Warriors were
in evidence upon hand. It was not a good time for a lone enemy to
prosecute a search through the village. Korak determined to await
the coming of darkness. He was a match for many warriors; but
he could not, unaided, overcome an entire tribe--not even for his
beloved Meriem. While he waited among the branches and foliage
of a near-by tree he searched the village constantly with his keen
eyes, and twice he circled it, sniffing the vagrant breezes which
puffed erratically from first one point of the compass and then
another. Among the various stenches peculiar to a native village
the ape-man's sensitive nostrils were finally rewarded by cognizance
of the delicate aroma which marked the presence of her he sought.
Meriem was there--in one of those huts! But which one he could
not know without closer investigation, and so he waited, with the
dogged patience of a beast of prey, until night had fallen.
The camp fires of the blacks dotted the gloom with little points
of light, casting their feeble rays in tiny circles of luminosity
that brought into glistening relief the naked bodies of those who
lay or squatted about them.
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