The Son of Tarzan

es below them lay the Marjorie W. herself, quite ready to sail so soon as they should have clambered aboard and swung the long boat to its davits. Presently the attention of every man was dra

" ejaculated o

then: "Man the oars, boys, and we'll

s tangled and matted. The thin, bent body was naked but for a loin cloth. Tears were r

e mate. "Savvy English

tale of privation, hardships, and torture, extending over a period of ten years. How he happened to have come to Africa he did not tell them, leaving them to assume he had forgotten the incidents of his life prior to the frightful ordeals that

during those ten years had Paulvitch cursed the fate that had given to Nicholas Rokoff death and immunity from suffering while

im into a life of misery and torture. For ten years he had been the butt of the village, beaten and stoned by the women and children, cut and slashed and disfigured by the warriors; a victim of often recurring fevers of the most malignant variety. Yet he did not die. Smallpox laid its hideous clutches upon him; leaving him unspeakably branded with its repulsive marks. Between it and the attentions of the tribe the countenance of Alexis Paulvitch

an derelict, battered and wrecked, they had found him; a human derelict, battered and wrecked, he would remain until death claimed him. Though still in his th

here was hatred of the police of a score of cities from which he had had to flee. There was hatred of law, hatred of order, hatred of everything. Every moment of the man's waking life was filled with morbid thought of hatred-he had become mentally as he was

roduct which the manufacturers who footed the bills had been importing from South America at an enormous cost. What the product was none on board the Marjorie W. knew exce

er became trying for the crew. They went often ashore, and finally Paulvitch asked to

lay in the shade of the great trees that skirted it. One day, as the men were gathered at a little distance inspecting the body of a panther that had fallen to the gun of one of them who had been hunting inland, Paulvitch lay sleeping beneath his tree. He was awakened by the touch of a hand upon his shoulder. With a start he sat up to see a huge, anthropoi

they were seen, and by this time Paulvitch had become assured that the beast meant no harm. The animal evidently was accustomed to the association of human beings. It oc

ard the two. The ape showed no sign of fear. Instead he grasped each sailor by the shoulder and peered long and earnestly into his fac

pleasantry. Circling about behind the ape he prodded the anthropoid in the back with a pin. Like a flash the beast wheeled upon its tormentor, and, in the briefest instant of turning, the placid, friendly animal was metamorphosed to a frenzied demon of rage. The broad grin that had sat upon the sailor's face as he perp

anced around the cursing, snarling pack mumbling and screaming pleas and threats.

recipitated the battle he shook his giant shoulders, freeing himself from two of the men that were clinging to his back, and with mi

h of his foes he should exterminate first Paulvitch could not guess. What he could guess, however, was that the moment the two officers came within firing distance of the beast they would put an end to him in short order unless something were done and done quickly to prevent. The ape had made no move to attack the Russian but even so the man was none too sure of what might h

the animal; but instead Paulvitch shuffled to the ape's side, and though the man

the sailors, many of whom were now sitting up in wide eyed fri

it show the slightest indication of a desire to harm the Russ

. "I'll put that brute where he w

erfectly gentle-and he's mine-he's mine-he's mine! I won't let you kill him," he concluded, as his half-wrecked mentality pictured anew

d the sailors who had by this time picked themselves from the ground, none of them much the worse for his experien

ind, and the monk got him-which served him bloomin' well right-an' he got the

the captain approached him the ape half rose and waddled forward to meet him. Upon his countenance was the same strange, searching expression that had marked his scrutiny of each of the sailors he had first encountered. He came quite close to the officer and laid a paw upon one of the man's shoulders, studying his face intently for a long moment, then came the expression of disappointment accompanied by

trange ceremony with which he greeted each new face. Had he been discovered upon the mainland, or any other place than the almost unknown island that had been his home, they would have concluded that he had formerly been a pet of man; but that theory was not tenable in the face of the isolation of his uninhabited island. He seemed continually to be searching for someone, and during the first days of the return voyage from the island he was often discovered nosing about in various parts of the ship; but after he had s

o undergo his searching scrutiny. All in all, Ajax, as he had been dubbed, was considered the most remarkable and intelligent ape that any one aboard the Marjorie W. ever had seen. Nor was his intelligence the only r

cientists, filled with compassion for the pitiful wreck of a man they had rescued

within the anthropoid's ken must be carefully scrutinized, much to the horror of many of his victims; but at last, failing, apparentl

much impressed with Ajax with the result that he agreed to train him for a lion's share of the pr

another link in the chain of strange circumstan