Kincaid to peer through
the darkness toward the source of the disturbance upon the river's
bosom.

Seeing that she was off her guard, the two sailors crept stealthily
upon her from behind.

The scraping upon the deck of the shoes of one of them startled the
girl to a sudden appreciation of her danger, but the warning had come
too late.

As she turned, both men leaped upon her and bore her to the deck, and
as she went down beneath them she saw, outlined against the lesser
gloom of the ocean, the figure of another man clamber over the side of
the Kincaid.

After all her pains her heroic struggle for freedom had failed. With a
stifled sob she gave up the unequal battle.

Chapter 17

On the Deck of the "Kincaid"

When Mugambi had turned back into the jungle with the pack he had a
definite purpose in view. It was to obtain a dugout wherewith to
transport the beasts of Tarzan to the side of the Kincaid. Nor was he
long in coming upon the object which he sought.

Just at dusk he found a canoe moored to the bank of a small tributary
of the Ugambi at a point where he had felt certain that he should find
one.

Without loss of time he piled his hideous fellows into the craft and
shoved out into the stream. So quickly had they taken possession of
the canoe that the warrior had not noticed that it was already
occupied. The huddled figure sleeping in the bottom had entirely
escaped his observation in the darkness of the night that had now
fallen.

But no sooner were they afloat than a savage growling from one of the
apes directly ahead of him in the dugout attracted his attention to a
shivering and cowering figure that trembled between him and the great
anthropoid. To Mugambi's astonishment he saw that it was a native
woman. With difficulty he kept the ape from her throat, and after a
time succeeded in quelling her fears.

It seemed that she had been fleeing from marriage with an old man she
loathed and had taken refuge for the night in the canoe she had found
upon the river's edge.

Mugambi did not wish her presence, but there she was, and rather than
lose time by returning her to the shore the black permitted her to
remain on board the canoe.

As quickly as his awkward companions could paddle the dugout
down-stream toward the Ugambi and the Kincaid they moved through the
darkness. It was with difficulty that Mugambi could make out the
shadowy form of the steamer, but as he had it between himself