As Tarzan and his guide had disappeared into the shadowsupon the dark wharf the figure of a heavily veiled womanhad hurried down the narrow alley to the entrance of thedrinking-place the two men had just quitted.

Here she paused and looked about, and then as thoughsatisfied that she had at last reached the place she sought,she pushed bravely into the interior of the vile den.

A score of half-drunken sailors and wharf-rats looked up atthe unaccustomed sight of a richly gowned woman in their midst. Rapidly she approached the slovenly barmaid who stared halfin envy, half in hate, at her more fortunate sister.

"Have you seen a tall, well-dressed man here, but a minutesince," she asked, "who met another and went away with him?"

The girl answered in the affirmative, but could not tellwhich way the two had gone. A sailor who had approachedto listen to the conversation vouchsafed the information thata moment before as he had been about to enter the "pub"he had seen two men leaving it who walked toward the wharf.

"Show me the direction they went," cried the woman,slipping a coin into the man's hand.

The fellow led her from the place, and together they walkedquickly toward the wharf and along it until across the waterthey saw a small boat just pulling into the shadows of anearby steamer.

"There they be," whispered the man.

"Ten pounds if you will find a boat and row me to that steamer,"cried the woman.

"Quick, then," he replied, "for we gotta go it if we're goin'to catch the Kincaid afore she sails. She's had steam upfor three hours an' jest been a-waitin' fer that one passenger. I was a-talkin' to one of her crew 'arf an hour ago."

As he spoke he led the way to the end of the wharf wherehe knew another boat lay moored, and, lowering the womaninto it, he jumped in after and pushed off. The two weresoon scudding over the water.

At the steamer's side the man demanded his pay and,without waiting to count out the exact amount, the womanthrust a handful of bank-notes into his outstretched hand.A single glance at them convinced the fellow that he had beenmore than well paid. Then he assisted her up the ladder,holding his skiff close to the ship's side against the chancethat this profitable passenger might wish to be taken ashore later.

But presently the sound of the donkey engine and the rattleof a steel cable on the hoisting-drum proclaimed the fact thatthe Kincaid's anchor was being raised, and a moment laterthe waiter heard the propellers revolving, and slowly the littlesteamer moved away from him out into the channel.

As he turned to row back to shore he heard a woman'sshriek from the ship's deck.

"That's wot I calls rotten luck," he soliloquized. "I mightjest as well of 'ad the whole bloomin' wad."

When Jane Clayton climbed to the deck of the Kincaid shefound the ship apparently deserted. There was no sign ofthose she sought nor of any other aboard, and so she wentabout her search for her husband and the child she hopedagainst hope to find there without interruption.

Quickly she hastened to the cabin, which was half above andhalf below deck. As she hurried down the short companion-ladderinto the main cabin, on either side of which were the smallerrooms occupied by the officers, she failed to note the quickclosing of one of the doors before her. She passed thefull length of the main room, and then retracing her stepsstopped before each door to listen, furtively trying each latch.

All was silence, utter silence there, in which the throbbingof her own frightened heart seemed to her overwroughtimagination to fill the ship with its thunderous alarm.

One by one the doors opened before her touch, only to revealempty interiors. In her absorption she did not note thesudden activity upon the vessel, the purring of the engines,the throbbing of the propeller. She had reached the last doorupon the right now, and as she pushed it open she was seizedfrom within by a powerful, dark-visaged man, and drawnhastily into the stuffy, ill-smelling interior.

The sudden shock of fright which the unexpected attackhad upon her drew a single piercing scream from her throat;then the man clapped a hand roughly over the mouth.

"Not until we are farther from land, my dear," he said. "Then you may yell your pretty head off."

Lady Greystoke turned to look into the leering, beardedface so close to hers. The man relaxed the pressure of hisfingers upon her lips, and with a little moan of terror as sherecognized him the girl shrank away from her captor.

"Nikolas Rokoff! M. Thuran!" she exclaimed.

"Your devoted admirer," replied the Russian, with a low bow.

"My little boy," she said next, ignoring the terms of endearment--"where is he? Let me have him. How could you be so cruel--even as you--Nikolas Rokoff--cannot be entirely devoid of mercy and compassion?Tell me where he is. Is he aboard this ship? Oh, please, if such athing as a heart beats within your breast, take me to my baby!"

"If you do as you are bid no harm will befall him," replied Rokoff. "But remember that it is your own fault that you are here. You came aboard voluntarily, and you may take the consequences. I little thought," he added to himself, "that any suchgood luck as this would come to me."

