Classic Audiobook Collection - Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs ~ Full Audiobook [adventure]

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs audiobook. Genre: adventure In Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs returns to the steaming heart of equatorial Africa to reveal early, hard-won chapters in the making of the ape-man. Living as an outsider among the great apes yet driven by a human mind he cannot fully name, Tarzan must learn to survive by tooth, vine, and instinct while also grappling with questions of identity, belonging, and rule. Across a series of episodic adventures, he faces rival beasts, treacherous terrain, and the constant pressure of jungle law, where strength is tested daily and mercy can be fatal. But danger does not come only from claws and fangs: rival tribes, strange customs, and the arrival of unfamiliar humans expose Tarzan to new kinds of conflict - pride, jealousy, and the unsettling pull of a world beyond the trees. Each tale deepens the legend, showing how Tarzan earns his place through courage and cunning, and how the jungle itself shapes his fierce sense of justice. Fast, vivid, and mythic, these stories expand the Tarzan saga with primal action and a growing awareness of what it means to be both man and wild. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:38:12) Chapter 02 (01:11:13) Chapter 03 (01:36:27) Chapter 04 (02:16:39) Chapter 05 (03:15:04) Chapter 06 (04:03:36) Chapter 07 (04:29:25) Chapter 08 (05:01:57) Chapter 09 (05:34:36) Chapter 10 (06:19:25) Chapter 11 (06:58:50) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapter 1 Tarzan's First Love Tika stretched at luxurious ease in the shade of the tropical forest presented unquestionably a most alluring picture of young feminine loveliness, or at least so thought Tarzan of the apes who squatted upon a low-swinging branch in a nearby tree and looked down upon her. Just to have seen him there, lolling upon the swaying bow of the jungle forest

giant, his brown skin mottled by the brilliant equatorial sunlight, which percolated through the leafy canopy of green above him, his clean-limbed body relaxed in graceful ease, his shapely head partly turned in contemplative absorption, and his intelligent gray eyes dreamily devouring the object of their devotion, you would have thought him the reincarnation of some demigod of old. You would not have guessed that in infancy he had suckled at the breast of a hideous hairy she-ape, nor that in all his conscious past, since his parents had passed away in the little cabin by the landlocked harbor at the jungle's verge, he had known no other associates than the sullen bulls

and the snarling cows of the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape, nor could you have read the thoughts which passed through that active, healthy brain, the longings and desires and aspirations which the sight of Tika inspired, would you have been any more inclined to give credence to the reality of the origin of the ape-man? For from his thoughts alone you could never have gleaned the truth, that he had been born to a gentle English lady, or that his sire had been an English nobleman of time-honored lineage. Lost to Tarzan of the Apes was the truth of his origin,

that he was John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, with a seat in the House of Lords he did not know, nor knowing would have understood. Yes, Tika was a man. indeed beautiful. Of course, Kayla had been beautiful. One's mother is always that, but Tika was beautiful in a way on her own, an indescribable sort of way which Tarzan was just beginning to sense in a rather vague and hazy manner. For years had Tarzan and Tika been playfellows, and Tika still continued to be playful while the young bulls of her own age were rapidly becoming surly and morose. Tarzan,

if he gave the matter much thought at all, probably reasoned that his growing attachment for the young female could be easily accounted for by the fact that of the former playmates she and he alone retained any desire to frolic as of old. But today, as he sat gazing upon her, he found himself noting the beauties of Tika's form and features, something he never had done before, since none of them had ought to do with Tika's ability to race nimbly through the lower terraces of the forest in the primitive games of tag and hide-and-go-seek, which Tarzan's fertile brain evolved. Tarzan scratched his head, running his fingers deep into the shock of black hair which framed his shapely boish face. He scratched his head and sighed. Tika's newfound beauty became as suddenly

his despair. He envied her the handsome coat of hair which covered her body. His own smooth, brown hide he hated with a hatred born of disgust and contempt. Years back he had harbored a hope that someday he too would be clothed in hair, as were all his brothers and sisters, but of late he had been forced to abandon the delectable dream. Then there were Tika's great teeth, not so large as the males, of course, but still mighty handsome things by comparison with Tarzan's feeble white ones, and her beaddling brows and broad, flat nose, and her mouth. Tarzan had often practiced making his mouth into a little round circle and then puffing out his cheeks while he winked his eyes rapidly.

But he felt that he could never do it in the same cute and irresistible way in which Tika did it. And as he watched her that afternoon and wondered, a young bull ape who had been lazily foraging for food beneath the damp, matted carpet of decaying vegetation at the roots of a nearby tree, lumbered awkwardly in Tika's direction. The other apes of the tribe of Kurchak moved listlessly about or lulled, and lolled. restfully in the midday heat of the equatorial jungle. From time to time, one or another of them had passed close to Tika, and Tarzan had been uninterested. Why was it then that his brows contracted, and his muscles tensed as he saw Tog pause beside the young she and then squat down

close to her? Tarzan always had light dog, since childhood they had romped together. Side by side they had squatted near the water. Their quick, strong fingers, ready to leap forth and seize Pisa, the fish, should that wary denizen of the cool depths, darted surfaceward to the lure of the insects Tarzan tossed upon the face of the pool, together they had baited Tublat and teased Numa, the lion.

Why then should Tarzan feel the rise of the short hairs at the nape of his neck, merely because Tog sat close to Tika? It is true that Tog was no longer the froliced, some ape of yesterday. When his snarling muscles bared his giant fangs, no one could longer imagine that tog was in as playful a mood as when he and Tarzan had rolled upon the turf in mimic battle. The to-day was a huge sullen bull-ape, somber and forbidding. Yet he and Tarzan never had quarreled. For a few minutes the young ape-man watched toog press closer to Tika. He saw the rough caress of the huge paw as it stroked the sleek shoulder of the she.

and then tarzan of the apes slipped cat-like to the ground and approached the two as he came his upper lip curled into a snarl exposing his fighting fangs and a deep growl rumbled from his cavernous chest togg looked up batting his bloodshot eyes tika half raised herself and looked at tarzan did she guess the cause of his perturbation who may say at any rate she was feminine and so she reached up and scratched tog behind one of his small small flat ears. Tarzan saw, and in the instant that he saw, Tika was no longer the little playmate of an hour ago. Instead, she was a wondrous thing, the most wondrous in the world, and a possession for which Tarzan would fight to the death against Tog or any other who dared question his right of proprietorship. Stooped, his muscles rigid, and one great shoulder turned toward the young bull, Tarzan of the ape's sidled nearer and nearer. His face was partly averted, but his keen gray eyes never left those of tog, and as he came his growls increased in depth and volume.

Tog rose upon his short legs, bristling, his fighting fangs were bared. He too sidled, stiff-legged, and growled. Tika is Tarzans, said the ape, said the ape, in the low gutterals of the great anthropoids. Tika is togs, replied the bull-ape. Thaka and Numgo and Guntow, disturbed by the growlings of the two young bull, looked up half apathetic, half interested. They were sleepy, but they sensed a fight. It would break the monotony of the humdrum jungle life they led. Coiled about his shoulders was Tarzan's long grass rope. In his hand was the hunting-knife of the long-dead father he had never known. In Tog's little brain

lay a great respect for the shiny bit of sharp metal which the ape boy knew so well how to use. With it had he slain Tublat, his fierce foster-father, and Bolgany, the a gorilla. Tog knew these things, and so he came warily, circling about Tarsan in search of an opening. The latter made cautious because of his lesser bulk and the inferiority of his natural armament followed similar tactics. For a time it seemed that the altercation would follow the way of the majority of such differences between members of the tribe, and that one of them would finally lose interest and wander off to prosecute some other line of endeavor. Such might have been the end of it had the Catesus bell-eye been other than it was,

but Tika was flattered at the attention that was being drawn to her, and by the fact that these two young bulls were contemplating battle on her account. Such a thing never before had occurred in Tika's brief life. She had seen other bulls battling for other and older she's, and in the depth of her wild little heart she had longed for the day when the jungle grasses would be reddened with the blood of mortal combat for her fair sake. So now she squatted upon her haunches and insulted both her admirers impartially. She hurled taunts at them for their cowardice, and called them vile names such as Hista, the snake, and dango the hyena. She threatened to call Mumga to chastise them with a stick.

Mumga, who was so old that she could no longer climb, and so toothless that she was forced to confine her diet almost exclusively to bananas and grubworms. The apes who were watching, heard and laughed. Tog was infuriated. He made a sudden lunge for Tarsen, but the ape boy leaped nimbly to one side, eluding him, and with the quickness of a cat wheeled and leaped back again to close quarters. His hunting-knife was raised above his head as he came in, and he aimed a vicious blow at Tog's neck. The ape wheeled to dodge the weapon, so that the keen blade struck him but a glancing blow upon the shoulder. The spurt of red blood brought a shrill cry of delight from Tika. Ah, but this was something worthwhile, she glanced about to see if others had witnessed this

evidence of her popularity. Helen of Troy was never one whit more proud than was Tika at that moment. If Tika had not been so absorbed in her own vain-gloriousness, she might have noticed the rustling of leaves in the tree above her, a rustling which was not caused by any movement of the wind, since there was no wind, and had she looked up, she might have seen a sleek body crouching almost directly over her, and wicked yellow eyes glaring hungrily down upon her. But Tika did not look up. With his wound, Tog had backed off growling horribly. Tarzan had followed him, screaming insults at him, and menacing him with his brandishing blade. Tika moved from beneath the tree in an effort to keep close to the duelus. The branch above Tika bent and swayed a trifle with the

movement of the body of the watcher stretched along it. Tog had halted now and was prepared preparing to make a new stand. His lips were flecked with foam, and saliva drooled from his jowls. He stood with head-lowered and arms outstretched, preparing for a sudden charge to close quarters. Could he but lay his mighty hands upon that soft brown skin? The battle would be his. Tog considered Tarsan's manner of fighting unfair. He would not close. Instead, he leaped nimbly just beyond the reach of Tog's muscular fingers. The ape-boy had as yet never come to a real try, of strength with a bull-ape other than in play, and so he was not at all sure that it would be safe to put his muscles to the test in a life and death's struggle, not that he was afraid, for Tarzan

knew nothing of fear. The instinct of self-preservation gave him caution, that was all. He took risks only when it seemed necessary, and then he would hesitate at nothing. His own method of fighting seemed best fitted to his build and to his armament. His teeth, while strong and sharp, were as weapons of offense pitifully inadequate by comparison with the mighty fighting fangs of the anthropoids. By dancing about, just out of reach of an antagonist, Tarzan could do infinite injury with his long, sharp hunting knife, and at the same time escape many of the painful and dangerous wounds, which would be sure to follow his falling into the clutches of a bull ape. And so Tog charged and battled like a bull, and Tarzan of the apes danced lightly to this side and

that, hurling jungle Billingsgate at his foe, the while he nicked him now and again with his knife. There were lulls in the fighting when the two would stand panting for breath, facing each other, mustering their wits and their forces for a new onslaught. It was during a pause such as this that toad chanced to let his eyes row beyond his foeman. Instantly the entire aspect of the ape altered. Rage left his countenance to be supplanted by an expression of fear, with a cry that that every ape there recognized. Tog turned and fled. No need to question him. His warning proclaimed the near presence of their ancient enemy. Tarzan started to seek safety, as did the other members of the tribe, and as he did so he heard a panther's scream mingled with the fright and cry of a

she-ape. Tog heard too, but he did not pause in his flight. With the boy-ape, however, it was different. He looked back to see if any member of the tribe was close-pressed by the beast of prey and the sight that Medi's eyes filled them with an expression of horror. Tika it was who cried out in terror as she fled across a little clearing toward the trees upon the opposite side, for after her leaped Sheeta the panther in easy, graceful bounds. Sheeta appeared to be in no hurry. His meat was assured, since even though the ape reached the trees ahead of him, she could not climb beyond his clutches before he could be upon her. Tarzan saw that Tika must die. He cried to Tog and the other bulls.

to hasten to Tika's assistance, and at the same time he ran toward the pursuing beast, taking down his rope as he came. Tarzan knew that once the great bulls were aroused, none of the jungle, not even Numa the lion, was anxious to measure fangs with him, and that if all those of the tribe who chanced to be present today would charge, Sheeta the great cat would doubtless turn tail and run for his life. Tog heard, as did the others, but no one came to Tarzan's assistance or Tika's rescue, and Sheeta was rapidly closing up the distance between himself and his prey. The ape boy, leaping after the panther, cried aloud to the beast,

in an effort to turn it from Tika, or otherwise distract its attention until the she-ape could gain the safety of the higher branches, where Sheeta dared not go. He called the panther every opprobrious name that fell to his tongue. He dared him to stop and do battle with him, but Sheeta only loped on after the luscious tidbit, now almost, within his reach. Tarzan was not far behind, and he was gaining, but the distance was so short that he scarce hoped to overhaul the carnivore before it had felled Tika. In his right hand the boy swung his grass

rope above his head as he ran. He hated to chance a miss, for the distance was much greater than he ever had cast before except in practice. It was the full length of his grass rope which separated him from Shita, and yet there was no other thing to do. He could not reach the brute's side before it overhauled Tika, he must chance a throw. And just as Tika sprang for the lower limb of a great tree, and Sheeta rose behind her in a long, sinuous leap, the coils of the eight-boys grass-rope shot swiftly through the air, straightening into a long, thin line as the open noose hovered for an instant above the savage head and the snarling jaws. Then it settled, clean and true about the tawny neck it settled, and Tarzan, with a quick twist of his rope hand, drew the noose taut,

bracing himself for the shock when Sheeta should have taken up the slack. Just short of Tika's glossy rump, the cruel talons raked the air as the rope tightened, and Sheeta was brought to a sudden stop, a stop that snapped the big beast over upon his back. Instantly Sheeta was up, with glaring eyes and lashing tail and gaping jaws, from which issued hideous cries of rage and disappointment. He saw the ape boy, the cause of his discomfiture, scarce forty feet before him, and Sheeta charged. Tika was safe now. Tarzan saw to that by a quick glance into the tree whose safety she had gained not an instant too soon, and Sheeta was charging. It was useless

to risk his life in idle and unequal combat from which no good could come, but could he escape a battle with the enraged cat, and if he was forced to fight, what chance had he to survive? Tarzan was constrained to admit that his position was aught but a desirable one. The tree were too far to hope to reach in time to elude the cat. Tarzan could but stand facing that hideous charge. In his right hand he grasped his hunting-knife, a puny futile thing indeed by comparison with the great rows of mighty teeth which lined Shita's powerful jaws and the sharp talons encased within his padded paws. Yet the young Lord, Graced Oat faced it with the same courageous resignation with which some fearless ancestor went down to defeat and death on Sinlack Hill by hasty.

From safety points in the trees the great apes watched, screaming hatred at Sheeta and advised at Tarzan, for the progenitors of man have naturally many human traits. Tika was frightened. She screamed at the bulls to hasten to Tarzan's assistance, but the bulls were otherwise engaged, principally in giving advice and making faces. Anyway, Tarzan was not a real mangani, so why should they risk their lives in an effort to protect him? And now Sheeta was almost upon the lithe, naked body, and the body was not there. Quick as was the great cat, the ape-boy, was quicker. He duped to one side almost as the panther's talons were closing upon him, and as Chita went hurtling to the ground beyond, Tarzan was racing for the safety of the nearest

tree. The panther recovered himself almost immediately, and Wheeling tore after his prey, the ape-boy's rope dragging along the ground behind him. In doubling back after Tarzan, Shita had passed around a low bush. It was a mere nothing in the path of any jungle creature of the size and weight of Sheeta, provided it had no trailing rope dangling behind. But Sheeta was handicapped by such a rope, and as he leaped once again after Tarzan of the apes, the rope encircled the small bush, became tangled in it and brought the panther to a sudden stop. An instant later Tarzan was safe among the higher branches of a small tree into which Sheeta could not follow him. Here he perched, hurling twigs and epithets at the raging feline beneath him.

The other members of the tribe now took up the bombardment, using such hard-shelled fruits and dead branches as came within their reach, until Sheeta goaded to frenzy and snapping at the grass rope, finally succeeded in severing its strands. For a moment the panther stood glaring first at one of his tormentors, and then at another, until with a final scream of rage, he turned and slung off into the tangled mazes of the jungle. A half hour later the tribe was again upon the ground,

feeding as though not had occurred to interrupt the somber dullness of their lives. Tarzan had recovered the greater part of his rope, and was busy fashioning a new noose while Tika squatted close behind him, in evident token that her choice was made. Tog eyed them sullenly. Once when he came close Tika bared her fangs and growled at him, and Tarzan showed his canines in an ugly snarl. But Tog did not provoke a quarrel. He seemed to accept after the manner of his kind the decision of the she

as an indication that he had been vanquished in his battle for her favors. Later in the day his rope repaired, Tarzan took to the trees in search of game. More than his fellows, he required meat, and so while they were satisfied with fruits and herbs and beetles, which could be discovered without much effort upon their Tarsan spent considerable time hunting the game animals, whose flesh alone satisfied the cravings of his stomach and furnished sustenance and strength to the mighty thews, which, day by day, were building beneath the soft, smooth texture of his brown hide. Tog saw him depart, and then, quite casually, the big beast hunted closer and closer to Tika in his search for food.

At last he was within a few feet of her, and when he shot a covert glance at a he saw that she was appraising him, and that there was no evidence of anger upon her face. Tog expanded his great chest and rolled about on his short legs, making strange growlings in his throat. He raised his lips, bearing his fangs. My, but what great, beautiful fangs he had, Tika could not but notice them. She also let her eyes rest in admiration upon Tog's beetling brows and his short, powerful neck. What a beautiful creature he won't. was indeed. Tog, flattered by the unconcealed admiration in her eyes, strutted about, as proud and as vain as a peacock. Presently he began to inventory his assets mentally, and shortly

he found himself comparing them with those of his rival. Tog grunted, for there was no comparison. How could one compare his beautiful coat with the smooth and naked hideousness of Tarsan's bare hide? Who could see beauty in the stingy nose of the Tarmine g? Ganny, after looking at Tog's broad nostrils, and Tarzan's eyes, hideous things, showing white about them, and entirely unrimmed with red. Tog knew that his own bloodshot eyes were beautiful, for he had seen them reflected in the glassy surface of many a drinking pool. The bull drew nearer to Tika, finally squatting close against her. When Tarzan returned from his hunting a short time later, it was to see Tika contentedly scratching the back of his rival. Tarzan was disgusted.

Neither Tog nor Tika saw him as he swung through the trees into the glade. He paused a moment, looking at them. Then, with a sorrowful grimace, he turned and faded away into the labyrinth of leafy boughs and festoon moss out of which he had come. Tarzan wished to be as far away from the cause of his heartache as he could. He was suffering the first pangs of blighted love, and he didn't quite know what was the matter with him. He thought that he was angry with Tog, and so he couldn't understand why it was that he had run away instead of rushing into mortal combat with the destroyer of his happiness. He also thought that he was angry with Tika, yet a vision of her many beauties persisted in haunting

him, so that he could only see her in the light of love as the most desirable thing in the world. The ape boy craved affection. From babyhood until the time of her death, when the poisoned arrow of Kulonga had pierced her savage heart, Kala had represented to the English boy the sole object of love which he had known. In her wild fierce way, Kayla had loved her adopted son, and Tarzan had returned that love, though the outward demonstrations of it were no greater than might have been expected from any other beast of the jungle. It was not until he was bereft of her that the boy realized how deep had been his attachment for his mother, for as such he looked upon her. In Tika he had seen within the past few hours a substitute for Kela, someone to fight for,

and to hunt for, someone to caress, but now his dream was shattered, something hurt within his breast, he placed his hand over his heart and wondered what had happened to him. Vaguely he attributed his pain to Tika. The more he thought of Tika as he had last seen her, caressing Tog, the more the thing within his breast hurt him. Tarzan shook his head and growled, then on and on through the jungle he swung, and the farther he traveled, and the more he thought upon his wrongs, the nearer he approached becoming an irreclamable misogynist.

Two days later he was still hunting alone, very morose and very unhappy, But he was determined never to return to the tribe. He could not bear the thought of seeing Tog and Tika always together. As he swung upon a great limb, Numa the lion and Saber the lioness passed beneath him side by side, and Saber leaned against the lion and bit playfully at his cheek. It was a half caress. Tarzan sighed and hurled a nut at them. Later he came upon several of Mbonga's black warriors. He was upon the point of dropping his noose about the,

neck of one of them, who was a little distance from his companions, when he became interested in the thing which occupied the savages. They were building a cage in the trail and covering it with leafy branches. When they had completed their work, the structure was scarcely visible. Tarzan wondered what the purpose of the thing might be, and why, when they had built it, they turned away and started back along the trail in the direction of their village. It had been some time since Tarzan had visited the blacks, and looked down from the shelter of the great trees which overhung their palisade upon the activities of his enemies, from among whom had come the slayer of Kela. Although he hated them, Tarzan derived considerable entertainment in watching them at their daily life within the village,

and especially at their dances, when the fires glared against their naked bodies as they leaped and turned and twisted in mimic warfare. It was rather in the hope of witnessing something of the kind that he now followed the warriors back toward their village, but in this he was disappointed, for there was no dance that night. Instead, from the safe concealment of his tree, Tarzan saw little groups seated about tiny fires discussing the events of the day, and in the darker corners of the village he described isolated couples talking and laughing together, and always one of each couple was a young man and the other a young woman. Tarzan cocked his head upon one side and thought, and before he went to sleep that night, curled in the crotch of the great tree above the village, Tika filled

his mind, and afterwards she filled his dreams, she and the young black men laughing and talking with the young black women. Tog, hunting alone had wandered some distance from the balance of the tribe. He was making his way slowly along an elephant path when he discovered that it was blocked with undergrowth. Now Tog come into maturity was an evil-natured brute of an exceeding short temper. When something thwarted him, his sole idea was to overcome it by brute strength and ferocity, and so now, when he found his way blocked, he tore angrily into the leafy screen, and an instant later found himself within a strange lair, his progress effectually blocked, notwithstanding his his most violent efforts to forge ahead. Biting and striking at the barrier, Tog finally worked

himself into a frightful rage, but all to no avail. And at last he became convinced that he must turn back. But when he would have done so, what was his chagrin to discover that another barrier had dropped behind him while he fought to break down the one before him? Tog was trapped. Until exhaustion overcame him, he fought frantically for his freedom, but all for not. In the morning a party of blacks set out from the village of Mabonga in the direction of the trap they had constructed the previous day, while among the branches of the trees above them hovered a naked young giant, filled with with the curiosity of the wild things. Manu, the monkey, chattered and scolded as Tarzan passed, and though he was not afraid of the familiar figure of the ape-boy, he hugged closer to him

the little brown body of his life's companion. Tarzan laughed as he saw it, but the laugh was followed by a sudden clouding of his face and a deep sigh. A little farther on, a gaily feathered birds strutted about before the admiring eyes of his somber-hued mate. It seemed to Tarzan that everything in the jungle was combining to remind him that he had lost Tika. Yet every day of his life he had seen these same things and thought nothing of them. When the blacks reached the trap, Tog set up a great commotion. Seizing the bars of his prison, he shook them frantically, and all the while he roared and

growled terrifically. The blacks were elated, for while they had not built their trap for this, Harry Treeman, they were delighted with their catch. Tarzan pricked up his ears when he heard the voice of a great ape, and circling quickly until he was downwind from the trap, he sniffed at the air in search of the scent spore of the prisoner. Nor was it long before there came to those delicate nostrils, the familiar odor that told Tarzan the identity of the captive as unerringly as though he had looked upon Tog with his eyes. Yes, it was Tog, and he was alone. Tarzan grinned as he approached to discover what the blacks would do to their prisoner,

doubtless they would slay him at once. Again Tarzan grinned, now he could have Tika for his own, with none to dispute his right to her. As he watched, he saw the black warriors strip the screen from about the cage, fasten ropes to it, and drag it away along the trail in the direction of their village. Tarzan watched until his rival passed out of sight, still beating upon the bars of his prison and growling out his anger and his threats. Then the ape-boy turned and swung rapidly off in search of the tribe, Antica. Once upon the journey, he surprised Sheeta and his family in a little overgrown clearing. The great cat lay stretched upon the ground, while his mate, one paw, across her lord's savage face, licked at the soft white fur at his throat. Tarzan increased his

speed then until he fairly flew through the forest, nor wasn't long before he came upon the tribe. He saw them before they saw him, for of all the jungle creatures, none passed more quietly than Tarzan of the apes. He saw Camma and her mate feeding side by side, their hairy bodies rubbing against each other, and he saw Tika feeding by herself. Not for long would she feed thus in loneliness, thought Tarzan, as with a bound he landed amongst them. There was a startled rush and a chorus of angry and frightened snarls, for Tarzan had surprised them, but there was more, too, than mere nervous shock to account for the bristling neck hair, which remained standing long after the apes had discovered the identity of the newcomer. Tarzan noticed this, as he had noticed it many

times in the past, that always his sudden coming among them left them nervous and unstrung for a considerable time, and that they one and all found it necessary to satisfy themselves that he was indeed Tarzan by smelling about him a half-dozen or more times before they calmed down. Pushing through them, he made his way toward Tika. But as he approached her, the ape drew away. Tika, he said, "'It is Tarzan. You belong to Tarzan. I have come for you.' The ape drew closer, looking him over carefully. Finally, she sniffed at him as though to make assurance doubly sure. "'Where is Todd?' she asked. The Gomengani have him,' replied Tarzan. "'They will kill him.' In the eyes of the she, Tarzan saw a wistful expression and a troubled look of

sorrow as he told her of Tog's fate, but she came quite close, and snuggled against him, and Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, put his arm about her. As he did so he noticed with a start, the strange incongruity of that smooth brown arm against the black and hairy coat of his lady love. He recalled the paw of Sheeta's mate across Sheeta's face. No incongruity there. He thought of little Manu, hugging his she, and how the one seemed to belong to the other. Even the proud bird with his gay plumage wore a close resemblance to his quieter spouse, while Numa, but for his shaggy mane, was almost a counterpart of Sabor, the lioness. The males and the females differed, it was true, but not with such differences as existed between Tarzan and Tika.

Tarzan was puzzled. There was something wrong. His arm dropped from the shoulder of Tika. Very slowly he drew away from her. She looked at him with her head cocked upon her. She looked at him with her head cocked upon one side. Tarzan rose to his full height and beat upon his breast with his fists. He raised his head toward the heavens and opened his mouth. From the depths of his lungs rose the fierce, weird challenge of the victorious bull-ape. The tribe turned curiously to eye him. He had killed nothing, nor was there any antagonist to be goaded to madness by the savage scream? No, there was no excuse for it, and they turned back to their feeding, but with an eye upon the ape-man, lest he be preparing to suddenly run amok. As they watched him they saw him swing

into a nearby tree and disappear from sight. Then they forgot him, even Tika. Mabonga's black warriors sweating beneath their strenuous task, and resting often, made slow progress toward their village. Always the savage beast in the primitive cage growled and roared when they moved him. He beat upon the bars and slavered at the mouth. His noise was hideous. They had almost completed their journey and were making their final rest before foraging ahead to gain the clearing in which lay their village. A few more minutes would have taken them out of the forest, and then, doubtless, the thing would not have happened, which did happen. A silent figure moved through the trees above them. Keen eyes inspected the cage and counted the number of warriors.

An alert and daring brain figured upon the chances of success when a certain plan should be put to the test. Tarzan watched the blacks lolling in the shade. They were exhausted. Already several of them slept. He crept closer, pausing just above them. Not a leaf rustled before his stealthy advance. He waited in the infinite patience of the beast of prey. Presently but two of the warriors remained awake, and one of these was dozing. Tarzan of the apes gathered himself, and as he did so the black who did not sleep arose and passed around to the rear of of the cage. The ape boy followed just above his head. Tog was eyeing the warrior and emitting low growls. Tarzan feared that the anthropoid would awaken the sleepers. In a whisper which was

inaudible to the ears of the negro, Tarzan whispered Tog's name, cautioning the ape to silence, and Tog's growling ceased. The black approached the rear of the cage and examined the fastenings of the door, and as he stood there, the beast above him launched itself from the tree full upon his back, steel fingers circle his throat, choking the cry which sprang to the lips of the terrified man. Strong teeth fastened themselves in his shoulder, and powerful legs wound themselves about his torso. The black, in a frenzy of terror, tried to dislodge the silent thing which clung to him. He threw himself to the ground and rolled about, but still those mighty fingers closed more and more tightly their deadly grip. The man's mouth gaped wide, his swollen tongue protruded,

His eyes started from their sockets, but the relentless fingers only increased their pressure. Tog was a silent witness of the struggle. In his fierce little brain he doubtless wondered what purpose prompted Tarsan to attack the black. Tog had not forgotten his recent battle with the ape boy, nor the cause of it. Now he saw the form of the go Manganny suddenly go limp. There was a convulsive shiver, and the man lay still. Tarsan sprang from his prey and ran to the door of the cage. With nimble fingers, he worked rapidly at the thongs which held the door in place. Tog could only watch. He could not help. Presently, Tarsan pushed the thing up a couple of feet, and Tog crawled out. The ape would have turned upon the sleeping blacks that he might wreak

his pint vengeance, but Tarsan would not permit it. Instead, the ape-boy dragged the body of the black within the cage and propped it against the sidebars. Then he lured the door and made fast the thongs as they had been before. A happy smile lighted his features as he worked, for one of his principal diversions was the baiting of the blacks of Mabonga's village. He could imagine their terror when they awoke and found the dead body of their comrade fast in the cage where they had left the great ape safely secured but a few minutes before. Tarzan and Tog took to the trees together, the shaggy code of the fierce ape brushing the sleek skin of the English lordling as they passed through the primary,

evil jungle side by side. Go back to Tika, said Tarzan. She is yours. Tarzan does not want her. Tarzan has found another she? asked Tog. The ape boy shrugged. For the Gomangani, there is another Gomangani, he said.

For Numa, the lion, there is Sabor, the lioness. For Shita, there is a she of his own kind. For Barra, the deer. For Manu the monkey. For all the beasts and the birds of the jungle, is there a mate? only for Tarzan of the Apes is there none. Tog is an ape. Tika is an ape. Go back to Tika. Tarzan is a man. He will go alone.

End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 2. The Capture of Tarzan. The black warriors labored in the humid heat of the jungle's stifling shade. With war spears, they loosened the thick black loam and the deep layers of rotting vegetation. With heavy-nailed fingers, they scooped away the disintegrated earth from the center of the age-old game trail.

Often they ceased their labors to squat, resting, and gossiping with much laughter at the edge of the pit they were digging. Against the bowls of nearby trees leaned their long oval shields of thick buffalo hide and the spears of those who were doing the scooping. Sweat glistened upon their smooth ebb and skins, beneath which rolled rounded muscles, supple in the perfection of nature's uncontaminated health. A reed buck, stepping warily along the trail toward water, halted as a burst of laughter broke upon his startled ears. For a moment he stood statuess, but for his sensitively dilating nostrils, then he wheeled and fled noiselessly from the terrifying presence of man.

A hundred yards away, deep in the tangle of impenetrable jungle, Numa the lion, raised his massive head. Numa had dined well until almost daybreak, and it had required much noise to awaken him. Now he lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air, caught the awkward scents fore of the reed buck, and the heavy scent of man. But Numa was well filled.

With a low disgusted grunt, he rose and slunk away. Brilliantly plumaged birds with raucous voices darted from tree to tree. Little monkeys, chattering and scolding, swung through the swaying limbs above the black warriors. Yet they were alone, for the teeming jungle with all its myriad life, like the swarming streets of a great metropolis, is one of the loneliest spots in God's great universe. But were they alone? Above them, lightly balanced upon a leafy tree-lim, a gray-eyed youth watched, with eager intentness their every move. The fire of hate restrained, smoldered beneath the lad's evident desire to know the purpose of the black men's labors. Such a one as these it was

who had slain his beloved Kayla. For them there could be not but enmity. Yet he liked well to watched them, avid as he was for greater knowledge of the ways of man. He saw the pit grow in depth until a great hole yawned at the width of the trail, a hole which was amply large enough to hold at one time all of the six excavators. Tarzan could not guess the purpose of so great a labor, and when they cut long stakes, sharpened at their upper ends, and set them at intervals upright in the bottom of the pit, his wonderment but increased, nor was it satisfied with the placing of the light cross-poles over the pit, or the careful arrangement of leaves and earth which completely hid from view

the work the black men had performed. When they were done, they surveyed their handiwork with evident satisfaction, and Tarzan surveyed it too. Even to his practiced eye there remained scarce a vestige of evidence that the ancient game trail had been tampered with in any way. So absorbed was the ape-man in speculed, as to the purpose of the covered pit, that he permitted the blacks to depart in the direction of their village without the usual baiting which had rendered him the terror of Mabonga's people

and had afforded Tarzan both a vehicle of revenge and a source of inexhaustible delight. Puzzle as he would, however, he could not solve the mystery of the concealed pit, for the ways of the blacks were still strange to Tarzan. They had entered his jungle but a short time before. first of their kind to encroach upon the age-old supremacy of the beasts which laird there. To Numa the lion, to Tantor the elephant, to the great apes and the lesser apes, to each and all of the myriad creatures of this savage wild, the ways of man were new. They had much to learn of these black, hairless creatures that walked erect upon their hind paws, and they were learning it slowly, and always to their sorrow.

Shortly after the blacks had departed, Tarzan swung easily to the trail. Sniffing suspiciously, he circled the edge of the pit. Squatting upon his haunches, he scraped away a little earth to expose one of the crossbars. He sniffed at this, touched it, cocked his head upon one side, and contemplated it gravely for several minutes. Then he carefully recovered it, arranging the earth as neatly as had the blacks. This done, he, he was a little. He was a little bit of the black's. This done, he swung himself back among the branches of the trees, and moved off in search of his hairy fellows, the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak. Once he crossed the trail of Numa the lion, pausing for a moment to hurl a soft fruit at the

snarling face of his enemy and to taunt and insult him, calling him eater of Keryon and brother of Dango the hyena. Numa, his yellow-green eyes round and burning with concentrated hate, glared up at the dancing figure above him. Low growls vibrated his heavy jowls, and his great rage transmitted to his sinuous tail a sharp, whip-like motion. But realizing from past experiences

the futility of long-distance argument with the ape-man, he turned presently and struck off into the tangled vegetation which hit him from the view of his tormentor, with a final scream of jungle invective and an ape-like grimace at his departing foe, Tarzan continued along his way. Another mile and a shifting wind brought to his keen nostrils a familiar pungent odor close at hand, and a moment later there loomed beneath him a huge gray-black bulk, forging steadily along the jungle trail. Tarzan seized and broke a small limb,

and at the sudden cracking sound the ponderous figure halted. Great ears were thrown forward, and a long, supple trunk rose quickly to wave to and fro in search of the scent of an enemy, while too weak little eyes peered suspiciously and futile about in quest of the author of the noise which had disturbed his peaceful way. Tarzan laughed aloud and came closer above the head of the pachyderm. Tanter, Tanter, he cried. Barra the deer is less fearful than you. You, Tanter, the elephant, greatest of the jungle folk, with the strength of as many, in numas as I have toes upon my feet and fingers upon my hands. Tantor, who can uproot great trees,

trembles with fear at the sound of a broken twig. A rumbling noise which might have been either a sign of contempt or a sigh of relief was Tantor's only reply as the uplifted trunk and ears came down and the beast's tail dropped to normal. But his eyes still roved about in search of Tarzan. He was not long kept in suspense, however, as to the whereabouts of the ape-man. For a second later, the youth dropped lightly to the broad head of his old friend.

