Chapter 13
Escape
For a moment Rokoff stood sneering down upon Jane Clayton, then hiseyes fell to the little bundle in her lap. Jane had drawn one cornerof the blanket over the child's face, so that to one who did not knowthe truth it seemed but to be sleeping.
"You have gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble," said Rokoff,"to bring the child to this village. If you had attended to your ownaffairs I should have brought it here myself.
"You would have been spared the dangers and fatigue of the journey.But I suppose I must thank you for relieving me of the inconvenience ofhaving to care for a young infant on the march.
"This is the village to which the child was destined from the first.M'ganwazam will rear him carefully, making a good cannibal of him, andif you ever chance to return to civilization it will doubtless affordyou much food for thought as you compare the luxuries and comforts ofyour life with the details of the life your son is living in thevillage of the Waganwazam.
"Again I thank you for bringing him here for me, and now I must ask youto surrender him to me, that I may turn him over to his fosterparents." As he concluded Rokoff held out his hands for the child, anasty grin of vindictiveness upon his lips.
To his surprise Jane Clayton rose and, without a word of protest, laidthe little bundle in his arms.
"Here is the child," she said. "Thank God he is beyond your power toharm."
Grasping the import of her words, Rokoff snatched the blanket from thechild's face to seek confirmation of his fears. Jane Clayton watchedhis expression closely.
She had been puzzled for days for an answer to the question of Rokoff'sknowledge of the child's identity. If she had been in doubt before thelast shred of that doubt was wiped away as she witnessed the terribleanger of the Russian as he looked upon the dead face of the baby andrealized that at the last moment his dearest wish for vengeance hadbeen thwarted by a higher power.
Almost throwing the body of the child back into Jane Clayton's arms,Rokoff stamped up and down the hut, pounding the air with his clenchedfists and cursing terribly. At last he halted in front of the youngwoman, bringing his face down close to hers.
"You are laughing at me," he shrieked. "You think that you have beatenme--eh? I'll show you, as I have shown the miserable ape you call'husband,' what it means to interfere with the plans of Nikolas Rokoff.
"You have robbed me of the child. I cannot make him the son of acannibal chief, but"--and he paused as though to let the full meaningof his threat sink deep--"I can make the mother the wife of a cannibal,and that I shall do--after I have finished with her myself."
If he had thought to wring from Jane Clayton any sign of terror hefailed miserably. She was beyond that. Her brain and nerves were numbto suffering and shock.
To his surprise a faint, almost happy smile touched her lips. She wasthinking with thankful heart that this poor little corpse was not thatof her own wee Jack, and that--best of all--Rokoff evidently did notknow the truth.
She would have liked to have flaunted the fact in his face, but shedared not. If he continued to believe that the child had been hers, somuch safer would be the real Jack wherever he might be. She had, ofcourse, no knowledge of the whereabouts of her little son--she did notknow, even, that he still lived, and yet there was the chance that hemight.
It was more than possible that without Rokoff's knowledge this childhad been substituted for hers by one of the Russian's confederates, andthat even now her son might be safe with friends in London, where therewere many, both able and willing, to have paid any ransom which thetraitorous conspirator might have asked for the safe release of LordGreystoke's son.
She had thought it all out a hundred times since she had discoveredthat the baby which Anderssen had placed in her arms that night uponthe Kincaid was not her own, and it had been a constant and gnawingsource of happiness to her to dream the whole fantasy through in itsevery detail.
No, the Russian must never know that this was not her baby. Sherealized that her position was hopeless--with Anderssen and her husbanddead there was no one in all the world with a desire to succour her whoknew where she might be found.
Rokoff's threat, she realized, was no idle one. That he would do, orattempt to do, all that he had promised, she was perfectly sure; but atthe worst it meant but a little earlier release from the hideousanguish that she had been enduring. She must find some way to takeher own life before the Russian could harm her further.