He went on deck then, locking the cabin-door upon his prisoner,and for several days she did not see him. The truth of thematter being that Nikolas Rokoff was so poor a sailorthat the heavy seas the Kincaid encountered from the verybeginning of her voyage sent the Russian to his berth with abad attack of sea-sickness.

During this time her only visitor was an uncouth Swede,the Kincaid's unsavoury cook, who brought her meals to her. His name was Sven Anderssen, his one pride being that hispatronymic was spelt with a double "s."

The man was tall and raw-boned, with a long yellowmoustache, an unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with one grimy thumb buried deep inthe lukewarm stew, that seemed, from the frequency of itsrepetition, to constitute the pride of his culinary art,was sufficient to take away the girl's appetite.

His small, blue, close-set eyes never met hers squarely. There was a shiftiness of his whole appearance that evenfound expression in the cat-like manner of his gait, and to itall a sinister suggestion was added by the long slim knife thatalways rested at his waist, slipped through the greasy cordthat supported his soiled apron. Ostensibly it was but animplement of his calling; but the girl could never free herselfof the conviction that it would require less provocation towitness it put to other and less harmless uses.

His manner toward her was surly, yet she never failed tomeet him with a pleasant smile and a word of thanks whenhe brought her food to her, though more often than not shehurled the bulk of it through the tiny cabin port the momentthat the door closed behind him.

During the days of anguish that followed Jane Clayton'simprisonment, but two questions were uppermost in hermind--the whereabouts of her husband and her son. She fullybelieved that the baby was aboard the Kincaid, provided thathe still lived, but whether Tarzan had been permitted to liveafter having been lured aboard the evil craft she could not guess.

She knew, of course, the deep hatred that the Russian feltfor the Englishman, and she could think of but one reasonfor having him brought aboard the ship--to dispatch him incomparative safety in revenge for his having thwartedRokoff's pet schemes, and for having been at last themeans of landing him in a French prison.

Tarzan, on his part, lay in the darkness of his cell, ignorantof the fact that his wife was a prisoner in the cabin almostabove his head.

The same Swede that served Jane brought his meals to him,but, though on several occasions Tarzan had tried todraw the man into conversation, he had been unsuccessful. He had hoped to learn through this fellow whether his littleson was aboard the Kincaid, but to every question upon thisor kindred subjects the fellow returned but one reply,"Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard." So after severalattempts Tarzan gave it up.

For weeks that seemed months to the two prisoners the littlesteamer forged on they knew not where. Once the Kincaidstopped to coal, only immediately to take up the seeminglyinterminable voyage.

Rokoff had visited Jane Clayton but once since he had lockedher in the tiny cabin. He had come gaunt and hollow-eyedfrom a long siege of sea-sickness. The object of his visitwas to obtain from her her personal cheque for a large sum inreturn for a guarantee of her personal safety and return to England.

"When you set me down safely in any civilized port,together with my son and my husband," she replied, "I willpay you in gold twice the amount you ask; but until then youshall not have a cent, nor the promise of a cent under anyother conditions."

"You will give me the cheque I ask," he replied with a snarl,"or neither you nor your child nor your husband will everagain set foot within any port, civilized or otherwise."

"I would not trust you," she replied. "What guaranteehave I that you would not take my money and then do as youpleased with me and mine regardless of your promise?"

"I think you will do as I bid," he said, turning to leavethe cabin. "Remember that I have your son--if you chanceto hear the agonized wail of a tortured child it may consoleyou to reflect that it is because of your stubbornness thatthe baby suffers--and that it is your baby."

"You would not do it!" cried the girl. "You would not--could not be so fiendishly cruel!"

"It is not I that am cruel, but you," he returned,"for you permit a paltry sum of money to stand betweenyour baby and immunity from suffering."

The end of it was that Jane Clayton wrote out a chequeof large denomination and handed it to Nikolas Rokoff,who left her cabin with a grin of satisfaction upon his lips.

The following day the hatch was removed from Tarzan's cell,and as he looked up he saw Paulvitch's head framed inthe square of light above him.

"Come up," commanded the Russian. "But bear in mindthat you will be shot if you make a single move to attack meor any other aboard the ship."

The ape-man swung himself lightly to the deck. About him,but at a respectful distance, stood a half-dozen sailorsarmed with rifles and revolvers. Facing him was Paulvitch.

Tarzan looked about for Rokoff, who he felt sure must beaboard, but there was no sign of him.

"Lord Greystoke," commenced the Russian, "by your continuedand wanton interference with M. Rokoff and his plansyou have at last brought yourself and your family to thisunfortunate extremity. You have only yourself to thank. As you may imagine, it has cost M. Rokoff a large amountof money to finance this expedition, and, as you are the solecause of it, he naturally looks to you for reimbursement.

