"I shall tell you the truth," said Tarzan. "You have deserted your master and run away, leaving him alone in the forest."
"We were afraid," said the third black. "We warned him not to ascend the slopes of the Wiramwazi. We begged him to turn back. He would not listen to us, and the spirits of the dead carried him away."
"How long ago was that?" asked the ape-man.
"Six, seven, perhaps ten marchings. I do not remember."
"Where was he when you last saw him?"
As accurately as they could the blacks described the location of their last camp upon the slopes of the Wiramwazi.
"Go your way back to your own villages in the Urambi country. I shall know where to find you if I want you. If your Bwana is dead, you shall be punished," and swinging into the branches of the lower terrace, Tarzan disappeared from the sight of the unhappy blacks in the direction of the Wiramwazi, while Nkima, screaming shrilly, raced through the trees to overtake him.
From his conversation with the deserting members of von Harben's safari, Tarzan was convinced that the young man had been traitorously abandoned and that in all likelihood he was making his way alone back upon the trail of the deserters.
Not knowing Erich von Harben, Tarzan could not have guessed that the young man would push on alone into the unknown and forbidding depths of the Wiramwazi, but assumed on the contrary that he would adopt the more prudent alternative and seek to overtake his men as rapidly as possible. Believing this, the ape-man followed back along the trail of the blacks, expecting momentarily to meet von Harben.
This plan greatly reduced his speed, but even so he traveled with so much greater rapidity than the blacks that he came to the slopes of the Wiramwazi upon the third day after he had interviewed the remnants of von Harben's safari.