The Deck, toward the Bridge
The jungle was a better forge than any to be found in a civilized village, and it made Tarzan of the Apes a thing of fearsome beauty and dreadful intensity. The young man's brown skin was pressed smooth by a tangled torrent of muscle, so many lean muscles that it could not be doubted that they were anything but necessary. He used them to move, every stride a tug and a pull of tendon and flesh, and after discovering the long curve of the Deck, he hung down over the ship's long railing to stare out over the Cimmerian water. The edge of every limb seemed hardened as if by repeated blows, and he felt no strain in arm or fingers as he looked out into the nothing night with a bleak, unblinking stare that went on forever.
Tarzan grunted with dislike. There was no sight of the coast, and though he felt no fear of the long drop and icy mist, he lifted one calloused hand after another and pulled himself back onto the deck of the ship, landing heavily on knuckles and shoulders. His weight made the salt-stained deck creak with impact, and he tucked his head down, tangled black hair confused at the crown of his prominent forehead. He tested the deck with his thick toes. When it did not creak again he progressed forward once more, a contorted shadow sliding moving much as muscles might, expanding and contracting as Tarzan swung his feet forward under his hips.
He huffed dusty air through his sharp nose and turned his tangled head this way and that, trying to sniff out the inhabitants of the ship, thinking thoughts of hunger and curiosity and caution. He heard voices, but they were distant, and he had not yet decided whether he could find them quicker by going left or right. He sucked his last meal from between his teeth as he considered, damp fingers itching at the line of his loin cloth on one hip.