Until positive proof of the baby's death reached
them there was always that to buoy them up.

It seemed quite evident that their little Jack had not been brought
aboard the Kincaid. Anderssen would have known of it had such been the
case, but he had assured Jane time and time again that the little one
he had brought to her cabin the night he aided her to escape was the
only one that had been aboard the Kincaid since she lay at Dover.

Chapter 18

Paulvitch Plots Revenge

As Jane and Tarzan stood upon the vessel's deck recounting to one
another the details of the various adventures through which each had
passed since they had parted in their London home, there glared at them
from beneath scowling brows a hidden watcher upon the shore.

Through the man's brain passed plan after plan whereby he might thwart
the escape of the Englishman and his wife, for so long as the vital
spark remained within the vindictive brain of Alexander Paulvitch none
who had aroused the enmity of the Russian might be entirely safe.

Plan after plan he formed only to discard each either as impracticable,
or unworthy the vengeance his wrongs demanded. So warped by faulty
reasoning was the criminal mind of Rokoff's lieutenant that he could
not grasp the real truth of that which lay between himself and the
ape-man and see that always the fault had been, not with the English
lord, but with himself and his confederate.

And at the rejection of each new scheme Paulvitch arrived always at the
same conclusion--that he could accomplish naught while half the breadth
of the Ugambi separated him from the object of his hatred.

But how was he to span the crocodile-infested waters? There was no
canoe nearer than the Mosula village, and Paulvitch was none too sure
that the Kincaid would still be at anchor in the river when he returned
should he take the time to traverse the jungle to the distant village
and return with a canoe. Yet there was no other way, and so, convinced
that thus alone might he hope to reach his prey, Paulvitch, with a
parting scowl at the two figures upon the Kincaid's deck, turned away
from the river.

Hastening through the dense jungle, his mind centred upon his one
fetich--revenge--the Russian forgot even his terror of the savage world
through which he moved.

Baffled and beaten at every turn of Fortune's wheel, reacted upon time
after time by his own malign plotting, the principal victim of his own
criminality,