KRASKI spent a sleepless night. He could not help but realize that sooner or later Tarzan would discover the loss of his pouch of diamonds, and that he would return and demand an accounting of the four Londoners he had befriended. And so it was that as the first streak of dawn lighted the eastern horizon, the Russian arose from his pallet of dried grasses within the hut that had been assigned him and Bluber by the chief, and crept stealthily out into the village street.
“God!” he muttered to himself. “There is only one chance in a thousand that I can reach the coast alone, but this,” and he pressed his hand over the bag of diamonds that lay within his shirt—“but this, this is worth every effort, even to the sacrifice of life—the fortune of a thousand kings—my God, what could I not do with it in London, and Paris, and New York!”
Stealthily he slunk from the village, and presently the verdure of the jungle beyond closed about Carl Kraski, the Russian, as he disappeared forever from the lives of his companions.
Bluber was the first to discover the absence of Kraski, for, although there was no love between the two, they had been thrown together owing to the friendship of Peebles and Throck.
“Have you seen Carl this morning?” he asked Peebles as the three men gathered around the pot containing the unsavory stew that had been brought to them for their breakfast.
“No,” said Peebles. “He must be asleep yet.”
“He is not in the hut,” replied Bluber. “He vas not dere ven I woke up.”
“He can take care of himself,” growled Throck, resuming his breakfast. “You’ll likely find him with some of the ladies,” and he grinned in appreciation of his little joke on Kraski’s well-known weakness.
They had finished their breakfast and were attempting to communicate with some of the warriors, in an effort to learn when the chief proposed that they should set forth for the coast, and still Kraski had not made an appearance. By this time Bluber was considerably concerned, not at all for Kraski’s safety, but for his own, since, if something could happen to Kraski in this friendly village in the still watches of the night, a similar fate might overtake him, and when he made this suggestion to the others it gave them food for thought, too, so that there were three rather apprehensive men who sought an audience with the chief.
By means of signs and pidgin English, and distorted native dialect, a word or two of which each of the three understood, they managed to convey to the chief the information that Kraski had disappeared, and that they wanted to know what had become of him.