{"product_id":"2940012859341","title":"The Son Of Tarzan","description":"Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe long boat of the Marjorie W. was floating down the broad Ugambi\u003cbr\u003ewith ebb tide and current.  Her crew were lazily enjoying this respite\u003cbr\u003efrom the arduous labor of rowing up stream.  Three miles below them lay\u003cbr\u003ethe Marjorie W.  herself, quite ready to sail so soon as they should\u003cbr\u003ehave clambered aboard and swung the long boat to its davits.  Presently\u003cbr\u003ethe attention of every man was drawn from his dreaming or his gossiping\u003cbr\u003eto the northern bank of the river.  There, screaming at them in a\u003cbr\u003ecracked falsetto and with skinny arms outstretched, stood a strange\u003cbr\u003eapparition of a man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Wot the 'ell?\" ejaculated one of the crew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A white man!\" muttered the mate, and then:  \"Man the oars, boys, and\u003cbr\u003ewe'll just pull over an' see what he wants.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen they came close to the shore they saw an emaciated creature with\u003cbr\u003escant white locks tangled and matted.  The thin, bent body was naked\u003cbr\u003ebut for a loin cloth.  Tears were rolling down the sunken pock-marked\u003cbr\u003echeeks.  The man jabbered at them in a strange tongue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rooshun,\" hazarded the mate.  \"Savvy English?\" he called to the man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe did, and in that tongue, brokenly and haltingly, as though it had\u003cbr\u003ebeen many years since he had used it, he begged them to take him with\u003cbr\u003ethem away from this awful country.  Once on board the Marjorie W. the\u003cbr\u003estranger told his rescuers a pitiful tale of privation, hardships, and\u003cbr\u003etorture, extending over a period of ten years.  How he happened to have\u003cbr\u003ecome to Africa he did not tell them, leaving them to assume he had\u003cbr\u003eforgotten the incidents of his life prior to the frightful ordeals that\u003cbr\u003ehad wrecked him mentally and physically.  He did not even tell them his\u003cbr\u003etrue name, and so they knew him only as Michael Sabrov, nor was there\u003cbr\u003eany resemblance between this sorry wreck and the virile, though\u003cbr\u003eunprincipled, Alexis Paulvitch of old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had been ten years since the Russian had escaped the fate of his\u003cbr\u003efriend, the arch-fiend Rokoff, and not once, but many times during\u003cbr\u003ethose ten years had Paulvitch cursed the fate that had given to\u003cbr\u003eNicholas Rokoff death and immunity from suffering while it had meted to\u003cbr\u003ehim the hideous terrors of an existence infinitely worse than the death\u003cbr\u003ethat persistently refused to claim him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaulvitch had taken to the jungle when he had seen the beasts of Tarzan\u003cbr\u003eand their savage lord swarm the deck of the Kincaid, and in his terror\u003cbr\u003elest Tarzan pursue and capture him he had stumbled on deep into the\u003cbr\u003ejungle, only to fall at last into the hands of one of the savage\u003cbr\u003ecannibal tribes that had felt the weight of Rokoff's evil temper and\u003cbr\u003ecruel brutality.  Some strange whim of the chief of this tribe saved\u003cbr\u003ePaulvitch from death only to plunge him into a life of misery and\u003cbr\u003etorture.  For ten years he had been the butt of the village, beaten and\u003cbr\u003estoned by the women and children, cut and slashed and disfigured by the\u003cbr\u003ewarriors; a victim of often recurring fevers of the most malignant\u003cbr\u003evariety.  Yet he did not die.  Smallpox laid its hideous clutches upon\u003cbr\u003ehim; leaving him unspeakably branded with its repulsive marks.  Between\u003cbr\u003eit and the attentions of the tribe the countenance of Alexis Paulvitch\u003cbr\u003ewas so altered that his own mother could not have recognized in the\u003cbr\u003epitiful mask he called his face a single familiar feature.  A few\u003cbr\u003escraggly, yellow-white locks had supplanted the thick, dark hair that\u003cbr\u003ehad covered his head.  His limbs were bent and twisted, he walked with\u003cbr\u003ea shuffling, unsteady gait, his body doubled forward.  His teeth were\u003cbr\u003egone--knocked out by his savage masters.  Even his mentality was but a\u003cbr\u003esorry mockery of what it once had been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey took him aboard the Marjorie W., and there they fed and nursed\u003cbr\u003ehim.  He gained a little in strength; but his appearance never altered\u003cbr\u003efor the better--a human derelict, battered and wrecked, they had found\u003cbr\u003ehim; a human derelict, battered and wrecked, he would remain until\u003cbr\u003edeath claimed him.  Though still in his thirties, Alexis Paulvitch\u003cbr\u003ecould easily have passed for eighty.  Inscrutable Nature had demanded\u003cbr\u003eof the accomplice a greater penalty than his principal had paid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the mind of Alexis Paulvitch there lingered no thoughts of\u003cbr\u003erevenge--only a dull hatred of the man whom he and Rokoff had tried to\u003cbr\u003ebreak, and failed.  There was hatred, too, of the memory of Rokoff, for\u003cbr\u003eRokoff had led him into the horrors he had undergone.  There was hatred\u003cbr\u003eof the police of a score of cities from which he had had to flee.\u003cbr\u003eThere was hatred of law, hatred of order, hatred of everything.  Every\u003cbr\u003emoment of the man's waking life was filled with morbid thought of\u003cbr\u003ehatred--he had become mentally as he was physically in outward\u003cbr\u003eappearance, the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078991888624,"sku":"2940012859341","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012859341_p0.jpg?v=1763584735","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012859341","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}