ll,
to recompense him for the great loss he had suffered--nor could
the death of all those million Germans bring back his loved one.
While in the German camp in the Pare Mountains, which lie just
east of the boundary line between German and British East Africa,
Tarzan had overheard enough to suggest that the British were getting
the worst of the fighting in Africa. At first he had given the
matter but little thought, since, after the death of his wife, the
one strong tie that had held him to civilization, he had renounced
all mankind, considering himself no longer man, but ape.
After accounting for Schneider as satisfactorily as lay within his
power he circled Kilimanjaro and hunted in the foothills to the
north of that mightiest of mountains as he had discovered that in
the neighborhood of the armies there was no hunting at all. Some
pleasure he derived through conjuring mental pictures from time to
time of the German he had left in the branches of the lone tree at
the bottom of the high-walled gulch in which was penned the starving
lion. He could imagine the man's mental anguish as he became weakened
from hunger and maddened by thirst, knowing that sooner or later he
must slip exhausted to the ground where waited the gaunt man-eater.
Tarzan wondered if Schneider would have the courage to descend to
the little rivulet for water should Numa leave the gulch and enter
the cave, and then he pictured the mad race for the tree again
when the lion charged out to seize his prey as he was certain to
do, since the clumsy German could not descend to the rivulet without
making at least some slight noise that would attract Numa's attention.
But even this pleasure palled, and more and more the ape-man found
himself thinking of the English soldiers fighting against heavy
odds and especially of the fact that it was Germans who were beating
them. The thought made him lower his head and growl and it worried
him not a little--a bit, perhaps, because he was finding it difficult
to forget that he was an Englishman when he wanted only to be an
ape. And at last the time came when he could not longer endure the
thought of Germans killing Englishmen while he hunted in safety a
bare march away.
His decision made, he set out in the direction of the German camp,
no well-defined plan formulated; but with the general idea that
once near the field of operations he might find an opportunity to
harass the German command as he so well knew how
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