come.

He was Schneider. Nearing his camp he circled to theopposite side of it, and presently came running in breathlessly. Excitedly he hastened to Mugambi.

"Quick!" he cried. "Those apes of yours have caught Schmidtand will kill him if we do not hasten to his aid. You alonecan call them off. Take Jones and Sullivan--you may needhelp--and get to him as quick as you can. Follow the gametrail south for about a mile. I will remain here. I amtoo spent with running to go back with you," and the mateof the Kincaid threw himself upon the ground, panting asthough he was almost done for.

Mugambi hesitated. He had been left to guard the two women. He did not know what to do, and then Jane Clayton,who had heard Schneider's story, added her pleas tothose of the mate.

"Do not delay," she urged. "We shall be all right here. Mr. Schneider will remain with us. Go, Mugambi. The poorfellow must be saved."

Schmidt, who lay hidden in a bush at the edge of the camp, grinned. Mugambi, heeding the commands of his mistress, though still doubtfulof the wisdom of his action, started off toward the south, with Jonesand Sullivan at his heels.

No sooner had he disappeared than Schmidt rose and darted northinto the jungle, and a few minutes later the face of Kai Shangof Fachan appeared at the edge of the clearing. Schneider sawthe Chinaman, and motioned to him that the coast was clear.

Jane Clayton and the Mosula woman were sitting at theopening of the former's tent, their backs toward theapproaching ruffians. The first intimation that eitherhad of the presence of strangers in camp was the suddenappearance of a half-dozen ragged villains about them.

"Come!" said Kai Shang, motioning that the two ariseand follow him.

Jane Clayton sprang to her feet and looked about for Schneider,only to see him standing behind the newcomers, a grin upon his face.At his side stood Schmidt. Instantly she saw that she had been madethe victim of a plot.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked, addressing the mate.

"It means that we have found a ship and that we can nowescape from Jungle Island," replied the man.

"Why did you send Mugambi and the others into the jungle?" she inquired.

"They are not coming with us--only you and I, and the Mosula woman."

"Come!" repeated Kai Shang, and seized Jane Clayton's wrist.

One of the Maoris grasped the black woman by the arm,and when she would have screamed struck her across the mouth.

Mugambi raced through the jungle toward the south. Jones andSullivan trailed far behind. For a mile he continued uponhis way to the relief of Schmidt, but no signs saw he of themissing man or of any of the apes of Akut.

At last he halted and called aloud the summons which he andTarzan had used to hail the great anthropoids. There wasno response. Jones and Sullivan came up with the black warrioras the latter stood voicing his weird call. For anotherhalf-mile the black searched, calling occasionally.

Finally the truth flashed upon him, and then, like afrightened deer, he wheeled and dashed back toward camp. Arriving there, it was but a moment before full confirmationof his fears was impressed upon him. Lady Greystoke and theMosula woman were gone. So, likewise, was Schneider.

When Jones and Sullivan joined Mugambi he would have killedthem in his anger, thinking them parties to the plot;but they finally succeeded in partially convincing him thatthey had known nothing of it.

As they stood speculating upon the probable whereaboutsof the women and their abductor, and the purpose whichSchneider had in mind in taking them from camp, Tarzan ofthe Apes swung from the branches of a tree and crossed theclearing toward them.

His keen eyes detected at once that something was radicallywrong, and when he had heard Mugambi's story his jaws clickedangrily together as he knitted his brows in thought.

What could the mate hope to accomplish by taking JaneClayton from a camp upon a small island from which therewas no escape from the vengeance of Tarzan? The ape-mancould not believe the fellow such a fool, and then a slightrealization of the truth dawned upon him.

Schneider would not have committed such an act unless hehad been reasonably sure that there was a way by whichhe could quit Jungle Island with his prisoners. But why had hetaken the black woman as well? There must have been others,one of whom wanted the dusky female.

"Come," said Tarzan, "there is but one thing to do now,and that is to follow the trail."

As he finished speaking a tall, ungainly figure emergedfrom the jungle north of the camp. He came straight towardthe four men. He was an entire stranger to all of them,not one of whom had dreamed that another human being thanthose of their own camp dwelt upon the unfriendly shoresof Jungle Island.

