Presently he started. What was that? He strained his eyes into
the night. Then he turned and called aloud to the men smoking
upon their blankets in the camp. They came running to his side;
but Gust hesitated when he saw the nature of Tarzan's companion.
"Look!" cried Tarzan. "A light! A ship's light! It must be
the Cowrie. They are becalmed." And then with an exclamation of
renewed hope, "We can reach them! The skiff will carry us easily."
Gust demurred. "They are well armed," he warned. "We could 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 the equivalent of
twenty men, and the few others I can bring will add 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 then another
and another. Gust shuddered. Among what sort of creatures had
fate thrown him? Were not Kai Shang and Momulla to be preferred
to this great white giant who stroked a panther and called to the
beasts of the jungle?
In a few minutes the apes of Akut came crashing through the
underbrush and out upon the beach, while in the meantime the five
men had been struggling with the unwieldy bulk of the skiff's hull.
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