Tarzan the Untamed

Chapter I

Murder and Pillage

Hauptmann Fritz Schneider trudged wearily through the somber aisles

of the dark forest. Sweat rolled down his bullet head and stood

upon his heavy jowls and bull neck. His lieutenant marched beside

him while Underlieutenant von Goss brought up the rear, following

with a handful of askaris the tired and all but exhausted porters

whom the black soldiers, following the example of their white officer,

encouraged with the sharp points of bayonets and the metal-shod

butts of rifles.

There were no porters within reach of Hauptmann Schneider so he

vented his Prussian spleen upon the askaris nearest at hand, yet

with greater circumspection since these men bore loaded rifles--and

the three white men were alone with them in the heart of Africa.

Ahead of the hauptmann marched half his company, behind him the

other half--thus were the dangers of the savage jungle minimized

for the German captain. At the forefront of the column staggered

two naked savages fastened to each other by a neck chain. These

were the native guides impressed into the service of Kultur and upon

their poor, bruised bodies Kultur's brand was revealed in divers

cruel wounds and bruises.

Thus even in darkest Africa was the light of German civilization

commencing to reflect itself upon the undeserving natives just as

at the same period, the fall of 1914, it was shedding its glorious

effulgence upon benighted Belgium.

It is true that the guides had led the party astray; but this is

the way of most African guides. Nor did it matter that ignorance

rather than evil intent had been the cause of their failure. It

was enough for Hauptmann Fritz Schneider to know that he was lost

in the African wilderness and that he had at hand human beings less

powerful than he who could be made to suffer by torture. That he

did not kill them outright was partially due to a faint hope that

they might eventually prove the means of extricating him from his

difficulties and partially that so long as they lived they might

still be made to suffer.

The poor creatures, hoping that chance might lead them at last

upon the right trail, insisted that they knew the way and so led

on through a dismal forest along a winding game trail trodden deep

by the feet of countless generations of the savage denizens of the

jungle.

Here Tantor, the elephant, took his long way from dust wallow to

water. Here Buto, the rhinoceros, blundered blindly in his solitary

majesty, while by night the great cats paced silently upon their

padded feet beneath the dense canopy of overreaching trees toward

the broad plain beyond, where they found their best hunting.

It was at the edge of this plain which came suddenly and unexpectedly

before the eyes of the guides that their sad hearts beat with

renewed hope. Here the hauptmann drew a deep sigh of relief, for

after days of hopeless wandering through almost impenetrable jungle

the broad vista of waving grasses dotted here and there with open

park like woods and in the far distance the winding line of green

shrubbery that denoted a river appeared to the European a veritable

heaven.

The Hun smiled in his relief, passed a cheery word with his lieutenant,

and then scanned the broad plain with his field glasses. Back and

forth they swept across the rolling land until at last they came

to rest upon a point near the center of the landscape and close to

the green-fringed contours of the river.

"We are in luck," said Schneider to his companions. "Do you see

it?"

The lieutenant, who was also gazing through his own glasses,

finally brought them to rest upon the same spot that had held the

attention of his superior.

"Yes," he said, "an English farm. It must be Greystoke's, for there

is none other in this part of British East Africa. God is with us,

Herr Captain."

"We have come upon the English schweinhund long before he can have

learned that his country is at war with ours," replied Schneider.

"Let him be the first to feel the iron hand of Germany."

"Let us hope that he is at home," said the lieutenant, "that we

may take him with us when we report to Kraut at Nairobi. It will

go well indeed with Herr Hauptmann Fritz Schneider if he brings in

the famous Tarzan of the Apes as a prisoner of war."

Schneider smiled and puffed out his chest. "You are right, my

friend," he said, "it will go well with both of us; but I shall

have to travel far to catch General Kraut before he reaches Mombasa.

These English pigs with their contemptible army will make good time

to the Indian Ocean."

It was in a better frame of mind that the small force set out across

the open country toward the trim and well-kept farm buildings of

John Clayton, Lord Greystoke; but disappointment was to be their

lot since neither Tarzan of the Apes nor his son was at home.

Lady Jane, ignorant of the fact that a state of war existed between

Great Britain and Germany, welcomed the officers most hospitably

and gave orders through her trusted Waziri to prepare a feast for

the black soldiers of the enemy.

Far to the east, Tarzan of the Apes was traveling rapidly from

Nairobi toward the farm. At Nairobi he had received news of the

World War that had already started, and, anticipating an immediate

invasion of British East Africa by the Germans, was hurrying homeward

to fetch his wife to a place of greater security. With him were a

score of his ebon warriors, but far too slow for the ape-man was

the progress of these trained and hardened woodsmen.

When necessity demanded, Tarzan of the Apes sloughed the thin

veneer of his civilization and with it the hampering apparel that

was its badge. In a moment the polished English gentleman reverted

to the naked ape man.

His mate was in danger. For the time, that single thought dominated.

He did not think of her as Lady Jane Greystoke, but rather as the

she he had won by the might of his steel thews, and that he must

hold and protect by virtue of the same offensive armament.

It was no member of the House of Lords who swung swiftly and grimly

through the tangled forest or trod with untiring muscles the wide

stretches of open plain--it was a great he ape filled with a single

purpose that excluded all thoughts of fatigue or danger.

Little Manu, the monkey, scolding and chattering in the upper

terraces of the forest, saw him pass. Long had it been since he had

thus beheld the great Tarmangani naked and alone hurtling through

the jungle. Bearded and gray was Manu, the monkey, and to his dim

old eyes came the fire of recollection of those days when Tarzan

of the Apes had ruled supreme, Lord of the Jungle, over all the

myriad life that trod the matted vegetation between the boles of

the great trees, or flew or swung or climbed in the leafy fastness

upward to the very apex of the loftiest terraces.

And Numa, the lion, lying up for the day close beside last night's

successful kill, blinked his yellow-green eyes and twitched his

tawny tail as he caught the scent spoor of his ancient enemy.

Nor was Tarzan senseless to the presence of Numa or Manu or any of

the many jungle beasts he passed in his rapid flight towards the

west. No particle had his shallow probing of English society dulled

his marvelous sense faculties. His nose had picked out the presence

of Numa, the lion, even before the majestic king of beasts was

aware of his passing.

He had heard noisy little Manu, and even the soft rustling of the

parting shrubbery where Sheeta passed before either of these alert

animals sensed his presence.

But however keen the senses of the ape-man, however swift his

progress through the wild country of his adoption, however mighty

the muscles that bore him, he was still mortal. Time and space

placed their inexorable limits upon him; nor was there another who

realized this truth more keenly than Tarzan. He chafed and fretted

that he could not travel with the swiftness of thought and that the

long tedious miles stretching far ahead of him must require hours

and hours of tireless effort upon his part before he would swing

at last from the final bough of the fringing forest into the open

plain and in sight of his goal.

Days it took, even though he lay up at night for but a few hours

and left to chance the finding of meat directly on his trail. If

Wappi, the antelope, or Horta, the boar, chanced in his way when

he was hungry, he ate, pausing but long enough to make the kill

and cut himself a steak.

Then at last the long journey drew to its close and he was passing

through the last stretch of heavy forest that bounded his estate

upon the east, and then this was traversed and he stood upon the

plain's edge looking out across his broad lands towards his home.

At the first glance his eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed. Even

at that distance he could see that something was amiss. A thin

spiral of smoke arose at the right of the bungalow where the barns

had stood, but there were no barns there now, and from the bungalow

chimney from which smoke should have arisen, there arose nothing.

Once again Tarzan of the Apes was speeding onward, this time even

more swiftly than before, for he was goaded now by a nameless fear,

more product of intuition than of reason. Even as the beasts,

Tarzan of the Apes seemed to possess a sixth sense. Long before he

reached the bungalow, he had almost pictured the scene that finally

broke upon his view.

Silent and deserted was the vine-covered cottage. Smoldering embers

marked the site of his great barns. Gone were the thatched huts of

his sturdy retainers, empty the fields, the pastures, and corrals.

Here and there vultures rose and circled above the carcasses of

men and beasts.

It was with a feeling as nearly akin to terror as he ever had

experienced that the ape-man finally forced himself to enter his

home. The first sight that met his eyes set the red haze of hate

and bloodlust across his vision, for there, crucified against the

wall of the living-room, was Wasimbu, giant son of the faithful

Muviro and for over a year the personal bodyguard of Lady Jane.

The overturned and shattered furniture of the room, the brown pools

of dried blood upon the floor, and prints of bloody hands on walls

and woodwork evidenced something of the frightfulness of the battle

that had been waged within the narrow confines of the apartment.

Across the baby grand piano lay the corpse of another black warrior,

while before the door of Lady Jane's boudoir were the dead bodies

of three more of the faithful Greystoke servants.

The door of this room was closed. With drooping shoulders and dull

eyes Tarzan stood gazing dumbly at the insensate panel which hid

from him what horrid secret he dared not even guess.

Slowly, with leaden feet, he moved toward the door. Gropingly his

hand reached for the knob. Thus he stood for another long minute,

and then with a sudden gesture he straightened his giant frame,

threw back his mighty shoulders and, with fearless head held high,

swung back the door and stepped across the threshold into the

room which held for him the dearest memories and associations of

his life. No change of expression crossed his grim and stern-set

features as he strode across the room and stood beside the little

couch and the inanimate form which lay face downward upon it; the

still, silent thing that had pulsed with life and youth and love.

No tear dimmed the eye of the ape-man, but the God who made him alone

could know the thoughts that passed through that still half-savage

brain. For a long time he stood there just looking down upon the

dead body, charred beyond recognition, and then he stooped and lifted

it in his arms. As he turned the body over and saw how horribly

death had been meted he plumbed, in that instant, the uttermost

depths of grief and horror and hatred.

Nor did he require the evidence of the broken German rifle in the

outer room, or the torn and blood-stained service cap upon the

floor, to tell him who had been the perpetrators of this horrid

and useless crime.

For a moment he had hoped against hope that the blackened corpse was

not that of his mate, but when his eyes discovered and recognized

the rings upon her fingers the last faint ray of hope forsook him.

In silence, in love, and in reverence he buried, in the little

rose garden that had been Jane Clayton's pride and love, the poor,

charred form and beside it the great black warriors who had given

their lives so futilely in their mistress' protection.

At one side of the house Tarzan found other newly made graves

and in these he sought final evidence of the identity of the real

perpetrators of the atrocities that had been committed there in

his absence.

Here he disinterred the bodies of a dozen German askaris and found

upon their uniforms the insignia of the company and regiment to

which they had belonged. This was enough for the ape-man. White

officers had commanded these men, nor would it be a difficult task

to discover who they were.

Returning to the rose garden, he stood among the Hun trampled

blooms and bushes above the grave of his dead--with bowed head he

stood there in a last mute farewell. As the sun sank slowly behind

the towering forests of the west, he turned slowly away upon the

still-distinct trail of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and his blood-stained

company.

His was the suffering of the dumb brute--mute; but though voiceless

no less poignant. At first his vast sorrow numbed his other faculties

of thought--his brain was overwhelmed by the calamity to such an

extent that it reacted to but a single objective suggestion: She is

dead! She is dead! She is dead! Again and again this phrase beat

monotonously upon his brain--a dull, throbbing pain, yet mechanically

his feet followed the trail of her slayer while, subconsciously,

his every sense was upon the alert for the ever-present perils of

the jungle.

Gradually the labor of his great grief brought forth another

emotion so real, so tangible, that it seemed a companion walking

at his side. It was Hate--and it brought to him a measure of solace

and of comfort, for it was a sublime hate that ennobled him as

it has ennobled countless thousands since--hatred for Germany and

Germans. It centered about the slayer of his mate, of course; but

it included everything German, animate or inanimate. As the thought

took firm hold upon him he paused and raising his face to Goro, the

moon, cursed with upraised hand the authors of the hideous crime

that had been perpetrated in that once peaceful bungalow behind

him; and he cursed their progenitors, their progeny, and all their

kind the while he took silent oath to war upon them relentlessly

until death overtook him.

There followed almost immediately a feeling of content, for, where

before his future at best seemed but a void, now it was filled

with possibilities the contemplation of which brought him, if not

happiness, at least a surcease of absolute grief, for before him

lay a great work that would occupy his time.

Stripped not only of all the outward symbols of civilization, Tarzan

had also reverted morally and mentally to the status of the savage

beast he had been reared. Never had his civilization been more than

a veneer put on for the sake of her he loved because he thought it

made her happier to see him thus. In reality he had always held the

outward evidences of so-called culture in deep contempt. Civilization

meant to Tarzan of the Apes a curtailment of freedom in all its

aspects--freedom of action, freedom of thought, freedom of love,

freedom of hate. Clothes he abhorred--uncomfortable, hideous,

confining things that reminded him somehow of bonds securing him to

the life he had seen the poor creatures of London and Paris living.

Clothes were the emblems of that hypocrisy for which civilization

stood--a pretense that the wearers were ashamed of what the clothes

covered, of the human form made in the semblance of God. Tarzan

knew how silly and pathetic the lower orders of animals appeared in

the clothing of civilization, for he had seen several poor creatures

thus appareled in various traveling shows in Europe, and he knew,

too, how silly and pathetic man appears in them since the only men

he had seen in the first twenty years of his life had been, like

himself, naked savages. The ape-man had a keen admiration for a

well-muscled, well-proportioned body, whether lion, or antelope,

or man, and it had ever been beyond him to understand how clothes

could be considered more beautiful than a clear, firm, healthy

skin, or coat and trousers more graceful than the gentle curves of

rounded muscles playing beneath a flexible hide.

In civilization Tarzan had found greed and selfishness and cruelty

far beyond that which he had known in his familiar, savage jungle,

and though civilization had given him his mate and several friends

whom he loved and admired, he never had come to accept it as you

and I who have known little or nothing else; so it was with a sense

of relief that he now definitely abandoned it and all that it stood

for, and went forth into the jungle once again stripped to his loin

cloth and weapons.

The hunting knife of his father hung at his left hip, his bow and

his quiver of arrows were slung across his shoulders, while around

his chest over one shoulder and beneath the opposite arm was coiled

the long grass rope without which Tarzan would have felt quite as

naked as would you should you be suddenly thrust upon a busy highway

clad only in a union suit. A heavy war spear which he sometimes

carried in one hand and again slung by a thong about his neck so

that it hung down his back completed his armament and his apparel.

The diamond-studded locket with the pictures of his mother and

father that he had worn always until he had given it as a token

of his highest devotion to Jane Clayton before their marriage was

missing. She always had worn it since, but it had not been upon

her body when he found her slain in her boudoir, so that now his

quest for vengeance included also a quest for the stolen trinket.

Toward midnight Tarzan commenced to feel the physical strain of

his long hours of travel and to realize that even muscles such as

his had their limitations. His pursuit of the murderers had not

been characterized by excessive speed; but rather more in keeping

with his mental attitude, which was marked by a dogged determination

to require from the Germans more than an eye for an eye and more

than a tooth for a tooth, the element of time entering but slightly

into his calculations.

Inwardly as well as outwardly Tarzan had reverted to beast and in

the lives of beasts, time, as a measurable aspect of duration, has

no meaning. The beast is actively interested only in NOW, and as

it is always NOW and always shall be, there is an eternity of time

for the accomplishment of objects. The ape-man, naturally, had a

slightly more comprehensive realization of the limitations of time;

but, like the beasts, he moved with majestic deliberation when no

emergency prompted him to swift action.

Having dedicated his life to vengeance, vengeance became his natural

state and, therefore, no emergency, so he took his time in pursuit.

That he had not rested earlier was due to the fact that he had

felt no fatigue, his mind being occupied by thoughts of sorrow and

revenge; but now he realized that he was tired, and so he sought

a jungle giant that had harbored him upon more than a single other

jungle night.

Dark clouds moving swiftly across the heavens now and again eclipsed

the bright face of Goro, the moon, and forewarned the ape-man

of impending storm. In the depth of the jungle the cloud shadows

produced a thick blackness that might almost be felt--a blackness

that to you and me might have proven terrifying with its accompaniment

of rustling leaves and cracking twigs, and its even more suggestive

intervals of utter silence in which the crudest of imaginations

might have conjured crouching beasts of prey tensed for the fatal

charge; but through it Tarzan passed unconcerned, yet always alert.

Now he swung lightly to the lower terraces of the overarching

trees when some subtle sense warned him that Numa lay upon a kill

directly in his path, or again he sprang lightly to one side as

Buto, the rhinoceros, lumbered toward him along the narrow, deep-worn

trail, for the ape-man, ready to fight upon necessity's slightest

pretext, avoided unnecessary quarrels.

When he swung himself at last into the tree he sought, the moon was

obscured by a heavy cloud, and the tree tops were waving wildly in

a steadily increasing wind whose soughing drowned the lesser noises

of the jungle. Upward went Tarzan toward a sturdy crotch across which

he long since had laid and secured a little platform of branches.

It was very dark now, darker even than it had been before, for

almost the entire sky was overcast by thick, black clouds.

Presently the man-beast paused, his sensitive nostrils dilating as

he sniffed the air about him. Then, with the swiftness and agility of

a cat, he leaped far outward upon a swaying branch, sprang upward

through the darkness, caught another, swung himself upon it and

then to one still higher. What could have so suddenly transformed

his matter-of-fact ascent of the giant bole to the swift and wary

action of his detour among the branches? You or I could have seen

nothing--not even the little platform that an instant before had

been just above him and which now was immediately below--but as he

swung above it we should have heard an ominous growl; and then as

the moon was momentarily uncovered, we should have seen both the

platform, dimly, and a dark mass that lay stretched upon it--a dark

mass that presently, as our eyes became accustomed to the lesser

darkness, would take the form of Sheeta, the panther.

In answer to the cat's growl, a low and equally ferocious growl

rumbled upward from the ape-man's deep chest--a growl of warning

that told the panther he was trespassing upon the other's lair; but

Sheeta was in no mood to be dispossessed. With upturned, snarling

face he glared at the brown-skinned Tarmangani above him. Very slowly

the ape-man moved inward along the branch until he was directly

above the panther. In the man's hand was the hunting knife of his

long-dead father--the weapon that had first given him his real

ascendancy over the beasts of the jungle; but he hoped not to be

forced to use it, knowing as he did that more jungle battles were

settled by hideous growling than by actual combat, the law of bluff

holding quite as good in the jungle as elsewhere--only in matters

of love and food did the great beasts ordinarily close with fangs

and talons.

Tarzan braced himself against the bole of the tree and leaned closer

toward Sheeta.

"Stealer of balus!" he cried. The panther rose to a sitting position,

his bared fangs but a few feet from the ape-man's taunting face.

Tarzan growled hideously and struck at the cat's face with his

knife. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he roared. "This is Tarzan's

lair. Go, or I will kill you."

Though he spoke in the language of the great apes of the jungle,

it is doubtful that Sheeta understood the words, though he knew

well enough that the hairless ape wished to frighten him from his

well-chosen station past which edible creatures might be expected

to wander sometime during the watches of the night.

Like lightning the cat reared and struck a vicious blow at his

tormentor with great, bared talons that might well have torn away

the ape-man's face had the blow landed; but it did not land--Tarzan

was even quicker than Sheeta. As the panther came to all fours

again upon the little platform, Tarzan un-slung his heavy spear and

prodded at the snarling face, and as Sheeta warded off the blows,

the two continued their horrid duet of blood-curdling roars and

growls.

Goaded to frenzy the cat presently determined to come up after this

disturber of his peace; but when he essayed to leap to the branch

that held Tarzan he found the sharp spear point always in his

face, and each time as he dropped back he was prodded viciously in

some tender part; but at length, rage having conquered his better

judgment, he leaped up the rough bole to the very branch upon which

Tarzan stood. Now the two faced each other upon even footing and

Sheeta saw a quick revenge and a supper all in one. The hairless

ape-thing with the tiny fangs and the puny talons would be helpless

before him.

The heavy limb bent beneath the weight of the two beasts as Sheeta

crept cautiously out upon it and Tarzan backed slowly away, growling.

The wind had risen to the proportions of a gale so that even the

greatest giants of the forest swayed, groaning, to its force and

the branch upon which the two faced each other rose and fell like

the deck of a storm-tossed ship. Goro was now entirely obscured,

but vivid flashes of lightning lit up the jungle at brief intervals,

revealing the grim tableau of primitive passion upon the swaying

limb.

Tarzan backed away, drawing Sheeta farther from the stem of the

tree and out upon the tapering branch, where his footing became

ever more precarious. The cat, infuriated by the pain of spear

wounds, was overstepping the bounds of caution. Already he had

reached a point where he could do little more than maintain a secure

footing, and it was this moment that Tarzan chose to charge. With

a roar that mingled with the booming thunder from above he leaped

toward the panther, who could only claw futilely with one huge paw

while he clung to the branch with the other; but the ape-man did

not come within that parabola of destruction. Instead he leaped

above menacing claws and snapping fangs, turning in mid-air and

alighting upon Sheeta's back, and at the instant of impact his knife

struck deep into the tawny side. Then Sheeta, impelled by pain and

hate and rage and the first law of Nature, went mad. Screaming

and clawing he attempted to turn upon the ape-thing clinging to

his back. For an instant he toppled upon the now wildly gyrating

limb, clutched frantically to save himself, and then plunged downward

into the darkness with Tarzan still clinging to him. Crashing

through splintering branches the two fell. Not for an instant did

the ape-man consider relinquishing his death-hold upon his adversary.

He had entered the lists in mortal combat and true to the primitive

instincts of the wild--the unwritten law of the jungle--one or both

must die before the battle ended.

Sheeta, catlike, alighted upon four out-sprawled feet, the weight

of the ape-man crushing him to earth, the long knife again imbedded

in his side. Once the panther struggled to rise; but only to sink

to earth again. Tarzan felt the giant muscles relax beneath him.

Sheeta was dead. Rising, the ape-man placed a foot upon the body of

his vanquished foe, raised his face toward the thundering heavens,

and as the lightning flashed and the torrential rain broke upon

him, screamed forth the wild victory cry of the bull ape.

Having accomplished his aim and driven the enemy from his lair,

Tarzan gathered an armful of large fronds and climbed to his dripping

couch. Laying a few of the fronds upon the poles he lay down and

covered himself against the rain with the others, and despite the

wailing of the wind and the crashing of the thunder, immediately

fell asleep.

Chapter II

The Lion's Cave

The rain lasted for twenty-four hours and much of the time it fell

in torrents so that when it ceased, the trail he had been following

was entirely obliterated. Cold and uncomfortable--it was a savage

Tarzan who threaded the mazes of the soggy jungle. Manu, the

monkey, shivering and chattering in the dank trees, scolded and fled

at his approach. Even the panthers and the lions let the growling

Tarmangani pass unmolested.

When the sun shone again upon the second day and a wide, open plain

let the full heat of Kudu flood the chilled, brown body, Tarzan's

spirits rose; but it was still a sullen, surly brute that moved

steadily onward into the south where he hoped again to pick up the

trail of the Germans. He was now in German East Africa and it was

his intention to skirt the mountains west of Kilimanjaro, whose

rugged peaks he was quite willing to give a wide berth, and then

swing eastward along the south side of the range to the railway that

led to Tanga, for his experience among men suggested that it was

toward this railroad that German troops would be likely to converge.

Two days later, from the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro, he heard

the boom of cannon far away to the east. The afternoon had been

dull and cloudy and now as he was passing through a narrow gorge a

few great drops of rain began to splatter upon his naked shoulders.

Tarzan shook his head and growled his disapproval; then he cast his

eyes about for shelter, for he had had quite enough of the cold and

drenching. He wanted to hasten on in the direction of the booming

noise, for he knew that there would be Germans fighting against the

English. For an instant his bosom swelled with pride at the thought

that he was English and then he shook his head again viciously.

"No!" he muttered, "Tarzan of the Apes is not English, for the

English are men and Tarzan is Tarmangani;" but he could not hide

even from his sorrow or from his sullen hatred of mankind in general

that his heart warmed at the thought it was Englishmen who fought

the Germans. His regret was that the English were human and not

great white apes as he again considered himself.

"Tomorrow," he thought, "I will travel that way and find the Germans,"

and then he set himself to the immediate task of discovering some

shelter from the storm. Presently he espied the low and narrow

entrance to what appeared to be a cave at the base of the cliffs

which formed the northern side of the gorge. With drawn knife he

approached the spot warily, for he knew that if it were a cave it

was doubtless the lair of some other beast. Before the entrance lay

many large fragments of rock of different sizes, similar to others

scattered along the entire base of the cliff, and it was in Tarzan's

mind that if he found the cave unoccupied he would barricade the

door and insure himself a quiet and peaceful night's repose within

the sheltered interior. Let the storm rage without--Tarzan would

remain within until it ceased, comfortable and dry. A tiny rivulet

of cold water trickled outward from the opening.

Close to the cave Tarzan kneeled and sniffed the ground. A low

growl escaped him and his upper lip curved to expose his fighting

fangs. "Numa!" he muttered; but he did not stop. Numa might not be

at home--he would investigate. The entrance was so low that the

ape-man was compelled to drop to all fours before he could poke

his head within the aperture; but first he looked, listened, and

sniffed in each direction at his rear--he would not be taken by

surprise from that quarter.

His first glance within the cave revealed a narrow tunnel with

daylight at its farther end. The interior of the tunnel was not so

dark but that the ape-man could readily see that it was untenanted

at present. Advancing cautiously he crawled toward the opposite

end imbued with a full realization of what it would mean if Numa

should suddenly enter the tunnel in front of him; but Numa did not

appear and the ape-man emerged at length into the open and stood

erect, finding himself in a rocky cleft whose precipitous walls

rose almost sheer on every hand, the tunnel from the gorge passing

through the cliff and forming a passageway from the outer world

into a large pocket or gulch entirely enclosed by steep walls of

rock. Except for the small passageway from the gorge, there was no

other entrance to the gulch which was some hundred feet in length

and about fifty in width and appeared to have been worn from the

rocky cliff by the falling of water during long ages. A tiny stream

from Kilimanjaro's eternal snow cap still trickled over the edge

of the rocky wall at the upper end of the gulch, forming a little

pool at the bottom of the cliff from which a small rivulet wound

downward to the tunnel through which it passed to the gorge beyond.

A single great tree flourished near the center of the gulch, while

tufts of wiry grass were scattered here and there among the rocks

of the gravelly floor.

The bones of many large animals lay about and among them were

several human skulls. Tarzan raised his eyebrows. "A man-eater,"

he murmured, "and from appearances he has held sway here for a long

time. Tonight Tarzan will take the lair of the man-eater and Numa

may roar and grumble upon the outside."

The ape-man had advanced well into the gulch as he investigated

his surroundings and now as he stood near the tree, satisfied that

the tunnel would prove a dry and quiet retreat for the night, he

turned to retrace his way to the outer end of the entrance that he

might block it with boulders against Numa's return, but even with

the thought there came something to his sensitive ears that froze

him into statuesque immobility with eyes glued upon the tunnel's

mouth. A moment later the head of a huge lion framed in a great

black mane appeared in the opening. The yellow-green eyes glared,

round and unblinking, straight at the trespassing Tarmangani, a low

growl rumbled from the deep chest, and lips curled back to expose

the mighty fangs.

"Brother of Dango!" shouted Tarzan, angered that Numa's return should

have been so timed as to frustrate his plans for a comfortable

night's repose. "I am Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle.

Tonight I lair here--go!"

But Numa did not go. Instead he rumbled forth a menacing roar and

took a few steps in Tarzan's direction. The ape-man picked up a

rock and hurled it at the snarling face. One can never be sure of

a lion. This one might turn tail and run at the first intimation

of attack--Tarzan had bluffed many in his time--but not now. The

missile struck Numa full upon the snout--a tender part of a cat's

anatomy--and instead of causing him to flee it transformed him into

an infuriated engine of wrath and destruction.

Up went his tail, stiff and erect, and with a series of frightful

roars he bore down upon the Tarmangani at the speed of an express

train. Not an instant too soon did Tarzan reach the tree and swing

himself into its branches and there he squatted, hurling insults at

the king of beasts while Numa paced a circle beneath him, growling

and roaring in rage.

It was raining now in earnest adding to the ape-man's discomfort

and disappointment. He was very angry; but as only direct necessity

had ever led him to close in mortal combat with a lion, knowing

as he did that he had only luck and agility to pit against the

frightful odds of muscle, weight, fangs, and talons, he did not now

even consider descending and engaging in so unequal and useless a

duel for the mere reward of a little added creature comfort. And

so he sat perched in the tree while the rain fell steadily and the

lion padded round and round beneath, casting a baleful eye upward

after every few steps.

Tarzan scanned the precipitous walls for an avenue of escape. They

would have baffled an ordinary man; but the ape-man, accustomed

to climbing, saw several places where he might gain a foothold,

precarious possibly; but enough to give him reasonable assurance

of escape if Numa would but betake himself to the far end of the

gulch for a moment. Numa, however, notwithstanding the rain, gave

no evidence of quitting his post so that at last Tarzan really

began to consider seriously if it might not be as well to take the

chance of a battle with him rather than remain longer cold and wet

and humiliated in the tree.

But even as he turned the matter over in his mind Numa turned

suddenly and walked majestically toward the tunnel without even a

backward glance. The instant that he disappeared, Tarzan dropped

lightly to the ground upon the far side of the tree and was away at

top speed for the cliff. The lion had no sooner entered the tunnel

than he backed immediately out again and, pivoting like a flash,

was off across the gulch in full charge after the flying ape-man;

but Tarzan's lead was too great--if he could find finger or foothold

upon the sheer wall he would be safe; but should he slip from the

wet rocks his doom was already sealed as he would fall directly into

Numa's clutches where even the Great Tarmangani would be helpless.

With the agility of a cat Tarzan ran up the cliff for thirty feet

before he paused, and there finding a secure foothold, he stopped

and looked down upon Numa who was leaping upward in a wild and

futile attempt to scale the rocky wall to his prey. Fifteen or

twenty feet from the ground the lion would scramble only to fall

backward again defeated. Tarzan eyed him for a moment and then

commenced a slow and cautious ascent toward the summit. Several

times he had difficulty in finding holds but at last he drew himself

over the edge, rose, picked up a bit of loose rock, hurled it at

Numa and strode away.

Finding an easy descent to the gorge, he was about to pursue his

journey in the direction of the still-booming guns when a sudden

thought caused him to halt and a half-smile to play about his lips.

Turning, he trotted quickly back to the outer opening of Numa's

tunnel. Close beside it he listened for a moment and then rapidly

began to gather large rocks and pile them within the entrance.

He had almost closed the aperture when the lion appeared upon the

inside--a very ferocious and angry lion that pawed and clawed at

the rocks and uttered mighty roars that caused the earth to tremble;

but roars did not frighten Tarzan of the Apes. At Kala's shaggy

breast he had closed his infant eyes in sleep upon countless nights

in years gone by to the savage chorus of similar roars. Scarcely a

day or night of his jungle life--and practically all his life had

been spent in the jungle--had he not heard the roaring of hungry

lions, or angry lions, or love-sick lions. Such sounds affected

Tarzan as the tooting of an automobile horn may affect you--if you

are in front of the automobile it warns you out of the way, if you

are not in front of it you scarcely notice it. Figuratively Tarzan

was not in front of the automobile--Numa could not reach him and

Tarzan knew it, so he continued deliberately to choke the entrance

until there was no possibility of Numa's getting out again. When

he was quite through he made a grimace at the hidden lion beyond

the barrier and resumed his way toward the east. "A man-eater who

will eat no more men," he soliloquized.

That night Tarzan lay up under an overhanging shelf of rock. The

next morning he resumed his journey, stopping only long enough to

make a kill and satisfy his hunger. The other beasts of the wild

eat and lie up; but Tarzan never let his belly interfere with his

plans. In this lay one of the greatest differences between the ape-man

and his fellows of the jungles and forests. The firing ahead rose

and fell during the day. He had noticed that it was highest at

dawn and immediately after dusk and that during the night it almost

ceased. In the middle of the afternoon of the second day he came

upon troops moving up toward the front. They appeared to be raiding

parties, for they drove goats and cows along with them and there

were native porters laden with grain and other foodstuffs. He saw

that these natives were all secured by neck chains and he also saw

that the troops were composed of native soldiers in German uniforms.

The officers were white men. No one saw Tarzan, yet he was here and

there about and among them for two hours. He inspected the insignia

upon their uniforms and saw that they were not the same as that

which he had taken from one of the dead soldiers at the bungalow

and then he passed on ahead of them, unseen in the dense bush. He

had come upon Germans and had not killed them; but it was because

the killing of Germans at large was not yet the prime motive of

his existence--now it was to discover the individual who slew his

mate.

After he had accounted for him he would take up the little matter

of slaying ALL Germans who crossed his path, and he meant that many

should cross it, for he would hunt them precisely as professional

hunters hunt the man-eaters.

As he neared the front lines the troops became more numerous. There

were motor trucks and ox teams and all the impedimenta of a small

army and always there were wounded men walking or being carried

toward the rear. He had crossed the railroad some distance back and

judged that the wounded were being taken to it for transportation

to a base hospital and possibly as far away as Tanga on the coast.

It was dusk when he reached a large camp hidden in the foothills of

the Pare Mountains. As he was approaching from the rear he found

it but lightly guarded and what sentinels there were, were not

upon the alert, and so it was an easy thing for him to enter after

darkness had fallen and prowl about listening at the backs of tents,

searching for some clew to the slayer of his mate.

As he paused at the side of a tent before which sat a number of

native soldiers he caught a few words spoken in native dialect that

riveted his attention instantly: "The Waziri fought like devils;

but we are greater fighters and we killed them all. When we were

through the captain came and killed the woman. He stayed outside

and yelled in a very loud voice until all the men were killed.

Underlieutenant von Goss is braver--he came in and stood beside the

door shouting at us, also in a very loud voice, and bade us nail

one of the Waziri who was wounded to the wall, and then he laughed

loudly because the man suffered. We all laughed. It was very funny."

Like a beast of prey, grim and terrible, Tarzan crouched in the

shadows beside the tent. What thoughts passed through that savage

mind? Who may say? No outward sign of passion was revealed by the

expression of the handsome face; the cold, gray eyes denoted only

intense watchfulness. Presently the soldier Tarzan had heard first

rose and with a parting word turned away. He passed within ten

feet of the ape-man and continued on toward the rear of the camp.

Tarzan followed and in the shadows of a clump of bushes overtook

his quarry. There was no sound as the man beast sprang upon the

back of his prey and bore it to the ground for steel fingers closed

simultaneously upon the soldier's throat, effectually stifling

any outcry. By the neck Tarzan dragged his victim well into the

concealment of the bushes.

"Make no sound," he cautioned in the man's own tribal dialect as

he released his hold upon the other's throat.

The fellow gasped for breath, rolling frightened eyes upward to

see what manner of creature it might be in whose power he was. In

the darkness he saw only a naked brown body bending above him; but

he still remembered the terrific strength of the mighty muscles

that had closed upon his wind and dragged him into the bushes as

though he had been but a little child. If any thought of resistance

had crossed his mind he must have discarded it at once, as he made

no move to escape.

"What is the name of the officer who killed the woman at the bungalow

where you fought with the Waziri?" asked Tarzan.

"Hauptmann Schneider," replied the black when he could again command

his voice.

"Where is he?" demanded the ape-man.

"He is here. It may be that he is at headquarters. Many of the

officers go there in the evening to receive orders."

"Lead me there," commanded Tarzan, "and if I am discovered I will

kill you immediately. Get up!"

The black rose and led the way by a roundabout route back through

the camp. Several times they were forced to hide while soldiers

passed; but at last they reached a great pile of baled hay from about

the corner of which the black pointed out a two-story building in

the distance.

"Headquarters," he said. "You can go no farther unseen. There are

many soldiers about."

Tarzan realized that he could not proceed farther in company with

the black. He turned and looked at the fellow for a moment as though

pondering what disposition to make of him.

"You helped to crucify Wasimbu, the Waziri," he accused in a low

yet none the less terrible tone.

The black trembled, his knees giving beneath him. "He ordered us

to do it," he plead.

"Who ordered it done?" demanded Tarzan.

"Underlieutenant von Goss," replied the soldier. "He, too, is here."

"I shall find him," returned Tarzan, grimly. "You helped to crucify

Wasimbu, the Waziri, and, while he suffered, you laughed."

The fellow reeled. It was as though in the accusation he read also

his death sentence. With no other word Tarzan seized the man again

by the neck. As before there was no outcry. The giant muscles tensed.

The arms swung quickly upward and with them the body of the black

soldier who had helped to crucify Wasimbu, the Waziri, described a

circle in the air--once, twice, three times, and then it was flung

aside and the ape-man turned in the direction of General Kraut's

headquarters.

A single sentinel in the rear of the building barred the way.

Tarzan crawled, belly to the ground, toward him, taking advantage

of cover as only the jungle-bred beast of prey can do. When the

sentinel's eyes were toward him, Tarzan hugged the ground, motionless

as stone; when they were turned away, he moved swiftly forward.

Presently he was within charging distance. He waited until the man

had turned his back once more and then he rose and sped noiselessly

down upon him. Again there was no sound as he carried the dead

body with him toward the building.

The lower floor was lighted, the upper dark. Through the windows

Tarzan saw a large front room and a smaller room in rear of it.

In the former were many officers. Some moved about talking to one

another, others sat at field tables writing. The windows were open

and Tarzan could hear much of the conversation; but nothing that

interested him. It was mostly about the German successes in Africa

and conjectures as to when the German army in Europe would reach

Paris. Some said the Kaiser was doubtlessly already there, and

there was a great deal of damning Belgium.

In the smaller back room a large, red-faced man sat behind a table.

Some other officers were also sitting a little in rear of him,

while two stood at attention before the general, who was questioning

them. As he talked, the general toyed with an oil lamp that stood

upon the table before him. Presently there came a knock upon the

door and an aide entered the room. He saluted and reported: "Fraulein

Kircher has arrived, sir."

"Bid her enter," commanded the general, and then nodded to the two

officers before him in sign of dismissal.

The Fraulein, entering, passed them at the door. The officers in

the little room rose and saluted, the Fraulein acknowledging the

courtesy with a bow and a slight smile. She was a very pretty

girl. Even the rough, soiled riding habit and the caked dust upon

her face could not conceal the fact, and she was young. She could

not have been over nineteen.

She advanced to the table behind which the general stood and, taking

a folded paper from an inside pocket of her coat, handed it to him.

"Be seated, Fraulein," he said, and another officer brought her

a chair. No one spoke while the general read the contents of the

paper.

Tarzan appraised the various people in the room. He wondered if one

might not be Hauptmann Schneider, for two of them were captains.

The girl he judged to be of the intelligence department--a spy.

Her beauty held no appeal for him--without a glimmer of compunction

he could have wrung that fair, young neck. She was German and that

was enough; but he had other and more important work before him.

He wanted Hauptmann Schneider.

Finally the general looked up from the paper.

"Good," he said to the girl, and then to one of his aides, "Send

for Major Schneider."

Major Schneider! Tarzan felt the short hairs at the back of his

neck rise. Already they had promoted the beast who had murdered

his mate--doubtless they had promoted him for that very crime.

The aide left the room and the others fell into a general conversation

from which it became apparent to Tarzan that the German East African

forces greatly outnumbered the British and that the latter were

suffering heavily. The ape-man stood so concealed in a clump of

bushes that he could watch the interior of the room without being

seen from within, while he was at the same time hidden from the view

of anyone who might chance to pass along the post of the sentinel

he had slain. Momentarily he was expecting a patrol or a relief to

appear and discover that the sentinel was missing, when he knew an

immediate and thorough search would be made.

Impatiently he awaited the coming of the man he sought and at

last he was rewarded by the reappearance of the aide who had been

dispatched to fetch him accompanied by an officer of medium size

with fierce, upstanding mustaches. The newcomer strode to the table,

halted and saluted, reporting. The general acknowledged the salute

and turned toward the girl.

"Fraulein Kircher," he said, "allow me to present Major Schneider--"

Tarzan waited to hear no more. Placing a palm upon the sill of

the window he vaulted into the room into the midst of an astounded

company of the Kaiser's officers. With a stride he was at the table

and with a sweep of his hand sent the lamp crashing into the fat

belly of the general who, in his mad effort to escape cremation,

fell over backward, chair and all, upon the floor. Two of the aides

sprang for the ape-man who picked up the first and flung him in the

face of the other. The girl had leaped from her chair and stood

flattened against the wall. The other officers were calling aloud

for the guard and for help. Tarzan's purpose centered upon but

a single individual and him he never lost sight of. Freed from

attack for an instant he seized Major Schneider, threw him over his

shoulder and was out of the window so quickly that the astonished

assemblage could scarce realize what had occurred.

A single glance showed him that the sentinel's post was still vacant

and a moment later he and his burden were in the shadows of the

hay dump. Major Schneider had made no outcry for the very excellent

reason that his wind was shut off. Now Tarzan released his grasp

enough to permit the man to breathe.

"If you make a sound you will be choked again," he said.

Cautiously and after infinite patience Tarzan passed the final

outpost. Forcing his captive to walk before him he pushed on toward

the west until, late into the night, he re-crossed the railway where

he felt reasonably safe from discovery. The German had cursed and

grumbled and threatened and asked questions; but his only reply

was another prod from Tarzan's sharp war spear. The ape-man herded

him along as he would have driven a hog with the difference that

he would have had more respect and therefore more consideration

for a hog.

Until now Tarzan had given little thought to the details of revenge.

Now he pondered what form the punishment should take. Of only one

thing was he certain--it must end in death. Like all brave men

and courageous beasts Tarzan had little natural inclination to

torture--none, in fact; but this case was unique in his experience.

