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When Jane and Esmeralda found themselves safely behind the cabin door the Negress's first thought was
to barricade the portal from the inside. With this idea in mind she turned to search for some means of
putting it into execution; but her first view of the interior of the cabin brought a shriek of terror to her lips,
and like a frightened child the huge woman ran to bury her face on her mistress' shoulder.
Jane, turning at the cry, saw the cause of it lying prone upon the floor before them--the whitened
skeleton of a man. A further glance revealed a second skeleton upon the bed.
What horrible place are we in? murmured the awe-struck girl. But there was no panic in her fright.
At last, disengaging herself from the frantic clutch of the still shrieking Esmeralda, Jane crossed the room
to look into the little cradle, knowing what she should see there even before the tiny skeleton disclosed
itself in all its pitiful and pathetic frailty.
What an awful tragedy these poor mute bones proclaimed! The girl shuddered at thought of the
eventualities which might lie before herself and her friends in this ill-fated cabin, the haunt of mysterious,
perhaps hostile, beings.
Quickly, with an impatient stamp of her little foot, she endeavored to shake off the gloomy forebodings,
and turning to Esmeralda bade her cease her wailing.
Stop, Esmeralda, stop it this minute! she cried. You are only making it worse.
She ended lamely, a little quiver in her own voice as she thought of the three men, upon whom she
depended for protection, wandering in the depth of that awful forest.
Soon the girl found that the door was equipped with a heavy wooden bar upon the inside, and after
several efforts the combined strength of the two enabled them to slip it into place, the first time in twenty
years.
Then they sat down upon a bench with their arms about one another, and waited.
At the Mercy of the Jungle
After Clayton had plunged into the jungle, the sailors --mutineers of the Arrow--fell into a discussion of
their next step; but on one point all were agreed--that they should hasten to put off to the anchored
Arrow, where they could at least be safe from the spears of their unseen foe. And so, while Jane Porter
and Esmeralda were barricading themselves within the cabin, the cowardly crew of cutthroats were
pulling rapidly for their ship in the two boats that had brought them ashore.
So much had Tarzan seen that day that his head was in a whirl of wonder. But the most wonderful sight
of all, to him, was the face of the beautiful white girl.
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Here at last was one of his own kind; of that he was positive. And the young man and the two old men;
they, too, were much as he had pictured his own people to be.
But doubtless they were as ferocious and cruel as other men he had seen. The fact that they alone of all
the party were unarmed might account for the fact that they had killed no one. They might be very
different if provided with weapons.
Tarzan had seen the young man pick up the fallen revolver of the wounded Snipes and hide it away in his
breast; and he had also seen him slip it cautiously to the girl as she entered the cabin door.
He did not understand anything of the motives behind all that he had seen; but, somehow, intuitively he
liked the young man and the two old men, and for the girl he had a strange longing which he scarcely
understood. As for the big black woman, she was evidently connected in some way to the girl, and so he
liked her, also.
For the sailors, and especially Snipes, he had developed a great hatred. He knew by their threatening
gestures and by the expression upon their evil faces that they were enemies of the others of the party, and
so he decided to watch closely.
Tarzan wondered why the men had gone into the jungle, nor did it ever occur to him that one could
become lost in that maze of undergrowth which to him was as simple as is the main street of your own
home town to you.
When he saw the sailors row away toward the ship, and knew that the girl and her companion were safe
in his cabin, Tarzan decided to follow the young man into the jungle and learn what his errand might be.
He swung off rapidly in the direction taken by Clayton, and in a short time heard faintly in the distance the
now only occasional calls of the Englishman to his friends.
Presently Tarzan came up with the white man, who, almost fagged, was leaning against a tree wiping the
perspiration from his forehead. The ape-man, hiding safe behind a screen of foliage, sat watching this new
specimen of his own race intently.
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