Tarzan and the Ant Men

This is an excerpt from Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan and the Ant Men, published by A.C. McCLurg & Co. in September 1924. The adventure narrative opens in a cannibal village on the Ugogo River, where Esteban Miranda, a Spanish impostor who has long impersonated Tarzan, remains chained as a prisoner of Chief Obebe. Miranda sustains himself through fantasies of wealth—he possesses stolen diamonds—and pretends to be a river devil to leverage the witch doctor's supernatural beliefs against Obebe's cannibalistic intentions. When the witch doctor's fourteen-year-old daughter Uhha approaches him, Miranda manipulates her with promises of protection and eternal fortune, claiming he will destroy the village in days unless someone frees him. Uhha, frightened but intrigued, visits Obebe's daughter and begins maneuvering to steal the chief's key to Miranda's collar, crawling into the sleeping Obebe's hut to retrieve his pouch.