An inherent sense of justice called for an eye for an eye and his

recent oath demanded even more. Yes, the creature must suffer even

as he had caused Jane Clayton to suffer. Tarzan could not hope to

make the man suffer as he had suffered, since physical pain may

never approach the exquisiteness of mental torture.

All through the long night the ape-man goaded on the exhausted and

now terrified Hun. The awful silence of his captor wrought upon the

German's nerves. If he would only speak! Again and again Schneider

tried to force or coax a word from him; but always the result was

the same--continued silence and a vicious and painful prod from the

spear point. Schneider was bleeding and sore. He was so exhausted

that he staggered at every step, and often he fell only to be

prodded to his feet again by that terrifying and remorseless spear.

It was not until morning that Tarzan reached a decision and it came

to him then like an inspiration from above. A slow smile touched

his lips and he immediately sought a place to lie up and rest--he

wished his prisoner to be fit now for what lay in store for him.

Ahead was a stream which Tarzan had crossed the day before. He knew

the ford for a drinking place and a likely spot to make an easy

kill. Cautioning the German to utter silence with a gesture the

two approached the stream quietly. Down the game trail Tarzan saw

some deer about to leave the water. He shoved Schneider into the

brush at one side and, squatting next him, waited. The German

watched the silent giant with puzzled, frightened eyes. In the new

dawn he, for the first time, was able to obtain a good look at his

captor, and, if he had been puzzled and frightened before, those

sensations were nothing to what he experienced now.

Who and what could this almost naked, white savage be? He had

heard him speak but once--when he had cautioned him to silence--and

then in excellent German and the well-modulated tones of culture.

He watched him now as the fascinated toad watches the snake that

is about to devour it. He saw the graceful limbs and symmetrical

body motionless as a marble statue as the creature crouched in the

concealment of the leafy foliage. Not a muscle, not a nerve moved.

He saw the deer coming slowly along the trail, down wind and

unsuspecting. He saw a buck pass--an old buck--and then a young and

plump one came opposite the giant in ambush, and Schneider's eyes

went wide and a scream of terror almost broke from his lips as he

saw the agile beast at his side spring straight for the throat of

the young buck and heard from those human lips the hunting roar of

a wild beast. Down went the buck and Tarzan and his captive had

meat. The ape-man ate his raw, but he permitted the German to build

a fire and cook his portion.

The two lay up until late in the afternoon and then took up the

journey once again--a journey that was so frightful to Schneider

because of his ignorance of its destination that he at times groveled

at Tarzan's feet begging for an explanation and for mercy; but on

and on in silence the ape-man went, prodding the failing Hun whenever

the latter faltered.

It was noon of the third day before they reached their destination.

After a steep climb and a short walk they halted at the edge of

a precipitous cliff and Schneider looked down into a narrow gulch

where a single tree grew beside a tiny rivulet and sparse grass

broke from a rock-strewn soil. Tarzan motioned him over the edge;

but the German drew back in terror. The Ape-man seized him and

pushed him roughly toward the brink. "Descend," he said. It was

the second time he had spoken in three days and perhaps his very

silence, ominous in itself, had done more to arouse terror in the

breast of the Boche than even the spear point, ever ready as it

always was.

Schneider looked fearfully over the edge; but was about to essay

the attempt when Tarzan halted him. "I am Lord Greystoke," he

said. "It was my wife you murdered in the Waziri country. You will

understand now why I came for you. Descend."

The German fell upon his knees. "I did not murder your wife,"

he cried. "Have mercy! I did not murder your wife. I do not know

anything about--"

"Descend!" snapped Tarzan, raising the point of his spear. He knew

that the man lied and was not surprised that he did. A man who

would murder for no cause would lie for less. Schneider still

hesitated and pled. The ape-man jabbed him with the spear and Schneider

slid fearfully over the top and began the perilous descent. Tarzan

accompanied and assisted him over the worst places until at last

they were within a few feet of the bottom.

"Be quiet now," cautioned the ape-man. He pointed at the entrance

to what appeared to be a cave at the far end of the gulch. "There

is a hungry lion in there. If you can reach that tree before

he discovers you, you will have several days longer in which to

enjoy life and then--when you are too weak to cling longer to the

branches of the tree Numa, the man-eater, will feed again for the

last time." He pushed Schneider from his foothold to the ground

below. "Now run," he said.

The German trembling in terror started for the tree. He had almost

reached it when a horrid roar broke from the mouth of the cave and

almost simultaneously a gaunt, hunger mad lion leaped into the

daylight of the gulch. Schneider had but a few yards to cover;

but the lion flew over the ground to circumvent him while Tarzan

watched the race with a slight smile upon his lips.

Schneider won by a slender margin, and as Tarzan scaled the cliff

to the summit, he heard behind him mingled with the roaring of the

baffled cat, the gibbering of a human voice that was at the same

time more bestial than the beast's.

Upon the brink of the cliff the ape-man turned and looked back

into the gulch. High in the tree the German clung frantically to

a branch across which his body lay. Beneath him was Numa--waiting.

The ape-man raised his face to Kudu, the sun, and from his mighty

chest rose the savage victory cry of the bull ape.

Chapter III

In the German Lines

Tarzan was not yet fully revenged. There were many millions of

Germans yet alive--enough to keep Tarzan pleasantly occupied the

balance of his life, and yet not enough, should he kill them all,

to recompense him for the great loss he had suffered--nor could

the death of all those million Germans bring back his loved one.

While in the German camp in the Pare Mountains, which lie just

east of the boundary line between German and British East Africa,

Tarzan had overheard enough to suggest that the British were getting

the worst of the fighting in Africa. At first he had given the

matter but little thought, since, after the death of his wife, the

one strong tie that had held him to civilization, he had renounced

all mankind, considering himself no longer man, but ape.

After accounting for Schneider as satisfactorily as lay within his

power he circled Kilimanjaro and hunted in the foothills to the

north of that mightiest of mountains as he had discovered that in

the neighborhood of the armies there was no hunting at all. Some

pleasure he derived through conjuring mental pictures from time to

time of the German he had left in the branches of the lone tree at

the bottom of the high-walled gulch in which was penned the starving

lion. He could imagine the man's mental anguish as he became weakened

from hunger and maddened by thirst, knowing that sooner or later he

must slip exhausted to the ground where waited the gaunt man-eater.

Tarzan wondered if Schneider would have the courage to descend to

the little rivulet for water should Numa leave the gulch and enter

the cave, and then he pictured the mad race for the tree again

when the lion charged out to seize his prey as he was certain to

do, since the clumsy German could not descend to the rivulet without

making at least some slight noise that would attract Numa's attention.

But even this pleasure palled, and more and more the ape-man found

himself thinking of the English soldiers fighting against heavy

odds and especially of the fact that it was Germans who were beating

them. The thought made him lower his head and growl and it worried

him not a little--a bit, perhaps, because he was finding it difficult

to forget that he was an Englishman when he wanted only to be an

ape. And at last the time came when he could not longer endure the

thought of Germans killing Englishmen while he hunted in safety a

bare march away.

His decision made, he set out in the direction of the German camp,

no well-defined plan formulated; but with the general idea that

once near the field of operations he might find an opportunity to

harass the German command as he so well knew how to do. His way

took him along the gorge close to the gulch in which he had left

Schneider, and, yielding to a natural curiosity, he scaled the cliffs

and made his way to the edge of the gulch. The tree was empty, nor

was there sign of Numa, the lion. Picking up a rock he hurled it

into the gulch, where it rolled to the very entrance to the cave.

Instantly the lion appeared in the aperture; but such a different-looking

lion from the great sleek brute that Tarzan had trapped there two

weeks before. Now he was gaunt and emaciated, and when he walked

he staggered.

"Where is the German?" shouted Tarzan. "Was he good eating, or only

a bag of bones when he slipped and fell from the tree?"

Numa growled. "You look hungry, Numa," continued the ape-man. "You

must have been very hungry to eat all the grass from your lair and

even the bark from the tree as far up as you can reach. Would you

like another German?" and smiling he turned away.

A few minutes later he came suddenly upon Bara, the deer, asleep

beneath a tree, and as Tarzan was hungry he made a quick kill,

and squatting beside his prey proceeded to eat his fill. As he

was gnawing the last morsel from a bone his quick ears caught the

padding of stealthy feet behind him, and turning he confronted

Dango, the hyena, sneaking upon him. With a growl the ape-man

picked up a fallen branch and hurled it at the skulking brute. "Go

away, eater of carrion!" he cried; but Dango was hungry and being

large and powerful he only snarled and circled slowly about as

though watching for an opportunity to charge. Tarzan of the Apes

knew Dango even better than Dango knew himself. He knew that the

brute, made savage by hunger, was mustering its courage for an

attack, that it was probably accustomed to man and therefore more

or less fearless of him and so he un-slung his heavy spear and

laid it ready at his side while he continued his meal, all the time

keeping a watchful eye upon the hyena.

He felt no fear, for long familiarity with the dangers of his wild

world had so accustomed him to them that he took whatever came as

a part of each day's existence as you accept the homely though no

less real dangers of the farm, the range, or the crowded metropolis.

Being jungle bred he was ready to protect his kill from all comers

within ordinary limitations of caution. Under favorable conditions

Tarzan would face even Numa himself and, if forced to seek safety

by flight, he could do so without any feeling of shame. There was

no braver creature roamed those savage wilds and at the same time

there was none more wise--the two factors that had permitted him

to survive.

Dango might have charged sooner but for the savage growls of the

ape-man--growls which, coming from human lips, raised a question

and a fear in the hyena's heart. He had attacked women and children

in the native fields and he had frightened their men about their

fires at night; but he never had seen a man-thing who made this

sound that reminded him more of Numa angry than of a man afraid.

When Tarzan had completed his repast he was about to rise and hurl

a clean-picked bone at the beast before he went his way, leaving

the remains of his kill to Dango; but a sudden thought stayed him

and instead he picked up the carcass of the deer, threw it over

his shoulder, and set off in the direction of the gulch. For a

few yards Dango followed, growling, and then realizing that he was

being robbed of even a taste of the luscious flesh he cast discretion

to the winds and charged. Instantly, as though Nature had given him

eyes in the back of his head, Tarzan sensed the impending danger

and, dropping Bara to the ground, turned with raised spear. Far

back went the brown, right hand and then forward, lightning-like,

backed by the power of giant muscles and the weight of his brawn

and bone. The spear, released at the right instant, drove straight

for Dango, caught him in the neck where it joined the shoulders

and passed through the body.

When he had withdrawn the shaft from the hyena Tarzan shouldered

both carcasses and continued on toward the gulch. Below lay Numa

beneath the shade of the lone tree and at the ape-man's call he

staggered slowly to his feet, yet weak as he was, he still growled

savagely, even essaying a roar at the sight of his enemy. Tarzan

let the two bodies slide over the rim of the cliff. "Eat, Numa!"

he cried. "It may be that I shall need you again." He saw the lion,

quickened to new life at the sight of food, spring upon the body

of the deer and then he left him rending and tearing the flesh as

he bolted great pieces into his empty maw.

The following day Tarzan came within sight of the German lines.

From a wooded spur of the hills he looked down upon the enemy's

left flank and beyond to the British lines. His position gave him

a bird's-eye view of the field of battle, and his keen eyesight

picked out many details that would not have been apparent to a man

whose every sense was not trained to the highest point of perfection

as were the ape-man's. He noted machine-gun emplacements cunningly

hidden from the view of the British and listening posts placed well

out in No Man's Land.

As his interested gaze moved hither and thither from one point of

interest to another he heard from a point upon the hillside below

him, above the roar of cannon and the crack of rifle fire, a single

rifle spit. Immediately his attention was centered upon the spot

where he knew a sniper must be hid. Patiently he awaited the next

shot that would tell him more surely the exact location of the

rifleman, and when it came he moved down the steep hillside with

the stealth and quietness of a panther. Apparently he took no

cognizance of where he stepped, yet never a loose stone was disturbed

nor a twig broken--it was as though his feet saw.

Presently, as he passed through a clump of bushes, he came to the

edge of a low cliff and saw upon a ledge some fifteen feet below

him a German soldier prone behind an embankment of loose rock and

leafy boughs that hid him from the view of the British lines. The

man must have been an excellent shot, for he was well back of the

German lines, firing over the heads of his fellows. His high-powered

rifle was equipped with telescope sights and he also carried

binoculars which he was in the act of using as Tarzan discovered

him, either to note the effect of his last shot or to discover

a new target. Tarzan let his eye move quickly toward that part of

the British line the German seemed to be scanning, his keen sight

revealing many excellent targets for a rifle placed so high above

the trenches.

The Hun, evidently satisfied with his observations, laid aside

his binoculars and again took up his rifle, placed its butt in the

hollow of his shoulder and took careful aim. At the same instant a

brown body sprang outward from the cliff above him. There was no

sound and it is doubtful that the German ever knew what manner of

creature it was that alighted heavily upon his back, for at the

instant of impact the sinewy fingers of the ape-man circled the

hairy throat of the Boche. There was a moment of futile struggling

followed by the sudden realization of dissolution--the sniper was

dead.

Lying behind the rampart of rocks and boughs, Tarzan looked down

upon the scene below. Near at hand were the trenches of the Germans.

He could see officers and men moving about in them and almost in

front of him a well-hidden machine gun was traversing No Man's Land

in an oblique direction, striking the British at such an angle as

to make it difficult for them to locate it.

Tarzan watched, toying idly with the rifle of the dead German.

Presently he fell to examining the mechanism of the piece. He

glanced again toward the German trenches and changed the adjustment

of the sights, then he placed the rifle to his shoulder and took

aim. Tarzan was an excellent shot. With his civilized friends he

had hunted big game with the weapons of civilization and though he

never had killed except for food or in self-defense he had amused

himself firing at inanimate targets thrown into the air and had

perfected himself in the use of firearms without realizing that

he had done so. Now indeed would he hunt big game. A slow smile

touched his lips as his finger closed gradually upon the trigger.

The rifle spoke and a German machine gunner collapsed behind his

weapon. In three minutes Tarzan picked off the crew of that gun.

Then he spotted a German officer emerging from a dugout and the

three men in the bay with him. Tarzan was careful to leave no one

in the immediate vicinity to question how Germans could be shot in

German trenches when they were entirely concealed from enemy view.

Again adjusting his sights he took a long-range shot at a distant

machine-gun crew to his right. With calm deliberation he wiped them

out to a man. Two guns were silenced. He saw men running through

the trenches and he picked off several of them. By this time the

Germans were aware that something was amiss--that an uncanny sniper

had discovered a point of vantage from which this sector of the

trenches was plainly visible to him. At first they sought to discover

his location in No Man's Land; but when an officer looking over

the parapet through a periscope was struck full in the back of the

head with a rifle bullet which passed through his skull and fell

to the bottom of the trench they realized that it was beyond the

parados rather than the parapet that they should search.

One of the soldiers picked up the bullet that had killed his

officer, and then it was that real excitement prevailed in that

particular bay, for the bullet was obviously of German make. Hugging

the parados, messengers carried the word in both directions and

presently periscopes were leveled above the parados and keen eyes

were searching out the traitor. It did not take them long to locate

the position of the hidden sniper and then Tarzan saw a machine

gun being trained upon him. Before it had gotten into action its

crew lay dead about it; but there were other men to take their

places, reluctantly perhaps; but driven on by their officers they

were forced to it and at the same time two other machine guns were

swung around toward the ape-man and put into operation.

Realizing that the game was about up Tarzan with a farewell shot

laid aside the rifle and melted into the hills behind him. For many

minutes he could hear the sputter of machinegun fire concentrated

upon the spot he had just quit and smiled as he contemplated the

waste of German ammunition.

"They have paid heavily for Wasimbu, the Waziri, whom they crucified,

and for his slain fellows," he mused; "but for Jane they can never

pay--no, not if I killed them all."

After dark that night he circled the flanks of both armies and

passed through the British out-guards and into the British lines.

No man saw him come. No man knew that he was there.

Headquarters of the Second Rhodesians occupied a sheltered position

far enough back of the lines to be comparatively safe from enemy

observation. Even lights were permitted, and Colonel Capell sat

before a field table, on which was spread a military map, talking

with several of his officers. A large tree spread above them, a

lantern sputtered dimly upon the table, while a small fire burned

upon the ground close at hand. The enemy had no planes and no other

observers could have seen the lights from the German lines.

The officers were discussing the advantage in numbers possessed by

the enemy and the inability of the British to more than hold their

present position. They could not advance. Already they had sustained

severe losses in every attack and had always been driven back by

overwhelming numbers. There were hidden machine guns, too, that

bothered the colonel considerably. It was evidenced by the fact

that he often reverted to them during the conversation.

"Something silenced them for a while this afternoon," said one of

the younger officers. "I was observing at the time and I couldn't

make out what the fuss was about; but they seemed to be having a

devil of a time in a section of trench on their left. At one time I

could have sworn they were attacked in the rear--I reported it to

you at the time, sir, you'll recall--for the blighters were pepperin'

away at the side of that bluff behind them. I could see the dirt

fly. I don't know what it could have been."

There was a slight rustling among the branches of the tree above

them and simultaneously a lithe, brown body dropped in their midst.

Hands moved quickly to the butts of pistols; but otherwise there

was no movement among the officers. First they looked wonderingly

at the almost naked white man standing there with the firelight

playing upon rounded muscles, took in the primitive attire and

the equally primitive armament and then all eyes turned toward the

colonel.

"Who the devil are you, sir?" snapped that officer.

"Tarzan of the Apes," replied the newcomer.

"Oh, Greystoke!" cried a major, and stepped forward with outstretched

hand.

"Preswick," acknowledged Tarzan as he took the proffered hand.

"I didn't recognize you at first," apologized the major. "The

last time I saw you you were in London in evening dress. Quite a

difference--'pon my word, man, you'll have to admit it."

Tarzan smiled and turned toward the colonel. "I overheard your

conversation," he said. "I have just come from behind the German

lines. Possibly I can help you."

The colonel looked questioningly toward Major Preswick who quickly

rose to the occasion and presented the ape-man to his commanding

officer and fellows. Briefly Tarzan told them what it was that

brought him out alone in pursuit of the Germans.

"And now you have come to join us?" asked the colonel.

Tarzan shook his head. "Not regularly," he replied. "I must fight

in my own way; but I can help you. Whenever I wish I can enter the

German lines."

Capell smiled and shook his head. "It's not so easy as you think,"

he said; "I've lost two good officers in the last week trying it--and

they were experienced men; none better in the Intelligence Department."

"Is it more difficult than entering the British lines?" asked

Tarzan.

The colonel was about to reply when a new thought appeared to occur

to him and he looked quizzically at the ape-man. "Who brought you

here?" he asked. "Who passed you through our out-guards?"

"I have just come through the German lines and yours and passed

through your camp," he replied. "Send word to ascertain if anyone

saw me."

"But who accompanied you?" insisted Capell.

"I came alone," replied Tarzan and then, drawing himself to

his full height, "You men of civilization, when you come into the

jungle, are as dead among the quick. Manu, the monkey, is a sage

by comparison. I marvel that you exist at all--only your numbers,

your weapons, and your power of reasoning save you. Had I a few

hundred great apes with your reasoning power I could drive the

Germans into the ocean as quickly as the remnant of them could

reach the coast. Fortunate it is for you that the dumb brutes cannot

combine. Could they, Africa would remain forever free of men. But

come, can I help you? Would you like to know where several machinegun

emplacements are hidden?"

The colonel assured him that they would, and a moment later Tarzan

had traced upon the map the location of three that had been bothering

the English. "There is a weak spot here," he said, placing a finger

upon the map. "It is held by blacks; but the machine guns out in

front are manned by whites. If--wait! I have a plan. You can fill

that trench with your own men and enfilade the trenches to its

right with their own machine guns."

Colonel Capell smiled and shook his head. "It sounds very easy,"

he said.

"It IS easy--for me," replied the ape-man. "I can empty that section

of trench without a shot. I was raised in the jungle--I know the

jungle folk--the Gomangani as well as the others. Look for me again

on the second night," and he turned to leave.

"Wait," said the colonel. "I will send an officer to pass you

through the lines."

Tarzan smiled and moved away. As he was leaving the little group

about headquarters he passed a small figure wrapped in an officer's

heavy overcoat. The collar was turned up and the visor of the

military cap pulled well down over the eyes; but, as the ape-man

passed, the light from the fire illuminated the features of the

newcomer for an instant, revealing to Tarzan a vaguely familiar

face. Some officer he had known in London, doubtless, he surmised,

and went his way through the British camp and the British lines

all unknown to the watchful sentinels of the out-guard.

Nearly all night he moved across Kilimanjaro's foothills, tracking

by instinct an unknown way, for he guessed that what he sought would

be found on some wooded slope higher up than he had come upon his

other recent journeys in this, to him, little known country. Three

hours before dawn his keen nostrils apprised him that somewhere in

the vicinity he would find what he wanted, and so he climbed into

a tall tree and settled himself for a few hours' sleep.

Chapter IV

When the Lion Fed

Kudu, the sun, was well up in the heavens when Tarzan awoke. The

ape-man stretched his giant limbs, ran his fingers through his thick

hair, and swung lightly down to earth. Immediately he took up the

trail he had come in search of, following it by scent down into

a deep ravine. Cautiously he went now, for his nose told him that

the quarry was close at hand, and presently from an overhanging

bough he looked down upon Horta, the boar, and many of his kinsmen.

Un-slinging his bow and selecting an arrow, Tarzan fitted the shaft

and, drawing it far back, took careful aim at the largest of the

great pigs. In the ape-man's teeth were other arrows, and no sooner

had the first one sped, than he had fitted and shot another bolt.

Instantly the pigs were in turmoil, not knowing from whence the

danger threatened. They stood stupidly at first and then commenced

milling around until six of their number lay dead or dying about

them; then with a chorus of grunts and squeals they started off at

a wild run, disappearing quickly in the dense underbrush.

Tarzan then descended from the tree, dispatched those that were not

already dead and proceeded to skin the carcasses. As he worked,

rapidly and with great skill, he neither hummed nor whistled as

does the average man of civilization. It was in numerous little

ways such as these that he differed from other men, due, probably,

to his early jungle training. The beasts of the jungle that he had

been reared among were playful to maturity but seldom thereafter.

His fellow-apes, especially the bulls, became fierce and surly as

they grew older. Life was a serious matter during lean seasons--one

had to fight to secure one's share of food then, and the habit once

formed became lifelong. Hunting for food was the life labor of the

jungle bred, and a life labor is a thing not to be approached with

levity nor prosecuted lightly. So all work found Tarzan serious,

though he still retained what the other beasts lost as they grew

older--a sense of humor, which he gave play to when the mood suited

him. It was a grim humor and sometimes ghastly; but it satisfied

Tarzan.

Then, too, were one to sing and whistle while working on the ground,

concentration would be impossible. Tarzan possessed the ability to

concentrate each of his five senses upon its particular business.

Now he worked at skinning the six pigs and his eyes and his fingers

worked as though there was naught else in all the world than these

six carcasses; but his ears and his nose were as busily engaged

elsewhere--the former ranging the forest all about and the latter

assaying each passing zephyr. It was his nose that first discovered

the approach of Sabor, the lioness, when the wind shifted for a

moment.

As clearly as though he had seen her with his eyes, Tarzan knew

that the lioness had caught the scent of the freshly killed pigs

and immediately had moved down wind in their direction. He knew

from the strength of the scent spoor and the rate of the wind about

how far away she was and that she was approaching from behind him.

He was finishing the last pig and he did not hurry. The five pelts

lay close at hand--he had been careful to keep them thus together

and near him--an ample tree waved its low branches above him.

He did not even turn his head for he knew she was not yet in sight;

but he bent his ears just a bit more sharply for the first sound

of her nearer approach. When the final skin had been removed he

rose. Now he heard Sabor in the bushes to his rear, but not yet

too close. Leisurely he gathered up the six pelts and one of the

carcasses, and as the lioness appeared between the boles of two

trees he swung upward into the branches above him. Here he hung

the hides over a limb, seated himself comfortably upon another with

his back against the bole of the tree, cut a hind quarter from

the carcass he had carried with him and proceeded to satisfy his

hunger. Sabor slunk, growling, from the brush, cast a wary eye

upward toward the ape-man and then fell upon the nearest carcass.

Tarzan looked down upon her and grinned, recalling an argument he

had once had with a famous big-game hunter who had declared that

the king of beasts ate only what he himself had killed. Tarzan knew

better for he had seen Numa and Sabor stoop even to carrion.

Having filled his belly, the ape-man fell to work upon the hides--all

large and strong. First he cut strips from them about half an inch

wide. When he had sufficient number of these strips he sewed two of

the hides together, afterwards piercing holes every three or four

inches around the edges. Running another strip through these

holes gave him a large bag with a drawstring. In similar fashion he

produced four other like bags, but smaller, from the four remaining

hides and had several strips left over.

All this done he threw a large, juicy fruit at Sabor, cached the

remainder of the pig in a crotch of the tree and swung off toward

the southwest through the middle terraces of the forest, carrying

his five bags with him. Straight he went to the rim of the gulch

where he had imprisoned Numa, the lion. Very stealthily he approached

the edge and peered over. Numa was not in sight. Tarzan sniffed

and listened. He could hear nothing, yet he knew that Numa must be

within the cave. He hoped that he slept--much depended upon Numa

not discovering him.

Cautiously he lowered himself over the edge of the cliff, and with

utter noiselessness commenced the descent toward the bottom of the

gulch. He stopped often and turned his keen eyes and ears in the

direction of the cave's mouth at the far end of the gulch, some

hundred feet away. As he neared the foot of the cliff his danger

increased greatly. If he could reach the bottom and cover half

the distance to the tree that stood in the center of the gulch he

would feel comparatively safe for then, even if Numa appeared, he

felt that he could beat him either to the cliff or to the tree,

but to scale the first thirty feet of the cliff rapidly enough to

elude the leaping beast would require a running start of at least

twenty feet as there were no very good hand- or footholds close

to the bottom--he had had to run up the first twenty feet like

a squirrel running up a tree that other time he had beaten an

infuriated Numa to it. He had no desire to attempt it again unless

the conditions were equally favorable at least, for he had escaped

Numa's raking talons by only a matter of inches on the former

occasion.

At last he stood upon the floor of the gulch. Silent as a disembodied

spirit he advanced toward the tree. He was half way there and no

sign of Numa. He reached the scarred bole from which the famished

lion had devoured the bark and even torn pieces of the wood itself

and yet Numa had not appeared. As he drew himself up to the lower

branches he commenced to wonder if Numa were in the cave after

all. Could it be possible that he had forced the barrier of rocks

with which Tarzan had plugged the other end of the passage where

it opened into the outer world of freedom? Or was Numa dead? The

ape-man doubted the verity of the latter suggestion as he had fed

the lion the entire carcasses of a deer and a hyena only a few

days since--he could not have starved in so short a time, while the

little rivulet running across the gulch furnished him with water

a-plenty.

Tarzan started to descend and investigate the cavern when it occurred

to him that it would save effort were he to lure Numa out instead.

Acting upon the thought he uttered a low growl. Immediately he was

rewarded by the sound of a movement within the cave and an instant

later a wild-eyed, haggard lion rushed forth ready to face the

devil himself were he edible. When Numa saw Tarzan, fat and sleek,

perched in the tree he became suddenly the embodiment of frightful

rage. His eyes and his nose told him that this was the creature

responsible for his predicament and also that this creature was

good to eat. Frantically the lion sought to scramble up the bole of

the tree. Twice he leaped high enough to catch the lowest branches

with his paws, but both times he fell backward to the earth. Each

time he became more furious. His growls and roars were incessant

and horrible and all the time Tarzan sat grinning down upon him,

taunting him in jungle billingsgate for his inability to reach

him and mentally exulting that always Numa was wasting his already

waning strength.

Finally the ape-man rose and un-slung his rope. He arranged the

coils carefully in his left hand and the noose in his right, and

then he took a position with each foot on one of two branches that

lay in about the same horizontal plane and with his back pressed

firmly against the stem of the tree. There he stood hurling insults

at Numa until the beast was again goaded into leaping upward at

him, and as Numa rose the noose dropped quickly over his head and

about his neck. A quick movement of Tarzan's rope hand tightened

the coil and when Numa slipped backward to the ground only his hind

feet touched, for the ape-man held him swinging by the neck.

Moving slowly outward upon the two branches Tarzan swung Numa out

so that he could not reach the bole of the tree with his raking

talons, then he made the rope fast after drawing the lion clear

of the ground, dropped his five pigskin sacks to earth and leaped

down himself. Numa was striking frantically at the grass rope with

his fore claws. At any moment he might sever it and Tarzan must,

therefore, work rapidly.

First he drew the larger bag over Numa's head and secured it about

his neck with the draw string, then he managed, after considerable

effort, during which he barely escaped being torn to ribbons by

the mighty talons, to hog-tie Numa--drawing his four legs together

and securing them in that position with the strips trimmed from

the pigskins.

By this time the lion's efforts had almost ceased--it was evident

that he was being rapidly strangled and as that did not at all

suit the purpose of the Tarmangani the latter swung again into the

tree, unfastened the rope from above and lowered the lion to the

ground where he immediately followed it and loosed the noose about

Numa's neck. Then he drew his hunting knife and cut two round holes

in the front of the head bag opposite the lion's eyes for the double

purpose of permitting him to see and giving him sufficient air to

breathe.

This done Tarzan busied himself fitting the other bags, one over

each of Numa's formidably armed paws. Those on the hind feet he

secured not only by tightening the draw strings but also rigged

garters that fastened tightly around the legs above the hocks.

He secured the front-feet bags in place similarly above the great

knees. Now, indeed, was Numa, the lion, reduced to the harmlessness

of Bara, the deer.

By now Numa was showing signs of returning life. He gasped for

breath and struggled; but the strips of pigskin that held his four

legs together were numerous and tough. Tarzan watched and was sure

that they would hold, yet Numa is mightily muscled and there was

the chance, always, that he might struggle free of his bonds after

which all would depend upon the efficacy of Tarzan's bags and draw

strings.

After Numa had again breathed normally and was able to roar

out his protests and his rage, his struggles increased to Titanic

proportions for a short time; but as a lion's powers of endurance

are in no way proportionate to his size and strength he soon tired

and lay quietly. Amid renewed growling and another futile attempt

to free himself, Numa was finally forced to submit to the further

indignity of having a rope secured about his neck; but this time

it was no noose that might tighten and strangle him; but a bowline

knot, which does not tighten or slip under strain.

The other end of the rope Tarzan fastened to the stem of the tree,

then he quickly cut the bonds securing Numa's legs and leaped aside

as the beast sprang to his feet. For a moment the lion stood with

legs far outspread, then he raised first one paw and then another,

shaking them energetically in an effort to dislodge the strange

footgear that Tarzan had fastened upon them. Finally he began to paw

at the bag upon his head. The ape-man, standing with ready spear,

watched Numa's efforts intently. Would the bags hold? He sincerely

hoped so. Or would all his labor prove fruitless?

As the clinging things upon his feet and face resisted his every

effort to dislodge them, Numa became frantic. He rolled upon the

ground, fighting, biting, scratching, and roaring; he leaped to his

feet and sprang into the air; he charged Tarzan, only to be brought

to a sudden stop as the rope securing him to the tree tautened.

Then Tarzan stepped in and rapped him smartly on the head with the

shaft of his spear. Numa reared upon his hind feet and struck at

the ape-man and in return received a cuff on one ear that sent him

reeling sideways. When he returned to the attack he was again sent

sprawling. After the fourth effort it appeared to dawn upon the king

of beasts that he had met his master, his head and tail dropped and

when Tarzan advanced upon him he backed away, though still growling.

Leaving Numa tied to the tree Tarzan entered the tunnel and removed

the barricade from the opposite end, after which he returned to

the gulch and strode straight for the tree. Numa lay in his path

and as Tarzan approached growled menacingly. The ape-man cuffed

him aside and unfastened the rope from the tree. Then ensued a

half-hour of stubbornly fought battle while Tarzan endeavored to

drive Numa through the tunnel ahead of him and Numa persistently

refused to be driven. At last, however, by dint of the unrestricted

use of his spear point, the ape-man succeeded in forcing the lion

to move ahead of him and eventually guided him into the passageway.

Once inside, the problem became simpler since Tarzan followed closely

in the rear with his sharp spear point, an unremitting incentive

to forward movement on the part of the lion. If Numa hesitated he

was prodded. If he backed up the result was extremely painful and

so, being a wise lion who was learning rapidly, he decided to keep

on going and at the end of the tunnel, emerging into the outer

world, he sensed freedom, raised his head and tail and started off

at a run.

Tarzan, still on his hands and knees just inside the entrance, was

taken unaware with the result that he was sprawled forward upon

his face and dragged a hundred yards across the rocky ground before

Numa was brought to a stand. It was a scratched and angry Tarzan

who scrambled to his feet. At first he was tempted to chastise

Numa; but, as the ape-man seldom permitted his temper to guide him

in any direction not countenanced by reason, he quickly abandoned

the idea.

Having taught Numa the rudiments of being driven, he now urged him

forward and there commenced as strange a journey as the unrecorded

history of the jungle contains. The balance of that day was eventful

both for Tarzan and for Numa. From open rebellion at first the lion

passed through stages of stubborn resistance and grudging obedience

to final surrender. He was a very tired, hungry, and thirsty lion

when night overtook them; but there was to be no food for him that

day or the next--Tarzan did not dare risk removing the head bag,

though he did cut another hole which permitted Numa to quench his

thirst shortly after dark. Then he tied him to a tree, sought food

for himself, and stretched out among the branches above his captive

for a few hours' sleep.

Early the following morning they resumed their journey, winding over

the low foothills south of Kilimanjaro, toward the east. The beasts

of the jungle who saw them took one look and fled. The scent spoor

of Numa, alone, might have been enough to have provoked flight in

many of the lesser animals, but the sight of this strange apparition

that smelled like a lion, but looked like nothing they ever had

seen before, being led through the jungles by a giant Tarmangani

was too much for even the more formidable denizens of the wild.

Sabor, the lioness, recognizing from a distance the scent of her

lord and master intermingled with that of a Tarmangani and the

hide of Horta, the boar, trotted through the aisles of the forest

to investigate. Tarzan and Numa heard her coming, for she voiced

a plaintive and questioning whine as the baffling mixture of odors

aroused her curiosity and her fears, for lions, however terrible

they may appear, are often timid animals and Sabor, being of the

gentler sex, was, naturally, habitually inquisitive as well.

Tarzan un-slung his spear for he knew that he might now easily have

to fight to retain his prize. Numa halted and turned his outraged

head in the direction of the coming she. He voiced a throaty growl

that was almost a purr. Tarzan was upon the point of prodding him

on again when Sabor broke into view, and behind her the ape-man saw

that which gave him instant pause--four full-grown lions trailing

the lioness.

To have goaded Numa then into active resistance might have brought

the whole herd down upon him and so Tarzan waited to learn first

what their attitude would be. He had no idea of relinquishing his

lion without a battle; but knowing lions as he did, he knew that

there was no assurance as to just what the newcomers would do.

The lioness was young and sleek, and the four males were in their

prime--as handsome lions as he ever had seen. Three of the males

were scantily maned but one, the foremost, carried a splendid,

black mane that rippled in the breeze as he trotted majestically

forward. The lioness halted a hundred feet from Tarzan, while the

lions came on past her and stopped a few feet nearer. Their ears

were upstanding and their eyes filled with curiosity. Tarzan could

not even guess what they might do. The lion at his side faced them

fully, standing silent now and watchful.

Suddenly the lioness gave vent to another little whine, at which

Tarzan's lion voiced a terrific roar and leaped forward straight

toward the beast of the black mane. The sight of this awesome

creature with the strange face was too much for the lion toward

which he leaped, dragging Tarzan after him, and with a growl the

lion turned and fled, followed by his companions and the she.

Numa attempted to follow them; Tarzan held him in leash and when

he turned upon him in rage, beat him unmercifully across the head

with his spear. Shaking his head and growling, the lion at last moved

off again in the direction they had been traveling; but it was an

hour before he ceased to sulk. He was very hungry--half famished

in fact--and consequently of an ugly temper, yet so thoroughly

subdued by Tarzan's heroic methods of lion taming that he was

presently pacing along at the ape-man's side like some huge St.

Bernard.

It was dark when the two approached the British right, after a

slight delay farther back because of a German patrol it had been

necessary to elude. A short distance from the British line of

out-guard sentinels Tarzan tied Numa to a tree and continued on

alone. He evaded a sentinel, passed the out-guard and support, and

by devious ways came again to Colonel Capell's headquarters, where

he appeared before the officers gathered there as a disembodied

spirit materializing out of thin air.

When they saw who it was that came thus unannounced they smiled

and the colonel scratched his head in perplexity.

"Someone should be shot for this," he said. "I might just as well

not establish an out-post if a man can filter through whenever he

pleases."

Tarzan smiled. "Do not blame them," he said, "for I am not a man.

I am Tarmangani. Any Mangani who wished to, could enter your camp

almost at will; but if you have them for sentinels no one could

enter without their knowledge."

"What are the Mangani?" asked the colonel. "Perhaps we might enlist

a bunch of the beggars."

Tarzan shook his head. "They are the great apes," he explained; "my

people; but you could not use them. They cannot concentrate long

enough upon a single idea. If I told them of this they would be

much interested for a short time--I might even hold the interest

of a few long enough to get them here and explain their duties to

them; but soon they would lose interest and when you needed them

most they might be off in the forest searching for beetles instead

of watching their posts. They have the minds of little children--that

is why they remain what they are."

"You call them Mangani and yourself Tarmangani--what is the

difference?" asked Major Preswick.

"Tar means white," replied Tarzan, "and Mangani, great ape. My name--the

name they gave me in the tribe of Kerchak--means White-skin. When

I was a little balu my skin, I presume, looked very white indeed

against the beautiful, black coat of Kala, my foster mother

and so they called me Tarzan, the Tarmangani. They call you, too,

Tarmangani," he concluded, smiling.

Capell smiled. "It is no reproach, Greystoke," he said; "and, by

Jove, it would be a mark of distinction if a fellow could act the

part. And now how about your plan? Do you still think you can empty

the trench opposite our sector?"

"Is it still held by Gomangani?" asked Tarzan.

"What are Gomangani?" inquired the colonel. "It is still held by

native troops, if that is what you mean."

"Yes," replied the ape-man, "the Gomangani are the great black

apes--the Negroes."

"What do you intend doing and what do you want us to do?" asked

Capell.

Tarzan approached the table and placed a finger on the map. "Here

is a listening post," he said; "they have a machine gun in it. A

tunnel connects it with this trench at this point." His finger moved

from place to place on the map as he talked. "Give me a bomb and

when you hear it burst in this listening post let your men start

across No Man's Land slowly. Presently they will hear a commotion

in the enemy trench; but they need not hurry, and, whatever they

do, have them come quietly. You might also warn them that I may be

in the trench and that I do not care to be shot or bayoneted."

"And that is all?" queried Capell, after directing an officer to

give Tarzan a hand grenade; "you will empty the trench alone?"

"Not exactly alone," replied Tarzan with a grim smile; "but I shall

empty it, and, by the way, your men may come in through the tunnel

from the listening post if you prefer. In about half an hour,

Colonel," and he turned and left them.

As he passed through the camp there flashed suddenly upon the screen

of recollection, conjured there by some reminder of his previous

visit to headquarters, doubtless, the image of the officer he had

passed as he quit the colonel that other time and simultaneously

recognition of the face that had been revealed by the light from

the fire. He shook his head dubiously. No, it could not be and

yet the features of the young officer were identical with those of

Fraulein Kircher, the German spy he had seen at German headquarters

the night he took Major Schneider from under the nose of the Hun

general and his staff.

Beyond the last line of sentinels Tarzan moved quickly in the

direction of Numa, the lion. The beast was lying down as Tarzan

approached, but he rose as the ape-man reached his side. A low

whine escaped his muzzled lips. Tarzan smiled for he recognized in

the new note almost a supplication--it was more like the whine of

a hungry dog begging for food than the voice of the proud king of

beasts.

"Soon you will kill--and feed," he murmured in the vernacular of

the great apes.

He unfastened the rope from about the tree and, with Numa close

at his side, slunk into No Man's Land. There was little rifle fire

and only an occasional shell vouched for the presence of artillery

behind the opposing lines. As the shells from both sides were

falling well back of the trenches, they constituted no menace to

Tarzan; but the noise of them and that of the rifle fire had a marked

effect upon Numa who crouched, trembling, close to the Tarmangani

as though seeking protection.

Cautiously the two beasts moved forward toward the listening post

of the Germans. In one hand Tarzan carried the bomb the English had

given him, in the other was the coiled rope attached to the lion.

At last Tarzan could see the position a few yards ahead. His keen

eyes picked out the head and shoulders of the sentinel on watch.

The ape-man grasped the bomb firmly in his right hand. He measured

the distance with his eye and gathered his feet beneath him, then

in a single motion he rose and threw the missile, immediately

flattening himself prone upon the ground.

Five seconds later there was a terrific explosion in the center of

the listening post. Numa gave a nervous start and attempted to break

away; but Tarzan held him and, leaping to his feet, ran forward,

dragging Numa after him. At the edge of the post he saw below him

but slight evidence that the position had been occupied at all,

for only a few shreds of torn flesh remained. About the only thing

that had not been demolished was a machine gun which had been

protected by sand bags.

