Coming toward him down the meadow was an aeroplane piloted
by the black Usanga and in the seat behind the pilot was the white
girl, Bertha Kircher. How it befell that the ignorant savage could
operate the plane, Tarzan could not guess nor had he time in which
to speculate upon the subject. His knowledge of Usanga, together
with the position of the white man, told him that the black sergeant
was attempting to carry off the white girl. Why he should be doing
this when he had her in his power and had also captured and secured
the only creature in the jungle who might wish to defend her in so
far as the black could know, Tarzan could not guess, for he knew
nothing of Usanga's twenty-four dream wives nor of the black's
fear of the horrid temper of Naratu, his present mate. He did not
know, then, that Usanga had determined to fly away with the white
girl never to return, and to put so great a distance between himself
and Naratu that the latter never could find him again; but it was
this very thing that was in the black's mind although not even his
own warriors guessed it. He had told them that he would take the
captive to a sultan of the north and there obtain a great price for
her and that when he returned they should have some of the spoils.
These things Tarzan did not know. All he knew was what he saw--a
Negro attempting to fly away with a white girl.
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