They thought of the marks upon dead throats-made
by talons or by giant fingers, they could not tell which--and those
upon shoulders and jugulars where powerful teeth had fastened and
they waited with drawn pistols.
Once the bushes moved almost imperceptibly and an instant later
one of the officers, without warning, fired into them; but Tarzan
of the Apes was not there. In the interval between the moving of
the bushes and the firing of the shot he had melted into the night.
Ten minutes later he was hovering on the outskirts of that part
of camp where were bivouacked for the night the black soldiers of
a native company commanded by one Hauptmann Fritz Schneider. The
men were stretched upon the ground without tents; but there were
tents pitched for the officers. Toward these Tarzan crept. It was
slow and perilous work, as the Germans were now upon the alert for
the uncanny foe that crept into their camps to take his toll by
night, yet the ape-man passed their sentinels, eluded the vigilance
of the interior guard, and crept at last to the rear of the officers'
line.
Here he flattened himself against the ground close behind the
nearest tent and listened. From within came the regular breathing
of a sleeping man--one only. Tarzan was satisfied. With his knife
he cut the tie strings of the rear flap and entered.
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