There was not an instant to lose. Already a relief might be crawling

through the communication tunnel, for it must have been evident to

the sentinels in the Hun trenches that the listening post had been

demolished. Numa hesitated to follow Tarzan into the excavation;

but the ape-man, who was in no mood to temporize, jerked him roughly

to the bottom. Before them lay the mouth of the tunnel that led

back from No Man's Land to the German trenches. Tarzan pushed Numa

forward until his head was almost in the aperture, then as though

it were an afterthought, he turned quickly and, taking the machine

gun from the parapet, placed it in the bottom of the hole close

at hand, after which he turned again to Numa, and with his knife

quickly cut the garters that held the bags upon his front paws.

Before the lion could know that a part of his formidable armament

was again released for action, Tarzan had cut the rope from his

neck and the head bag from his face, and grabbing the lion from

the rear had thrust him partially into the mouth of the tunnel.

Then Numa balked, only to feel the sharp prick of Tarzan's knife

point in his hind quarters. Goading him on the ape-man finally

succeeded in getting the lion sufficiently far into the tunnel

so that there was no chance of his escaping other than by going

forward or deliberately backing into the sharp blade at his rear.

Then Tarzan cut the bags from the great hind feet, placed his

shoulder and his knife point against Numa's seat, dug his toes

into the loose earth that had been broken up by the explosion of

the bomb, and shoved.

Inch by inch at first Numa advanced. He was growling now and presently

he commenced to roar. Suddenly he leaped forward and Tarzan knew

that he had caught the scent of meat ahead. Dragging the machine

gun beside him the ape-man followed quickly after the lion whose

roars he could plainly hear ahead mingled with the unmistakable

screams of frightened men. Once again a grim smile touched the lips

of this man-beast.

"They murdered my Waziri," he muttered; "they crucified Wasimbu,

son of Muviro."

When Tarzan reached the trench and emerged into it there was no one

in sight in that particular bay, nor in the next, nor the next as

he hurried forward in the direction of the German center; but in the

fourth bay he saw a dozen men jammed in the angle of the traverse

at the end while leaping upon them and rending with talons and fangs

was Numa, a terrific incarnation of ferocity and ravenous hunger.

Whatever held the men at last gave way as they fought madly with

one another in their efforts to escape this dread creature that

from their infancy had filled them with terror, and again they

were retreating. Some clambered over the parados and some even over

the parapet preferring the dangers of No Man's Land to this other

soul-searing menace.

As the British advanced slowly toward the German trenches, they

first met terrified blacks who ran into their arms only too willing

to surrender. That pandemonium had broken loose in the Hun trench

was apparent to the Rhodesians not only from the appearance of the

deserters, but from the sounds of screaming, cursing men which came

clearly to their ears; but there was one that baffled them for it

resembled nothing more closely than the infuriated growling of an

angry lion.

And when at last they reached the trench, those farthest on the left

of the advancing Britishers heard a machine gun sputter suddenly

before them and saw a huge lion leap over the German parados with

the body of a screaming Hun soldier between his jaws and vanish

into the shadows of the night, while squatting upon a traverse to

their left was Tarzan of the Apes with a machine gun before him

with which he was raking the length of the German trenches.

The foremost Rhodesians saw something else--they saw a huge German

officer emerge from a dugout just in rear of the ape-man. They saw

him snatch up a discarded rifle with bayonet fixed and creep upon

the apparently unconscious Tarzan. They ran forward, shouting

warnings; but above the pandemonium of the trenches and the machine

gun their voices could not reach him. The German leaped upon the

parapet behind him--the fat hands raised the rifle butt aloft for

the cowardly downward thrust into the naked back and then, as moves

Ara, the lightning, moved Tarzan of the Apes.

It was no man who leaped forward upon that Boche officer, striking

aside the sharp bayonet as one might strike aside a straw in a

baby's hand--it was a wild beast and the roar of a wild beast was

upon those savage lips, for as that strange sense that Tarzan owned

in common with the other jungle-bred creatures of his wild domain

warned him of the presence behind him and he had whirled to meet

the attack, his eyes had seen the corps and regimental insignia upon

the other's blouse--it was the same as that worn by the murderers

of his wife and his people, by the despoilers of his home and his

happiness.

It was a wild beast whose teeth fastened upon the shoulder of the

Hun--it was a wild beast whose talons sought that fat neck. And

then the boys of the Second Rhodesian Regiment saw that which will

live forever in their memories. They saw the giant ape-man pick

the heavy German from the ground and shake him as a terrier might

shake a rat--as Sabor, the lioness, sometimes shakes her prey.

They saw the eyes of the Hun bulge in horror as he vainly struck

with his futile hands against the massive chest and head of his

assailant. They saw Tarzan suddenly spin the man about and placing

a knee in the middle of his back and an arm about his neck bend

his shoulders slowly backward. The German's knees gave and he sank

upon them, but still that irresistible force bent him further and

further. He screamed in agony for a moment--then something snapped

and Tarzan cast him aside, a limp and lifeless thing.

The Rhodesians started forward, a cheer upon their lips--a cheer

that never was uttered--a cheer that froze in their throats, for

at that moment Tarzan placed a foot upon the carcass of his kill

and, raising his face to the heavens, gave voice to the weird and

terrifying victory cry of the bull ape.

Underlieutenant von Goss was dead.

Without a backward glance at the awe-struck soldiers Tarzan leaped

the trench and was gone.

Chapter V

The Golden Locket

The little British army in East Africa, after suffering severe

reverses at the hands of a numerically much superior force, was

at last coming into its own. The German offensive had been broken

and the Huns were now slowly and doggedly retreating along the

railway to Tanga. The break in the German lines had followed the

clearing of a section of their left-flank trenches of native soldiers

by Tarzan and Numa, the lion, upon that memorable night that the

ape-man had loosed a famishing man-eater among the superstitious

and terror-stricken blacks. The Second Rhodesian Regiment had

immediately taken possession of the abandoned trench and from this

position their flanking fire had raked contiguous sections of the

German line, the diversion rendering possible a successful night

attack on the part of the balance of the British forces.

Weeks had elapsed. The Germans were contesting stubbornly every

mile of waterless, thorn-covered ground and clinging desperately

to their positions along the railway. The officers of the Second

Rhodesians had seen nothing more of Tarzan of the Apes since he

had slain Underlieutenant von Goss and disappeared toward the very

heart of the German position, and there were those among them who

believed that he had been killed within the enemy lines.

"They may have killed him," assented Colonel Capell; "but I fancy

they never captured the beggar alive."

Nor had they, nor killed him either. Tarzan had spent those intervening

weeks pleasantly and profitably. He had amassed a considerable

fund of knowledge concerning the disposition and strength of German

troops, their methods of warfare, and the various ways in which a

lone Tarmangani might annoy an army and lower its morale.

At present he was prompted by a specific desire. There was a certain

German spy whom he wished to capture alive and take back to the

British. When he had made his first visit to German headquarters,

he had seen a young woman deliver a paper to the German general,

and later he had seen that same young woman within the British

lines in the uniform of a British officer. The conclusions were

obvious--she was a spy.

And so Tarzan haunted German headquarters upon many nights hoping

to see her again or to pick up some clew as to her whereabouts,

and at the same time he utilized many an artifice whereby he might

bring terror to the hearts of the Germans. That he was successful

was often demonstrated by the snatches of conversation he overheard as

he prowled through the German camps. One night as he lay concealed

in the bushes close beside a regimental headquarters he listened to

the conversation of several Boche officers. One of the men reverted

to the stories told by the native troops in connection with their

rout by a lion several weeks before and the simultaneous appearance

in their trenches of a naked, white giant whom they were perfectly

assured was some demon of the jungle.

"The fellow must have been the same as he who leaped into the

general's headquarters and carried off Schneider," asserted one.

"I wonder how he happened to single out the poor major. They say

the creature seemed interested in no one but Schneider. He had von

Kelter in his grasp, and he might easily have taken the general

himself; but he ignored them all except Schneider. Him he pursued

about the room, seized and carried off into the night. Gott knows

what his fate was."

"Captain Fritz Schneider has some sort of theory," said another.

"He told me only a week or two ago that he thinks he knows why his

brother was taken--that it was a case of mistaken identity. He was

not so sure about it until von Goss was killed, apparently by the

same creature, the night the lion entered the trenches. Von Goss was

attached to Schneider's company. One of Schneider's men was found

with his neck wrung the same night that the major was carried off

and Schneider thinks that this devil is after him and his

command--that it came for him that night and got his brother by

mistake. He says Kraut told him that in presenting the major to

Fraulein Kircher the former's name was no sooner spoken than this

wild man leaped through the window and made for him."

Suddenly the little group became rigid--listening. "What was that?"

snapped one, eyeing the bushes from which a smothered snarl had

issued as Tarzan of the Apes realized that through his mistake the

perpetrator of the horrid crime at his bungalow still lived--that

the murderer of his wife went yet unpunished.

For a long minute the officers stood with tensed nerves, every eye

riveted upon the bushes from whence the ominous sound had issued.

Each recalled recent mysterious disappearances from the heart of

camps as well as from lonely out-guards. Each thought of the silent

dead he had seen, slain almost within sight of their fellows by some

unseen creature. They thought of the marks upon dead throats--made

by talons or by giant fingers, they could not tell which--and those

upon shoulders and jugulars where powerful teeth had fastened and

they waited with drawn pistols.

Once the bushes moved almost imperceptibly and an instant later

one of the officers, without warning, fired into them; but Tarzan

of the Apes was not there. In the interval between the moving of

the bushes and the firing of the shot he had melted into the night.

Ten minutes later he was hovering on the outskirts of that part

of camp where were bivouacked for the night the black soldiers of

a native company commanded by one Hauptmann Fritz Schneider. The

men were stretched upon the ground without tents; but there were

tents pitched for the officers. Toward these Tarzan crept. It was

slow and perilous work, as the Germans were now upon the alert for

the uncanny foe that crept into their camps to take his toll by

night, yet the ape-man passed their sentinels, eluded the vigilance

of the interior guard, and crept at last to the rear of the officers'

line.

Here he flattened himself against the ground close behind the

nearest tent and listened. From within came the regular breathing

of a sleeping man--one only. Tarzan was satisfied. With his knife

he cut the tie strings of the rear flap and entered. He made no

noise. The shadow of a falling leaf, floating gently to earth upon

a still day, could have been no more soundless. He moved to the

side of the sleeping man and bent low over him. He could not know,

of course, whether it was Schneider or another, as he had never seen

Schneider; but he meant to know and to know even more. Gently he

shook the man by the shoulder. The fellow turned heavily and grunted

in a thick guttural.

"Silence!" admonished the ape-man in a low whisper. "Silence--I

kill."

The Hun opened his eyes. In the dim light he saw a giant figure

bending over him. Now a mighty hand grasped his shoulder and another

closed lightly about his throat.

"Make no outcry," commanded Tarzan; "but answer in a whisper my

questions. What is your name?"

"Luberg," replied the officer. He was trembling. The weird presence

of this naked giant filled him with dread. He, too, recalled the

men mysteriously murdered in the still watches of the night camps.

"What do you want?"

"Where is Hauptmann Fritz Schneider?" asked Tarzan, "Which is his

tent?"

"He is not here," replied Luberg. "He was sent to Wilhelmstal

yesterday."

"I shall not kill you--now," said the ape-man. "First I shall go

and learn if you have lied to me and if you have your death shall

be the more terrible. Do you know how Major Schneider died?"

Luberg shook his head negatively.

"I do," continued Tarzan, "and it was not a nice way to die--even

for an accursed German. Turn over with your face down and cover

your eyes. Do not move or make any sound."

The man did as he was bid and the instant that his eyes were turned

away, Tarzan slipped from the tent. An hour later he was outside

the German camp and headed for the little hill town of Wilhelmstal,

the summer seat of government of German East Africa.

Fraulein Bertha Kircher was lost. She was humiliated and angry--it

was long before she would admit it, that she, who prided herself

upon her woodcraft, was lost in this little patch of country between

the Pangani and the Tanga railway. She knew that Wilhelmstal lay

southeast of her about fifty miles; but, through a combination of

untoward circumstances, she found herself unable to determine which

was southeast.

In the first place she had set out from German headquarters on a

well-marked road that was being traveled by troops and with every

reason to believe that she would follow that road to Wilhelmstal.

Later she had been warned from this road by word that a strong

British patrol had come down the west bank of the Pangani, effected

a crossing south of her, and was even then marching on the railway

at Tonda.

After leaving the road she found herself in thick bush and as the

sky was heavily overcast she presently had recourse to her compass

and it was not until then that she discovered to her dismay that

she did not have it with her. So sure was she of her woodcraft,

however, that she continued on in the direction she thought west

until she had covered sufficient distance to warrant her in feeling

assured that, by now turning south, she could pass safely in rear

of the British patrol.

Nor did she commence to feel any doubts until long after she had

again turned toward the east well south, as she thought, of the

patrol. It was late afternoon--she should long since have struck

the road again south of Tonda; but she had found no road and now

she began to feel real anxiety.

Her horse had traveled all day without food or water, night

was approaching and with it a realization that she was hopelessly

lost in a wild and trackless country notorious principally for its

tsetse flies and savage beasts. It was maddening to know that she

had absolutely no knowledge of the direction she was traveling--that

she might be forging steadily further from the railway, deeper

into the gloomy and forbidding country toward the Pangani; yet it

was impossible to stop--she must go on.

Bertha Kircher was no coward, whatever else she may have been, but

as night began to close down around her she could not shut out from

her mind entirely contemplation of the terrors of the long hours

ahead before the rising sun should dissipate the Stygian gloom--the

horrid jungle night--that lures forth all the prowling, preying

creatures of destruction.

She found, just before dark, an open meadow-like break in the

almost interminable bush. There was a small clump of trees near the

center and here she decided to camp. The grass was high and thick,

affording feed for her horse and a bed for herself, and there was

more than enough dead wood lying about the trees to furnish a good

fire well through the night. Removing the saddle and bridle from

her mount she placed them at the foot of a tree and then picketed

the animal close by. Then she busied herself collecting firewood

and by the time darkness had fallen she had a good fire and enough

wood to last until morning.

From her saddlebags she took cold food and from her canteen a

swallow of water. She could not afford more than a small swallow

for she could not know how long a time it might be before she should

find more. It filled her with sorrow that her poor horse must go

waterless, for even German spies may have hearts and this one was

very young and very feminine.

It was now dark. There was neither moon nor stars and the light

from her fire only accentuated the blackness beyond. She could see

the grass about her and the boles of the trees which stood out in

brilliant relief against the solid background of impenetrable night,

and beyond the firelight there was nothing.

The jungle seemed ominously quiet. Far away in the distance she

heard faintly the boom of big guns; but she could not locate their

direction. She strained her ears until her nerves were on the point

of breaking; but she could not tell from whence the sound came. And

it meant so much to her to know, for the battle-lines were north

of her and if she could but locate the direction of the firing she

would know which way to go in the morning.

In the morning! Would she live to see another morning? She squared

her shoulders and shook herself together. Such thoughts must be

banished--they would never do. Bravely she hummed an air as she

arranged her saddle near the fire and pulled a quantity of long

grass to make a comfortable seat over which she spread her saddle

blanket. Then she un-strapped a heavy, military coat from the cantle

of her saddle and donned it, for the air was already chill.

Seating herself where she could lean against the saddle she prepared

to maintain a sleepless vigil throughout the night. For an hour

the silence was broken only by the distant booming of the guns and

the low noises of the feeding horse and then, from possibly a mile

away, came the rumbling thunder of a lion's roar. The girl started

and laid her hand upon the rifle at her side. A little shudder ran

through her slight frame and she could feel the goose flesh rise

upon her body.

Again and again was the awful sound repeated and each time she was

certain that it came nearer. She could locate the direction of this

sound although she could not that of the guns, for the origin of

the former was much closer. The lion was up wind and so could not

have caught her scent as yet, though he might be approaching to

investigate the light of the fire which could doubtless be seen

for a considerable distance.

For another fear-filled hour the girl sat straining her eyes and

ears out into the black void beyond her little island of light.

During all that time the lion did not roar again; but there was

constantly the sensation that it was creeping upon her. Again and

again she would start and turn to peer into the blackness beyond

the trees behind her as her overwrought nerves conjured the stealthy

fall of padded feet. She held the rifle across her knees at the

ready now and she was trembling from head to foot.

Suddenly her horse raised his head and snorted, and with a little

cry of terror the girl sprang to her feet. The animal turned and

trotted back toward her until the picket rope brought him to a stand,

and then he wheeled about and with ears up-pricked gazed out into

the night; but the girl could neither see nor hear aught.

Still another hour of terror passed during which the horse often

raised his head to peer long and searchingly into the dark. The girl

replenished the fire from time to time. She found herself becoming

very sleepy. Her heavy lids persisted in drooping; but she dared

not sleep. Fearful lest she might be overcome by the drowsiness

that was stealing through her she rose and walked briskly to and

fro, then she threw some more wood on the fire, walked over and

stroked her horse's muzzle and returned to her seat.

Leaning against the saddle she tried to occupy her mind with plans

for the morrow; but she must have dozed. With a start she awoke.

It was broad daylight. The hideous night with its indescribable

terrors was gone.

She could scarce believe the testimony of her senses. She had slept

for hours, the fire was out and yet she and the horse were safe

and alive, nor was there sign of savage beast about. And, best of

all, the sun was shining, pointing the straight road to the east.

Hastily she ate a few mouthfuls of her precious rations, which with

a swallow of water constituted her breakfast. Then she saddled her

horse and mounted. Already she felt that she was as good as safe

in Wilhelmstal.

Possibly, however, she might have revised her conclusions could she

have seen the two pairs of eyes watching her every move intently

from different points in the bush.

Light-hearted and unsuspecting, the girl rode across the clearing

toward the bush while directly before her two yellow-green eyes

glared round and terrible, a tawny tail twitched nervously and

great, padded paws gathered beneath a sleek barrel for a mighty

spring. The horse was almost at the edge of the bush when Numa,

the lion, launched himself through the air. He struck the animal's

right shoulder at the instant that it reared, terrified, to wheel

in flight. The force of the impact hurled the horse backward to the

ground and so quickly that the girl had no opportunity to extricate

herself; but fell to the earth with her mount, her left leg pinned

beneath its body.

Horror-stricken, she saw the king of beasts open his mighty jaws

and seize the screaming creature by the back of its neck. The

great jaws closed, there was an instant's struggle as Numa shook

his prey. She could hear the vertebrae crack as the mighty fangs

crunched through them, and then the muscles of her faithful friend

relaxed in death.

Numa crouched upon his kill. His terrifying eyes riveted themselves

upon the girl's face--she could feel his hot breath upon her cheek

and the odor of the fetid vapor nauseated her. For what seemed

an eternity to the girl the two lay staring at each other and then

the lion uttered a menacing growl.

Never before had Bertha Kircher been so terrified--never before had

she had such cause for terror. At her hip was a pistol--a formidable

weapon with which to face a man; but a puny thing indeed with

which to menace the great beast before her. She knew that at best

it could but enrage him and yet she meant to sell her life dearly,

for she felt that she must die. No human succor could have availed

her even had it been there to offer itself. For a moment she tore

her gaze from the hypnotic fascination of that awful face and

breathed a last prayer to her God. She did not ask for aid, for she

felt that she was beyond even divine succor--she only asked that

the end might come quickly and with as little pain as possible.

No one can prophesy what a lion will do in any given emergency.

This one glared and growled at the girl for a moment and then fell

to feeding upon the dead horse. Fraulein Kircher wondered for an

instant and then attempted to draw her leg cautiously from beneath

the body of her mount; but she could not budge it. She increased

the force of her efforts and Numa looked up from his feeding to

growl again. The girl desisted. She hoped that he might satisfy

his hunger and then depart to lie up, but she could not believe

that he would leave her there alive. Doubtless he would drag the

remains of his kill into the bush for hiding and, as there could

be no doubt that he considered her part of his prey, he would

certainly come back for her, or possibly drag her in first and kill

her.

Again Numa fell to feeding. The girl's nerves were at the breaking

point. She wondered that she had not fainted under the strain

of terror and shock. She recalled that she often had wished she

might see a lion, close to, make a kill and feed upon it. God! how

realistically her wish had been granted.

Again she bethought herself of her pistol. As she had fallen, the

holster had slipped around so that the weapon now lay beneath her.

Very slowly she reached for it; but in so doing she was forced to

raise her body from the ground. Instantly the lion was aroused.

With the swiftness of a cat he reached across the carcass of the

horse and placed a heavy, taloned paw upon her breast, crushing her

back to earth, and all the time he growled and snarled horribly.

His face was a picture of frightful rage incarnate. For a moment

neither moved and then from behind her the girl heard a human voice

uttering bestial sounds.

Numa suddenly looked up from the girl's face at the thing beyond

her. His growls increased to roars as he drew back, ripping the

front of the girl's waist almost from her body with his long talons,

exposing her white bosom, which through some miracle of chance the

great claws did not touch.

Tarzan of the Apes had witnessed the entire encounter from the

moment that Numa had leaped upon his prey. For some time before,

he had been watching the girl, and after the lion attacked her he

had at first been minded to let Numa have his way with her. What

was she but a hated German and a spy besides? He had seen her at

General Kraut's headquarters, in conference with the German staff

and again he had seen her within the British lines masquerading as

a British officer. It was the latter thought that prompted him to

interfere. Doubtless General Jan Smuts would be glad to meet and

question her. She might be forced to divulge information of value

to the British commander before Smuts had her shot.

Tarzan had recognized not only the girl, but the lion as well. All

lions may look alike to you and me; but not so to their intimates

of the jungle. Each has his individual characteristics of face and

form and gait as well defined as those that differentiate members

of the human family, and besides these the creatures of the jungle

have a still more positive test--that of scent. Each of us, man or

beast, has his own peculiar odor, and it is mostly by this that

the beasts of the jungle, endowed with miraculous powers of scent,

recognize individuals.

It is the final proof. You have seen it demonstrated a thousand

times--a dog recognizes your voice and looks at you. He knows your

face and figure. Good, there can be no doubt in his mind but that

it is you; but is he satisfied? No, sir--he must come up and smell

of you. All his other senses may be fallible, but not his sense of

smell, and so he makes assurance positive by the final test.

Tarzan recognized Numa as he whom he had muzzled with the hide of

Horta, the boar--as he whom he handled by a rope for two days and

finally loosed in a German front-line trench, and he knew that Numa

would recognize him--that he would remember the sharp spear that

had goaded him into submission and obedience and Tarzan hoped that

the lesson he had learned still remained with the lion.

Now he came forward calling to Numa in the language of the great

apes--warning him away from the girl. It is open to question that

Numa, the lion, understood him; but he did understand the menace of

the heavy spear that the Tarmangani carried so ready in his brown,

right hand, and so he drew back, growling, trying to decide in his

little brain whether to charge or flee.

On came the ape-man with never a pause, straight for the lion. "Go

away, Numa," he cried, "or Tarzan will tie you up again and lead

you through the jungle without food. See Arad, my spear! Do you

recall how his point stuck into you and how with his haft I beat

you over the head? Go, Numa! I am Tarzan of the Apes!"

Numa wrinkled the skin of his face into great folds, until his

eyes almost disappeared and he growled and roared and snarled and

growled again, and when the spear point came at last quite close

to him he struck at it viciously with his armed paw; but he drew

back. Tarzan stepped over the dead horse and the girl lying behind

him gazed in wide-eyed astonishment at the handsome figure driving

an angry lion deliberately from its kill.

When Numa had retreated a few yards, the ape-man called back to

the girl in perfect German, "Are you badly hurt?"

"I think not," she replied; "but I cannot extricate my foot from

beneath my horse."

"Try again," commanded Tarzan. "I do not know how long I can hold

Numa thus."

The girl struggled frantically; but at last she sank back upon an

elbow.

"It is impossible," she called to him.

He backed slowly until he was again beside the horse, when he

reached down and grasped the cinch, which was still intact. Then

with one hand he raised the carcass from the ground. The girl

freed herself and rose to her feet.

"You can walk?" asked Tarzan.

"Yes," she said; "my leg is numb; but it does not seem to be

injured."

"Good," commented the ape-man. "Back slowly away behind me--make

no sudden movements. I think he will not charge."

With utmost deliberation the two backed toward the bush. Numa

stood for a moment, growling, then he followed them, slowly. Tarzan

wondered if he would come beyond his kill or if he would stop there.

If he followed them beyond, then they could look for a charge, and

if Numa charged it was very likely that he would get one of them.

When the lion reached the carcass of the horse Tarzan stopped and

so did Numa, as Tarzan had thought that he would and the ape-man

waited to see what the lion would do next. He eyed them for a

moment, snarled angrily and then looked down at the tempting meat.

Presently he crouched upon his kill and resumed feeding.

The girl breathed a deep sigh of relief as she and the ape-man

resumed their slow retreat with only an occasional glance from the

lion, and when at last they reached the bush and had turned and

entered it, she felt a sudden giddiness overwhelm her so that she

staggered and would have fallen had Tarzan not caught her. It was

only a moment before she regained control of herself.

"I could not help it," she said, in half apology. "I was so close

to death--such a horrible death--it unnerved me for an instant;

but I am all right now. How can I ever thank you? It was so

wonderful--you did not seem to fear the frightful creature in the

least; yet he was afraid of you. Who are you?"

"He knows me," replied Tarzan, grimly--"that is why he fears me."

He was standing facing the girl now and for the first time

he had a chance to look at her squarely and closely. She was very

beautiful--that was undeniable; but Tarzan realized her beauty only

in a subconscious way. It was superficial--it did not color her

soul which must be black as sin. She was German--a German spy. He

hated her and desired only to compass her destruction; but he would

choose the manner so that it would work most grievously against

the enemy cause.

He saw her naked breasts where Numa had torn her clothing from her

and dangling there against the soft, white flesh he saw that which

brought a sudden scowl of surprise and anger to his face--the

diamond-studded, golden locket of his youth--the love token that

had been stolen from the breast of his mate by Schneider, the Hun.

The girl saw the scowl but did not interpret it correctly. Tarzan

grasped her roughly by the arm.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded, as he tore the bauble from

her.

The girl drew herself to her full height. "Take your hand from me,"

she demanded, but the ape-man paid no attention to her words, only

seizing her more forcibly.

"Answer me!" he snapped. "Where did you get this?"

"What is it to you?" she countered.

"It is mine," he replied. "Tell me who gave it to you or I will

throw you back to Numa."

"You would do that?" she asked.

"Why not?" he queried. "You are a spy and spies must die if they

are caught."

"You were going to kill me, then?"

"I was going to take you to headquarters. They would dispose of

you there; but Numa can do it quite as effectively. Which do you

prefer?"

"Hauptmann Fritz Schneider gave it to me," she said.

"Headquarters it will be then," said Tarzan. "Come!" The girl

moved at his side through the bush and all the time her mind worked

quickly. They were moving east, which suited her, and as long as

they continued to move east she was glad to have the protection

of the great, white savage. She speculated much upon the fact that

her pistol still swung at her hip. The man must be mad not to take

it from her.

"What makes you think I am a spy?" she asked after a long silence.

"I saw you at German headquarters," he replied, "and then again

inside the British lines."

She could not let him take her back to them. She must reach

Wilhelmstal at once and she was determined to do so even if she

must have recourse to her pistol. She cast a side glance at the

tall figure. What a magnificent creature! But yet he was a brute

who would kill her or have her killed if she did not slay him. And

the locket! She must have that back--it must not fail to reach

Wilhelmstal. Tarzan was now a foot or two ahead of her as the path

was very narrow. Cautiously she drew her pistol. A single shot would

suffice and he was so close that she could not miss. As she figured

it all out her eyes rested on the brown skin with the graceful muscles

rolling beneath it and the perfect limbs and head and the carriage

that a proud king of old might have envied. A wave of revulsion

for her contemplated act surged through her. No, she could not

do it--yet, she must be free and she must regain possession of

the locket. And then, almost blindly, she swung the weapon up and

struck Tarzan heavily upon the back of the head with its butt. Like

a felled ox he dropped in his tracks.

Chapter VI

Vengeance and Mercy

It was an hour later that Sheeta, the panther, hunting, chanced to

glance upward into the blue sky where his attention was attracted

by Ska, the vulture, circling slowly above the bush a mile away and

downwind. For a long minute the yellow eyes stared intently at the

gruesome bird. They saw Ska dive and rise again to continue his

ominous circling and in these movements their woodcraft read that

which, while obvious to Sheeta, would doubtless have meant nothing

to you or me.

The hunting cat guessed that on the ground beneath Ska was some

living thing of flesh--either a beast feeding upon its kill or a

dying animal that Ska did not yet dare attack. In either event it

might prove meat for Sheeta, and so the wary feline stalked by a

circuitous route, upon soft, padded feet that gave forth no sound,

until the circling aasvogel and his intended prey were upwind. Then,

sniffing each vagrant zephyr, Sheeta, the panther, crept cautiously

forward, nor had he advanced any considerable distance before his

keen nostrils were rewarded with the scent of man--a Tarmangani.

Sheeta paused. He was not a hunter of men. He was young and in his

prime; but always before he had avoided this hated presence. Of

late he had become more accustomed to it with the passing of many

soldiers through his ancient hunting ground, and as the soldiers

had frightened away a great part of the game Sheeta had been wont

to feed upon, the days had been lean, and Sheeta was hungry.

The circling Ska suggested that this Tarmangani might be helpless

and upon the point of dying, else Ska would not have been interested

in him, and so easy prey for Sheeta. With this thought in mind the

cat resumed his stalking. Presently he pushed through the thick

bush and his yellow-green eyes rested gloatingly upon the body of

an almost naked Tarmangani lying face down in a narrow game trail.

Numa, sated, rose from the carcass of Bertha Kircher's horse and

seized the partially devoured body by the neck and dragged it into

the bush; then he started east toward the lair where he had left

his mate. Being uncomfortably full he was inclined to be sleepy

and far from belligerent. He moved slowly and majestically with no

effort at silence or concealment. The king walked abroad, unafraid.

With an occasional regal glance to right or left he moved along a

narrow game trail until at a turn he came to a sudden stop at what

lay revealed before him--Sheeta, the panther, creeping stealthily

upon the almost naked body of a Tarmangani lying face down in the

deep dust of the pathway. Numa glared intently at the quiet body

in the dust. Recognition came. It was his Tarmangani. A low growl

of warning rumbled from his throat and Sheeta halted with one paw

upon Tarzan's back and turned suddenly to eye the intruder.

What passed within those savage brains? Who may say? The panther

seemed debating the wisdom of defending his find, for he growled

horribly as though warning Numa away from the prey. And Numa? Was

the idea of property rights dominating his thoughts? The Tarmangani

was his, or he was the Tarmangani's. Had not the Great White Ape

mastered and subdued him and, too, had he not fed him? Numa recalled

the fear that he had felt of this man-thing and his cruel spear;

but in savage brains fear is more likely to engender respect than

hatred and so Numa found that he respected the creature who had

subdued and mastered him. He saw Sheeta, upon whom he looked with

contempt, daring to molest the master of the lion. Jealousy and

greed alone might have been sufficient to prompt Numa to drive Sheeta

away, even though the lion was not sufficiently hungry to devour

the flesh that he thus wrested from the lesser cat; but then, too,

there was in the little brain within the massive head a sense of

loyalty, and perhaps this it was that sent Numa quickly forward,

growling, toward the spitting Sheeta.

For a moment the latter stood his ground with arched back and

snarling face, for all the world like a great, spotted tabby.

Numa had not felt like fighting; but the sight of Sheeta daring

to dispute his rights kindled his ferocious brain to sudden fire.

His rounded eyes glared with rage, his undulating tail snapped to

stiff erectness as, with a frightful roar, he charged this presuming

vassal.

It came so suddenly and from so short a distance that Sheeta had

no chance to turn and flee the rush, and so he met it with raking

talons and snapping jaws; but the odds were all against him. To

the larger fangs and the more powerful jaws of his adversary were

added huge talons and the preponderance of the lion's great weight.

At the first clash Sheeta was crushed and, though he deliberately

fell upon his back and drew up his powerful hind legs beneath Numa

with the intention of disemboweling him, the lion forestalled him

and at the same time closed his awful jaws upon Sheeta's throat.

It was soon over. Numa rose, shaking himself, and stood above the

torn and mutilated body of his foe. His own sleek coat was cut and

the red blood trickled down his flank; though it was but a minor

injury, it angered him. He glared down at the dead panther and

then, in a fit of rage, he seized and mauled the body only to drop

it in a moment, lower his head, voice a single terrific roar, and

turn toward the ape-man.

Approaching the still form he sniffed it over from head to foot.

Then he placed a huge paw upon it and turned it over with its face

up. Again he smelled about the body and at last with his rough tongue

licked Tarzan's face. It was then that Tarzan opened his eyes.

Above him towered the huge lion, its hot breath upon his face, its

rough tongue upon his cheek. The ape-man had often been close to

death; but never before so close as this, he thought, for he was

convinced that death was but a matter of seconds. His brain was

still numb from the effects of the blow that had felled him, and

so he did not, for a moment, recognize the lion that stood over

him as the one he had so recently encountered.

Presently, however, recognition dawned upon him and with it

a realization of the astounding fact that Numa did not seem bent

on devouring him--at least not immediately. His position was a

delicate one. The lion stood astraddle Tarzan with his front paws.

The ape-man could not rise, therefore, without pushing the lion away

and whether Numa would tolerate being pushed was an open question.

Too, the beast might consider him already dead and any movement that

indicated the contrary was true would, in all likelihood, arouse

the killing instinct of the man-eater.

But Tarzan was tiring of the situation. He was in no mood to lie

there forever, especially when he contemplated the fact that the

girl spy who had tried to brain him was undoubtedly escaping as

rapidly as possible.

Numa was looking right into his eyes now evidently aware that he was

alive. Presently the lion cocked his head on one side and whined.

Tarzan knew the note, and he knew that it spelled neither rage nor

hunger, and then he risked all on a single throw, encouraged by

that low whine.

"Move, Numa!" he commanded and placing a palm against the tawny

shoulder he pushed the lion aside. Then he rose and with a hand

on his hunting knife awaited that which might follow. It was then

that his eyes fell for the first time on the torn body of Sheeta.

He looked from the dead cat to the live one and saw the marks of

conflict upon the latter, too, and in an instant realized something

of what had happened--Numa had saved him from the panther!

It seemed incredible and yet the evidence pointed clearly to the

fact. He turned toward the lion and without fear approached and

examined his wounds which he found superficial, and as Tarzan knelt

beside him Numa rubbed an itching ear against the naked, brown

shoulder. Then the ape-man stroked the great head, picked up his

spear, and looked about for the trail of the girl. This he soon

found leading toward the east, and as he set out upon it something

prompted him to feel for the locket he had hung about his neck. It

was gone!

No trace of anger was apparent upon the ape-man's face unless it

was a slight tightening of the jaws; but he put his hand ruefully

to the back of his head where a bump marked the place where the

girl had struck him and a moment later a half-smile played across

his lips. He could not help but admit that she had tricked him

neatly, and that it must have taken nerve to do the thing she did

and to set out armed only with a pistol through the trackless waste

that lay between them and the railway and beyond into the hills

where Wilhelmstal lies.

Tarzan admired courage. He was big enough to admit it and admire

it even in a German spy, but he saw that in this case it only added

to her resourcefulness and made her all the more dangerous and the

necessity for putting her out of the way paramount. He hoped to

overtake her before she reached Wilhelmstal and so he set out at

the swinging trot that he could hold for hours at a stretch without

apparent fatigue.

That the girl could hope to reach the town on foot in less than two

days seemed improbable, for it was a good thirty miles and part

of it hilly. Even as the thought crossed his mind he heard the

whistle of a locomotive to the east and knew that the railway was

in operation again after a shutdown of several days. If the train

was going south the girl would signal it if she had reached the

right of way. His keen ears caught the whining of brake shoes on

wheels and a few minutes later the signal blast for brakes off.

The train had stopped and started again and, as it gained headway

and greater distance, Tarzan could tell from the direction of the

sound that it was moving south.

The ape-man followed the trail to the railway where it ended

abruptly on the west side of the track, showing that the girl had

boarded the train, just as he thought. There was nothing now but

to follow on to Wilhelmstal, where he hoped to find Captain Fritz

Schneider, as well as the girl, and to recover his diamond-studded

locket.

It was dark when Tarzan reached the little hill town of Wilhelmstal.

He loitered on the outskirts, getting his bearings and trying to

determine how an almost naked white man might explore the village

without arousing suspicion. There were many soldiers about and

the town was under guard, for he could see a lone sentinel walking

his post scarce a hundred yards from him. To elude this one would

not be difficult; but to enter the village and search it would be

practically impossible, garbed, or un-garbed, as he was.

Creeping forward, taking advantage of every cover, lying flat and

motionless when the sentry's face was toward him, the ape-man at

last reached the sheltering shadows of an outhouse just inside the

lines. From there he moved stealthily from building to building

until at last he was discovered by a large dog in the rear of one of

the bungalows. The brute came slowly toward him, growling. Tarzan

stood motionless beside a tree. He could see a light in the bungalow

and uniformed men moving about and he hoped that the dog would not

bark. He did not; but he growled more savagely and, just at the

moment that the rear door of the bungalow opened and a man stepped

out, the animal charged.

He was a large dog, as large as Dango, the hyena, and he charged

with all the vicious impetuosity of Numa, the lion. As he came

Tarzan knelt and the dog shot through the air for his throat; but

he was dealing with no man now and he found his quickness more

than matched by the quickness of the Tarmangani. His teeth never

reached the soft flesh--strong fingers, fingers of steel, seized

his neck. He voiced a single startled yelp and clawed at the naked

breast before him with his talons; but he was powerless. The mighty

fingers closed upon his throat; the man rose, snapped the clawing

body once, and cast it aside. At the same time a voice from the

open bungalow door called: "Simba!"

There was no response. Repeating the call the man descended the

steps and advanced toward the tree. In the light from the doorway

Tarzan could see that he was a tall, broad-shouldered man in the

uniform of a German officer. The ape-man withdrew into the shadow

of the tree's stem. The man came closer, still calling the dog--he

did not see the savage beast, crouching now in the shadow, awaiting

him. When he had approached within ten feet of the Tarmangani,

Tarzan leaped upon him--as Sabor springs to the kill, so sprang the

ape-man. The momentum and weight of his body hurled the German to

the ground, powerful fingers prevented an outcry and, though the

officer struggled, he had no chance and a moment later lay dead

beside the body of the dog.

As Tarzan stood for a moment looking down upon his kill and regretting

that he could not risk voicing his beloved victory cry, the sight

of the uniform suggested a means whereby he might pass to and

fro through Wilhelmstal with the minimum chance of detection. Ten

minutes later a tall, broad-shouldered officer stepped from the

yard of the bungalow leaving behind him the corpses of a dog and

a naked man.

He walked boldly along the little street and those who passed him

could not guess that beneath Imperial Germany's uniform beat a

savage heart that pulsed with implacable hatred for the Hun. Tarzan's

first concern was to locate the hotel, for here he guessed he would

find the girl, and where the girl was doubtless would be Hauptmann

Fritz Schneider, who was either her confederate, her sweetheart,

or both, and there, too, would be Tarzan's precious locket.

He found the hotel at last, a low, two-storied building with

a veranda. There were lights on both floors and people, mostly

officers, could be seen within. The ape-man considered entering

and inquiring for those he sought; but his better judgment finally

prompted him to reconnoiter first. Passing around the building he

looked into all the lighted rooms on the first floor and, seeing

neither of those for whom he had come, he swung lightly to the roof

of the veranda and continued his investigations through windows of

the second story.

At one corner of the hotel in a rear room the blinds were drawn;

but he heard voices within and once he saw a figure silhouetted

momentarily against the blind. It appeared to be the figure

of a woman; but it was gone so quickly that he could not be sure.

Tarzan crept close to the window and listened. Yes, there was a

woman there and a man--he heard distinctly the tones of their voices

although he could overhear no words, as they seemed to be whispering.

The adjoining room was dark. Tarzan tried the window and found it

unlatched. All was quiet within. He raised the sash and listened

again--still silence. Placing a leg over the sill he slipped within

and hurriedly glanced about. The room was vacant. Crossing to the

door he opened it and looked out into the hall. There was no one

there, either, and he stepped out and approached the door of the

adjoining room where the man and woman were.

Pressing close to the door he listened. Now he distinguished

words, for the two had raised their voices as though in argument.

The woman was speaking.

"I have brought the locket," she said, "as was agreed upon between

you and General Kraut, as my identification. I carry no other

credentials. This was to be enough. You have nothing to do but give

me the papers and let me go."

The man replied in so low a tone that Tarzan could not catch the

words and then the woman spoke again--a note of scorn and perhaps

a little of fear in her voice.

"You would not dare, Hauptmann Schneider," she said, and then: "Do

not touch me! Take your hands from me!"

It was then that Tarzan of the Apes opened the door and stepped

into the room. What he saw was a huge, bull-necked German officer

with one arm about the waist of Fraulein Bertha Kircher and a hand

upon her forehead pushing her head back as he tried to kiss her

on the mouth. The girl was struggling against the great brute; but

her efforts were futile. Slowly the man's lips were coming closer

to hers and slowly, step by step, she was being carried backward.

Schneider heard the noise of the opening and closing door behind

him and turned. At sight of this strange officer he dropped the

girl and straightened up.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion, Lieutenant?" he demanded,

noting the other's epaulettes. "Leave the room at once."

Tarzan made no articulate reply; but the two there with him heard

a low growl break from those firm lips--a growl that sent a shudder

through the frame of the girl and brought a pallor to the red face

of the Hun and his hand to his pistol but even as he drew his weapon

it was wrested from him and hurled through the blind and window to

the yard beyond. Then Tarzan backed against the door and slowly

removed the uniform coat.