Then, stretching himself at full length, he drummed with his bare toes upon the thick hide, and as his fingers scratched the more tender surfaces beneath the great ears, he talked to Tantor of the gossip of the jungle, as though the great beast understood every word that he said. Much there was which Tarzan could make Tanter understand, and though the small talk of the wild was beyond the great gray dreadnought of the jungle, he stood with blinking eyes and gently swaying trunk as though drinking in every word of it with keenest appreciation. As a matter of fact, it was the pleasant, friendly voice and caressing hands behind his ears which

he enjoyed, and the close proximity of him whom he had often borne upon his back, since Tarzan, as a little child, had once fearlessly approached the great bull, assuming upon the part of the Pachyderm the same friendliness which filled his own heart. In the years of their association, Tarzan had discovered that he possessed an inexplicable power to govern and direct his mighty friend. At his bidding, Tanter would come from a great distance, as far as his keen ears could detect the shrill and piercing summons of the ape-man, And when Tarzan was squatted upon his head, Tanter would lumber through the jungle in any direction which his writer bade him go. It was the power of the man-mind over that of the brute,

and it was just as effective as though both fully understood its origin, though neither did. For half an hour Tarsan sprawled there upon Tantor's back. Time had no meaning for either of them. Life, as they saw it, consisted principally, in keeping their stomachs filled. To Tarzan this was a less arduous labor than to Tantor, for Tarzan's stomach was smaller, and being omnivorous, food was less difficult to obtain. If one sort did not come readily to hand, there were always many others to satisfy his hunger. He was less particular as to his diet than Tantor, who would eat only the bark of certain trees and the wood of others, while a third appealed to him only through its leaves, and these perhaps, just

at certain seasons of the year. Tantor must need spend the better part of his life in filling his immense stomach against the needs of his mighty fuse. It is thus, with all the lower orders, their lives are so occupied either with searching for food or with the processes of digestion that they have little time for other considerations. Doubtless it is this handicap which has kept them from advancing as rapidly as man, who has more time to give to thought, on other matters. However, these questions troubled Tarzan but little, and Tantor not at all. What the former knew was that he was happy in the companionship of the elephant. He did not know why. He did not know that because he was a human being, a normal, healthy human being,

he craved some living thing upon which to lavish his affection. His childhood playmates among the apes of Kerchak were now great sullen brutes. They felt, nor, inspired, but little affection. The younger apes Tarzan still played with occasionally. In his savage way he loved them, but they were far from satisfying or restful companions. Tanter was a great mountain of calm, of poise, of stability. It was restful and satisfying to sprawl upon his rough pate, and pour one's vague hopes and aspirations into the great ears which flap ponderously to and fro in apparent understanding. Of all the jungle folk, Tantor commanded Tarzan's greatest love since Kayla had been taken from him. Sometimes Tarzan wondered if Tantor reciprocated his affection. It was

difficult to know. It was the call of the stomach, the most compelling and insistent call which the jungle knows, that took Tarzan finally back to the trees and off in search of food, while Tantor continued his interrupted journey in the opposite direction. For an hour the ape-man foraged. A lofty nest yielded its fresh, warm harvest. Fruits, berries, and tender plantain found a place upon his menu in the order that he happened upon them, for he did not seek such foods. Meat, meat, meat, it was always meat that Tarzan of the apes hunted, but sometimes meat alluded him, as today. And as he roamed the jungle, his active mind busied itself not alone with his hunting, but with many other subjects.

He had a habit of recalling often the events of the preceding days and hours. He lived over his visit with Tantor. He cogitated upon the digging blacks and the strange covered pit they had left behind them. He wondered again and again what its purpose might be. He compared perceptions and arrived at judgments. He compared judgments, reaching, conclusions, not always correct ones, it is true, but at least he used his brain for the purpose God intended it, which was the less difficult because he was not handicapped by the second hand and usually erroneous judgment of others. And as he puzzled over the covered pit, there loomed suddenly before his mental vision a huge gray-black bulk which lumbered ponderously

along a jungle trail. Instantly Tarzan tense to the shock of sudden fear, Decision and action usually occurred simultaneously in the life of the ape-man, and now he was away through the leafy branches ere the realization of the pit's purpose had scarce formed in his mind. Swinging from swaying limb to swaying limb, he raced through the middle terraces where the trees grew close together. Again he dropped to the ground and sped silently and light of foot over the carpet of decaying vegetation, only to leap again into the trees where the tangled undergrowth precluded rapid advance upon the surface. In his anxiety he cast discretion to the winds. The caution of the beast was lost in the loyalty of the man, and so it came that he entered a large clearing,

denuded of trees, without a thought of what might lie there, or upon the farther edge to dispute the way with him. He was halfway across, when directly in his path, and but a few yards away, there rose from a clump of tall grasses, a half-dozen chattering birds, instantly Tarzan turned aside, for he knew well enough what manner of creature the presence of these little sentinels proclaimed. Simultaneously, Bouto, the rhinoceros, scrambled to his short legs and charged furiously. Hap hazard charges Bouto, the rhinoceros. With his weak eyes he sees but poorly even at short distances, and whether his erratic rushes are due to the panic of fear as he attempts to escape or to the irascible temper with which he is generally credited, it is difficult to determine.

nor is the matter of little moment to one whom Buto charges, for if he be caught and tossed, the chances are that not will interest him thereafter. And today a chance that Buto bore down strayed upon Tarzan, across the few yards of knee-deep grass which separated them. Accident started him in the direction of the ape-man, and then his weak eyes discerned the enemy, and with a series of snorts he charged straight for him. The little rhino-birds fluttered and circled about their giant ward. Among the branches of the trees, at the edge of the clearing, a score or more monkeys chattered and scolded as the loud snorts of the angry beast sent them scurrying affrightedly to the upper terraces. Tarzan alone appeared indifferent and serene, directly in the path

of the charge he stood. There had been no time to seek safety in the trees beyond the clearing, nor had Tarzan any mind to delay his journey because of Buto. He had met the stupid beast before, and held him in fine contempt, and now Bouto was upon him. The massive head lowered and the long, heavy horn inclined for the frightful work for which nature had designed it. But as he struck upward, his weapon raked only thin air, for the ape-man had sprung lightly aloft with a cat-like leap that carried him above the threatening horn to the broad back of the rhinoceros. Another spring, and he was on the ground behind the brute, and racing like a deer for the trees. Bouto angered and mystified by the strange disappearance of his prey, wheeled and charged frantically in another direction,

which chanced to be not the direction of Tarzan's flight. And so the ape-man came in safety to the trees and continued on his swift way through the forest. Some distance ahead of him, Tantor moved steadily along the well-worn elephant trail, and ahead of Tantor, a crouching black warrior listened intently in the middle of the path. Presently he heard the sound for which he had been hoping, the cracking, snapping sound which heralded the approach of an elephant. To his right and left, in other parts of the jungle, other warriors were watching. A low signal passed from one to another apprised the most distant that the query was afoot. Rapidly they converged toward the trail, taking positions in trees downwind from the point

at which tantar must pass them. Silently they waited, and presently they were rewarded by the sight of a mighty tusker carrying an amount of ivory in his long tusks that set their greedy hearts to palpitating. No sooner had he passed their positions than the warriors clamored from their perches. No longer were they silent, but instead clapped their hands and shouted as they reached the ground. For an instant, tantar the elephant paused with upraised trunk and tail, with great ears up-pricked, and then he swung on along the trail at a rapid shuffling pace, straight toward the covered pit with its sharp. sharpened stakes up standing in the ground. Behind him came the yelling warriors, urging him on in the rapid flight, which would not permit a careful examination of the ground before him. Tantor, the elephant,

who could have turned and scattered his adversaries with a single charge, fled like a frightened deer, fled toward a hideous, torturing death, and behind them all came Tarzan of the apes, racing through the jungle forest with the speed and agility of a squirrel, for he had heard the shouts of the warriors and had interpreted them correctly. Once he uttered a piercing call that reverberated through the jungle, but Tantor, in the panic of terror, either failed to hear, or hearing dared not pause to heed. Now the giant Pachyderm was but a few yards from the hidden death, lurking in his path, and the blacks, certain of success, were screaming and dancing in his wake, waving their war-spears and celebrating in advance the acquisition of the splendid ivory carried by

their prey, and the surface of elephant meat which would be theirs this night. So intent were they upon their gratulations that they entirely failed to note the silent passage of the man-beast above their heads, nor did Tantor either see or hear him, even though Tarzan called to him to stop. A few more steps would precipitate Tantor upon the sharpened stakes. Tarzan fairly flew through the trees until he had come abreast of the fleeing animal, and then had passed him. At the pits verge the ape-man dropped to the ground in the center of the trail. Tantor was almost upon him before his weak eyes permitted him to recognize his old friend. Stop, cried Tarsan, and the great beast halted to the upraised hand. Tarzan turned and kicked aside some of the brush which hid the pit. Instantly

Tantor saw and understood. Fight, growled Tarzan. They are coming behind you. But Tantor, the elephant, is a huge bunch of nerves, and now he was half panic-stricken by terror. Before him yonels, the pit, how far he did not know, but to right and left lay the primeval jungle untouched by man. With a squeal the great beast turned suddenly at right angles and burst his noisy way through the solid wall of matted vegetation that would have stopped any but him. Tarzan, standing upon the edge of the pit, smiled as he watched Tantor's undignified flight. Soon the blacks would come. It was best that Tarzan of the apes faded from the scene. He assayed a step, from the pit's edge, and as he threw the weight of his body upon his left foot, the earth

crumbled away. Tarzan made a single Hercules an effort to throw himself forward, but it was too late, backward and downward he went toward the sharpened stakes in the bottom of the pit. When a moment later the blacks came, they saw even from a distance that Tanter had eluded them, for the size of the hole in the pit covering was too small to have accommodated the huge bulk of an elephant. At first they thought that their prey had put one great foot through the top and then, warned, drawn back, but when they had come to the pits birds and peered over, their eyes went wide in astonishment, for quiet and still at the bottom lay the naked figure of a white giant. Some of them there had glimpsed this forest god before, and they drew back in terror,

awed by the presence which they had for some time believed to possess the miraculous powers of a demon, but others there were who pushed forward. thinking only of the capture of an enemy, and these leaped into the pit and lifted Tarzan out. There was no scar upon his body. None of the sharpened stakes had pierced him. Only a swollen spot at the base of the brain indicated the nature of his injury. In the falling backward, his head had struck upon the side of one of the stakes, rendering him unconscious. The blacks were quick to discover this, and equally quick to bind their prisoners' arms and legs before he should regain consciousness.

for they had learned to harbor a wholesome respect for this strange man-beast that consorted with the hairy tree-folk. They had carried him but a short distance toward their village, when the ape-man's eyelids quivered and raised. He looked about him wonderingly for a moment, and then full consciousness returned, and he realized the seriousness of his predicament. Accustomed almost from birth to relying solely upon his own resources,

he did not cast about for outside aid now, but devoted his mind to a consideration of the possibilities for escape which lay within himself and his own powers. He did not dare test the strength of his bonds while the blacks were carrying him, for fear they would become apprehensive and add to them. Presently his captors discovered that he was conscious, and as they had little stomach for carrying a heavy man through the jungle heat, they set him upon his feet and forced him forward among them, pricking him now and then with their spears, yet with every manner,

manifestation of the superstitious awe in which they held him. When they discovered that their prodding brought no outward evidence of suffering, their awe increased so that they soon desisted, half believing that this strange white giant was a supernatural being, and so was immune from pain. As they approached their village, they shouted aloud the victorious cries of successful warriors, so that by the time they reached the gate,

dancing and waving their spears, A great crowd of men, women, and children were gathered there to greet them and hear the story of their adventure. As the eyes of the villagers fell upon the prisoner, they went wild, and heavy jaws fell open in astonishment and incredulity. For months they had lived in perpetual terror of a weird white demon, whom but few had ever glimpsed and lived to describe. Warriors had disappeared from the paths almost within sight of the village, and from the midst of their companions, as mysteriously and completely as though they had been swallowed by the earth. And later at night their dead bodies had fallen as from the heavens into the village street. This fearsome creature had appeared by night in the huts of the village, killed and disappeared,

leaving behind him in the huts with his dead, strange and terrifying evidences of an uncanny sense of humor. But now he was in their power. No longer could he terrorize them. Slowly the realization of this dawned upon them. A woman screaming ran forward and struck the ape-man across the face. Another and another followed her example until Tarzan of the apes was surrounded by a fighting, clawing, yelling mob of natives. And then Mbonga the chief came, and laying his spear heavily across the shoulders of his people drove them from their prey. "'We will save him until night,' he said. Far out in the jungle, Tantor, the elephant, his first panic of fear allayed, stood with up-priced ears and undulating trunk.

What was passing through the convolutions of his savage brain? Could he be searching for Tarzan? Could he recall and measure the service the ape-man had performed for him? Of that there can be no doubt. But did he feel gratitude? Would he have risked his own life to have saved Tarzan? Could he have known of the danger which confronted his friend? You will doubt it. Anyone at all familiar with elephants will doubt it.

Englishmen who have hunted much with elephants in India will tell you that they never have heard of an instance in which one of these animals had gone to the aid of a man in danger, even though the man had often befriended it. And so it is to be doubted that Tantor would have attempted to overcome his instinctive fear of the black man in an effort to succor Tarzan. The screams of the infuriated villagers came faintly to his sensitive ears. and he wheeled, as though in terror, contemplating flight. But something stayed him, and again he turned about, raised his trunk, and gave a voice to a shrill cry. Then he stood listening. In the distant village where Mabonga had restored quiet and order,

the voice of Tantor was scarcely audible to the blacks, but to the keen ears of Tarzan of the apes it bore its message. His captors were leading him to a hut, where he might be confined and guarded, against the coming of the nocturnal orgy that would mark his torture-laden death. He halted as he heard the notes of Tantor's call, and, raising his head, gave vent to a terrifying scream, and sent cold chills through the superstitious blacks, and caused the warriors who guarded him to leap back, even though their prisoner's arms were securely bound behind him.

With raised spears they encircled him as for a moment longer he stood listening. Faintly from the distance came another, and answering, and answering, and, cry, and Tarzan of the apes, satisfied, turned and quietly pursued his way toward the hut where he was to be imprisoned. The afternoon wore on. From the surrounding village the ape-man heard the bustle of preparation for the feast. Through the doorway of the hut he saw the women laying the cooking fires and filling their earthen caldrons with water, but above it all his ears were bent across the jungle in eager listening for the coming of Tantor, even Tarzan but half believed that he would come. He knew Tantor even better than Tantor knew himself. He knew the timid

heart which lay in the giant body. He knew the panic of terror which the scent of the Goman Ghani inspired within that savage breast. And as night drew on, hope died within his heart, and in the stoic calm of the wild beast which he was, he resigned himself to meet the fate which awaited him. All afternoon he had been working, working, working with the bonds that his wrists. Very slowly they were giving. He might free his hands before they came to lead him out to be butchered, and if he did, Tarzan licked his lips in anticipation and smiled a cold, grim smile. He could imagine the feel of soft flesh beneath his fingers and the sinking of his white teeth into the throats of his foeman. He would let them taste his wrath before they overpowered him.

At last they came, painted, be feathered warriors, even more hideous than not. nature had intended them. They came and pushed him into the open, where his appearance was greeted by wild shouts from the assembled villagers. To the stake they led him, and as they pushed him roughly against it, preparatory to binding him there securely for the dance of death that would presently encircle him, Tarzan tensed his mighty fuse, and with a single powerful wrench, parted the loosened thongs which had secured his hands. Like thought for quickness, he leaped forward among the warriors nearest him. A blow sent one to earth. As growling and snarling, the beast man leaped upon the breast of another. His fangs were buried instantly in the jugular of his adversary, and then half a

hundred black men had leaped upon him and borne him to earth. Striking, clawing, and snapping, the ape-man fought, fought as his foster people had taught him to fight, fought like a wild beast cornered. His strength, his agility, his courage, and his intelligence rendered him easily a match, for half a dozen black men in a hand-to-hand struggle, but not even Tarzan of the Apes could hope to successfully cope with half a hundred. Slowly they were overpowering him, though a score of them bled from ugly wounds, and two lay very still beneath the trampling feet and the rolling bodies of the contestants. Overpower him they might, but could they keep him overpowered while they bound him? A half-hour of desperate endeavor convinced him that they could not, and so Mbonga, who, like all good

rulers had circled in the safety of the background, called to one to work his way in, and spear the victim. Gradually through the milling, battling men, the warrior approached the object of his quest. He stood with poised spear above his head, waiting for the instant that would expose a vulnerable part of the ape-man's body, and still not in danger one of the blacks. Closer and closer he edged about, following the movements of the twisting, scuffling combatants. The growls of the ape-man sent cold chills up the warrior's spying, causing him to go carefully lest he miss at the first cast, and lay himself open to an attack from those merciless teeth and mighty hands.

At last he found an opening, higher he raised his spear, tensing his muscles rolling beneath his glistening aben-hide, and then from the jungle, just beyond the palisade, came a thunderous crashing. The spear-hand paused. The black cast a quick glance in the direction of the disturbance, as did the others of the blacks who were not occupied with the subjugation of the ape-man. In the glare of the fires, they saw a huge bulk topping the barrier. They saw the paliside belly and sway inward. They saw it burst as though built of straws. And an instant later, tantor the elephant thundered down upon them. To right and left the blacks fled, screaming in terror. Some who hovered

upon the verge of the strife, with Tarzan, heard, and made good their escape, but a half a dozen there were so wrapped in the blood madness of battle that they failed to note the approach of the giant Tusker. Upon these Tantor charged, trumpeting furiously, above them he stopped his sensitive trunk weaving among them, and there at the bottom he found Tarzan, bloody but still battling. A warrior turned his eyes upward from the melee, above him towered the gigantic bulk of the pachyderm, the little eyes flashing with the reflected light of the fires, wicked, frightful, terrifying. The warrior screamed, and as he screamed the sinuous trunk encircled him,

lifted him high above the ground, and hurled him far after the fleeing crowd. Another and another, tantar wrenched from the body of the ape-man, throwing them to right and to left, where they lay either moaning or very quiet, as death came slowly or at once. At a distance Mabonga rallied his warriors. His greedy eyes had noted the great ivory tusks of the bull. The first panic of terror relieved, he urged his men forward to attack with their heavy elephant spears. But as they came, Tantor swung Tarzan to his broad head and Wheeling lumbered off into the jungle through the great rent he had made in the palisade. Elephant hunters may be right when they aver that this animal would not have rendered such service to a man, but to Tantor

TANTER, Tarzan was not a man. He was but a fellow jungle beast. And so it was that Tantor the elephant discharged an obligation to Tarzan of the apes, cementing even more closely the friendship that had existed between them since Tarzan as a little brown boy rode upon Tantor's huge back through the moonlit jungle beneath the equatorial stars. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan This Librovox recording is in the public domain Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Chapter 3 The Fight for the Baloo Tika had become a mother Tarzan of the Apes was intensely interested much more so in fact than Tog the father Tarzan was very fond of Tika even the cares of prospective motherhood had not entirely quenched the fires of carefree youth, and Tika had remained a good-natured playmate,

even at an age when other shees of the tribe of Kurchak had assumed the sullen dignity of maturity. She yet retained her childish delight in the primitive games of Tag and Hydengo-Sique, which Tarzan's fertile man-mind had evolved. To play tag through the treetops is an exciting and inspiring pastime. Tarzan delighted in it, but the bulls of his childhood had long since abandoned such childish practices. Tika, though, had been keen for it always until shortly before the baby came, but with the advent of her firstborn, even Tika changed. The evidence of the change surprised and hurt Tarsen immeasurably. One morning he saw Tika squatted upon a low branch hugging something very close to her hairy breast, a wee something which squirmed and wriggled.

Tarzan approached, filled with the curiosity which is common to all creatures endowed with brains which have progressed beyond the microscopic stage. Tika rolled her eyes in his direction and strained the squirming might still closer to her. Tarzan came nearer. Tika drew away and bared her fangs. Tarzan was nonplast. In all his experiences with Tika, never before had she bared fangs at him other than in play, but today she did not look playful. Tarzan ran his brown fingers through his thick, black hair, cocked his head upon one side and stared. Then he edged a bit nearer, craning his neck to have a better look at the thing which Tika cuddled. Again Tika drew back, her upper lip in a warning snarl.

Tarzan reached forth a hand, cautiously, to touch the thing which Tika held, and Tika with a hideous growl turned suddenly upon him. Her teeth sank into the flesh of his forearm before the ape-man could snatch it away, and she pursued him for a short distance. as he retreated incontinently through the trees. But Tika, carrying her baby, could not overtake him. At a safe distance, Tarzan stopped and turned to regard his earth-wild playfellow in unconcealed astonishment. What had happened to so alter the gentle Tika?

She had so covered the thing in her arms that Tarzan had not yet been able to recognize it for what it was. But now, as she turned from the pursuit of him, he saw it. Through his pain and chagrin he smiled, for Tarzan had seen young ape mothers before. In a few days she would be less suspicious. Still Tarzan was hurt. It was not right that Tika, of all others, should fear him. Why not for the world would he harm her or her baloo, which is the ape word for baby?

And now, above the pain of his injured arm and the hurt to his pride, rose a still stronger desire to come close and inspect the newborn son of the baby. Tog. Possibly you will wonder that Tarzan of the Apes, mighty fight or that he was, should have fled before the irritable attack of a she, or that he should hesitate to return for the satisfaction of his curiosity, when with ease he might have vanquished the weakened mother of the newborn cub. But you need not wonder. Were you an ape, you would know that only a bull in the throes of madness will turn upon a female other than to gently chastise her, with the occasional exception of the individual whom we find exemplified among our own kind,

and who delights in beating up his better half because she happens to be smaller and weaker than he. Tarzan again came toward the young mother, warily, with his line of retreat safely open. Again Tika growled ferociously. Tarzan expostulated, Tarzan of the apes will not harm Tika's baloo, he said. Let me see it. Go away, commanded Tika. "'Go away, or I will kill you.' "'Let me see it,' urged Tarzan.

"'Go away,' reiterated the she-ape. "'Here comes Tog. He will make you go away. "'Tog will kill you. This is Tog's baloo.' A savage growl close behind him apprised Tarzan of the nearness of Tog and the fact that the bull had heard the warnings and threats of his mate and was coming to her sucker. Now Tog, as well as Tika, had been Tarzan's playfellow, while the bull was still young enough to wish to play. Once Tarzan had saved Tog's life, but the memory of an ape is not over long,

nor would gratitude rise above the parental instinct. Tarzan and Tog had once measured strength, and Tarzan had been victorious. That fact, Tog could be depended upon still to remember, but even so he might readily face another defeat for his firstborn, if he chanced to be in the proper mood, from his hideous growls, which now rose in strength and volume, he seemed to be in quite the mood. Now Tarzan felt no fear of Tog, nor did the unwritten law of the jungle demand that he should flee from battle with any male, unless he cared to from purely personal reasons. But Tarzan liked Tog, he had no grudge against him, and his man-mind told him what the mind of an ape would never have deduced, that Tog's attitude in no sense indicated hate-touching.

It was but the instinctive urge of the male to protect its offspring and its mate. Tarzan had no desire to battle with Tog, nor did the blood of his English ancestors relish the thought of flight. Yet, when the bull charged, Tarzan leaped nimbly to one side, and thus encouraged Tog wheeled and rushed again madly to the attack. Perhaps the memory of a past defeat at Tarzan's hands goaded him. Perhaps the fact that Tika sat there watching him aroused a desire to vanquish the ape-man before her eyes, for in the breast of every jungle male lurchs a vast egotism, which finds expression in the performance of deeds of daring do before an audience of the opposite sex. At the ape-man's side swung his long grass-rope, the plaything of

yesterday, the weapon of today, and as Tog charged the second time, Tarzan slipped the coils over his head and deftly shook out the sliding noose, as he again nimbly alluded the ungainly beast. Before the ape could turn again, Tarzan had fled far aloft among the branches of the upper terrace. Tog now wrought to a frenzy of real rage, followed him. Tika peered upward at them. It was difficult to say whether she was interested. Tog could not climb as rapidly as Tarzan, so the latter reached the high levels to which the heavy ape dared not follow before the former overtook him. There he halted and looked down upon his pursuer, making faces at him, and calling him such choice names as occurred to the fertile man-brain. Then, when he had worked

toad to such a pitch of foaming rage that the great bull fairly danced upon the bending limb beneath him, Tarzan's hand shot suddenly outward, a widening noose dropped swiftly through the air. There was a quick jerk as it settled about tog, falling to his knees, a jerk that tightened it securely about the hairy legs of the anthropoid. Tog, slow of wet, realized too late the intention of his tormentor. He scrambled to escape, but the ape gave the rope a tremendous jerk that pulled Tog from his perch, and a moment later, growling hideously, the ape hung head downward, thirty feet above the ground. Tarsan secured the rope to a stout limb, and descended to a point close to Tog, he said, you are as stupid as Buto the

rhinoceros. Now you may hang here until you get a little sense in your thick head. You may hang here and watch while I go and talk with Tika. Tog blustered and threatened, but Tarzan only grinned at him as he dropped lightly to the lower levels. Here he again approached Tika only to be again greeted with bared fangs and menacing growls. He sought to placator. He urged his friendly intentions and craned his neck to have a look at Tika's baloo. But the she-ape was not to be persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one. Her motherhood was still so new that reason was yet subservient to instinct. Realizing the futility of attempting to catch and chastise Tarzan, Tika sought to escape him. She dropped to the ground and lumbered across the little clearing

about which the apes of the tribe were disposed in rest or in the search of food, and presently Tarzan abandoned his attempts to persuade her to permit a close examination of the the baloo. The ape-man would have liked to handle the tiny thing. The very side of it awakened in his breast a strange yearning. He wished to cuddle and fondle the grotesque little ape thing. It was Tika's baloo, and Tarzan had once lavished his young affections upon Tika. But now his attention was diverted by the voice of toog. The threats that had filled the ape's mouth had turned to please. The tightening noose was stopping the circulation of the blood in his legs. He was beginning to suffer. Several apes sat near him, highly interested in his predicament.

They made uncomplimentary remarks about him, for each of them had felt the weight of Tog's mighty hands and the strength of his great jaws. They were enjoying revenge. Tika, seeing that Tarzan had turned back toward the trees, had halted in the center of the clearing, and there she sat hugging her baloo and casting suspicious glances here and there. With the coming of the Baloo, Tika's carefree world had suddenly become peopled with innumerable enemies. She saw an implacable foe in Tarzan, always her best friend. Even poor old Munga, half blind and almost entirely toothless, searching patiently for grub worms beneath a fallen log,

represented to her a malignant spirit, thirsting for the blood of little baloos. And while Tika guarded suspiciously against harm, where there was no harm, She failed to note two baleful yellow-green eyes, staring fixedly at her from behind a clump of bushes at the opposite side of the clearing. Hollow from hunger, Sheeta the panther glared greedily at the tempting meat so close at hand, but the side of the great bulls beyond gave him pause. Aw, if the she-ape with her baloo would but come just a trifle nearer, a quick spring and he would be upon them, and away again with his meat before the bulls could prevent.

The tip of his tawny tail moved in spasmodic little jirts, his lower jaw hung low, exposing a red tongue and yellow fangs. But all this Tika did not see, nor did any other of the apes who were feeding or resting about her, nor did Tarzan or the apes in the trees. Hearing the abuse, which the bulls were pouring upon the helpless toog, Tarzan clambered quickly among them. One was edging closer and leaning far out in an effort to reach the dangling ape. He had worked himself into quite a fury through recollection of the last occasion upon which Tog had mulled him, and now he was bent upon revenge. Once he had grasped the swinging ape, he would quickly have drawn him within reach of his jaws. Tarzan saw and was wroth. He loved a fair fight, but the thing which this ape contemplated revolted him. Already a hairy hand had clutched the

helpless Tog, when, with an angry growl of protest, Tarzan leaped to the branch at the attack attacking ape's side, and with a single mighty cuff swept him from his perch. Surprised and enraged, the bull clutched madly for support as he toppled sideways, and then with an agile movement succeeded in projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below. Here he found a handhold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered upward to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was otherwise engaged and did not wish to be interrupted. He was explaining again to to Tog the depths of the latter's abysmal ignorance, and pointing out how much greater and mightier was Tarzan of the apes than Tog or any other ape. In the end he would release Tog, but not until

Tog was fully acquainted with his own inferiority. And then the Madden Bull came from beneath, and instantly Tarzan was transformed from a good-natured teasing youth into a snarling savage beast. Along his scalp the hair bristled, his upper lip drew back that he's fighting fangs might be uncovered and ready. He did not wait for the bull to reach him, for something in the appearance or the voice of the attacker aroused within the ape-man a feeling of belligerent antagonism that would not be denied, with a scream that carried no human note, Tarzan leaped straight at the throat of the attacker. The impetuosity of this act and the weight and momentum of his body carried the bull backward, clutching and clawing for support, down through the leafy branches

of the tree. For fifteen feet the two fell, Tarzan's teeth buried in the jugular of his opponent, when a stout branch stopped their descent. The bull struck full upon the small of his back across the limb, hung there for a moment, with the ape-man still upon his breast, and then toppled over toward the ground. Tarzan had felt the instantaneous relaxation of the body beneath him after the heavy impact with the tree-lim, and as the other turned completely over and started again upon its fall toward the ground, he reached forth a hand and caught the branch in time to stay his own descent, while the ape dropped like a plummet to the foot of the tree. Tarzan looked downward for a moment upon the still form of his late antagonist, then he rose to his full height,

swelled his deep chest, smote upon it with his clenched fist, and roared out the uncanny challenge of the victorious bull-ape. Even Sheeta, the panther, crouched for a spring at the edge of the little clearing moved uneasily as the mighty voice and its weird cry reverberating through the jungle. To right and left, nervously glanced Sheeta, as though assuring himself that the way of escape lay ready at hand. "'I am Tarzan of the apes,' boasted the ape-man. Mighty hunter, mighty fighter! None in all the jungles so great as Tarzan.

Then he made his way back in the direction of Tog. Tika had watched the happenings in the tree. She had even placed her precious baloo upon the soft grasses, and come a little nearer that she might better witness all that was passing in the branches above her. In her heart of hearts, did she still esteem the smooth-skin, Tarzan? Did her savage breast swell with pride, as she witnessed his victory over the ape? You will have to ask Tika. And Sheeta, the panther, saw that the she-Ape had left her cub alone among the grasses. He moved his tail again, as though this closest approximation of lashing in which he dared indulge might stimulate his momentarily waned courage.

The cry of the victorious ape-man still held his nerves beneath its spell. It would be several minutes before he again could bring himself to the point of charging into view of the giant anthropoids. And as he regathered his forces, Tarzan reached Tog's side, and then, clamoring higher up to the point where the end of the grass rope was made fast, He unloosed it, and lowered the ape slowly downwards, swinging him in until the clutching hands fastened upon a limb. Quickly Tog drew himself to a position of safety and shook off the noose. In his rage maddened heart was no room for gratitude to the ape-man.

He recalled only the fact that Tarsan had laid this painful indignity upon him. He would be revenged. But just at present his legs were so numb and his head so dizzy that he must postpone the gratification of his vengeance. Tarzan was coiling his rope the while he lectured Tog on the futility of pitting his poor powers, physical and intellectual, against those of his betters. Tika had come close beneath the tree and was peering upward. Sheeta was worming his way stealthily forward, his belly close to the ground. In another moment he would be clear of the underbrush and ready for the rapid charge and the quick retreat that would end the brief existence of Tika's Ballou.

