EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
down the embankment, rolling and tumbling for a short distance over the loose rock until his body was brought to a stop by one of the many stunted trees that clung tenaciously to the wind-swept slope.
Terrified, Nkima scampered to his master’s side. He screamed and chattered in his ear and pulled and tugged upon him in an effort to raise him, but the ape-man lay motionless, a tiny stream of blood trickling from a cut on his temple into his shock of black hair.
As Nkima mourned, the black warriors, who had been watching them from below, clambered quickly up the mountainside toward him and his helpless master.
Chapter Four
As Erich von Harben turned to face the thing that he had heard approaching behind him, he saw a negro armed with a rifle coming toward him.
“Gabulal” exclaimed the white man, lowering his weapon.
“What are you doing here?”
“Bwana,” said the black, “I could not desert you. I could not leave you to die alone at the hands of the spirits that dwell upon these mountains.”
Von Harben eyed the negro incredulously. “But if you believe that, Gabula, are you not afraid that they will kill you, too?”
“I expect to die, Bwana,” replied Gabula. “I cannot understand why you were not killed the first night or the second night. We shall both surely be killed tonight.”
“And yet you followed me! Why?”
“You have been kind to me, Bwana,” replied the black. “Your father has been kind to me. When the others talked they filled me with fear and when they ran away I went
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