The ape-man changed his direction to the right and made a great circle through the trees until presently he reached a point where Usha, the wind, could carry the scent spoor of the strangers to him.

"Gomangani," he said.

"Many Gomangani," exclaimed Nkima, excitedly. "They are as the leaves upon the trees. Let us go away. They will kill little Nkima and eat him."

"There are not so many," replied Tarzan, "no more than the fingers upon my two hands, a hunting party, perhaps. We will go closer."

Moving up on the blacks from behind, the ape-man rapidly closed up the distance between them. The scent spoor grew stronger in his nostrils.

"They are friends," he said. "They are Waziri."

The two jungle creatures moved on in silence then, until they overhauled a file of black warriors who moved silently along the jungle trail. Then Tarzan spoke to them in their own tongue.

"Muviro," he said, "what brings my children so far from their own country?"

The blacks halted and wheeled about, gazing up into the trees from which the voice had seemed to come. They saw nothing, but they knew the voice.

"Oh, Bwana, it is well that you have come," said Muviro. "Your children need you."

Tarzan dropped to the trail among them. "Has harm befallen any of my people?" he asked, as the blacks clustered about him.

"Buira, my daughter, has disappeared," said Muviro. "She went alone toward the river, and that is the last that was ever seen of her."

"Perhaps Gimla, the crocodile—" Tarzan commenced to suggest.

"No, it was not Gimla. There were other women at the river. Buira never reached the river. We have heard stories, Bwana, that fill us with terror for our girls. There is evil, there is mystery in it, Bwana. We have heard of the Kavuru. Perhaps it is they; we go to search for them."