Then Tarzan chanced to look up and across the clearing. Instantly his attitude of good nature, bantering and pompous boastfulness, dropped from him. Silently and swiftly he shot downward toward the ground, Tika seeing him coming, and thinking that he was after her or her baloo, bristled and prepared to fight. But Tarzan sped by her, and as he went, her eyes followed him, and she saw the cause of his sudden descent, and his rapid charge across the clearing. There in full sight now was Sheeta, the panther, stalking slowly toward the tiny wriggling baloo, which lay among the grasses many yards away. Tika gave voice to a shrill scream of terror and of warning as she dashed after the

ape-man. Sheeta saw Tarzan coming. He saw the she-Ape's cub before him, and he thought that this other was bent upon robbing him of his prey. With an angry growl he charged. Tog warned. by Tika's cry came lumbering down to her assistance. Several other bulls, growling and barking, closed in toward the clearing, but they were all much farther from the baloo and the panther than was Tarzan of the apes, so it was that Shita and the ape-man reached Tika's little one almost simultaneously, and there they stood, one upon either side of it, bearing their fangs and snarling at each other over the little creature. Sheeta was afraid to seize the baloo, for thus he would give the ape-man an opening for attack. And for the same reason Tarzan hesitated to snatch the panther's prey out of harm's

way, for had he stooped to accomplish this, the great beast would have been upon him in an instant. Thus they stood while Tika came across the clearing, going more slowly as she neared the panther, for even her mother-love could scarce overcome her instinctive terror of this natural enemy of her kind. Behind her came tog, warily, and with many pauses, and much bluster, and still behind him, came other bulls, snarling ferociously and uttering their uncanny challenges. Sheeta's yellow-green eyes glared terribly at Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes of Kerchak, advancing upon him. Discretion prompted him to turn and flee, but hunger and the close proximity of the tempting morsel in the grass before him urged him to

remain. He reached forth a paw toward Tika's bala, and as he did so with a savage guttural, Tarzan of the apes was upon him. The Panther reared to meet the ape-man's attack. He swung a frightful raking blow for Tarzan. That would have wiped his face away had it landed, but it did not land, for Tarzan ducked beneath it, and closed, his long knife ready in one strong hand, the knife of his dead father, of the father he never had known. Instantly the Baloo was forgotten by Shita the panther. He now thought only of tearing to ribbons with his powerful talons the flesh of his antagonist, of bearing his long yellow fangs in the soft, smooth hide of the ape-man, but Tarzan had fought before with clawed creatures of the jungle. Before now he had battled with fanged

monsters, nor always had he come away unscathed. He knew the risk that he ran, but Tarzan of the apes inured to the sight of suffering and death shrank from neither, for he feared neither. The instant that he dodged beneath Shita's blow, he leaped to the beast's rear and then full upon the tawny back, burying his teeth in Shita's neck and the fingers of one hand in the fur at the throat, and with the other hand he drove his blade into Shita's side, over and over upon the grass-rolled Shita, growling and screaming, clawing and biting, in a mad effort to dislodge his antagonist or get some portion of his body within range of teeth or talons. As Tarzan leaped to close quarters with the panther, Tika had run quickly in and snatched up her baloo. Now she sat upon a high branch,

safe out of harm's way, cuddling the little thing close to her hairy breast. The while her savage little eyes bore down upon the contestants in the clearing, and her ferocious voice urged toad and the other bulls to leap into the melee. Thus goaded, the bulls came closer, redoubling their hideous clamor, but Sheeta was already sufficiently engaged. He did not even hear them. Once he succeeded in partially dislodging the ape-man from his back, so that Tarzan swung for an instant in front of those awful talons, and in the brief instant, before he could regain his former hold, a raking blow from a hind paw, laid open one leg from hip to knee. It was the sight and smell of this blood, possibly, which wrought upon the encircling apes, but it was Tog who really

was responsible for the thing they did. Tog, but a moment before, filled with rage toward Tarzan of the apes stood close to the battling pair, his red-rimmed wicked little eyes glaring at them. What was passing in his savage brain? Did he gloat over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did he long to see Shita's great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man? Or did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to rush to the rescue and imperil his life or Tika's Baloo, for Tog's little Baloo? Is gratitude a possession of man only? Or do the lore orders know it also. With the spilling of Tarzan's blood, Tog answered these questions. With all the weight of his great body he leaped, hideously growling upon Shita. His long,

fighting fangs buried themselves in the white throat. His powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur, until it flew upward in the jungle breeze. And with Tog's example before them, the other bulls charged, burying Shita beneath rending fangs and filling all the forest with the wild din of their battle cries. Ah, but it was a wondrous and inspiring sight, this battle of the primordial apes and the great white ape-man, with their ancestral foe, Sheeta the Panther. In frenzied excitement, Tika fairly danced upon the limb which swayed beneath her great weight as she urged on the males of her people. And Thaka and Munga and Kama, with the other shees of the tribe of Kurchak, added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the pandemonium which now reigned with.

in the jungle. Bitten and biting, tearing and torn, Sheeta battle for his life, but the odds were against him. Even Numa the lion would have hesitated to have attacked an equal number of the great bulls of the tribe of Kurchak, and now, a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the terrific battle, the king of beast rose uneasily from his midday slumber and slunk off farther into the jungle. Presently, Sheeta's torn and bloody body ceased its titanic struggles, its stiffened, spasmodically, twitched and was still, yet the bulls continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn to shreds. At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from the tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as an arrow. He placed a foot upon the

dead body of the panther, and lifting his blood-stained face to the blue of the equatorial heavens, gave voice to the horrid victory cry of the bull-ate. One by one his hairy fellow's of the tribe of Kurchak followed his example. The shees came down from their perches of safety and struck and reviled the dead body of Shita. The young apes refought the battle in mimicry of their mighty elders. Tika was quite close to Tarzan. He turned and saw her with the balo hugged close to her hairy breast and put out his hands to take the little one, expecting that Tika would bear her fangs and spring upon him. But instead she placed the balo in his arms, and coming nearer,

his frightful wounds. And presently, Tog, who had escaped with only a few scratches, came and squatted beside Tarzan and watched him as he played with the little Baloo, and at last he too leaned over and helped Tika with the cleansing and the healing of the ape man's hurts. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan. This Librovox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice, Earl's. Chapter 4. The God of Tarzan. Among the books of his dead father in the little cabin by the landlocked harbor, Tarzan of the apes found many things to puzzle his young head. By much labor and through the medium of infinite patience as well, he had, without assistance, discovered the purpose of the

little bugs which ran riot upon the printed pages. He had learned that in the many combinations in which he found them, they spoke in a silent language, spoke. in a strange tongue, spoke of wonderful things which a little ape boy could not by any chance fully understand, arousing his curiosity, stimulating his imagination, and filling his soul with a mighty longing for further knowledge. A dictionary had proven itself a wonderful storehouse of information, when after several years of tireless endeavor, he had solved the mystery of its purpose and the manner of its use. He had learned to make a species of game out of it, following up the spore of a new thought through the mazes of the many definitions which each new

word required him to consult. It was like following a quarry through the jungle. It was hunting, and Tarzan of the apes was an indefatigable huntsman. There were, of course, certain words, which aroused his curiosity to a greater extent than others, words which, for one reason or another, excited his imagination. There was one, for example, the meaning of which was rather difficult to grasp. It was the word God. Tarzan first had been attracted to it by the fact that it was very short, and that it commenced with a larger G-bug than those about it, a male G-bug it was to Tarzan, the lower case letters being females. Another fact which attracted him to this word was the number of he-bugs which figured in its definition, supreme deity, creator, or upholder of the

universe. This must be a very important word indeed. He would have to look into it, and he did, though it still baffled him after many months of thought and study. However, Tarzan counted no time wasted which he devoted to these strange hunting expeditions into the game preserves of knowledge, for each word and each definition led on and on into strange places, into new worlds where, with increasing frequency, he met old familiar faces, and always he added to his store of knowledge. But of the meaning of God he was yet in doubt. Once he thought he had grasped it, that God was a mighty chieftain, king of all the man Ganny. He was not quite sure, however, since that would mean that God was mightier than Tarzan, a point which Tarzan of the apes,

who acknowledged no equal in the jungle, was loathed to concede. But in all the books he had, there was no picture of God, though he found much to confirm his belief that God was a great, an all-powerful individual. He saw pictures of places where God was worshipped, but never any sign of God. Finally, he began to wonder if God were not of a different form than he, and at last he determined to set out in search of him. He commenced by questioning Mum, who was very old and had seen many strange things in her long life, but Mumga, being an ape, had a faculty for recalling the trivial. That time when Gunto mistook a sting-bug for an edible beetle had made more impression upon Mumga than all the innumerable manifestations of the

greatness of God which she had witnessed, and which, of course, she had not understood. Numbgo, over-hearing Tarzan's questions, managed to rest his attention long enough from the diversion of flea-hunting to advance the theory that the power which made the lightning and the rain and the thunder came from Goro the moon. He knew this, he said, because the Dumb-Dum always was danced in the light of Goro. This reasoning, though entirely satisfactory to Numgo and Mungga, failed fully to commence Tarzan. However, it gave him a basis for further investigation along a new line. He would investigate the moon. That night he clamors, to the loftiest pinnacle of the tallest jungle giant. The moon was full, a great, glorious,

equatorial moon. The ape-man, upright, upon a slender, swaying limb, raised his bronzed face to the silver orb. Now that he had clambered to the highest point within his reach, he discovered, to his surprise, that Goro was as far away as when he viewed him from the ground. He thought that Goro was attempting to elude him. "'Come, Goro!' he cried. Tarzan of the apes will not harm you. But still the moon held aloof. Tell me, he continued, if you be the great king who sends Ara the lightning, who makes the great noise and the mighty winds, and sends the waters down upon the jungle

people when the days are dark and it is cold, tell me, Goro, are you God? Of course, he did not pronounce God as you or I would pronounce his name, for Tarzan knew not of the spoken language of his English forebearers, but he had a name of his own invention for each of the little bugs which constituted the alphabet. Unlike the apes, he was not satisfied merely to have a mental picture of the things he knew, he must have a word descriptive of each. In reading he grasped the word in its entirety, but when he spoke the words he had learned from the books of his father, he pronounced each according to the names he had given the various little bugs which occurred in it, usually giving the gender prefix for each.

Thus it was an imposing word which Tarzan made of God. The masculine prefix of the apes is Boo, the feminine, Mu. G, Tarzan had named Law. O, he pronounced two, and D was Mo. So the word God evolved itself into Bulimutomumo, or in English, Heiji Shiosidi. Similarly, he had arrived at a strange and wonderful spelling of his own name. Tarzan is derived from the two ape words, Tar and Zan, meaning white skin.

It was given him by his foster mother, Kayla, the great she-ape. When Tarzan first put it into the written language of his own people, he had not yet chanced upon either white or skin in the dictionary. But in a primer he had seen the picture of a little white boy, and so he wrote his name, Bumu Dimu Tomuro, or He-Boy. To follow Tarzan's strange system of spelling would be laborious as well as futile, and so we shall in the future, as we have in the past, adhere to the more familiar forms of our grammar school copy-books. It would tire you to remember that Doe meant B,

2-O, and Roe, Y, and that to say, He-boy, you must prefix the ape-masculine gender-sound boo before the entire word, and the feminine gender sound moo before each of the lower case letters which go to make up boy. It would tire you, and it would bring me to the 19th hole, several strokes under par. And so Tarzan harangued the moon, and when Goro did not reply, Tarzan of the apes waxed Roth. He swelled his giant chest, and bared his fighting fangs, and hurled into the teeth of the dead satellite the challenge of the bull ape. You are not, Bull, mutu-mou-m-mo, he cried. You are not king of the jungle folk. You are not so great as Tarzan, mighty fighter, mighty hunter. None there is so great as Tarzan. If there be a Bulimatu-Mum-O,

Tarzan can kill him. Come down, Goro, great coward, and fight with Tarzan. Tarzan will kill you. I am Tarzan, the killer. But the moon made no answer to the boasting of the ape-man, And when a cloud came and obscured her face, Tarzan thought that Goro was indeed afraid and was hiding from him. So he came down out of the trees and awoke Numgo and told him how great was Tarzan, how he had frightened Goro out of the sky and made him tremble. Tarzan spoke of the moon as he, for all things large or awe-inspiring or male to the ape folk. Numgo was not much impressed, but he was very sleepy, so he told Tarzan to go away and leave his betters alone. But where shall I find God? insisted Tarzan. You are very old. If there is a God,

you must have seen him. What does he look like? Where does he live? I am God, replied Numgo. Now sleep and disturb me no more. Tarzan looked at Numgo steadily for several minutes. His shapely head, sank just a trifle between his great shoulders, his square chin shot forward, and his short upper lip drew back, exposing his white teeth. Then, with a low growl, he leaped upon the ape and buried his fangs in the other's hairy shoulder, clutching the great neck in his mighty fingers. Twice he shook the old ape, then he released his tooth hold. "'Are you God?' he demanded. "'No,' wailed Numgo. "'I am only a poor old ape. Leave me alone. Go ask the Gomannin'ny where God is. They are hairless, like yourself, and very wise, too. They should know. Tarzan released Numbgo and turned away.

The suggestion that he consult the blacks appealed to him, and though his relations with the people of Mabonga, the chief, were the antithesis of friendly, he could at least spy upon his hated enemies, and discover if they had dealings or communications with God. So it was that Tarzan set forth through the trees toward the village of the blacks, all excitement at the prospect of discovering the supreme being, the creator of all things. As he traveled, he reviewed mentally his armament, the condition of his hunting knife, the number of his arrows, the newness of the gut which strung his bow. He hefted the war-spear which had once been the pride of some black warrior of Mabonga's tribe. If he met God, Tarzan would be prepared. One could never tell whether a grass-rope,

a war spear or a poisoned arrow would be most efficacious against an unfamiliar foe. Tarzan of the apes was quite content. If God wished to fight, the ape-man had no doubt as to the outcome of the struggle. There were many questions Tarzan wished to put to the creator of the universe, and so he hoped that God would not prove a belligerent God. But his experience of life and the ways of living things and taught him that any creature with the means for offense and defense was quite likely to provoke attack, if in the proper mood. It was dark when Tarzan came to the village of Mabonga. As silently as the silent shadows of the night, he sought his accustomed place among the branches of the great tree which overhung the palisade. Below him in the village street, he saw men and women. The men

were hideously painted, more hideously than usual. Among them moved a weird and grotesque figure, a tall figure that went upon the two legs of a man, and yet had the head of a buffalo. A tail dangled to his ankles behind him, and in one hand he carried a zebra's tail while the other clutched a bunch of small arrows. Tarzan was electrified. Could it be that chance had given him thus early an opportunity to look upon God? Surely this thing was neither man nor beast, So what could it be, then, other than the creator of the universe? The ape-man watched the every move of the strange creature. He saw the black men and women fall back at its approach,

as though they stood in terror of its mysterious powers. Presently he discovered that the deity was speaking, and that all listened in silence to his words. Tarzan was sure that none other than God could inspire such awe in the hearts of the Gomangani, or stopped their mouths so effectually, without recourse to arrows or spears. Tarzan had come to look with contempt upon the blacks, principally because of their garrulity. The small apes talked a great deal and ran away from an

enemy. The big old bulls of Kerchak talked but little and fought upon the slightest provocation. Numa the lion was not given to loquacity, yet of all the jungle folk there were few who fought more often than he. Tarzan witnessed strange things that night, none of which he understood, perhaps because they were strange, he thought that they must have to do with the God he could not understand. He saw three youths receive their first war spears in a weird ceremony which the grotesque witch-doctor strove successfully to render uncanny and awesome. Hugely interested, he watched the slashing of the three brown arms and the exchange of blood with Mbonga, the chief, in the rites of the ceremony of blood brotherhood. He saw the zebra's tail dipped

into a cauldron of water above which the witch-doctor had made magical passes the while he danced and leaped about it, and he saw the breasts and foreheads of each of the three novidias sprinkled with the charmed liquid. Could the ape-man have known the purpose of this act, that it was intended to render the recipient invulnerable to the attacks of his enemies, and fearless in the face of any danger, he would doubtless have leaped into the village street and appropriated the zebra's tail and a portion of the contents of the cauldron. But he did not know, and so he only wondered, not alone at what he saw, but at the strange sensations which played up and down his naked spine, sensations induced doubtless by the same

hypnotic influence which held the black spectator's intense awe upon the verge of a hysteric upheaval. The longer Tarzan watched, the more convinced he became that his eyes were upon God, and with the conviction came determination to have word with the deity. With Tarzan of the apes to think was to act. The people of Mabonga were keyed to the highest pitch of hysterical excitement. They needed little to release the accumulated pressure of static nerve force which the terrorizing mummery of the witch-doctor had induced. A lion roared, suddenly and loud, close without the palisade. The black started nervously, dropping into utter silence as they listen for a repetition of that all-too-familiar and always terrorizing voice,

even the witch-doctor paused in the midst of an intricate step, remaining momentarily rigid and statuesque as he plumbed his cunning mind for a suggestion as how best he might take advantage of the condition of his audience and the timely interruption. Already the evening had been vastly profitable to him. There would be three goats for the initiation of the three youths into full-fledged wariarship, and besides these he had received several gifts of grain and beads, together with a piece of copper wire from admiring and terrified members of his audience. Numa's roar still reverberated along taut-n nerves when a woman's laugh, shrill and piercing, shattered the silence of the village. It was this moment that Tarzan chose to drop lightly

from his tree into the village street, fearless among his blood-eastern. Fearless among his blood-ed, enemies, he stood, taller by a full head than many of Mabongas warriors, straight as their straightest arrow, muscled like Numa the lion. For a moment Tarzan stood looking straight at the witch-doctor. Every eye was upon him, yet no one had moved. A paralysis of terror held him, to be broke in a moment later as the ape-man with a toss of head stepped straight toward the hideous figure beneath the buffalo head. Then the nerves of the blacks could stand no more, for months the terror of the strange white jungle god had been upon them. Their arrows had been stolen from the very center of the village. Their warriors had been silently slain upon the jungle trails,

and their dead bodies dropped mysteriously, and by night into the village street as from the heavens above. One or two there were who had glimpsed the strange figure of the new demon, and it was from their oft-repeated descriptions that the entire village now recognized Tarzan as the author of many of their ills. Upon another occasion, and by daylight, the warriors who doubtless have leaped to attack him, but at night, and this night, of all others, when they were wrought to such a pitch of nervous dread by the uncanny artistry of their witch-doctor, they were helpless with terror. As one man they turned and fled, scattering for their huts, as Tarzan advanced. For a moment one, and only one, held his ground. It was the witch-doctor. More than half a man, they were a

self-hypnotized into a belief in his own charlatanry, he faced this new demon who threatened to undermine his ancient and lucrative profession. "'Are you God?' asked Tarzan. The witch-doctor, having no idea of the meaning of the other's words, danced a few strange steps, leaped high in the air, turning completely around, and alighting in a stooping posture with feet far out spread and head thrust out toward the ape-man. Thus he remained for an instant before he uttered a loud, who, which was evidently intended to frighten Tarzan away, but in reality he had no such effect.

Tarzan did not pause. He had set out to approach and examine God, and nothing upon earth might now stay his feet. Seeing that his antics had no potency with the visitor, the witch-doctor tried some new medicine, spitting upon the zebra's tail, which he still clutched in one hand, he made circles above it with the arrows in the other hand, meanwhile, backing cautiously away, from Tarzan and speaking confidentially to the bushy end of the tail. This medicine must be short medicine, however, for the creature, God or demon, was steadily closing up the distance which had separated them. The circles, therefore, were few and rapid, and when they were completed, the witch-doctor struck an attitude which was intended to be awe-inspiring,

and waving the zebra's tail before him drew an imaginary line between himself and Tarzan. Beyond this line you cannot pass, for my medicine is strong medicine, he cried. Stop, or you will fall dead as your foot touches this spot. My mother was a voodoo. My father was a snake. I live upon lion's hearts and the entrails of the panther. I eat young babies for breakfast, and the demons of the jungle are my slaves. I am the most powerful witch-doctor in the world.

I fear nothing, for I cannot die. But he got no further. Instead he turned and fled as Tarzan of the apes crossed the magical deadline and still lived. As the witch-doctor ran, Tarzan almost lost his temper. This was no way for God to act, at least not in accordance with the conception Tarzan had come to have of God. Come back, he cried. Come back, God, I will not harm you. But the witch-doctor was in full retreat by this time, stepping high as he leaped over cooking pots and the smoldering embers of small fires that had burned before the huts of villagers. Straight for his own hut ran the witch-doctor. Terror spurred to unwanted speed, but futile was his effort. The ape-man bore down upon him

with the speed of Barra the deer. Just at the entrance to his hut, the witch-doctor was overhauled. A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him back. It seized upon a portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from him. It was a naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the hut's interior. So this was what he had thought was God. Tarzan's lip curled in an angry snarl as he leaped into the hut after the terror-stricken witch-doctor. In the blackness within he found the man huddled at the far side and dragged him forth into the comparative lightness of the moonlit night. The witch-doctor bit and scratched in an attempt to escape. But a few cuffs across the head brought him to a better realization of the futility of resistance. Beneath the moon, Tarzan held the cringing figure upon its shaking feet. So you are God, he cried. If you be God, then Tarzan is greater than God. And so the ape-man thought.

I am Tarzan, he shouted into the ear of the black, in all the jungle or above it, or upon the running waters, or the sleeping waters, or upon the big water, or the little water. There is none so great as Tarzan. Tarzan is greater than the Mangani. He is greater than the GOMangani. With his own hands he has slain Numa the Lion and Sheeta the Panther. There is none so great as Tarzan. Tarzan is greater than God. See, and with a sudden wrench he twisted the black's neck until the fellow shrieked in pain and then slumped to the earth in a swoon. Placing his foot upon the neck of the fallen witch, doctor, the ape-man raised.

his face to the moon and uttered the long, shrill scream of the victorious bull-ape. Then he stooped and snatched the zebra's tail from the nerveless fingers of the unconscious man, and without a backward glance retraced his footsteps across the village. From several hut doorways, frightened eyes, watched him. Mbonga, the chief, was one of those who had seen what passed before the hut of the witch doctor. Mbonga was greatly concerned. Wise old patriarch that he was, he never had been. more than half believed in witch doctors, at least not since greater wisdom had come with age.

But as a chief he was well convinced of the power of the witch doctor as an arm of government, and often it was that Mobonga used the superstitious fears of his people to his own ends, through the medium of the medicine man. Mbonga and the witch doctor had worked together and divided the spoils, and now the face of the witch doctor would be lost forever if any saw what Mabonga had seen, nor would this generation again have as much faith in any future witch-doctor. Mabonga must do something to counteract the evil influence of the forest demon's victory over the witch-doctor. He raised his heavy spear and crept silently from his hut in the wake

of the retreating ape-man. Down the village street walked Tarzan as unconcerned and as deliberate as though only the friendly apes of Kerchak surrounded him instead of a village full of armed the enemies. Seeming only was the indifference of Tarzan, for alert and watchful was every well-trained sense. Mabonga, wily stalker of keen-eared jungle creatures, moved now in utter silence. Not even Bara the deer, with his great ears, could have guessed from any sound that Mabonga was near. But the black was not stalking Bera. He was stalking man, and so he sought only to avoid noise. Closer and closer to the slowly moving ape-man he came, Now he raised his war-spear, throwing his spear hand far back above his right shoulder.

Once and for all would Mabonga the chief rid himself and his people of the menace of this terrifying enemy. He would make no poor cast. He would take pains, and he would hurl his weapon with such great force as would finish the demon forever. But Mabonga, sure as he thought himself, erred in his calculations. He might believe that he was stalking a man. He did not know, however, a man with the delicate sense perception of the lower orders. Tarzan, when he had turned his back upon his enemies, had noted what Mabonga never would have thought of considering in the hunting of man, the wind. It was blowing in the same direction that Tarzan was proceeding, carrying to his delicate nostrils the odors which arose behind him. Thus it was that Tarzan knew that he was

being followed, for even among the many stenches of an African village, the ape-man's uncanny faculty was equal to the task of differentiating one stench from another and locating with remarkable precision the source from whence it came. He knew that a man was following him and coming closer, and his judgment warned him of the purpose of the stalker. When Mabonga, therefore, came within spear range of the ape-man, the latter suddenly wheeled upon him, so suddenly that the poised spear was shot, a fraction of a second before Mabonga had intended. It went a trifle high, and Tarzan stooped to let it pass over his head. Then he sprang toward the chief, but Mabonga did not wait to receive him. Instead he turned and fled for the dark doorway of the nearest hut, calling as he

went for his warriors to fall upon the stranger and slay him. Well, indeed might Mbonga scream for help, for Tarzan, young and fleet-footed, covered the distance between them in great leaps, at the speed of a charging lion. He was growling, too, not at all unlike Numa himself. Mabonga heard, and his blood ran cold. He could feel the wool stiffen upon his pate, and a prickly chill run up his spine, as though death had come and run his cold finger along Mbonga's back.

Others heard, too, and saw from the darkness of their huts, bold warriors hideously painted, grasping heavy warspears in nerveless fingers. Against Nuba the Lion, they would have charged fearlessly. Against many times their own number of black warriors would they have raced to the protection of their chief, but this weird jungle demon filled them with terror. There was nothing human in the bestial growls that rumbled up from his deep chest. There was nothing human in the bared fangs or the cat-like leaps.

Mbonga's warriors were terrified, too terrified to leave the seeming security of their huts while they watched the beast man spring full upon the back of their old chieftain. Mabonga went down with a scream of terror. He was too frightened even to attempt to defend himself. He just lay beneath his antagonist in a paralysis of fear, screaming at the top of his lungs. Tarzan half rose and kneeled above the black. He turned Mabonga over and looked him in the face, exposing the man's throat. Then he drew his long, keen knife, the knife that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke had brought from England many years before. He raised it close above Mabonga's neck. The old black whimpered with terror. He pleaded for his life in a tongue which Tarzan

could not understand. For the first time the ape-man had a close view of the chief. He saw an old man, a very old man with scrawny neck and wrinkled face, a dried parchment-like face which resembled some of the little monkeys Tarzan knew so well. He saw the terror in the man's eyes. never before had tarzan seen such terror in the eyes of any animal or such piteous appeal for mercy upon the face of any creature some thing stayed the ape-man's hand for an instant he wondered why it was that he hesitated to make the kill never before had he thus delayed The old man seemed to wither and shrink to a bag of puny bones beneath his eyes, so weak and helpless and terror-stricken he appeared that the ape-man was filled with a great contempt. But another sensation also claimed him, something new to Tarzan of the apes in relation to an enemy. It was pity, pity for a poor, frightened old man. Tarzan rose and turned away,

leaving Mbonga the chief unharmed. With head held high, the ape-man walked through the village, swung himself into the branches of the tree which overhung the palisade, and disappeared from the sight of the villagers. All the way back to the stamping ground of the apes, Tarzan sought for an explanation of the strange power which had stayed his hand and prevented him from slaying Mobonga. It was as though someone greater than he had commanded him to spare the life of the old man. Tarzan could not understand, for he could conceive of nothing or no one with the authority to dictate to him what he should do or what he should refrain from doing. It was late when Tarzan sought a swaying couch among the trees beneath which

slept the apes of Kerchak, and he was still absorbed in the solution of his strange problem when he fell asleep. The sun was well up in the heavens when he awoke. The apes were astir in search of food. Tarzan watched them lazily from above as they scratched in the rotting loam for bugs and beetles and grubworms, or sought among the branches of the trees for eggs and young birds, or luscious caterpillars. An orchid dangling close beside his head, opened slowly, unfolding its delicate petals to the warmth and light of the sun, which but recently had penetrated to its shady retreat. A thousand times had Tarzan of the apes witnessed the beauteous miracle, but now it aroused a keener interest, for the ape-man was just commencing,

to ask himself questions about all the myriad wonders which heretofore he had but taken for granted. What made the flower open? What made it grow from a tiny bud to a full-blown bloom? Why was it at all? Why was he? Where did Numa the lion come from? Who planted the first tree? How did Goro get way up into the darkness of the sky to cast his welcome light upon the fearsome nocturnal jungle. And the sun? Did the sun merely happen there? Why were all the peoples of the jungle not trees? Why were the trees not something else? Why was Tarzan different from tog, and tog different from Berra the deer? And Berra different from Sheeta, the panther? And why was not Sheeta like Buto, the rhinoceros? Where and how, anyway, did they all come from? The trees, the flowers,

the insects, the countless creatures? creatures of the jungle. Quite unexpectedly, an idea popped into Tarzan's head. In following out the many ramifications of the dictionary definition of God, he had come upon the word, create, to cause to come into existence, to form out of nothing. Tarzan almost had arrived at something tangible when a distant whale startled him from his preoccupation into sensibility of the present and the real. The whale came from the jungle at some little distance from Tarzan's swaying couch. It was the whale of a tiny baloo. Tarzan recognized it at once as the voice of Gazan, Tika's baby. They had called it Gazan because its soft baby hair had been

unusually red, and Gazan, in the language of the great apes, means red skin. The whale was immediately followed by a real scream of terror from the small lungs. Tarzan was electrified into instant action. Like an arrow from a bow he shot through the trees in the direction of the sound. Ahead of him he heard the savage snarling of an adult she-ape. It was Tika to the rescue. The danger must be very real. Tarzan could tell that by the note of rage mingled with fear in the voice of the she. Running along the bending limbs, swinging from one tree to another, the ape-man raced through the middle terraces toward the sounds which now had risen in volume to deafening proportions, From all directions the apes of Kurchak were hurrying in response to the appeal in the tones of the

Baloo and its mother, and as they came their roars reverberated through the forest. But Tarzan, swifter than his heavy fellows, distanced them all. It was he who was first upon the scene. What he saw sent a cold chill through his giant frame, for the enemy was the most hated and loath of all the jungle creatures. Twined in a great tree was Hista the snake, huge, ponderous, slimy, and in the folds of its deadly embrace was Tika's little Baloo, Gazan. Nothing in the jungle inspired within the breast of Tarzan so near a semblance to fear as did the hideous Hista. The apes too loathed the terrifying reptile and feared him even more than they did Sheeta, the panther, or Numa the lion. Of all their enemies there was none they gave a wider birth than they gave Hista the snake.

Tarzan knew that Tika was peculiarly fearful of this silent, repulsive foe, and as the scene broke upon his vision, it was the action of Tika which filled him with the greatest wonder, for at the moment that he saw her, the she-ape leaped upon the glistening body of the snake, and as the mighty folds encircled her as well as her offspring, she made no effort to escape, but instead grasped the writhing body in a futile effort to tear it from her screaming baloo. Tarzan knew all too well how deep was Tika's terror of Hista. He scarce could believe the testimony of his own eyes then, when they told him that she had voluntarily rushed into that deadly embrace. Nor was Tika's innate dread of the monster much greater than Tarzan's own. Never willingly had he touched a snake. Why, he could not say, for he would admit fear of nothing, nor was it fear, but rather an inherent repulsion bequeathed to him by many generations of civilized ancestors, and back of them, perhaps, by countless myriads of such as Tika, in the breasts of each of which had lurked the same nameless terror of the slimy reptile. Yet Tarsan did not hesitate more than had Tika, but leaped

upon Hista with all the speed and impetuosity that he would have shown had he been springing upon Bara the deer to make a kill for food. Thus beset, the snake writhed and twisted horribly, but not for an instant did it loose its hold upon any of its intended victims, for it had included the ape-man in its cold embrace the minute that he had fallen upon it. Still clinging to the tree, the mighty reptile held the three as though they had been without weight, the while it sought to crush the life from them. Tarzan had drawn his knife, and this he now plunged rapidly into the body of the enemy. But the encircling folds promised to sap his life before he had inflicted a death-wound upon the snake. Yet on he fought,

nor once did he seek to escape the horrid death that confronted him. His sole aim was to slay Hista, and thus free Tika and her baloo. The great wide, gaping jaws of the snake turned and hovered above him, the elastic maw, which could accommodate a rabbit or a horned buck with equal facility, yawn for him. But Hista, in turning his attention upon the ape-man, brought his head within reach of Tarzan's blade. Instantly a brown hand leaped forth and seized the mottled neck,

and another drove the heavy hunting-knife to the hilt into the little brain. Hista shuddered and relaxed, tensed and relaxed again, whipping and striking with his great body. But no longer sentient or sensible, Hista was dead, but in his death-throes he might easily dispatch a dozen apes or men. Quickly Tarzan seized Tika and dragged her from the loosened embrace, dropping her to the ground beneath. Then he extricated the baloo and tossed it to its mother. Still Hista whipped about, clinging to the ape-man, but after a dozen effort,

Tarzan succeeded in wriggling free and leaping to the ground, out of the range of the mighty battering of the dying snake. A circle of apes surrounded the scene of the battle, but the moment that Tarzan broke safely from the enemy, they turned silently away to resume their interrupted feeding, and Tika turned with them, apparently forgetful of all but Herbaloo, and the fact that when the interruption had occurred, she just had discovered an ingeniously hidden nest containing three perfectly good eggs. Tarzan, equally indifferent to a battle that was over, merely cast a parting glance at the still writhing body of Hista, and wandered off toward the little pool which served to water the tribe at this point. Strangely, he did not give the victory cry

over the vanquished Hista. Why, he could not have told you, other than that to him Hista was not an animal. He differed in some peculiar way from the other denizens of the jungle. Tarzan only knew that he hated him. At the pool Tarzan drank his fill, and lay stretched upon the soft grass beneath the shade of a tree. His mind reverted to the battle with Hista, the snake. It seemed strange to him that Tika should have placed herself within the folds of the horrid monster. Why had she done it? Why, indeed, had he? Tika did not belong to him, nor did Tika's baloo. They were both togs. Why then, had he done this thing? Hist. was not food for him when he was dead. There seemed to Tarzan now that he gave the matter thought,

no reason in the world why he should have done the thing he did, and presently it occurred to him that he had acted almost involuntarily, just as he had acted when he had released the old Goman Gennie the previous evening. What made him do such things? Somebody more powerful than he must force him to act at times. All-powerful, thought Tarzan. The little bugs say that God, is all-powerful. It must be that God made me do these things, for I never did them by myself. It was God who made Tika rush upon Hista. Tika would never go near Hista, of her own volition. It was God who held my knife from the throat of the old Gomangani. God accomplishes strange things, for he is all-powerful. I cannot see him, but I know that it must be God who does these things. No Mangani,

No Gomangani, no Tarmangani could do them. And the flowers, who made them grow? Ah, now it was all explained. The flowers, the trees, the moon, the sun himself, every living creature in the jungle, they were all made by God. And what was God? What did God look like? Of that he had no conception, but he was sure that everything that was good came from God. His good act in refraining from slaying the poor, defenseless old Gomongani, Tika's love that had hurled her into the embrace of death, his own loyalty to Tika, which had jeopardized his life that she might live. The flowers and the trees were good and beautiful. God had made them. He made the other creatures, too, that each might have food upon which still live. He had made Sheeta the panther with his beautiful coat, and Numa the lion with his noble head. and his shaggy mane. He had made Barra the dear, lovely and graceful. Yes, Tarzan had found God, and he spent the whole day in attributing to him all of the good and beautiful things of nature. But there was one thing which troubled him. He could not quite reconcile it to his conception

of his newfound God. Who made Hista the snake? End of Chapter 4. Tales of Tarzan. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 5. Tarzan and the Black Boy Tarzan of the apes sat at the foot of a great tree braiding a new grass rope. Beside him lay the frayed remnants of the old one, torn and severed by the fangs and talons of Sheeta the Panther. Only half the original rope was there. The balance having been carried off by the angry cat as he bounded away through the jungle

with the noose still about his savage neck and the loose end dragging among the underbrush. Tarzan smiled as he recalled Sheeta's great rage, his frantic efforts to free himself from the entangling strands, his uncanny screams that were part hate, part anger, part terror. He smiled in retrospection at the discomfiture of his enemy, and in anticipation, in anticipation, of another day as he added an extra strand to his new rope. This would be the strongest, the heaviest rope that Tarzan of the apes ever had fashioned. Visions of Numa the lion, straining futilely in its embrace, thrilled the ape-man. He was quite content, for his hands and his brain were busy. Content, too, were his fellows of the tribe of Kurchak,

searching for food in the clearing and the surrounding trees about him. No perplexing thoughts of the future burdened their minds, and only occasionally, dimly arose recollections of the near past. They were stimulated to a species of brutal content by the delectable business of filling their bellies. Afterward they would sleep. It was their life, and they enjoyed it as we enjoy ours, you and I, as Tarzan enjoyed his. Possibly they enjoyed theirs more than we enjoy ours, for who shall say that the beasts of the jungle do not better fulfill the purposes for which they are created than does man, with his many excursions into strange fields, and his contraventions of the laws of nature, and what gives greater content and greater

happiness than the fulfilling of a destiny? As Tarzan worked, Gazzan, Tika's little Baloo, played about him while Tika sought food upon the opposite side of the clearing. No more, Or did Tika, the mother, or tog, the sullen sire, harbor suspicions of Tarzan's intentions toward their firstborn? Had he not courted death to save their gazen from the fangs and talons of Sheeta? Did he not fondle and cuddle the little one with even as great a show of affection as Tika herself displayed? Their fears were allayed, and Tarzan now found himself often in the role of nursemaid to a tiny anthropoid, an avocation which he found himself often in the role of nursemaid, an avocation which he found by no means irtsome, since Gasson was a never-failing fount of surprises and entertainment.

Just now the apeling was developing those arboreal tendencies which were to stand him in such good stead during the years of his youth, when rapid flight into the upper terraces was of far more importance and value than his undeveloped muscles and untried fighting fangs. Backing off fifteen or twenty feet from the bowl of the tree beneath the branched, of which Tarzan worked upon his rope, Gazon scampered quickly forward, scrambling nimbly upward to the lower limbs. Here he would squat for a moment or two, quite proud of his achievement, and then clamber to the ground again and repeat.

Sometimes, quite often, in fact, for he was an ape, his attention was distracted by other things, a beetle, a caterpillar, a tiny field mouse, and off he would go in pursuit. The caterpillars he always caught, and sometimes the beetles, but the field mice never. Now he discovered the tail of the rope upon which Tarzan was working. Grasping it in one small hand, he bounced away for all the world like an animated rubber ball, snatching it from the ape-man's hand and running off across the clearing.

Tarzan leaped to his feet and was in pursuit in an instant, no trace of anger on his face or in his voice as he called to the roguish little baloo to drop his rope. Straight toward his mother, raced Gazon, and after him came Tarzan. Tika looked up from her feeding, and in the first instant that she realized that Gazzan was fleeing, and that another was in pursuit, she bared her fangs and bristled. But when she saw that the pursuer was Tarzan, she turned back to the business that had been occupying her attention. At her very feet the ape-man overhauled the baloo, and though the youngsters squealed and

fought when Tarzan seized him, Tika only glanced casually in their direction. No longer did she fear harm to her firstborn at the hands of the ape-man. Had he not saved Gazzan on two occasions? Rescuing his rope, Tarzan returned to his tree and resumed his labor, but thereafter it was necessary to watch carefully the playful Baloo, who was now possessed to steal it, whenever he thought his great, smooth-skinned cousin was momentarily off his guard. But even under this handicap, Tarzan finally completed the rope, a long, pliant weapon, stronger than any he had ever made before. The discarded piece of his former one he gave to Gazzan for a plaything, for Tarzan had it in his mind to instruct Teke's Baloo after ideas of his own, when the youngsters should be

old and strong enough to profit by his precepts. At present the little ape's innate aptitude for mimicry would be sufficient to familiarize him with Tarzan's ways and weapons, and so the ape-man swung off into the jungle. His new rope coiled over one shoulder, while little Gasson hopped about the clearing, dragging the old one after him in childish glee. As Tarzan traveled, dividing his quest for food with one for a sufficiently noble query, whereupon to test his new weapon, his mind often was upon Gasson. The ape-man had realized a deep affection for Tika's bala, almost from the first, partly because the child belonged to Tika, his first love, and partly for the little ape's own sake,

and Tarzan's human longing for some sentient creature upon which to expend those natural affections of the soul, which are inherent to all normal members of the genus Homo, Tarzan envied Tika. It was true that Gazzan evidenced a considerable reciprocation of Tarzan's fondness for him, even preferring him to his own surly sire. But to Tika, the little one turned when in pain or terror, when tired or hungry. Then it was that Tarzan felt quite alone in the world, and long desperately for one who should turn first to him for succor and protection. Tog had Tika, Tika had Gazan, and nearly every other bull and cow of the tribe of Kerchak had one or more to love and by whom to be loved. Of course Tarzan could scarcely formulate the thought

in precisely this way, he only knew that he craved something which was denied him, something which seemed to be represented by those relations which existed between Tika and her baloo, and so he envied Tika, and longed for a baloo of his own. He saw Shita and his mate with their little family of three, and deeper inland toward the rocky hills, where one might lie up during the heat of the day, in the dense shade of a tangled thicket close under the cool face of an overhanging rock, Tarzan had found the lair of Numa the lion, and of Sabre the lioness. Here he had watched them with their little baloos, playful creatures, spotted, leopard-like, and he had seen the young fawn with Barra the deer, with Buto, the rhinoceros,

its ungainly little one. Each of the creatures of the jungle had its own, except Tarzan. It made the ape-man sad to think upon this thing, sad and lonely. But presently the scent of game cleared his young mind of all other considerations, as cat-like he crawled far out upon a bending limb above the game trail, which led down to the ancient watering-place of the wild things of this wild world. How many thousands of times had this great old limb bent to the savage form of some bloodthirsty hunter in the long years that it had spread its leafy breast,

branches above the deep-worn jungle path. Tarzan, the ape-man, Sheeta, the panther, and Hista, the snake, it knew well. They had worn smooth the bark upon its upper surface. Today it was Horta, the boar, which came down toward the watcher in the old tree, Horta the boar, whose formidable tusks and diabolical temper preserved him from all but the most ferocious or most famist of the largest carnivora. But to Tarzan, meat was meat, not that was edible or tasty might pass a hungry Tarzan unchallenged and unattacked. In hunger, as in battle, the ape-man out-savaged the dreariest denizens of the jungle. He knew neither fear nor mercy, except upon rare occasions when some strange, inexplicable force, stayed his hand, a force inexplicable to him, perhaps,

because of his ignorance of his own origin, and of all the forces of humanitarianism and civilization that were his rightful heritage because of that origin. So today, instead of staying his hand until a less formidable feast found its way toward him, Tarzan dropped his new noose about the neck of Horta the boar. It was an excellent test for the untried strands. The angered boar bolted this way and that. But each time the new rope held him where Tarzan had made it fast about the stem of the tree above the branch from which he had cast it. As Horta grunted in charge, slashing the sturdy jungle patriarch with his mighty tusks until the bark flew in every direction, Tarzan dropped to the ground behind him. In the ape-man's hand was the long, keen blade that

had been his constant companion since that distant day upon which chance had directed its point into the body of Bolgani, the gorilla, and saved the torn and bleeding man-child from what else had been certain death. Tarzan walked in toward Horta, who swung now to face his enemy, mighty and muscled as was the young giant. It yet would have appeared but the maddest folly for him to face so formidable a creature as Horta the boar, armed only with a slender hunting-knife, so it would have seemed to one who knew Horta even slightly, and Tarzan not at all. For a moment, Horta stood motionless, facing the ape-man. His wicked, deep-set eyes flashed angrily.

