From hut to hut he went searching with keen ears and nostrils some
confirming evidence of the presence of the girl, and at last, faint
and almost obliterated by the odor of the Gomangani, he found it
hanging like a delicate vapor about a small hut. The village was
quiet now, for the last of the beer and the food had been disposed
of and the blacks lay in their huts overcome by stupor, yet Tarzan
made no noise that even a sober man keenly alert might have heard.
He passed around to the entrance of the hut and listened. From
within came no sound, not even the low breathing of one awake; yet
he was sure that the girl had been here and perhaps was even now,
and so he entered, slipping in as silently as a disembodied spirit.
For a moment he stood motionless just within the entranceway,
listening. No, there was no one here, of that he was sure, but he
would investigate. As his eyes became accustomed to the greater
darkness within the hut an object began to take form that presently
outlined itself in a human form supine upon the floor.
Tarzan stepped closer and leaned over to examine it--it was the dead
body of a naked warrior from whose chest protruded a short spear.
Then he searched carefully every square foot of the remaining floor
space and at last returned to the body again where he stooped and
smelled of the haft of the weapon that had slain the black.
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