hat these tactics failed to frighten or move the girl, he at
last fell to pleading and promising.

Jane had but a single reply for his every proposition, and that was
that nothing would ever persuade her to permit Rokoff upon the same
vessel with her. That she would put her threats into action and shoot
him should he persist in his endeavour to board the ship he was
convinced.

So, as there was no other alternative, the great coward dropped back
into his dugout and, at imminent risk of being swept to sea, finally
succeeded in making the shore far down the bay and upon the opposite
side from that on which the horde of beasts stood snarling and roaring.

Jane Clayton knew that the fellow could not alone and unaided bring his
heavy craft back up-stream to the Kincaid, and so she had no further
fear of an attack by him. The hideous crew upon the shore she thought
she recognized as the same that had passed her in the jungle far up the
Ugambi several days before, for it seemed quite beyond reason that
there should be more than one such a strangely assorted pack; but what
had brought them down-stream to the mouth of the river she could not
imagine.

Toward the day's close the girl was suddenly alarmed by the shouting of
the Russian from the opposite bank of the stream, and a moment later,
following the direction of his gaze, she was terrified to see a ship's
boat approaching from up-stream, in which, she felt assured, there
could be only members of the Kincaid's missing crew--only heartless
ruffians and enemies.

Chapter 16

In the Darkness of the Night

When Tarzan of the Apes realized that he was in the grip of the great
jaws of a crocodile he did not, as an ordinary man might have done,
give up all hope and resign himself to his fate.

Instead, he filled his lungs with air before the huge reptile dragged
him beneath the surface, and then, with all the might of his great
muscles, fought bitterly for freedom. But out of his native element
the ape-man was too greatly handicapped to do more than excite the
monster to greater speed as it dragged its prey swiftly through the
water.

Tarzan's lungs were bursting for a breath of pure fresh air. He knew
that he could survive but a moment more, and in the last paroxysm of
his suffering he did what he could to avenge his own death.

His body trailed out beside the slimy carcass of his captor, and into
the tough armour the ape-man attempted to plunge his ston