Sorrowfully the Waziri turned back upon the trail they had just covered and a moment later the last of them disappeared from the sight of the Spaniard.
With a sigh of relief Esteban Miranda turned toward the camp of his own people. Fearing that to surprise them suddenly might invite a volley of shots from the askari he whistled, and then called aloud as he approached.
“It is Tarzan!” cried the first of the blacks who saw him. “Now indeed shall we all be killed.”
Esteban saw the growing excitement among the carriers and askari—he saw the latter seize their rifles and that they were fingering the triggers nervously.
“It is I, Esteban Miranda,” he called aloud. “Flora! Flora, tell those fools to lay aside their rifles.”
The whites, too, were standing watching him, and at the sound of his voice Flora turned toward the blacks. “It is all right,” she said, “that is not Tarzan. Lay aside your rifles.”
Esteban entered the camp, smiling. “Here I am,” he said.
“We thought that you were dead,” said Kraski. “Some of these fellows said that Tarzan said that he had killed you.”
“He captured me,” said Esteban, “but as you see he did not kill me. I thought that he was going to, but he did not, and finally he turned me loose in the jungle. He may have thought that I could not survive and that he would accomplish his end just as surely without having my blood upon his hands.”
“ ’E must have knowed you,” said Peebles. “You’d die, all right, if you were left alone very long in the jungle—you’d starve to death.”