He shook his lord head. Mud-eater, jeered the ape-man, wallower in filth. Even your meat stinks. But it is juicy, and makes Tarzan strong. Today I shall eat your heart, old lord of the great tusks, that it shall keep savage that which pounds against my own ribs. Horta, understanding nothing of what Tarzan said, was nonetheless enraged because of that.

He saw only a naked man-thing, hairless and futile, pitting his puny fangs and soft muscles against his own indomitable savagery, and he charged. Tarzan of the apes waited until the up-cut of a wicked tusk would have laid open his thigh,

then he moved, just the least bit to one side, but so quickly that lightning was a sluggard by comparison, and as he moved he stooped low, and with all the great power of his right arm drove the long blade of his father's hunting-knife straight into the heart of Horta the boar. A quick leap carried him from the zone of the creature's death-throes, and a moment later the hot and dripping heart of Horta was in his grasp.

His hunger satisfied, Tarsan did not seek a lying-up place for sleep, as was sometimes his way, but continued on through the jungle, more in search of adventure than of food, for today he was restless. And so it came that he turned his footsteps toward the village of Mabonga, the black chief, whose people Tarzan had baited remorselessly since that day upon which Kulonga, the chief's son, had slain Kayla. A river winds close beside the village of the black man. Tarzan reached its side a little below the clearing where squat the thatched huts of the Negroes. The river life was ever fascinating to the ape-man,

He found pleasure in watching the ungainly antics of Duro, the hippopotamus, and keen sport in tormenting the sluggish crocodile gimla as he basked in the sun. Then, too, there were the shees and the baloos of the black men of the Gomanngani to frighten as they squatted by the river, the shees with their meager washing, the baloes with their primitive toys. This day he came upon a woman and her child farther downstream than usual. the former was searching for a species of shell-fish which was to be found in the mud close to the river bank she was a young black woman of about thirty her teeth were filed to sharp points for her people ate the flesh of man her under lip was slit that it might support a rude pendant of copper which she had worn for so many years that the lip had been dragged downward to prodigious lengths exposing the teeth and gums of her lower jaw her nose too was slit and through the slit was a wooden skewer metal ornaments dangled from her ears and upon her forehead and sheets upon her chin and the bridge of her nose were tattooings in colors that were mellowed now by age

she was naked except for a girdle of grasses about her waist altogether she was very beautiful in her own estimation and even in the estimation of the men of mabonga's tribe though she was always very beautiful in her own estimation and even in the estimation of the men of mbonga's tribe though she was of another people, a trophy of war seized in her maidenhood by one of Mabonga's fighting men. Her child was a boy of ten, lithe, straight, and for a black handsome. Tarzan looked upon the two from the concealing foliage of a nearby bush. He was about to leap forth before them with a terrifying scream, that he might enjoy the spectacle of their terror and their incontinent flight. But of a sudden a new whim seized him. Here was a sudden a new whim seized him. Here was a bala, fashioned as he himself was fashioned. Of course, this one's skin was black, but what of it? Tarzan had never seen a white man. Insofar as he knew, he was the sole representative of that

strange form of life upon the earth. The black boy should make an excellent baloo for Tarzan, since he had none of his own. He would tend him carefully, feed him well, protect him as only Tarzan of the apes could protect his own, and teach him out of his half-human, half-beastial lore, the secrets of the jungle from its rotting surface vegetation, to the high-tossed pinnacles of the forest's upper terraces. Tarzan uncoiled his rope and shook out the noose, the two before him, all ignorant of the near presence of that terrifying form, continued preoccupied in the search for shell-fish, poking about in the mud with short sticks. Tarzan stepped from the jungle behind him. His noose lay open upon the ground beside him.

There was a quick movement of the right arm, and the noose rose gracefully into the air, hovered an instant above the head of the unsuspecting youth, then settled. As it encompassed his body below the shoulders, Tarzan gave a quick jerk that tightened it about the boy's arms, pinioning them to his sides. A scream of terror broke from the lad's lips, and as his mother turned affrighted at his cry, she saw him, being dragged quickly toward a great white giant who stood just beneath the shade of a nearby tree, scarcely a dozen long paces from her. With a savage cry of terror and rage, the woman leaped fearlessly toward the ape-man. In her mean, Tarzan saw determination and courage

which would shrink, not even from death itself. She was very hideous and frightful, even when her face was in repose, but convulsed by passion her expression became terrifyingly fiendish. Even the ape-man drew back, but more in revulsion than fear. Fear, he knew not. Biting and kicking was the black shee's baloo, as Tarzan tucked him beneath his arm, and vanished into the branches hanging low above him, just as the infuriated mother dashed forward to seize and do battle with him. And as he melted away into the depth of the jungle, with his still struggling prize, he meditated upon the possibilities which might lie in the the prowess of the Gomangani, where the hees has formidable as the shees.

Once at a safe distance from the despoiled mother, and out of earshot of her screams and menaces, Tarzan paused to inspect his prize, now so thoroughly terrorized, that he had ceased his struggles and his outcries. The frightened child rolled his eyes fearfully toward his capture, until the white showed gleaming all about the ibrises. I am Tarzan, said the ape-man in the vernacular of the anthropoids, I will not harm you. You are to be Tarzan's Baloo. Tarzan will protect you. He will feed you. The best in the jungle shall be for Tarzan's Baloo, for Tarzan is a mighty hunter. None need you fear, not even Numa the Lion, for Tarzan is a mighty fighter.

None so great as Tarzan, son of Kayla. Do not fear. But the child only whimpered and trembled, for he did not understand the tongue of the great apes, and the voice of Tarzan sounded him like the barking and growling of a beast. Then, too, he had heard stories of this bad, white forest god. It was he who had slain Kulonga and others of the warriors of Mabonga the chief. It was he who entered the village stealthily, by magic in the darkness of the night, to steal arrows and poison, and frighten the wind. women and the children, and even the great warriors. Doubtless this wicked God fed upon little boys.

Had his mother not said as much when he was naughty and she threatened to give him to the white god of the jungle if he were not good? Little black Taibo shook as with Agu. Are you cold? Gobu Balu, asked Arzan using the simian equivalent of black he-baby in lieu of a better name. The sun is hot. Why do you shiver? Tiber. Tiber could not understand, but he cried for his mama, and begged the great white God to let him go, promising always to be a good boy thereafter if his plea were granted. Tarzan shook his head. Not a word could he understand. This would never do. He must teach Gobubalu a language which sounded like talk. It was quite certain to Tarzan that Gobu Balu's speech

was not talk at all. It sounded quite as senseless. as the chattering of the silly birds. It would be best, thought the ape-man quickly to get him among the tribe of Kurchak, where he would hear the Mangani talking among themselves, thus he would soon learn an intelligible form of speech. Tarzan rose to his feet upon the swaying branch where he had halted far above the ground and motioned to the child to follow him, but Tybo only clung tightly to the bowl of the tree and wept. Being a boy and a native African, he had, of course, climbed into trees many times before this, but the idea of racing off through the forest, leaping from one branch to another, as his captor to his horror had done when he had carried Tybo away from his mother,

filled his child his heart with terror. Tarzan sighed. His newly acquired Baloo had much indeed to learn. It was pitiful that a baloo of his size and strength should be so backward. He tried to coax Tibo to follow him, but the child dared not, so Tarsan picked him up and carried him upon his back. Tybo no longer scratched or bit, escaped seemed impossible. Even now were he set upon the ground, the chance was remote he knew that he could find his way back to the village of Mabonga the chief. Even if he could there were the lions and the leopards and the hyenas,

any one of which, as Tybo was well aware, was particularly fond of the meat of little black boys. So far the terrible white god of the jungle had offered him no harm. He could not expect even this much consideration from the frightful green-eyed man-eaters. It would be the lesser of two evils then to let the white god carry him away without scratching and biting as he had done at first. As Tarzan swung rapidly through the trees, little Tybo closed his eyes in terror,

rather than looked longer down into the frightful abysses beneath. Never before in all his life had Tybo been so frightened, yet as the white giants sped on with him through the forest, there stole over the child an inexplicable sensation of security, as he saw how true were the leaps of the ape-man, man, how unerring his grasp upon the swaying limbs which gave him handhold, and then, too, there was safety in the middle terraces of the forest, far above the reach of the dreaded lions. And so Tarzan came to the clearing where the tribe fed, dropping among them with his new Baloo clinging tightly to his shoulders. He was fairly in the midst of them before Taibo spied a single one of the great hairy forms,

or before the apes realized that Tarzan was not alone. When they saw the little Gomengani perched upon his back, some of them came forward in curiosity with up-curled lips and snarling mean. An hour before little Taibo would have said that he knew the uttermost depths of fear, but now as he saw these fearsome beasts surrounding him, He realized that all that had gone before was as nothing by comparison. Why did the great white giant stand there so unconcernedly? Why did he not flee before these horrid hairy treemen fell upon them both and tore them to pieces?

And then there came to Taibo a numbing recollection. It was none other than the story he had heard past from mouth to mouth, fearfully, by the people of Mbonga, the chief, that this great white demon of the jungle was not other than a hairless ape, for had not he been seen in company with these? Tybo could only stare in wide-eyed horror at the approaching apes. He saw their beetling brows, their great fangs, their wicked eyes. He noted their mighty muscles rolling beneath their shaggy hides. Their every attitude and expression was a menace.

Tarzan saw this too. He drew Tybo around in front of him. "'This is Tarzan's Gobu Balu,' he said. "'Do not harm him, or Tarzan will kill you.' And he buried his own fangs in the teeth of the nearest ape. "'It is a Gomangani,' replied the ape. "'Let me kill it. It is a go-mangani. The Gomangani are our enemies.

Let me kill it.' "'Go away,' snarled Tarzan. "'I tell you, Gunto, it is Tarzan's Baloo. Go away, or Tarzan will kill you, and the ape-man took a step toward the advancing ape. The latter sidled off, quite stiff and haughty, after the manner of a dog which meets another, and is too proud to fight and too fearful to turn his back and run. Next came Tika, prompted by curiosity. At her side skipped little Gasson.

They were filled with wonder like the others, but Tika did not bear her fangs. Tarzan saw this and motioned that she, approach. Tarzan has a baloo now, he said. He and Tika's baloo can play together. "'It is a gomengany,' replied Tika. "'It will kill my baloo. Take it away, Tarzan.' Tarzan laughed. It could not harm Pamba the rat, he said. It is but a little baloo, and very frightened. Let Gasson play with it. Tika still was fearful, for with all their mighty ferocity the great anthropoids are timid.

at last, assured by her great confidence in Tarzan, she pushed Gazon forward toward the little black boy. The small ape, guided by instinct, drew back toward its mother, bearing its small fangs and screaming and mingled fear and rage. Tybo too showed no signs of desiring a closer acquaintance with Gazon, so Tarzan gave up his efforts for the time. During the week which followed, Tarzan found his time much occupied. His Baloo was a greater responsibility than he had counted upon. Not for a moment did he dare leave it, since of all the tribe, Tika alone could have been depended upon to refrain from slaying the hapless black,

had it not been for Tarzan's constant watchfulness. When the ape-man hunted, he must carry Gobu Baloo about with him. It was irksome, and then the little black seemed so stupid and fearful to Tarzan. It was quite helpless against even the lesser of the jungle creatures. Tarzan wondered how it had survived at all. He tried to teach it and found a ray of hope in the fact that Gobu Balu had mastered a few words of the language of the anthropoids and that he could now cling to a high-tossed branch without screaming in fear. But there was something about the child which worried Tarzan. He often had watched the blacks within their village. He had seen the children

playing, and always there had been much laughter. But little Gobu Balu never laughed. It was true that Tarzan himself never laughed. Upon occasion he smiled, grimly, but till after he was a stranger. The black, however, should have laughed, reasoned the ape-man. It was the way of the Gomangani. Also he saw that the little fellow often refused food and was growing thinner day by day. At times he surprised the boy, sobbing softly to himself. Tarzan tried to comfort him, even as fierce Kayla had comforted Tarzan when the ape-man was a Baloo, but all to no avail. Gobu Baloo merely no longer feared Tarzan. That was all. He feared every other living thing within the jungle. He feared the jungle days with their long excursions through the dizzy treetops. He feared the jungle nights with their

swaying, perilous couches, far above the ground, and the grunting and coughing of the great carnivora prowling beneath him. Tarzan did not know what to do. His heritage of English blood rendered it a difficult thing even to consider a surrender of his project, though he was forced to admit to himself that his Balu was not all that he had hoped. Though he was faithful to his self-imposed task, and even found that he had grown to like Gobu Balu, he could not deceive himself into believing that he felt for it that fierce heat of passionate affection, which Tika revealed for Gazan, and which the black mother had shown for Gobubalu. The little black boy, from cringing terror at the sight of Tarzan, passed by

degrees into trustfulness and admiration. Only kindness had he ever received at the hands of the great white devil god, yet he had seen with what ferocity his kindly captor could deal with others. He had seen him leap upon a certain he-ape, which persisted in attempt to the tempting to seize and slay Gobubaloo. He had seen the strong white teeth of the ape-man fastened in the neck of his adversary, and the mighty muscles tensed in battle. He had heard the savage beastial snarls and roars of combat, and he had realized with a shudder that he could not differentiate between those of his guardian and those of the hairy ape. He had seen Tarzan bring down a buck, just as Numa the lion might have done, leaping upon its back and fastening

his fangs in the creature's neck. Tibo had shuddered at the sight, but he had thrilled, too, and for the first time there entered his dull, negroid mind, a vague desire to emulate his savage foster parent. But Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the divine spark, which had permitted Tarsin the white boy to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle. In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for superintel. intelligence. Imagination it is which builds bridges and cities and empires. The beasts know it not, the blacks only a little, while to one in a hundred thousand of Earth's dominant race it is given as a gift from heaven that man may not perish from the earth. While Tarzan pondered his

problem concerning the future of his baloo, fate was arranging to take the matter out of his hands. Momea, Tibo's mother, grief-stricken at the loss of her boy, had consulted the tribal witch-doctor but to no avail. The medicine he made was not good medicine, for though Momea paid him two goats for it, it did not bring back Tiber, nor even indicate where she might search for him with reasonable assurance of finding him. Momea, being of short temper, and of another people, had little respect for the witch-doctor of her husband's tribe, and so when he suggested that a further payment of two more fat goats would doubtless enable him to make stronger medicine, she promptly loosed her shrewish tongue upon him, and with such good effect that he was glad to take himself off with his zebra's tail and his pot of magic.

When he had gone and Momea had succeeded in partially subduing her anger, she gave herself over to thought, as she so often had done since the abduction of her Tybo in the hope that she finally might discover some feasible means of locating him, or at least assuring herself as to whether he were alive or dead. It was known to the blacks that Tarzan did not eat the flesh of man, for he had slain more than one of their number, yet never tasted the flesh of any. Two, the bodies always had been found, sometimes dropping as though from the clouds to alight in the center of the village. As Taibo's body had not been found, Maumea argued that he still lived. but where? Then it was that there came to her mind a recollection of Bukawai,

the unclean, who dwelt in a cave in the hillside to the north, and who it was well known entertained devils in his evil lair. Few, if any, had the temerity to visit old Bukawai, firstly because of fear of his black magic and the two hyenas who dwelt with him, and were commonly known to be devils masquerading, and secondly because of the loathsome disease which had caused Bukawai to be an outcast, a disease which was slowly eating away his face. Now it was that Momea reasoned shrewdly that if any might know the whereabouts of her tibu, it would be Bukawai, who was in friendly intercourse with gods and demons, since a demon or a god it was who had stolen her baby. But even her great mother love was sorely taxed to find

the courage to send her forth into the black jungle toward the distant hills and the uncanny abode of Bukawai, the unclean, and his devils. Mother love, however, is one of the human passions which closely approximates to the dignity of an irresistible force. It drives the frail flesh of weak women to deeds of heroic measure. Momea was neither frail nor weak physically, but she was a woman, an ignorant, superstitious African savage. She believed in devils, in black magic, and in witchcraft. To Momea, the jungle was inhabited by far more terrifying things than lions and leopards, horrifying, nameless things, which possessed the power of wreaking frightful harm under various innocent guises. From one of the warriors of the village,

whom she knew to have once stumbled upon the lair of Bukwai, the mother of Taibo learned how she might find it, near a spring of water which rose in a small rocky, canyon between two hills, the easternmost of which was easily recognizable because of a huge granite boulder which rested upon its summit. The westerly hill was lower than its companion, and was quite bare of vegetation except for a single mimosa tree which grew just a little below its summit. These two hills, the man assured her, could be seen for some distance before she reached them, and together formed an excellent guide to her destination. he warned her however to abandon so foolish and dangerous an adventure emphasizing what she already quite well knew that if she escaped harm at the hands of bukowai and his demons the chances were that she would not be so fortunate with the great carnivora of the jungle through which she must pass going and returning

the warrior even went to mammaia's husband who in turn having little authority over the vixenish lady of his choice went to mabonga the chief the latter summoned mammaea threatening her with the direst punishment should she venture forth upon so unholy an excursion the old chief's interest in the matter was due solely to that age-old alliance which exists between church and state the local witch-doctor knowing his own medicine better than any other knew it was jealous of all other pretenders to accomplishments in the black art. He long had heard of the power of Bukawai, and feared less, should he succeed in recovering Momea's lost child, much of the tribal patronage and consequent feeds would be diverted to the unclean one. As Mabonga received as chief a certain proportion of the witch-doctor's fees, and could expect nothing from Bukawai, his heart and soul were quite naturally wrapped up in the Orthodox Church. But if Maumea could view with intrepid heart an excursion into the jungle and a visit to the fear-haunted abode of Bukawai, she was not likely to be deterred by threats of future punishment at the hands of old Mbonga whom she secretly despised.

Yet she appeared to exceed to his injunctions, returning to her hut in silence. She would have preferred starting upon her quest by daylight, but this was now out of the question. since she must carry food and a weapon of some sort, things which she never could pass out of the village with by day without being subjected to curious questioning that surely would come immediately to the ears of Mbonga. So Mamea bided her time until night, and just before the gates of the village were closed, she slipped through into the darkness and the jungle. She was much frightened, but she set her face resolutely toward the north, and though she paused often to listen breathlessly for the huge cats which here were her greatest terror, she nevertheless continued her way stanchly for several hours, until a low moan a little to her right and behind her

brought her to a sudden stop. With palpitating heart the woman stood, scarce daring to breathe, and then, very faintly but unmistakable to her keen ears, came the stealthy crunching of twigs and grasses beneath padded feet. All about Momea grew the giant, trees of the tropical jungle, festooned with hanging vines and mosses. She seized upon the nearest and started to clamor ape-like to the branches above. As she did so, there was a sudden rush of a great body behind her, a menacing roar that caused the earth to tremble, and something crashed into the very creepers to which she was clinging, but below her. Momea drew herself to safety among the leafy branches and thanked the foresight which had prompted her to bring along the dried human ear, which

hung from a cord about her neck. She always had known that the air was good medicine. It had been given her when a girl by the witch-doctor of her town tribe, and was nothing like the poor, weak medicine of Mbonga's witch-doctor. All night, Momea clung to her perch, for although the lion sought other prey after a short time, she dared not descend into the darkness again, for fear she might encounter him or another of his kind. But at daylight she clambered down, and resumed her way. Tarzan of the apes, finding that his Baloo never ceased to give evidence of terror in the presence of the apes of the tribe, and also that most of the adult apes were a constant menace to go Bubalu's life, so that Tarzan dared not leave him alone with him,

took to hunting with the little black boy farther and farther from the stamping grounds of the anthropoids. Little by little his absences from the tribe grew in length as he wandered farther away from them, until finally he found himself a greater distance to the north than he ever before had hunted, and with water and ample game and fruit he felt not at all inclined to return to the tribe. Little Gobu Baloo gave evidences of a greater interest in life, an interest which varied in direct proportion to the distance he was from the apes of Kerchak. He now trotted along behind Tarzan when the ape-man went upon the ground, and in the trees he even did best to follow his mighty foster parent. The boy was still sad and lonely. His thin,

little body had grown steadily thinner since he had come among the apes. For while, as a young cannibal, he was not over-nice in the matter of diet, he found it not always to his taste to stomach the weird things which tickled the pallets of epicures among the apes. His large eyes were very large indeed now. His cheeks sunken, and every rib of his emaciated body plainly discernible, to whomsoever should care to count them. Constant terror, perhaps, had had as much to do with his physical condition as had improper food. Tarzan noticed the change and was worried. He had hoped to see his Baloo waxed sturdy and strong. His disappointment was great. In only one respect did Gobu Baloo seem to progress.

He readily was mastering the language of the apes. Even now he and Tarzan could converse in a fairly satisfactory manner by supplementing the meager ape speech with signs. But for the most part Gobubalu was silent, other than to answer questions put to him. His great sorrow was yet too new and too poignant to be laid aside even momentarily. Always he pined for Mammaia, shrewish, hideous, repulsive, perhaps she would have been to you or me, but to Taibo she was Mama, the personification of that one great love, which knows no selfishness, and which does not consume itself in its own fires. As the two hunted, or rather as Tarzan hunted and Gobu Baloo tagged along in his wake,

the ape-man noticed many things and thought much. Once they came upon Sabor, moaning in the tall grasses, about her romped and played two little balls of fur, but her eyes were for one which lay between her great forepaws and did not romp, one who never would romp again. Tarzan read aright the anguish and the suffering of the huge mother cat. He had been minded to bait her. It was to do this that he had sneaked silently through the trees

until he had come almost above her. But something held the ape-man as he saw the lioness grieving over her dead cub. With the acquisition of Gobu Baloo, Tarzan had come to realize the responsibilities and sorrows of parentage, without its joys. His heart went out to Sabre, as it might not have done a few weeks before. As he watched her,

there rose quite unbidden before him a vision of Mammaia, the skewer through the septum of her nose, her pendulous underlip sagging beneath the weight which dragged it down. Tarzan saw not her unloveliness. He saw only the same anguish that was Sabers, and he winced.

That strange functioning of the mind, which sometimes is called association of ideas, snapped Tika and Gazzan before the ape-man's mental vision. What if one should come and take Gazzan from Tika? Tarzan uttered a low and ominous growl as though Gazzan were his own. Gobu Valu glanced here and there apprehensively, thinking that Tarzan had espied an enemy. Saber sprang suddenly to her feet, her yellow-green eyes blazing, her tail lashing, as she cocked her ears, and reeked her eyes. raising her muzzle sniffed the air for possible danger. The two little cubs, which had been playing, scampered quickly to her, and standing beneath her, peered out from between her forelegs,

their big ears up standing, their little heads caught first upon one side and then upon the other. With a shake of his black shock, Tarzan turned away and resumed his hunting in another direction. But all day there rose one after another, above the threshold of his objective mind, memory portraits of Sabor, of Momea, and of Tika, a lioness, a cannibal, and a she-ape. Yet to the ape-man they were identical through motherhood. It was noon of the third day when Momea came within sight of the cave of Bukawai, the unclean. The old witch-doctor had rigged a framework of interlaced boughs to close the mouth of the cave from predatory beasts. This was now set to one side,

and the black cavern beyond yawned mysterious and repellent. Momea shivered as from a cold wind of the rainy season. No sign of life appeared about the cave, yet Momea experienced that uncanny sensation as of unseen eyes regarding her malevolently. Again she shuddered, she tried to force her unwilling feet onward toward the cave, when from its depths issued an uncanny sound that was neither brute nor human, a weird sound that was akin to mirthless laughter. With a stifled scream, Mammaia turned and fled into the jungle.

For a hundred yards she ran before she could control her terror, and then she paused, listening. Was all her labor, were all the terrors and dangers through which she had passed, to go for naught? She tried to steal herself to return to the cave, but again fright overcame her. Saddened, disheartened, she turned slowly, upon the back trail toward the village of Mabonga.

Her young shoulders now were drooped like those of an old woman who bears a great burden of many years with their accumulated pains and sorrows, and she walked with tired feet and a halting step. The spring of youth was gone from Amaya. For another hundred yards she dragged her weary way, her brain half paralyzed from dumb terror and suffering, and then there came to her the memory of a little bay, that suckled at her breast, and of a slim boy who romped, laughing about her, and they were

both tibble, her tibol. Her shoulders straightened, she shook her savage head, and she turned about and walked boldly back to the mouth of the cave of Bukawai, the young clean, of Bukawai, the witch-doctor. Again from the interior of the cave came the hideous laughter that was not laughter. This time Momea recognized it for what it was, the strange cry of a hyena. No more did she shudder, but she held her spear ready and called aloud to Bukawai to come out. Instead of Bukawai came the repulsive head of a hyena. Mamea poked at it with her spear, and the ugly sullen brute drew back with an angry growl. Again Mamea called Bukowai by name, and this time there came an answer in mumbling tones,

that were scarce more human than those of the beast. Who comes to Bukawai? queried the voice. It is Momea, replied the woman. Momea from the village of Mabonga, the chief. What do you want? I want good medicine, better medicine than Mabongas which doctor can make, replied Momea. The great white jungle god has stolen my tibu,

and I want medicine to bring him back, or to find where he is hidden, that I may go and get him. Who is Tybal? asked Bukawai. Mamea told him. Bukawai's medicine is very strong, said the voice. Five goats and a new sleeping mat are scarce enough in exchange for Bukawai's medicine. Two goats are enough, said Momea, for the spirit of barter is strong in the breasts of the blacks. The pleasure of haggling over the price was a sufficiently potent lord to draw Bukowai to the mouth of the cave.

Mamea was sorry when she saw him that he had not remained within. There are some things too horrible, too hideous, too repulsie for description. Bukawai's face was of these. When Mamea saw him, she understood why it was that he was almost inarticulate. Beside him were two hyenas, which rumor had said were his only and constant companion. They made an excellent trio, the most repulsive of beasts with the most repulsive of humans. Five goats and a new sleeping mat, mumbled Bukawai. Two fat goats and a sleeping mat, Mamea raised her bid, but Bukawai was obdurate.

He stuck for the five goats and the sleeping mat for a matter of half an hour, while the hyaena sniffed and growled and laughed hideously. Mammaia was determined to give all that Bukawai asked if she could do no better, but haggling is second nature to black barterers, and in the end it partly repaid her, for a compromise finally was reached, which included three fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and a piece of copper wire. "'Come back to-night,' said Bukowai, "'when the moon is two hours in the sky. Then will I make the strong medicine which shall bring Tybo back to you. Bring with you the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat,

and the piece of copper wire the length of a large man's forearm. I cannot bring them, said Momaia. You will have to come after them. When you have restored Taibo to me, you shall have them all at the village of Mabonga. Bukawai shook his head. said, I will make no medicine, he said, until I have the goats and the mat and the copper wire. Momea pleaded and threatened, but all to no avail. Finally, she turned away and started off through the jungle toward the village of Mabonga. How she could get three goats and a sleeping

mat out of the village and through the jungle to the cave of Bukawai she did not know, but that she would do it somehow she was quixing. quite positive. She would do it or die. Taibo must be restored to her. Tarzan, coming lazily through the jungle with little Gobu Baloo, caught the scent of Barra the deer. Tarzan hungered for the flesh of Barra, not tickled his palate so greatly, but to stalk Barra with Goboo Balu at his heels was out of the question. So he hid the child in the crotch of a tree where the thick foliage screened him from view and set off swiftly and silently upon the spore of Barra. Taibo alone was more terrified than Taibo even among the apes.

Real and apparent dangers are less disconcerting than those which we imagine, and only the gods of his people knew how much Taibo imagined. He had been but a short time in his hiding place when he heard something approaching through the jungle. He crouched closer to the limb upon which he lay and prayed that Tarzan would return quickly. His wide eyes, searched the jungle in the direction of the moving creature. What if it was a leopard that had caught his scent? It would be upon him in a minute. Hot tears flowed from the large eyes of little Tybal. The curtain of jungle foliage rustled close at hand. The thing was but a few paces from his tree. His eyes fairly popped from his black face as he watched for the appearance of the dread creature,

which presently would thrust a snarling countenance from between the vines and creepers. And then the and parted, and a woman stepped into full view. With a gasping cry, Tybo tumbled from his perch and raced toward her. Mamea suddenly started back and raised her spear, but a second later she cast it aside and caught the thin body in her strong arms. Crushing it to her, she cried and laughed all at one and the same time, and hot tears of joy mingled with the tears of Tybo, trickled down the crease between her naked breasts. Disturbed by the noise, close at hand, there arose from his sleep in a nearby thicket, Numa, the lion. He looked through the tangled underbrush, and saw the black woman and her young. He licked his

chops and measured the distance between them and himself. A short charge and a long leap would carry him upon them. He flicked the end of his tail and sighed. A vagrant breeze, swirling suddenly in the wrong direction, carried the scent of Tarzan to the sensitive nostrils of Barah the deer, There was a startled tensing of muscles and cocking of ears, a sudden dash, and Tarzan's meat was gone. The ape-man angrily shook his head and turned back toward the spot where he had left Goboo Baloo. He came softly, as was his way. Before he reached the spot, he heard strange sounds, the sound of a woman laughing, and of a woman weeping, and the two which seemed to come from one throat were mingled with the convulsive sobbing of a child.

Tarzan hastened. And when Tarzan hastened, only the birds in the wind went faster. And as Tarzan approached the sounds, he heard another, a deep sigh. Momea did not hear it, nor did Tybal. But the ears of Tarzan were as the ears of Barra the deer. He heard the sigh, and he knew, so he unloosed the heavy spear which dangled at his back. Even as he sped through the branches of the trees, with the same ease that you or I might take out a pocket-handkerchief, as we strolled nonchalantly down a lazy country lane, Tarzan of the apes, took the spear from its thong that it might be ready against any emergency. Numa the lion did not rush madly to attack. He reasoned again, and reasoned told him that already the prey was his, so he pushed his great bulk

through the foliage and stood eyeing his meat with baleful, glaring eyes. Momea saw him, and shrieked, drawing Tibel closer to her breast, to have found her child, and to lose him all in a moment. She raised her spear, throwing her hand far back of her shoulder. Numa roared and stepped slowly forward. Mamea cast her weapon. It grazed the tawny shoulder, inflicting a flesh wound which aroused all the terrific bestiality of the carnivore and the lion charred.

Mamea tried to close her eyes, but could not. She saw the flashing swiftness of the huge oncoming death, and then she saw something else. She saw a mighty naked white man drop as from the heavens into the path of the charging lion. She saw the muscles of a great arm flash in the light of the equatorial sun as it filtered, dappling through the foliage above. She saw a heavy hunting spear hurdle through the air to meet the lion in mid-leap. Numa brought up upon his haunches, roaring terribly,

and striking at the spear which protruded from his breast. His great blows bent and twisted the weapon. Tarzan, crouching and with hunting-knife in hand, circled warily about the frenzied cat. Momea, wide-eyed, stood rooted to the spot, watching, fascinated. In sudden fury, Numa hurled himself toward the ape-man, but the wiry creature eluded the blundering charge, sidestepping quickly, only to rush in upon his foe. Twice the hunting-blade flashed in the air. Twice it fell upon the back of Numa, already weakening from the spear-point so nearer. his heart. The second stroke of the blade pierced far into the beast's spine, and with a last

convulsive sweep of his forepaws, in a vain attempt to reach his tormentor, Numa sprawled upon the ground, paralyzed and dying. Bukawai, fearful lest he should lose any recompense, followed Mamea with the intention of persuading her to part with her ornaments of copper and iron, against her return with the price of the medicine, to pay, as it were, for an option of. his services, as one pays a retaining fee to an attorney, for, like an attorney, Bukawai knew the value of his medicine, and that it was well to collect as much as possible in advance. The witch-doctor came upon the scene as Tarzan leaped to meet the lion's charge. He saw it all and marveled, guessing immediately that this must be the strange white demon

concerning whom he had heard vague rumors before Mamea came to him. Momea, now that the lion was past harming her or hers, gazed with new terror upon Tarzan. It was he who had stolen her Tybo. Doubtless he would attempt to steal him again. Mamea hugged the boy close to her. She was determined to die this time rather than suffer Tybo to be taken from her again. Tarzan eyed them in silence. The sight of the boy, clinging, sobbing to his mother, aroused within his savage breast a melancholy loneliness.

there was none thus to cling to tarzan who yearned so for the love of some one of something at last hybo looked up because of the quiet that had fallen upon the jungle and saw tarzan he did not shrink tarzan he said in the speech of the great apes of the tribe of kerchak do not take me from mammaia my mother do not take me again to the lair of the hairy tree man for i fear tog and guanto and the others let me stay with mammaia oh tarzan God of the jungle. Let me stay with Mammaa, my mother, and to the end of our days we will bless you and put food before the gates of the village of Mbonga that you may never hunger. Tarzan sighed. Go, he said, back to the village of Mabonga, and Tarzan will follow to see that no harm befalls you. Tybo translated the words to his mother, and the two turned their backs upon the ape-man

and started off toward home. In the heart of Mamea was a great fear and a great exultation, for never before had she walked with God, and never had she been so happy. She strained little Tybo to her, stroking his thin cheek. Tarzan saw and sighed again. "'For Tika there is Tika's baloo,' he soliloquized. For Sabor, there are balus, and for the she gomangani, and for Barra, and for Manu, and even for Pemba the rat. But for Tarzan there can be none.

