Tarzan of the Apes stood in the center of the clearing watching the
plane shrinking to diminutive toy-like proportions in the eastern
sky. He had breathed a sigh of relief as he saw it rise safely with
the British flier and Fraulein Bertha Kircher. For weeks he had
felt the hampering responsibility of their welfare in this savage
wilderness where their utter helplessness would have rendered them
easy prey for the savage carnivores or the cruel Wamabos. Tarzan
of the Apes loved unfettered freedom, and now that these two were
safely off his hands, he felt that he could continue upon his
journey toward the west coast and the long-untenanted cabin of his
dead father.
And yet, as he stood there watching the tiny speck in the east,
another sigh heaved his broad chest, nor was it a sigh of relief,
but rather a sensation which Tarzan had never expected to feel
again and which he now disliked to admit even to himself. It could
not be possible that he, the jungle bred, who had renounced forever
the society of man to return to his beloved beasts of the wilds,
could be feeling anything akin to regret at the departure of these
two, or any slightest loneliness now that they were gone. Lieutenant
Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick Tarzan had liked, but the woman whom he
had known as a German spy he had hated, though he never had found it
in his heart to slay her as he had sworn to slay all Huns.
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