Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TARZAN feverish body... It was still dark when he stumbled and_ fell ground. See oe OD CHAPTER XXII. THE RIVER DEVIL. HAMIS, the witch doctor, searched. his young untiringly for Uhha, daughter. A tribal rumor had arisen that a River Devil had stolen her from their home village of Obebe, the cannibal. The father suspected that a ravenous lion or a marauding leopard had taken the child, ‘but he doggedly made pilgrimages to other villages, some of them remote from his own country. So far, he had found no slightest trace of the girl or her abductor. , Khamis was returning from another fruit- less. search that had extended far to the east of the village of Obebe, skirting the Great Thorn Forest a few miles north of the Ugogo. It.was early morning. He had just broken his lonely camp and set out upon the last leg of his homeward journey when his keen old eyes discovered some- thing unusual lying at the edge of a small open space a hundred yards away. He did not know what it was, but in- stinct bade him to investigate. Cautiously moving nearer, he presently identified the thing as a human knee showing above the low grass that covered the clearing. He crept closer, and suddenly his eyes nar- rowed and his breath made a single, odd little sound as it sucked. rapidly between his lips in mechanical reaction to surprise. For that which he saw was the body of what could be naught but a River Devil— a naked, brown skinned, beautifully pro- portioned man; which is one of the water fiend’s disguises, of course. It was upon its back with one knee flexed—the knee that he had seen above’the grasses. His spear advanced and ready, he ap- proached until he stood above the motion- less form. Was the River Devil dead, or was he asleep? Placing the point of his spear against the brown ‘breast, Khamis prodded. The Devil did not awaken. He was not asleep, then; nor did he appear to be dead. Khamis knelt and placed an ear AND THE ANT-MEN. unconscious to the. ded him in the direction of the trail. 788... above the creature’s heart. He was not dead! The witch doctor thought quickly. In his heart he did not believe in River Dev- ils, yet there was a chance that there might be such things, and perhaps this one was shamming unconsciousness, or temporarily absent from the flesh it assumed as a dis- guise so that it might go among men with- Out arousing suspicion. But, too, it probably was the abductor of his missing daughter. That thought filled him with rage and with courage. He must force the truth from those lips even though the creature were a fiend. He unwound a bit of fiber rope from about his waist and, turning the helpless form over, quickly bound the wrists be- hind it. Then he sat down beside it to wait. ‘An hour passed before signs of re- turning consciousness appeared, then the ‘River Devil opened his eyes and looked up at Khamis. ‘Where is Uhha, my daughter?” de- manded the witch doctor. The River Devil tried to free his arms, but they were too tightly bound. He made no reply to Khamis’s question. It was as if he had not heard it. He ceased struggling and lay back again, resting. After a while he opened his eyes once more and lay look- ing at Khamis; but he did not speak. ‘“ Get up!” commanded the witch doctor, and prodded him with a spear. The River Devil rolled over on his side, flexed his right knee, raised on one elbow and finally got to his feet. Khamis prod- To- ward dusk they arrived at the village of Obebe, the cannibal. When the warriors and the women and the children saw what Khamis was bring- ing to the village they became very much excited, and had. it not been for the witch doctor, of whom they were afraid, they would have knifed and stoned the prisoner to death before he was fairly inside the village gates; but Khamis did not want the River Devil killed—not yet. He wanted first to force from him the truth concerning Uhha. So far he had been unable to get a word out of his prisoner. Incessant questioning, emphasized by many S GOMIIGooOO