Neither a she nor a Baloo. Tarzan of the apes is a man, and it must be that man walks alone. Bukawai saw them go, and he mumbled through his rotting face, swearing a great oath that he would yet have the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire. End of Chapter 5.

chapter six of jungle tales of tarzan this librivox recording is in the public domain jungle tales of tarzan by edgar rice burroughs chapter six the witch doctor seeks vengeance lord graystoke was hunting or to be more accurate he was shooting pheasants at camston heading lord graystoke was immaculately and appropriately garbed to the minutest detail he was vogue to be sure he was among the forward guns not being considered a sporting shot but what he lacked in skill he more than made up in appearance at the end of the day he would doubtless have many birds to his credit since he had two guns and a smart loader many more birds than he could eat in a year even had he been hungry which he was not having but just arisen from the breakfast-table the beaters there were twenty-three of them in white smocks had but just driven the birds into a patch of gorse and were now circling to the opposite side that they might drive down toward the guns lord graystoke was quite as excited as he ever permitted himself to become there was an exhilaration in the sport that would not be denied He felt his blood tingling through his veins as the beaters approached closer and closer to the birds. In a vague and stupid sort of way, Lord Greystoke felt, as he always felt upon such occasions, that he was experiencing a sensation somewhat akin to a reversion to a prehistoric type,

that the blood of an ancient forebear was coursing hot through him, a hairy half-naked forebearer who had lived by the hunt. And far away in a matted equatorial jungle, another Lord Greystoke, the real Lord Greystoke, hunted. By the standards which he knew, he too was vogue, utterly vogue, as was the primal ancestor before the first eviction. The day being sultry, the leopard's skin, had been left behind. The real Lord Greystoke had not two guns, to be sure, nor even one. Neither did he have a smart loader. He possessed something infinitely more efficacious than guns or loaders, or even twenty-three beaters in white smocks.

He possessed an appetite, an uncanny woodcraft, and muscles that were as steel springs. Later that day in England a Lord Greystoke ate bountifully of things he had not killed, and he drank other things which were uncourt to the accompaniment of much noise. He patted his lips with snowy linen to remove the faint traces of his repast, quite ignorant of the fact that he was an imposter and that the rightful owner of his noble title was even then finishing his own dinner in far-off Africa. He was not using snowy linen, though.

Instead he drew the back of a brown forearm and hand across his mouth and wiped his bloody fingers upon his thighs. Then he moved slowly through the jungle to the drinking-greens. place, where upon all fours he drank, as drank his fellows, the other beasts of the jungle. As he quenced his thirst, another denizen of the gloomy forest approached the stream along the path behind him. It was Numa the lion, tawny of body and black of mane, scowling and sinister, rumbling out low, coughing roars. Tarzan of the apes heard him long before he came within sight, but the ape man went on with his drinking until he had had his fill.

Then he arose slowly with the easy grace of a creature of the wilds and all the quiet dignity that was his birthright. Numa halted as he saw the man standing at the very spot where the king would drink. His jaws were parted, and his cruel eyes gleamed. He growled and advanced slowly. The man growled too, backing slowly to one side. and watching not the lion's face, but its tail. Should that commence to move from side to side in quick nervous jurts, it would be well to be upon the alert, and should it rise suddenly erect,

straight and stiff, then one might prepare to fight or flee. But it did neither, so Tarzan merely backed away, and the lion came down and drank scarce fifty feet from where the man stood. To-morrow they might be at one another's throats, but to-day there exist. one of those strange and inexplicable truces which so often are seen among the savage ones of the jungle. Before Numa had finished drinking, Tarzan had returned into the forest and was swinging away in the direction of the village of Mabonga the black chief. It had been at least a moon since the eight-man had called upon the Gomangani. Not since he had restored little Tybo to his grief-stricken mother had the whim seized him to do so. The incident of the adoptive,

Loppeded Baloo was a closed one to Tarzan. He had sought to find something upon which to laveys such an affection as Tika lavished upon her baloo. But a short experience of the little black boy had made it quite plain to the ape-man that no such sentiment could exist between them. The fact that he had for a time treated the little black, as he might have treated a real baloo of his own, had in no way altered the vengeful sentiments with which he considered the murderers of Kayla. The Gomengany were his deadly enemies, nor could they ever be aught else. Today he looked forward to some slight relief from the monotony of his existence in such excitement as he might derive from baiting the blacks.

It was not yet dark when he reached the village and took his place in the great tree overhanging the palisade. From beneath came a great wailing out of the depths of a nearby hut. The noise fell disagreeably upon Tarzan's ears. It jarred and grated. He did not like it, so he decided to go away for a while in the hopes that it might cease. But though he was gone for a couple of hours, the wailing still continued when he returned. With the intention of putting a violent termination to the annoying sound, Tarzan slipped silently from the tree into the

shadows beneath. Creeping stealthily and keeping well in the cover of other huts, he approached that from which rose the sounds of lamentation. A fire burned brightly before the doorway, as it did before other doorways in the village. A few females squatted about, occasionally adding their own mournful howlings to those of the master artist within. The ape-man smiled a slow smile as he thought of the consternation which would follow the quick leap that would carry him. among the females and into the full light of the fire. Then he would dart into the hut during the excitement, throttle the chief's screamer, and be gone into the jungle before the blacks could gather their scattered nerves for an assault. Many times had Tarzan behaved similarly

in the village of Mabonga, the chief, his mysterious and unexpected appearances always filled the breasts of the poor superstitious blacks with the panic of terror, never at seemed could they accustomed themselves to the sight of him. It was this terror which lent to the adventures the spice of interest and amusement which the human mind of the ape-man craved. Merely to kill was not in itself sufficient. Acustomed to the sight of death, Tarzan found no great pleasure in it. Long since had he avenged the death of Kayla, but in the accomplishment of it he had learned the excitement and the pleasure to be derived from the baiting of a the blacks. Of this he never tired. It was just as he was about to spring forward with a savage

roar that a figure appeared in the doorway of the hut. It was the figure of the whaler whom he had come to still, the figure of a young woman with a wooden skewer through the split septum of her nose, with a heavy metal ornament depending from her lower lip, which it had dragged down to hideous and repulsive deformity, with strange tattooing upon full. forehead, cheeks, and breasts, and a wonderful coiffure built up with mud and wire. A sudden flare of the fire threw the grotesque figure into high relief, and Tarzan recognized her as Momaya, the mother of Taibo. The fire also threw out a fitful flame which carried to the shadows where Tarzan lurked, picking out his light brown body from the

surrounding darkness. Mamea saw him and knew him. With a cry she leaped forward, Tarzan came to meet her. The other women, turning, saw him too, but they did not come toward him. Instead they rose as one, shrieked as one, fled as one. Momea threw herself at Tarzan's feet, raising supplicating hands toward him, and pouring forth from her mutilated lips a perfect cataract of words, not one of which the eight-men comprehended. For a moment he looked down upon the upturned, frightful face of the woman. He had come to slay, but that overwhelming torrent of speech filled him with consternation and with awe. He glanced about him apprehensively, then back at the woman.

A revulsion of feelings seized him. He could not kill little Tybo's mother, nor could he stand and face this verbal geyser. With a quick gesture of impatience at the spoiling of his evening's entertainment, he wheeled and leaped away into the darkness. A moment later he was swinging through the black jungle night, the cries and lamentations of Mammaia growing fainter in the distance. It was with a sigh of relief that he finally reached a point from which he could no longer hear them, and, finding a comfortable crotch high among the trees, composed himself for a night

of dreamless slumber, while a prowling lion moaned and coughed beneath him, and in far off England the other Lord Greystoke, with the assistance of a valet, disrobed and crawled between spotless sheets, swearing irritably as a cat meowed beneath his window. As Tarzan followed the fresh spore of Horta the Boar the following morning, he came upon the tracks of two Gomengany, a large one and a small one. The ape-man, accustomed as he was to questioning closely all that fell to his perceptions, paused to read the story written in the soft mud of the game trail. You or I would have seen little of interest there, even if,

by chance we could have seen aught. Perhaps had one been there to point them out to us, we might have noted indentations in the mud, but there were countless indentations, one overlapping another, into a confusion that would have been entirely meaningless to us. To Tarzan each told its own story. Tantor the elephant had passed that way as recently as three sons since. Numa had hunted here the night just gone, and Horta the Boar had walked slowly. along the trail within an hour. But what held Tarzan's attention was the spore-tail of the Gomangani. It told him that the day before an old man had gone toward the north in company with a little boy, and that with them had been two hyenas. Tarzan scratched his head in puzzled incredulity. He could see by the overlapping of the footprints that the beasts had not been following the two, for sometimes one was ahead of them and one behind, and again, and again,

both were in advance, or both were in the rear. It was very strange and quite inexplicable, especially where the spore showed where the hyenas, in the wider portions of the path, had walked one on either side of the human pair, quite close to them. Then Tarzan read in the spore of the smaller Gomengeni, a shrinking terror of the beast that brushed his side, but in that of the old man was no sign of fear. At first Tarzan had been solely occupied by the remarkable juxtaposition of the spore of dango and Go Mangani. But now his keen eyes caught something in the spore of the little Gomangani, which brought him to a sudden stop. It was as though finding a letter in the road you suddenly had discovered in it the familiar handwriting of a friend. Gobu Balu exclaimed the

ape-man, and at once memory flashed upon the screen of recollection the supplicating attitude of Mammaia, as she had hurled herself before him in the village of Mabonga the night before. Instantly all was explained, the wailing and the lamentation, the pleading of the black mother, the sympathetic howling of the shees about the fire. Little Gobu Baloo had been stolen again, and this time by another than Tarzan. Doubtless the mother had thought that he was again in the power of Tarzan of the apes, and she had been beseeching him to return her Baloo to her. Yes, it was all quite plain now, but who could have stolen Gobubaloo this time? Tarzan wondered,

and he wondered too, about the presence of Dango. He would investigate. The spore was a day old, and it ran toward the north. Tarzan set out to follow it. In places it was totally obliterated by the passage of many beasts, and where the way was rocky, even Tarzan of the apes, was almost baffled. But there was still the faint effluvium which clung to the human spore, appreciable only to such highly trained perceptive powers as were Tarzans. It had all happened to Little Tybo very suddenly, and unexpectedly within the brief span of two sons. First had come Bukawai, the witch doctor, Bukawai the unclean, with the ragged bit of flesh which still clung to his rotting face. He had come alone, and by day, to the place at the river where Mammaea went daily to wash her body and that of Taibo, her little boy.

He had stepped out from behind a great bush quite close to Mamea, frightening little Tybo, so that he ran screaming to his mother's protecting arms. But Mamea, though startled, had wheeled to face the fearsome thing with all the savage ferocity of a she-tiger at bay. When she saw who it was, she breathed the size. of partial relief, though she still clung tightly to Tybal. "'I have come,' said Bukawai, without preliminary, "'for the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire as long as a tall man's arm. "'I have no goats for you,' snapped Mammaia,

"'nor a sleeping mat, nor any wire. "'Your medicine was never made. "'The white jungle god gave me back my Tybal. had nothing to do with it. But I did, mumbled Bukawai through his fleshless jaws. It was I who commanded the white jungle god to give back your Taibo. Mamea laughed in his face. Speaker of lies, she cried.

Go back to your foward den and your hyenas. Go back and hide your stinking face in the belly of the mountain, lest the sun seeing it cover his face with a black cloud. I have come, reiterated Bukwai, for the three fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm, which you were to pay me for the return of your tibo. It was to be the length of a man's forearm, corrected Momea, but you shall have nothing, old thief. You would not make medicine until I had brought the payment in advance, and when I was returning to my village the great white jungle god gave me back my tibyl, gave him to me out of the jaws of Numa. His medicine is true medicine. Yours is the weak medicine of an old man with a

hole in his face. I have come, repeated Bukawai patiently, for the three fat, but Momeya had not waited to hear more of what she already knew by heart, clasping Tibel close to her side. She was hurrying away toward the palisaded village of Mabonga the chief. And the next day, when Momea was working in the plantain field with others of the women of the tribe and little Taibo had been playing at the edge of the jungle, casting a small spear in anticipation of the distant day when he should be a full-fledged warrior, Bukawai had come again. Tybo had seen a squirrel scampering up the bowl of great tree.

His childish mind had transformed it into the man. menacing figure of a hostile warrior. Little Tybo had raised his tiny spear. His heart filled with the savage bloodlust of his race as he pictured the knight's orgy when he should dance about the corpse of his human kill as the women of his tribe prepared the meat for the feast to follow. But when he cast the spear, he missed both squirrel and tree, losing his missile far among the tangled undergrowth of the jungle. However, it could be but a few steps within the forbidden. labyrinth. The women were all about in the field. There were warriors on guard with an easy hail, and so little Tybo boldly ventured into the dark place. Just behind the screen of creepers and

matted foliage lurked three horrid figures, an old, old man, black as the pit, with a face half eaten away by leprosy, his sharp-filed teeth, the teeth of a cannibal, showing yellow and repulsive seeed through the great gaping hole where his mouth and nose had been. And beside him, equally hideous, stood two powerful hyenas, carrion eaters, consorting with carrion. Tybo did not see them until, head down, he had forced his way through the thickly growing vines in search of his little spear, and then it was too late. As he looked up into the face of Bukawai, the old witch-doctor seized him,

muffling his screams with a palm across his mouth. Tybo struggled futilely. A moment later he was being hustled away through the dark and terrible jungle, the frightful old man still muffling his screams, and the too hideous hyena's pacing now on either side, now before, now behind, always prowling, always growling, snapping, snarling, or worst of all, laughing hideously. To little Tybo, who within his brief existence had passed through such experiences as are given to few to pass through in a lifetime. The northward journey was a nightmare of terror. He thought now of the time that he had been with the great white jungle god, and he prayed with all his little soul that he might be back again with the white-skinned giant

who consorted with the hairy tree man. Terror-stricken he had been then, but his surroundings had been nothing by comparison with those which he now endured. The old man seldom, seldom. him addressed, Tybal, though he kept up an almost continuous mumbling throughout the long day. Tybo caught repeated references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. Ten fat goats! Ten fat goats! The old negro would croon over and over again. By this, little Tybo guessed that the price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin ones either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor little boy. Mabonga would never let her have them, and Taibo knew that his father never had owned more

than three goats at the same time in all his life. Ten fat goats? Tibu sniffled. The putrid old man would kill him and eat him, for the goats would never be forthcoming. Bukawai would throw his bones to the hyenas. The little black boy shuddered and became so weak that he almost fell in his tracks. Bukawai cuffed him on an ear and jerked him along. After what seemed an eternity to Taibo, they arrived at the mouth of a cave between two rocky hills. The opening was low and narrow. A few saplings bound together with strips of rawhide closed it against stray beasts. Bukawai removed the primitive door and pushed Taibo within. The hyenas snarling rushed past him and were lost a view in the back.

blackness of the interior. Bukawai replaced the saplings, and seizing Tibo roughly by the arm, dragged him along a narrow, rocky passage. The floor was comparatively smooth, for the dirt which lay thick upon it had been trodden and tramped by many feet until few inequalities remained. The passage was tortuous, and as it was very dark and the walls rough and rocky, Tybo was scratched and bruised from the many bumps he received. Bukawai walked as rapidly through the winding gallery as one would traverse a familiar lane by daylight. He knew every twist and turn, as a mother knows the face of her child, and he seemed to be in a hurry. He jerked, poor little Tybo, possibly a trifle more ruthlessly than necessary, even at the pace Bukowai set.

But the old witch doctor, an outcast from the society of man, diseased, shunned, hated, feared, was far from possessing an angelic temper. nature had given him few of the kindlier characteristics of man and these few fate had eradicated entirely shrewd cunning cruel vindictive was bukawai the witch-doctor Frightful tales were whispered of the cruel tortures he inflicted upon his victims. Children were frightened into obedience by the threat of his name. Often had Thibo been thus frightened, and now he was reaping a grisly harvest of terror from the seeds his mother had innocently sown. The darkness, the presence of the dreaded witch doctor, the pain of the contusions with a haunting premonition of the future, and the fear of the hyenas combined to almost paralyze the child. He stumbled and reeled until Bukawai was dragging rather than leading him.

Presently, Tiber saw a faint lightness ahead of them, and a moment later they emerged into a roughly circular chamber to which a little daylight filtered through a rift in the rocky ceiling. The hyenas were there ahead of them, waiting. As Bukowai entered with Tibo, the beasts slunk toward them, bearing yellow fangs. They were hungry. Toward Tybo they came, and one snapped at his naked legs. Bukowai seized a stick from the floor of the chamber and struck a vicious blow at the beast, at the same time mumbling forth a volley of execrations. The hyena dodged and ran to the side of the

chamber where he stood growling. Bukowai took a step toward the creature which bristled with rage at his approach, fear and hatred shot from its evil eyes, but fortunate, for Bukawai fear predominated. Seeing that he was unnoticed, the second beast made a short quick rush for Tibo. The child screamed and darted after the witch-doctor who now turned his attention to the second hyena. This one he reached with his heavy stick, striking it repeatedly and driving it to the wall. There the two carrion-eaters commenced to circle the chamber, while the human carrion, their master, now in a perfect frenzy of demoniacal rage, ran to and fro in an attempt to intercept them, striking out with his cudgel and lashing them with his tongue,

calling down upon them the curses of whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and describing in lurid figures the ignominy of their ancestors. Several times one or the other of the beasts would turn to make a stand against the witch-doctor, and then Tybal would hold his breath in agonized terror, for never in his brief life had he seen such frightful hatred depicted upon the countenance of man. man or beast. But always fear overcame the rage of the savage creatures, so that they resumed their flight, snarling, and bare fanged, just at the moment that Taibo was certain they would spring at Bukai's throat. At last the witch-doctor tired of the futile chase,

with a snarl quite as bestial as those of the beast, he turned toward Taibo. I go to collect the ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and the two pieces of copper wire that your mother will pay for the medicine I shall make to bring you back to her, he said. You will stay here. There, and he pointed toward the passage which they had followed to the chamber, I will leave the hyenas. If you try to escape, they will eat you. He cast aside the stick and called to the beasts. They came snarling and slinking their tails between their legs. Bukawai led them to the passage and drove them into it. Then he dragged, dragged a rude lattice into place before the opening after he himself had left the chamber.

"'Yes, we'll keep them from you,' he said. "'If I do not get the ten fat goats and the other things, they shall at least have a few bones after I am through.' And he left the boy to think over the meaning of his all too suggestive words. When he was gone, Tybal threw himself upon the earth floor and broke into childish sobs of terror and loneliness. He knew that his mother had no ten fat goats to give, and that when Bukawai returned, little Tibo would be killed and eaten. How long he lay there he did not know, but presently he was aroused by the growling of the hyenas. They had returned through the passage

and were glaring at him from beyond the lattice. He could see their yellow eyes blazing through the darkness. They reared up and clawed at the barrier. Tibo shivered and were, and were withdrew to the opposite side of the chamber. He saw the lattice sag and swayed to the attacks of the beasts. Momentarily he expected that it would fall inward, letting the creatures upon him. Wearily the horror-ridden hour dragged their slow way. Night came, and for a time Tybo slept, but it seemed that the hungry beasts never slept. Always they stood just beyond the lattice growling their hideous growls,

or laughing their hideous laughs. Through the narrow rift in the rocky roof above him, Tybo could see a few stars, and once the moon crossed. At last daylight came again. Tybal was very hungry and thirsty, for he had not eaten since the morning before, and only once upon the long march had he been permitted to drink, but even hunger and thirst were almost forgotten in the terror of his position.

It was after daylight that the child discovered a second opening in the walls of the subterranean chamber, almost opposite that at which the hyenas still stood, glaring hungrily at him. It was only a narrow slit in the rocky wall. It might lead in but a few feet, or it might lead to freedom. Tiber approached it and looked within. He could see nothing. He extended his arm into the blackness, but he dared not venture farther.

Bukawai never would have left open a way of escape, Tiber reasoned, so this passage must lead either nowhere or to some still more. hideous danger. To the boy's fear of the actual dangers which menaced him, Bukawai and the two hyenas, his superstition added countless others quite too horrible even to name, for in the lives of the blacks through the shadows of the jungle day and the black horrors of the jungle night, flit strange fantastic shapes peopling the already hideously peopled forests with menacing figures, as though the lion and the leopard, the snake and the hyenus, and the countless poisonous insects were not quite sufficient to strike terror to the hearts of

the poor, simple creatures whose lot is cast in earth's most fearsome spot. And so it was that little Tybo crinsed not only from real menaces, but from imaginary ones. He was afraid even to venture upon a road that might lead to escape, lest Bukwai had set to watch it some frightful demon of the jungle. But the real menaces suddenly drove the imaginary ones from the boy's mind, for with the coming of daylight, the half-famished hyenas renewed their efforts to break down the frail barrier which kept them from their prey. Rearing upon their hind feet they clawed and struck at the lattice. With wide eyes, Taibo saw it sag and rock. Not for long he knew could it withstand the assaults of these two powerful and determined brutes. Already one corner had been forced,

passed the rocky protuberance of the entranceway, which had held it in place. A shaggy arm protruded into the chamber. Tiber trembled as with Ague, for he knew that the end was near. Backing against the farther wall, he stood flattened out as far from the beast as he could get. He saw the lattice give still more. He saw a savage snarling head forced past it, and grinning jaws snapping and gaping toward him. In another instant the pitiful fabric would fall inward, and the two would be upon him, rending his flesh from his bones, gnawing the bones themselves, fighting for possession of his enthrals. Bukawai came upon Momea outside the palisade of Mabonga, the chief. At sight of him, the woman drew back in revulsion. Then she flew at him, tooth and nail,

but Bukawai threatening her with a spear held her at a safe distance. Where is my baby? she cried. Where is my little Taibo? Bukawai opened his eyes in well-simulated amazement. Your baby? he exclaimed. What should I know of him other than that I rescued him from the white god of the jungle and have not yet received my pay? I come for the goats and the sleeping mat and the peace of the sea.

of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm, from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers. "'Oful of a hyena!' shrieked Mummea. "'My child has been stolen, and you rotting fragment of a man have taken him. Return him to me, or I shall tear your eyes from your head and feed your heart to the wild hogs.' Bukawai shrugged his shoulders. "'What do I know about your child?' he asked. I have not taken him. If he has stolen again, what should Bukawai know of the matter?

Did Bukawai steal him before? No, the white jungle God stole him, and if he stole him once, he would steal him again. It is nothing to me. I returned him to you before, and I have come for my pay. If he is gone and you would have him returned, Bukawai will return him. For ten fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and two pieces of copper wire, the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers. And Bukawai will say nothing more about the goats and the sleeping mat and the copper wire which you were to pay for the first medicine. Ten fat goats! screamed Mamea.

I could not pay you ten fat goats in as many years. Ten fat goats, indeed. Ten fat goats, repeated Bukowai. Ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat, and two pieces of copper wire the length of Mamea stuio. stopped him with an impatient gesture. Wait, she cried. I have no goats. You waste your breath.

Stay here while I go to my man. He has but three goats, yet something may be done. Wait! Bukawai sat down beneath a tree. He felt quite content, for he knew that he should have either payment or revenge. He did not fear harm at the hands of these people of another tribe, although he well knew that they must fear and hate him.

his leprosy alone would prevent their laying hands upon him while his reputation as a witch-doctor rendered him doubly immune from attack he was planning upon compelling them to drive the ten goats to the mouth of his cave when mammaia returned with her were three warriors mbonga the chief rabbi kega the village witch-do and he beto's father they were not pretty man even under ordinary circumstances and now with their faces marked by anger, they well might have inspired terror in the heart of anyone, but if Bukawai felt any fear, he did not betray it. Instead, he greeted them with an insolent stare, intended to awe them as they came and squatted in a semi-circle before him. "'Where is Ibeto's son?' asked Mabonga. "'How should I know?' returned Bukowai. Doubtless the white devil-god has him. If I am paid, I will make strong medicine,

and then we shall know where is I Beto's son, and shall get him back again. It was my medicine which got him back the last time, for which I got no pay. I have my own witch-doctor to make medicine, replied Mabonga with dignity. Bukowai sneered and rose to his feet. Very well, he said.

Let him make his medicine and see if he can bring I Beto's son back. He took a few steps away from them, and then he turned angrily back. His medicine will not bring the child back. That I know, and I also know that when you find him it will be too late for any medicine to bring him back, for he will be dead. This have I just found out, the ghost of my father's sister, but now came to me and told me. Now Mabonga and Raba Kega might not take much stock in their own magic, and they might even be skeptical as to the magic of another, but there was always a chance of something being in it,

especially if it were not their own. Was it not well known that old Bukowai had speech with the demons themselves, and that two even lived with him in the forms of hyenas. Still they must not exceed too hastily. There was the price to be considered, and Mabonga had no intention of parting lightly with ten goats to obtain the return of a single little boy who might die of smallpox long before he reached a warrior's estate. "'Wait,' said Mabonga, "'let us see some of your magic, that we may know if it be good magic,

Then we can talk about payment. Rob Akega will make some magic, too. We will see who makes the best magic. Sit down, Bukawai. The payment will be ten goats, fat goats, a new sleeping mat, and two pieces of copper wire, the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder to the ends of his fingers,

and it will be made in advance, the goats being driven to my cave. Then will I make the medicine, and on the second day the boy will be returned to his mother. It cannot be done more quickly than that, because it takes time to make such strong medicine. Make us some medicine now, said Mabonga. Let us see what sort of medicine you make. Bring me fire, replied Bukwai, and I are. I will make you a little magic. Momea was dispatched for the fire, and while she was away, Mabonga dickered with Bukawai about the price. Ten goats, he said, was a high price for an able-bodied warrior. He also called Bukawai's attention to the fact that he, Mabonga, was very poor,

that his people were very poor, and that ten goats were at least eight too many, to say nothing of a new sleeping mat and the copper wire. But Bukowai was adamant. His medicine was very expensive, and he would have to give at least five goats to the gods who helped him make it. They were still arguing when Mamea returned with the fire. Bukawai placed a little on the ground before him, took a pinch of powder from a pouch at his side, and sprinkle it on the embers. A cloud of smoke rose with a puff. Bukawai closed his eyes and rocked back and forth. Then he made a few passes in the air and pretended to swoon.

Mabonga and the others were much impressed. Rabakega grew nervous. He saw his reputation waning. There was some fire left in the vessel which Momea had brought. He seized the vessel, dropped a handful of dry leaves into it while no one was watching, and then uttered a frightful scream which drew the attention of Bukwai's audience to him. It also brought Bukawai quite miraculously out of his swoon, but when the old witch-doctor saw the reason for the disturbance, he quickly relapsed into

unconsciousness before anyone discovered his faux-paw. Raba Kega, saying that he had the attention of Mabongo, Ibetto, and Mamea, blew suddenly into the vessel with the result that the leaves commenced to smolder and smoke issued from the mouth of the receptacle. Roba Kega was careful to hold it so that none might see the dry leaves. Their eyes opened wide at this remarkable demonstration of the village which Doctor's powers. The latter, greatly elated, led himself out. He shouted, jumped up and down, and made frightful grimaces. Then he put his face close over the mouth of the vessel, and appeared to be

communing with the spirits within. It was while he was thus engaged that Bukwai came out of his trance, his curiosity, finally having gotten the better of him, no one was paying him the slightest attention. He blinked his one eye angrily. Then he too let out a loud roar, and when he was sure that Mabonga had turned toward him, he stiffened rigidly and made spasmodic movements with his arms and legs. "'I see him!' he cried. "'He is far away. The white devil-god did not get him. He is alone and in great danger. But,' he added, "'if the ten fat goats and the other three, things are paid to me quickly. There is yet time to save him. Roba Kegga had paused to listen. Mabonga looked toward him. The chief was in a quandary. He did not know which medicine was the better.

What does your magic tell you? he asked of Roba Kegga. I too see him, screamed Robikaga. But he is not where Bukawai says he is. He is dead at the bottom of the river. At this, Mamea commenced to howl loudly. Tarzan had followed the spore of the old man, the two hyenas, and the little black boy to the mouth of the cave in the rocky canyon between the two hills. Here he paused a moment before the sapling barrier which Bukawai had set up, listening to the snarls and growls which came faintly from the far recesses of the cavern. Presently mingled with the beastly cries, there came faintly to the keen ears of the ape-man, the agonized moan of a child. No longer did Tarzan hesitate. Hurling the door aside, he sprang into the dark opening. Narrow and black was the corridor, but long use of his eyes in the Stygian blackness of the jungle nights had given to the ape-man something of the nocturnal visionary powers of the wild things with which he had consorted since babyhood. He moved rapidly, and yet with caution, for the

place was dark, unfamiliar and winding. As he advanced he heard more and more loudly the savage, savage snarls of the two hyenas mingled with the scraping and scratching of their paws upon the wood. The moans of a child grew in volume, and Tarzan recognized in them the voice of the little black boy he once had sought to adopt as his baloo. There was no hysteria in the ape-man's advance. Too accustomed was he to the passing of life in the jungle to be greatly wrought, even by the death of one whom he knew. But the lust for battle spurred him on. He was only a wild beast at heart, and his wild beast's heart beat high in anticipation of conflict. In the rocky chamber of the hill's center, little Tybo crouched low against the wall as far from the hunger-crazed beasts

as he could drag himself. He saw the lattice giving to the frantic clawing of the hyenas. He knew that in a few minutes his little life would flicker out horribly beneath the rending yellow fangs of these loathsome creatures. Beneath the buffetings of the powerful bodies, the lattice sagged inward, until with a crash it gave way, letting the carnivora in upon the boy. Tybo cast one affrighted glance toward them, then closed his eyes and buried his face in his arms, sobbing piteously. For a moment the hyaena's paused, caution and cowardice holding them from their prey. They stood thus glaring at the lad, then slowly, stealthily, crouching, they crept toward him. It was thus that Tarzan came upon them, bursting into the chamber swiftly and silent,

but not so silently that the keen-eared beast did not note his coming. With angry growls they turned from Tybo upon the ape-man, as with a smile upon his lips he ran toward them. For an instant one of the animals stood its ground, but the ape-man did not deign even to draw his hunting-knife against despised dango. Rushing in upon the brute he grasped it by the scruff of the neck, just as it attempted to dodge past him and hurled it across the cavern after its fellow, which already was slinking into the corridor, bent upon escape. Then Tarzan picked Tybo from the floor, and when the child felt human hands upon him, instead of the paws and fangs of the hyenas, he rolled his eyes upward in surprise and

incredulity, and as they fell upon Tarzan, sobs of relief broke from the childish lips, and his hands clutched at his deliverer as though the white devil-god was not the most feared of jungle creatures. When Tarzan came to the cave mouth, the hyenas were nowhere in sight, and after permitting Taibo to quench his thirst in the spring which rose nearby, he lifted the boy to his shoulders and set off toward the jungle at a rapid trot, determined to still the annoying howlings of Mammae as quickly as possible, for he shrewdly had guessed that the absence of her baloo was the cause of her lamentation. He is not dead at the bottom of the river, cried Bukwai.

What does this fellow know about making magic? Who is he anyway, that he dare say Bukawai's magic is not good magic? Bukawai sees Mameo's son. He is far away and alone and in great danger. Hasten then with the ten fat goats. But he got no further. There was a sudden interruption from above, from the branches of the very tree beneath which they squatted, and as the five blacks looked up, they almost swooned in fright as they saw the great

white devil-god looking down upon them. But before they could flee, they saw another face, that of the lost little Tybo, and his face was laughing and very happy. And then Tarzan dropped fearlessly among them, the boy still upon his back, and deposited him before his mother, Momea, Ibetto, Rabakega, and Mabonga were all crowding around the lad, trying to question him at the same time. Suddenly Mamea turned ferociously to fall upon Bukwai, for the boy had told her all that he had suffered at the hands of the cruel old man. But Bukawai was no longer there. He had required no recourse to black art to assure him that the vicinity of Momea would be

no healthful place for him, after Tibo had told his story. And now he was running through the jungle as fast as his old legs would carry him, toward the distant lair where he knew no black would dare pursue him. Tarzan, too, had vanished, as he had a way of doing, to the mystification of the blacks. Then Mammaia's eyes lighted upon Raba Kega, the village which doctor saw something in those eyes of hers which boated no good to him and backed away. So Tybo is dead at the bottom of the river, is he? the woman shrieed.

And he's far away and alone in great danger, is he? Magic. The scorn which Momea crowded into that single word would have done credit to a thespian of the first magnitude. Magic indeed, she screamed. Mamea will show you some magic of her own. And with that she seized upon a broken limb and struck Robichega across the head. With a howl of pain the man turned and fled, Mamea, pursuing his

pursuing him and beating him across the shoulders, through the gateway, and up the length of the village street, to the intense amusement of the warriors, the women, and the children who were so fortunate as to witness the spectacle, for one and all feared Robichega, and a fear is to hate. Thus it was that to his host of passive enemies, Tarzan of the Apes added that day two active foes, both of whom remained awake long into the night, planning means of revenge upon the white devil god, who had brought them into ridicule and disrepute, but with their most malevolent schemings was mingled a vein of real fear and awe that would not down. Young Lord Graced Oak did not know that they planned against him, nor knowing would have cared.

He slept as well that night as he did on any other night, and though there was no roof above him, and no doors to lock against intruders, he slept much better than his noble relative in England, who had eaten altogether too much lobster and drank too much wine at dinner that night. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan This Librevox recording is in the public domain Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapter 7 The End of Bukawai

When Tarzan of the Apes was still but a boy, he had learned, among other things, to fashion pliant ropes of fibrous jungle grass. Strong and tough were the ropes of Tarzan, the little Tarman Ganny. To Blat, his foster-father, would have told you this much and more. Had you tempted him with a handful of fat caterpillars, he even might have sufficiently unbended to narrate to you a few stories of the many indignity. which Tarzan had heaped upon him by means of his hated rope. But then Tooblad always worked himself into such a frightful rage

when he devoted any considerable thought, either to the rope or to Tarzan, that it might not have proved comfortable for you to have remained close enough to him to hear what he had to say. So often had that snake-like noose settled unexpectedly over Tooblatt's head, so often had he been jerked ridiculously and painfully from his feet when he was least looking for such an occurrence, that there is little wonder he found scant space in his savage heart for love of his white-skinned foster-child, or the inventions thereof. There had been other times, too, when Tooblat had swung helplessly in mid-air,

the noose tightening about his neck, death staring him in the face, and little Tarzan dancing upon a nearby limb, taunting him and making unseemly grimaces. Then there had been another occasion in which the rope had figured prominently, an occasion and the only one connected with the rope, which Tooblat recalled with pleasure. Tarzan, as active in brain as he was in body, was always inventing new ways in which to play. It was through the medium of play that he learned much during his childhood.

