If this was the case, they had doubtless purposed returning the
child to civilization and there either claiming a reward or holding
the little prisoner for ransom.

But now that Rokoff had succeeded in chasing them far inland, up
the savage river, there could be little doubt but that he would
eventually overhaul them, unless, as was still more probable, they
should be captured and killed by the very cannibals farther up the
Ugambi, to whom, Tarzan was now convinced, it had been Rokoff's
intention to deliver the baby.

As he talked to Kaviri the canoes had been moving steadily up-river
toward the chief's village. Kaviri's warriors plied the paddles
in the three canoes, casting sidelong, terrified glances at their
hideous passengers. Three of the apes of Akut had been killed in
the encounter, but there were, with Akut, eight of the frightful
beasts remaining, and there was Sheeta, the panther, and Tarzan
and Mugambi.

Kaviri's warriors thought that they had never seen so terrible a
crew in all their lives. Momentarily they expected to be pounced
upon and torn asunder by some of their captors; and, in fact,
it was all that Tarzan and Mugambi and Akut could do to keep the
snarling, ill-natured brutes from snapping at the glistening, naked
bodies that brushed against them now and then with the movements
of the paddlers, whose very fear added incitement to the beasts.

At Kaviri's camp Tarzan paused only long enough to eat the food
that the blacks furnished, and arrange with the chief for a dozen
men to man the paddles of his canoe.