It was Gust. He came directly to the point.

"Your women were stolen," he said. "If you want everto see them again, come quickly and follow me. If we do nothurry the Cowrie will be standing out to sea by the time wereach her anchorage."

"Who are you?" asked Tarzan. "What do you know ofthe theft of my wife and the black woman?"

"I heard Kai Shang and Momulla the Maori plot with twomen of your camp. They had chased me from our camp, andwould have killed me. Now I will get even with them. Come!"

Gust led the four men of the Kincaid's camp at a rapid trotthrough the jungle toward the north. Would they come to thesea in time? But a few more minutes would answer the question.

And when at last the little party did break through the lastof the screening foliage, and the harbour and the ocean laybefore them, they realized that fate had been most cruellyunkind, for the Cowrie was already under sail and movingslowly out of the mouth of the harbour into the open sea.

What were they to do? Tarzan's broad chest rose and fellto the force of his pent emotions. The last blow seemed tohave fallen, and if ever in all his life Tarzan of the Apes hadhad occasion to abandon hope it was now that he saw the shipbearing his wife to some frightful fate moving gracefully overthe rippling water, so very near and yet so hideously far away.

In silence he stood watching the vessel. He saw it turntoward the east and finally disappear around a headland onits way he knew not whither. Then he dropped upon hishaunches and buried his face in his hands.

It was after dark that the five men returned to the camp onthe east shore. The night was hot and sultry. No slightestbreeze ruffled the foliage of the trees or rippled the mirror-like surface of the ocean. Only a gentle swell rolled softly inupon the beach.

Never had Tarzan seen the great Atlantic so ominously at peace. He was standing at the edge of the beach gazing out to seain the direction of the mainland, his mind filled withsorrow and hopelessness, when from the jungle close behindthe camp came the uncanny wail of a panther.

There was a familiar note in the weird cry, and almostmechanically Tarzan turned his head and answered. A momentlater the tawny figure of Sheeta slunk out into the half-light ofthe beach. There was no moon, but the sky was brilliant with stars.Silently the savage brute came to the side of the man. It had beenlong since Tarzan had seen his old fighting companion, but the softpurr was sufficient to assure him that the animal still recalledthe bonds which had united them in the past.

The ape-man let his fingers fall upon the beast's coat,and as Sheeta pressed close against his leg he caressed andfondled the wicked head while his eyes continued to searchthe blackness of the waters.

Presently he started. What was that? He strained his eyesinto the night. Then he turned and called aloud to the mensmoking upon their blankets in the camp. They came runningto his side; but Gust hesitated when he saw the nature ofTarzan's companion.

"Look!" cried Tarzan. "A light! A ship's light! It mustbe the Cowrie. They are becalmed." And then with anexclamation of renewed hope, "We can reach them!The skiff will carry us easily."

Gust demurred. "They are well armed," he warned. "Wecould not take the ship--just five of us."

"There are six now," replied Tarzan, pointing to Sheeta,"and we can have more still in a half-hour. Sheeta is theequivalent of twenty men, and the few others I can bring willadd full a hundred to our fighting strength. You do not know them."

The ape-man turned and raised his head toward the jungle,while there pealed from his lips, time after time,the fearsome cry of the bull-ape who would summon his fellows.

Presently from the jungle came an answering cry, and thenanother and another. Gust shuddered. Among what sort ofcreatures had fate thrown him? Were not Kai Shang and Momullato be preferred to this great white giant who stroked apanther and called to the beasts of the jungle?

In a few minutes the apes of Akut came crashing throughthe underbrush and out upon the beach, while in the meantimethe five men had been struggling with the unwieldy bulkof the skiff's hull.

By dint of Herculean efforts they had managed to get it tothe water's edge. The oars from the two small boats of theKincaid, which had been washed away by an off-shore windthe very night that the party had landed, had been in use tosupport the canvas of the sailcloth tents. These were hastilyrequisitioned, and by the time Akut and his followers camedown to the water all was ready for embarkation.