"You are Hauptmann Schneider," he said to the German.

"What of it?" growled the latter.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes," replied the ape-man. "Now you know why

I intrude."

The two before him saw that he was naked beneath the coat which he

threw upon the floor and then he slipped quickly from the trousers

and stood there clothed only in his loin cloth. The girl had

recognized him by this time, too.

"Take your hand off that pistol," Tarzan admonished her. Her hand

dropped at her side. "Now come here!"

She approached and Tarzan removed the weapon and hurled it after

the other. At the mention of his name Tarzan had noted the sickly

pallor that overspread the features of the Hun. At last he had found

the right man. At last his mate would be partially avenged--never

could she be entirely avenged. Life was too short and there were

too many Germans.

"What do you want of me?" demanded Schneider.

"You are going to pay the price for the thing you did at the little

bungalow in the Waziri country," replied the ape-man.

Schneider commenced to bluster and threaten. Tarzan turned the key

in the lock of the door and hurled the former through the window

after the pistols. Then he turned to the girl. "Keep out of the

way," he said in a low voice. "Tarzan of the Apes is going to kill."

The Hun ceased blustering and began to plead. "I have a wife and

children at home," he cried. "I have done nothing, I--"

"You are going to die as befits your kind," said Tarzan, "with blood

on your hands and a lie on your lips." He started across the room

toward the burly Hauptmann. Schneider was a large and powerful

man--about the height of the ape-man but much heavier. He saw that

neither threats nor pleas would avail him and so he prepared to

fight as a cornered rat fights for its life with all the maniacal

rage, cunning, and ferocity that the first law of nature imparts

to many beasts.

Lowering his bull head he charged for the ape-man and in the center

of the floor the two clinched. There they stood locked and swaying

for a moment until Tarzan succeeded in forcing his antagonist backward

over a table which crashed to the floor, splintered by the weight

of the two heavy bodies.

The girl stood watching the battle with wide eyes. She saw the two

men rolling hither and thither across the floor and she heard with

horror the low growls that came from the lips of the naked giant.

Schneider was trying to reach his foe's throat with his fingers

while, horror of horrors, Bertha Kircher could see that the other

was searching for the German's jugular with his teeth!

Schneider seemed to realize this too, for he redoubled his efforts

to escape and finally succeeded in rolling over on top of the ape-man

and breaking away. Leaping to his feet he ran for the window; but

the ape-man was too quick for him and before he could leap through

the sash a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder and he was jerked

back and hurled across the room to the opposite wall. There Tarzan

followed him, and once again they locked, dealing each other terrific

blows, until Schneider in a piercing voice screamed, "Kamerad!

Kamerad!"

Tarzan grasped the man by the throat and drew his hunting knife.

Schneider's back was against the wall so that though his knees

wobbled he was held erect by the ape-man. Tarzan brought the sharp

point to the lower part of the German's abdomen.

"Thus you slew my mate," he hissed in a terrible voice. "Thus

shall you die!"

The girl staggered forward. "Oh, God, no!" she cried. "Not that.

You are too brave--you cannot be such a beast as that!"

Tarzan turned at her. "No," he said, "you are right, I cannot do

it--I am no German," and he raised the point of his blade and sunk

it deep into the putrid heart of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider, putting

a bloody period to the Hun's last gasping cry: "I did not do it!

She is not--"

Then Tarzan turned toward the girl and held out his hand. "Give

me my locket," he said.

She pointed toward the dead officer. "He has it." Tarzan searched

him and found the trinket. "Now you may give me the papers," he said

to the girl, and without a word she handed him a folded document.

For a long time he stood looking at her before ho spoke again.

"I came for you, too," he said. "It would be difficult to take you

back from here and so I was going to kill you, as I have sworn to

kill all your kind; but you were right when you said that I was

not such a beast as that slayer of women. I could not slay him as

he slew mine, nor can I slay you, who are a woman."

He crossed to the window, raised the sash and an instant later he

had stepped out and disappeared into the night. And then Fraulein

Bertha Kircher stepped quickly to the corpse upon the floor, slipped

her hand inside the blouse and drew forth a little sheaf of papers

which she tucked into her waist before she went to the window and

called for help.

Chapter VII

When Blood Told

Tarzan of the Apes was disgusted. He had had the German spy, Bertha

Kircher, in his power and had left her unscathed. It is true that he

had slain Hauptmann Fritz Schneider, that Underlieutenant von Goss

had died at his hands, and that he had otherwise wreaked vengeance

upon the men of the German company who had murdered, pillaged, and

raped at Tarzan's bungalow in the Waziri country. There was still

another officer to be accounted for, but him he could not find.

It was Lieutenant Obergatz he still sought, though vainly, for at

last he learned that the man had been sent upon some special mission,

whether in Africa or back to Europe Tarzan's informant either did

not know or would not divulge.

But the fact that he had permitted sentiment to stay his hand when

he might so easily have put Bertha Kircher out of the way in the

hotel at Wilhelmstal that night rankled in the ape-man's bosom.

He was shamed by his weakness, and when he had handed the paper

she had given him to the British chief of staff, even though

the information it contained permitted the British to frustrate a

German flank attack, he was still much dissatisfied with himself.

And possibly the root of this dissatisfaction lay in the fact that

he realized that were he again to have the same opportunity he

would still find it as impossible to slay a woman as it had been

in Wilhelmstal that night.

Tarzan blamed this weakness, as he considered it, upon his association

with the effeminizing influences of civilization, for in the bottom

of his savage heart he held in contempt both civilization and its

representatives--the men and women of the civilized countries of

the world. Always was he comparing their weaknesses, their vices,

their hypocrisies, and their little vanities with the open,

primitive ways of his ferocious jungle mates, and all the while

there battled in that same big heart with these forces another mighty

force--Tarzan's love and loyalty for his friends of the civilized

world.

The ape-man, reared as he had been by savage beasts amid savage

beasts, was slow to make friends. Acquaintances he numbered by the

hundreds; but of friends he had few. These few he would have died

for as, doubtless, they would have died for him; but there were

none of these fighting with the British forces in East Africa, and

so, sickened and disgusted by the sight of man waging his cruel

and inhuman warfare, Tarzan determined to heed the insistent call

of the remote jungle of his youth, for the Germans were now on the

run and the war in East Africa was so nearly over that he realized

that his further services would be of negligible value.

Never regularly sworn into the service of the King, he was under

no obligation to remain now that the moral obligation had been

removed, and so it was that he disappeared from the British camp

as mysteriously as he had appeared a few months before.

More than once had Tarzan reverted to the primitive only to return

again to civilization through love for his mate; but now that she

was gone he felt that this time he had definitely departed forever

from the haunts of man, and that he should live and die a beast

among beasts even as he had been from infancy to maturity.

Between him and his destination lay a trackless wilderness of untouched

primeval savagery where, doubtless in many spots, his would be the

first human foot to touch the virgin turf. Nor did this prospect

dismay the Tarmangani--rather was it an urge and an inducement, for

rich in his veins flowed that noble strain of blood that has made

most of the earth's surface habitable for man.

The question of food and water that would have risen paramount in

the mind of an ordinary man contemplating such an excursion gave

Tarzan little concern. The wilderness was his natural habitat

and woodcraft as inherent to him as breathing. Like other jungle

animals he could scent water from a great distance and, where you

or I might die of thirst, the ape-man would unerringly select the

exact spot at which to dig and find water.

For several days Tarzan traversed a country rich in game

and watercourses. He moved slowly, hunting and fishing, or again

fraternizing or quarreling with the other savage denizens of

the jungle. Now it was little Manu, the monkey, who chattered and

scolded at the mighty Tarmangani and in the next breath warned him

that Histah, the snake, lay coiled in the long grass just ahead.

Of Manu Tarzan inquired concerning the great apes--the Mangani--and

was told that few inhabited this part of the jungle, and that even

these were hunting farther to the north this season of the year.

"But there is Bolgani," said Manu. "Would you like to see Bolgani?"

Manu's tone was sneering, and Tarzan knew that it was because little

Manu thought all creatures feared mighty Bolgani, the gorilla.

Tarzan arched his great chest and struck it with a clinched fist.

"I am Tarzan," he cried. "While Tarzan was yet a balu he slew a

Bolgani. Tarzan seeks the Mangani, who are his brothers, but Bolgani

he does not seek, so let Bolgani keep from the path of Tarzan."

Little Manu, the monkey, was much impressed, for the way of the

jungle is to boast and to believe. It was then that he condescended

to tell Tarzan more of the Mangani.

"They go there and there and there," he said, making a wide sweep

with a brown hand first toward the north, then west, and then south

again. "For there," and he pointed due west, "is much hunting; but

between lies a great place where there is no food and no water,

so they must go that way," and again he swung his hand through the

half-circle that explained to Tarzan the great detour the apes made

to come to their hunting ground to the west.

That was all right for the Mangani, who are lazy and do not care to

move rapidly; but for Tarzan the straight road would be the best.

He would cross the dry country and come to the good hunting in a third

of the time that it would take to go far to the north and circle

back again. And so it was that he continued on toward the west, and

crossing a range of low mountains came in sight of a broad plateau,

rock strewn and desolate. Far in the distance he saw another range

of mountains beyond which he felt must lie the hunting ground of

the Mangani. There he would join them and remain for a while before

continuing on toward the coast and the little cabin that his father

had built beside the land-locked harbor at the jungle's edge.

Tarzan was full of plans. He would rebuild and enlarge the cabin

of his birth, constructing storage houses where he would make the

apes lay away food when it was plenty against the times that were

lean--a thing no ape ever had dreamed of doing. And the tribe would

remain always in the locality and he would be king again as he had

in the past. He would try to teach them some of the better things

that he had learned from man, yet knowing the ape-mind as only

Tarzan could, he feared that his labors would be for naught.

The ape-man found the country he was crossing rough in the extreme,

the roughest he ever had encountered. The plateau was cut by frequent

canyons the passage of which often entailed hours of wearing effort.

The vegetation was sparse and of a faded brown color that lent to

the whole landscape a most depressing aspect. Great rocks were strewn

in every direction as far as the eye could see, lying partially

embedded in an impalpable dust that rose in clouds about him at

every step. The sun beat down mercilessly out of a cloudless sky.

For a day Tarzan toiled across this now hateful land and at the

going down of the sun the distant mountains to the west seemed no

nearer than at morn. Never a sign of living thing had the ape-man

seen, other than Ska, that bird of ill omen, that had followed him

tirelessly since he had entered this parched waste.

No littlest beetle that he might eat had given evidence that life

of any sort existed here, and it was a hungry and thirsty Tarzan who

lay down to rest in the evening. He decided now to push on during

the cool of the night, for he realized that even mighty Tarzan had

his limitations and that where there was no food one could not eat

and where there was no water the greatest woodcraft in the world

could find none. It was a totally new experience to Tarzan to find

so barren and terrible a country in his beloved Africa. Even the

Sahara had its oases; but this frightful world gave no indication

of containing a square foot of hospitable ground.

However, he had no misgivings but that he would fare forth into

the wonder country of which little Manu had told him, though it

was certain that he would do it with a dry skin and an empty belly.

And so he fought on until daylight, when he again felt the need

of rest. He was at the edge of another of those terrible canyons,

the eighth he had crossed, whose precipitous sides would have taxed

to the uttermost the strength of an untired man well fortified by

food and water, and for the first time, as he looked down into the

abyss and then at the opposite side that he must scale, misgivings

began to assail his mind.

He did not fear death--with the memory of his murdered mate still

fresh in his mind he almost courted it, yet strong within him

was that primal instinct of self-preservation--the battling force

of life that would keep him an active contender against the Great

Reaper until, fighting to the very last, he should be overcome by

a superior power.

A shadow swung slowly across the ground beside him, and looking

up, the ape-man saw Ska, the vulture, wheeling a wide circle above

him. The grim and persistent harbinger of evil aroused the man

to renewed determination. He arose and approached the edge of the

canyon, and then, wheeling, with his face turned upward toward the

circling bird of prey, he bellowed forth the challenge of the bull

ape.

"I am Tarzan," he shouted, "Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan of the Apes

is not for Ska, eater of carrion. Go back to the lair of Dango

and feed off the leavings of the hyenas, for Tarzan will leave no

bones for Ska to pick in this empty wilderness of death."

But before he reached the bottom of the canyon he again was forced

to the realization that his great strength was waning, and when he

dropped exhausted at the foot of the cliff and saw before him the

opposite wall that must be scaled, he bared his fighting fangs and

growled. For an hour he lay resting in the cool shade at the foot

of the cliff. All about him reigned utter silence--the silence of

the tomb. No fluttering birds, no humming insects, no scurrying

reptiles relieved the deathlike stillness. This indeed was the

valley of death. He felt the depressing influence of the horrible

place settling down upon him; but he staggered to his feet, shaking

himself like a great lion, for was he not still Tarzan, mighty

Tarzan of the Apes? Yes, and Tarzan the mighty he would be until

the last throb of that savage heart!

As he crossed the floor of the canyon he saw something lying close

to the base of the side wall he was approaching--something that

stood out in startling contrast to all the surroundings and yet

seemed so much a part and parcel of the somber scene as to suggest

an actor amid the settings of a well-appointed stage, and, as though

to carry out the allegory, the pitiless rays of flaming Kudu topped

the eastern cliff, picking out the thing lying at the foot of the

western wall like a giant spotlight.

And as Tarzan came nearer he saw the bleached skull and bones of

a human being about which were remnants of clothing and articles

of equipment that, as he examined them, filled the ape-man with

curiosity to such an extent that for a time he forgot his own

predicament in contemplation of the remarkable story suggested by

these mute evidences of a tragedy of a time long past.

The bones were in a fair state of preservation and indicated by

their intactness that the flesh had probably been picked from them

by vultures as none was broken; but the pieces of equipment bore

out the suggestion of their great age. In this protected spot where

there were no frosts and evidently but little rainfall, the bones

might have lain for ages without disintegrating, for there were

here no other forces to scatter or disturb them.

Near the skeleton lay a helmet of hammered brass and a corroded

breastplate of steel while at one side was a long, straight sword

in its scabbard and an ancient harquebus. The bones were those of

a large man--a man of wondrous strength and vitality Tarzan knew

he must have been to have penetrated thus far through the dangers

of Africa with such a ponderous yet at the same time futile armament.

The ape-man felt a sense of deep admiration for this nameless

adventurer of a bygone day. What a brute of a man he must have been

and what a glorious tale of battle and kaleidoscopic vicissitudes

of fortune must once have been locked within that whitened skull!

Tarzan stooped to examine the shreds of clothing that still lay

about the bones. Every particle of leather had disappeared, doubtless

eaten by Ska. No boots remained, if the man had worn boots, but

there were several buckles scattered about suggesting that a great

part of his trappings had been of leather, while just beneath the

bones of one hand lay a metal cylinder about eight inches long and

two inches in diameter. As Tarzan picked it up he saw that it had

been heavily lacquered and had withstood the slight ravages of

time so well as to be in as perfect a state of preservation today

as it had been when its owner dropped into his last, long sleep

perhaps centuries ago.

As he examined it he discovered that one end was closed with

a friction cover which a little twisting force soon loosened and

removed, revealing within a roll of parchment which the ape-man

removed and opened, disclosing a number of age-yellowed sheets

closely written upon in a fine hand in a language which he guessed

to be Spanish but which he could not decipher. Upon the last sheet

was a roughly drawn map with numerous reference points marked upon

it, all unintelligible to Tarzan, who, after a brief examination

of the papers, returned them to their metal case, replaced the top

and was about to toss the little cylinder to the ground beside the

mute remains of its former possessor when some whim of curiosity

unsatisfied prompted him to slip it into the quiver with his arrows,

though as he did so it was with the grim thought that possibly

centuries hence it might again come to the sight of man beside his

own bleached bones.

And then, with a parting glance at the ancient skeleton, he turned

to the task of ascending the western wall of the canyon. Slowly

and with many rests he dragged his weakening body upwards. Again and

again he slipped back from sheer exhaustion and would have fallen

to the floor of the canyon but for merest chance. How long it took

him to scale that frightful wall he could not have told, and when

at last he dragged himself over the top it was to lie weak and

gasping, too spent to rise or even to move a few inches farther

from the perilous edge of the chasm.

At last he arose, very slowly and with evident effort gaining his

knees first and then staggering to his feet, yet his indomitable

will was evidenced by a sudden straightening of his shoulders and

a determined shake of his head as he lurched forward on unsteady

legs to take up his valiant fight for survival. Ahead he scanned

the rough landscape for sign of another canyon which he knew would

spell inevitable doom. The western hills rose closer now though

weirdly unreal as they seemed to dance in the sunlight as though

mocking him with their nearness at the moment that exhaustion was

about to render them forever unattainable.

Beyond them he knew must be the fertile hunting grounds of which Manu

had told. Even if no canyon intervened, his chances of surmounting

even low hills seemed remote should he have the fortune to reach

their base; but with another canyon hope was dead. Above them Ska

still circled, and it seemed to the ape-man that the ill-omened

bird hovered ever lower and lower as though reading in that failing

gait the nearing of the end, and through cracked lips Tarzan growled

out his defiance.

Mile after mile Tarzan of the Apes put slowly behind him, borne up

by sheer force of will where a lesser man would have lain down to

die and rest forever tired muscles whose every move was an agony of

effort; but at last his progress became practically mechanical--he

staggered on with a dazed mind that reacted numbly to a single

urge--on, on, on! The hills were now but a dim, ill-defined blur

ahead. Sometimes he forgot that they were hills, and again he

wondered vaguely why he must go on forever through all this torture

endeavoring to overtake them--the fleeing, elusive hills. Presently

he began to hate them and there formed within his half-delirious

brain the hallucination that the hills were German hills, that they

had slain someone dear to him, whom he could never quite recall,

and that he was pursuing to slay them.

This idea, growing, appeared to give him strength--a new and

revivifying purpose--so that for a time he no longer staggered; but

went forward steadily with head erect. Once he stumbled and fell,

and when he tried to rise he found that he could not--that his

strength was so far gone that he could only crawl forward on his

hands and knees for a few yards and then sink down again to rest.

It was during one of these frequent periods of utter exhaustion

that he heard the flap of dismal wings close above him. With his

remaining strength he turned himself over on his back to see Ska

wheel quickly upward. With the sight Tarzan's mind cleared for a

while.

"Is the end so near as that?" he thought. "Does Ska know that I am

so near gone that he dares come down and perch upon my carcass?"

And even then a grim smile touched those swollen lips as into the

savage mind came a sudden thought--the cunning of the wild beast

at bay. Closing his eyes he threw a forearm across them to protect

them from Ska's powerful beak and then he lay very still and waited.

It was restful lying there, for the sun was now obscured by clouds

and Tarzan was very tired. He feared that he might sleep and something

told him that if he did he would never awaken, and so he concentrated

all his remaining powers upon the one thought of remaining awake.

Not a muscle moved--to Ska, circling above, it became evident that

the end had come--that at last he should be rewarded for his long

vigil.

Circling slowly he dropped closer and closer to the dying man. Why

did not Tarzan move? Had he indeed been overcome by the sleep of

exhaustion, or was Ska right--had death at last claimed that mighty

body? Was that great, savage heart stilled forever? It is unthinkable.

Ska, filled with suspicions, circled warily. Twice he almost alighted

upon the great, naked breast only to wheel suddenly away; but the

third time his talons touched the brown skin. It was as though the

contact closed an electric circuit that instantaneously vitalized

the quiet clod that had lain motionless so long. A brown hand swept

downward from the brown forehead and before Ska could raise a wing

in flight he was in the clutches of his intended victim.

Ska fought, but he was no match for even a dying Tarzan, and

a moment later the ape-man's teeth closed upon the carrion-eater.

The flesh was coarse and tough and gave off an unpleasant odor and

a worse taste; but it was food and the blood was drink and Tarzan

only an ape at heart and a dying ape into the bargain--dying of

starvation and thirst.

Even mentally weakened as he was the ape-man was still master

of his appetite and so he ate but sparingly, saving the rest, and

then, feeling that he now could do so safely, he turned upon his

side and slept.

Rain, beating heavily upon his body, awakened him and sitting up he

cupped his hands and caught the precious drops which he transferred

to his parched throat. Only a little he got at a time; but that

was best. The few mouthfuls of Ska that he had eaten, together with

the blood and rain water and the sleep had refreshed him greatly

and put new strength into his tired muscles.

Now he could see the hills again and they were close and, though

there was no sun, the world looked bright and cheerful, for Tarzan

knew that he was saved. The bird that would have devoured him, and

the providential rain, had saved him at the very moment that death

seemed inevitable.

Again partaking of a few mouthfuls of the unsavory flesh of Ska,

the vulture, the ape-man arose with something of his old force

and set out with steady gait toward the hills of promise rising

alluringly ahead. Darkness fell before he reached them; but he

kept on until he felt the steeply rising ground that proclaimed

his arrival at the base of the hills proper, and then he lay down

and waited until morning should reveal the easiest passage to the

land beyond. The rain had ceased, but the sky still was overcast

so that even his keen eyes could not penetrate the darkness farther

than a few feet. And there he slept, after eating again of what

remained of Ska, until the morning sun awakened him with a new

sense of strength and well-being.

And so at last he came through the hills out of the valley of death

into a land of park-like beauty, rich in game. Below him lay a deep

valley through the center of which dense jungle vegetation marked

the course of a river beyond which a primeval forest extended

for miles to terminate at last at the foot of lofty, snow-capped

mountains. It was a land that Tarzan never had looked upon before,

nor was it likely that the foot of another white man ever had

touched it unless, possibly, in some long-gone day the adventurer

whose skeleton he had found bleaching in the canyon had traversed

it.

Chapter VIII

Tarzan and the Great Apes

Three days the ape-man spent in resting and recuperating, eating

fruits and nuts and the smaller animals that were most easily

bagged, and upon the fourth he set out to explore the valley and

search for the great apes. Time was a negligible factor in the

equation of life--it was all the same to Tarzan if he reached the

west coast in a month or a year or three years. All time was his and

all Africa. His was absolute freedom--the last tie that had bound

him to civilization and custom had been severed. He was alone but

he was not exactly lonely. The greater part of his life had been

spent thus, and though there was no other of his kind, he was at

all times surrounded by the jungle peoples for whom familiarity had

bred no contempt within his breast. The least of them interested

him, and, too, there were those with whom he always made friends

easily, and there were his hereditary enemies whose presence gave a

spice to life that might otherwise have become humdrum and monotonous.

And so it was that on the fourth day he set out to explore the

valley and search for his fellow-apes. He had proceeded southward

for a short distance when his nostrils were assailed by the scent

of man, of Gomangani, the black man. There were many of them, and

mixed with their scent was another-that of a she Tarmangani.

Swinging through the trees Tarzan approached the authors of these

disturbing scents. He came warily from the flank, but paying no

attention to the wind, for he knew that man with his dull senses

could apprehend him only through his eyes or ears and then only

when comparatively close. Had he been stalking Numa or Sheeta he

would have circled about until his quarry was upwind from him, thus

taking practically all the advantage up to the very moment that

he came within sight or hearing; but in the stalking of the dull

clod, man, he approached with almost contemptuous indifference,

so that all the jungle about him knew that he was passing--all but

the men he stalked.

From the dense foliage of a great tree he watched them pass--a

disreputable mob of blacks, some garbed in the uniform of German

East African native troops, others wearing a single garment of the

same uniform, while many had reverted to the simple dress of their

forbears--approximating nudity. There were many black women with

them, laughing and talking as they kept pace with the men, all of

whom were armed with German rifles and equipped with German belts

and ammunition.

There were no white officers there, but it was none the less apparent

to Tarzan that these men were from some German native command,

and he guessed that they had slain their officers and taken to the

jungle with their women, or had stolen some from native villages

through which they must have passed. It was evident that they were

putting as much ground between themselves and the coast as possible

and doubtless were seeking some impenetrable fastness of the vast

interior where they might inaugurate a reign of terror among the

primitively armed inhabitants and by raiding, looting, and rape

grow rich in goods and women at the expense of the district upon

which they settled themselves.

Between two of the black women marched a slender white girl. She

was hatless and with torn and disheveled clothing that had evidently

once been a trim riding habit. Her coat was gone and her waist half

torn from her body. Occasionally and without apparent provocation

one or the other of the Negresses struck or pushed her roughly.

Tarzan watched through half-closed eyes. His first impulse was to

leap among them and bear the girl from their cruel clutches. He had

recognized her immediately and it was because of this fact that he

hesitated.

What was it to Tarzan of the Apes what fate befell this enemy

spy? He had been unable to kill her himself because of an inherent

weakness that would not permit him to lay hands upon a woman, all

of which of course had no bearing upon what others might do to

her. That her fate would now be infinitely more horrible than the

quick and painless death that the ape-man would have meted to her

only interested Tarzan to the extent that the more frightful the

end of a German the more in keeping it would be with what they all

deserved.

And so he let the blacks pass with Fraulein Bertha Kircher in their

midst, or at least until the last straggling warrior suggested to

his mind the pleasures of black-baiting--an amusement and a sport

in which he had grown ever more proficient since that long-gone day

when Kulonga, the son of Mbonga, the chief, had cast his unfortunate

spear at Kala, the ape-man's foster mother.

The last man, who must have stopped for some purpose, was fully a

quarter of a mile in rear of the party. He was hurrying to catch

up when Tarzan saw him, and as he passed beneath the tree in which

the ape-man perched above the trail, a silent noose dropped deftly

about his neck. The main body still was in plain sight, and as the

frightened man voiced a piercing shriek of terror, they looked back

to see his body rise as though by magic straight into the air and

disappear amidst the leafy foliage above.

For a moment the blacks stood paralyzed by astonishment and fear;

but presently the burly sergeant, Usanga, who led them, started

back along the trail at a run, calling to the others to follow

him. Loading their guns as they came the blacks ran to succor their

fellow, and at Usanga's command they spread into a thin line that

presently entirely surrounded the tree into which their comrade

had vanished.

Usanga called but received no reply; then he advanced slowly with

rifle at the ready, peering up into the tree. He could see no

one--nothing. The circle closed in until fifty blacks were searching

among the branches with their keen eyes. What had become of their

fellow? They had seen him rise into the tree and since then many

eyes had been fastened upon the spot, yet there was no sign of him.

One, more venturesome than his fellows, volunteered to climb into

the tree and investigate. He was gone but a minute or two and

when he dropped to earth again he swore that there was no sign of

a creature there.

Perplexed, and by this time a bit awed, the blacks drew slowly

away from the spot and with many backward glances and less laughing

continued upon their journey until, when about a mile beyond the

spot at which their fellow had disappeared, those in the lead saw

him peering from behind a tree at one side of the trail just in

front of them. With shouts to their companions that he had been

found they ran forwards; but those who were first to reach the

tree stopped suddenly and shrank back, their eyes rolling fearfully

first in one direction and then in another as though they expected

some nameless horror to leap out upon them.

Nor was their terror without foundation. Impaled upon the end of

a broken branch the head of their companion was propped behind the

tree so that it appeared to be looking out at them from the opposite

side of the bole.

It was then that many wished to turn back, arguing that they

had offended some demon of the wood upon whose preserve they had

trespassed; but Usanga refused to listen to them, assuring them

that inevitable torture and death awaited them should they return

and fall again into the hands of their cruel German masters. At

last his reasoning prevailed to the end that a much-subdued and

terrified band moved in a compact mass, like a drove of sheep,

forward through the valley and there were no stragglers.

It is a happy characteristic of the Negro race, which they hold

in common with little children, that their spirits seldom remain

depressed for a considerable length of time after the immediate

cause of depression is removed, and so it was that in half an hour

Usanga's band was again beginning to take on to some extent its

former appearance of carefree lightheartedness. Thus were the heavy

clouds of fear slowly dissipating when a turn in the trail brought

them suddenly upon the headless body of their erstwhile companion

lying directly in their path, and they were again plunged into the

depth of fear and gloomy forebodings.

So utterly inexplicable and uncanny had the entire occurrence been

that there was not a one of them who could find a ray of comfort

penetrating the dead blackness of its ominous portent. What had

happened to one of their number each conceived as being a wholly

possible fate for himself--in fact quite his probable fate. If such

a thing could happen in broad daylight what frightful thing might

not fall to their lot when night had enshrouded them in her mantle

of darkness. They trembled in anticipation.

The white girl in their midst was no less mystified than they; but

far less moved, since sudden death was the most merciful fate to

which she might now look forward. So far she had been subjected

to nothing worse than the petty cruelties of the women, while, on

the other hand, it had alone been the presence of the women that

had saved her from worse treatment at the hands of some of the

men--notably the brutal, black sergeant, Usanga. His own woman

was of the party--a veritable giantess, a virago of the first

magnitude--and she was evidently the only thing in the world of

which Usanga stood in awe. Even though she was particularly cruel

to the young woman, the latter believed that she was her sole

protection from the degraded black tyrant.

Late in the afternoon the band came upon a small palisaded village

of thatched huts set in a clearing in the jungle close beside

a placid river. At their approach the villagers came pouring out,

and Usanga advanced with two of his warriors to palaver with the

chief. The experiences of the day had so shaken the nerves of the

black sergeant that he was ready to treat with these people rather

than take their village by force of arms, as would ordinarily have

been his preference; but now a vague conviction influenced him

that there watched over this part of the jungle a powerful demon

who wielded miraculous power for evil against those who offended

him. First Usanga would learn how these villagers stood with this

savage god and if they had his good will Usanga would be most

careful to treat them with kindness and respect.

At the palaver it developed that the village chief had food,

goats, and fowl which he would be glad to dispose of for a proper

consideration; but as the consideration would have meant parting

with precious rifles and ammunition, or the very clothing from their

backs, Usanga began to see that after all it might be forced upon

him to wage war to obtain food.

A happy solution was arrived at by a suggestion of one of his

men--that the soldiers go forth the following day and hunt for the

villagers, bringing them in so much fresh meat in return for their

hospitality. This the chief agreed to, stipulating the kind and

quantity of game to be paid in return for flour, goats, and fowl,

and a certain number of huts that were to be turned over to the

visitors. The details having been settled after an hour or more

of that bickering argument of which the native African is so fond,

the newcomers entered the village where they were assigned to huts.

Bertha Kircher found herself alone in a small hut close to the palisade

at the far end of the village street, and though she was neither

bound nor guarded, she was assured by Usanga that she could not

escape the village without running into almost certain death in the

jungle, which the villagers assured them was infested by lions of

great size and ferocity. "Be good to Usanga," he concluded, "and

no harm will befall you. I will come again to see you after the

others are asleep. Let us be friends."

As the brute left her the girl's frame was racked by a convulsive

shudder as she sank to the floor of the hut and covered her face

with her hands. She realized now why the women had not been left

to guard her. It was the work of the cunning Usanga, but would not

his woman suspect something of his intentions? She was no fool and,

further, being imbued with insane jealousy she was ever looking

for some overt act upon the part of her ebon lord. Bertha Kircher

felt that only she might save her and that she would save her if

word could be but gotten to her. But how?

Left alone and away from the eyes of her captors for the first time

since the previous night, the girl immediately took advantage of

the opportunity to assure herself that the papers she had taken

from the body of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider were still safely sewn

inside one of her undergarments.

Alas! Of what value could they now ever be to her beloved country?

But habit and loyalty were so strong within her that she still clung

to the determined hope of eventually delivering the little packet

to her chief.

The natives seemed to have forgotten her existence--no one came

near the hut, not even to bring her food. She could hear them at

the other end of the village laughing and yelling and knew that

they were celebrating with food and native beer--knowledge which

only increased her apprehension. To be prisoner in a native village

in the very heart of an unexplored region of Central Africa--the

only white woman among a band of drunken Negroes! The very thought

appalled her. Yet there was a slight promise in the fact that she

had so far been unmolested--the promise that they might, indeed,

have forgotten her and that soon they might become so hopelessly

drunk as to be harmless.

Darkness had fallen and still no one came. The girl wondered if

she dared venture forth in search of Naratu, Usanga's woman, for

Usanga might not forget that he had promised to return. No one was

near as she stepped out of the hut and made her way toward the part

of the village where the revelers were making merry about a fire.

As she approached she saw the villagers and their guests squatting

in a large circle about the blaze before which a half-dozen naked

warriors leaped and bent and stamped in some grotesque dance.

Pots of food and gourds of drink were being passed about among

the audience. Dirty hands were plunged into the food pots and the

captured portions devoured so greedily that one might have thought

the entire community had been upon the point of starvation. The

gourds they held to their lips until the beer ran down their chins

and the vessels were wrested from them by greedy neighbors. The

drink had now begun to take noticeable effect upon most of them,

with the result that they were beginning to give themselves up to

utter and licentious abandon.

As the girl came nearer, keeping in the shadow of the huts, looking

for Naratu she was suddenly discovered by one upon the edge of the

crowd--a huge woman, who rose, shrieking, and came toward her. From

her aspect the white girl thought that the woman meant literally

to tear her to pieces. So utterly wanton and uncalled-for was the

attack that it found the girl entirely unprepared, and what would

have happened had not a warrior interfered may only be guessed.

And then Usanga, noting the interruption, came lurching forward to

question her.

"What do you want," he cried, "food and drink? Come with me!" and

he threw an arm about her and dragged her toward the circle.

"No!" she cried, "I want Naratu. Where is Naratu?"

This seemed to sober the black for a moment as though he

had temporarily forgotten his better half. He cast quick, fearful

glances about, and then, evidently assured that Naratu had noticed

nothing, he ordered the warrior who was still holding the infuriated

black woman from the white girl to take the latter back to her hut

and to remain there on guard over her.

First appropriating a gourd of beer for himself the warrior

motioned the girl to precede him, and thus guarded she returned to

her hut, the fellow squatting down just outside the doorway, where

he confined his attentions for some time to the gourd.

Bertha Kircher sat down at the far side of the hut awaiting she

knew not what impending fate. She could not sleep so filled was her

mind with wild schemes of escape though each new one must always be

discarded as impractical. Half an hour after the warrior had returned

her to her prison he rose and entered the hut, where he tried to

engage in conversation with her. Groping across the interior he

leaned his short spear against the wall and sat down beside her,

and as he talked he edged closer and closer until at last he could

reach out and touch her. Shrinking, she drew away.

"Do not touch me!" she cried. "I will tell Usanga if you do not

leave me alone, and you know what he will do to you."

The man only laughed drunkenly, and, reaching out his hand, grabbed

her arm and dragged her toward him. She fought and cried aloud for

Usanga and at the same instant the entrance to the hut was darkened

by the form of a man.

"What is the matter?" shouted the newcomer in the deep tones that

the girl recognized as belonging to the black sergeant. He had

come, but would she be any better off? She knew that she would not

unless she could play upon Usanga's fear of his woman.

When Usanga found what had happened he kicked the warrior out of

the hut and bade him begone, and when the fellow had disappeared,

muttering and grumbling, the sergeant approached the white girl. He

was very drunk, so drunk that several times she succeeded in eluding

him and twice she pushed him so violently away that he stumbled

and fell.

Finally he became enraged and rushing upon her, seized her in his

long, apelike arms. Striking at his face with clenched fists she

tried to protect herself and drive him away. She threatened him

with the wrath of Naratu, and at that he changed his tactics and

began to plead, and as he argued with her, promising her safety

and eventual freedom, the warrior he had kicked out of the hut made

his staggering way to the hut occupied by Naratu.

Usanga finding that pleas and promises were as unavailing as

threats, at last lost both his patience and his head, seizing the

girl roughly, and simultaneously there burst into the hut a raging

demon of jealousy. Naratu had come. Kicking, scratching, striking,

biting, she routed the terrified Usanga in short order, and

so obsessed was she by her desire to inflict punishment upon her

unfaithful lord and master that she quite forgot the object of his

infatuation.

Bertha Kircher heard her screaming down the village street at Usanga's

heels and trembled at the thought of what lay in store for her at

the hands of these two, for she knew that tomorrow at the latest

Naratu would take out upon her the full measure of her jealous

hatred after she had spent her first wrath upon Usanga.

The two had departed but a few minutes when the warrior guard

returned. He looked into the hut and then entered. "No one will

stop me now, white woman," he growled as he stepped quickly across

the hut toward her.

Tarzan of the Apes, feasting well upon a juicy haunch from Bara,

the deer, was vaguely conscious of a troubled mind. He should

have been at peace with himself and all the world, for was he not

in his native element surrounded by game in plenty and rapidly

filling his belly with the flesh he loved best? But Tarzan of

the Apes was haunted by the picture of a slight, young girl being

shoved and struck by brutal Negresses, and in imagination could

see her now camped in this savage country a prisoner among degraded

blacks.

Why was it so difficult to remember that she was only a hated German

and a spy? Why would the fact that she was a woman and white always

obtrude itself upon his consciousness? He hated her as he hated

all her kind, and the fate that was sure to be hers was no more

terrible than she in common with all her people deserved. The matter

was settled and Tarzan composed himself to think of other things,

yet the picture would not die--it rose in all its details and annoyed

him. He began to wonder what they were doing to her and where they

were taking her. He was very much ashamed of himself as he had been

after the episode in Wilhelmstal when his weakness had permitted

him to spare this spy's life. Was he to be thus weak again? No!

Night came and he settled himself in an ample tree to rest until

morning; but sleep would not come. Instead came the vision of a

white girl being beaten by black women, and again of the same girl

at the mercy of the warriors somewhere in that dark and forbidding

jungle.

With a growl of anger and self-contempt Tarzan arose, shook himself,

and swung from his tree to that adjoining, and thus, through the

lower terraces, he followed the trail that Usanga's party had taken

earlier in the afternoon. He had little difficulty as the band had

followed a well-beaten path and when toward midnight the stench

of a native village assailed his delicate nostrils he guessed that

his goal was near and that presently he should find her whom he

sought.

Prowling stealthily as prowls Numa, the lion, stalking a wary

prey, Tarzan moved noiselessly about the palisade, listening and

sniffing. At the rear of the village he discovered a tree whose

branches extended over the top of the palisade and a moment later

he had dropped quietly into the village.

From hut to hut he went searching with keen ears and nostrils some

confirming evidence of the presence of the girl, and at last, faint

and almost obliterated by the odor of the Gomangani, he found it

hanging like a delicate vapor about a small hut. The village was

quiet now, for the last of the beer and the food had been disposed

of and the blacks lay in their huts overcome by stupor, yet Tarzan

made no noise that even a sober man keenly alert might have heard.

He passed around to the entrance of the hut and listened. From

within came no sound, not even the low breathing of one awake; yet

he was sure that the girl had been here and perhaps was even now,

and so he entered, slipping in as silently as a disembodied spirit.

For a moment he stood motionless just within the entranceway,

listening. No, there was no one here, of that he was sure, but he

would investigate. As his eyes became accustomed to the greater

darkness within the hut an object began to take form that presently

outlined itself in a human form supine upon the floor.

Tarzan stepped closer and leaned over to examine it--it was the dead

body of a naked warrior from whose chest protruded a short spear.

Then he searched carefully every square foot of the remaining floor

space and at last returned to the body again where he stooped and

smelled of the haft of the weapon that had slain the black. A slow

smile touched his lips--that and a slight movement of his head

betokened that he understood.

A rapid search of the balance of the village assured him that the

girl had escaped and a feeling of relief came over him that no harm

had befallen her. That her life was equally in jeopardy in the

savage jungle to which she must have flown did not impress him

as it would have you or me, since to Tarzan the jungle was not

a dangerous place--he considered one safer there than in Paris or

London by night.

He had entered the trees again and was outside the palisade when

there came faintly to his ears from far beyond the village an old,

familiar sound. Balancing lightly upon a swaying branch he stood,

a graceful statue of a forest god, listening intently. For a minute

he stood thus and then there broke from his lips the long, weird

cry of ape calling to ape and he was away through the jungle toward

the sound of the booming drum of the anthropoids leaving behind him

an awakened and terrified village of cringing blacks, who would

forever after connect that eerie cry with the disappearance of

their white prisoner and the death of their fellow-warrior.

Bertha Kircher, hurrying through the jungle along a well-beaten

game trail, thought only of putting as much distance as possible

between herself and the village before daylight could permit pursuit

of her. Whither she was going she did not know, nor was it a matter

of great moment since death must be her lot sooner or later.

Fortune favored her that night, for she passed unscathed through

as savage and lion-ridden an area as there is in all Africa--a

natural hunting ground which the white man has not yet discovered,

where deer and antelope and zebra, giraffe and elephant, buffalo,

rhinoceros, and the other herbivorous animals of central Africa

abound unmolested by none but their natural enemies, the great

cats which, lured here by easy prey and immunity from the rifles

of big-game hunters, swarm the district.

She had fled for an hour or two, perhaps, when her attention was

arrested by the sound of animals moving about, muttering and growling

close ahead. Assured that she had covered a sufficient distance

to insure her a good start in the morning before the blacks could

take to her trail, and fearful of what the creatures might be,

she climbed into a large tree with the intention of spending the

balance of the night there.

She had no sooner reached a safe and comfortable branch when she

discovered that the tree stood upon the edge of a small clearing

that had been hidden from her by the heavy undergrowth upon the

ground below, and simultaneously she discovered the identity of

the beasts she had heard.

In the center of the clearing below her, clearly visible in the

bright moonlight, she saw fully twenty huge, manlike apes--great,

shaggy fellows who went upon their hind feet with only slight

assistance from the knuckles of their hands. The moonlight glanced

from their glossy coats, the numerous gray-tipped hairs imparting

a sheen that made the hideous creatures almost magnificent in their

appearance.

The girl had watched them but a minute or two when the little band

was joined by others, coming singly and in groups until there were

fully fifty of the great brutes gathered there in the moonlight.

