Had Tarzan chanced to recall the fact that a princely reward had
been offered the blacks if they should succeed in killing him, he
might have more quickly interpreted M'ganwazam's sudden change in
front.
To have the white giant sleeping peacefully in one of his own huts
would greatly facilitate the matter of earning the reward, and
so the chief was urgent in his suggestions that Tarzan, doubtless
being very much fatigued after his travels, should retire early to
the comforts of the anything but inviting palace.
As much as the ape-man detested the thought of sleeping within a
native hut, he had determined to do so this night, on the chance
that he might be able to induce one of the younger men to sit and
chat with him before the fire that burned in the centre of the
smoke-filled dwelling, and from him draw the truths he sought.
So Tarzan accepted the invitation of old M'ganwazam, insisting,
however, that he much preferred sharing a hut with some of the
younger men rather than driving the chief's old wife out in the
cold.
The toothless old hag grinned her appreciation of this suggestion,
and as the plan still better suited the chief's scheme, in that it
would permit him to surround Tarzan with a gang of picked assassins,
he readily assented, so that presently Tarzan had been installed
in a hut close to the village gate.
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