"Like this Sborov guy?" inquired Brown.
"'E was not a gentleman."
"But he was a prince, wasn't he? Don't that make him a gentleman?"
Tibbs scratched his head. "It should but it doesn't; not always. Hi sometimes think when Hi see a bounder with a title that possibly at some time his mother may have been indiscreet."
Brown laughed. "I guess there must of been a lot of indiscretion in high places," he remarked, and then: "How about pullin' our freight, Tibbsy? We got a long ways to go on a pair of empty stomachs."
Wearily the two men plodded on through the jungle. All the forces of nature and the laws of chance seemed to have combined against them from the first. Now they were sad, disheartened, almost without hope; yet each tried bravely to keep up the spirits of the other. It was oftentimes a strain, and occasionally one of them voiced the morbid doubts and fears that assailed them both.
"Do you believe in black magic, Tibbsy?" asked Brown.
"Hi 'ave seen some strange things hin my life, sir," replied the Englishman.
"You know what the old dame come down here to look for, don't you?"
"Yes, something that would renew youth, wasn't it?"
"Yes. I know a lot about that. I knew a lot I didn't tell her. If I had she might not have come, and I sure wanted her to. I wanted to get that formula. Cripes, Tibbsy! It would be worth a million back in civilization. But it's well guarded. A few men have tried to get it. None of 'em was ever heard of again."
"Well, we ain't trying to get it now. We got troubles enough trying to find our way out of this jungle to be bothering with any helixir of life. If we just go along and mind our own business, we'll be all right."
"I don't know about that. I never took much stock in black magic, but it is funny all the things that's happened to this expedition ever since it started out. Just like somebody or something had put a jinx on it. It started right off the bat with that zero- zero flyin' weather; then come the forced landin'; then the old dame's murdered; then Annette disappears; now Lady Greystoke's gone.
"Do you realize, Tibbsy, that of the six that took off from Croydon there's only two of us left? It's just like something was following us, pickin' off one at a time. It sure gets my goat when I stop to think about it. It's doggone funny, Tibbsy, that's what it is."
"Hi see nothing amusing in it, sir," objected Tibbs; "but then Hi've always 'eard that you Americans had a strange sense of humor."
"The trouble is that you Englishmen don't understand English," explained Brown. "But let's skip it. The question is, which one of us will be next?"
"Don't," begged Tibbs. "That's just what Hi've been trying not to think about."
Brown turned again and looked back at his companion who was following along a narrow trail. The American grinned. "Wasn't Lady Greystoke walkin' behind when it got her?" he reminded.
Tarzan, following the trail toward the east, found Sborov a problem. The man was too exhausted to move faster than a snail's pace, and even so he was compelled to rest often.
Tarzan was anxious to overtake Brown and Tibbs with whom he believed Jane to be. He would kill Brown. The very thought of the man caused the scar across his forehead to burn red—the scar that Bolgani, the gorilla, had given him years ago in that first life-and- death struggle that had taught the boy Tarzan one of the uses of his dead father's hunting knife and thus set his feet upon the trail that led to the lordship of the jungle.
Ordinarily the life of a strange tarmangani would have weighed as nothing as against a delay in his search for Jane; but Alexis had given the impression that he had been Jane's friend and protector, and Tarzan could not desert him to the certain fate that would have claimed such as he alone in the jungle.
So the Lord of the Jungle decided to remain with Sborov until he could turn him over to the chief of some friendly tribe for protection and guidance to the nearest outpost of civilization, or place him in the hands of his own Waziri.
Seemingly imbued with many of the psychic characteristics of the wild beasts among which he had been reared, Tarzan often developed instinctive likes or dislikes for individuals on first contact; and seldom did he find it necessary to alter his decisions.
He had formed such a conviction within a few moments after his meeting with Sborov, a conviction which made it doubly distasteful to him to be in the company of the man and waste time befriending him. He mistrusted and disliked him, but for Jane's sake he would not abandon him. Little Nkima seemed to share his mistrust, for he seldom came near the stranger; and when he did he bared his teeth in a menacing snarl.
Chafing under the delay forced upon him by Sborov's physical condition, which bordered on complete exhaustion, the ape-man at last swung the surprised Sborov to his shoulder and took to the trees with the agility and speed of a small monkey.
Alexis voiced a cry of remonstrance that carried also a note of fear, but he was helpless to escape the situation into which he had been snatched as though by the hand of Fate. Should he succeed in wriggling from that vise-like grasp, it would only lead to injury in the resultant fall to the ground below. So Alexis shut his eyes tight and hoped for the best.
He knew that they were moving rapidly through the trees; the swift passage of foliage and twigs across his body told him that. He remonstrated with the bronzed savage that was carrying him, but he might as well have sought conversation with the Sphinx. At last he gained sufficient courage to open his eyes; then, indeed, did he gasp in horror; for at that very moment Tarzan leaped out into space to catch a trailing liana and swing to another tree upon his arboreal trail. Fifty feet below the eyes of the thoroughly terrified Sborov lay the hard ground. He screamed aloud, and then he found articulate voice.
"Take me down," he cried. "Let me walk. You'll kill us both." Overcome by terror, he struggled to free himself.
"It will be you who will kill us if you don't lie still," warned the ape-man.
"Then take me down."
"You are too slow," replied Tarzan. "I cannot be held to the pace of Kota, the tortoise, if I am ever to overtake the man you call Brown. If I take you down I shall have to leave you alone here in the jungle. Would you prefer that?"
Sborov was silent. He was trying to weigh the terrors of one plan against those of the other. All that he could think of was that he wished he were back in Paris, which really didn't help at all in this emergency.
Suddenly Tarzan came to an abrupt halt on a broad limb. He was listening intently. Sborov saw him sniffing the air. It reminded him of a hound on a scent trail.
"What do those two men look like?" demanded Tarzan.
"Describe them to me, so that I may know Brown when I see him."
"Tibbs is a small man with thin hair and a pinched face. He is an Englishman with a slight cockney accent. Brown is a big fellow, an American. I suppose he would be called good looking," added Sborov, grudgingly.
Tarzan dropped to a trail that they had crossed many times as it wound through the jungle, and set Sborov on the ground.
"Follow this trail," he directed. "I am going on ahead."
"You are going to leave me alone here in the jungle?" demanded Alexis, fearfully.
"I will come back for you," replied the ape-man. "You will be safe enough for the short time I shall be gone."
"But suppose a lion—" commenced Sborov.
"There are no lions about," interrupted Tarzan. "There is nothing near that will harm you."
"How do you know?"
"I know. Do as I tell you and follow the trail."
"But—" Sborov started to expostulate; then he gasped and sighed resignedly, for he was alone. Tarzan had swung into the trees and disappeared.