Among them were young apes and several little ones clinging tightly

to their mothers' shaggy shoulders. Presently the group parted to

form a circle about what appeared to be a small, flat-topped mound

of earth in the center of the clearing. Squatting close about this

mound were three old females armed with short, heavy clubs with

which they presently began to pound upon the flat top of the earth

mound which gave forth a dull, booming sound, and almost immediately

the other apes commenced to move about restlessly, weaving in and

out aimlessly until they carried the impression of a moving mass

of great, black maggots.

The beating of the drum was in a slow, ponderous cadence, at first

without time but presently settling into a heavy rhythm to which

the apes kept time with measured tread and swaying bodies. Slowly

the mass separated into two rings, the outer of which was composed

of shes and the very young, the inner of mature bulls. The former

ceased to move and squatted upon their haunches, while the bulls

now moved slowly about in a circle the center of which was the drum

and all now in the same direction.

It was then that there came faintly to the ears of the girl from

the direction of the village she had recently quitted a weird and

high-pitched cry. The effect upon the apes was electrical--they

stopped their movements and stood in attitudes of intent listening

for a moment, and then one fellow, huger than his companions, raised

his face to the heavens and in a voice that sent the cold shudders

through the girl's slight frame answered the far-off cry.

Once again the beaters took up their drumming and the slow dance

went on. There was a certain fascination in the savage ceremony

that held the girl spellbound, and as there seemed little likelihood

of her being discovered, she felt that she might as well remain

the balance of the night in her tree and resume her flight by the

comparatively greater safety of daylight.

Assuring herself that her packet of papers was safe she sought as

comfortable a position as possible among the branches, and settled

herself to watch the weird proceedings in the clearing below her.

A half-hour passed, during which the cadence of the drum increased

gradually. Now the great bull that had replied to the distant call

leaped from the inner circle to dance alone between the drummers

and the other bulls. He leaped and crouched and leaped again, now

growling and barking, again stopping to raise his hideous face

to Goro, the moon, and, beating upon his shaggy breast, uttered

a piercing scream-the challenge of the bull ape, had the girl but

known it.

He stood thus in the full glare of the great moon, motionless after

screaming forth his weird challenge, in the setting of the primeval

jungle and the circling apes a picture of primitive savagery and

power--a mightily muscled Hercules out of the dawn of life--when

from close behind her the girl heard an answering scream, and an

instant later saw an almost naked white man drop from a near-by

tree into the clearing.

Instantly the apes became a roaring, snarling pack of angry beasts.

Bertha Kircher held her breath. What maniac was this who dared

approach these frightful creatures in their own haunts, alone against

fifty? She saw the brown-skinned figure bathed in moonlight walk

straight toward the snarling pack. She saw the symmetry and the

beauty of that perfect body--its grace, its strength, its wondrous

proportioning, and then she recognized him. It was the same creature

whom she had seen carry Major Schneider from General Kraut's

headquarters, the same who had rescued her from Numa, the lion;

the same whom she had struck down with the butt of her pistol and

escaped when he would have returned her to her enemies, the same

who had slain Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and spared her life that

night in Wilhelmstal.

Fear-filled and fascinated she watched him as he neared the apes.

She heard sounds issue from his throat--sounds identical with

those uttered by the apes--and though she could scarce believe the

testimony of her own ears, she knew that this godlike creature was

conversing with the brutes in their own tongue.

Tarzan halted just before he reached the shes of the outer circle.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes!" he cried. "You do not know me because

I am of another tribe, but Tarzan comes in peace or he comes to

fight--which shall it be? Tarzan will talk with your king," and so

saying he pushed straight forward through the shes and the young

who now gave way before him, making a narrow lane through which he

passed toward the inner circle.

Shes and balus growled and bristled as he passed closer, but none

hindered him and thus he came to the inner circle of bulls. Here

bared fangs menaced him and growling faces hideously contorted. "I

am Tarzan," he repeated. "Tarzan comes to dance the Dum-Dum with

his brothers. Where is your king?" Again he pressed forward and the

girl in the tree clapped her palms to her cheeks as she watched,

wide-eyed, this madman going to a frightful death. In another instant

they would be upon him, rending and tearing until that perfect form

had been ripped to shreds; but again the ring parted, and though

the apes roared and menaced him they did not attack, and at last

he stood in the inner circle close to the drum and faced the great

king ape.

Again he spoke. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he cried. "Tarzan comes

to live with his brothers. He will come in peace and live in peace

or he will kill; but he has come and he will stay. Which--shall

Tarzan dance the Dum-Dum in peace with his brothers, or shall Tarzan

kill first?"

"I am Go-lat, King of the Apes," screamed the great bull. "I kill!

I kill! I kill!" and with a sullen roar he charged the Tarmangani.

The ape-man, as the girl watched him, seemed entirely unprepared

for the charge and she looked to see him borne down and slain at

the first rush. The great bull was almost upon him with huge hands

outstretched to seize him before Tarzan made a move, but when he

did move his quickness would have put Ara, the lightning, to shame.

As darts forward the head of Histah, the snake, so darted forward

the left hand of the man-beast as he seized the left wrist of his

antagonist. A quick turn and the bull's right arm was locked beneath

the right arm of his foe in a jujutsu hold that Tarzan had learned

among civilized men--a hold with which he might easily break the

great bones, a hold that left the ape helpless.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes!" screamed the ape-man. "Shall Tarzan

dance in peace or shall Tarzan kill?''

"I kill! I kill! I kill!" shrieked Go-lat.

With the quickness of a cat Tarzan swung the king ape over one hip

and sent him sprawling to the ground. "I am Tarzan, King of all

the Apes!" he shouted. "Shall it be peace?"

Go-lat, infuriated, leaped to his feet and charged again, shouting

his war cry: "I kill! I kill! I kill!" and again Tarzan met him

with a sudden hold that the stupid bull, being ignorant of, could

not possibly avert--a hold and a throw that brought a scream of

delight from the interested audience and suddenly filled the girl

with doubts as to the man's madness--evidently he was quite safe

among the apes, for she saw him swing Go-lat to his back and then

catapult him over his shoulder. The king ape fell upon his head

and lay very still.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes!" cried the ape-man. "I come to dance the

Dum-Dum with my brothers," and he made a motion to the drummers,

who immediately took up the cadence of the dance where they had

dropped it to watch their king slay the foolish Tarmangani.

It was then that Go-lat raised his head and slowly crawled to his

feet. Tarzan approached him. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," he cried.

"Shall Tarzan dance the Dum-Dum with his brothers now, or shall he

kill first?"

Go-lat raised his bloodshot eyes to the face of the Tarmangani.

"Kagoda!" he cried. "Tarzan of the Apes will dance the Dum-Dum with

his brothers and Go-lat will dance with him!"

And then the girl in the tree saw the savage man leaping, bending, and

stamping with the savage apes in the ancient rite of the Dum-Dum.

His roars and growls were more beastly than the beasts. His

handsome face was distorted with savage ferocity. He beat upon his

great breast and screamed forth his challenge as his smooth, brown

hide brushed the shaggy coats of his fellows. It was weird; it

was wonderful; and in its primitive savagery it was not without

beauty--the strange scene she looked upon, such a scene as no other

human being, probably, ever had witnessed--and yet, withal, it was

horrible.

As she gazed, spell-bound, a stealthy movement in the tree behind

her caused her to turn her head, and there, back of her, blazing

in the reflected moonlight, shone two great, yellow-green eyes.

Sheeta, the panther, had found her out.

The beast was so close that it might have reached out and touched

her with a great, taloned paw. There was no time to think, no

time to weigh chances or to choose alternatives. Terror-inspired

impulse was her guide as, with a loud scream, she leaped from the

tree into the clearing.

Instantly the apes, now maddened by the effects of the dancing and

the moonlight, turned to note the cause of the interruption. They

saw this she Tarmangani, helpless and alone and they started for

her. Sheeta, the panther, knowing that not even Numa, the lion,

unless maddened by starvation, dares meddle with the great apes at

their Dum-Dum, had silently vanished into the night, seeking his

supper elsewhere.

Tarzan, turning with the other apes toward the cause of the

interruption, saw the girl, recognized her and also her peril.

Here again might she die at the hands of others; but why consider

it! He knew that he could not permit it, and though the acknowledgment

shamed him, it had to be admitted.

The leading shes were almost upon the girl when Tarzan leaped among

them, and with heavy blows scattered them to right and left; and

then as the bulls came to share in the kill they thought this new

ape-thing was about to make that he might steal all the flesh for

himself, they found him facing them with an arm thrown about the

creature as though to protect her.

"This is Tarzan's she," he said. "Do not harm her." It was the only

way he could make them understand that they must not slay her. He

was glad that she could not interpret the words. It was humiliating

enough to make such a statement to wild apes about this hated enemy.

So once again Tarzan of the Apes was forced to protect a Hun.

Growling, he muttered to himself in extenuation:

"She is a woman and I am not a German, so it could not be otherwise!"

Chapter IX

Dropped from the Sky

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, Royal Air Service, was on

reconnaissance. A report, or it would be better to say a rumor,

had come to the British headquarters in German East Africa that

the enemy had landed in force on the west coast and was marching

across the dark continent to reinforce their colonial troops. In

fact the new army was supposed to be no more than ten or twelve days'

march to the west. Of course the thing was ridiculous--preposterous--but

preposterous things often happen in war; and anyway no good general

permits the least rumor of enemy activity to go uninvestigated.

Therefore Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick flew low toward

the west, searching with keen eyes for signs of a Hun army. Vast

forests unrolled beneath him in which a German army corps might

have lain concealed, so dense was the overhanging foliage of the

great trees. Mountain, meadowland, and desert passed in lovely

panorama; but never a sight of man had the young lieutenant.

Always hoping that he might discover some sign of their passage--a

discarded lorry, a broken limber, or an old camp site--he continued

farther and farther into the west until well into the afternoon.

Above a tree-dotted plain through the center of which flowed a

winding river he determined to turn about and start for camp. It

would take straight flying at top speed to cover the distance before

dark; but as he had ample gasoline and a trustworthy machine there

was no doubt in his mind but that he could accomplish his aim. It

was then that his engine stalled.

He was too low to do anything but land, and that immediately,

while he had the more open country accessible, for directly east of

him was a vast forest into which a stalled engine could only have

plunged him to certain injury and probable death; and so he came

down in the meadowland near the winding river and there started to

tinker with his motor.

As he worked he hummed a tune, some music-hall air that had been

popular in London the year before, so that one might have thought

him working in the security of an English flying field surrounded

by innumerable comrades rather than alone in the heart of an unexplored

African wilderness. It was typical of the man that he should be

wholly indifferent to his surroundings, although his looks entirely

belied any assumption that he was of particularly heroic strain.

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick was fair-haired, blue-eyed,

and slender, with a rosy, boyish face that might have been molded

more by an environment of luxury, indolence, and ease than the more

strenuous exigencies of life's sterner requirements.

And not only was the young lieutenant outwardly careless of the

immediate future and of his surroundings, but actually so. That

the district might be infested by countless enemies seemed not to

have occurred to him in the remotest degree. He bent assiduously

to the work of correcting the adjustment that had caused his motor

to stall without so much as an upward glance at the surrounding

country. The forest to the east of him, and the more distant jungle

that bordered the winding river, might have harbored an army of

bloodthirsty savages, but neither could elicit even a passing show

of interest on the part of Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick.

And even had he looked, it is doubtful if he would have seen the

score of figures crouching in the concealment of the undergrowth

at the forest's edge. There are those who are reputed to be endowed

with that which is sometimes, for want of a better appellation,

known as the sixth sense--a species of intuition which apprises

them of the presence of an unseen danger. The concentrated gaze of

a hidden observer provokes a warning sensation of nervous unrest in

such as these, but though twenty pairs of savage eyes were gazing

fixedly at Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, the fact aroused

no responsive sensation of impending danger in his placid breast.

He hummed peacefully and, his adjustment completed, tried out his

motor for a minute or two, then shut it off and descended to the

ground with the intention of stretching his legs and taking a smoke

before continuing his return flight to camp. Now for the first time

he took note of his surroundings, to be immediately impressed by

both the wildness and the beauty of the scene. In some respects the

tree-dotted meadowland reminded him of a park-like English forest,

and that wild beasts and savage men could ever be a part of so

quiet a scene seemed the remotest of contingencies.

Some gorgeous blooms upon a flowering shrub at a little distance

from his machine caught the attention of his aesthetic eye, and as

he puffed upon his cigarette, he walked over to examine the flowers

more closely. As he bent above them he was probably some hundred

yards from his plane and it was at this instant that Numabo, chief

of the Wamabo, chose to leap from his ambush and lead his warriors

in a sudden rush upon the white man.

The young Englishman's first intimation of danger was a chorus of

savage yells from the forest behind him. Turning, he saw a score

of naked, black warriors advancing rapidly toward him. They moved

in a compact mass and as they approached more closely their rate

of speed noticeably diminished. Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick realized

in a quick glance that the direction of their approach and their

proximity had cut off all chances of retreating to his plane, and

he also understood that their attitude was entirely warlike and

menacing. He saw that they were armed with spears and with bows and

arrows, and he felt quite confident that notwithstanding the fact

that he was armed with a pistol they could overcome him with the

first rush. What he did not know about their tactics was that at

any show of resistance they would fall back, which is the nature of

the native Negroes, but that after numerous advances and retreats,

during which they would work themselves into a frenzy of rage by

much shrieking, leaping, and dancing, they would eventually come

to the point of a determined and final assault.

Numabo was in the forefront, a fact which taken in connection with

his considerably greater size and more warlike appearance, indicated

him as the natural target and it was at Numabo that the Englishman

aimed his first shot. Unfortunately for him it missed its target,

as the killing of the chief might have permanently dispersed

the others. The bullet passed Numabo to lodge in the breast of a

warrior behind him and as the fellow lunged forward with a scream

the others turned and retreated, but to the lieutenant's chagrin

they ran in the direction of the plane instead of back toward the

forest so that he was still cut off from reaching his machine.

Presently they stopped and faced him again. They were talking loudly

and gesticulating, and after a moment one of them leaped into the

air, brandishing his spear and uttering savage war cries, which

soon had their effect upon his fellows so that it was not long ere

all of them were taking part in the wild show of savagery, which

would bolster their waning courage and presently spur them on to

another attack.

The second charge brought them closer to the Englishman, and though

he dropped another with his pistol, it was not before two or three

spears had been launched at him. He now had five shots remaining

and there were still eighteen warriors to be accounted for, so that

unless he could frighten them off, it was evident that his fate

was sealed.

That they must pay the price of one life for every attempt to take

his had its effect upon them and they were longer now in initiating

a new rush and when they did so it was more skillfully ordered than

those that had preceded it, for they scattered into three bands

which, partially surrounding him, came simultaneously toward him

from different directions, and though he emptied his pistol with

good effect, they reached him at last. They seemed to know that

his ammunition was exhausted, for they circled close about him now

with the evident intention of taking him alive, since they might

easily have riddled him with their sharp spears with perfect safety

to themselves.

For two or three minutes they circled about him until, at a word

from Numabo, they closed in simultaneously, and though the slender

young lieutenant struck out to right and left, he was soon overwhelmed

by superior numbers and beaten down by the hafts of spears in brawny

hands.

He was all but unconscious when they finally dragged him to his

feet, and after securing his hands behind his back, pushed him

roughly along ahead of them toward the jungle.

As the guard prodded him along the narrow trail, Lieutenant

Smith-Oldwick could not but wonder why they had wished to take him

alive. He knew that he was too far inland for his uniform to have

any significance to this native tribe to whom no inkling of the

World War probably ever had come, and he could only assume that he

had fallen into the hands of the warriors of some savage potentate

upon whose royal caprice his fate would hinge.

They had marched for perhaps half an hour when the Englishman saw

ahead of them, in a little clearing upon the bank of the river,

the thatched roofs of native huts showing above a crude but strong

palisade; and presently he was ushered into a village street where

he was immediately surrounded by a throng of women and children

and warriors. Here he was soon the center of an excited mob whose

intent seemed to be to dispatch him as quickly as possible. The

women were more venomous than the men, striking and scratching him

whenever they could reach him, until at last Numabo, the chief, was

obliged to interfere to save his prisoner for whatever purpose he

was destined.

As the warriors pushed the crowd back, opening a space through

which the white man was led toward a hut, Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick

saw coming from the opposite end of the village a number of Negroes

wearing odds and ends of German uniforms. He was not a little

surprised at this, and his first thought was that he had at last

come in contact with some portion of the army which was rumored to

be crossing from the west coast and for signs of which he had been

searching.

A rueful smile touched his lips as he contemplated the unhappy

circumstances which surrounded the accession of this knowledge for

though he was far from being without hope, he realized that only

by the merest chance could he escape these people and regain his

machine.

Among the partially uniformed blacks was a huge fellow in the tunic

of a sergeant and as this man's eyes fell upon the British officer,

a loud cry of exultation broke from his lips, and immediately his

followers took up the cry and pressed forward to bait the prisoner.

"Where did you get the Englishman?" asked Usanga, the black sergeant,

of the chief Numabo. "Are there many more with him?"

"He came down from the sky," replied the native chief, "in a strange

thing which flies like a bird and which frightened us very much at

first; but we watched for a long time and saw that it did not seem

to be alive, and when this white man left it we attacked him and

though he killed some of my warriors, we took him, for we Wamabos

are brave men and great warriors."

Usanga's eyes went wide. "He flew here through the sky?" he asked.

"Yes," said Numabo. "In a great thing which resembled a bird he

flew down out of the sky. The thing is still there where it came

down close to the four trees near the second bend in the river. We

left it there because, not knowing what it was, we were afraid to

touch it and it is still there if it has not flown away again."

"It cannot fly," said Usanga, "without this man in it. It is a

terrible thing which filled the hearts of our soldiers with terror,

for it flew over our camps at night and dropped bombs upon us.

It is well that you captured this white man, Numabo, for with his

great bird he would have flown over your village tonight and killed

all your people. These Englishmen are very wicked white men."

"He will fly no more," said Numabo. "It is not intended that a man

should fly through the air; only wicked demons do such things as

that and Numabo, the chief, will see that this white man does not

do it again," and with the words he pushed the young officer roughly

toward a hut in the center of the village, where he was left under

guard of two stalwart warriors.

For an hour or more the prisoner was left to his own devices, which

consisted in vain and unremitting attempts to loosen the strands

which fettered his wrists, and then he was interrupted by the

appearance of the black sergeant Usanga, who entered his hut and

approached him.

"What are they going to do with me?" asked the Englishman. "My

country is not at war with these people. You speak their language.

Tell them that I am not an enemy, that my people are the friends

of the black people and that they must let me go in peace."

Usanga laughed. "They do not know an Englishman from a German," he

replied. "It is nothing to them what you are, except that you are

a white man and an enemy."

"Then why did they take me alive?" asked the lieutenant.

"Come," said Usanga and he led the Englishman to the doorway of

the hut. "Look," he said, and pointed a black forefinger toward

the end of the village street where a wider space between the huts

left a sort of plaza.

Here Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick saw a number of Negresses

engaged in laying fagots around a stake and in preparing fires

beneath a number of large cooking vessels. The sinister suggestion

was only too obvious.

Usanga was eyeing the white man closely, but if he expected to be

rewarded by any signs of fear, he was doomed to disappointment and

the young lieutenant merely turned toward him with a shrug: "Really

now, do you beggars intend eating me?"

"Not my people," replied Usanga. "We do not eat human flesh, but

the Wamabos do. It is they who will eat you, but we will kill you

for the feast, Englishman."

The Englishman remained standing in the doorway of the hut, an

interested spectator of the preparations for the coming orgy that

was so horribly to terminate his earthly existence. It can hardly

be assumed that he felt no fear; yet, if he did, he hid it perfectly

beneath an imperturbable mask of coolness. Even the brutal Usanga

must have been impressed by the bravery of his victim since, though

he had come to abuse and possibly to torture the helpless prisoner,

he now did neither, contenting himself merely with berating whites

as a race and Englishmen especially, because of the terror the

British aviators had caused Germany's native troops in East Africa.

"No more," he concluded, "will your great bird fly over our people

dropping death among them from the skies--Usanga will see to that,"

and he walked abruptly away toward a group of his own fighting men

who were congregated near the stake where they were laughing and

joking with the women.

A few minutes later the Englishman saw them pass out of the village

gate, and once again his thoughts reverted to various futile plans

for escape.

Several miles north of the village on a little rise of ground close

to the river where the jungle, halting at the base of a knoll, had

left a few acres of grassy land sparsely wooded, a man and a girl

were busily engaged in constructing a small boma, in the center of

which a thatched hut already had been erected.

They worked almost in silence with only an occasional word of

direction or interrogation between them.

Except for a loin cloth, the man was naked, his smooth skin tanned

to a deep brown by the action of sun and wind. He moved with the

graceful ease of a jungle cat and when he lifted heavy weights,

the action seemed as effortless as the raising of empty hands.

When he was not looking at her, and it was seldom that he did, the

girl found her eyes wandering toward him, and at such times there

was always a puzzled expression upon her face as though she found

in him an enigma which she could not solve. As a matter of fact,

her feelings toward him were not un-tinged with awe, since in

the brief period of their association she had discovered in this

handsome, godlike giant the attributes of the superman and the

savage beast closely intermingled. At first she had felt only that

unreasoning feminine terror which her unhappy position naturally

induced.

To be alone in the heart of an unexplored wilderness of Central

Africa with a savage wild man was in itself sufficiently appalling,

but to feel also that this man was a blood enemy, that he hated her

and her kind and that in addition thereto he owed her a personal

grudge for an attack she had made upon him in the past, left no

loophole for any hope that he might accord her even the minutest

measure of consideration.

She had seen him first months since when he had entered the

headquarters of the German high command in East Africa and carried

off the luckless Major Schneider, of whose fate no hint had ever

reached the German officers; and she had seen him again upon that

occasion when he had rescued her from the clutches of the lion and,

after explaining to her that he had recognized her in the British

camp, had made her prisoner. It was then that she had struck him

down with the butt of her pistol and escaped. That he might seek

no personal revenge for her act had been evidenced in Wilhelmstal

the night that he had killed Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and left

without molesting her.

No, she could not fathom him. He hated her and at the same time

he had protected her as had been evidenced again when he had kept

the great apes from tearing her to pieces after she had escaped

from the Wamabo village to which Usanga, the black sergeant, had

brought her a captive; but why was he saving her? For what sinister

purpose could this savage enemy be protecting her from the other

denizens of his cruel jungle? She tried to put from her mind the

probable fate which awaited her, yet it persisted in obtruding

itself upon her thoughts, though always she was forced to admit that

there was nothing in the demeanor of the man to indicate that her

fears were well grounded. She judged him perhaps by the standards

other men had taught her and because she looked upon him as a savage

creature, she felt that she could not expect more of chivalry from

him than was to be found in the breasts of the civilized men of

her acquaintance.

Fraulein Bertha Kircher was by nature a companionable and cheerful

character. She was not given to morbid forebodings, and above all

things she craved the society of her kind and that interchange of

thought which is one of the marked distinctions between man and

the lower animals. Tarzan, on the other hand, was sufficient unto

himself. Long years of semi-solitude among creatures whose powers

of oral expression are extremely limited had thrown him almost

entirely upon his own resources for entertainment.

His active mind was never idle, but because his jungle mates could

neither follow nor grasp the vivid train of imaginings that his

man-mind wrought, he had long since learned to keep them to himself;

and so now he found no need for confiding them in others. This

fact, linked with that of his dislike for the girl, was sufficient

to seal his lips for other than necessary conversation, and so they

worked on together in comparative silence. Bertha Kircher, however,

was nothing if not feminine and she soon found that having someone

to talk to who would not talk was extremely irksome. Her fear of

the man was gradually departing, and she was full of a thousand

unsatisfied curiosities as to his plans for the future in so far as

they related to her, as well as more personal questions regarding

himself, since she could not but wonder as to his antecedents and

his strange and solitary life in the jungle, as well as his friendly

intercourse with the savage apes among which she had found him.

With the waning of her fears she became sufficiently emboldened

to question him, and so she asked him what he intended doing after

the hut and boma were completed.

"I am going to the west coast where I was born," replied Tarzan.

"I do not know when. I have all my life before me and in the jungle

there is no reason for haste. We are not forever running as fast

as we can from one place to another as are you of the outer world.

When I have been here long enough I will go on toward the west,

but first I must see that you have a safe place in which to sleep,

and that you have learned how to provide yourself with necessaries.

That will take time."

"You are going to leave me here alone?" cried the girl; her tones

marked the fear which the prospect induced. "You are going to leave

me here alone in this terrible jungle, a prey to wild beasts and

savage men, hundreds of miles from a white settlement and in a

country which gives every evidence of never having been touched by

the foot of civilized men?"

"Why not?" asked Tarzan. "I did not bring you here. Would one of

your men accord any better treatment to an enemy woman?"

"Yes," she exclaimed. "They certainly would. No man of my race

would leave a defenseless white woman alone in this horrible place."

Tarzan shrugged his broad shoulders. The conversation seemed

profitless and it was further distasteful to him for the reason

that it was carried on in German, a tongue which he detested as

much as he did the people who spoke it. He wished that the girl

spoke English and then it occurred to him that as he had seen her

in disguise in the British camp carrying on her nefarious work as

a German spy, she probably did speak English and so he asked her.

"Of course I speak English," she exclaimed, "but I did not know

that you did."

Tarzan looked his wonderment but made no comment. He only wondered why

the girl should have any doubts as to the ability of an Englishman

to speak English, and then suddenly it occurred to him that she

probably looked upon him merely as a beast of the jungle who by

accident had learned to speak German through frequenting the district

which Germany had colonized. It was there only that she had seen

him and so she might not know that he was an Englishman by birth,

and that he had had a home in British East Africa. It was as well,

he thought, that she knew little of him, as the less she knew the

more he might learn from her as to her activities in behalf of the

Germans and of the German spy system of which she was a representative;

and so it occurred to him to let her continue to think that he was

only what he appeared to be--a savage denizen of his savage jungle,

a man of no race and no country, hating all white men impartially;

and this in truth, was what she did think of him. It explained

perfectly his attacks upon Major Schneider and the Major's brother,

Hauptmann Fritz.

Again they worked on in silence upon the boma which was now nearly

completed, the girl helping the man to the best of her small

ability. Tarzan could not but note with grudging approval the

spirit of helpfulness she manifested in the oft-times painful labor

of gathering and arranging the thorn bushes which constituted the

temporary protection against roaming carnivores. Her hands and arms

gave bloody token of the sharpness of the numerous points that had

lacerated her soft flesh, and even though she were an enemy Tarzan

could not but feel compunction that he had permitted her to do this

work, and at last he bade her stop.

"Why?" she asked. "It is no more painful to me than it must be to

you, and, as it is solely for my protection that you are building

this boma, there is no reason why I should not do my share."

"You are a woman," replied Tarzan. "This is not a woman's work. If

you wish to do something, take those gourds I brought this morning

and fill them with water at the river. You may need it while I am

away."

"While you are away--" she said. "You are going away?"

"When the boma is built I am going out after meat," he replied.

"Tomorrow I will go again and take you and show you how you may

make your own kills after I am gone."

Without a word she took the gourds and walked toward the river. As

she filled them, her mind was occupied with painful forebodings of

the future. She knew that Tarzan had passed a death sentence upon

her, and that the moment that he left her, her doom was sealed,

for it could be but a question of time--a very short time--before

the grim jungle would claim her, for how could a lone woman hope

successfully to combat the savage forces of destruction which

constituted so large a part of existence in the jungle?

So occupied was she with the gloomy prophecies that she had neither

ears nor eyes for what went on about her. Mechanically she filled

the gourds and, taking them up, turned slowly to retrace her steps

to the boma only to voice immediately a half-stifled scream and

shrink back from the menacing figure looming before her and blocking

her way to the hut.

Go-lat, the king ape, hunting a little apart from his tribe, had seen

the woman go to the river for water, and it was he who confronted

her when she turned back with her filled gourds. Go-lat was not

a pretty creature when judged by standards of civilized humanity,

though the shes of his tribe and even Go-lat himself, considered

his glossy black coat shot with silver, his huge arms dangling to

his knees, his bullet head sunk between his mighty shoulders, marks

of great personal beauty. His wicked, bloodshot eyes and broad

nose, his ample mouth and great fighting fangs only enhanced the

claim of this Adonis of the forest upon the affections of his shes.

Doubtless in the little, savage brain there was a well-formed

conviction that this strange she belonging to the Tarmangani must

look with admiration upon so handsome a creature as Go-lat, for

there could be no doubt in the mind of any that his beauty entirely

eclipsed such as the hairless white ape might lay claim to.

But Bertha Kircher saw only a hideous beast, a fierce and terrible

caricature of man. Could Go-lat have known what passed through her

mind, he must have been terribly chagrined, though the chances are

that he would have attributed it to a lack of discernment on her

part. Tarzan heard the girl's cry and looking up saw at a glance

the cause of her terror. Leaping lightly over the boma, he ran

swiftly toward her as Go-lat lumbered closer to the girl the while

he voiced his emotions in low gutturals which, while in reality the

most amicable of advances, sounded to the girl like the growling

of an enraged beast. As Tarzan drew nearer he called aloud to the

ape and the girl heard from the human lips the same sounds that

had fallen from those of the anthropoid.

"I will not harm your she," Go-lat called to Tarzan.

"I know it," replied the ape-man, "but she does not. She is like

Numa and Sheeta, who do not understand our talk. She thinks you

come to harm her."

By this time Tarzan was beside the girl. "He will not harm you,"

he said to her. "You need not be afraid. This ape has learned his

lesson. He has learned that Tarzan is lord of the jungle. He will

not harm that which is Tarzan's."

The girl cast a quick glance at the man's face. It was evident to

her that the words he had spoken meant nothing to him and that the

assumed proprietorship over her was, like the boma, only another

means for her protection.

"But I am afraid of him," she said.

"You must not show your fear. You will be often surrounded by these

apes. At such times you will be safest. Before I leave you I will

give you the means of protecting yourself against them should one

of them chance to turn upon you. If I were you I would seek their

society. Few are the animals of the jungle that dare attack the

great apes when there are several of them together. If you let

them know that you are afraid of them, they will take advantage of

it and your life will be constantly menaced. The shes especially

would attack you. I will let them know that you have the means of

protecting yourself and of killing them. If necessary, I will show

you how and then they will respect and fear you."

"I will try," said the girl, "but I am afraid that it will be

difficult. He is the most frightful creature I ever have seen."

Tarzan smiled. "Doubtless he thinks the same of you," he said.

By this time other apes had entered the clearing and they were now

the center of a considerable group, among which were several bulls,

some young shes, and some older ones with their little balus clinging

to their backs or frolicking around at their feet. Though they had

seen the girl the night of the Dum-Dum when Sheeta had forced her

to leap from her concealment into the arena where the apes were

dancing, they still evinced a great curiosity regarding her. Some

of the shes came very close and plucked at her garments, commenting

upon them to one another in their strange tongue. The girl, by

the exercise of all the will power she could command, succeeded in

passing through the ordeal without evincing any of the terror and

revulsion that she felt. Tarzan watched her closely, a half-smile

upon his face. He was not so far removed from recent contact with

civilized people that he could not realize the torture that she

was undergoing, but he felt no pity for this woman of a cruel enemy

who doubtless deserved the worst suffering that could be meted to

her. Yet, notwithstanding his sentiments toward her, he was forced

to admire her fine display of courage. Suddenly he turned to the

apes.

"Tarzan goes to hunt for himself and his she," he said. "The she

will remain there," and he pointed toward the hut. "See that no

member of the tribe harms her. Do you understand?"

The apes nodded. "We will not harm her," said Go-lat.

"No," said Tarzan. "You will not. For if you do, Tarzan will kill

you," and then turning to the girl, "Come," he said, "I am going to

hunt now. You had better remain at the hut. The apes have promised

not to harm you. I will leave my spear with you. It will be the best

weapon you could have in case you should need to protect yourself,

but I doubt if you will be in any danger for the short time that

I am away."

He walked with her as far as the boma and when she had entered he

closed the gap with thorn bushes and turned away toward the forest.

She watched him moving across the clearing, noting the easy, catlike

tread and the grace of every movement that harmonized so well with

the symmetry and perfection of his figure. At the forest's edge

she saw him swing lightly into a tree and disappear from view, and

then, being a woman, she entered the hut and, throwing herself upon

the ground, burst into tears.

Chapter X

In the Hands of Savages

Tarzan sought Bara, the deer, or Horta, the boar, for of all the

jungle animals he doubted if any would prove more palatable to the

white woman, but though his keen nostrils were ever on the alert,

he traveled far without being rewarded with even the faintest

scent spoor of the game he sought. Keeping close to the river where

he hoped to find Bara or Horta approaching or leaving a drinking

place he came at last upon the strong odor of the Wamabo village

and being ever ready to pay his hereditary enemies, the Gomangani,

an undesired visit, he swung into a detour and came up in the rear

of the village. From a tree which overhung the palisade he looked

down into the street where he saw the preparations going on which

his experience told him indicated the approach of one of those

frightful feasts the piece de resistance of which is human flesh.

One of Tarzan's chief divertissements was the baiting of the blacks.

He realized more keen enjoyment through annoying and terrifying them

than from any other source of amusement the grim jungle offered.

To rob them of their feast in some way that would strike terror

to their hearts would give him the keenest of pleasure, and so

he searched the village with his eyes for some indication of the

whereabouts of the prisoner. His view was circumscribed by the

dense foliage of the tree in which he sat, and, so that he might

obtain a better view, he climbed further aloft and moved cautiously

out upon a slender branch.

Tarzan of the Apes possessed a woodcraft scarcely short of the

marvelous but even Tarzan's wondrous senses were not infallible.

The branch upon which he made his way outward from the bole was no

smaller than many that had borne his weight upon countless other

occasions. Outwardly it appeared strong and healthy and was in full

foliage, nor could Tarzan know that close to the stem a burrowing

insect had eaten away half the heart of the solid wood beneath the

bark.

And so when he reached a point far out upon the limb, it snapped

close to the bole of the tree without warning. Below him were no

larger branches that he might clutch and as he lunged downward his

foot caught in a looped creeper so that he turned completely over

and alighted on the flat of his back in the center of the village

street.

At the sound of the breaking limb and the crashing body falling

through the branches the startled blacks scurried to their huts

for weapons, and when the braver of them emerged, they saw the

still form of an almost naked white man lying where he had fallen.

Emboldened by the fact that he did not move they approached more

closely, and when their eyes discovered no signs of others of his

kind in the tree, they rushed forward until a dozen warriors stood

about him with ready spears. At first they thought that the falling

had killed him, but upon closer examination they discovered that

the man was only stunned. One of the warriors was for thrusting a

spear through his heart, but Numabo, the chief, would not permit

it.

"Bind him," he said. "We will feed well tonight."

And so they bound his hands and feet with thongs of gut and carried

him into the hut where Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick awaited

his fate. The Englishman had also been bound hand and foot by this

time for fear that at the last moment he might escape and rob them

of their feast. A great crowd of natives were gathered about the

hut attempting to get a glimpse of the new prisoner, but Numabo

doubled the guard before the entrance for fear that some of his

people, in the exuberance of their savage joy, might rob the others

of the pleasures of the death dance which would precede the killing

of the victims.

The young Englishman had heard the sound of Tarzan's body crashing

through the tree to the ground and the commotion in the village

which immediately followed, and now, as he stood with his back

against the wall of the hut, he looked upon the fellow-prisoner that

the blacks carried in and laid upon the floor with mixed feelings

of surprise and compassion. He realized that he never had seen

a more perfect specimen of manhood than that of the unconscious

figure before him, and he wondered to what sad circumstances the

man owed his capture. It was evident that the new prisoner was

himself as much a savage as his captors if apparel and weapons were

any criterion by which to judge; yet it was also equally evident

that he was a white man and from his well-shaped head and clean-cut

features that he was not one of those unhappy halfwits who so often

revert to savagery even in the heart of civilized communities.

As he watched the man, he presently noticed that his eyelids were

moving. Slowly they opened and a pair of gray eyes looked blankly

about. With returning consciousness the eyes assumed their natural

expression of keen intelligence, and a moment later, with an

effort, the prisoner rolled over upon his side and drew himself to

a sitting position. He was facing the Englishman, and as his eyes

took in the bound ankles and the arms drawn tightly behind the

other's back, a slow smile lighted his features.

"They will fill their bellies tonight," he said.

The Englishman grinned. "From the fuss they made," he said, "the

beggars must be awfully hungry. They like to have eaten me alive

when they brought me in. How did they get you?"

Tarzan shrugged his head ruefully. "It was my own fault," he

replied. "I deserve to be eaten. I crawled out upon a branch that

would not bear my weight and when it broke, instead of alighting

on my feet, I caught my foot in a trailer and came down on my head.

Otherwise they would not have taken me--alive."

"Is there no escape?" asked the Englishman.

"I have escaped them before," replied Tarzan, "and I have seen

others escape them. I have seen a man taken away from the stake

after a dozen spear thrusts had pierced his body and the fire had

been lighted about his feet."

Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick shuddered. "God!" he exclaimed, "I hope I

don't have to face that. I believe I could stand anything but the

thought of the fire. I should hate like the devil to go into a funk

before the devils at the last moment."

"Don't worry," said Tarzan. "It doesn't last long and you won't

funk. It is really not half as bad as it sounds. There is only a

brief period of pain before you lose consciousness. I have seen it

many times before. It is as good a way to go as another. We must

die sometime. What difference whether it be tonight, tomorrow night,

or a year hence, just so that we have lived--and I have lived!"

"Your philosophy may be all right, old top," said the young

lieutenant, "but I can't say that it is exactly satisfying."

Tarzan laughed. "Roll over here," he said, "where I can get at

your bonds with my teeth." The Englishman did as he was bid and

presently Tarzan was working at the thongs with his strong white

teeth. He felt them giving slowly beneath his efforts. In another

moment they would part, and then it would be a comparatively simple

thing for the Englishman to remove the remaining bonds from Tarzan

and himself.

It was then that one of the guards entered the hut. In an instant he

saw what the new prisoner was doing and raising his spear, struck

the ape-man a vicious blow across the head with its shaft. Then he

called in the other guards and together they fell upon the luckless

men, kicking and beating them unmercifully, after which they bound

the Englishman more securely than before and tied both men fast on

opposite sides of the hut. When they had gone Tarzan looked across

at his companion in misery.

"While there is life," he said, "there is hope," but he grinned as

he voiced the ancient truism.

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick returned the other's smile.

"I fancy," he said, "that we are getting short on both. It must

be close to supper time now."

Zu-tag hunted alone far from the balance of the tribe of Go-lat,

the great ape. Zu-tag (Big-neck) was a young bull but recently

arrived at maturity. He was large, powerful, and ferocious and at

the same time far above the average of his kind in intelligence as

was denoted by a fuller and less receding forehead. Already Go-lat

saw in this young ape a possible contender for the laurels of his

kingship and consequently the old bull looked upon Zu-tag with

jealousy and disfavor. It was for this reason, possibly, as much

as another that Zu-tag hunted so often alone; but it was his utter

fearlessness that permitted him to wander far afield away from the

protection which numbers gave the great apes. One of the results

of this habit was a greatly increased resourcefulness which found

him constantly growing in intelligence and powers of observation.

Today he had been hunting toward the south and was returning along

the river upon a path he often followed because it led by the

village of the Gomangani whose strange and almost apelike actions

and peculiar manners of living had aroused his interest and curiosity.

As he had done upon other occasions he took up his position in a

tree from which he could overlook the interior of the village and

watch the blacks at their vocations in the street below.

Zu-tag had scarcely more than established himself in his tree when,

with the blacks, he was startled by the crashing of Tarzan's body

from the branches of another jungle giant to the ground within the

palisade. He saw the Negroes gather about the prostrate form and

later carry it into the hut; and once he rose to his full height

upon the limb where he had been squatting and raised his face to

the heavens to scream out a savage protest and a challenge, for he

had recognized in the brown-skinned Tarmangani the strange white

ape who had come among them a night or two before in the midst of

their Dum-Dum, and who by so easily mastering the greatest among

them, had won the savage respect and admiration of this fierce

young bull.

But Zu-tag's ferocity was tempered by a certain native cunning and

caution. Before he had voiced his protest there formed in his mind

the thought that he would like to save this wonderful white ape

from the common enemy, the Gomangani, and so he screamed forth no

challenge, wisely determining that more could be accomplished by

secrecy and stealth than by force of muscle and fang.

At first he thought to enter the village alone and carry off the

Tarmangani; but when he saw how numerous were the warriors and that

several sat directly before the entrance to the lair into which the

prisoner had been carried, it occurred to him that this was work

for many rather than one, and so, as silently as he had come, he

slipped away through the foliage toward the north.

The tribe was still loitering about the clearing where stood the hut

that Tarzan and Bertha Kircher had built. Some were idly searching

for food just within the forest's edge, while others squatted

beneath the shade of trees within the clearing.

The girl had emerged from the hut, her tears dried and was gazing

anxiously toward the south into the jungle where Tarzan had disappeared.

Occasionally she cast suspicious glances in the direction of the

huge shaggy anthropoids about her. How easy it would be for one

of those great beasts to enter the boma and slay her. How helpless

she was, even with the spear that the white man had left her, she

realized as she noted for the thousandth time the massive shoulders,

the bull necks, and the great muscles gliding so easily beneath the

glossy coats. Never, she thought, had she seen such personifications

of brute power as were represented by these mighty bulls. Those

huge hands would snap her futile spear as she might snap a match in

two, while their lightest blow could crush her into insensibility

and death.

