Never regularly sworn into the service of the King, he was under
no obligation to remain now that the moral obligation had been
removed, and so it was that he disappeared from the British camp
as mysteriously as he had appeared a few months before.
More than once had Tarzan reverted to the primitive only to return
again to civilization through love for his mate; but now that she
was gone he felt that this time he had definitely departed forever
from the haunts of man, and that he should live and die a beast
among beasts even as he had been from infancy to maturity.
Between him and destination lay a trackless wilderness of untouched
primeval savagery where, doubtless in many spots, his would be the
first human foot to touch the virgin turf. Nor did this prospect
dismay the Tarmangani--rather was it an urge and an inducement, for
rich in his veins flowed that noble strain of blood that has made
most of the earth's surface habitable for man.
The question of food and water that would have risen paramount in
the mind of an ordinary man contemplating such an excursion gave
Tarzan little concern. The wilderness was his natural habitat
and woodcraft as inherent to him as breathing. Like other jungle
animals he could scent water from a great distance and, where you
or I might die of thirst, the ape-man would unerringly select the
exact spot at which to dig and find water.
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