It was Gust. He came directly to the point.
"Your women were stolen," he said. "If you want ever to see them
again, come quickly and follow me. If we do not hurry the Cowrie
will be standing out to sea by the time we reach her anchorage."
"Who are you?" asked Tarzan. "What do you know of the theft of my
wife and the black woman?"
"I heard Kai Shang and Momulla the Maori plot with two men of your
camp. They had chased me from our camp, and would have killed me.
Now I will get even with them. Come!"
Gust led the four men of the Kincaid's camp at a rapid trot through
the jungle toward the north. Would they come to the sea in time?
But a few more minutes would answer the question.
And when at last the little party did break through the last of the
screening foliage, and the harbour and the ocean lay before them,
they realized that fate had been most cruelly unkind, for the Cowrie
was already under sail and moving slowly out of the mouth of the
harbour into the open sea.
What were they to do? Tarzan's broad chest rose and fell to the
force of his pent emotions. The last blow seemed to have fallen,
and if ever in all his life Tarzan of the Apes had had occasion to
abandon hope it was now that he saw the ship bearing his wife to
some frightful fate moving gracefully over the rippling water, so
very near and yet so hideously far away.
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