It was while she was occupied with these depressing thoughts that

there dropped suddenly into the clearing from the trees upon the

south the figure of a mighty young bull. At that time all of the

apes looked much alike to Bertha Kircher, nor was it until some

time later that she realized that each differed from the others

in individual characteristics of face and figure as do individuals

of the human races. Yet even then she could not help but note

the wondrous strength and agility of this great beast, and as he

approached she even found herself admiring the sheen of his heavy,

black, silvershot coat.

It was evident that the newcomer was filled with suppressed excitement.

His demeanor and bearing proclaimed this even from afar, nor was

the girl the only one to note it. For as they saw him coming many

of the apes arose and advanced to meet him, bristling and growling

as is their way. Go-lat was among these latter, and he advanced

stiffly with the hairs upon his neck and down his spine erect,

uttering low growls and baring his fighting fangs, for who might

say whether Zu-tag came in peace or otherwise? The old king had

seen other young apes come thus in his day filled with a sudden

resolution to wrest the kingship from their chief. He had seen

bulls about to run amuck burst thus suddenly from the jungle upon

the members of the tribe, and so Go-lat took no chances.

Had Zu-tag come indolently, feeding as he came, he might have

entered the tribe without arousing notice or suspicion, but when

one comes thus precipitately, evidently bursting with some emotion

out of the ordinary, let all apes beware. There was a certain amount

of preliminary circling, growling, and sniffing, stiff-legged and

stiff-haired, before each side discovered that the other had no

intention of initiating an attack and then Zu-tag told Go-lat what

he had seen among the lairs of the Gomangani.

Go-lat grunted in disgust and turned away. "Let the white ape take

care of himself," he said.

"He is a great ape," said Zu-tag. "He came to live in peace with

the tribe of Go-lat. Let us save him from the Gomangani."

Go-lat grunted again and continued to move away.

"Zu-tag will go alone and get him," cried the young ape, "if Go-lat

is afraid of the Gomangani."

The king ape wheeled in anger, growling loudly and beating upon

his breast. "Go-lat is not afraid," he screamed, "but he will not

go, for the white ape is not of his tribe. Go yourself and take

the Tarmangani's she with you if you wish so much to save the white

ape."

"Zu-tag will go," replied the younger bull, "and he will take the

Tarmangani's she and all the bulls of Go-lat who are not cowards,"

and so saying he cast his eyes inquiringly about at the other apes.

"Who will go with Zu-tag to fight the Gomangani and bring away our

brother," he demanded.

Eight young bulls in the full prime of their vigor pressed forward

to Zu-tag's side, but the old bulls with the conservatism and

caution of many years upon their gray shoulders, shook their heads

and waddled away after Go-lat.

"Good," cried Zu-tag. "We want no old shes to go with us to fight

the Gomangani for that is work for the fighters of the tribe."

The old bulls paid no attention to his boastful words, but the eight

who had volunteered to accompany him were filled with self-pride so

that they stood around vaingloriously beating upon their breasts,

baring their fangs and screaming their hideous challenge until the

jungle reverberated to the horrid sound.

All this time Bertha Kircher was a wide-eyed and terrified spectator to

what, as she thought, could end only in a terrific battle between

these frightful beasts, and when Zu-tag and his followers began

screaming forth their fearsome challenge, the girl found herself

trembling in terror, for of all the sounds of the jungle there is

none more awe inspiring than that of the great bull ape when he

issues his challenge or shrieks forth his victory cry.

If she had been terrified before she was almost paralyzed with

fear now as she saw Zu-tag and his apes turn toward the boma and

approach her. With the agility of a cat Zu-tag leaped completely

over the protecting wall and stood before her. Valiantly she held

her spear before her, pointing it at his breast. He commenced to

jabber and gesticulate, and even with her scant acquaintance with

the ways of the anthropoids, she realized that he was not menacing

her, for there was little or no baring of fighting fangs and his

whole expression and attitude was of one attempting to explain a

knotty problem or plead a worthy cause. At last he became evidently

impatient, for with a sweep of one great paw he struck the spear

from her hand and coming close, seized her by the arm, but not

roughly. She shrank away in terror and yet some sense within her

seemed to be trying to assure her that she was in no danger from

this great beast. Zu-tag jabbered loudly, ever and again pointing

into the jungle toward the south and moving toward the boma,

pulling the girl with him. He seemed almost frantic in his efforts

to explain something to her. He pointed toward the boma, herself,

and then to the forest, and then, at last, as though by a sudden

inspiration, he reached down and, seizing the spear, repeatedly

touched it with his forefinger and again pointed toward the south.

Suddenly it dawned upon the girl that what the ape was trying

to explain to her was related in some way to the white man whose

property they thought she was. Possibly her grim protector was in

trouble and with this thought firmly established, she no longer

held back, but started forward as though to accompany the young

bull. At the point in the boma where Tarzan had blocked the entrance,

she started to pull away the thorn bushes, and, when Zu-tag saw

what she was doing, he fell to and assisted her so that presently

they had an opening through the boma through which she passed with

the great ape.

Immediately Zu-tag and his eight apes started off rapidly toward

the jungle, so rapidly that Bertha Kircher would have had to run

at top speed to keep up with them. This she realized she could not

do, and so she was forced to lag behind, much to the chagrin of

Zu-tag, who constantly kept running back and urging her to greater

speed. Once he took her by the arm and tried to draw her along.

Her protests were of no avail since the beast could not know that

they were protests, nor did he desist until she caught her foot in

some tangled grass and fell to the ground. Then indeed was Zu-tag

furious and growled hideously. His apes were waiting at the edge

of the forest for him to lead them. He suddenly realized that this

poor weak she could not keep up with them and that if they traveled

at her slow rate they might be too late to render assistance to the

Tarmangani, and so without more ado, the giant anthropoid picked

Bertha Kircher bodily from the ground and swung her to his back.

Her arms were about his neck and in this position he seized her

wrists in one great paw so that she could not fall off and started

at a rapid rate to join his companions.

Dressed as she was in riding breeches with no entangling skirts to

hinder or catch upon passing shrubbery, she soon found that she

could cling tightly to the back of the mighty bull and when a moment

later he took to the lower branches of the trees, she closed her

eyes and clung to him in terror lest she be precipitated to the

ground below.

That journey through the primeval forest with the nine great apes

will live in the memory of Bertha Kircher for the balance of her

life, as clearly delineated as at the moment of its enactment.

The first overwhelming wave of fear having passed, she was at last

able to open her eyes and view her surroundings with increased

interest and presently the sensation of terror slowly left her to

be replaced by one of comparative security when she saw the ease

and surety with which these great beasts traveled through the trees;

and later her admiration for the young bull increased as it became

evident that even burdened with her additional weight, he moved more

rapidly and with no greater signs of fatigue than his unburdened

fellows.

Not once did Zu-tag pause until he came to a stop among the branches

of a tree no great distance from the native village. They could

hear the noises of the life within the palisade, the laughing and

shouting of the Negroes, and the barking of dogs, and through the

foliage the girl caught glimpses of the village from which she had

so recently escaped. She shuddered to think of the possibility of

having to return to it and of possible recapture, and she wondered

why Zu-tag had brought her here.

Now the apes advanced slowly once more and with great caution,

moving as noiselessly through the trees as the squirrels themselves

until they had reached a point where they could easily overlook

the palisade and the village street below.

Zu-tag squatted upon a great branch close to the bole of the tree

and by loosening the girl's arms from about his neck, indicated

that she was to find a footing for herself and when she had done

so, he turned toward her and pointed repeatedly at the open doorway

of a hut upon the opposite side of the street below them. By various

gestures he seemed to be trying to explain something to her and at

last she caught at the germ of his idea--that her white man was a

prisoner there.

Beneath them was the roof of a hut onto which she saw that she

could easily drop, but what she could do after she had entered the

village was beyond her.

Darkness was already falling and the fires beneath the cooking pots

had been lighted. The girl saw the stake in the village street and

the piles of fagots about it and in terror she suddenly realized

the portent of these grisly preparations. Oh, if she but only had

some sort of a weapon that might give her even a faint hope, some

slight advantage against the blacks. Then she would not hesitate

to venture into the village in an attempt to save the man who had

upon three different occasions saved her. She knew that he hated her

and yet strong within her breast burned the sense of her obligation

to him. She could not fathom him. Never in her life had she seen a

man at once so paradoxical and dependable. In many of his ways he

was more savage than the beasts with which he associated and yet,

on the other hand, he was as chivalrous as a knight of old. For

several days she had been lost with him in the jungle absolutely

at his mercy, yet she had come to trust so implicitly in his honor

that any fear she had had of him was rapidly disappearing.

On the other hand, that he might be hideously cruel was evidenced

to her by the fact that he was planning to leave her alone in the

midst of the frightful dangers which menaced her by night and by

day.

Zu-tag was evidently waiting for darkness to fall before carrying

out whatever plans had matured in his savage little brain, for he

and his fellows sat quietly in the tree about her, watching the

preparations of the blacks. Presently it became apparent that some

altercation had arisen among the Negroes, for a score or more of

them were gathered around one who appeared to be their chief, and

all were talking and gesticulating heatedly. The argument lasted

for some five or ten minutes when suddenly the little knot broke

and two warriors ran to the opposite side of the village from whence

they presently returned with a large stake which they soon set up

beside the one already in place. The girl wondered what the purpose

of the second stake might be, nor did she have long to wait for an

explanation.

It was quite dark by this time, the village being lighted by the

fitful glare of many fires, and now she saw a number of warriors

approach and enter the hut Zu-tag had been watching. A moment later

they reappeared, dragging between them two captives, one of whom

the girl immediately recognized as her protector and the other as

an Englishman in the uniform of an aviator. This, then, was the

reason for the two stakes.

Arising quickly she placed a hand upon Zu-tag's shoulder and pointed

down into the village. "Come," she said, as if she had been talking

to one of her own kind, and with the word she swung lightly to the

roof of the hut below. From there to the ground was but a short drop

and a moment later she was circling the hut upon the side farthest

from the fires, keeping in the dense shadows where there was little

likelihood of being discovered. She turned once to see that Zu-tag

was directly behind her and could see his huge bulk looming up

in the dark, while beyond was another one of his eight. Doubtless

they had all followed her and this fact gave her a greater sense

of security and hope than she had before experienced.

Pausing beside the hut next to the street, she peered cautiously

about the corner. A few inches from her was the open doorway of the

structure, and beyond, farther down the village street, the blacks

were congregating about the prisoners, who were already being bound

to the stakes. All eyes were centered upon the victims, and there

was only the remotest chance that she and her companions would

be discovered until they were close upon the blacks. She wished,

however, that she might have some sort of a weapon with which to

lead the attack, for she could not know, of course, for a certainty

whether the great apes would follow her or not. Hoping that she

might find something within the hut, she slipped quickly around

the corner and into the doorway and after her, one by one, came

the nine bulls. Searching quickly about the interior, she presently

discovered a spear, and, armed with this, she again approached the

entrance.

Tarzan of the Apes and Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick were

bound securely to their respective stakes. Neither had spoken for

some time. The Englishman turned his head so that he could see his

companion in misery. Tarzan stood straight against his stake. His

face was entirely expressionless in so far as either fear or anger

were concerned. His countenance portrayed bored indifference though

both men knew that they were about to be tortured.

"Good-bye, old top," whispered the young lieutenant.

Tarzan turned his eyes in the direction of the other and smiled.

"Good-bye," he said. "If you want to get it over in a hurry, inhale

the smoke and flames as rapidly as you can."

"Thanks," replied the aviator and though he made a wry face, he

drew himself up very straight and squared his shoulders.

The women and children had seated themselves in a wide circle about

the victims while the warriors, hideously painted, were forming

slowly to commence the dance of death. Again Tarzan turned to his

companion. "If you'd like to spoil their fun," he said, "don't

make any fuss no matter how much you suffer. If you can carry on to

the end without changing the expression upon your face or uttering

a single word, you will deprive them of all the pleasures of this

part of the entertainment. Good-bye again and good luck."

The young Englishman made no reply but it was evident from the set

of his jaws that the Negroes would get little enjoyment out of him.

The warriors were circling now. Presently Numabo would draw first

blood with his sharp spear which would be the signal for the

beginning of the torture after a little of which the fagots would

be lighted around the feet of the victims.

Closer and closer danced the hideous chief, his yellow, sharp-filed

teeth showing in the firelight between his thick, red lips. Now

bending double, now stamping furiously upon the ground, now leaping

into the air, he danced step by step in the narrowing circle that

would presently bring him within spear reach of the intended feast.

At last the spear reached out and touched the ape-man on the

breast and when it came away, a little trickle of blood ran down

the smooth, brown hide and almost simultaneously there broke from

the outer periphery of the expectant audience a woman's shriek which

seemed a signal for a series of hideous screamings, growlings and

barkings, and a great commotion upon that side of the circle. The

victims could not see the cause of the disturbance, but Tarzan did

not have to see, for he knew by the voices of the apes the identity

of the disturbers. He only wondered what had brought them and what

the purpose of the attack, for he could not believe that they had

come to rescue him.

Numabo and his warriors broke quickly from the circle of their dance

to see pushing toward them through the ranks of their screaming

and terrified people the very white girl who had escaped them a

few nights before, and at her back what appeared to their surprised

eyes a veritable horde of the huge and hairy forest men upon whom

they looked with considerable fear and awe.

Striking to right and left with his heavy fists, tearing with

his great fangs, came Zu-tag, the young bull, while at his heels,

emulating his example, surged his hideous apes. Quickly they came

through the old men and the women and children, for straight toward

Numabo and his warriors the girl led them. It was then that they

came within range of Tarzan's vision and he saw with unmixed surprise

who it was that led the apes to his rescue.

To Zu-tag he shouted: "Go for the big bulls while the she unbinds

me," and to Bertha Kircher: "Quick! Cut these bonds. The apes will

take care of the blacks."

Turning from her advance the girl ran to his side. She had no knife

and the bonds were tied tightly but she worked quickly and coolly

and as Zu-tag and his apes closed with the warriors, she succeeded

in loosening Tarzan's bonds sufficiently to permit him to extricate

his own hands so that in another minute he had freed himself.

"Now unbind the Englishman," he cried, and, leaping forward, ran

to join Zu-tag and his fellows in their battle against the blacks.

Numabo and his warriors, realizing now the relatively small numbers

of the apes against them, had made a determined stand and with

spears and other weapons were endeavoring to overcome the invaders.

Three of the apes were already down, killed or mortally wounded,

when Tarzan, realizing that the battle must eventually go against

the apes unless some means could be found to break the morale of

the Negroes, cast about him for some means of bringing about the

desired end. And suddenly his eye lighted upon a number of weapons

which he knew would accomplish the result. A grim smile touched

his lips as he snatched a vessel of boiling water from one of the

fires and hurled it full in the faces of the warriors. Screaming

with terror and pain they fell back though Numabo urged them to

rush forward.

Scarcely had the first cauldron of boiling water spilled its

contents upon them ere Tarzan deluged them with a second, nor was

there any third needed to send them shrieking in every direction

to the security of their huts.

By the time Tarzan had recovered his own weapons the girl had released

the young Englishman, and, with the six remaining apes, the three

Europeans moved slowly toward the village gate, the aviator arming

himself with a spear discarded by one of the scalded warriors, as

they eagerly advanced toward the outer darkness.

Numabo was unable to rally the now thoroughly terrified and

painfully burned warriors so that rescued and rescuers passed out

of the village into the blackness of the jungle without further

interference.

Tarzan strode through the jungle in silence. Beside him walked Zu-tag,

the great ape, and behind them strung the surviving anthropoids

followed by Fraulein Bertha Kircher and Lieutenant Harold Percy

Smith-Oldwick, the latter a thoroughly astonished and mystified

Englishman.

In all his life Tarzan of the Apes had been obliged to acknowledge

but few obligations. He won his way through his savage world by the

might of his own muscle, the superior keenness of his five senses

and his God-given power to reason. Tonight the greatest of

all obligations had been placed upon him--his life had been saved

by another and Tarzan shook his head and growled, for it had been

saved by one whom he hated above all others.

Chapter XI

Finding the Airplane

Tarzan of the Apes, returning from a successful hunt, with the

body of Bara, the deer, across one sleek, brown shoulder, paused

in the branches of a great tree at the edge of a clearing and gazed

ruefully at two figures walking from the river to the boma-encircled

hut a short distance away.

The ape-man shook his tousled head and sighed. His eyes wandered

toward the west and his thoughts to the far-away cabin by the

land-locked harbor of the great water that washed the beach of his

boyhood home--to the cabin of his long-dead father to which the

memories and treasures of a happy childhood lured him. Since the

loss of his mate, a great longing had possessed him to return to

the haunts of his youth--to the untracked jungle wilderness where

he had lived the life he loved best long before man had invaded

the precincts of his wild stamping grounds. There he hoped in a

renewal of the old life under the old conditions to win surcease

from sorrow and perhaps some measure of forgetfulness.

But the little cabin and the land-locked harbor were many long,

weary marches away, and he was handicapped by the duty which he

felt he owed to the two figures walking in the clearing before him.

One was a young man in a worn and ragged uniform of the British Royal

Air Forces, the other, a young woman in the even more disreputable

remnants of what once had been trim riding togs.

A freak of fate had thrown these three radically different types

together. One was a savage, almost naked beast-man, one an English

army officer, and the woman, she whom the ape-man knew and hated

as a German spy.

How he was to get rid of them Tarzan could not imagine unless

he accompanied them upon the weary march back to the east coast,

a march that would necessitate his once more retracing the long,

weary way he already had covered towards his goal, yet what else

could be done? These two had neither the strength, endurance, nor

jungle-craft to accompany him through the unknown country to the

west, nor did he wish them with him. The man he might have tolerated,

but he could not even consider the presence of the girl in the

far-off cabin, which had in a way become sacred to him through

its memories, without a growl or anger rising to his lips. There

remained, then, but the one way, since he could not desert them.

He must move by slow and irksome marches back to the east coast,

or at least to the first white settlement in that direction.

He had, it is true, contemplated leaving the girl to her fate but

that was before she had been instrumental in saving him from torture

and death at the hands of the black Wamabos. He chafed under the

obligation she had put upon him, but no less did he acknowledge

it and as he watched the two, the rueful expression upon his face

was lightened by a smile as he thought of the helplessness of them.

What a puny thing, indeed, was man! How ill equipped to combat the

savage forces of nature and of nature's jungle. Why, even the tiny

balu of the tribe of Go-lat, the great ape, was better fitted to

survive than these, for a balu could at least escape the numerous

creatures that menaced its existence, while with the possible

exception of Kota, the tortoise, none moved so slowly as did helpless

and feeble man.

Without him these two doubtless would starve in the midst of plenty,

should they by some miracle escape the other forces of destruction

which constantly threatened them. That morning Tarzan had brought

them fruit, nuts, and plantain, and now he was bringing them the

flesh of his kill, while the best that they might do was to fetch

water from the river. Even now, as they walked across the clearing

toward the boma, they were in utter ignorance of the presence

of Tarzan near them. They did not know that his sharp eyes were

watching them, nor that other eyes less friendly were glaring at

them from a clump of bushes close beside the boma entrance. They

did not know these things, but Tarzan did. No more than they could

he see the creature crouching in the concealment of the foliage, yet

he knew that it was there and what it was and what its intentions,

precisely as well as though it had been lying in the open.

A slight movement of the leaves at the top of a single stem had

apprised him of the presence of a creature there, for the movement

was not that imparted by the wind. It came from pressure at the

bottom of the stem which communicates a different movement to the

leaves than does the wind passing among them, as anyone who has

lived his lifetime in the jungle well knows, and the same wind that

passed through the foliage of the bush brought to the ape-man's

sensitive nostrils indisputable evidence of the fact that Sheeta,

the panther, waited there for the two returning from the river.

They had covered half the distance to the boma entrance when Tarzan

called to them to stop. They looked in surprise in the direction

from which his voice had come to see him drop lightly to the ground

and advance toward them.

"Come slowly toward me," he called to them. "Do not run for if you

run Sheeta will charge."

They did as he bid, their faces filled with questioning wonderment.

"What do you mean?" asked the young Englishman. "Who is Sheeta?"

but for answer the ape-man suddenly hurled the carcass of Bara, the

deer, to the ground and leaped quickly toward them, his eyes upon

something in their rear; and then it was that the two turned and

learned the identity of Sheeta, for behind them was a devil-faced

cat charging rapidly toward them.

Sheeta with rising anger and suspicion had seen the ape-man leap

from the tree and approach the quarry. His life's experiences backed

by instinct told him that the Tarmangani was about to rob him of

his prey and as Sheeta was hungry, he had no intention of being

thus easily deprived of the flesh he already considered his own.

The girl stifled an involuntary scream as she saw the proximity

of the fanged fury bearing down upon them. She shrank close to the

man and clung to him and all unarmed and defenseless as he was, the

Englishman pushed her behind him and shielding her with his body,

stood squarely in the face of the panther's charge. Tarzan noted

the act, and though accustomed as he was to acts of courage, he

experienced a thrill from the hopeless and futile bravery of the

man.

The charging panther moved rapidly, and the distance which separated

the bush in which he had concealed himself from the objects of his

desire was not great. In the time that one might understandingly

read a dozen words the strong-limbed cat could have covered the

entire distance and made his kill, yet if Sheeta was quick, quick

too was Tarzan. The English lieutenant saw the ape-man flash by him

like the wind. He saw the great cat veer in his charge as though

to elude the naked savage rushing to meet him, as it was evidently

Sheeta's intention to make good his kill before attempting to

protect it from Tarzan.

Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick saw these things and then with increasing

wonder he saw the ape-man swerve, too, and leap for the spotted cat

as a football player leaps for a runner. He saw the strong, brown

arms encircling the body of the carnivore, the left arm in front

of the beast's left shoulder and the right arm behind his right

foreleg, and with the impact the two together rolling over and over

upon the turf. He heard the snarls and growls of bestial combat,

and it was with a feeling of no little horror that he realized that

the sounds coming from the human throat of the battling man could

scarce be distinguished from those of the panther.

The first momentary shock of terror over, the girl released her

grasp upon the Englishman's arm. "Cannot we do something?" she

asked. "Cannot we help him before the beast kills him?"

The Englishman looked upon the ground for some missile with which

to attack the panther and then the girl uttered an exclamation and

started at a run toward the hut. "Wait there," she called over her

shoulder. "I will fetch the spear that he left me."

Smith-Oldwick saw the raking talons of the panther searching for

the flesh of the man and the man on his part straining every muscle

and using every artifice to keep his body out of range of them. The

muscles of his arms knotted under the brown hide. The veins stood

out upon his neck and forehead as with ever-increasing power he

strove to crush the life from the great cat. The ape-man's teeth

were fastened in the back of Sheeta's neck and now he succeeded

in encircling the beast's torso with his legs which he crossed and

locked beneath the cat's belly. Leaping and snarling, Sheeta sought

to dislodge the ape-man's hold upon him. He hurled himself upon

the ground and rolled over and over. He reared upon his hind legs

and threw himself backwards but always the savage creature upon

his back clung tenaciously to him, and always the mighty brown arms

crushed tighter and tighter about his chest.

And then the girl, panting from her quick run, returned with the

short spear Tarzan had left her as her sole weapon of protection.

She did not wait to hand it to the Englishman who ran forward to

receive it, but brushed past him and leaped into close quarters

beside the growling, tumbling mass of yellow fur and smooth brown

hide. Several times she attempted to press the point home into

the cat's body, but on both occasions the fear of endangering the

ape-man caused her to desist, but at last the two lay motionless

for a moment as the carnivore sought a moment's rest from the

strenuous exertions of battle, and then it was that Bertha Kircher

pressed the point of the spear to the tawny side and drove it deep

into the savage heart.

Tarzan rose from the dead body of Sheeta and shook himself after

the manner of beasts that are entirely clothed with hair. Like

many other of his traits and mannerisms this was the result of

environment rather than heredity or reversion, and even though he

was outwardly a man, the Englishman and the girl were both impressed

with the naturalness of the act. It was as though Numa, emerging

from a fight, had shaken himself to straighten his rumpled mane and

coat, and yet, too, there was something uncanny about it as there

had been when the savage growls and hideous snarls issued from

those clean-cut lips.

Tarzan looked at the girl, a quizzical expression upon his face.

Again had she placed him under obligations to her, and Tarzan of

the Apes did not wish to be obligated to a German spy; yet in his

honest heart he could not but admit a certain admiration for her

courage, a trait which always greatly impressed the ape-man, he

himself the personification of courage.

"Here is the kill," he said, picking the carcass of Bara from the

ground. "You will want to cook your portion, I presume, but Tarzan

does not spoil his meat with fire."

They followed him to the boma where he cut several pieces of meat

from the carcass for them, retaining a joint for himself. The

young lieutenant prepared a fire, and the girl presided over the

primitive culinary rights of their simple meal. As she worked some

little way apart from them, the lieutenant and the ape-man watched

her.

"She is wonderful. Is she not?" murmured Smith-Oldwick.

"She is a German and a spy," replied Tarzan.

The Englishman turned quickly upon him. "What do you mean?" he

cried.

"I mean what I say," replied the ape-man. "She is a German and a

spy."

"I do not believe it!" exclaimed the aviator.

"You do not have to," Tarzan assured him. "It is nothing to me

what you believe. I saw her in conference with the Boche general

and his staff at the camp near Taveta. They all knew her and called

her by name and she handed him a paper. The next time I saw her

she was inside the British lines in disguise, and again I saw her

bearing word to a German officer at Wilhelmstal. She is a German

and a spy, but she is a woman and therefore I cannot destroy her."

"You really believe that what you say is true?" asked the young

lieutenant. "My God! I cannot believe it. She is so sweet and brave

and good."

The ape-man shrugged his shoulders. "She is brave," he said, "but

even Pamba, the rat, must have some good quality, but she is what

I have told you and therefore I hate her and you should hate her."

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick buried his face in his hands.

"God forgive me," he said at last. "I cannot hate her."

The ape-man cast a contemptuous look at his companion and arose.

"Tarzan goes again to hunt," he said. "You have enough food for

two days. By that time he will return."

The two watched him until he had disappeared in the foliage of the

trees at the further side of the clearing.

When he had gone the girl felt a vague sense of apprehension that

she never experienced when Tarzan was present. The invisible menaces

lurking in the grim jungle seemed more real and much more imminent

now that the ape-man was no longer near. While he had been there

talking with them, the little thatched hut and its surrounding

thorn boma had seemed as safe a place as the world might afford.

She wished that he had remained--two days seemed an eternity in

contemplation--two days of constant fear, two days, every moment of

which would be fraught with danger. She turned toward her companion.

"I wish that he had remained," she said. "I always feel so much

safer when he is near. He is very grim and very terrible, and yet

I feel safer with him than with any man I ever have known. He seems

to dislike me and yet I know that he would let no harm befall me.

I cannot understand him."

"Neither do I understand him," replied the Englishman; "but I know

this much--our presence here is interfering with his plans. He would

like to be rid of us, and I half imagine that he rather hopes to

find when he returns that we have succumbed to one of the dangers

which must always confront us in this savage land.

"I think that we should try to return to the white settlements. This

man does not want us here, nor is it reasonable to assume that we

could long survive in such a savage wilderness. I have traveled and

hunted in several parts of Africa, but never have I seen or heard

of any single locality so overrun with savage beasts and dangerous

natives. If we set out for the east coast at once we would be in

but little more danger than we are here, and if we could survive

a day's march, I believe that we will find the means of reaching

the coast in a few hours, for my plane must still be in the same

place that I landed just before the blacks captured me. Of course

there is no one here who could operate it nor is there any reason

why they should have destroyed it. As a matter of fact, the natives

would be so fearful and suspicious of so strange and incomprehensible

a thing that the chances are they would not dare approach it. Yes,

it must be where I left it and all ready to carry us safely to the

settlements."

"But we cannot leave," said the girl, "until he returns. We could

not go away like that without thanking him or bidding him farewell.

We are under too great obligations to him."

The man looked at her in silence for a moment. He wondered if

she knew how Tarzan felt toward her and then he himself began to

speculate upon the truth of the ape-man's charges. The longer he

looked at the girl, the less easy was it to entertain the thought

that she was an enemy spy. He was upon the point of asking

her point-blank but he could not bring himself to do so, finally

determining to wait until time and longer acquaintance should reveal

the truth or falsity of the accusation.

"I believe," he said as though there had been no pause in their

conversation, "that the man would be more than glad to find us

gone when he returns. It is not necessary to jeopardize our lives

for two more days in order that we may thank him, however much

we may appreciate his services to us. You have more than balanced

your obligations to him and from what he told me I feel that you

especially should not remain here longer."

The girl looked up at him in astonishment. "What do you mean?" she

asked.

"I do not like to tell," said the Englishman, digging nervously at

the turf with the point of a stick, "but you have my word that he

would rather you were not here."

"Tell me what he said," she insisted, "I have a right to know."

Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick squared his shoulders and raised his eyes

to those of the girl. "He said that he hated you," he blurted. "He

has only aided you at all from a sense of duty because you are a

woman."

The girl paled and then flushed. "I will be ready to go," she said,

"in just a moment. We had better take some of this meat with us.

There is no telling when we will be able to get more."

And so the two set out down the river toward the south. The man

carried the short spear that Tarzan had left with the girl, while

she was entirely unarmed except for a stick she had picked up from

among those left after the building of the hut. Before departing

she had insisted that the man leave a note for Tarzan thanking him

for his care of them and bidding him goodbye. This they left pinned

to the inside wall of the hut with a little sliver of wood.

It was necessary that they be constantly on the alert since they

never knew what might confront them at the next turn of the winding

jungle trail or what might lie concealed in the tangled bushes at

either side. There was also the ever-present danger of meeting some

of Numabo's black warriors and as the village lay directly in their

line of march, there was the necessity for making a wide detour

before they reached it in order to pass around it without being

discovered.

"I am not so much afraid of the native blacks," said the girl, "as

I am of Usanga and his people. He and his men were all attached

to a German native regiment. They brought me along with them when

they deserted, either with the intention of holding me ransom or

selling me into the harem of one of the black sultans of the north.

Usanga is much more to be feared than Numabo for he has had the

advantage of European military training and is armed with more or

less modern weapons and ammunition."

"It is lucky for me," remarked the Englishman, "that it was the

ignorant Numabo who discovered and captured me rather than the

worldly wise Usanga. He would have felt less fear of the giant

flying machine and would have known only too well how to wreck it."

"Let us pray that the black sergeant has not discovered it," said

the girl.

They made their way to a point which they guessed was about a mile

above the village, then they turned into the trackless tangle of

undergrowth to the east. So dense was the verdure at many points

that it was with the utmost difficulty they wormed their way through,

sometimes on hands and knees and again by clambering over numerous

fallen tree trunks. Interwoven with dead limbs and living branches

were the tough and ropelike creepers which formed a tangled network

across their path.

South of them in an open meadowland a number of black warriors were

gathered about an object which elicited much wondering comment. The

blacks were clothed in fragments of what had once been uniforms of

a native German command. They were a most unlovely band and chief

among them in authority and repulsiveness was the black sergeant

Usanga. The object of their interest was a British aeroplane.

Immediately after the Englishman had been brought to Numabo's village

Usanga had gone out in search of the plane, prompted partially by

curiosity and partially by an intention to destroy it, but when he

had found it, some new thought had deterred him from carrying out

his design. The thing represented considerable value as he well

knew and it had occurred to him that in some way he might turn his

prize to profit. Every day he had returned to it, and while at

first it had filled him with considerable awe, he eventually came

to look upon it with the accustomed eye of a proprietor, so that

he now clambered into the fuselage and even advanced so far as to

wish that he might learn to operate it.

What a feat it would be indeed to fly like a bird far above the

highest tree top! How it would fill his less favored companions

with awe and admiration! If Usanga could but fly, so great would be

the respect of all the tribesmen throughout the scattered villages

of the great interior, they would look upon him as little less than

a god.

Usanga rubbed his palms together and smacked his thick lips. Then

indeed, would he be very rich, for all the villages would pay

tribute to him and he could even have as many as a dozen wives.

With that thought, however, came a mental picture of Naratu, the

black termagant, who ruled him with an iron hand. Usanga made a

wry face and tried to forget the extra dozen wives, but the lure of

the idea remained and appealed so strongly to him that he presently

found himself reasoning most logically that a god would not be much

of a god with less than twenty-four wives.

He fingered the instruments and the control, half hoping and half

fearing that he would alight upon the combination that would put

the machine in flight. Often had he watched the British air-men

soaring above the German lines and it looked so simple he was quite

sure that he could do it himself if there was somebody who could

but once show him how. There was, of course, always the hope that

the white man who came in the machine and who had escaped from

Numabo's village might fall into Usanga's hands and then indeed

would he be able to learn how to fly. It was in this hope that

Usanga spent so much time in the vicinity of the plane, reasoning

as he did that eventually the white man would return in search of

it.

And at last he was rewarded, for upon this very day after he had

quit the machine and entered the jungle with his warriors, he heard

voices to the north and when he and his men had hidden in the dense

foliage upon either side of the trail, Usanga was presently filled

with elation by the appearance of the British officer and the white

girl whom the black sergeant had coveted and who had escaped him.

The Negro could scarce restrain a shout of elation, for he had not

hoped that fate would be so kind as to throw these two whom he most

desired into his power at the same time.

As the two came down the trail all unconscious of impending danger,

the man was explaining that they must be very close to the point

at which the plane had landed. Their entire attention was centered

on the trail directly ahead of them, as they momentarily expected

it to break into the meadowland where they were sure they would

see the plane that would spell life and liberty for them.

The trail was broad, and they were walking side by side so that at

a sharp turn the park-like clearing was revealed to them simultaneously

with the outlines of the machine they sought.

Exclamations of relief and delight broke from their lips, and at

the same instant Usanga and his black warriors rose from the bushes

all about them.

Chapter XII

The Black Flier

The girl was almost crushed by terror and disappointment. To have

been thus close to safety and then to have all hope snatched away

by a cruel stroke of fate seemed unendurable. The man was disappointed,

too, but more was he angry. He noted the remnants of the uniforms

upon the blacks and immediately he demanded to know where were

their officers.

"They cannot understand you," said the girl and so in the bastard

tongue that is the medium of communication between the Germans and

the blacks of their colony, she repeated the white man's question.

Usanga grinned. "You know where they are, white woman," he replied.

"They are dead, and if this white man does not do as I tell him,

he, too, will be dead."

"What do you want of him?" asked the girl.

"I want him to teach me how to fly like a bird," replied Usanga.

Bertha Kircher looked her astonishment, but repeated the demand to

the lieutenant.

The Englishman meditated for a moment. "He wants to learn to fly,

does he?" he repeated. "Ask him if he will give us our freedom if

I teach him to fly."

The girl put the question to Usanga, who, degraded, cunning, and

entirely unprincipled, was always perfectly willing to promise

anything whether he had any intentions of fulfilling his promises

or not, and so immediately assented to the proposition.

"Let the white man teach me to fly," he said, "and I will take you

back close to the settlements of your people, but in return for

this I shall keep the great bird," and he waved a black hand in

the direction of the aeroplane.

When Bertha Kircher had repeated Usanga's proposition to the

aviator, the latter shrugged his shoulders and with a wry face

finally agreed. "I fancy there is no other way out of it," he said.

"In any event the plane is lost to the British government. If I

refuse the black scoundrel's request, there is no doubt but what

he will make short work of me with the result that the machine will

lie here until it rots. If I accept his offer it will at least be

the means of assuring your safe return to civilization and that"

he added, "is worth more to me than all the planes in the British

Air Service."

The girl cast a quick glance at him. These were the first words he

had addressed to her that might indicate that his sentiments toward

her were more than those of a companion in distress. She regretted

that he had spoken as he had and he, too, regretted it almost

instantly as he saw the shadow cross her face and realized that

he had unwittingly added to the difficulties of her already almost

unbearable situation.

"Forgive me," he said quickly. "Please forget what that remark

implied. I promise you that I will not offend again, if it does

offend you, until after we are both safely out of this mess."

She smiled and thanked him, but the thing had been said and could

never be unsaid, and Bertha Kircher knew even more surely than as

though he had fallen upon his knees and protested undying devotion

that the young English officer loved her.

Usanga was for taking his first lesson in aviation immediately. The

Englishman attempted to dissuade him, but immediately the black

became threatening and abusive, since, like all those who are

ignorant, he was suspicious that the intentions of others were

always ulterior unless they perfectly coincided with his wishes.

"All right, old top," muttered the Englishman, "I will give you

the lesson of your life," and then turning to the girl: "Persuade

him to let you accompany us. I shall be afraid to leave you here

with these devilish scoundrels." But when she put the suggestion

to Usanga the black immediately suspected some plan to thwart

him--possibly to carry him against his will back to the German

masters he had traitorously deserted, and glowering at her savagely,

he obstinately refused to entertain the suggestion.

"The white woman will remain here with my people," he said. "They

will not harm her unless you fail to bring me back safely."

"Tell him," said the Englishman, "that if you are not standing in

plain sight in this meadow when I return, I will not land, but will

carry Usanga back to the British camp and have him hanged."

Usanga promised that the girl would be in evidence upon their

return, and took immediate steps to impress upon his warriors that

under penalty of death they must not harm her. Then, followed

by the other members of his party, he crossed the clearing toward

the plane with the Englishman. Once seated within what he already

considered his new possession, the black's courage began to wane

and when the motor was started and the great propeller commenced

to whir, he screamed to the Englishman to stop the thing and permit

him to alight, but the aviator could neither hear nor understand

the black above the noise of the propeller and exhaust. By this

time the plane was moving along the ground and even then Usanga was

upon the verge of leaping out, and would have done so had he been

able to unfasten the strap from about his waist. Then the plane rose

from the ground and in a moment soared gracefully in a wide circle

until it topped the trees. The black sergeant was in a veritable

collapse of terror. He saw the earth dropping rapidly from beneath

him. He saw the trees and river and at a distance the little clearing

with the thatched huts of Numabo's village. He tried hard not to

think of the results of a sudden fall to the rapidly receding ground

below. He attempted to concentrate his mind upon the twenty-four

wives which this great bird most assuredly would permit him to

command. Higher and higher rose the plane, swinging in a wide circle

above the forest, river, and meadowland and presently, much to his

surprise, Usanga discovered that his terror was rapidly waning, so

that it was not long before there was forced upon him a consciousness

of utter security, and then it was that he began to take notice of

the manner in which the white man guided and manipulated the plane.

After half an hour of skillful maneuvering, the Englishman rose

rapidly to a considerable altitude, and then, suddenly, without

warning, he looped and flew with the plane inverted for a few

seconds.

"I said I'd give this beggar the lesson of his life," he murmured as

he heard, even above the whir of the propeller, the shriek of the

terrified Negro. A moment later Smith-Oldwick had righted the machine

and was dropping rapidly toward the earth. He circled slowly a few

times above the meadow until he had assured himself that Bertha

Kircher was there and apparently unharmed, then he dropped gently

to the ground so that the machine came to a stop a short distance

from where the girl and the warriors awaited them.

It was a trembling and ashen-hued Usanga who tumbled out of the

fuselage, for his nerves were still on edge as a result of the

harrowing experience of the loop, yet with terra firma once more

under foot, he quickly regained his composure. Strutting about

with great show and braggadocio, he strove to impress his followers

with the mere nothingness of so trivial a feat as flying birdlike

thousands of yards above the jungle, though it was long until he

had thoroughly convinced himself by the force of autosuggestion

that he had enjoyed every instant of the flight and was already

far advanced in the art of aviation.

So jealous was the black of his new-found toy that he would not

return to the village of Numabo, but insisted on making camp close

beside the plane, lest in some inconceivable fashion it should be

stolen from him. For two days they camped there, and constantly

during daylight hours Usanga compelled the Englishman to instruct

him in the art of flying.

Smith-Oldwick, in recalling the long months of arduous training he

had undergone himself before he had been considered sufficiently

adept to be considered a finished flier, smiled at the conceit of

the ignorant African who was already demanding that he be permitted

to make a flight alone.

"If it was not for losing the machine," the Englishman explained to

the girl, "I'd let the bounder take it up and break his fool neck

as he would do inside of two minutes."

However, he finally persuaded Usanga to bide his time for a few

more days of instruction, but in the suspicious mind of the Negro

there was a growing conviction that the white man's advice was prompted

by some ulterior motive; that it was in the hope of escaping with

the machine himself by night that he refused to admit that Usanga

was entirely capable of handling it alone and therefore in no further

need of help or instruction, and so in the mind of the black there

formed a determination to outwit the white man. The lure of the

twenty-four seductive wives proved in itself a sufficient incentive

and there, too, was added his desire for the white girl whom he

had long since determined to possess.

It was with these thoughts in mind that Usanga lay down to sleep

in the evening of the second day. Constantly, however, the thought

of Naratu and her temper arose to take the keen edge from his pleasant

imaginings. If he could but rid himself of her! The thought having

taken form persisted, but always it was more than outweighed by the

fact that the black sergeant was actually afraid of his woman, so

much afraid of her in fact that he would not have dared to attempt

to put her out of the way unless he could do so secretly while

she slept. However, as one plan after another was conjured by the

strength of his desires, he at last hit upon one which came to him

almost with the force of a blow and brought him sitting upright

among his sleeping companions.

When morning dawned Usanga could scarce wait for an opportunity to

put his scheme into execution, and the moment that he had eaten,

he called several of his warriors aside and talked with them for

some moments.