This day he learned something, and that he did not lose his life in the learning of it, was a manner of great surprise to Tarzan, and the fly in the ointment to Tublat. The man-child had, in throwing his noose at a playmate in a tree above him, caught a projecting branch instead. When he tried to shake it loose, it but drew the tighter. Then Tarzan started to climb the rope to remove it from the branch. When he was part way up, a frolicsome playmate seized that part of the rope,

which lay upon the ground and ran off with it as far as he could go. When Tarzan screamed at him to desist, the young ape released the rope, a little, and then drew it tight again. The result was to impart a swinging motion to Tarzan's body, which the ape-boy suddenly realized was a new and pleasurable form of play. He urged the ape to continue, until Tarzan was swinging to and fro as far as the short length of rope would permit. But the distance was not great enough, and, too, he was not far enough above the ground to give the necessary thrills, which added so greatly to the pastimes of the young. So he clambered, to the branch where the noose was caught, and after removing it carried the rope far aloft,

and out upon a long and powerful branch. Here he again made it fast, and taking the loose end in his hand, clambered quickly down among the branches as far as the rope would permit him to go. Then he swung out upon the end of it, his lithe, young body turning and twisting, a human bob upon a pendulum of grass, thirty feet above the ground. Ah, how delectable! This was indeed a new play of the first magnitude. Tarzan was entranced. Soon he discovered that by wriggling his body in just the right way, at the proper time, he could diminish or accelerate his oscillation,

and being a boy he chose naturally to accelerate. Presently he was swinging far and wide, while below him the apes of the tribe of Kerchak looked on in mild a maze. Had it been you or I swinging there at the end of that grass-rored, rope, the thing which presently happened would not have happened, for we could not have hung on so long as to have made it possible. But Tarzan was quite as much at home swinging by his hands as he was standing upon his feet, or at least almost. At any rate, he felt no fatigue long after the time that an ordinary mortal would have been numb with the strain of the physical exertion,

and this was his undoing. To Blatt was watching him as were others of the tribe. Of all the creatures of the wild there was none, Tublat so cordially hated, as he did this hideous, hairless, white-skinned caricature of an ape. But for Tarzan's nimbleness and the zealous watchfulness of Savage Kayla's mother love, Tooblat would long since have rid himself of this stain upon his family, Eskutcheon. So long had it been since Tarzan became a member of the tribe, that Tooblat had forgotten the circumstances surrounding the entrance of the jungle waif

into his family, with the result that he now imagined that Tarzan was his own offspring, adding greatly to his chagrin. Wide and far, swung Tarzan of the apes, until at last, as he reached the highest point of the ark, the rope which rapidly had frayed on the rough bark of the tree-limb, parted suddenly. The watching apes saw the smooth, brown body shoot outward and down, plummet-like. Tublatt leaped high in the air, omitting what in a human being would have been an exclamation of delight. This would be the end of Tarzan and most of

Toblatt's troubles. From now on he could lead his life in peace and security. Tarzan fell quite forty feet, alighting on his back in a thick bush. Kayla was the first to reach his side, ferocious, hideous, loving Kayla. She had seen the life crushed from her own Baloo in just such a fall years before. Was she to lose this one, too, in the same way? Tarzan was like to. Tarzan was lying quite still when she found him, embedded deeply in the bush. It took Kayla several minutes to disentangle him and drag him forth, but he was not killed. He was not even badly injured. The bush had broken the force of the fall. A cut upon the back of his head showed where he had

struck the tough stem of the shrub and explained his unconsciousness. In a few minutes he was as active as ever. Tublatte was furious. In his rage he snapped, he snapped, at a fellow ape without first discovering the identity of his victim, and was badly mauled for his ill temper, having chosen to vent his spite upon a husky and belligerent young bull in the full prime of his vigor. But Tarzan had learned something new. He had learned that continued friction would wear through the strands of his rope, though it was many years before this knowledge did more for him than merely to keep him from swinging too long at a time, or too far above the ground at the end of his rope. The day came, however, when the very thing that had once all but killed

him proved the means of saving his life. He was no longer a child, but a mighty jungle male. There was none now to watch over him solicitously, nor did he need such. Kayla was dead, dead too was Teublat, and though with Kayla passed the one creature that ever really had loved him, there were still many who hated him after Tublat departed under the arms of his fathers. It was not that he was more cruel or more savage than they that hated him, for though he was both cruel and savage, as were the beasts, his fellows, yet too was he often tender, which they never were. No, the thing which brought Tarsan most into disrepute with those who did not like him,

was the possession and practice of a characteristic which they had not, not understand, the human sense of humor. In Tarzan, it was a trifled broad, perhaps, manifesting itself in rough and painful practical jokes upon his friends, and cruel baiting of his enemies. But to neither of these did he owe the enmity of Bukawai, the witch-doctor, who dwelt in the cave between the two hills far to the north of the village of Mabonga the chief. Bukawai was jealous of Tarzan, and Bukawai it was who came near proving the undoing of the ape-man. For months, Bukawai had nursed his hatred while revenge seemed remote indeed, since Tarzan of the apes frequented another part of the jungle, miles away from

the lair of Bukawai. Only once had the black witch-doctor seen the devil-god, as he was most often called among the blacks, and upon that occasion Tarzan had robbed him of a fat fee, at the same time putting the lie in the mouth of Bukowai, and making his medicine seem to be a man. poor medicine. All this Bukwai never could forgive, though it seemed unlikely that the opportunity would come to be revenge. Yet it did come, and quite unexpectedly. Tarzan was hunting far to the north. He had wandered away from the tribe as he did more and more often, as he approached maturity, to hunt alone for a few days. As a child he had enjoyed romping and playing with young apes, his companions, but now these playfellows of his had grown to surly loring bulls, or to

touchy suspicious mothers, jealously guarding helpless baloes. So Tarzan found in his own man-mind a greater and a truer companionship than any or all of the apes of Kerchak could afford him. This day, as Tarzan hunted, the sky slowly became overcast. Torn clouds whipped to ragged streamers fled low above the treetops. They reminded Tarzan of frightened antelope fleeing the charge of a hungry lion. But though the light clouds raced so swiftly, the jungle was motionless. Not a leaf quivered, and the silence was a great dead weight, insupportable. Even the insects seemed stilled by apprehension of some frightful thing impending, and the larger things were soundless. Such a forest, such a jungle might have stood there in the beginning of that unthinkably far-gone age before God

peopled the world with life, when there were no sounds because there were no ears to hear. And over all lay a sickly pallid ochre light through which the scourged clouds raced. Tarzan had seen all these conditions many times before, yet he never could escape a strange feeling at each recurrence of them. He knew no fear, but in the face of nature's manifestations of her cruel, immeasurable powers, he felt very small, very small, and very lonely. Now he heard a low moaning, far away. The lions seek their prey, he murmured to himself, looking up once again at the swift flying clouds. The moaning rose to a great volume of sound. They come, said Tarzan of the apes, and sought the shelter of a thickly foliage tree.

Quite suddenly the trees bent their tops simultaneously, as though God had stretched a hand from the heavens and pressed his flat palm down upon the world. They pass, whispered Tarzan. The lions pass. Then came a vivid flash of lightning followed by deafening thunder. The lions have sprung, cried Tarzan, and now they roar above the bodies of their kills. The trees were waving wildly in all directions now. A perfectly demoniacal wind thrashed the jungle piteously. In the midst of it the rain came, not as it comes upon us of the Northlands, but in a sudden, choking, blinding, deluge.

The blood of the kill, thought Tarzan, huddling himself closer to the bowl of the great tree beneath which he stood. He was close to the edge of the jungle, and at a little distance he had seen two feet, hills before the storm broke, but now he could see nothing. It amused him to look out into the beating rain, searching for the two hills, and imagining that the torrents from above had washed them away. Yet he knew that presently the rain would cease, the sun come out again, and all be as it was before, except where a few branches had fallen, and here and there some old and rotted patriarch

had crashed back to enrich the soil upon which he had fatted for maybe centuries. All about him, branches and leaves filled the air, or fell to earth, torn away by the strength of the tornado and the weight of the water upon them. A gaunt corpse toppled and fell a few yards away, but Tarzan was protected from all these dangers by the widespread branches of the sturdy young giant, beneath which his jungle craft had guided him. Here there was but a single danger, and that a remote one. Yet it came. Without warning, the tree above him was riven by lightning, and when the rain ceased and the sun came out, Tarzan lay stretched as he had fallen upon his face amidst the wreckage of the jungle giant that should have shielded him. Bukawai came to the entrance of his cave after the rain

and the storm had passed, and looked out upon the scene. From his one eye, Bukawai could see, but had he had a dozen eyes he could have found no beauty in the fresh sweetness of the revivified jungle, for to such things in the chemistry of temperament his brain failed to react, nor even had he had a nose, which he had not for years, could he have found enjoyment or sweetness in the clean-washed air? At either side of the leper, He overthstood his soul and constant companions, the two hyenas, sniffing the air. Presently one of them uttered a low growl, and with flattened head started, sneaking and wary toward the jungle. The other followed. Bukawai, his curiosity aroused, trailed after them

in his hand a heavy knob-stick. The hyenas halted a few yards from the prostrate Tarzan, sniffing and growling. Then came Bukawai, and at first he could not be leave. the witness of his own eyes, but when he did and saw that it was indeed the devil god, his rage knew no bounds, for he thought him dead, and himself cheated of the revenge he had so long dreamed upon. The hyenas approached the ape-man with bared fangs. Bukawai, with an inarticulate scream, rushed upon them, striking cruel and heavy blows with his knob-stick, for there might still be life in the apparently lifeless form. The beast snapping and snarling half turned upon their master and their tormentor, but long fear still held them from his putrid throat.

They slunk away a few yards and squatted upon their haunches, hatred and baffled hunger gleaming from their savage eyes. Bukowai stooped and placed his ear above the ape man's heart. It still beat. As well as his sloughed features could register pleasure, they did. did so. But it was not a pretty sight. At the ape-man's side lay his long grass rope. Quickly, Bukawai bound the limp arms behind his prisoner's back, then he raised him to one of his shoulders, for though Bukawai was old and diseased, he was still a strong man. The hyenas fell in behind as the witch-doctor set off toward the cave, and through the long black corridors they followed as Bukowai bore his victim into the bowels of the hills. Through some of the

subterranean chambers connected by winding passageways, Bukowai staggered with his load. At a sudden turning of the corridor, daylight flooded them, and Buccoi stepped out into a small circular basin in the hill, apparently the crater of an ancient volcano, one of those which never reached the dignity of a mountain and are little more than Laba-rimmed pits closed to the earth's surface. Steep walls rimmed the cavity. The only exit was through. through the passageway by which Bukauai had entered. A few stunted trees grew upon the rocky floor. A hundred feet above could be seen the ragged lips of this cold, dead mouth of hell. Bukai propped Tarzan against a tree, and bound him there with his own grass rope, leaving

his hands free, but securing the knots in such a way that the ape-man could not reach them. The hyaena's slunk to and fro, growling. Bukawai hated them, and they hated him. He knew that they but waited for the time when he should be helpless, or when their hatred should rise to such a height as to submerge their cringing fear of him. In his own heart was not a little fear of these repulsive creatures, and because of that fear Bukawai always kept the beasts well fed, often hunting for them when their own forages for food failed.

But ever was he cruel to them with the cruelest, of a little brain, diseased, beastial, primity. He had had them since they were puppies. They had known no other life than that with him, and though they went abroad to hunt, always they returned. Of late,

Bukowai had come to believe that they returned not so much from habit as from a fiendish patience, which would submit to every indignity and pain, rather than forego the final vengeance. And Bukowai needed but little imaginative, to picture what that vengeance would be. Today he would see for himself what his end would be,

but another should impersonate Bukawai. When he had trust Tarsan securely, Bukawai went back into the corridor, driving the hyenas ahead of him, and pulling across the opening a lattice of laced branches which shut the pit from the cave during the night that Bukauai might sleep in security, for then the hyenas were penned in the crissues. We were penned in the that they might not sneak upon a sleeping Bukawai in the darkness. Bukawai returned to the outer cave mouth, filled a vessel with water at the spring which rose in the little canyon close at hand, and returned toward the pit. The hyenas stood before the lattice, looking hungrily toward Tarzan. They had been fed in this manner before.

With his water, the witch doctor approached Tarzan, and threw a portion of the contents of the vessel in the ape-man's face. There was a fluttering of eyelids, and at the second application Tarzan opened his eyes and looked about. "' Devil God!' cried Bukawai. "'I am the great witch-doctor. My medicine is strong. Yours is weak. If it is not, why do you stay tied here like a goat that is bait for lions?' Tarzan understood nothing the witch-doctor said. Therefore, he did not reply, but only stared straight at Bukawai with cold and level gaze. The hyenas crept up behind him. He heard them growl, but he did not even turn his head. He was a beast with a man's brain. The beast in him refused to show fear in the face of a death

which the man-mind already admitted to be inevitable. Bukawai not yet ready to give his victim to the beasts rushed upon the hyenas with his knob-stick. There was a short scrimmage in which the brutes came off second best, as they always did. Tarzan watched it. He saw and realized the hatred which existed between the two animals and the hideous semblance of a man. With the hyenas subdued, Bukawai returned to the baiting of Tarzan. But finding that the ape-man understood nothing, he said, the witch-doctor finally desisted. Then he, with aeneer, with a man, and he, with aftain to drew into the corridor and pulled the latticework barrier across the opening. He went back into the cave and got a sleeping mat, which he brought to the opening, that he might lie down and watched the spectacle

of his revenge in comfort. The hyenas were sneaking furtively around the ape-man. Tarzan strained at his bonds for a moment, but soon realized that the rope he had braided to hold Numa the lion would hold him quite as successfully. He did not wish to die. but he could look death in the face now, as he had many times before, without a quaver. As he pulled upon the rope, he felt it rub against the small tree about which it was passed. Like a flash of the cinematograph upon the screen, a picture was flashed before his mind's eye from the storehouse of his memory. He saw a lithe, boyish figure swinging high above the ground at the end of a rope. He saw many apes watching from below, and then he saw the rope

part, and the boy hurtled downward toward the ground. Tarzan smiled. Immediately he commenced to draw the rope rapidly back and forth across the tree trunk. The hyenas, gaining courage, came closer. They sniffed at his legs, but when he struck at them with his free arms, they slunk off. He knew that with the growth of hunger they would attack. Coolly, methodically, without haste, Tarzan drew the rope back and forth against the rough trunk of the small tree. In the entrance to the cavern, Bukawai fell asleep. He thought it would be some time before the beasts gained sufficient courage or hunger to attack the captive. Their growls and the cries of the victim would awaken him. In the meantime he might as well rest, and he did.

Thus the day wore on, for the hyenas were not famished, and the rope with which Tarzan was was bound was a stronger one than that of his boyhood, which had parted so quickly to the chafing of the rough tree bark. Yet all the while hunger was growing upon the beasts and the strands of the grass rope were wearing thinner and thinner. Bukawai slept. It was late afternoon before one of the beasts, irritated by the gnawing of appetite, made a quick growling dash at the ape-man. The noise awoke Bukawai. He sat up quickly and watched what went on within the crater. He saw the hungry hyena charged the man, leaping for the unprotected throat. He saw Tarzan reach out and seized the growling animal, and then he saw the second beast spring for the devil

God's shoulder. There was a mighty heave of the great smooth-skin body, rounded muscles shot into great tensed piles beneath the brown hide. The ape-man surged forward with all his weight and all his great strength. The bonds parted, and the three were rolling upon the floor of the crater snarling, snapping and rending. Bukawai leaped to his feet. Could it be that the devil god was to prevail against his servants? Impossible. The creature was unarmed, and he was down with two hyenas on top of him. But Bukawai did not know Tarzan. The ape-man fastened his fingers upon the throat of one of the hyenas and rose to one knee, though the other beast tore at him frantically in an effort to pull him down. With a single hand, Tarzan held him. Helled, and

the one, and with the other hand he reached forth and pulled toward him the second beast. And then Bukawai, seeing the battle going against his forces, rushed forward from the cavern, brandishing his knobstick. Tarzan saw him coming, and rising now to both feet, a hyena in each hand, he hurled one of the foaming beasts straight at the witch-doctor's head. Down went the two in a snarling, biting heap. Tarzan tossed the second hyena across the crater, while the first nod at the rotting face of its master. But this did not suit the ape-man. With a kick he sent the beast howling after its companion,

and springing to the side of the prostrate which Doctor dragged him to his feet. Bukawai, still conscious, saw death immediate and terrible in the cold eyes of his capture, so he turned upon Tarzan with teeth and nails. The ape-man shuddered at the proximity of that raw face to his. The hyenas had had enough and disappeared through the small aperture leading into the cave. Tarzan had little difficulty in overpowering and binding Bukawai. Then he led him to the very tree to which he had been bound. But in binding Bukawai, Tarzan saw to it that escape after the same fashion that he had

escaped would be out of the question. Then he left him. As he passed through the winding corridors and the subterranean apartments, Tarsan saw nothing of the hyenas. They will return, he said to himself. In the crater between the towering walls, Bukwai, cold with terror, trembled, trembled as with ague. They will return, he cried, his voice rising to a fright-filled shriek, and they did. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burrows. Chapter 8. The Lion

Numa the Lion crouched behind a thornbush close beside the drinking pool, where the river eddied just below the bend. There was a ford there, and on either bank a well-worn trail broadened far out at the river's brim, where for countless centuries the wild things of the jungle and of the plains beyond had come down to drink. The carnivaled, the carnivaled. The carnivaled with bold and fearless majesty, the herbivora, timorous, hesitating, fearful. Numa the lion was hungry. He was very hungry, and so he was quite silent now. On his way to the drinking place he had moaned often and roared not a little, but as he neared the spot where he would lie and wait for Berra the deer or Horta the boar or some other of

the many luscious fleshed creatures who came hither to drink, he was silent. It was a Grim, a terrible silence, shot through with yellow-green light of ferocious eyes, punctuated with undulating tremors of sinuous tail. It was Pocco the zebra who came first, and Numa the lion could scarce restrain a roar of anger, for of all the plains people, none are more wary than Pocco the zebra. Behind the black-striped stallion came a herd of thirty or forty of the plump and vicious little horse-like beasts. As he neared the river, the leader paused often, cocking his ears and raising his muzzle to sniff the gentle breeze

for the taill-tale scint spore of the dread flesh-eaters. Numa shifted uneasily, drying his hindquarters far beneath his tawny body, gathering himself for the sudden charge and the savage assault. His eyes shot hungry fire. His great muscles quivered to the excitement of the moment. Pocko came a little nearer, halted, snorted, and wheeled. There was a pattering of scurring hoofs, and the herd was gone. But Numa the lion moved not.

He was familiar with the ways of Pako, the zebra. He knew that he would return, though many times he might wheel and fly before he summoned the courage to lead his harem and his offspring to the water. There was the chance that Pago might be frightened off entirely. Numa had seen this happen before, and so he became almost rigid lest he be the one to send them galloping waterless back to the plain. Again and again came Pocco and his family, and again did they turn and flee, but each time they came closer to the river, until at last the plump stallion dipped his velvet muzzle daintily into the water. The others, stepping warily, approached

their leader. Numa selected a sleek, fat filly. and his flaming eyes burned greedily as they feasted upon her, for Numa the lion loves scarce anything better than the meat of Pocco, perhaps because Pocco is of all the grass-eaters the most difficult to catch. Slowly the lion rose, and as he rose a twig snapped beneath one of his great padded paws. Like a shot from a rifle he charged upon the filly, but the snapped twig had been enough to startle the timorous query, so that they were in instant flight simultaneously with Numa's charge. The stallion was last, and with a prodigious leap the lion catapulted through the air to seize him. But the snapping twig had robbed Numa of his dinner, though his mighty talons raped

the zebra's glossy rump, leaving four crimson bars across the beautiful coat. It was an angry Numa that quitted the river and prowled fierce, dangerous. and hungry into the jungle. Far from particular now was his appetite. Even Dango the hyena would have seemed a tidbit to that ravenous maw, and in this temper it was that the lion came upon the tribe of Kurchak the great ape. One does not look for Numa the lion this late in the morning. He should be lying up asleep beside his last night's kill by now, but Numa had made no kill last night. He was still hunting, hungrier than ever. The anthropoids were idling about the clearing, the first keen desire of the morning's hunger having been satisfied. Numa scented them long before he saw

them. Ordinarily he would have turned away in search of other game, for even Numa respected the mighty muscles and the sharp fangs of the great boulds of the tribe of Kurchak, but today he kept on steadily toward them, his bristled snout wrinkled into a savage snarl. Without an instant's hesitation, Numa charged the moment he reached a point from where the apes were visible to him. There were a dozen or more of the hairy, man-like creatures upon the ground in a little glade. In a tree at one side sat a brown-skinned youth. He saw Numa's swift charge. He saw the apes turn and flee, huge bulls trampling upon little baloos, only a single she held her ground to meet the charge, a young she inspired by new motherhood to the

great sacrifice that her baloo might escape. Tarzan leaped from his perch, screaming at the flying bulls beneath and at those who squatted in the safety of surrounding trees. Had the bulls stood their ground, Numa would not have carried through that charge unless goaded by great rage or the gnawing pangs of starvation. Even then he would not have come off unscathed. If the bulls heard, they were too slow in responding, for Numa had seized the mother ape and dragged her into the jungle before the males had sufficiently collected their wits and their courage to rally in defense of their fellow. Tarzan's angry voice aroused similar anger in the breasts of the apes. Snarling and barking they followed Numa into the dense labyrinth

of foliage, wherein he sought to hide himself from them. The ape-man was in the lead, moving rapidly, and yet, with caution, depending even more upon his ears and nose than upon his eyes for information of the lion's whereabouts. The spoor was easy to follow, for the dragged body of the victim left a plain trail, blood-spattered and scentful. Even such dull creatures as you or I might easily have followed it. To Tarzan and the apes of Kerchak, it was as obvious as a cement sidewalk. Tarzan knew that they were nearing the great cat even before he heard an angry growl of warning just ahead. Calling to the apes to follow his example, he swung into a tree, and a moment later Numa was surrounded by a ring of growling beasts, well out of reach of his fangs and talons,

but within plain sight of him. The carnivore crouched with his forequarters upon the she-ape. Tarzan could see that the latter was already dead, but something within him made it seem quite necessary to rescue the useless body from the clutches of the enemy and to punish him. He shrieked taunts and insults at Numa, and tearing dead branches from the tree in which he danced, hurled them at the lion. The apes followed his example. Numa roared out in rage and vexation. He was hungry, but under such conditions he could not feed. the apes if they had been left to themselves would doubtless soon have left the lion to peaceful enjoyment of his feast for was not the she dead they could not restore her to life by throwing sticks at numa and they might even now be feeding in quiet themselves but tarzan was of a different mind numa must be punished and driven away he must be taught that even though he killed a mangani he would not be permitted to feed upon his kill

The manned mind looked into the future, while the apes perceived only the immediate present. They would be content to escape to-day the menace of Numa, while Tarzan saw the necessity and the means as well of safeguarding the days to come. So he urged the great anthropids on until Numa was showered with missiles that kept his head dodging and his voice peeling forth its savage protest. but still he clung desperately to his kill. The twigs and branches hurled at Numa, Tarzan soon realized, did not hurt him greatly, even when they struck him, and did not injure him at all.

So the ape-man looked about for more effective missiles, nor did he have to look long. An outcropping of decomposed granite, not far from Numa, suggested ammunition of a much more painful nature. Calling to the apes to watch him, Tarzan slipped to. to the ground and gathered a handful of small fragments. He knew that when once they had seen him carry out his idea, they would be much quicker to follow his lead than to obey his instructions, were he to command them to procure pieces of rock and hurl them at Numa, for Tarzan was not then king of the apes of the tribe of Kerchak. That came in later years. Now he was but a youth,

though one who already had rested for himself a place in the councils of the savage beasts among whom a strange fate had cast him. The sullen bulls of the older generation still hated him as beasts hate those of whom they are suspicious, whose scent characteristic is the scent characteristic of an alien order and therefore of an enemy order. The younger bulls, those who had grown up through childhood as his playmates, were as accustomed to Tarzan's scent as to that of any other member of the tribe. They felt no greater suspicion of him than any other bull of their acquaintance, yet they did not love him, for they loved none outside the mating season, and the animosities aroused by other bulls during that season

lasted well over until the next. They were a morose and peevish band at best, though here and there were those among them in whom germinated the primal seed, of humanity. Reversions to type, these, doubtless. Reversions to the ancient progenitor who took the first step out of apehood toward humanness when he walked more often upon his hind feet and discovered other things for idle hands to do. So now Tarzan led where he could not yet command. He had long since discovered the apish propensity for mimicry and learned to make use of it. Having filled his arms with fragments of rotted granite, he clambered again into a tree, and it pleased him to see that

the apes had followed his example. During the brief respite, while they were gathering their ammunition, Numa had settled himself to feed, but scarce had he arranged himself and his kill when a sharp piece of rock hurled by the practiced hand of the ape-man struck him upon the cheek. His sudden roar of pain and rage was smothered by a volley from the apes, who had seen him, Tarzan's act. Nouma shook his massive head and glared upward at his tormentors. For a half-hour they pursued him with rocks and broken branches, and though he dragged his kill into densest thickets, yet they always found a way to reach him with their missiles, giving him no opportunity to feed and driving him on and on. The hairless ape thing with the man

sent was worst of all, for he had even the temerity to advance upon the ground to within a few yards of the Lord of the jungle, that he might with greater accuracy and force hurl the sharp bits of granite and the heavy sticks at him. Time and again did Numa charge, sudden, vicious charges, but the lithe, active tormentor, always managed to elude him, and with such insolent ease that the lion forgot even his great hunger in the consuming passion of his rage, leaving his meat for considerable spaces of time in vain efforts to catch his enemy. The apes and Tarzan pursued the great beast to a natural clearing, where Numa evidently determined to make a last stand, taking up his position in the center of the open space, which was far enough from any tree to render him practically

immune from the rather erratic throwing of the apes, though Tarzan still found him with most persistent and aggravating frequency. This, however, did not suit. the ape-man, since Numa now suffered an occasional missile with no more than a snarl, while he settled himself to partake of his delayed feast. Tarzan scratched his head, pondering some more effective method of offense, for he had determined to prevent Numa from profiting in any way through his attack upon the tribe. The man-mind reasoned against the future, while the shaggy apes thought only of their present hatred of this ancestral enemy. Tarzan guessed that should Numa find it an easy thing to snatch a meal from the tribe of Kurchak,

it would be but a short time before their existence would be one living nightmare of hideous, watchfulness, and dread. Numa must be taught that the killing of an ape brought immediate punishment and no rewards. It would take but a few lessons to ensure the former safety of the tribe. This must be some old thion whose failing strength and agility had forced to, him to any prey that he could catch. But even a single lion, undisputed, could exterminate the tribe, or at least make its existence so precarious and so terrifying that life would no longer be a pleasant condition. Let him hunt among the go mangani, thought Tarzan. He will find them easier prey.

I will teach ferocious Numa that he may not hunt the mangani. But how to rest the body of his victim from the feeding lion was the first question to be solved. At last, Tarzan hit upon a plan. To anyone but Tarzan of the apes, it might have seemed rather a risky plan, and perhaps it did, even to him. But Tarzan rather liked things that contained a considerable element of danger. At any rate, I rather doubt that you or I would have chosen a similar plan for foiling and angry and a hungry lion. Tarzan required assistance in the scheme he had hit upon, and his assistant must be equally as brave and almost as active as he. The ape-man's eyes fell upon Tog, the playmate of his childhood, the rival in his first love, and now, of all the bulls of the tribe, the only one that

might be thought to hold in his savage brain any such feeling toward Tarzan as we describe among ourselves as friendship. At least Tarzan knew Tog was courageous, and he was young and agile and wonderfully muscled. Tog, cried the ape, looked up from a dead limb. He was attempting to tear from a lightning-blasted tree. Go close to Numa and worry him, said Tarzan. Worry him until he charges. Lead him away from the body of Mamka. Keep him away as long as you can. Tog nodded. He was across the clearing from Tarzan. Resting the limb at last from the tree, he dropped to the ground and advanced toward Numa, growling and barking out his insults. The worried lion looked up and rose to his feet. His tail went stiffly erect, and Tog turned in flight, for he knew that

warning signal of the charge. From behind the lion, Tarzan ran quickly toward the center of the clearing and the body of Mamka. Numa, all his eyes for Tog, did not see the ape man. Instead, he shot forward after the fleeing bull, who had turned in flight, not an instant too soon, since he reached the nearest tree but a yard or two ahead of the pursuing demon. Like a cat, the heavy anthropoid scampered up the bowl of his sanctuary. Numa's talons missed him by little more than inches. For a moment, the lion paused beneath the tree, glaring up at the ape and roaring until the earth trembled. Then he turned to, back again toward his kill, and as he did so, his tail shot once more to rigid erectness,

and he charged back even more ferociously than he had come, for what he saw was the naked man-thing running toward the farther trees with the bloody carcass of his prey across a giant shoulder. The apes, watching the grim rays from the safety of the trees, scream taunts at Numa, and warnings to Tarzan. The high sun, hot and brilliant, fell like a spotlight upon the actors in the little clearing, portraying them in glaring relief to the audience in the leafy shadows of the surrounding trees. The light brown body of the naked youth was all but hidden by the shaggy carcass of the killed ape, the red blood streaking his smooth hide, his muscles rolling, velvety beneath. Behind him the black-maned lion, head-flattened, tail extended,

raced a jungle thoroughbred across the sunlit clearing. Ah, but, but that's a black maned lion, head-flattened, this was life. With death at his heels, Tarzan thrilled with the joy of such living as this, but what he reached the trees ahead of the rampant death so close behind, Gunto swung from a limb in a tree before him. Gunto was screaming warnings and advice. Catch me, cried Tarzan, and with his heavy burden leaped straight for the big bull hanging there by his hind feet and one forepaw, and Gunto caught them, the big ape-man, and the dead weight of the slain she-ape, caught them with one great hairy paw, and whirled them upward until Tarzan's fingers closed upon a nearby branch. Beneath Numa Leet, but Gunto, heavy and awkward as

he may have appeared, was as quick as Manu the monkey, so that the lion's talons but barely grazed him, scratching a bloody streak beneath one hairy arm. Tarzan carried Mamka's corpse to a high crotch, where even Sheeta the panther could not get it. Nooma paced angrily back and forth beneath the tree, roaring frightfully. He had been robbed of his kill and his revenge also. He was very savage indeed, but his despoilers were well out of his reach, and after hurling a few taunts and missiles at him, they swung away through the trees fiercely reviling him. Tarzan thought much upon the little adventure of that day. He foresaw what might happen should the great carnivora of the jungle turn their serious attention upon the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape. But equally he thought

upon the wild scramble of the apes for safety when Numa first charged among them. There is little humor in the jungle that is not grim and awful. The beasts have little or no conception of humor. But the young Englishman saw humor in many things which presented no humorous anguish. to his associates. Since early as childhood, he had been a searcher after fun, much to the sorrow of his fellow apes, and now he saw the humor of the frightened panic of the apes and the baffled rage of Numa, even in this grim jungle adventure which had robbed Mamka of life, and jeopardized that of many members of the tribe. It was but a few weeks later that Sheeta, the panther, made a sudden rush among the tribe, and snatched a little baloo from a tree where it had been hidden while its mother

sought food. Sheeta got away with his small prize unmolested. Tarzan was very wroth. He spoke to the bulls of the ease with which Numa and Shita in a single moon had slain two members of the tribe. They will take us all for food, he cried. We hunt as we will through the jungle, paying no heed to approaching enemies. Even Manu the monkey. Even Manu, the monkey. does not so. He keeps two or three always watching for enemies. Poco the zebra and Wopi the antelope have those about the herd who keep watch while the others feed, while we, the great mangani, let Numa and Sabor and Shita come when they will and carry us off to feed their balo. "'Vam!' said Numbgo. "'What are we to do?' asked Tog. "'We too should have two or three

"'Always watching for the approach of Numa and Sabor and Shita,' replied Tars. Tarzan. No others need we fear except Hista, the snake, and if we watch for the others we will see Hista if he comes, though gliding ever so silently. And so it was that the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak posted centuries thereafter, who watched upon three sides while the tribe hunted, scattered less than had been their want. But Tarzan went abroad alone, for Tarzan was a man-thing and sought amusement and adventure, and such humor as the grim and terrible jungle offers to those who know it and do not fear it, a weird humor shot with blazing eyes and dappled with the crimson of life-blood. While others sought only food and love,

Tarzan of the apes sought food and joy. One day he hovered above the palisaded village of Mabonga the chief, the jet cannibal of the jungle primeval. He saw, as he had seen many times before, the witch doctor, Rabakega, decked out in the head and hide of Gorgo the Buffalo. It amused Tarzan to see the Gomangani parading as Gorgo, but it suggested nothing in particular to him until he chanced to see stretched against the side of Mabonga's hut, the skin of a lion with the head still on. Then a broad grin widened the handsome face of the savage beast youth. Back into the jungle he went until chance, agility, strength, and cunning, backed by his marvelous powers of perception, gave him an easy

meal. If Tarzan felt that the world owed him a living, he also realized that it was for him to collect it, nor was there ever a better collector than this son of an English lord, who knew even less of the ways of his forbearers than he did of the forbearers themselves, which was nothing. It was quite dark when Tarzan returned to the village of Mubarak. Mabonga, and took his now polished perch in the tree which overhangs the palisade upon one side of the walled enclosure. As there was nothing in particular to feast upon in the village, there was little life in the single street, for only an orgy of flesh and native beer could draw out the people of Mabonga. Tonight they sat gossiping about their cooking fires,

the older members of the tribe, or if they were young paired off in the shadows cast by the home-thatched huts. Tarzan dropped lightly into the village, and sneaking stealthily in the concealment of the denser shadows approached the hut of the chief Mabonga. Here he found that which he sought. There were warriors all about him, but they did not know that the feared devil-god slunked noiselessly so near them, nor did they see him possess himself of that which he coveted and depart from their village as noiselessly as he had come. Later that night, as Tarzan curled himself for sleep, he lay for a long time looking up at the burning planets and the twinkling stars, and at Goril the moon, and he smiled. He recalled how ludicrous the great bulls had

appeared in their mad scramble for safety that day when Numa had charged among them and seized Mamka, and yet he knew them to be fierce and courageous. It was the sudden shock of surprised that always sent them into a panic. But of this Tarzan was not as yet fully aware. That was something he was to learn in the near future. He fell asleep with a broad grin upon his face. Manu, the monkey, awoke him in the morning by dropping discarded bean pods upon his upturned face from a branch a short distance above him. Tarzan looked up and smiled. He had been awakened thus before many times. He and he and Manu were fairly good friends, their friendship operating upon a reciprocal basis.

Sometimes Manu would come running early in the morning to awaken Tarzan and tell him that Barra the deer was feeding close at hand, or that Horta the Boar was asleep in a mud hole hard by, and in return Tarzan broke open the shells of the harder nuts and fruits for Manu, or frightened away Hista the snake and Sheeta the panther. The sun had been up for some time, and the two times, and the two of the two years. tribe had already wandered off in search of food. Manu indicated the direction they had taken with a wave of his hand and a few piping notes of his squeaky little voice. Come, Manu, said Tarzan, and you will see that which shall make you dance for joy and

squeal your wrinkled little head off. Come, follow Tarzan of the Ames. With that, he set off in the direction Manu had indicated, and above him, chattering, scolding and squealing, skip Manu the monkey. Across Tarzan's shoulders was the thing he had stolen from the village of Mabonga the chief the evening before. The tribe was feeding in the forest beside the clearing where Gunto and Tog and Tarzan had so harassed Numa and finally taken away from him the fruit of his kill. Some of them were in the clearing itself. In peace and content they fed, for were there not three centuries, each watching upon a different side of the herd. Tarzan had taught them this, and though he had been away for several days hunting alone, as he often did, or visiting at the

cabin by the sea, they had not as yet forgotten his admonitions, and if they continued for a short time longer to post-centries, it would become a habit of their tribal life and thus be perpetuated indefinitely. But Tarzan, who knew them better than they knew themselves, was confident that they had ceased to place the watchers about them the moment that he had left them. And now he planned not only to have a little fun at their expense, but to teach them a lesson in preparedness, which, by the way, is even a more vital issue in the jungle than in civilized places. That you and I exist today must be due to the preparedness of some shaggy anthropoid of the Oligocene. Of course, the apes of Kurchak were always prepared, after their own way.

Tarzan had merely suggested a new and additional safeguard. Guntoe was posted today at the north of the clearing. He squatted in the fork of a tree from where he might view the jungle for quite a distance about him. It was he who first discovered the enemy. A rustling in the undergrowth attracted his attention, and a moment later he had a partial view of a shaggy mane and tawny yellow back, Just a glimpse it was, through the matted foliage beneath him, but it brought from Guntow's leathern lungs a shrill, creig, which is the ape for beware or danger. Instantly the tribe took up the cry until,

Creogs rang through the jungle about the clearing, as apes swung quickly to places of safety among the lower branches of the trees, and the great bulls hastened in the direction of Guntow. And then into the clearing strode Numa the lion, majestic and mighty, and from a deep chest issued the moan and the cough and the rumbling roar that set stiff hairs to bristling from the shaggy craniums down the length of mighty spines. Inside the clearing, Numa paused, and on the instant there fell upon him from the trees nearby a shower of broken rock and dead limbs torn from age-old trees. A dozen times he was hit, and then the apes ran down and gathered other rocks,

pelting him unmercifully. Numa turned to flee, but his way was barred by a fuselod of sharp-cornered missiles, and then upon the edge of the clearing, great tog met him with a huge fragment of rock as large as a man's head, and down went the lord of the jungle beneath the stunning blow. With shrieks and roars and loud barkings the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak rushed upon the fallen lion. Sticks and stones and yellow fangs menaced the still form. In another moment, before he could regain consciousness, Numa would be battered and torn until only a bloody mass of broken bones and matted hair remained of what had once been the most dreaded of jungle creatures.