Once again the hideous crew entered the service of theirmaster, and without question took up their places in the skiff. The four men, for Gust could not be prevailed upon to accompanythe party, fell to the oars, using them paddle-wise, while someof the apes followed their example, and presently the ungainlyskiff was moving quietly out to sea in the direction of thelight which rose and fell gently with the swell.

A sleepy sailor kept a poor vigil upon the Cowrie's deck,while in the cabin below Schneider paced up and down arguingwith Jane Clayton. The woman had found a revolver in a tabledrawer in the room in which she had been locked, and now shekept the mate of the Kincaid at bay with the weapon.

The Mosula woman kneeled behind her, while Schneider pacedup and down before the door, threatening and pleading andpromising, but all to no avail. Presently from the deckabove came a shout of warning and a shot. For an instantJane Clayton relaxed her vigilance, and turned her eyes towardthe cabin skylight. Simultaneously Schneider was upon her.

The first intimation the watch had that there was anothercraft within a thousand miles of the Cowrie came when hesaw the head and shoulders of a man poked over the ship's side. Instantly the fellow sprang to his feet with a cry andlevelled his revolver at the intruder. It was his cry and thesubsequent report of the revolver which threw Jane Claytonoff her guard.

Upon deck the quiet of fancied security soon gave placeto the wildest pandemonium. The crew of the Cowrie rushedabove armed with revolvers, cutlasses, and the long knivesthat many of them habitually wore; but the alarm had cometoo late. Already the beasts of Tarzan were upon the ship'sdeck, with Tarzan and the two men of the Kincaid's crew.

In the face of the frightful beasts the courage of the mutineerswavered and broke. Those with revolvers fired a few scatteringshots and then raced for some place of supposed safety.Into the shrouds went some; but the apes of Akut weremore at home there than they.

Screaming with terror the Maoris were dragged from theirlofty perches. The beasts, uncontrolled by Tarzan who hadgone in search of Jane, loosed in the full fury of their savagenatures upon the unhappy wretches who fell into their clutches.

Sheeta, in the meanwhile, had felt his great fangs sink intobut a singular jugular. For a moment he mauled the corpse,and then he spied Kai Shang darting down the companionwaytoward his cabin.

With a shrill scream Sheeta was after him--a scream whichawoke an almost equally uncanny cry in the throat of theterror-stricken Chinaman.

But Kai Shang reached his cabin a fraction of a secondahead of the panther, and leaping within slammed the door--just too late. Sheeta's great body hurtled against it beforethe catch engaged, and a moment later Kai Shang was gibberingand shrieking in the back of an upper berth.

Lightly Sheeta sprang after his victim, and presently thewicked days of Kai Shang of Fachan were ended, and Sheetawas gorging himself upon tough and stringy flesh.

A moment scarcely had elapsed after Schneider leapedupon Jane Clayton and wrenched the revolver from her hand,when the door of the cabin opened and a tall and half-nakedwhite man stood framed within the portal.

Silently he leaped across the cabin. Schneider felt sinewyfingers at his throat. He turned his head to see who hadattacked him, and his eyes went wide when he saw the face ofthe ape-man close above his own.

Grimly the fingers tightened upon the mate's throat. He triedto scream, to plead, but no sound came forth. His eyesprotruded as he struggled for freedom, for breath, for life.

Jane Clayton seized her husband's hands and tried to drag themfrom the throat of the dying man; but Tarzan only shook his head.

"Not again," he said quietly. "Before have I permittedscoundrels to live, only to suffer and to have you suffer formy mercy. This time we shall make sure of one scoundrel--sure that he will never again harm us or another," and witha sudden wrench he twisted the neck of the perfidious mateuntil there was a sharp crack, and the man's body lay limpand motionless in the ape-man's grasp. With a gesture ofdisgust Tarzan tossed the corpse aside. Then he returned tothe deck, followed by Jane and the Mosula woman.