The Englishman, who usually kept an eye upon his black captor,

saw now that the latter was explaining something in detail to his

warriors, and from his gestures and his manner it was apparent that

he was persuading them to some new plan as well as giving them

instructions as to what they were to do. Several times, too, he

saw the eyes of the Negroes turned upon him and once they flashed

simultaneously toward the white girl.

Everything about the occurrence, which in itself seemed trivial enough,

aroused in the mind of the Englishman a well-defined apprehension

that something was afoot that boded ill for him and for the girl.

He could not free himself of the idea and so he kept a still closer

watch over the black although, as he was forced to admit to himself,

he was quite powerless to avert any fate that lay in store for

them. Even the spear that he had had when captured had been taken

away from him, so that now he was unarmed and absolutely at the

mercy of the black sergeant and his followers.

Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick did not have long to wait

before discovering something of Usanga's plan, for almost immediately

after the sergeant finished giving his instructions, a number of

warriors approached the Englishman, while three went directly to

the girl.

Without a word of explanation the warriors seized the young officer

and threw him to the ground upon his face. For a moment he struggled

to free himself and succeeded in landing a few heavy blows among

his assailants, but he was too greatly outnumbered to hope to more

than delay them in the accomplishment of their object which he

soon discovered was to bind him securely hand and foot. When they

had finally secured him to their satisfaction, they rolled him

over on his side and then it was he saw Bertha Kircher had been

similarly trussed.

Smith-Oldwick lay in such a position that he could see nearly the

entire expanse of meadow and the aeroplane a short distance away.

Usanga was talking to the girl who was shaking her head in vehement

negatives.

"What is he saying?" called the Englishman.

"He is going to take me away in the plane," the girl called back.

"He is going to take me farther inland to another country where

he says that he will be king and I am to be one of his wives," and

then to the Englishman's surprise she turned a smiling face toward

him, "but there is no danger," she continued, "for we shall both

be dead within a few minutes--just give him time enough to get

the machine under way, and if he can rise a hundred feet from the

ground I shall never need fear him more."

"God!" cried the man. "Is there no way that you can dissuade him?

Promise him anything. Anything that you want. I have money, more

money than that poor fool could imagine there was in the whole

world. With it he can buy anything that money will purchase, fine

clothes and food and women, all the women he wants. Tell him this

and tell him that if he will spare you I give him my word that I

will fetch it all to him."

The girl shook her head. "It is useless," she said. "He would not

understand and if he did understand, he would not trust you. The

blacks are so unprincipled themselves that they can imagine no

such thing as principle or honor in others, and especially do these

blacks distrust an Englishman whom the Germans have taught them to

believe are the most treacherous and degraded of people. No, it is

better thus. I am sorry that you cannot go with us, for if he goes

high enough my death will be much easier than that which probably

awaits you."

Usanga had been continually interrupting their brief conversation

in an attempt to compel the girl to translate it to him, for he

feared that they were concocting some plan to thwart him, and to

quiet and appease him, she told him that the Englishman was merely

bidding her farewell and wishing her good luck. Suddenly she turned

to the black. "Will you do something for me?" she asked. "If I go

willingly with you?"

"What is it you want?" he inquired.

"Tell your men to free the white man after we are gone. He can

never catch us. That is all I ask of you. If you will grant him

his freedom and his life, I will go willingly with you.

"You will go with me anyway," growled Usanga. "It is nothing to

me whether you go willingly or not. I am going to be a great king

and you will do whatever I tell you to do."

He had in mind that he would start properly with this woman. There

should be no repetition of his harrowing experience with Naratu.

This wife and the twenty-four others should be carefully selected

and well trained. Hereafter Usanga would be master in his own house.

Bertha Kircher saw that it was useless to appeal to the brute

and so she held her peace though she was filled with sorrow in

contemplating the fate that awaited the young officer, scarce more

than a boy, who had impulsively revealed his love for her.

At Usanga's order one of the blacks lifted her from the ground and

carried her to the machine, and after Usanga had clambered aboard,

they lifted her up and he reached down and drew her into the fuselage

where he removed the thongs from her wrists and strapped her into

her seat and then took his own directly ahead of her.

The girl turned her eyes toward the Englishman. She was very pale

but her lips smiled bravely.

"Good-bye!" she cried.

"Good-bye, and God bless you!" he called back--his voice the least

bit husky--and then: "The thing I wanted to say--may I say it now,

we are so very near the end?"

Her lips moved but whether they voiced consent or refusal he did

not know, for the words were drowned in the whir of the propeller.

The black had learned his lesson sufficiently well so that the

motor was started without bungling and the machine was soon under

way across the meadowland. A groan escaped the lips of the distracted

Englishman as he watched the woman he loved being carried to almost

certain death. He saw the plane tilt and the machine rise from

the ground. It was a good take-off--as good as Lieutenant Harold

Percy Smith-Oldwick could make himself but he realized that it was

only so by chance. At any instant the machine might plunge to earth

and even if, by some miracle of chance, the black could succeed

in rising above the tree tops and make a successful flight, there

was not one chance in one hundred thousand that he could ever land

again without killing his fair captive and himself.

But what was that? His heart stood still.

Chapter XIII

Usanga's Reward

For two days Tarzan of the Apes had been hunting leisurely to the

north, and swinging in a wide circle, he had returned to within

a short distance of the clearing where he had left Bertha Kircher

and the young lieutenant. He had spent the night in a large tree

that overhung the river only a short distance from the clearing,

and now in the early morning hours he was crouching at the water's

edge waiting for an opportunity to capture Pisah, the fish, thinking

that he would take it back with him to the hut where the girl could

cook it for herself and her companion.

Motionless as a bronze statue was the wily ape-man, for well he knew

how wary is Pisah, the fish. The slightest movement would frighten

him away and only by infinite patience might he be captured at

all. Tarzan depended upon his own quickness and the suddenness of

his attack, for he had no bait or hook. His knowledge of the ways

of the denizens of the water told him where to wait for Pisah. It

might be a minute or it might be an hour before the fish would swim

into the little pool above which he crouched, but sooner or later

one would come. That the ape-man knew, so with the patience of the

beast of prey he waited for his quarry.

At last there was a glint of shiny scales. Pisah was coming. In a

moment he would be within reach and then with the swiftness of light

two strong, brown hands would plunge into the pool and seize him,

but, just at the moment that the fish was about to come within reach,

there was a great crashing in the underbrush behind the ape-man.

Instantly Pisah was gone and Tarzan, growling, had wheeled about

to face whatever creature might be menacing him. The moment that

he turned he saw that the author of the disturbance was Zu-tag.

"What does Zu-tag want?" asked the ape-man.

"Zu-tag comes to the water to drink," replied the ape.

"Where is the tribe?" asked Tarzan.

"They are hunting for pisangs and scimatines farther back in the

forest," replied Zu-tag.

"And the Tarmangani she and bull--" asked Tarzan, "are they safe?"

"They have gone away," replied Zu-tag. "Kudu has come out of his

lair twice since they left."

"Did the tribe chase them away?" asked Tarzan.

"No," replied the ape. "We did not see them go. We do not know why

they left."

Tarzan swung quickly through the trees toward the clearing. The

hut and boma were as he had left them, but there was no sign of

either the man or the woman. Crossing the clearing, he entered the

boma and then the hut. Both were empty, and his trained nostrils

told him that they had been gone for at least two days. As he was

about to leave the hut he saw a paper pinned upon the wall with a

sliver of wood and taking it down, he read:

After what you told me about Miss Kircher, and knowing that you

dislike her, I feel that it is not fair to her and to you that we

should impose longer upon you. I know that our presence is keeping

you from continuing your journey to the west coast, and so I

have decided that it is better for us to try and reach the white

settlements immediately without imposing further upon you. We both

thank you for your kindness and protection. If there was any way

that I might repay the obligation I feel, I should be only too glad

to do so.

It was signed by Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick.

Tarzan shrugged his shoulders, crumpled the note in his hand and

tossed it aside. He felt a certain sense of relief from responsibility

and was glad that they had taken the matter out of his hands. They

were gone and would forget, but somehow he could not forget. He

walked out across the boma and into the clearing. He felt uneasy

and restless. Once he started toward the north in response to

a sudden determination to continue his way to the west coast. He

would follow the winding river toward the north a few miles where

its course turned to the west and then on toward its source across

a wooded plateau and up into the foothills and the mountains. Upon

the other side of the range he would search for a stream running

downward toward the west coast, and thus following the rivers he

would be sure of game and water in plenty.

But he did not go far. A dozen steps, perhaps, and he came to

a sudden stop. "He is an Englishman," he muttered, "and the other

is a woman. They can never reach the settlements without my help.

I could not kill her with my own hands when I tried, and if I let

them go on alone, I will have killed her just as surely as though

I had run my knife into her heart. No," and again he shook his

head. "Tarzan of the Apes is a fool and a weak, old woman," and he

turned back toward the south.

Manu, the monkey, had seen the two Tarmangani pass two days before.

Chattering and scolding, he told Tarzan all about it. They had

gone in the direction of the village of the Gomangani, that much

had Manu seen with his own eyes, so the ape-man swung on through

the jungle in a southerly direction and though with no concentrated

effort to follow the spoor of those he trailed, he passed numerous

evidences that they had gone this way--faint suggestions of their

scent spoor clung lightly to leaf or branch or bole that one

or the other had touched, or in the earth of the trail their feet

had trod, and where the way wound through the gloomy depth of dank

forest, the impress of their shoes still showed occasionally in

the damp mass of decaying vegetation that floored the way.

An inexplicable urge spurred Tarzan to increasing, speed. The

same still, small voice that chided him for having neglected them

seemed constantly whispering that they were in dire need of him

now. Tarzan's conscience was troubling him, which accounted for

the fact that he compared himself to a weak, old woman, for the

ape-man, reared in savagery and inured to hardships and cruelty,

disliked to admit any of the gentler traits that in reality were

his birthright.

The trail made a detour to the east of the village of the Wamabos,

and then returned to the wide elephant path nearer to the river,

where it continued in a southerly direction for several miles. At

last there came to the ears of the ape-man a peculiar whirring,

throbbing sound. For an instant he paused, listening intently, "An

aeroplane!" he muttered, and hastened forward at greatly increased

speed.

When Tarzan of the Apes finally reached the edge of the meadowland

where Smith-Oldwick's plane had landed, he took in the entire scene

in one quick glance and grasped the situation, although he could

scarce give credence to the things he saw. Bound and helpless,

the English officer lay upon the ground at one side of the meadow,

while around him stood a number of the black deserters from the

German command. Tarzan had seen these men before and knew who they

were. Coming toward him down the meadow was an aeroplane piloted

by the black Usanga and in the seat behind the pilot was the white

girl, Bertha Kircher. How it befell that the ignorant savage could

operate the plane, Tarzan could not guess nor had he time in which

to speculate upon the subject. His knowledge of Usanga, together

with the position of the white man, told him that the black sergeant

was attempting to carry off the white girl. Why he should be doing

this when he had her in his power and had also captured and secured

the only creature in the jungle who might wish to defend her in so

far as the black could know, Tarzan could not guess, for he knew

nothing of Usanga's twenty-four dream wives nor of the black's

fear of the horrid temper of Naratu, his present mate. He did not

know, then, that Usanga had determined to fly away with the white

girl never to return, and to put so great a distance between himself

and Naratu that the latter never could find him again; but it was

this very thing that was in the black's mind although not even his

own warriors guessed it. He had told them that he would take the

captive to a sultan of the north and there obtain a great price for

her and that when he returned they should have some of the spoils.

These things Tarzan did not know. All he knew was what he saw--a

Negro attempting to fly away with a white girl. Already the

machine was slowly leaving the ground. In a moment more it would

rise swiftly out of reach. At first Tarzan thought of fitting an

arrow to his bow and slaying Usanga, but as quickly he abandoned

the idea because he knew that the moment the pilot was slain the

machine, running wild, would dash the girl to death among the trees.

There was but one way in which he might hope to succor her--a way

which if it failed must send him to instant death and yet he did

not hesitate in an attempt to put it into execution.

Usanga did not see him, being too intent upon the unaccustomed duties

of a pilot, but the blacks across the meadow saw him and they ran

forward with loud and savage cries and menacing rifles to intercept

him. They saw a giant white man leap from the branches of a tree

to the turf and race rapidly toward the plane. They saw him take

a long grass rope from about his shoulders as he ran. They saw the

noose swinging in an undulating circle above his head. They saw

the white girl in the machine glance down and discover him.

Twenty feet above the running ape-man soared the huge plane. The

open noose shot up to meet it, and the girl, half guessing the

ape-man's intentions, reached out and caught the noose and, bracing

herself, clung tightly to it with both hands. Simultaneously Tarzan

was dragged from his feet and the plane lurched sideways in response

to the new strain. Usanga clutched wildly at the control and the

machine shot upward at a steep angle. Dangling at the end of the

rope the ape-man swung pendulum-like in space. The Englishman, lying

bound upon the ground, had been a witness of all these happenings.

His heart stood still as he saw Tarzan's body hurtling through the

air toward the tree tops among which it seemed he must inevitably

crash; but the plane was rising rapidly, so that the beast-man

cleared the top-most branches. Then slowly, hand over hand, he

climbed toward the fuselage. The girl, clinging desperately to the

noose, strained every muscle to hold the great weight dangling at

the lower end of the rope.

Usanga, all unconscious of what was going on behind him, drove the

plane higher and higher into the air.

Tarzan glanced downward. Below him the tree tops and the river

passed rapidly to the rear and only a slender grass rope and the

muscles of a frail girl stood between him and the death yawning

there thousands of feet below.

It seemed to Bertha Kircher that the fingers of her hands were dead.

The numbness was running up her arms to her elbows. How much longer

she could cling to the straining strands she could not guess. It

seemed to her that those lifeless fingers must relax at any instant

and then, when she had about given up hope, she saw a strong brown

hand reach up and grasp the side of the fuselage. Instantly the

weight upon the rope was removed and a moment later Tarzan of the

Apes raised his body above the side and threw a leg over the edge.

He glanced forward at Usanga and then, placing his mouth close to

the girl's ear he cried: "Have you ever piloted a plane?" The girl

nodded a quick affirmative.

"Have you the courage to climb up there beside the black and seize

the control while I take care of him?"

The girl looked toward Usanga and shuddered. "Yes," she replied,

"but my feet are bound."

Tarzan drew his hunting knife from its sheath and reaching down,

severed the thongs that bound her ankles. Then the girl unsnapped

the strap that held her to her seat. With one hand Tarzan grasped

the girl's arm and steadied her as the two crawled slowly across

the few feet which intervened between the two seats. A single slight

tip of the plane would have cast them both into eternity. Tarzan

realized that only through a miracle of chance could they reach

Usanga and effect the change in pilots and yet he knew that that

chance must be taken, for in the brief moments since he had first

seen the plane, he had realized that the black was almost without

experience as a pilot and that death surely awaited them in any

event should the black sergeant remain at the control.

The first intimation Usanga had that all was not well with him was

when the girl slipped suddenly to his side and grasped the control

and at the same instant steel-like fingers seized his throat. A brown

hand shot down with a keen blade and severed the strap about his

waist and giant muscles lifted him bodily from his seat. Usanga

clawed the air and shrieked but he was helpless as a babe. Far

below the watchers in the meadow could see the aeroplane careening

in the sky, for with the change of control it had taken a sudden

dive. They saw it right itself and, turning in a short circle, return

in their direction, but it was so far above them and the light of

the sun so strong that they could see nothing of what was going on

within the fuselage; but presently Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick gave

a gasp of dismay as he saw a human body plunge downward from the

plane. Turning and twisting in mid-air it fell with ever-increasing

velocity and the Englishman held his breath as the thing hurtled

toward them.

With a muffled thud it flattened upon the turf near the center of

the meadow, and when at last the Englishman could gain the courage

to again turn his eyes upon it, he breathed a fervent prayer of

thanks, for the shapeless mass that lay upon the blood-stained turf

was covered with an ebon hide. Usanga had reaped his reward.

Again and again the plane circled above the meadow. The blacks, at

first dismayed at the death of their leader, were now worked to a

frenzy of rage and a determination to be avenged. The girl and the

ape-man saw them gather in a knot about the body of their fallen

chief. They saw as they circled above the meadow the black fists

shaken at them, and the rifles brandishing a menace toward them.

Tarzan still clung to the fuselage directly behind the pilot's seat.

His face was close beside Bertha Kircher's, and at the top of his

voice, above the noise of propeller, engine and exhaust, he screamed

a few words of instruction into her ear.

As the girl grasped the significance of his words she paled, but

her lips set in a hard line and her eyes shone with a sudden fire

of determination as she dropped the plane to within a few feet of

the ground and at the opposite end of the meadow from the blacks

and then at full speed bore down upon the savages. So quickly the

plane came that Usanga's men had no time to escape it after they

realized its menace. It touched the ground just as it struck among

them and mowed through them, a veritable juggernaut of destruction.

When it came to rest at the edge of the forest the ape-man leaped

quickly to the ground and ran toward the young lieutenant, and as

he went he glanced at the spot where the warriors had stood, ready

to defend himself if necessary, but there was none there to oppose

him. Dead and dying they lay strewn for fifty feet along the turf.

By the time Tarzan had freed the Englishman the girl joined them.

She tried to voice her thanks to the ape-man but he silenced her

with a gesture.

"You saved yourself," he insisted, "for had you been unable to

pilot the plane, I could not have helped you, and now," he said,

"you two have the means of returning to the settlements. The day

is still young. You can easily cover the distance in a few hours

if you have sufficient petrol." He looked inquiringly toward the

aviator.

Smith-Oldwick nodded his head affirmatively. "I have plenty," he

replied.

"Then go at once," said the ape-man. "Neither of you belong in the

jungle." A slight smile touched his lips as he spoke.

The girl and the Englishman smiled too. "This jungle is no place

for us at least," said Smith-Oldwick, "and it is no place for any

other white man. Why don't you come back to civilization with us?"

Tarzan shook his head. "I prefer the jungle," he said.

The aviator dug his toe into the ground and still looking down,

blurted something which he evidently hated to say. "If it is a

matter of living, old top," he said, "er--money, er--you know--"

Tarzan laughed. "No," he said. "I know what you are trying to say.

It is not that. I was born in the jungle. I have lived all my life

in the jungle, and I shall die in the jungle. I do not wish to

live or die elsewhere."

The others shook their heads. They could not understand him.

"Go," said the ape-man. "The quicker you go, the quicker you will

reach safety."

They walked to the plane together. Smith-Oldwick pressed the

ape-man's hand and clambered into the pilot's seat. "Good-bye,"

said the girl as she extended her hand to Tarzan. "Before I go

won't you tell me you don't hate me any more?" Tarzan's face clouded.

Without a word he picked her up and lifted her to her place behind

the Englishman. An expression of pain crossed Bertha Kircher's

face. The motor started and a moment later the two were being borne

rapidly toward the east.

In the center of the meadow stood the ape-man watching them. "It

is too bad that she is a German and a spy," he said, "for she is

very hard to hate."

Chapter XIV

The Black Lion

Numa, the lion, was hungry. He had come out of the desert country

to the east into a land of plenty but though he was young and strong,

the wary grass-eaters had managed to elude his mighty talons each

time he had thought to make a kill.

Numa, the lion, was hungry and very savage. For two days he had

not eaten and now he hunted in the ugliest of humors. No more did

Numa roar forth a rumbling challenge to the world but rather he

moved silent and grim, stepping softly that no cracking twig might

betray his presence to the keen-eared quarry he sought.

Fresh was the spoor of Bara, the deer, that Numa picked up in the

well-beaten game trail he was following. No hour had passed since

Bara had come this way; the time could be measured in minutes and

so the great lion redoubled the cautiousness of his advance as he

crept stealthily in pursuit of his quarry.

A light wind was moving through the jungle aisles, and it wafted

down now to the nostrils of the eager carnivore the strong scent

spoor of the deer, exciting his already avid appetite to a point

where it became a gnawing pain. Yet Numa did not permit himself to

be carried away by his desires into any premature charge such as

had recently lost him the juicy meat of Pacco, the zebra. Increasing

his gait but slightly he followed the tortuous windings of the

trail until suddenly just before him, where the trail wound about

the bole of a huge tree, he saw a young buck moving slowly ahead

of him.

Numa judged the distance with his keen eyes, glowing now like two

terrible spots of yellow fire in his wrinkled, snarling face. He

could do it--this time he was sure. One terrific roar that would

paralyze the poor creature ahead of him into momentary inaction,

and a simultaneous charge of lightning-like rapidity and Numa, the

lion, would feed. The sinuous tail, undulating slowly at its tufted

extremity, whipped suddenly erect. It was the signal for the charge

and the vocal organs were shaped for the thunderous roar when, as

lightning out of a clear sky, Sheeta, the panther, leaped suddenly

into the trail between Numa and the deer.

A blundering charge made Sheeta, for with the first crash of his

spotted body through the foliage verging the trail, Bara gave a

single startled backward glance and was gone.

The roar that was intended to paralyze the deer broke horribly from

the deep throat of the great cat--an angry roar of rage against

the meddling Sheeta who had robbed him of his kill, and the charge

that was intended for Bara was launched against the panther; but

here too Numa was doomed to disappointment, for with the first notes

of his fearsome roar Sheeta, considering well the better part of

valor, leaped into a near-by tree.

A half-hour later it was a thoroughly furious Numa who came

unexpectedly upon the scent of man. Heretofore the lord of the jungle

had disdained the unpalatable flesh of the despised man-thing. Such

meat was only for the old, the toothless, and the decrepit who no

longer could make their kills among the fleet-footed grass-eaters.

Bara, the deer, Horta, the boar, and, best and wariest, Pacco, the

zebra, were for the young, the strong, and the agile, but Numa was

hungry--hungrier than he ever had been in the five short years of

his life.

What if he was a young, powerful, cunning, and ferocious beast?

In the face of hunger, the great leveler, he was as the old, the

toothless, and the decrepit. His belly cried aloud in anguish and

his jowls slavered for flesh. Zebra or deer or man, what mattered

it so that it was warm flesh, red with the hot juices of life?

Even Dango, the hyena, eater of offal, would, at the moment, have

seemed a tidbit to Numa.

The great lion knew the habits and frailties of man, though he never

before had hunted man for food. He knew the despised Gomangani as

the slowest, the most stupid, and the most defenseless of creatures.

No woodcraft, no cunning, no stealth was necessary in the hunting

of man, nor had Numa any stomach for either delay or silence.

His rage had become an almost equally consuming passion with

his hunger, so that now, as his delicate nostrils apprised him of

the recent passage of man, he lowered his head and rumbled forth

a thunderous roar, and at a swift walk, careless of the noise he

made, set forth upon the trail of his intended quarry.

Majestic and terrible, regally careless of his surroundings, the

king of beasts strode down the beaten trail. The natural caution

that is inherent to all creatures of the wild had deserted him.

What had he, lord of the jungle, to fear and, with only man to hunt,

what need of caution? And so he did not see or scent what a more

wary Numa might readily have discovered until, with the cracking of

twigs and a tumbling of earth, he was precipitated into a cunningly

devised pit that the wily Wamabos had excavated for just this

purpose in the center of the game trail.

Tarzan of the Apes stood in the center of the clearing watching the

plane shrinking to diminutive toy-like proportions in the eastern

sky. He had breathed a sigh of relief as he saw it rise safely with

the British flier and Fraulein Bertha Kircher. For weeks he had

felt the hampering responsibility of their welfare in this savage

wilderness where their utter helplessness would have rendered them

easy prey for the savage carnivores or the cruel Wamabos. Tarzan

of the Apes loved unfettered freedom, and now that these two were

safely off his hands, he felt that he could continue upon his

journey toward the west coast and the long-untenanted cabin of his

dead father.

And yet, as he stood there watching the tiny speck in the east,

another sigh heaved his broad chest, nor was it a sigh of relief,

but rather a sensation which Tarzan had never expected to feel

again and which he now disliked to admit even to himself. It could

not be possible that he, the jungle bred, who had renounced forever

the society of man to return to his beloved beasts of the wilds,

could be feeling anything akin to regret at the departure of these

two, or any slightest loneliness now that they were gone. Lieutenant

Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick Tarzan had liked, but the woman whom he

had known as a German spy he had hated, though he never had found it

in his heart to slay her as he had sworn to slay all Huns. He had

attributed this weakness to the fact that she was a woman, although

he had been rather troubled by the apparent inconsistency of

his hatred for her and his repeated protection of her when danger

threatened.

With an irritable toss of his head he wheeled suddenly toward the

west as though by turning his back upon the fast disappearing plane

he might expunge thoughts of its passengers from his memory. At

the edge of the clearing he paused; a giant tree loomed directly

ahead of him and, as though actuated by sudden and irresistible

impulse, he leaped into the branches and swung himself with apelike

agility to the topmost limbs that would sustain his weight. There,

balancing lightly upon a swaying bough, he sought in the direction

of the eastern horizon for the tiny speck that would be the British

plane bearing away from him the last of his own race and kind that

he expected ever again to see.

At last his keen eyes picked up the ship flying at a considerable

altitude far in the east. For a few seconds he watched it speeding

evenly eastward, when, to his horror, he saw the speck dive suddenly

downward. The fall seemed interminable to the watcher and he

realized how great must have been the altitude of the plane before

the drop commenced. Just before it disappeared from sight its

downward momentum appeared to abate suddenly, but it was still

moving rapidly at a steep angle when it finally disappeared from

view behind the far hills.

For half a minute the ape-man stood noting distant landmarks that

he judged might be in the vicinity of the fallen plane, for no

sooner had he realized that these people were again in trouble than

his inherent sense of duty to his own kind impelled him once more

to forego his plans and seek to aid them.

The ape-man feared from what he judged of the location of the machine

that it had fallen among the almost impassable gorges of the arid

country just beyond the fertile basin that was bounded by the

hills to the east of him. He had crossed that parched and desolate

country of the dead himself and he knew from his own experience

and the narrow escape he had had from succumbing to its relentless

cruelty no lesser man could hope to win his way to safety from

any considerable distance within its borders. Vividly he recalled

the bleached bones of the long-dead warrior in the bottom of the

precipitous gorge that had all but proved a trap for him as well.

He saw the helmet of hammered brass and the corroded breastplate of

steel and the long straight sword in its scabbard and the ancient

harquebus--mute testimonials to the mighty physique and the

warlike spirit of him who had somehow won, thus illy caparisoned

and pitifully armed, to the center of savage, ancient Africa; and

he saw the slender English youth and the slight figure of the girl

cast into the same fateful trap from which this giant of old had

been unable to escape--cast there wounded and broken perhaps, if

not killed.

His judgment told him that the latter possibility was probably

the fact, and yet there was a chance that they might have landed

without fatal injuries, and so upon this slim chance he started out

upon what he knew would be an arduous journey, fraught with many

hardships and unspeakable peril, that he might attempt to save them

if they still lived.

He had covered a mile perhaps when his quick ears caught the sound

of rapid movement along the game trail ahead of him. The sound,

increasing in volume, proclaimed the fact that whatever caused it

was moving in his direction and moving rapidly. Nor was it long

before his trained senses convinced him that the footfalls were

those of Bara, the deer, in rapid flight. Inextricably confused in

Tarzan's character were the attributes of man and of beasts. Long

experience had taught him that he fights best or travels fastest

who is best nourished, and so, with few exceptions, Tarzan could

delay his most urgent business to take advantage of an opportunity

to kill and feed. This perhaps was the predominant beast trait in

him. The transformation from an English gentleman, impelled by the

most humanitarian motives, to that of a wild beast crouching in the

concealment of a dense bush ready to spring upon its approaching

prey, was instantaneous.

And so, when Bara came, escaping the clutches of Numa and Sheeta,

his terror and his haste precluded the possibility of his sensing

that other equally formidable foe lying in ambush for him. Abreast

of the ape-man came the deer; a light-brown body shot from the

concealing verdure of the bush, strong arms encircled the sleek

neck of the young buck and powerful teeth fastened themselves in

the soft flesh. Together the two rolled over in the trail and a

moment later the ape-man rose, and, with one foot upon the carcass

of his kill, raised his voice in the victory cry of the bull ape.

Like an answering challenge came suddenly to the ears of the

ape-man the thunderous roar of a lion, a hideous angry roar in which

Tarzan thought that he discerned a note of surprise and terror. In

the breast of the wild things of the jungle, as in the breasts of

their more enlightened brothers and sisters of the human race, the

characteristic of curiosity is well developed. Nor was Tarzan far

from innocent of it. The peculiar note in the roar of his hereditary

enemy aroused a desire to investigate, and so, throwing the carcass

of Bara, the deer, across his shoulder, the ape-man took to the

lower terraces of the forest and moved quickly in the direction

from which the sound had come, which was in line with the trail he

had set out upon.

As the distance lessened, the sounds increased in volume, which

indicated that he was approaching a very angry lion and presently,

where a jungle giant overspread the broad game trail that countless

thousands of hoofed and padded feet had worn and trampled into a

deep furrow during perhaps countless ages, he saw beneath him the

lion pit of the Wamabos and in it, leaping futilely for freedom

such a lion as even Tarzan of the Apes never before had beheld. A

mighty beast it was that glared up at the ape-man--large, powerful

and young, with a huge black mane and a coat so much darker than

any Tarzan ever had seen that in the depths of the pit it looked

almost black--a black lion!

Tarzan who had been upon the point of taunting and reviling his

captive foe was suddenly turned to open admiration for the beauty

of the splendid beast. What a creature! How by comparison the

ordinary forest lion was dwarfed into insignificance! Here indeed

was one worthy to be called king of beasts. With his first sight of

the great cat the ape-man knew that he had heard no note of terror

in that initial roar; surprise doubtless, but the vocal chords of

that mighty throat never had reacted to fear.

With growing admiration came a feeling of quick pity for the hapless

situation of the great brute rendered futile and helpless by the

wiles of the Gomangani. Enemy though the beast was, he was less an

enemy to the ape-man than those blacks who had trapped him, for

though Tarzan of the Apes claimed many fast and loyal friends among

certain tribes of African natives, there were others of degraded

character and bestial habits that he looked upon with utter loathing,

and of such were the human flesh-eaters of Numabo the chief. For

a moment Numa, the lion, glared ferociously at the naked man-thing

upon the tree limb above him. Steadily those yellow-green eyes

bored into the clear eyes of the ape-man, and then the sensitive

nostrils caught the scent of the fresh blood of Bara and the eyes

moved to the carcass lying across the brown shoulder, and there

came from the cavernous depths of the savage throat a low whine.

Tarzan of the Apes smiled. As unmistakably as though a human voice

had spoken, the lion had said to him "I am hungry, even more than

hungry. I am starving," and the ape-man looked down upon the lion

beneath him and smiled, a slow quizzical smile, and then he shifted

the carcass from his shoulder to the branch before him and, drawing

the long blade that had been his father's, deftly cut off a hind

quarter and, wiping the bloody blade upon Bara's smooth coat, he

returned it to its scabbard. Numa, with watering jaws, looked up

at the tempting meat and whined again and the ape-man smiled down

upon him his slow smile and, raising the hind quarter in his strong

brown hands buried his teeth in the tender, juicy flesh.

For the third time Numa, the lion, uttered that low pleading whine

and then, with a rueful and disgusted shake of his head, Tarzan of

the Apes raised the balance of the carcass of Bara, the deer, and

hurled it to the famished beast below.

"Old woman," muttered the ape-man. "Tarzan has become a weak old

woman. Presently he would shed tears because he has killed Bara,

the deer. He cannot see Numa, his enemy, go hungry, because Tarzan's

heart is turning to water by contact with the soft, weak creatures

of civilization." But yet he smiled, nor was he sorry that he had

given way to the dictates of a kindly impulse.

As Tarzan tore the flesh from that portion of the kill he had retained

for himself his eyes were taking in each detail of the scene below.

He saw the avidity with which Numa devoured the carcass; he noted

with growing admiration the finer points of the beast, and also

the cunning construction of the trap. The ordinary lion pit with

which Tarzan was familiar had stakes imbedded in the bottom, upon

whose sharpened points the hapless lion would be impaled, but this

pit was not so made. Here the short stakes were set at intervals of

about a foot around the walls near the top, their sharpened points

inclining downward so that the lion had fallen unhurt into the trap

but could not leap out because each time he essayed it his head

came in contact with the sharp end of a stake above him.

Evidently, then, the purpose of the Wamabos was to capture a lion

alive. As this tribe had no contact whatsoever with white men in

so far as Tarzan knew, their motive was doubtless due to a desire

to torture the beast to death that they might enjoy to the utmost

his dying agonies.

Having fed the lion, it presently occurred to Tarzan that his act

would be futile were he to leave the beast to the mercies of the

blacks, and then too it occurred to him that he could derive more

pleasure through causing the blacks discomfiture than by leaving

Numa to his fate. But how was he to release him? By removing two

stakes there would be left plenty of room for the lion to leap from

the pit, which was not of any great depth. However, what assurance

had Tarzan that Numa would not leap out instantly the way to

freedom was open, and before the ape-man could gain the safety of

the trees? Regardless of the fact that Tarzan felt no such fear

of the lion as you and I might experience under like circumstances,

he yet was imbued with the sense of caution that is necessary to

all creatures of the wild if they are to survive. Should necessity

require, Tarzan could face Numa in battle, although he was not so

egotistical as to think that he could best a full-grown lion in

mortal combat other than through accident or the utilization of the

cunning of his superior man-mind. To lay himself liable to death

futilely, he would have considered as reprehensible as to have

shunned danger in time of necessity; but when Tarzan elected to do

a thing he usually found the means to accomplish it.

He had now fully determined to liberate Numa, and having so determined,

he would accomplish it even though it entailed considerable personal

risk. He knew that the lion would be occupied with his feeding for

some time, but he also knew that while feeding he would be doubly

resentful of any fancied interference. Therefore Tarzan must work

with caution.

Coming to the ground at the side of the pit, he examined the stakes

and as he did so was rather surprised to note that Numa gave no

evidence of anger at his approach. Once he turned a searching gaze

upon the ape-man for a moment and then returned to the flesh of

Bara. Tarzan felt of the stakes and tested them with his weight.

He pulled upon them with the muscles of his strong arms, presently

discovering that by working them back and forth he could loosen

them: and then a new plan was suggested to him so that he fell to

work excavating with his knife at a point above where one of the

stakes was imbedded. The loam was soft and easily removed, and it

was not long until Tarzan had exposed that part of one of the stakes

which was imbedded in the wall of the pit to almost its entire

length, leaving only enough imbedded to prevent the stake from

falling into the excavation. Then he turned his attention to an

adjoining stake and soon had it similarly exposed, after which he

threw the noose of his grass rope over the two and swung quickly

to the branch of the tree above. Here he gathered in the slack of

the rope and, bracing himself against the bole of the tree, pulled

steadily upward. Slowly the stakes rose from the trench in which

they were imbedded and with them rose Numa's suspicion and growling.

Was this some new encroachment upon his rights and his liberties?

He was puzzled and, like all lions, being short of temper, he

was irritated. He had not minded it when the Tarmangani squatted

upon the verge of the pit and looked down upon him, for had not

this Tarmangani fed him? But now something else was afoot and the

suspicion of the wild beast was aroused. As he watched, however,

Numa saw the stakes rise slowly to an erect position, tumble

against each other and then fall backwards out of his sight upon

the surface of the ground above. Instantly the lion grasped the

possibilities of the situation, and, too, perhaps he sensed the fact

that the man-thing had deliberately opened a way for his escape.

Seizing the remains of Bara in his great jaws, Numa, the lion,

leaped agilely from the pit of the Wamabos and Tarzan of the Apes

melted into the jungles to the east.

On the surface of the ground or through the swaying branches of the

trees the spoor of man or beast was an open book to the ape-man, but

even his acute senses were baffled by the spoorless trail of the

airship. Of what good were eyes, or ears, or the sense of smell

in following a thing whose path had lain through the shifting

air thousands of feet above the tree tops? Only upon his sense of

direction could Tarzan depend in his search for the fallen plane.

He could not even judge accurately as to the distance it might

lie from him, and he knew that from the moment that it disappeared

beyond the hills it might have traveled a considerable distance at

right angles to its original course before it crashed to earth. If

its occupants were killed or badly injured the ape-man might search

futilely in their immediate vicinity for some time before finding

them.

There was but one thing to do and that was to travel to a point

as close as possible to where he judged the plane had landed, and

then to follow in ever-widening circles until he picked up their

scent spoor. And this he did.

Before he left the valley of plenty he made several kills and

carried the choicest cuts of meat with him, leaving all the dead

weight of bones behind. The dense vegetation of the jungle terminated

at the foot of the western slope, growing less and less abundant

as he neared the summit beyond which was a sparse growth of sickly

scrub and sunburned grasses, with here and there a gnarled and hardy

tree that had withstood the vicissitudes of an almost waterless

existence.

From the summit of the hills Tarzan's keen eyes searched the arid

landscape before him. In the distance he discerned the ragged

tortuous lines that marked the winding course of the hideous gorges

which scored the broad plain at intervals--the terrible gorges that

had so nearly claimed his life in punishment for his temerity in

attempting to invade the sanctity of their ancient solitude.

For two days Tarzan sought futilely for some clew to the whereabouts

of the machine or its occupants. He cached portions of his kills at

different points, building cairns of rock to mark their locations.

He crossed the first deep gorge and circled far beyond it. Occasionally

he stopped and called aloud, listening for some response but

only silence rewarded him--a sinister silence that his cries only

accentuated.

Late in the evening of the second day he came to the well-remembered

gorge in which lay the clean-picked bones of the ancient adventurer,

and here, for the first time, Ska, the vulture, picked up his trail.

"Not this time, Ska," cried the ape-man in a taunting voice, "for

now indeed is Tarzan Tarzan. Before, you stalked the grim skeleton

of a Tarmangani and even then you lost. Waste not your time upon

Tarzan of the Apes in the full of his strength." But still Ska, the

vulture, circled and soared above him, and the ape-man, notwithstanding

his boasts, felt a shudder of apprehension. Through his brain ran

a persistent and doleful chant to which he involuntarily set two

words, repeated over and over again in horrible monotony: "Ska

knows! Ska knows!" until, shaking himself in anger, he picked up

a rock and hurled it at the grim scavenger.

Lowering himself over the precipitous side of the gorge Tarzan half

clambered and half slid to the sandy floor beneath. He had come

upon the rift at almost the exact spot at which he had clambered

from it weeks before, and there he saw, just as he had left it,

just, doubtless, as it had lain for centuries, the mighty skeleton

and its mighty armor.

As he stood looking down upon this grim reminder that another man

of might had succumbed to the cruel powers of the desert, he was

brought to startled attention by the report of a firearm, the sound

of which came from the depths of the gorge to the south of him,

and reverberated along the steep walls of the narrow rift.

Chapter XV

Mysterious Footprints

As the British plane piloted by Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick

rose above the jungle wilderness where Bertha Kircher's life had

so often been upon the point of extinction, and sped toward the

east, the girl felt a sudden contraction of the muscles of her

throat. She tried very hard to swallow something that was not there.

It seemed strange to her that she should feel regret in leaving

behind her such hideous perils, and yet it was plain to her that

such was the fact, for she was also leaving behind something beside

the dangers that had menaced her--a unique figure that had entered

her life, and for which she felt an unaccountable attraction.

Before her in the pilot's seat sat an English officer and gentleman

whom, she knew, loved her, and yet she dared to feel regret in his

company at leaving the stamping ground of a wild beast!

Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick, on his part, was in the seventh heaven

of elation. He was in possession again of his beloved ship, he was

flying swiftly in the direction of his comrades and his duty, and

with him was the woman he loved. The fly in the ointment, however,

was the accusation Tarzan had made against this woman. He had said

that she was a German, and a spy, and from the heights of bliss the

English officer was occasionally plunged to the depths of despair

in contemplation of the inevitable, were the ape-man's charges to

prove true. He found himself torn between sentiments of love and

honor. On the one hand he could not surrender the woman he loved

to the certain fate that must be meted out to her if she were in

truth an enemy spy, while on the other it would be equally impossible

for him as an Englishman and an officer to give her aid or protection.

The young man contented himself therefore with repeated mental

denials of her guilt. He tried to convince himself that Tarzan was

mistaken, and when he conjured upon the screen of recollection the

face of the girl behind him, he was doubly reassured that those

lines of sweet femininity and character, those clear and honest

eyes, could not belong to one of the hated alien race.

And so they sped toward the east, each wrapped in his own thoughts.

Below them they saw the dense vegetation of the jungle give place

to the scantier growth upon the hillside, and then before them

there spread the wide expanse of arid wastelands marked by the deep

scarring of the narrow gorges that long-gone rivers had cut there

in some forgotten age.

Shortly after they passed the summit of the ridge which formed

the boundary between the desert and the fertile country, Ska, the

vulture, winging his way at a high altitude toward his aerie, caught

sight of a strange new bird of gigantic proportions encroaching upon

the preserves of his aerial domain. Whether with intent to give

battle to the interloper or merely impelled by curiosity, Ska rose

suddenly upward to meet the plane. Doubtless he misjudged the speed

of the newcomer, but be that as it may, the tip of the propeller

blade touched him and simultaneously many things happened. The

lifeless body of Ska, torn and bleeding, dropped plummet-like toward

the ground; a bit of splintered spruce drove backward to strike

the pilot on the forehead; the plane shuddered and trembled and

as Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick sank forward in momentary

unconsciousness the ship dived headlong toward the earth.

Only for an instant was the pilot unconscious, but that instant

almost proved their undoing. When he awoke to a realization of

their peril it was also to discover that his motor had stalled.