Just now she wanted time--time to think and prepare herself for theend. She felt that she could not take the last, awful step until shehad exhausted every possibility of escape. She did not care to liveunless she might find her way back to her own child, but slight as sucha hope appeared she would not admit its impossibility until the lastmoment had come, and she faced the fearful reality of choosing betweenthe final alternatives--Nikolas Rokoff on one hand and self-destructionupon the other.
"Go away!" she said to the Russian. "Go away and leave me in peacewith my dead. Have you not brought sufficient misery and anguish uponme without attempting to harm me further? What wrong have I ever doneyou that you should persist in persecuting me?"
"You are suffering for the sins of the monkey you chose when you mighthave had the love of a gentleman--of Nikolas Rokoff," he replied. "Butwhere is the use in discussing the matter? We shall bury the childhere, and you will return with me at once to my own camp. Tomorrow Ishall bring you back and turn you over to your new husband--the lovelyM'ganwazam. Come!"
He reached out for the child. Jane, who was on her feet now, turnedaway from him.
"I shall bury the body," she said. "Send some men to dig a graveoutside the village."
Rokoff was anxious to have the thing over and get back to his camp withhis victim. He thought he saw in her apathy a resignation to her fate.Stepping outside the hut, he motioned her to follow him, and a momentlater, with his men, he escorted Jane beyond the village, where beneatha great tree the blacks scooped a shallow grave.
Wrapping the tiny body in a blanket, Jane laid it tenderly in the blackhole, and, turning her head that she might not see the mouldy earthfalling upon the pitiful little bundle, she breathed a prayer besidethe grave of the nameless waif that had won its way to the innermostrecesses of her heart.
Then, dry-eyed but suffering, she rose and followed the Russian throughthe Stygian blackness of the jungle, along the winding, leafy corridorthat led from the village of M'ganwazam, the black cannibal, to thecamp of Nikolas Rokoff, the white fiend.
Beside them, in the impenetrable thickets that fringed the path, risingto arch above it and shut out the moon, the girl could hear thestealthy, muffled footfalls of great beasts, and ever round about themrose the deafening roars of hunting lions, until the earth trembled tothe mighty sound.
The porters lighted torches now and waved them upon either hand tofrighten off the beasts of prey. Rokoff urged them to greater speed,and from the quavering note in his voice Jane Clayton knew that he wasweak from terror.
The sounds of the jungle night recalled most vividly the days andnights that she had spent in a similar jungle with her forest god--withthe fearless and unconquerable Tarzan of the Apes. Then there had beenno thoughts of terror, though the jungle noises were new to her, andthe roar of a lion had seemed the most awe-inspiring sound upon thegreat earth.
How different would it be now if she knew that he was somewhere therein the wilderness, seeking her! Then, indeed, would there be that forwhich to live, and every reason to believe that succour was close athand--but he was dead! It was incredible that it should be so.
There seemed no place in death for that great body and those mightythews. Had Rokoff been the one to tell her of her lord's passing shewould have known that he lied. There could be no reason, she thought,why M'ganwazam should have deceived her. She did not know that theRussian had talked with the savage a few minutes before the chief hadcome to her with his tale.
At last they
reached the rude boma that Rokoff's porters had thrown upround the Russian's camp. Here they found all in turmoil. She did notknow what it was all about, but she saw that Rokoff was very angry, andfrom bits of conversation which she could translate she gleaned thatthere had been further desertions while he had been absent, and thatthe deserters had taken the bulk of his food and ammunition.
When he had done venting his rage upon those who remained he returnedto where Jane stood under guard of a couple of his white sailors. Hegrasped her roughly by the arm and started to drag her toward his tent.The girl struggled and fought to free herself, while the two sailorsstood by, laughing at the rare treat.
Rokoff did not hesitate to use rough methods when he found that he wasto have difficulty in carrying out his designs. Repeatedly he struckJane Clayton in the face, until at last, half-conscious, she wasdragged within his tent.