But even as the sticks and stones were raised above him, and the great fangs bared to tear him, there descended like a plummet from the trees above, a diminutive figure with long white whiskers and a wrinkled face, square upon the body of Numa, elighted, and there it danced and screamed and shrieked out its challenge against the bulls of Kerchak. For an instant they paused, paralyzed by the wonder of the thing. It was Manu the monkey, Manu the little coward, and here he was daring the ferocity of the great Mangani,

hopping about upon the carcass of Numa the lion and crying out that they must not strike it again. And when the bulls paused, Manu reached down and seized a tawny ear. With all his little might he tugged upon the heavy head until slowly it turned back, revealing the tussled black head and clean-cut profile of Tarzan of the apes. Some of the older apes were for finishing what they had commenced, but Tog, sullen, mighty Tog, sprang quickly to the ape-man's side, and straddling the unconscious form, warned back those who had struck his childhood playmate. And Tika, his mate, came too,

taking her place with bared fangs at Tog's side. Others followed their example, until at last Tarzan was surrounded by a ring of hairy champions, who would permit no enemy to approach him. It was a surprised and chastened Tarzan who opened his eyes to consciousness a few minutes later. He looked about him at the surrounding apes, and slowly there returned to him a realization of what had occurred. Gradually a broad grin illuminated his features. His bruises were many, and they hurt, but the good that had come from his adventure was worth all that it had cost.

He had learned, for instance, that the Apes of Kurchak had heeded his teaching, and he had learned that he had good friends among the sullen beasts whom he had thought without sentiment. He had discovered that Manu, the monkey, even little cowardly Manu, had risked his life in his defense. It made Tarzan very glad to know these things, but at the other lesson he had been taught he reddened. He had always been a joker, the only joker in the grim and terrible company. But now, as he lay there half dead from his hurts, he almost swore a solomoth forever to forego, practical joking. Almost, but not quite. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of the Jungle Tales of

Tarzan. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 9. The Nightmare. The blacks of the village of Mabonga, the chief, were feasting, while above them in a large tree sat Tarzan of the apes, grim, terrible, empty, and envious. Hunting had proved poor that day, for there are lean days as well as fat ones for even the greatest of the jungle hunters. Oftentimes, Tarzan went empty for more than a full sun, and he had passed through entire moons during which he had been but barely able to stave off starvation, but such times were infrequent. There once had been a period of sickness among the grass-eaters, which had left the plains

almost bare of game for several years, and again the great cats had increased so rapidly and so overrun the country that their prey, which was also Tarzan's, had been frightened off for a considerable time. But for the most part Tarzan had fed well always. Today, though, he had gone empty, one misfortune following another as rapidly as he raised new query, so that now as he sat perched in the tree above the feasting blacks, he experienced all the pangs of famine and his hatred for his lifelong enemies waxed strong in his breast. It was tantalizing indeed to sit there hungry, while these Gomongani filled themselves so full of food that their stomach seemed almost upon the point of bursting, and with elephant stakes at that. It was true that

Tarzan and Tantor were the best of friends, and that Tarzan never yet had tasted of the flesh of the elephant, but the Gomongani evidently had slain one, and as they were eating of the flesh of their kill, Tarzan was assailed by no doubts as to the ethics of his doing like. But the gomengen was assailed by no doubts as to the ethics of his doing likewise, should he have the opportunity. Had he known that the elephant had died of sickness several days before the blacks discovered the carcass, he might not have been so keen to partake of the feast, for Tarzan of the apes was no carrion eater. Hunger, however, may blunt the most epicurean taste, and Tarzan was not exactly an epicure. What he was at this moment was a very hungry wild beast, whom caution was holding in leash, for the great cooking-pot in the center of

the village was surrounded by black warriors, through whom not even Tarzan of the apes might hope to pass unharmed. It would be necessary, therefore, for the watcher to remain there hungry until the blacks had gorged themselves to stupor, and then, if they had left any scraps, to make the best meal he could from such. But to the impatient Tarzan, it seemed that the greedy Gomengani would rather burst than leave the feast before the last morsel had been devoured. For a time they broke the monotony of eating by executing portions of a hunting dance, a maneuver which sufficiently stimulated digestion to permit them to fall to once more with renewed vigor. But with the consumption of appalling quantities of elephant meat and native

bear, they presently became too loggy for physical exertion of any sort, some reaching a stage where they no longer could rise from the ground, but lay conveniently close to the great cooking pot, stuffing themselves into unconsciousness. It was well past midnight before Tarzan even could begin to see the end of the orgy. The blacks were now falling asleep rapidly, but a few still persisted. From before their condition Tarzan had no doubt, but that he easily could enter the village and snatch a handful of meat

from before their noses. But a handful was not what he wanted. Nothing less than a stomach-full would allay the gnawing craving of that great emptiness. He must therefore have ample time to forage in peace. But at last, but a single warrior remained true to his ideals, an old fellow whose once wrinkled belly was now as smooth and as tight as the head of a drum. With evidences of great discomfort and even pain, he would crawl toward the pot and drag him.

himself slowly to his knees, from which position he could reach into the receptacle and seize a piece of meat. Then he would roll over on his back with a loud groan and lie there while he slowly forced the food between his teeth and down into his gorge's stomach. It was evident to Tarzan that the old fellow would eat until he died or until there was no more meat. The ape-man shook his head in disgust. What foul creatures were these gomangani? Yet of all the jungle folk, they alone resembled Tarzan closely in form. Tarzan was a man, and they too must be some manner of men, just as the little monkeys and the great apes and Bolgani, the gorilla, were quite evidently of one great family, though differing in size and appearance and customs.

Tarzan was ashamed, for of all the beasts of the jungle then, man was the most disgusting, man and dango, the hyena. Only man and dango ate until they swells. up like a dead rat. Tarzan had seen Dango eat his way into the carcass of a dead elephant, and then continued to eat so much that he had been unable to get out of the hole through which he had entered. Now he could readily believe that man, given the opportunity, would do the same. Man, too, was the most unlovely of creatures, with his skinny legs and his big stomach, his filed teeth and his thick red lips. Man was disgusting. Tarzan's gaze was riveted upon the hideous old warrior, wallowing in filth beneath him. There, the thing was struggling to its knees to reach for another

morsel of flesh. It groaned aloud in pain, and yet it persisted in eating, eating, ever eating. Tarzan could endure it no longer, neither his hunger nor his disgust. violently he slipped to the ground with the bowl of the great tree between himself and the feaster. The man was still kneeling, bent almost double in agony, before the cooking pot. His back was toward the ape man. Swiftly and noiselessly Tarzan approached him. There was no sound as steel fingers closed about the black throat. The struggle was short, for the man was old and already half stupefied from the effects of the gorging and the beer. Tarzan dropped the inert mass and scooped several large pieces of meat from the cooking pot, enough to satisfy

even his great hunger. Then he raised the body of the fester and shoved it into the vessel. When the other blacks awoke they would have something to think about, Tarzan grinned. As he turned toward the tree with his meat, he picked up a vessel containing beer and raised it to his lips, but at the first taste he spat the stuff from his mouth and tossed the primitive tankered aside. He was quite sure that even Dango would draw the line at such filthy-tasting drink as that, and his contempt for man increased with the conviction. Tarzan swung off into the jungle some half mile or so before he paused to partake of his stolen food. He noticed that it gave forth a strange and unpleasant odor, but assumed that this was due to the fact that it

had stood in a vessel of water above a fire. Tarzan was, of course, unaccustomed to cooked food. He did not like it, but he was very hungry and had eaten a considerable portion of his hall before it was really borne in upon him that the stuff was nauseating. It required far less than he had imagined it would to satisfy his appetite. Throwing the balance to the ground, he curled up in a convenient crotch and sought slumber. But slumber seemed difficult to woo. Ordinarily, Tarzan of the Apes was asleep as quickly as a dog after it curls itself upon a hearth-rug before a roaring blaze. But to-night he squirmed and twisted, for at the pit of his stomach was a peculiar feeling that resembled nothing more closely than an attempt upon the part of the fragments of the elephant-meat reposing there to come out into the night and search for their elephant. But Tarzan was adamant. He gritted his teeth and held them back.

He was not to be robbed of his meal after waiting so long to obtain it. He had succeeded in dozing when the roaring of a lion awoke him. He sat up to discover that it was broad daylight. Tarzan rubbed his eyes. Could it be that he had really slept? He did not feel particularly refreshed as he should have after a good night's sleep. A noise attracted his attention, and he looked down to see a lion standing at the foot of the tree, gazing hungrily at him.

Tarzan made a face at the king of beast, whereat, Numa, greatly to the ape-man's surprise, started to climb up into the branches toward him. Now never before had Tarzan seen a lion climb a tree, yet for some unaccountable reason he was not greatly surprised that this particular lion should do so. As the lion climbed slowly toward him, Tarzan sought higher branches, but to his chagrin he discovered that it was with the utmost difficulty that he could climb, at all. Again and again he slipped back, losing all that he had gained, while the lion kept steadily at his climbing, coming ever closer and closer to the ape-man. Tarzan could see the hungry light in the yellow-green eyes. He could see the slaver on the drooping jowls, and the great fangs

agape to seize and destroy him. Clouing desperately, the ape-man at last succeeded in gaining a little upon his pursuer. He reached the more slender branches far aloft, where he well-new no lion could follow. Yet on and on came devil-faced Numa. It was incredible, but it was true. Yet what most amazed Tarzan was that though he realized the incredibility of it all, he at the same time accepted it as a matter of course, first that a lion should climb at all, and second that he should enter the upper terraces where even Sheeta the Panther dared not venture. To the very top of a tall tree the ape-man-Claughty's awkward way, And after him came Numa the lion, moaning dismally. At last Tarzan stood balanced upon the very

utmost pinnacle of a swaying branch, high above the forest. He could go no farther. Below him the lion came steadily upward, and Tarzan of the apes realized that at last the end had come. He could not do battle upon a tiny branch with Numa the lion, especially with such a to which swaying branches two hundred feet above the ground provided as substantial footing as the ground itself. Nearer and nearer came the lion. Another moment, and he could reach up with one great paw and drag the ape-man downward to those awful jaws. A whirring noise above his head caused Tarzan to glance apprehensively upward. A great bird was circling close above him. He never had seen so large a bird in all his life. Yet he recognized it immediately. for had he not seen it hundreds of times in one of the books in the little cabin by the landlocked bay,

the moss-grown cabin that with its contents was the sole heritage left by his dead and unknown father to the young Lord Grace's Oak? In the picture book the great bird was shown flying far above the ground with a small child in its talons, while beneath a distracted mother stood with uplifted hams. The lion was already reaching forth a talon paw to seize him, when the bird swooped and buried no less formidable talons in Tarzan's back. The pain was numbing, but it was with a sense of relief that the ape-man felt himself snatched from the clutches of Numa. With a great whirring of wings, the bird rose rapidly until the forest lay far below. It made Tarzan sick and dizzy to look down upon it from so great a height, so he closed his eyes tight. and held his breath. Higher and higher climbed the huge bird. Tarzan opened his eyes. The jungle was so far away that he could only see a dim green blur below him. But just above, and quite close, was the sun. Tarzan reached out his hands and warmed them, for they were very cold. Then a sudden madness seized him. Where was the bird taking him? Was he to submit thus passively to a feathered creature,

however enormous? Was he, Tarzan of the apes, mighty fighter, to die without striking a blow in his own defense? Never. He snatched the hunting blade from his G-string, and thrusting upward drove at once, twice, thrice into the breast above him. The mighty wings fluttered a few more times spasmodically. The talons relaxed their hold, and Tarzan of the apes fell hurtling downward toward the distant jungle. It seemed to the ape-man that he fell for many minutes before he crashed through the leafy verger of the treetops. The smaller branches broke his fall so that he came to rest for an instant upon the very branch upon which he had sought slumber the previous night.

For an instant he toppled there in a frantic attempt to regain his equilibrium, but at last he rolled off, yet clutching wildly. He succeeded in grasping the branch and hanging on. Once more he opened his eyes, which he had closed during the tree, the fall. Again it was night. With all his old agility, he clambered back to the crotch from which he had toppled. Below him, a lion roared, and looking downward Tarzan could see the yellow-green eyes shining in the moonlight as they bore hungrily upward through the darkness of the jungle night toward him. The ape-man gasped for breath. Cold sweat stood out from every pore.

There was a great sickness at the pit of Tarzan's stomach. Tarzan of the apes had driven. dreamed his first dream. For a long time he sat watching for Numa to climb into the tree after him, and listening for the sound of the great wings from above, for to Tarzan of the apes his dream was a reality. He could not believe what he had seen, and yet having seen even these incredible things, he could not disbelieve the evidence of his own perceptions. Never in all his life had Tarzan's senses deceived him badly, and so naturally he had great faith in them. Each perception, whichever had been transmitted to Tarzan's brain had been, with varying accuracy, a true perception.

He could not conceive of the possibility of apparently having passed through such a weird adventure in which there was no grain of truth, that a stomach disordered by decayed elephant flesh, a lion roaring in the jungle, a picture book, and sleep could have so truly portrayed all the clear-cut details of what he had seemingly experienced was quite beyond his knowledge. Yet he knew that Numa could not climb a tree. He knew that there existed in the jungle, no such bird as he had seen, and he knew, too, that he could not have fallen a tiny fraction of the distance he had hurtled downward and lived. To say the least, he was a very puzzled Tarzan as he tried to compose himself once more for slumber, a very puzzled and a very

nauseated Tarzan. As he thought deeply up on the strange occurrences of the night, he witnessed another remarkable happening. It was indeed quite preposterous, yet he saw it all with his own eyes. It was nothing less than Hista the snake, reeling his sinuous and sliming way up the bowl of the tree below him. Hista, with the head of the old man Tarzan had shoved into the cooking pot, the head and the round, tight, black, distended stomach. As the old man's frightful face, with upturned eyes, set and glassy, came close to Tarzan, the jaws open to seize him. The ape-man struck furiously at the hideous face, and as he struck, the apparition disappeared. Tarzan sat straight up upon his branch, trembling in every limb, wide-eyed and panting. He looked all around him with

his keen, jungle-trained eyes, but he saw not of the old man with the body of Hista the snake, but on his naked thigh the ape-man saw a caterpillar drop from a branch above him, with a grimace he flicked it off into the darkness beneath. And so the night wore on, dream following dream, nightmare, following nightmare, until the distracted ape-man started like a frightened deer at the rustling of the wind in the trees about him, or leaped to his feet as the uncanny laugh of a hyena burst suddenly upon a momentary jungle silence. But at last the tardy morning broke, and a sick and feverish tarsen wound sluggishly through the dank and gloomy mazes of the forest in search of water. His whole body seemed on fire. A great sickness surged.

upward to his throat. He saw a tangle of almost impenetrable thicket, and like the wild beast he was, he crawled into it to die alone and unseen, safe from the attacks of predatory carnivora. But he did not die. For a long time he wanted to, but presently nature and an outraged stomach relieved themselves in their own therapeutic manner. The ape-man broke into a violent perspiration, and then fell into a normal and untroubled sleep, which persisted well into the afternoon. When he awoke he found himself weak but no longer sick. Once more he sought water, and after drinking deeply, took his way slowly toward the cabin by the sea. In times of loneliness and trouble, it had long been his custom to seek there

the quiet and restfulness which he could find nowhere else. As he approached the cabin and raised the crude latch, which his father had fashioned so many years before, two small bloodshot eyes watched him from the concealing foliage of the jungle close by. From beneath shaggy, beetling brows, they glared maliciously upon him, maliciously and with a keen curiosity. Then Tarzan entered the cabin and closed the door after him. Here, with all the world shut out from him, he could dream without fear, of interruption. He could curl up and look at the pictures in the strange things which were books. He could puzzle out the printed word he had learned to read without knowledge of the spoken

language it represented. He could live in a wonderful world of which he had no knowledge beyond the covers of his beloved books. Numa and Sabor might prowl about close to him. The elements might rage in all their fury, but here at least Tarzan might be entirely off his guard in a delightful relaxation, which gave him all his faculties for the uninterrupted pursuit of this greatest of all his pleasures. Today he turned to the picture of the huge bird which bore off the little Tarmongani in its talons. Tarzan puckered his brows as he examined the colored print. Yes, this was the very bird that had carried him off the day before, for to Tarzan the dream

had been so great a reality that he still thought another day and a night had passed, since he had lain down in the tree to sleep. But the more he thought upon the matter, the less positive he was as to the verity of the seeming adventure through which he had passed, yet where the real had ceased and the unreal commenced, he was quite unable to determine. Had he really then been to the village of the blacks at all? Had he killed the old Gomongani? had he eaten of the elephant meat? Had he been sick? Tarzan scratched his tussled black head and wondered. It was all very strange, yet he knew that he never had seen Numa climatry, or Hista with the head and belly of an old black man whom Tarzan already had slain. Finally, with a sigh,

he gave up trying to fathom the unfathomable. Yet in his heart of hearts he knew that something had come into his life that he never before had experienced, another life which existed when he slept, and the consciousness of which was carried over into his waking hours. Then he began to wonder if some of these strange creatures which he met in his sleep might not slay him, for at such times Tarzan of the apes seemed to be a different Tarzan, sluggish, helpless and timid, wishing to flee his enemies as fled Barra the deer, most fearful of creatures. Thus with a dream came the first faint tinge of a knowledge of fear, a knowledge which Tarzan, awake, had never experienced, and perhaps he was experiencing what his early forebears

passed through and transmitted to posterity in the form of superstition first and religion later, for they, as Tarzan, had seen things at night which they could not explain by the daylight standards of sense perception or of reason, and so had built for themselves a weird explanation, which included grotesque shapes, possessed of strange and uncanny powers, to whom they finally came to attribute all those inexplicable phenomena of nature which, with each recurrence, filled them with awe, with wonder, or with terror. And as Tarzan concentrated his mind on the little bugs upon the printed page before him, the active recollection of the strange adventures presently merged into the text of that which he was reading, a story of

Bolgani, the gorilla, in captivity. There was a more or less lifelike illustration of Bolgani in colors and in a cage, with many remarkable-looking Tarmongani standing against a rail and peering curiously at the snarling brute. Tarzan wondered, not a little, as he always did, at the odd and seemingly useless array of colored plumage, which covered the bodies of the Tarman Gany. It always caused him to grin a trifle when he looked at these strange creatures. He wondered if they so covered their bodies from shame of their hairlessness, or because they thought the odd things they wore added any to the beauty of their appearance. particularly was Tarzan amused by the grotesque headdresses of the pictured people.

He wondered how some of the shees succeeded in balancing theirs in an upright position, and he came as near to laughing aloud as he ever had, as he contemplated the funny little round things upon the heads of the hees. Slowly the ape-man picked out the meaning of the various combinations of letters on the printed page, and as he read the little bugs, for as such a little bug, he always thought of the letters, commenced to run about in a most confusing manner, blurring his vision and befuddling his thoughts. Twice he brushed the back of a hand smartly across his eyes, but only for a moment could he bring the bugs back to coherent

and intelligible form. He had slept ill the night before, and now he was exhausted from loss of sleep, from sickness, and from the slight fever he had had, so that it became more and more difficult to fix his attention or to keep his eyes open. Tarzan realized that he was falling asleep, and just as the realization was borne in upon him and he had decided to relinquish himself to an inclination which had assumed almost the proportions of a physical pain, he was aroused by the opening of the cabin door. Turning quickly toward the interruption, Tarzan was amazed for a moment to see bulking large in the doorway, the huge and hairy form of Bolgani the gorilla. Now there was scarcely a denizen of the great jungle with whom Tarzan would rather not have been cooped up inside the small cabin than Bulgani the

gorilla, yet he felt no fear, even though his quick eye noted that Bolgani was in the throes of that jungle madness which seizes upon so many of the fiercer males. Ordinarily, the huge guerrillas avoid conflict, hide themselves from the other jungle folk, and are generally the best of neighbors. But when they are attacked, or the madness seizes them, there is no jungle denizens so bold and fierce as to deliberately seek a quarrel with them. But for Tarzan, there was no escape. Bolgani was glowering at him from red-rimmed wicked eyes. In a moment he would rush in and seize the ape man. Tarzan reached for the hunting-knife where he had laid. it upon the table beside him, but as his fingers did not immediately locate the weapon,

he turned a quick glance in search of it. As he did so, his eyes fell upon the book he had been looking at, which still lay open at the picture of Bulgani. Tarzan found his knife, but he merely fingered it idly and grinned in the direction of the advancing gorilla. Not again would he be fooled by empty things which came while he slept. In a moment, no doubt, Bolgani was would turn into Pamba the rat, with the head of Tantor the elephant. Tarzan had seen enough of such strange happenings recently to have some idea as to what he might expect. But this time, Bulgani did not alter his form as he came slowly toward the young ape man. Tarzan was a bit puzzled, too, that he felt no desire to rush frantically to some place of safety, as had been the

sensation most conspicuous in the other of his new and remarkable adventures. He was just himself now, ready to fight, if necessary, but still sure that no flesh and blood gorilla stood before him. The thing should be fading away into thin air by now, thought Tarzan, or changing into something else. Yet it did not. Instead, it loomed clear-cut and real as Bologanni himself, the magnificent dark coat glistening with life and health in a bar of sunlight, which shot across the cabin through the high window behind the young Lord Greystoke. This was quite the most realistic of his sleep adventures, thought Tarzan, as he passively awaited the next amusing incident. And then the gorilla charged. Two mighty callous hands

seized upon the ape-man. Great fangs were bared close to his face. A hideous growl burst from the cavernous throat and hot breath fanned Tarzan's cheek, and still he sat grinning at the apparition. Tarzan might be fooled once or twice, but not for so many times in succession. He knew that this Bulgani was no real Bulgani, for had he been he never could have gained entrance to the cabin, since only Tarzan knew how to operate the latch. The gorilla seemed puzzled by the strange passivity of the hairless ape. He paused an instant with his jaws snarling close to the other's throat. Then he seemed suddenly to come to some decision. Whirling the ape-man across a hairy shoulder as easily as you or I might lift a babe in arms,

Bulgani turned and dashed out into the open, racing toward the great trees. Now, indeed, was Tarzan's sure that this was a sleep adventure, and so grinned largely as the giant gorilla bore him unresisting away. Presently, reasoned Tarzan, he would awaken and find himself back in the cabin where he had fallen asleep. He glanced back at the thought and saw the, the cabin door standing wide open. This would never do. Always had he been careful to close and latch it against wild intruders. Manu the monkey would make sad havoc there among Tarzan's treasures should he have access to the interior for even a few minutes. The question which arose in Tarzan's mind was a baffling one. Where did sleep adventures end and reality commence? How was he to be

sure that the cabin door was not really open? Everything about him appeared quite normal. There were none of the grotesque exaggerations of his former sleep adventures. It would be better then to be upon the safe side and make sure that the cabin door was closed. It would do no harm even if all that seemed to be happening were not happening at all. Tarzan essayed to slip from Bulgani's shoulder, but the great beast only growled ominously and gripped him tighter. With a mighty effort the ape-man wrenched himself loose, and as he slid to the ground, the dream gorilla turned ferociously upon him, seized him once more and buried great fangs in a sleek

brown shoulder. The grin of derision faded from Tarzan's lips as the pain and the hot blood roused his fighting instincts. A sleep or awake this thing was no longer a joke, biting, tearing, and snarling, the two rolled over upon the ground. The gorilla, now was frantic with insane rage. Again and again he loosed his hold upon the ape-man's shoulder in an attempt to seize the jugular. But Tarzan of the apes had fought before with creatures who struck first for the vital vein, and each time he wriggled out of harm's way as he strove to get his fingers upon his adversary's throat. At last he succeeded. His great muscles tensed and knotted beneath his smooth hide, as he forced with every ounce of his mighty strength to

pushed the hairy torso from him. And as he choked Bolgani and strained him away, his other hand crept slowly upward between them, until the point of the hunting knife rested over the savage heart. There was a quick movement of the steel-fewed wrist, and the blade plunged to its goal. Bolgani, the gorilla, voiced a single frightful shriek, tore himself loose from the grasp of the ape-man, rose to his feet, staggered a few steps and then plunged to earth. There were a few spasmodic movements of the limbs, and the brute was still. Tarzan of the apes stood looking down upon his kill, and as he stood there, he ran his fingers through his slick black shock of hair. Presently he stooped and touched the dead body. Some of the red life-blood of the grilla crimsoned his fingers. He raised them to

his nose and sniffed. Then he shook his head and turned toward the cabin. The door was still open. He closed it and fastened the latch. Returning toward the body of his kill, he again paused and scratched his head. If this was a sleep adventure, what then was reality? How was he to know the one from the other? How much of all that had happened in his life had been real and how much unreal. He placed a foot upon the prostrate form and raising his face to the heavens, gave voice to the kill-cry of the bull-ape. Far in the distance, a lion answered. It was very real, and yet he did not know. Puzzled, he turned away into the jungle. No, he did not know what was real and what was not, but there was one thing that he did know.

Never again would he eat of the flesh of Tantor, the elephant. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burrows. Chapter 10, The Battle for Tika. The day was perfect. A cool breeze tempered the heat of the equatorial sun.

Peace had reigned within the tribe for weeks, and no alien enemy had trespassed upon its preserves from without. To the ape mind, all this was sufficient evidence that the future would be identical with the immediate past, that utopia would persist. The sentinels, now from habit, become a fixed tribal custom, either relaxed their vigilance or entirely deserted their posts as the whims seized them. The tribe was far scattered in search of food. Thus may peace and prosperity undermine the safety of the most primitive community, even as it does that of the most cultured. Even the individuals became less watchful and alert, so that one might have thought

Numa and Sabre and Shita entirely deleted from the scheme of things. The shees and the baloos roamed unguarded through the sullen jungle, while the greedy males forage far afield, and thus it was that Tika and Gazzan, her baloo, hunted upon the extreme southern edge of the tribe, with no great mail near them. Still farther south, their move through the forest a sinister figure, a huge bull-ape, maddened by solitude and defeat. A week before he had contended for the kingship of a tribe far distant, and now battered and still sore, he roamed the wilderness and outcast. Later he might return to his own tribe and submit to the will of the hairy brute he had attempted to dethrone,

but for the time being he dared not do so since he had sought not only the crown but the wives as well of his lord and master it would require an entire moon at least to bring forgetfulness to him he had wronged and so toeg wandered a strange jungle grim terrible hate-filled it was in this mental state that tog came unexpectedly upon a young she feeding alone in the jungle a stranger she live and strong and beautiful beyond compare. Toog caught his breath and slunk quickly to one side of the trail where the dense foliage of the tropical underbrush concealed him from Tika while permitting him to feast his eyes upon her loveliness. But not alone were they concerned with Tika. They rog the surrounding jungle in search of the bulls and cows and baloos of her tribe, though principally for the bulls. When one covets a she of an alien tribe, one must take into consideration the great fierce hairy guardians, who seldom wander far from their wards, and who will fight a stranger

to death in protection of the mate or offspring of a fellow, precisely as they would fight for their own. Tug could see no sign of any ape other than the strange she, and a young Baloo playing nearby. His wicked bloodshot eyes half-closed as they rested upon the charms of the former, as for the Baloo, one snap of those great jaws upon the back of its little neck would prevent it from raising any unnecessary alarm. Toog was a fine, big male, resembling in many ways Tika's mate Tog, each was in his prime, and each was wonderfully muscled, perfectly fanged, and as horrifyingly ferocious as the most exacting and particular she could wish. Had Tug been of her own tribe, Tika might as readily have yielded

to him as to Tog when her mating time arrived, but now she was Tog's, and and no other male could claim her without first defeating tog in personal combat. And even then, Tika retained some rights in the matter. If she did not favor a correspondent, she could enter the lists with her rightful mate and do her part toward discouraging his advances, a part two which would prove no mean assistance to her lord and master, for Tika, even though her fangs were smaller than a male's, could use them to excellent effect. Just now Tika was occupied in a fascinating search for Beatles to the exclusion of all else.

She did not realize how far she and Gazzan had become separated from the balance of the tribe, nor were her defensive senses upon the alert as they should have been. Months of immunity from danger under the protecting watchfulness of the centuries, which Tarzan had taught the tribe to post, had lulled them all into a sense of peaceful security, based on that fallacy which has wrecked many enlightened communities in the past and will continue to wreck others in the future, that because they have not been attacked, they never will be. Tug, having satisfied himself that only the she and her baloo were in the immediate vicinity, crept stealthily forward. Tika's back was toward him when he finally rushed upon her,

but her senses were at last awakened to the presence of danger, and she wheeled to face the strange bull just before he reached her. Tug halted a few paces from her. His anger had fled before the seductive feminine charms of the stranger. He made conciliatory noises, a species of clucking sound with his broad, flat lips, that were too not greatly dissimilar to that which might be produced in an musculatory solo. But Tika only bared her fangs and growled. Little Gazzan started to run toward his mother, but she warned him away with a quick,

Creog, telling him to run high into a tall tree. Evidently Tika was not favorably impressed by her new suitor. Tug realized this and altered his methods accordingly. He swelled his giant chest, beat upon it with his callous knuckles, and swaggered to and fro before her. I am Tud, he boasted. Look at my fighting fangs. Look at my great arms and my mighty legs.

With one bite I can slay your biggest. bull. Alone I have slain Shita. I am Tug. Tug wants you. Then he waited for the effect, nor did he have long to wait. Tika turned with a swiftness which belied her great weight, and bolted in the opposite direction. Tug with an angry growl leaped in pursuit, but the smaller, lighter female, was too fleet for him. He chased her for a few yards, and then foaming and barking, he halted and beat upon the ground. with his hard fists. From the tree above him, little Gazzan looked down and witnessed the stranger bull's discomfiture. Being young and thinking himself safe above the reach of the

heavy male, Gazzan screamed and ill-timed insult at their tormentor. Tug looked up. Tika had halted at a little distance. She would not go far from her baloo. That Tug quickly realized and as quickly determined to take advantage of, he saw that the tree in which the young squatted, was isolated, and that Gasson could not reach another without coming to earth. He would obtain the mother, through her love for her young. He swung himself into the lower branches of the tree. Little Gazzan ceased to insult him. His expression of deviltery chains to one of apprehension, which was quickly followed by fear as Tug commenced to ascend toward him. Teika screamed to Gasson to climb higher, and the little fellow scampered upward among the tiny branches

which would not support the weight of the great bull, but nevertheless Tug kept on climbing. Tika was not fearful. She knew that he could not ascend far enough to reach Gazzan, so she sat at a little distance from the tree and applied jungle opprobrium to him. Being a female, she was a past master of the art. But she did not know the malevolent cunning of Tug's little brain. She took it for granted that the bull would climb as high as he could toward Gasson, and then, finding that he could not reach him, resume his pursuit of her, which she knew would prove equally fruitless. So sure was she of the safety of her baloo and her own ability to take care of herself that she did not voice the cry for help which would soon have brought the

other members of the tribe flocking to her side. Tug slowly reached the limit to which he dared risk his great weight to the slender branches. Gazzon was still fifteen feet above him. The bull braced himself and seized the main branch in his powerful hands. Then he commenced shaking it vigorously. Tika was appalled. Instantly she realized what the bull proposed. Gazzan clung far out upon a swaying limb. At the first shake he lost his balance, though he did not quite fall, clinging still with his four hands, but Tugre doubled his efforts. The shaking produced a violent snapping of the limb to which the young ape clung. Tika saw all too plainly what the outcome must be, and forgetting her own danger in the depth of her mother-love, rushed forward to

ascend the tree and give battle to the fearsome creature that menaced the life of her little one. But before ever she reached the bowl, Toog had succeeded by violent shaking of the branch to loosen Gazzin's hold. With a cry the little fellow plunged down through the foliage, clutching futile for a new hold, and alighted with a sickening thud at his mother's feet, where he lay silent and motionless. Moning Tika stooped to lift the still form in her arms, but at the same instant Tug was upon her. Struggling and biting, she fought to free herself,

but the giant muscles of the great bull were too much for her lesser strength. Tug struck and choked her repeatedly until finally, half unconscious, she lapsed into quasi-submission. Then the bull lifted her to his shoulder and turned back to the trail toward the south from whence he had come. Upon the ground lay the quiet form of little Gazon. He did not moan. He did not move.

The sun rose slowly toward meridian. A mangy thing, lifting its nose to scent the jungle breeze, crept through the underbrush. It was dango the hyena. Presently its ugly muzzle broke through some nearby foliage, and its cruel eyes fastened upon Gazon. Early that morning Tarzan of the Apes had gone to the cabin by the sea, where he passed many an hour at such times as the tribe was ranging in the vicinity.