The battle there was over. Schmidt and Momulla and twoothers alone remained alive of all the company of the Cowrie,for they had found sanctuary in the forecastle. The othershad died, horribly, and as they deserved, beneath the fangsand talons of the beasts of Tarzan, and in the morning thesun rose on a grisly sight upon the deck of the unhappyCowrie; but this time the blood which stained her whiteplanking was the blood of the guilty and not of the innocent.

Tarzan brought forth the men who had hidden in the forecastle,and without promises of immunity from punishment forced themto help work the vessel--the only alternative was immediate death.

A stiff breeze had risen with the sun, and with canvasspread the Cowrie set in toward Jungle Island, where a fewhours later, Tarzan picked up Gust and bid farewell to Sheetaand the apes of Akut, for here he set the beasts ashore topursue the wild and natural life they loved so well; nor didthey lose a moment's time in disappearing into the cool depthsof their beloved jungle.

That they knew that Tarzan was to leave them may be doubted--except possibly in the case of the more intelligent Akut,who alone of all the others remained upon the beach as thesmall boat drew away toward the schooner, carrying his savagelord and master from him.

And as long as their eyes could span the distance, Jane andTarzan, standing upon the deck, saw the lonely figure ofthe shaggy anthropoid motionless upon the surf-beaten sandsof Jungle Island.

It was three days later that the Cowrie fell in with H.M.sloop-of-war Shorewater, through whose wireless Lord Greystokesoon got in communication with London. Thus he learned thatwhich filled his and his wife's heart with joy and thanksgiving--little Jack was safe at Lord Greystoke's town house.

It was not until they reached London that they learned thedetails of the remarkable chain of circumstances that hadpreserved the infant unharmed.

It developed that Rokoff, fearing to take the child aboard theKincaid by day, had hidden it in a low den where nameless infantswere harboured, intending to carry it to the steamer after dark.

His confederate and chief lieutenant, Paulvitch, true to thelong years of teaching of his wily master, had at lastsuccumbed to the treachery and greed that had always markedhis superior, and, lured by the thoughts of the immense ransomthat he might win by returning the child unharmed, haddivulged the secret of its parentage to the woman whomaintained the foundling asylum. Through her he had arrangedfor the substitution of another infant, knowing full well thatnever until it was too late would Rokoff suspect the trick thathad been played upon him.

The woman had promised to keep the child until Paulvitchreturned to England; but she, in turn, had been tempted tobetray her trust by the lure of gold, and so had openednegotiations with Lord Greystoke's solicitors for the returnof the child.

Esmeralda, the old Negro nurse whose absence on a vacationin America at the time of the abduction of little Jackhad been attributed by her as the cause of the calamity,had returned and positively identified the infant.

The ransom had been paid, and within ten days of the dateof his kidnapping the future Lord Greystoke, none the worsefor his experience, had been returned to his father's home.

And so that last and greatest of Nikolas Rokoff's manyrascalities had not only miserably miscarried through thetreachery he had taught his only friend, but it had resultedin the arch-villain's death, and given to Lord and Lady Greystokea peace of mind that neither could ever have felt so long asthe vital spark remained in the body of the Russian and hismalign mind was free to formulate new atrocities against them.

Rokoff was dead, and while the fate of Paulvitch was unknown,they had every reason to believe that he had succumbed to thedangers of the jungle where last they had seen him--themalicious tool of his master.

And thus, in so far as they might know, they were to befreed for ever from the menace of these two men--the onlyenemies which Tarzan of the Apes ever had had occasion tofear, because they struck at him cowardly blows, throughthose he loved.

It was a happy family party that were reunited in GreystokeHouse the day that Lord Greystoke and his lady landed uponEnglish soil from the deck of the Shorewater.

Accompanying them were Mugambi and the Mosulawoman whom he had found in the bottom of the canoe thatnight upon the bank of the little tributary of the Ugambi.

The woman had preferred to cling to her new lord and master rather than return to the marriage she had tried to escape.

Tarzan had proposed to them that they might find a homeupon his vast African estates in the land of the Waziri, wherethey were to be sent as soon as opportunity presented itself.

Possibly we shall see them all there amid the savage romanceof the grim jungle and the great plains where Tarzanof the Apes loves best to be.

Who knows?