The chief was among the first to return to the village, and as it
was he that Tarzan was most anxious to interview, he lost no time
in entering into a palaver with the black.
The fellow was short and stout, with an unusually low and degraded
countenance and apelike arms. His whole expression denoted
deceitfulness.
Only the superstitious terror engendered in him by the stories poured
into his ears by the whites and blacks of the Russian's party kept
him from leaping upon Tarzan with his warriors and slaying him
forthwith, for he and his people were inveterate maneaters. But
the fear that he might indeed be a devil, and that out there in
the jungle behind him his fierce demons waited to do his bidding,
kept M'ganwazam from putting his desires into action.
Tarzan questioned the fellow closely, and by comparing his statements
with those of the young warrior he had first talked with he learned
that Rokoff and his safari were in terror-stricken retreat in the
direction of the far East Coast.
Many of the Russian's porters had already deserted him. In that
very village he had hanged five for theft and attempted desertion.
Judging, however, from what the Waganwazam had learned from those
of the Russian's blacks who were not too far gone in terror of the
brutal Rokoff to fear even to speak of their plans, it was apparent
that he would not travel any great distance before the last of
his porters, cooks, tent-boys, gun-bearers, askari, and even his
headman, would have turned back into the bush, leaving him to the
mercy of the merciless jungle.
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