The plane had attained frightful momentum, and the ground seemed

too close for him to hope to flatten out in time to make a safe

landing. Directly beneath him was a deep rift in the plateau, a

narrow gorge, the bottom of which appeared comparatively level and

sand covered.

In the brief instant in which he must reach a decision, the safest

plan seemed to attempt a landing in the gorge, and this he did, but

not without considerable damage to the plane and a severe shaking-up

for himself and his passenger.

Fortunately neither of them was injured but their condition seemed

indeed a hopeless one. It was a grave question as to whether the

man could repair his plane and continue the journey, and it seemed

equally questionable as to their ability either to proceed on foot

to the coast or retrace their way to the country they had just

left. The man was confident that they could not hope to cross the

desert country to the east in the face of thirst and hunger, while

behind them in the valley of plenty lay almost equal danger in the

form of carnivores and the warlike natives.

After the plane came to its sudden and disastrous stop, Smith-Oldwick

turned quickly to see what the effect of the accident had been on

the girl. He found her pale but smiling, and for several seconds

the two sat looking at each other in silence.

"This is the end?" the girl asked.

The Englishman shook his head. "It is the end of the first leg,

anyway," he replied.

"But you can't hope to make repairs here," she said dubiously.

"No," he said, "not if they amount to anything, but I may be able

to patch it up. I will have to look her over a bit first. Let us

hope there is nothing serious. It's a long, long way to the Tanga

railway."

"We would not get far," said the girl, a slight note of hopelessness

in her tone. "Entirely unarmed as we are, it would be little less

than a miracle if we covered even a small fraction of the distance."

"But we are not unarmed," replied the man. "I have an extra pistol

here, that the beggars didn't discover," and, removing the cover

of a compartment, he drew forth an automatic.

Bertha Kircher leaned back in her seat and laughed aloud, a mirthless,

half-hysterical laugh. "That popgun!" she exclaimed. "What earthly

good would it do other than to infuriate any beast of prey you

might happen to hit with it?"

Smith-Oldwick looked rather crestfallen. "But it is a weapon," he

said. "You will have to admit that, and certainly I could kill a

man with it."

"You could if you happened to hit him," said the girl, "or the

thing didn't jam. Really, I haven't much faith in an automatic. I

have used them myself."

"Oh, of course," he said ironically, "an express rifle would be

better, for who knows but we might meet an elephant here in the

desert."

The girl saw that he was hurt, and she was sorry, for she realized

that there was nothing he would not do in her service or protection,

and that it was through no fault of his that he was so illy armed.

Doubtless, too, he realized as well as she the futility of his

weapon, and that he had only called attention to it in the hope of

reassuring her and lessening her anxiety.

"Forgive me," she said. "I did not mean to be nasty, but this

accident is the proverbial last straw. It seems to me that I have

borne all that I can. Though I was willing to give my life in the

service of my country, I did not imagine that my death agonies would

be so long drawn out, for I realize now that I have been dying for

many weeks."

"What do you mean!" he exclaimed; "what do you mean by that! You

are not dying. There is nothing the matter with you."

"Oh, not that," she said, "I did not mean that. What I mean is that

at the moment the black sergeant, Usanga, and his renegade German

native troops captured me and brought me inland, my death warrant

was signed. Sometimes I have imagined that a reprieve has been

granted. Sometimes I have hoped that I might be upon the verge of

winning a full pardon, but really in the depths of my heart I have

known that I should never live to regain civilization. I have done

my bit for my country, and though it was not much I can at least

go with the realization that it was the best I was able to offer.

All that I can hope for now, all that I ask for, is a speedy

fulfillment of the death sentence. I do not wish to linger any more

to face constant terror and apprehension. Even physical torture

would be preferable to what I have passed through. I have no doubt

that you consider me a brave woman, but really my terror has been

boundless. The cries of the carnivores at night fill me with a dread

so tangible that I am in actual pain. I feel the rending talons

in my flesh and the cruel fangs munching upon my bones--it is as

real to me as though I were actually enduring the horrors of such

a death. I doubt if you can understand it--men are so different."

"Yes," he said, "I think I can understand it, and because I understand

I can appreciate more than you imagine the heroism you have shown

in your endurance of all that you have passed through. There can

be no bravery where there is no fear. A child might walk into a

lion's den, but it would take a very brave man to go to its rescue."

"Thank you," she said, "but I am not brave at all, and now I am

very much ashamed of my thoughtlessness for your own feelings. I

will try and take a new grip upon myself and we will both hope for

the best. I will help you all I can if you will tell me what I may

do."

"The first thing," he replied, "is to find out just how serious

our damage is, and then to see what we can do in the way of repairs."

For two days Smith-Oldwick worked upon the damaged plane--worked

in the face of the fact that from the first he realized the case

was hopeless. And at last he told her.

"I knew it," she said, "but I believe that I felt much as you must

have; that however futile our efforts here might be, it would be

infinitely as fatal to attempt to retrace our way to the jungle we

just left or to go on toward the coast. You know and I know that we

could not reach the Tanga railway on foot. We should die of thirst

and starvation before we had covered half the distance, and if we

return to the jungle, even were we able to reach it, it would be

but to court an equally certain, though different, fate."

"So we might as well sit here and wait for death as to uselessly

waste our energies in what we know would be a futile attempt at

escape?" he asked.

"No," she replied, "I shall never give up like that. What I meant

was that it was useless to attempt to reach either of the places

where we know that there is food and water in abundance, so we

must strike out in a new direction. Somewhere there may be water

in this wilderness and if there is, the best chance of our finding

it would be to follow this gorge downward. We have enough food and

water left, if we are careful of it, for a couple of days and in

that time we might stumble upon a spring or possibly even reach

the fertile country which I know lies to the south. When Usanga

brought me to the Wamabo country from the coast he took a southerly

route along which there was usually water and game in plenty. It

was not until we neared our destination that the country became

overrun with carnivores. So there is hope if we can reach the

fertile country south of us that we can manage to pull through to

the coast."

The man shook his head dubiously. "We can try it," he said.

"Personally, I do not fancy sitting here waiting for death."

Smith-Oldwick was leaning against the ship, his dejected gaze

directed upon the ground at his feet. The girl was looking south

down the gorge in the direction of their one slender chance of

life. Suddenly she touched him on the arm.

"Look," she whispered.

The man raised his eyes quickly in the direction of her gaze to

see the massive head of a great lion who was regarding them from

beyond a rocky projection at the first turning of the gorge.

"Phew!" he exclaimed, "the beggars are everywhere."

"They do not go far from water do they," asked the girl hopefully.

"I should imagine not," he replied; "a lion is not particularly

strong on endurance."

"Then he is a harbinger of hope," she exclaimed.

The man laughed. "Cute little harbinger of hope!" he said. "Reminds

me of Cock Robin heralding spring."

The girl cast a quick glance at him. "Don't be silly, and I don't

care if you do laugh. He fills me with hope."

"It is probably mutual," replied Smith-Oldwick, "as we doubtless

fill him with hope."

The lion evidently having satisfied himself as to the nature of

the creatures before him advanced slowly now in their direction.

"Come," said the man, "let's climb aboard," and he helped the girl

over the side of the ship.

"Can't he get in here?" she asked.

"I think he can," said the man.

"You are reassuring," she returned.

"I don't feel so." He drew his pistol.

"For heaven's sake," she cried, "don't shoot at him with that thing.

You might hit him."

"I don't intend to shoot at him but I might succeed in frightening

him away if he attempts to reach us here. Haven't you ever seen a

trainer work with lions? He carries a silly little pop-gun loaded

with blank cartridges. With that and a kitchen chair he subdues

the most ferocious of beasts."

"But you haven't a kitchen chair," she reminded him.

"No," he said, "Government is always muddling things. I have always

maintained that airplanes should be equipped with kitchen chairs."

Bertha Kircher laughed as evenly and with as little hysteria as

though she were moved by the small talk of an afternoon tea.

Numa, the lion, came steadily toward them; his attitude seemed

more that of curiosity than of belligerency. Close to the side of

the ship he stopped and stood gazing up at them.

"Magnificent, isn't he?" exclaimed the man.

"I never saw a more beautiful creature," she replied, "nor one with

such a dark coat. Why, he is almost black."

The sound of their voices seemed not to please the lord of the

jungle, for he suddenly wrinkled his great face into deep furrows

as he bared his fangs beneath snarling lips and gave vent to an

angry growl. Almost simultaneously he crouched for a spring and

immediately Smith-Oldwick discharged his pistol into the ground in

front of the lion. The effect of the noise upon Numa seemed but to

enrage him further, and with a horrid roar he sprang for the author

of the new and disquieting sound that had outraged his ears.

Simultaneously Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick vaulted nimbly

out of the cockpit on the opposite side of his plane, calling to

the girl to follow his example. The girl, realizing the futility

of leaping to the ground, chose the remaining alternative and

clambered to the top of the upper plane.

Numa, unaccustomed to the idiosyncrasies of construction of an

airship and having gained the forward cockpit, watched the girl

clamber out of his reach without at first endeavoring to prevent

her. Having taken possession of the plane his anger seemed suddenly

to leave him and he made no immediate move toward following

Smith-Oldwick. The girl, realizing the comparative safety of her

position, had crawled to the outer edge of the wing and was calling

to the man to try and reach the opposite end of the upper plane.

It was this scene upon which Tarzan of the Apes looked as he

rounded the bend of the gorge above the plane after the pistol shot

had attracted his attention. The girl was so intent upon watching

the efforts of the Englishman to reach a place of safety, and the

latter was so busily occupied in attempting to do so that neither

at once noticed the silent approach of the ape-man.

It was Numa who first noticed the intruder. The lion immediately

evinced his displeasure by directing toward him a snarling countenance

and a series of warning growls. His action called the attention of

the two upon the upper plane to the newcomer, eliciting a stifled

"Thank God!" from the girl, even though she could scarce credit the

evidence of her own eyes that it was indeed the savage man, whose

presence always assured her safety, who had come so providentially

in the nick of time.

Almost immediately both were horrified to see Numa leap from the

cockpit and advance upon Tarzan. The ape-man, carrying his stout

spear in readiness, moved deliberately onward to meet the carnivore,

which he had recognized as the lion of the Wamabos' pit. He knew

from the manner of Numa's approach what neither Bertha Kircher nor

Smith-Oldwick knew--that there was more of curiosity than belligerency

in it, and he wondered if in that great head there might not be a

semblance of gratitude for the kindness that Tarzan had done him.

There was no question in Tarzan's mind but that Numa recognized

him, for he knew his fellows of the jungle well enough to know that

while they oft-times forgot certain sensations more quickly than

man there are others which remain in their memories for years. A

well-defined scent spoor might never be forgotten by a beast if it

had first been sensed under unusual circumstances, and so Tarzan

was confident that Numa's nose had already reminded him of all the

circumstances of their brief connection.

Love of the sporting chance is inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race and

it was not now Tarzan of the Apes but rather John Clayton, Lord

Greystoke, who smilingly welcomed the sporting chance which he must

take to discover how far-reaching was Numa's gratitude.

Smith-Oldwick and the girl saw the two nearing each other. The

former swore softly beneath his breath while he nervously fingered

the pitiful weapon at his hip. The girl pressed her open palms to

her cheeks as she leaned forward in stony-eyed, horror-stricken

silence. While she had every confidence in the prowess of the godlike

creature who thus dared brazenly to face the king of beasts, she

had no false conception of what must certainly happen when they

met. She had seen Tarzan battle with Sheeta, the panther, and she

had realized then that powerful as the man was, it was only agility,

cunning, and chance that placed him upon anywhere near an equal

footing with his savage adversary, and that of the three factors

upon his side chance was the greatest.

She saw the man and the lion stop simultaneously, not more than

a yard apart. She saw the beast's tail whipping from side to side

and she could hear his deep-throated growls rumbling from his

cavernous breast, but she could read correctly neither the movement

of the lashing tail nor the notes of the growl.

To her they seemed to indicate nothing but bestial rage while to

Tarzan of the Apes they were conciliatory and reassuring in the

extreme. And then she saw Numa move forward again until his nose

touched the man's naked leg and she closed her eyes and covered

them with her palms. For what seemed an eternity she waited for

the horrid sound of the conflict which she knew must come, but all

she heard was an explosive sigh of relief from Smith-Oldwick and

a half-hysterical "By Jove! Just fancy it!"

She looked up to see the great lion rubbing his shaggy head against

the man's hip, and Tarzan's free hand entangled in the black mane

as he scratched Numa, the lion, behind a back-laid ear.

Strange friendships are often formed between the lower animals

of different species, but less often between man and the savage

felidae, because of the former's inherent fear of the great cats.

And so after all, therefore, the friendship so suddenly developed

between the savage lion and the savage man was not inexplicable.

As Tarzan approached the plane Numa walked at his side, and when

Tarzan stopped and looked up at the girl and the man Numa stopped

also.

"I had about given up hope of finding you," said the ape-man, "and

it is evident that I found you just in time."

"But how did you know we were in trouble?" asked the English officer.

"I saw your plane fall," replied Tarzan. "I was watching you from

a tree beside the clearing where you took off. I didn't have much

to locate you by other than the general direction, but it seems

that you volplaned a considerable distance toward the south after

you disappeared from my view behind the hills. I have been looking

for you further toward the north. I was just about to turn back

when I heard your pistol shot. Is your ship beyond repair?"

"Yes," replied Smith-Oldwick, "it is hopeless."

"What are your plans, then? What do you wish to do?" Tarzan directed

his question to the girl.

"We want to reach the coast," she said, "but it seems impossible

now."

"I should have thought so a little while ago," replied the ape-man,

"but if Numa is here there must be water within a reasonable

distance. I ran across this lion two days ago in the Wamabo country.

I liberated him from one of their pits. To have reached this spot

he must have come by some trail unknown to me--at least I crossed

no game trail and no spoor of any animal after I came over the hills

out of the fertile country. From which direction did he come upon

you?"

"It was from the south," replied the girl. "We thought, too, that

there must be water in that direction."

"Let's find out then," said Tarzan.

"But how about the lion?" asked Smith-Oldwick.

"That we will have to discover," replied the ape-man, "and we can

only do so if you will come down from your perch."

The officer shrugged his shoulders. The girl turned her gaze upon

him to note the effect of Tarzan's proposal. The Englishman grew

suddenly very white, but there was a smile upon his lips as without

a word he slipped over the edge of the plane and clambered to the

ground behind Tarzan.

Bertha Kircher realized that the man was afraid nor did she blame

him, and she also realized the remarkable courage that he had shown

in thus facing a danger that was very real to him.

Numa standing close to Tarzan's side raised his head and glared at

the young Englishman, growled once, and looked up at the ape-man.

Tarzan retained a hold upon the beast's mane and spoke to him in

the language of the great apes. To the girl and Smith-Oldwick the

growling gutturals falling from human lips sounded uncanny in the

extreme, but whether Numa understood them or not they appeared to

have the desired effect upon him, as he ceased growling, and as

Tarzan walked to Smith-Oldwick's side Numa accompanied him, nor

did he offer to molest the officer.

"What did you say to him?" asked the girl.

Tarzan smiled. "I told him," he replied, "that I am Tarzan of the

Apes, mighty hunter, killer of beasts, lord of the jungle, and that

you are my friends. I have never been sure that all of the other

beasts understand the language of the Mangani. I know that Manu,

the monkey, speaks nearly the same tongue and I am sure that Tantor,

the elephant, understands all that I say to him. We of the jungle

are great boasters. In our speech, in our carriage, in every detail

of our demeanor we must impress others with our physical power and

our ferocity. That is why we growl at our enemies. We are telling

them to beware or we shall fall upon them and tear them to pieces.

Perhaps Numa does not understand the words that I use but I believe

that my tones and my manner carry the impression that I wish them

to convey. Now you may come down and be introduced."

It required all the courage that Bertha Kircher possessed to lower

herself to the ground within reach of the talons and fangs of this

untamed forest beast, but she did it. Nor did Numa do more than

bare his teeth and growl a little as she came close to the ape-man.

"I think you are safe from him as long as I am present," said the

ape-man. "The best thing to do is simply to ignore him. Make no

advances, but be sure to give no indication of fear and, if possible

always keep me between you and him. He will go away presently I am

sure and the chances are that we shall not see him again."

At Tarzan's suggestion Smith-Oldwick removed the remaining water

and provisions from the plane and, distributing the burden among

them, they set off toward the south. Numa did not follow them, but

stood by the plane watching until they finally disappeared from

view around a bend in the gorge.

Tarzan had picked up Numa's trail with the intention of following

it southward in the belief that it would lead to water. In the sand

that floored the bottom of the gorge tracks were plain and easily

followed. At first only the fresh tracks of Numa were visible, but

later in the day the ape-man discovered the older tracks of other

lions and just before dark he stopped suddenly in evident surprise.

His two companions looked at him questioningly, and in answer to

their implied interrogations he pointed at the ground directly in

front of him.

"Look at those," he exclaimed.

At first neither Smith-Oldwick nor the girl saw anything but a

confusion of intermingled prints of padded feet in the sand, but

presently the girl discovered what Tarzan had seen, and an exclamation

of surprise broke from her lips.

"The imprint of human feet!" she cried.

Tarzan nodded.

"But there are no toes," the girl pointed out.

"The feet were shod with a soft sandal," explained Tarzan.

"Then there must be a native village somewhere in the vicinity,"

said Smith-Oldwick.

"Yes," replied the ape-man, "but not the sort of natives which we

would expect to find here in this part of Africa where others all

go unshod with the exception of a few of Usanga's renegade German

native troops who wear German army shoes. I don't know that you can

notice it, but it is evident to me that the foot inside the sandal

that made these imprints were not the foot of a Negro. If you will

examine them carefully you will notice that the impression of the

heel and ball of the foot are well marked even through the sole of

the sandal. The weight comes more nearly in the center of a Negro's

footprint."

"Then you think these were made by a white person?"

"It looks that way," replied Tarzan, and suddenly, to the surprise

of both the girl and Smith-Oldwick, he dropped to his hands and

knees and sniffed at the tracks--again a beast utilizing the senses

and woodcraft of a beast. Over an area of several square yards his

keen nostrils sought the identity of the makers of the tracks. At

length he rose to his feet.

"It is not the spoor of the Gomangani," he said, "nor is it exactly

like that of white men. There were three who came this way. They

were men, but of what race I do not know."

There was no apparent change in the nature of the gorge except that

it had steadily grown deeper as they followed it downward until now

the rocky and precipitous sides rose far above them. At different

points natural caves, which appeared to have been eroded by the action

of water in some forgotten age, pitted the side walls at various

heights. Near them was such a cavity at the ground's level--an

arched cavern floored with white sand. Tarzan indicated it with a

gesture of his hand.

"We will lair here tonight," he said, and then with one of his

rare, slow smiles: "We will CAMP here tonight."

Having eaten their meager supper Tarzan bade the girl enter the

cavern.

"You will sleep inside," he said. "The lieutenant and I will lie

outside at the entrance."

Chapter XVI

The Night Attack

As the girl turned to bid them good night, she thought that she

saw a shadowy form moving in the darkness beyond them, and almost

simultaneously she was sure that she heard the sounds of stealthy

movement in the same direction.

"What is that?" she whispered. "There is something out there in

the darkness."

"Yes," replied Tarzan, "it is a lion. It has been there for some

time. Hadn't you noticed it before?"

"Oh!" cried the girl, breathing a sigh of relief, "is it our lion?"

"No," said Tarzan, "it is not our lion; it is another lion and he

is hunting."

"He is stalking us?" asked the girl.

"He is," replied the ape-man. Smith-Oldwick fingered the grip of

his pistol.

Tarzan saw the involuntary movement and shook his head.

"Leave that thing where it is, Lieutenant," he said.

The officer laughed nervously. "I couldn't help it, you know, old

man," he said; "instinct of self-preservation and all that."

"It would prove an instinct of self-destruction," said Tarzan.

"There are at least three hunting lions out there watching us. If

we had a fire or the moon were up you would see their eyes plainly.

Presently they may come after us but the chances are that they will

not. If you are very anxious that they should, fire your pistol

and hit one of them."

"What if they do charge?" asked the girl; "there is no means of

escape."

"Why, we should have to fight them," replied Tarzan.

"What chance would we three have against them?" asked the girl.

The ape-man shrugged his shoulders. "One must die sometime," he

said. "To you doubtless it may seem terrible--such a death; but

Tarzan of the Apes has always expected to go out in some such way.

Few of us die of old age in the jungle, nor should I care to die

thus. Some day Numa will get me, or Sheeta, or a black warrior.

These or some of the others. What difference does it make which

it is, or whether it comes tonight or next year or in ten years?

After it is over it will be all the same."

The girl shuddered. "Yes," she said in a dull, hopeless voice,

"after it is over it will be all the same."

Then she went into the cavern and lay down upon the sand. Smith-Oldwick

sat in the entrance and leaned against the cliff. Tarzan squatted

on the opposite side.

"May I smoke?" questioned the officer of Tarzan. "I have been

hoarding a few cigarettes and if it won't attract those bouncers

out there I would like to have one last smoke before I cash in.

Will you join me?" and he proffered the ape-man a cigarette.

"No, thanks," said Tarzan, "but it will be all right if you smoke.

No wild animal is particularly fond of the fumes of tobacco so it

certainly won't entice them any closer."

Smith-Oldwick lighted his cigarette and sat puffing slowly upon

it. He had proffered one to the girl but she had refused, and thus

they sat in silence for some time, the silence of the night ruffled

occasionally by the faint crunching of padded feet upon the soft

sands of the gorge's floor.

It was Smith-Oldwick who broke the silence. "Aren't they unusually

quiet for lions?" he asked.

"No," replied the ape-man; "the lion that goes roaring around the

jungle does not do it to attract prey. They are very quiet when

they are stalking their quarry."

"I wish they would roar," said the officer. "I wish they would

do anything, even charge. Just knowing that they are there and

occasionally seeing something like a shadow in the darkness and the

faint sounds that come to us from them are getting on my nerves.

But I hope," he said, "that all three don't charge at once."

"Three?" said Tarzan. "There are seven of them out there now."

"Good Lord! exclaimed Smith-Oldwick.

"Couldn't we build a fire," asked the girl, "and frighten them

away?"

"I don't know that it would do any good," said Tarzan, "as I have

an idea that these lions are a little different from any that we

are familiar with and possibly for the same reason which at first

puzzled me a little--I refer to the apparent docility in the

presence of a man of the lion who was with us today. A man is out

there now with those lions."

"It is impossible!" exclaimed Smith-Oldwick. "They would tear him

to pieces."

"What makes you think there is a man there?" asked the girl.

Tarzan smiled and shook his head. "I am afraid you would not

understand," he replied. "It is difficult for us to understand

anything that is beyond our own powers."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the officer.

"Well," said Tarzan, "if you had been born without eyes you could

not understand sense impressions that the eyes of others transmit

to their brains, and as you have both been born without any sense

of smell I am afraid you cannot understand how I can know that

there is a man there."

"You mean that you scent a man?" asked the girl.

Tarzan nodded affirmatively.

"And in the same way you know the number of lions?" asked the man.

"Yes," said Tarzan. "No two lions look alike, no two have the same

scent."

The young Englishman shook his head. "No," he said, "I cannot

understand."

"I doubt if the lions or the man are here necessarily for the purpose

of harming us," said Tarzan, "because there has been nothing to

prevent their doing so long before had they wished to. I have a

theory, but it is utterly preposterous."

"What is it?" asked the girl.

"I think they are here," replied Tarzan, "to prevent us from going

some place that they do not wish us to go; in other words we are

under surveillance, and possibly as long as we don't go where we

are not wanted we shall not be bothered."

"But how are we to know where they don't want us to go?" asked

Smith-Oldwick.

"We can't know," replied Tarzan, "and the chances are that the very

place we are seeking is the place they don't wish us to trespass

on."

"You mean the water?" asked the girl.

"Yes," replied Tarzan.

For some time they sat in silence which was broken only by an

occasional sound of movement from the outer darkness. It must have

been an hour later that the ape-man rose quietly and drew his long

blade from its sheath. Smith-Oldwick was dozing against the rocky

wall of the cavern entrance, while the girl, exhausted by the

excitement and fatigue of the day, had fallen into deep slumber. An

instant after Tarzan arose, Smith-Oldwick and the girl were aroused

by a volley of thunderous roars and the noise of many padded feet

rushing toward them.

Tarzan of the Apes stood directly before the entrance to the cavern,

his knife in his hand, awaiting the charge. The ape-man had not

expected any such concerted action as he now realized had been taken

by those watching them. He had known for some time that other men

had joined those who were with the lions earlier in the evening,

and when he arose to his feet it was because he knew that the lions

and the men were moving cautiously closer to him and his party.

He might easily have eluded them, for he had seen that the face of

the cliff rising above the mouth of the cavern might be scaled by

as good a climber as himself. It might have been wiser had he tried

to escape, for he knew that in the face of such odds even he was

helpless, but he stood his ground though I doubt if he could have

told why.

He owed nothing either of duty or friendship to the girl sleeping

in the cavern, nor could he longer be of any protection to her or

her companion. Yet something held him there in futile self-sacrifice.

The great Tarmangani had not even the satisfaction of striking a

blow in self-defense. A veritable avalanche of savage beasts rolled

over him and threw him heavily to the ground. In falling his head

struck the rocky surface of the cliff, stunning him.

It was daylight when he regained consciousness. The first dim

impression borne to his awakening mind was a confusion of savage

sounds which gradually resolved themselves into the growling

of lions, and then, little by little, there came back to him the

recollections of what had preceded the blow that had felled him.

Strong in his nostrils was the scent of Numa, the lion, and against

one naked leg he could feel the coat of some animal. Slowly Tarzan

opened his eyes. He was lying on his side and as he looked down his

body, he saw that a great lion stood straddling him--a great lion

who growled hideously at something which Tarzan could not see.

With the full return of his senses Tarzan's nose told him that the

beast above him was Numa of the Wamabo pit.

Thus reassured, the ape-man spoke to the lion and at the same time

made a motion as though he would arise. Immediately Numa stepped

from above him. As Tarzan raised his head, he saw that he still

lay where he had fallen before the opening of the cliff where the

girl had been sleeping and that Numa, backed against the cliffside,

was apparently defending him from two other lions who paced to and

fro a short distance from their intended victim.

And then Tarzan turned his eyes into the cave and saw that the girl

and Smith-Oldwick were gone.

His efforts had been for naught. With an angry toss of his head,

the ape-man turned upon the two lions who had continued to pace

back and forth a few yards from him. Numa of the lion pit turned a

friendly glance in Tarzan's direction, rubbed his head against the

ape-man's side, and then directed his snarling countenance toward

the two hunters.

"I think," said Tarzan to Numa, "that you and I together can make

these beasts very unhappy." He spoke in English, which, of course,

Numa did not understand at all, but there must have been something

reassuring in the tone, for Numa whined pleadingly and moved

impatiently to and fro parallel with their antagonists.

"Come," said Tarzan suddenly and grasping the lion's mane with his

left hand he moved toward the other lions, his companion pacing

at his side. As the two advanced the others drew slowly back and,

finally separating, moved off to either side. Tarzan and Numa

passed between them but neither the great black-maned lion nor the

man failed to keep an eye upon the beast nearer him so that they

were not caught unawares when, as though at some preconcerted

signal, the two cats charged simultaneously from opposite directions.

The ape-man met the charge of his antagonist after the same fashion

of fighting that he had been accustomed to employing in previous

encounters with Numa and Sheeta. To have attempted to meet the

full shock of a lion's charge would have been suicidal even for

the giant Tarmangani. Instead he resorted to methods of agility and

cunning, for quick as are the great cats, even quicker is Tarzan

of the Apes.

With outspread, raking talons and bared fangs Numa sprang for the

naked chest of the ape-man. Throwing up his left arm as a boxer might

ward off a blow, Tarzan struck upward beneath the left forearm of

the lion, at the same time rushing in with his shoulder beneath

the animal's body and simultaneously drove his blade into the tawny

hide behind the shoulder. With a roar of pain Numa wheeled again,

the personification of bestial rage. Now indeed would he exterminate

this presumptuous man-thing who dared even to think that he could

thwart the king of beasts in his desires. But as he wheeled, his

intended quarry wheeled with him, brown fingers locked in the heavy

mane on the powerful neck and again the blade struck deep into the

lion's side.

Then it was that Numa went mad with hate and pain and at the same

instant the ape-man leaped full upon his back. Easily before had

Tarzan locked his legs beneath the belly of a lion while he clung

to its long mane and stabbed it until his point reached its heart.

So easy it had seemed before that he experienced a sharp feeling of

resentment that he was unable to do so now, for the quick movements

of the lion prevented him, and presently, to his dismay, as the

lion leaped and threw him about, the ape-man realized that he was

swinging inevitably beneath those frightful talons.

With a final effort he threw himself from Numa's back and sought,

by his quickness, to elude the frenzied beast for the fraction of

an instant that would permit him to regain his feet and meet the

animal again upon a more even footing. But this time Numa was too

quick for him and he was but partially up when a great paw struck

him on the side of the head and bowled him over.

As he fell he saw a black streak shoot above him and another lion

close upon his antagonist. Rolling from beneath the two battling lions

Tarzan regained his feet, though he was half dazed and staggering

from the impact of the terrible blow he had received. Behind him

he saw a lifeless lion lying torn and bleeding upon the sand, and

before him Numa of the pit was savagely mauling the second lion.

He of the black coat tremendously outclassed his adversary in

point of size and strength as well as in ferocity. The battling

beasts made a few feints and passes at each other before the larger

succeeded in fastening his fangs in the other's throat, and then,

as a cat shakes a mouse, the larger lion shook the lesser, and when

his dying foe sought to roll beneath and rake his conqueror with

his hind claws, the other met him halfway at his own game, and as

the great talons buried themselves in the lower part of the other's

chest and then were raked downward with all the terrific strength

of the mighty hind legs, the battle was ended.

As Numa rose from his second victim and shook himself, Tarzan could

not but again note the wondrous proportions and symmetry of the

beast. The lions they had bested were splendid specimens themselves

and in their coats Tarzan noted a suggestion of the black which

was such a strongly marked characteristic of Numa of the pit. Their

manes were just a trifle darker than an ordinary black-maned lion

but the tawny shade on the balance of their coats predominated.

However, the ape-man realized that they were a distinct species

from any he had seen as though they had sprung originally from a

cross between the forest lion of his acquaintance and a breed of

which Numa of the pit might be typical.

The immediate obstruction in his way having been removed, Tarzan was

for setting out in search of the spoor of the girl and Smith-Oldwick,

that he might discover their fate. He suddenly found himself

tremendously hungry and as he circled about over the sandy bottom

searching among the tangled network of innumerable tracks for those

of his proteges, there broke from his lips involuntarily the whine

of a hungry beast. Immediately Numa of the pit pricked up his ears

and, regarding the ape-man steadily for a moment, he answered the

call of hunger and started briskly off toward the south, stopping

occasionally to see if Tarzan was following.

The ape-man realized that the beast was leading him to food, and so

he followed and as he followed his keen eyes and sensitive nostrils

sought for some indication of the direction taken by the man and

the girl. Presently out of the mass of lion tracks, Tarzan picked

up those of many sandaled feet and the scent spoor of the members

of the strange race such as had been with the lions the night

before, and then faintly he caught the scent spoor of the girl and

a little later that of Smith-Oldwick. Presently the tracks thinned

and here those of the girl and the Englishman became well marked.

They had been walking side by side and there had been men and

lions to the right and left of them, and men and lions in front and

behind. The ape-man was puzzled by the possibilities suggested by

the tracks, but in the light of any previous experience he could

not explain satisfactorily to himself what his perceptions indicated.

There was little change in the formation of the gorge; it still

wound its erratic course between precipitous cliffs. In places it

widened out and again it became very narrow and always deeper the

further south they traveled. Presently the bottom of the gorge began

to slope more rapidly. Here and there were indications of ancient

rapids and waterfalls. The trail became more difficult but was well

marked and showed indications of great antiquity, and, in places,

the handiwork of man. They had proceeded for a half or three-quarters

of a mile when, at a turning of the gorge, Tarzan saw before him a

narrow valley cut deep into the living rock of the earth's crust,

with lofty mountain ranges bounding it upon the south. How far it

extended east and west he could not see, but apparently it was no

more than three or four miles across from north to south.

That it was a well-watered valley was indicated by the wealth of

vegetation that carpeted its floor from the rocky cliffs upon the

north to the mountains on the south.

Over the edge of the cliffs from which the ape-man viewed the valley

a trail had been hewn that led downward to the base. Preceded by

the lion Tarzan descended into the valley, which, at this point,

was forested with large trees. Before him the trail wound onward

toward the center of the valley. Raucous-voiced birds of brilliant

plumage screamed among the branches while innumerable monkeys

chattered and scolded above him.

The forest teemed with life, and yet there was borne in upon the

ape-man a sense of unutterable loneliness, a sensation that he

never before had felt in his beloved jungles. There was unreality

in everything about him--in the valley itself, lying hidden

and forgotten in what was supposed to be an arid waste. The birds

and the monkeys, while similar in type to many with which he was

familiar, were identical with none, nor was the vegetation without

its idiosyncrasies. It was as though he had been suddenly transported

to another world and he felt a strange restlessness that might

easily have been a premonition of danger.

Fruits were growing among the trees and some of these he saw that

Manu, the monkey, ate. Being hungry he swung to the lower branches

and, amidst a great chattering of the monkeys, proceeded to eat

such of the fruit as he saw the monkeys ate in safety. When he had

partially satisfied his hunger, for meat alone could fully do so,

he looked about him for Numa of the pit to discover that the lion

had gone.

Chapter XVII

The Walled City

Dropping to the ground once more he picked up the trail of the girl

and her captors, which he followed easily along what appeared to

be a well-beaten trail. It was not long before he came to a small

stream, where he quenched his thirst, and thereafter he saw that

the trail followed in the general direction of the stream, which

ran southwesterly. Here and there were cross trails and others

which joined the main avenue, and always upon each of them were the

tracks and scent of the great cats, of Numa, the lion, and Sheeta,

the panther.

With the exception of a few small rodents there appeared to be no

other wild life on the surface of the valley. There was no indication

of Bara, the deer, or Horta, the boar, or of Gorgo, the buffalo,

Buto, Tantor, or Duro. Histah, the snake, was there. He saw him in

the trees in greater numbers than he ever had seen Histah before;

and once beside a reedy pool he caught a scent that could have

belonged to none other than Gimla the crocodile, but upon none of

these did the Tarmangani care to feed.

And so, as he craved meat, he turned his attention to the birds

above him. His assailants of the night before had not disarmed

him. Either in the darkness and the rush of the charging lions the

human foe had overlooked him or else they had considered him dead;

but whatever the reason he still retained his weapons--his spear

and his long knife, his bow and arrows, and his grass rope.

Fitting a shaft to his bow Tarzan awaited an opportunity to bring

down one of the larger birds, and when the opportunity finally

presented itself he drove the arrow straight to its mark. As the

gaily plumaged creature fluttered to earth its companions and the

little monkeys set up a most terrific chorus of wails and screaming

protests. The whole forest became suddenly a babel of hoarse screams

and shrill shrieks.

Tarzan would not have been surprised had one or two birds in the

immediate vicinity given voice to terror as they fled, but that the

whole life of the jungle should set up so weird a protest filled

him with disgust. It was an angry face that he turned up toward

the monkeys and the birds as there suddenly stirred within him a

savage inclination to voice his displeasure and his answer to what

he considered their challenge. And so it was that there broke upon

this jungle for the first time Tarzan's hideous scream of victory

and challenge.

The effect upon the creatures above him was instantaneous. Where

before the air had trembled to the din of their voices, now utter

silence reigned and a moment later the ape-man was alone with his

puny kill.

The silence following so closely the previous tumult carried

a sinister impression to the ape-man, which still further aroused

his anger. Picking the bird from where it had fallen he withdrew

his arrow from the body and returned it to his quiver. Then with

his knife he quickly and deftly removed the skin and feathers

together. He ate angrily, growling as though actually menaced by

a near-by foe, and perhaps, too, his growls were partially induced

by the fact that he did not care for the flesh of birds. Better

this, however, than nothing and from what his senses had told him

there was no flesh in the vicinity such as he was accustomed to

and cared most for. How he would have enjoyed a juicy haunch from

Pacco, the zebra, or a steak from the loin of Gorgo, the buffalo!

The very thought made his mouth water and increased his resentment

against this unnatural forest that harbored no such delicious

quarry.

He had but partially consumed his kill when he suddenly became

aware of a movement in the brush at no great distance from him

and downwind, and a moment later his nostrils picked up the scent

of Numa from the opposite direction, and then upon either side he

caught the fall of padded feet and the brushing of bodies against

leafy branches. The ape-man smiled. What stupid creature did they

think him, to be surprised by such clumsy stalkers? Gradually the

sounds and scents indicated that lions were moving upon him from

all directions, that he was in the center of a steadily converging

circle of beasts. Evidently they were so sure of their prey that

they were making no effort toward stealth, for he heard twigs crack

beneath their feet, and the brushing of their bodies against the

vegetation through which they forced their way.

He wondered what could have brought them. It seemed unreasonable

to believe that the cries of the birds and the monkeys should

have summoned them, and yet, if not, it was indeed a remarkable

coincidence. His judgment told him that the death of a single bird

in this forest which teemed with birds could scarce be of sufficient

moment to warrant that which followed. Yet even in the face of reason

and past experience he found that the whole affair perplexed him.

He stood in the center of the trail awaiting the coming of the lions

and wondering what would be the method of their attack or if they

would indeed attack. Presently a maned lion came into view along

the trail below him. At sight of him the lion halted. The beast was

similar to those that had attacked him earlier in the day, a trifle

larger and a trifle darker than the lions of his native jungles,

but neither so large nor so black as Numa of the pit.

Presently he distinguished the outlines of other lions in the

surrounding brush and among the trees. Each of them halted as it

came within sight of the ape-man and there they stood regarding

him in silence. Tarzan wondered how long it would be before they

charged and while he waited he resumed his feeding, though with

every sense constantly alert.

One by one the lions lay down, but always their faces were toward

him and their eyes upon him. There had been no growling and no

roaring--just the quiet drawing of the silent circle about him.

It was all so entirely foreign to anything that Tarzan ever before

had seen lions do that it irritated him so that presently, having

finished his repast, he fell to making insulting remarks to first

one and then another of the lions, after the habit he had learned

from the apes of his childhood.

"Dango, eater of carrion," he called them, and he compared them most

unfavorably with Histah, the snake, the most loathed and repulsive

creature of the jungle. Finally he threw handfuls of earth at them

and bits of broken twigs, and then the lions growled and bared

their fangs, but none of them advanced.

"Cowards," Tarzan taunted them. "Numa with a heart of Bara, the

deer." He told them who he was, and after the manner of the jungle

folk he boasted as to the horrible things he would do to them, but

the lions only lay and watched him.

It must have been a half hour after their coming that Tarzan caught

in the distance along the trail the sound of footsteps approaching.

They were the footsteps of a creature who walked upon two legs,

and though Tarzan could catch no scent spoor from that direction

he knew that a man was approaching. Nor had he long to wait before

his judgment was confirmed by the appearance of a man who halted

in the trail directly behind the first lion that Tarzan had seen.

At sight of the newcomer the ape-man realized that here was one

similar to those who had given off the unfamiliar scent spoor that

he had detected the previous night, and he saw that not only in

the matter of scent did the man differ from other human beings with

whom Tarzan was familiar.

The fellow was strongly built with skin of a leathery appearance,

like parchment yellowed with age. His hair, which was coal black

and three or four inches in length, grew out stiffly at right angles

to his scalp. His eyes were close set and the irises densely black

and very small, so that the white of the eyeball showed around

them. The man's face was smooth except for a few straggly hairs on

his chin and upper lip. The nose was aquiline and fine, but the

hair grew so far down on the forehead as to suggest a very low

and brutal type. The upper lip was short and fine while the lower

lip was rather heavy and inclined to be pendulous, the chin being

equally weak. Altogether the face carried the suggestion of a

once strong and handsome countenance entirely altered by physical

violence or by degraded habits and thoughts. The man's arms were

long, though not abnormally so, while his legs were short, though

straight.

He was clothed in tight-fitting nether garments and a loose,

sleeveless tunic that fell just below his hips, while his feet

were shod in soft-soled sandals, the wrappings of which extended

halfway to his knees, closely resembling a modern spiral military

legging. He carried a short, heavy spear, and at his side swung

a weapon that at first so astonished the ape-man that he could

scarcely believe the evidence of his senses--a heavy saber in

a leather-covered scabbard. The man's tunic appeared to have been

fabricated upon a loom--it was certainly not made of skins, while

the garments that covered his legs were quite as evidently made

from the hides of rodents.

Tarzan noted the utter unconcern with which the man approached the

lions, and the equal indifference of Numa to him. The fellow paused

for a moment as though appraising the ape-man and then pushed on

past the lions, brushing against the tawny hide as he passed him

in the trail.

About twenty feet from Tarzan the man stopped, addressing the former

in a strange jargon, no syllable of which was intelligible to the

Tarmangani. His gestures indicated numerous references to the lions

surrounding them, and once he touched his spear with the forefinger

of his left hand and twice he struck the saber at his hip.

While he spoke Tarzan studied the fellow closely, with the result

that there fastened itself upon his mind a strange conviction--that

the man who addressed him was what might only be described as a

rational maniac. As the thought came to the ape-man he could not

but smile, so paradoxical the description seemed. Yet a closer

study of the man's features, carriage, and the contour of his head

carried almost incontrovertibly the assurance that he was insane,

while the tones of his voice and his gestures resembled those of