Rokoff's boy had lighted the Russian's lamp, and now at a word from hismaster he made himself scarce. Jane had sunk to the floor in themiddle of the enclosure. Slowly her numbed senses were returning toher and she was commencing to think very fast indeed. Quickly her eyesran round the interior of the tent, taking in every detail of itsequipment and contents.
Now the Russian was lifting her to her feet and attempting to drag herto the camp cot that stood at one side of the tent. At his belt hunga heavy revolver. Jane Clayton's eyes riveted themselves upon it. Herpalm itched to grasp the huge butt. She feigned again to swoon, butthrough her half-closed lids she waited her opportunity.
It came just as Rokoff was lifting her upon the cot. A noise at thetent door behind him brought his head quickly about and away from thegirl. The butt of the gun was not an inch from her hand. With asingle, lightning-like move she snatched the weapon from its holster,and at the same instant Rokoff turned back toward her, realizing hisperil.
She did not dare fire for fear the shot would bring his people abouthim, and with Rokoff dead she would fall into hands no better than hisand to a fate probably even worse than he alone could have imagined.The memory of the two brutes who stood and laughed as Rokoff struck herwas still vivid.
As the rage and fear-filled countenance of the Slav turned toward herJane Clayton raised the heavy revolver high above the pasty face andwith all her strength dealt the man a terrific blow between the eyes.
Without a sound he sank, limp and unconscious, to the ground. Amoment later the girl stood beside him--for a moment at least free fromthe menace of his lust.
Outside the tent she again heard the noise that had distracted Rokoff'sattention. What it was she did not know, but, fearing the return ofthe servant and the discovery of her deed, she stepped quickly to thecamp table upon which burned the oil lamp and extinguished the smudgy,evil-smelling flame.
In the total darkness of the interior she paused for a moment tocollect her wits and plan for the next step in her venture for freedom.
About her was a camp of enemies. Beyond these foes a black wildernessof savage jungle peopled by hideous beasts of prey and still morehideous human beasts.
There was little or no chance that she could survive even a few days ofthe constant dangers that would confront her there; but the knowledgethat she had already passed through so many perils unscathed, and thatsomewhere out in the faraway world a little child was doubtless at thatvery moment crying for her, filled her with determination to make theeffort to accomplish the seemingly impossible and cross that awful landof horror in search of the sea and the remote chance of succour shemight find there.
Rokoff's tent stood almost exactly in the centre of the boma.Surrounding it were the tents and shelters of his white companions andthe natives of his safari. To pass through these and find egressthrough the boma seemed a task too fraught with insurmountableobstacles to warrant even the slightest consideration, and yet therewas no other way.
To remain in the tent until she should be discovered would be to set atnaught all that she had risked to gain her freedom, and so withstealthy step and every sense alert she approached the back of the tentto set out upon the first stage of her adventure.
Groping along the rear of the canvas wall, she found that there was noopening there. Quickly she returned to the side of the unconsciousRussian. In his belt her groping fingers came upon the hilt of a longhunting-knife, and with this she cut a hole in the back wall of thetent.
Silently she stepped without. To her immense relief she saw that thecamp was apparently asleep. In the dim and flickering light of thedying fires she saw but a single sentry, and he was dozing upon hishaunches at the opposite side of the enclosure.
Keeping the tent between him and herself, she crossed between the smallshelters of the native porters to the boma wall beyond.
Outside, in the darkness of the tangled jungle, she could hear theroaring of lions, the laughing of hyenas, and the countless, namelessnoises of the midnight jungle.
For a moment she hesitated, trembling. The thought of the prowlingbeasts out there in the darkness was appalling. Then, with a suddenbrave toss of her head, she attacked the thorny boma wall with herdelicate hands. Torn and bleeding though they were, she worked onbreathlessly until she had made an opening through which she could wormher body, and at last she stood outside the enclosure.
Behind her lay a fate worse than death, at the hands of human beings.
Before her lay an almost certain fate--but it was only death--sudden,merciful, and honourable death.
Without a tremor and without regret she darted away from the camp, anda moment later the mysterious jungle had closed about her.