"Further, I may say that only by meeting M. Rokoff's justdemands may you avert the most unpleasant consequences toyour wife and child, and at the same time retain your ownlife and regain your liberty."

"What is the amount?" asked Tarzan. "And what assurancehave I that you will live up to your end of the agreement? I have little reason to trust two such scoundrels as youand Rokoff, you know."

The Russian flushed.

"You are in no position to deliver insults," he said. "You have no assurance that we will live up to our agreementother than my word, but you have before you the assurance thatwe can make short work of you if you do not write out thecheque we demand.

"Unless you are a greater fool than I imagine, you shouldknow that there is nothing that would give us greater pleasurethan to order these men to fire. That we do not is becausewe have other plans for punishing you that would be entirelyupset by your death."

"Answer one question," said Tarzan. "Is my son on board this ship?"

"No," replied Alexis Paulvitch, "your son is quite safe elsewhere;nor will he be killed until you refuse to accede to our fair demands.If it becomes necessary to kill you, there will be no reason fornot killing the child, since with you gone the one whom we wishto punish through the boy will be gone, and he will then be to usonly a constant source of danger and embarrassment. You see,therefore, that you may only save the life of your son bysaving your own, and you can only save your own by givingus the cheque we ask."

"Very well," replied Tarzan, for he knew that he could trustthem to carry out any sinister threat that Paulvitch had made,and there was a bare chance that by conceding their demandshe might save the boy.

That they would permit him to live after he had appendedhis name to the cheque never occurred to him as being withinthe realms of probability. But he was determined to give themsuch a battle as they would never forget, and possibly to takePaulvitch with him into eternity. He was only sorry that itwas not Rokoff.

He took his pocket cheque-book and fountain-pen from his pocket.

"What is the amount?" he asked.

Paulvitch named an enormous sum. Tarzan could scarce restrain a smile.

Their very cupidity was to prove the means of their undoing,in the matter of the ransom at least. Purposely he hesitatedand haggled over the amount, but Paulvitch was obdurate. Finally the ape-man wrote out his cheque for a larger sumthan stood to his credit at the bank.

As he turned to hand the worthless slip of paper to theRussian his glance chanced to pass across the starboard bowof the Kincaid. To his surprise he saw that the ship lay withina few hundred yards of land. Almost down to the water'sedge ran a dense tropical jungle, and behind was higher landclothed in forest.

Paulvitch noted the direction of his gaze.

"You are to be set at liberty here," he said.

Tarzan's plan for immediate physical revenge upon theRussian vanished. He thought the land before him themainland of Africa, and he knew that should they liberate himhere he could doubtless find his way to civilization withcomparative ease.

Paulvitch took the cheque.

"Remove your clothing," he said to the ape-man."Here you will not need it."

Tarzan demurred.

Paulvitch pointed to the armed sailors. Then the Englishmanslowly divested himself of his clothing.

A boat was lowered, and, still heavily guarded, the ape-manwas rowed ashore. Half an hour later the sailors had returnedto the Kincaid, and the steamer was slowly getting under way.

As Tarzan stood upon the narrow strip of beach watching thedeparture of the vessel he saw a figure appear at the railand call aloud to attract his attention.

The ape-man had been about to read a note that one ofthe sailors had handed him as the small boat that bore himto the shore was on the point of returning to the steamer,but at the hail from the vessel's deck he looked up.

He saw a black-bearded man who laughed at him in derisionas he held high above his head the figure of a little child. Tarzan half started as though to rush through the surf andstrike out for the already moving steamer; but realizing thefutility of so rash an act he halted at the water's edge.

Thus he stood, his gaze riveted upon the Kincaid until itdisappeared beyond a projecting promontory of the coast.

From the jungle at his back fierce bloodshot eyes glaredfrom beneath shaggy overhanging brows upon him.

Little monkeys in the tree-tops chattered and scolded, and fromthe distance of the inland forest came the scream of a leopard.

But still John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, stood deaf andunseeing, suffering the pangs of keen regret for theopportunity that he had wasted because he had been sogullible as to place credence in a single statement ofthe first lieutenant of his arch-enemy.

"I have at least," he thought, "one consolation--theknowledge that Jane is safe in London. Thank Heaven she,too, did not fall into the clutches of those villains."

Behind him the hairy thing whose evil eyes had beenwatching his as a cat watches a mouse was creepingstealthily toward him.

Where were the trained senses of the savage ape-man?

Where the acute hearing?

Where the uncanny sense of scent?