His strange accent-the accent of the beasts.

Jean was warming to the subject, excited. "What about other animals?" she asked. "Can you speak with them? Are they ... your friends?"

"Animals in their native state," replied Tarzan, "make few friends in the sense that humans do, even among their own kind. But I have friends among them." Tarzan waved a hand at the golden lion. "Jad-bal-ja here would fight to the death to protect me. And I him. Tantor the elephant is my friend, as is Nkima."

"Nkima?" Jean asked.

"A small monkey that is usually with me," Tarzan said. "Where he is now, I can't say. He often wanders off. But when he gets in trouble, or is afraid, he often comes racing to me for protection. He is a coward, and an outrageous braggart, but I'm fond of him."

"You seem to prefer animals to humans," Jean said.

"I do."

"But that's because you've had unpleasant experiences with men," Hanson said. "Am I right?"

"You are," Tarzan said. "But let me remind you that you, as of recent, have had some very unpleasant experiences with men."

"That's true," Jean said. "But I wouldn't call my experience with the apes a picnic."

Tarzan smiled. "Ultimately, man and beast are not all that different."

Hanson said, "It's amazing. Everything they say about you ... the legends ... they're true."

Tarzan smiled, and this time it was a true smile. "Nothing is ever completely true about a legend," he said.

Chapter 5

WILSON LAID THE bundle on the ground in front of Gromvitch and Cannon and removed the oilcloth from the rifles, ammunition, and supplies. There were four rifles, two handguns, a limited supply of ammunition, some basic rations, and a canteen of water.

"We do some hunting, find some water, there's enough ammunition there to get us to the coast," Gromvitch said.

"I'm not going to the coast," Wilson said. "You do what you want. I'm going after this guy that kicked my butt. I don't take kindly to it. I was a heavyweight contender. I figure I can give him a little more for his money next time."

"I don't know," Gromvitch said. "Way I look at it is, what the hell? We got some guns, some food. We didn't desert the Legion post just to hike around in the jungle."

Wilson said, "We were going to check out that story Blomberg told us, remember? Make some dough, pool our resources. That way, when we left Africa, it would be with more than what's left of our uniforms."

"Yeah," Cannon said, "and now we don't got to split nothing with Talent."

Wilson glared at him. "That makes you pretty happy."

"Well, we won't," Cannon said.