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Tarzan the Untamed

by Edgar Rice Burroughs · English · Gutenberg #1401 · 623,954 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tarzan the Untamed

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs


        
Release date: July 1, 1998 [eBook #1401]
                Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1401

Credits: Produced by Judith Boss


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TARZAN THE UNTAMED ***

Tarzan the Untamed


By

Edgar Rice Burroughs





CONTENTS

CHAPTER

     I  Murder and Pillage
    II  The Lion's Cave
   III  In the German Lines
    IV  When the Lion Fed
     V  The Golden Locket
    VI  Vengeance and Mercy
   VII  When Blood Told
  VIII  Tarzan and the Great Apes
    IX  Dropped from the Sky
     X  In the Hands of Savages
    XI  Finding the Airplane
   XII  The Black Flier
  XIII  Usanga's Reward
   XIV  The Black Lion
    XV  Mysterious Footprints
   XVI  The Night Attack
  XVII  The Walled City
 XVIII  Among the Maniacs
   XIX  The Queen's Story
    XX  Came Tarzan
   XXI  In the Alcove
  XXII  Out of the Niche
 XXIII  The Flight from Xuja
  XXIV  The Tommies




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

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