On the floor lay the skeleton of a man, all that remained of the former Lord Greystoke, lay as it had fallen some twenty years before, when Kerchak the great ape had thrown it lifeless there. Long since had the termites and the small rodents picked clean the sturdy eerie, English bones. For years, Tarzan had seen it lying there, giving it no more attention than he gave the countless thousand bones that strewed his jungle haunts. On the bed, another smaller skeleton reposed, and the youth ignored it as he ignored the other. How could he know that the one had been his father, the other his mother? The little pile of bones in the rude cradle, fashioned with such

loving care by the former Lord Greystoke meant nothing to him, that one day that little skull was to help prove his right to a proud title was as far beyond his ken as the satellites of the sons of Orion. To Tarzan they were bones, just bones. He did not need them, for there was no meat left upon them, and they were not in his way, for he knew no necessity for a bed, and the skeleton upon the floor he easily could step over. Today he was restless. He turned the pages first of one book and then of another. He glanced at pictures which he knew by heart and tossed the books aside. He rummaged for the thousandth time in the cupboard. He took out a bag which contained several small, round pieces of metal. He had played with them many times in the years gone by, but always he replaced them carefully in the bag and the

bag in the cupboard, upon the very shelf where first he had discovered it. In strange ways did Heredity manifest itself in the ape-man? Come of an orderly race, he himself was orderly without knowing why. The apes dropped things wherever their interest in them waned in the tall grass or from the high-flung branches of the trees. What they dropped they sometimes found again by accident. But not so, the ways of Tarzan, for his few belongings he had a place, and scrupulously he returned each thing to its proper place when he was

done with it. The round pieces of metal in the little bag always interested him. Raised pictures were upon either side, the meaning of which he did not quite understand. The pieces were bright and shiny. It amused him to arrange them in various figures upon the table. Hundreds of times had he played thus. Today, while so engaged, he dropped a lovely yellow piece, an English sovereign, which rolled beneath the bed where lay all that was mortal of the once beautiful Lady Alice. True to form, Tarzan at once dropped to his hands and knees and searched beneath the bed for the lost gold piece. Strange as it might appear, he had never before looked beneath the bed. He found the gold piece and something else he found too, a small wooden,

box with a loose cover. Bringing them both out, he returned the sovereign to its bag and the bag to its shelf within the cupboard. Then he investigated the box. It contained a quantity of cylindrical bits of metal, cone-shaped at one end and flat at the other, with a projecting rim. They were all quite green and dull, coated with years of verdigris. Tarzan removed a handful of them from the box and examined them. He rubbed one up. upon another, and discovered that the green came off, leaving a shiny surface for two-thirds of their length, and a dull gray over the cone-shaped end. Finding a bit of wood, he rubbed one of the cylinders rapidly, and was rewarded by a lustrous sheen which pleased him. At his side

hung a pocket-pouch taken from the body of one of the numerous black warriors he had slain. Into this pouch he put a handful of the new playthings, thinking to polish them at his leisure. then he replaced the box beneath the bed and finding nothing more to amuse him left the cabin and started back in the direction of the tribe shortly before he reached them he heard a great commotion ahead of him the loud screams of shees and baloos the savage angry barking and growling of the great bulls instantly he increased his speed for the kreigaws that came to his ears warned him that something was amiss with his fellows while tarzan had been occupied with his own devices in the cabin of his dead sire tog tika's mighty mate had been hunting a mile to the north of the tribe at last his belly filled he had turned lazily back toward the clearing where he had last seen the tribe and presently commenced passing its members scattered alone or in twos or threes nowhere did he see tika or gazen and soon he began inquiring of the other apes where they might be but none had seen them recently. Now the lower orders are not highly imaginative. They do not, as you and I paint vivid menzel pictures of things which might have occurred,

and so Tog did not now apprehend that any misfortune had overtaken his mate and their offspring. He merely knew that he wished to find Tika, that he might lie down in the shade and have her scratch his back while his breakfast digested. But though he called to her and searched for her, and asked each whom he would, met, he could find no trace of Tika, nor of Gazzan either. He was beginning to become peeped, and had about made up his mind to chastise Tika for wandering so far afield when he wanted her. He was moving south along a game trail, his calloused soles and knuckles giving forth no sound, when he came upon dango at the opposite side of a small clearing. The eater of Caryon did not

see Tog, for all his eyes were for something which lay in the grass beneath a tree, something upon which he was sneaking with the cautious stealth of his breed. Tog always cautious himself, as it behooves one to be who fares up and down the jungle, and desires to survive, swung noiselessly into a tree where he could have a better view of the clearing. He did not fear Dango, but he wanted to see what it was that Dango stock. In a way, possibly he was actuated as much by curiosity, as by caution. And when Tog reached a place in the branches from which he could have an unobstructed view of the clearing, he saw Dango already sniffing at something directly beneath him,

something which Tog instantly recognized as the lifeless form of his little gazen. With a cry so frightful, so bestial that it momentarily paralyzed the startled Dango, the great ape launched his mighty bulk upon the surprised hyena. With a cry and a snarl, Dango, crushed to earth, turned to tear at his assailant, but as effectively might a sparrow turn upon a hawk. Tog's great gnarled fingers closed upon the heinous throat and back. His jaws snapped once on the mangy neck, crushing the vertebrae, and then he hurled the dead body contemptuously aside. Again he raised his voice in the call of the bull-ape to its mate, but there was no reply. Then he leaned down to sniff at the body of Gasson. In the breast of this savage,

hideous beast there beat a heart which was moved, however slightly, by the same emotions of paternal love which affect us. Even had we no actual evidence of this, we must know it still, since only thus might be explained the survival of the human race in which the jealousy and selfishness of the bulls would, in the earliest stages of the race, have wiped out the young as rapidly as they were brought into the world, had not God implanted in the savage bosom, that paternal love which evidences itself most strongly in the protective instinct of the male. In Tog, the protective instinct was not alone highly developed, but affection for his offspring as well, for Tog was an unusually intelligent specimen of these great manlike apes which the natives of the Gobi speak of in

whispers, but which no white man ever had seen, or if seeing, lived to tell of, until Tarzan of the apes came among them. And so Tog felt sorrow as any other father might feel sorrow at the loss of a little child. To you, little Gasson might have seemed a hideous and repulsive creature, but to Tog and Tika he was as beautiful and as cute as your little Mary or Johnny or Elizabeth Ann to you. and he was their first-born, their only Baloo, and a he, three things which might make a young ape the apple of any fond father's eye. For a moment Tog sniffed at the quiet little form. With his muzzle and his tongue he smoothed and caressed the rumpled coat. From his savage lips broke a low moan, but quickly upon the heels of sorrow came the

overmastering desire for revenge. Leaping to his feet he screamed out of volley of Creedaws, punctuated from time to time by the blood-freecing cry of an angry, challenging bull, a rage-mad bull with the blood last strong upon him. Answering his cries came the cries of the tribe as they swung through the trees toward him. It was these that Tarzan heard on his return from his cabin, and in reply to them he raised his own voice and hurried forward with increased speed until he fairly flew through the middle terraces of the forest. At last he came upon the tribe, he saw their members gathered about Tog and something which lay

quietly upon the ground. Dropping among them, Tarsan approached the center of the group. Tog was stiff, roaring out his challenges. But when he saw Tarsan, he ceased, and stooping picked up Gazzan in his arms and held him out for Tarsan to see. Of all the bulls of the tribe, Tog held affection for Tarzan only. Tarzan he trusted, and looked up to as one wiser and more cunning. To Tarzan he came now, to the playmate of his Ballou days, the companion of innumerable battles of his maturity. When Tarzan saw the still form in Tog's arms, a low growl broke from his lips, for he too loved Tika's little Baloo. Who did it? he asked.

Where is Tika? I do not know, replied Tog. I found him lying here with dango about to feed upon him, but it was not dangle that did it. There are no fang marks upon him. Tarzan came closer and placed an ear against Gazzan's breast. He is not dead, he said. Maybe he will not die. He pressed through the crowd of apes and circled once about them,

examining the ground step by step. Suddenly he stopped, and placing his nose close to the earth sniffed. Then he sped. sprang to his feet, giving a peculiar cry. Tog and the others pressed forward, for the sound told them that the hunter had found the spore of his query. "'A stranger bull has been here,' said Tarzan. "'It was he that hurt Gazzan.

He has carried off Tika. Tog and the other bulls commenced to roar and threaten, but they did nothing. Had the stranger bull been within sight, they would have torn him to pieces, but it did not occur to them to follow him. If the three bulls had been watching around the tribe, this would not have happened, said Tarzan. Such things will happen as long as you do not keep the three bulls watching for an enemy. The jungle is full of enemies, and yet you let your shees and your baloos feed where

they will, alone and unprotected. Tarzan goes now, he goes to find Tika and bring her back to the tribe. The idea appealed to the other bros. bulls. We will all go, they cried. No, said Tarzan, you will not go. You cannot take shees and Balus when we go out to hunt and fight. You must remain to guard them, or you will lose them all. They scratched their heads. The wisdom of his advice was dawning upon them, but at first they had been carried away by the new idea, the idea of following up an enemy offender to rest his prize from him and punish him. The community instinct was,

was ingrained in their characters through ages of custom. They did not know why they had not thought to pursue and punish the offender. They could not know that it was because they had as yet not reached a mental plane which would permit them to work as individuals. In times of stress, the community instinct sent them huddling into a compact herd, where the great bulls, by the weight of their combined strength and ferocity, could best protect them from an enemy. The idea of separating to do battle with a foe had not yet occurred to them. It was too foreign to custom, too inimical to community interest, but to Tarzan it was the first and most natural thought. His senses told him that there was but a single bull connected with the attack upon Tika and Gazzan. A single enemy did

not require the entire tribe for his punishment. Two swift bulls could quickly overhaul him and rescue Tika. In the past, no one ever had thought to go forth in search of the shees that were occasionally stolen from the tribe. If Numa, Sabor, Sheeta, or a wandering bull ape from another tribe, chanced to carry off a maid or a matron while no one was looking, that was the end of it. She was gone. That was all. The bereaved husband, if the victim, chance to have been mated, growled around for a day or two, and then, if he were strong enough, took another mate with within the tribe, and if not wandered far into the jungle on the chance of stealing one from another community. In the past Tarzan of the apes had condoned this practice for the reason

that he had had no interest in those who had been stolen, but Tika had been his first love, and Tika's baloo held a place in his heart, such as a baloo of his own would have held. Just once before had Tarzan wished to follow and revenge. That had been years before, when Kulon Mbonga, the son of Mbonga, the chief, had slain Kala. Then single-handed Tarzan had pursued and avenged. Now, though to a lesser degree, he was moved by the same passion. He turned toward Tog. Leave Gazzan with Mumga, he said.

She is old and her fangs are broken, and she is no good, but she can take care of Gazzan until we return with Tika. And if Gazzan is dead when we come back, he turned to address Mungga, I will kill you, too. Where are we going? asked Tog. We are going to get Tika, replied the ape-man, and kill the bull who has stolen her. Come. He turned again to the spore of the stranger bull, which showed plainly to his trained senses,

nor did he glance back to note if Tog followed. The latter laid Jasson in Munga's arms with a parting, If he dies, Tarzan will kill you. And he followed after the brown skin. skinned figure that already was moving at a slow trot along the jungle trail. No other bull of the tribe of Kurchak was so good a trailer as Tarzan, for his trained senses were aided by a high order of intelligence. His judgment told him the natural trail for a query to follow, so that he need but note the most apparent marks upon the way, and today the trail of Tug was as plain to him

as type upon a printed page to you or me. Following close behind the live figure of the ape-man came the huge and shaggy bull-ape. No words passed between them. They moved as silently as two shadows among the myriad shadows of the forest. Alert as his eyes and ears was Tarzan's patrician nose. The spore was fresh, and now that they had passed from the range of the strong ape odor of the tribe, he had little difficulty in following Tug and Tika by scent alone. Tika's familiar scent spore told both Tarzan and Tog that they were upon her trail, and soon the scent of Tug became as familiar as the other. They were progressing rapidly when suddenly dense clouds overcast the sun. Tarsan accelerated his pace. Now he fairly flew

along the jungle trail, or where Tug had taken to the trees, following. followed nimbly as a squirrel along the bending, undulating pathway of the foliage branches, swinging from tree to tree as tog had swung before them, but more rapidly because they were not handicapped by a burden such as tugs. Tarzan felt that they must be almost upon the query, for the scent spore was becoming stronger and stronger, when the jungle was suddenly shot by livid lightning and a deafening roar of thunder reverberated through the heavens and the forest until the earth trembled and shook. Then came the rain, not as it comes to us of the temperate zones, but as a mighty avalanche of water, a deluge which spilled tons instead of

drops upon the bending forest giants and the terrified creatures which haunt their shade. And the rain did what Tarzan knew that it would do. It wiped the spore of the query from the face of the earth. For a half hour the torrents fell, then the sun burst forth, jeweling the forest with a million scintillant gems. But today the ape-man, usually alert to the changing wonders of the jungle, saw them not. Only the fact that the spore of Tika and her abductor was obliterated, found lodgment in his thoughts. Even among the branches of the trees, there are well-worn trails, just as there are trails upon the surface of the ground. But in the trees they branch and cross more often, since the way of the way.

is more open than among the dense undergrowth at the surface. Along one of these well-marked trails, Tarzan and Tog continued after the rain had ceased, because the ape-man knew that this was the most logical path for the thief to follow. But when they came to a fork, they were at a loss. Here they halted, while Tarzan examined every branch and leaf which might have been touched by the fleeing ape. He sniffed the bowl of the tree, and with his keen eyes he sought to find upon the bark some sign of the way the query had taken. It was slow work, and all the time Tarzan knew the bull of the alien tribe was forging steadily away from them, gaining precious minutes that might carry him to safety before they could catch up with him. First along one fork he went, and then another,

applying every test that his wonderful jungle craft was cognizant of, but again and again he was baffled, for the scent had been washed away by the heavy downpour in every exposed place. For a half hour Tarzan and Tog searched, until at last upon the bottom of a broad leaf, Tarzan's keen nose caught the faint trace of the scent spore of toad, where the leaf had brushed a hairy shoulder as the great ape passed through the foliage. Once again the two took up the trail, but it was slow work now, and there were many discouraging delays when the spore seemed lost beyond,

recovery. To you or me there would have been no spore, even before the coming of the rain, except possibly where Tug had come to Earth and followed a game trail. In such places, the imprint of a huge hand-like foot and the knuckles of one great hand were sometimes plain enough for an ordinary mortal to read. Tarzan knew from these and other indications that the ape was yet carrying Tika, the depth of the imprint of his feet, indicated much greater weight than that of any of the larger bolts, for they were made under the combined weight of Tug and Tika, while the fact that the knuckles of but one hand touched the ground at any time showed that the other hand was occupied in some other business, the business of holding the

prisoner to a hairy shoulder. Tarzan could follow in sheltered places the changing of the burden from one shoulder to another, as indicated by the deepening of the foot imprint upon the side, of the load, and the changing of the knuckle imprints from one side of the trail to the other. There were stretches along the surface paths, where the ape had gone for considerable distances entirely erect upon his hind feet, walking as a man walks, but the same might have been true of any of the great anthropoids of the same species, for, unlike the chimpanzee and the gorilla, they walk without the aid of their hands quite as readily as with. It was such things, however, which helped to identify to Tarzan and to Tog the appearance of

the abductor, and with his individual scent characteristic already indelibly impressed upon their memories, they were in a far better position to know him when they came upon him, even should he have disposed of Tika before, than is a modern sleuth with his photographs and Bertillon measurements equipped to recognize a fugitive from civilized justice. But with all their high-strung and delicately attuned perceptive faculties, the two bulls of the tribe of Kurchak were often sore-pressed to follow the trail at all, and at best were so delayed that in the afternoon of the second day they still had not overhauled the fugitive. The scent was now strong, for it had been made since the rain, and Tarzan knew that it would not

be long before they came upon the thief and his loot. Above them as they crept stealthily, forward, chattered Manu, the monkey, and his thousand fellows, squawked and screamed the brazen-throated birds of plumage, buzzed and hummed the countless insects amid the rustling of the forest leaves, and as they passed, a little gray beard, squeaking and scolding upon a swaying branch, looked down and saw them. Instantly the scolding and squeaking ceased, and off-tore the long-tailed might as though Sheeta the panther had been endowed with wings and was in close pursuit of him. To all appearances he was only a very much frightened little monkey, fleeing for his life. There seemed nothing sinister about him. And what of Tika during all this time? Was she at last

resigned to her fate and accompanying her new mate in the proper humility of a loving and tractable spouse? A single glance at the pair would have answered these questions to the utter satisfaction of the most captious. She was torn and bleeding from many wounds, inflicted by the sullen Tug in his vain efforts to subdue her to his will. And Tug, too, was disfigured and mutilated, but with stubborn ferocity he still clung to his now useless prize. On through the jungle he forced his way in the direction of the stamping ground of his tribe. He hoped that his king would have forgotten his treason, but if not he was still resigned to his fate, any fate would be better than suffering longer the sole companionship of this frightful shit.

she, and then, too, he wished to exhibit his captive to his fellows. Maybe he could wish her on the king. It is possible that such a thought urged him on. At last they came upon two bulls feeding in a park-like grove. A beautiful grove dotted with huge boulders, half-embedded in the rich loam, mute monuments possibly to a forgotten age when mighty glaciers rolled their slow course, where now a torrid sun beats down upon a tropic jungle. The two bulls looked up, bearing long fighting fangs as Tug appeared in the distance. The latter recognized the two as friends. "'It is Tug,' he growled.

"'Tug has come back with a new she.' The apes waited his nearer approach. Tika turned a snarling, fanged face toward them. She was not pretty to look upon. Yet through the blood and hatred upon her countenance, they realized that she was beautiful, and they envied Tug. Alas, they did not know Tika. As they squatted, looking at one another,

they raced through the trees toward them, a long-tailed little monkey with gray whiskers. He was a very excited little monkey when he came to a halt upon the limb of a tree directly overhead. "'Two strange bowls come,' he cried. "'One is a man ganny, the other a hideous ape without hair upon his body.

They follow the spore of toad. I saw them.' The four apes turned their eyes backward, along the trail Tug had just come. Then they looked at one another for a minute. Come, said the larger of Tug's two friends. We will wait for the strangers in the thick bushes beyond the clearing. He turned and waddled away across the open place, the others following him. The little monkey danced about, all excitement. His chief diversion in life was to bring about bloody encounters between the larger denizens of the forest that he might sit in the safety of the

trees and witnessed the spectacles. He was a glutton for gore, was this little whiskered gray monkey, so long as it was the gore of others. A typical fight fan was the gray beard. The apes hid themselves in the shrubbery beside the trail along which the two stranger bulls would pass. Tika trembled with excitement. She had heard the words of Manu, and she knew that the hairless ape must be Tarzan, while the other was doubtless tog. Never in her wildest hopes had she expected succor of this sort. Her one thought had been to escape and find her way back to the tribe of Kurchak, but even this had appeared to her practically impossible, so closely did Tug watch her.

As Tog and Tarzan reached the grove where Tug had come upon his friends, the ape's scent became so strong that both knew the query was but a short distance ahead, and so they went even more cautiously, for they wished to come upon the thief from behind if they could and charge him before he was aware of their presence. That a little gray-whiskered monkey had forestalled them they did not know, nor that three pairs of savage eyes were already watching their every move and waiting for them to come within reach of itching paws and slavering jowls.

On they came across the grove, and as they entered the path leading into the dense jungle beyond, A sudden, Creog, shrilled out close before them, a creog! In the familiar voice of Tika, the small brains of Tug and his companions had not been able to foresee that Tika might betray them. And now that she had they went wild with rage. Tug struck the she a mighty blow that felled her, and then the three rushed forth to do battle with Tarzan and Tog.

The little monkey danced upon his perch and screamed with delight, and indeed he might well be delighted, for it was a love. lovely fight. There were no preliminaries, no formalities, no introductions. The five bulls merely charged and clinched. They rolled in the narrow trail into the thick verdure beside it. They bit and clawed and scratched and struck, and all the while they kept up the most frightful chorus of growlings and barkings and roaring. In five minutes they were torn and bleeding, and the little graybeard leaped high, shrilling his primitive bravoles, but always his attitude was thumbs down. He wanted to see something killed. He did not care whether it were friend or foe. It was blood he wanted,

blood and death. Tog had been set upon by Tug and another of the apes, while Tarzan had the third, a huge brute with the strength of a buffalo. Never before had Tarzan's assailant be held so strange a creature as this slippery, hairless bull with which he battled. Sweat and blood covered Tarzan's sleek brown hide. Again and again he slipped from the clutches of the grassy. bull, and all the while he struggled to free his hunting-knife from the scabbard in which it had stuck. At length he succeeded. A brown hand shot out and clutched a hairy throat. Another flew upward clutching the sharp blade, three swift, powerful strokes, and the bull relaxed with a groan, falling limp beneath his antagonist. Instantly Tarzan broke from the clutches of the dying bull

and sprang to Tog's assistance. Tug saw him coming and wheeled to meet him, in the impact of the charge, Tarzan's knife was wrenched from his hand, and then two closed with him. Now was the battle even, two against two, while on the verge Tika now recovered from the blow that had fell her, slunk, waiting for an opportunity to aid. She saw Tarzan's knife and picked it up. She never had used it, but knew how Tarzan used it. Always had she been afraid of the thing which dealt death to the mightiest of the jungle people, with the ease that tantar's great tusks, dealt death to Tantor's enemies. She saw Tarzan's pocket pouch torn from his side, and with the curiosity of an ape that even danger and excitement cannot entirely dispel,

she picked this up too. Now the bulls were standing, the clinches had been broken, blood streamed down their sides, their faces were crimsoned with it. Little Greybeard was so fascinated that at last he had even forgotten to scream and dance, but sat rigid with delight in the enjoyment of the spectacle. Back across the grove, Tarzan and Tog forced their adversaries. Tika followed slowly. She scarce knew what to do. She was lame and sore and exhausted from the frightful ordeal

through which she had passed, and she had the confidence of her sects in the prowess of her mate and the other bull of her tribe. They would not need the help of a she in their battle with these two strangers. The roars and screams of the fighters reverberated through the jungle, awakening the echoes in the distant hills. From the throat of Tarzan's antagonist had come a score of Creeds! And now from behind came the reply he had awaited.

Into the grove barking and growling came a score of huge bull-apes, the fighting men of Tug's tribe. Tika saw them first and screamed a warning to Tarzan and Tog. Then she fled past the fighters toward the opposite side of the clearing, fear for a moment claiming her, nor can one censure her after the frightful ordeal from which she was still suffering. Down upon them came the great apes. In a moment Tarzan and Tog would be torn to shreds. That would later form the peace de resistance of the savage orgy of a dumb-dum.

Tika turned to glance back. She saw the impending fate of her defenders, and there sprung to life in her savage bosom the spark of martyrdom, that some common forebearer had transmitted a light to Tika, the wild ape, and the great. glorious women of a higher order who have invited death for their men. With a shrill scream she ran toward the battles, who were rolling in a great mass at the foot of one of the huge boulders, which dotted the grove. But what could she do? The knife she held she could not use to advantage because of her lesser strength. She had seen Tarzan throw missiles, and she had learned this with many other things from her childhood playmate. She sought for something to throw, and at last her

fingers touched upon the hard objects in the pouch that had been torn from the ape-man. Tearing the receptacle open, she gathered a handful of shiny cylinders, heavy for their size, they seemed to her, and good missiles. With all her strength, she hurled them at the apes battling in front of the granite boulder. The result surprised Tika quite as much as it did the apes. There was a loud explosion which deafened the fighters and a puff of acrid smoke. Never before had one there heard such a frightful noise. Screaming with terror the stranger bulls leaped to their feet and fled back toward the stamping grounds of their tribe,

while Tog and Tarzan slowly gathered themselves together and arose, lame and bleeding to their feet. They too would have fled had they not seen Tika standing there before them, the knife and the pocket pouch in her hands. What was it? asked Tarzan. Tika shook her head. I hurled these things at the stranger-bowls, and she held forth another handful of the shiny metal cylinders with the dull gray, cone-shaped ends. Tarzan looked at them and scratched his head.

What are they? asked Tog. I do not know, said Tarzan. I found them. The little monkey with the gray beard halted among the trees a mile away and huddled, terrified against a branch. He did not know that the dead father of Tarzan of the apes, reaching back, out of the past, across the span of 20 years, had saved his son's life. Nor did Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, know it either. End of Chapter 10. Chapter 11 of Jungle Tales of Tarzan. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burrows.

Chapter 11 A Jungle Joke Time seldom hung heavily upon Tarzan's hands. Even when there is sameness, there cannot be monotony if most of the sameness consists in dodging death, first in one form and then in another, or in inflicting death upon others. There is a spice to such an existence, but even this Tarzan of the Apes varied in activities of his own invention. He was full-grown now, with the grace of a Greek god and the the fuse of a bull, and by all the tenets of apdom should have been sullen, morose, and brooding. But he was not. His spirits seemed not to age at all. He was still a playful child,

much to the discomfiture of his fellow apes. They could not understand him or his ways, for with maturity they quickly forgot their youth and its pastimes. Nor could Tarzan quite understand them. It seemed strange to him that a few moons since he had roped hog about an ankle and dragged him, screaming through the tall jungle grasses, and then rolled and tumbled in good-natured mimic battle when the young ape had freed himself, and that today, when he had come up behind the same tog, and pulled him over backward upon the turf, instead of the playful young ape, a great snarling beast had whirled and leaped for his throat. Easily tarsenly looted the charge, and quickly Tog's anger vanished, though it was not replaced with playfulness. Yet the ape-man

realized that Tog was not amused, nor was he amusing. The big bull seemed to have lost whatever sense of humor he once may have possessed. With a grunt of disappointment, young Lord graced out turned to other fields of endeavor. A strand of black hair fell across one eye. He brushed it aside with the palm of a hand and a toss of his head. It suggested something to do, so he sought his quiver which lay cast in the hollow bowl of a lightning-riven tree, removing the arrows he turned the quiver upside down, emptying upon the ground the contents of its bottom, his few treasures. Among them was a flat bit of stone and a shell which he had picked up from the beach near his father's cabin. With great care he rubbed the edge of the shell back and forth

upon the flat stone until the soft edge was quite fine and sharp. He worked much as a barber does who hones a razor, and with every evidence of similar practice. But his proficiency was the result of years of painstaking effort, unaided he had worked out a method of his own for putting an edge upon the shell. He even tested it with the ball of his thumb, and when it met with his approval, he grasped a wisp of hair which fell across his eyes, grasped it between the thumb and first finger of his left hand, and saw it upon it with the sharpened shell, until it was severed.

All around his head he went until his black shock was rudely bobbed with a ragged bang in front. For the appearance of it he cared nothing, but in the matter of safety and comfort it meant everything. A lock of hair falling in one's eyes at the wrong moment might mean all the difference between life and death, while straggly strands hanging down one's back were most uncomfortable, especially when wet with dew or rain or perspiration. As Tarzan labored at his tonsorial task, his active mind was busy with many things. He recalled his recent battle with Bolgani the gorilla, the wounds of which were but just healed. He pondered the strange sleep adventures of his first dreams, and he smiled at the painful outcome of his last practical joke upon the tribe, when

dressed in the height of Numa the lion, he had come roaring upon them only to be leaped upon and almost killed by the great bulls, whom he had taught how to defend themselves, from an attack of their ancient enemy. His hair lopped off to his entire satisfaction, and seeing no possibility of pleasure in the company of the tribe, Tarzan swung leisurely into the trees and set off in the direction of his cabin. But when partway there, his attention was attracted by a strong scent spore coming from the north. It was the scent of the Gomongani.

Curiosity, that best developed common heritage of man and ape, always prompted Tarzan to investigate where the Gomengany were concerned. There was that about them which aroused his imagination. Possibly it was because of the diversity of their activities and interests. The apes lived to eat and sleep and propagate. The same was true of all the other denizens of the jungle, save the Gomagani. These black fellows danced and sang,

scratched around in the earth from which they had cleared the trees and underbrush, They watched things grow, and when they had ripened they cut them down and put them in straw-thatched huts. They made bows and spears and arrows, poison, cooking pots, things of metal to wear around their arms and legs. If it hadn't been for their black faces, their hideously disfigured features, and the fact that one of them had slain Kayla, Tarzan might have wished to be one of them. At least he sometimes thought so, but always at the thought there rose within him a strange revulsion of feeling, which he could not interpret or understand. He simply knew that he hated the Gomengany, and that he would rather be Hista the snake than one of these. But their ways were

interesting, and Tarzan never tired of spying upon them, and from them he learned much more than he realized, though always his principal thought was of some new way in which he could render their lives miserable. The baiting of the blacks was Tarzan's chief divertisman. Tarzan realized now that the blacks were very near, and that there were many of them, so he went silently and with great caution. Noiselessly he moved through the lush grasses of the open spaces, and where the forest was dense, swung from one swaying branch to another, or leaped lightly over tangled masses of fallen trees,

where there was no way through the lower terraces, and the ground was choked and impassable. And so presently he came within sight of the blue, black warriors of Mabonga the chief. They were engaged in a pursuit with which Tarzan was more or less familiar, having watched them at it upon other occasions. They were placing and baiting a trap for Numa the lion. In a cage upon wheels they were tying a kid, so fastening it that when Numa seized the unfortunate creature, the door of the cage would drop behind him, making him a prisoner. These things the blacks had learned in their old home before they escaped through the untracked jungle to their new village. Formerly they had dwelt in the Belgian Congo until the cruelt

of their heartless oppressors had driven them to seek the safety of unexplored solitudes beyond the boundaries of Leopold's domain. In their old life they often had trapped animals for the agents of European dealers and had learned from them certain tricks such as this one which permitted them to capture even Numa without injuring him, and to transport him in safety and with comparative ease to their village. No longer was there a white market for their savage wares, but there was still a sufficient incentive for the taking of Numa alive. First was the necessity for ridding the jungle of man-eaters, and it was only after depredations by these grim and terrible scourges that a lion-hunt was organized. Secondarily was the excuse for an orgy of celebration, and it was only after depredations.

was the hunt successful, and the fact that such feats were rendered doubly pleasurable by the presence of a live creature that might be put to death by torture. Tarzan had witnessed these cruel rights in the past. Being himself more savage than the savage warriors of the Gomengany, he was not so shocked by the cruelty of them as he should have been, yet they did shock him. He could not understand the strange feeling of revulsion which possessed him at such times. He had no love for Numa the lion, yet he bristled with rage when the blacks inflicted upon his enemy such indignities and cruelties as only the mind of the one creature molded in the image of God can conceive. Upon two occasions he had freed Numa from the trap before the blacks

had returned to discover the success or failure of their venture. He would do the same today. That he decided immediately he realized the nature of their intentions. Leaving the trap in the center of a broad elephant trail near the drinking-hole, the warriors turned back toward their village. On the morrow they would come again. Tarzan looked after them, upon his lips an unconscious sneer, the heritage of unguessed caste. He saw them file along the broad trail, beneath the overhanging verdure of leafy branch, and looped in festoon creepers, brushing Ebbin's shoulders against gorgeous blooms which, inscrutable nature has seen fit to lavish most profusely farthest from the eye of man.

As Tarzan watched through narrowed lids, the last of the warriors disappear beyond a turn in the trail, his expression altered to the urge of a newborn thought. A slow, grim smile touched his lips. He looked down upon the frightened, bleating kid, advertising in its fear and its innocence, its presence, and its helplessness. dropping to the ground tarzan approached the trap and entered without disturbing the fiber cord which was adjusted to drop the door at the proper time he loosened the living bait tucked it under an arm and stepped out of the cage with his hunting-knife he quieted the frightened animal severing its jugular then he dragged it bleeding along the trail down to the drinking hole the half-smile persisting upon his ordinarily grave face at the water's edge the ape-man's stooped, and with hunting-knife and quick strong fingers deftly removed the dead kid's viscera. Scraping a hole in the mud, he buried these parts, which he did not eat,

and swinging the body to his shoulder, took to the trees. For a short distance he pursued his way in the wake of the black warriors, coming down presently to bury the meat of his kill where it would be safe from the depredations of Dango, the hyena, or the other meat-eating beasts and birds of the jungle. He was hungry. Had he been all beast, he would have eaten. But his man-mind could entertain urges even more potent than those of the belly, and now he was concerned with an idea which kept a smile upon his lips and his eyes sparkling in anticipation. An idea it was which permitted him to forget that he was hungry. The meat safely cast, Tarzan trotted along the Elephant Trail after the Gomangani. Two or three miles from the cage he overtook them.

And then he swung into the trees and followed above and behind them, waiting his chance. Among the blacks was Rabakega, the witch doctor. Tarzan hated them all, but Robichega he especially hated. As the blacks filed along the winding path, Robichega, being lazy, dropped behind. This Tarzan noted, and it filled him with satisfaction, his being radiated a grim and terrible content. Like an angel of death he hovered above the unlawful. unsuspecting black. Robichaga, knowing that the village was but a short distance ahead, sat down to rest. Rest well, O Robakega, it is thy last opportunity. Tarzan crept stealthily among the branches of the tree above the well-fed, self-satisfied witch, doctor. He made no

noise that the dull ears of man could hear above the salhing of the gentle jungle breeze among the undulating foliage of the upper terraces. And when he came close above the black man, halted, well concealed by leafy branch and heavy creeper. Rob Akega sat with his back against the bowl of a tree facing Tarzan. The position was not such as the waiting beast of prey desired, and so with the infinite patience of the wild hunter, the ape-man crouched, motionless and silent as a graven image until the fruit should be ripe for the plucking. A poisonous insect buzzed angrily out of space, it loitered circling, close to

to Tarzan's face. The ape-man saw and recognized it. The virus of its sting spelled death for lesser things than he. For him it would mean days of anguish. He did not move. His glittering eyes remained fixed upon Rabba Kaga after acknowledging the presence of the winged torture by a single glance. He heard and followed the movements of the insect with his keen ears, and then he felt it alight upon his forehead. No muscle twitched, for the muscles of such as he are the servants of the brain. Down across his face crept the horrid thing, over nose and lips and chin. Upon his throat it paused, and turning retraced its steps. Tarzan watched Robakega. Now not even his eyes moved, so motionless he crouched that only death might counterpart his

movelessness. The insect crawled upward over the nut-brown cheek and stopped with its antenna brushing the lashes of his lower lid. Your eye would have started. You or I would have started, started back, closing our eyes, and striking at the thing. But you and I are the slaves, not the masters of our nerves. Had the thing crawled upon the eyeball of the ape-man, it is believable that he could yet have remained wide-eyed and rigid. But it did not. For a moment it loitered there close to the lower lid. Then it rose and buzzed away. Down toward Roba Kegha it buzzed, and the black man heard it, saw it, struck at it, and was stung upon the cheek before he killed it. Then he rose with a howl of pain and anger,

and as he turned upon the trail toward the village of Mabonga the chief, his broad black back was exposed to the silent thing waiting above him, and as Robichega turned, a lithe figure shot outward and downward from the tree above upon his broad shoulders. The impact of the springing creature carried Roba Kega to the ground. He felt strong jaws close upon his neck, and when he tried to scream, steel fingers throttled his throat. The powerful black warrior struggled to free himself, but he was as a child in the grip of his adversary. Presently Tarzan released his grip upon the other's throat, but each time that Rabakega essayed a scream, the cruel fingers choked him painfully. At last the warrior desisted. Then Tarzan half rose and kneeled upon his victim's back, and when

Robichega struggled to arise, the ape man pushed his face down into the dirt of the trail. With a bit of the rope that had secured the kid, Tarzan made Robikega's wrists secure behind his back. Then he rose and jerked his prisoner to his feet, faced him back along the trail, and pushed him on ahead. Not until he came to his feet, did Robichega obtain a square look at his assailant. When he saw that it was the white devil god, his heart sank within him, and his knees trembled. But as he walked along the trail ahead of his capture and was neither injured nor molested, his spirit slowly rose, so that he took heart again. Possibly the devil god did not intend to kill him after all, had he not had little Tybo in his power for days without

harming him, and had he not spared Momea, Tybo's mother, when he easily might have slain her. And then they came upon the cage which Roba Kega, with the other black warriors of the village of Mabonga, the chief, had placed and baited for Numa. Robakega saw that the bait was going to, and the bait was gone, though there was no lion within the cage, nor was the door dropped. He saw, and he was filled with wonder not unmixed with apprehension. It entered his dull brain that in some way this combination of circumstances had a connection with his presence there as the prisoner of the white devil god. Nor was he wrong. Tarzan pushed him roughly into the cage, and in another moment Robichega understood. cold sweat broke from every pore of his body. He trembled as with ague, for the ape-man was

binding him securely in the very spot the kid had previously occupied, the witch-doctor pleaded first for his life, and then for a death less cruel, but he might as well have saved his pleas for Numa, since already they were directed toward a wild beast who understood no word of what he said. But his constant jabbering, not only annoyed tariff, Tarzan, who worked in silence, but suggested that later the black might raise his voice in cries for succor. So he stepped out of the cage, gathered a handful of grass and a small stick, and returning jammed the grass into Robichega's mouth, laid the stick crosswise between his teeth, and fastened it there with the thong from Robichagga's loin cloth. Now could the witch

doctor but roll his eyes and sweat. Thus Tarzan left him. The ape-man went first to the spot, he had cast the body of the kid. Digging it up, he ascended into a tree and proceeded to satisfy his hunger. What remained he again buried. Then he swung away through the trees to the water hole, and going to the spot where fresh, cold water bubbled from between two rocks, he drank deeply. The other beasts might wade in and drink stagnant water, but not Tarzan of the apes. In such matters he was fastidious. From his hands he washed every trace of the the repugnant scent of the Gomongani, and from his face the blood of the kid. Rising, he stretched himself, not unlike some huge, lazy cat, climbed into a nearby tree and fell

asleep. When he awoke it was dark, though a faint luminosity still tinned the western heavens. A lion moaned and coughed as it strode through the jungle toward water. It was approaching the drinking-hole. Tarzan grinned sleepily changed his position. and fell asleep again. When the blacks of Mabonga the chief reached their village, they discovered that Rabakka was not among them. When several hours had elapsed, they decided that something had happened to him, and it was the hope of the majority of the tribe that whatever had happened to him might prove fatal. They did not love the witch doctor. Love and fear seldom are playmates, but a warrior is a warrior, and so Mabonga organized a searching party.

That his own grief was not uneswageable might have been gathered from the fact that he remained at home and went to sleep. The young warriors whom he sent out remained steadfast to their purpose for fully half an hour, when, unfortunately, for Robichega, upon so slight a thing may the fate of a man rest, a honeybird attracted the attention of the searchers and led them off for the delicious store it previously had marked down for betrayal, and Rabakega's doom was sealed. When the searchers returned, empty-handed, Mbonga was wroth, but when he saw the great store of honey they brought with them, his rage subsided. Already to Butto, young, agile, and evil-minded,

with face hideously painted, was practicing the black art upon a sick infant in the fond hope of succeeding to the office and perquisites of Roba-kega. To-night, the women of the old witch-doctor would moan and howl. Tomorrow he would be forgotten. Such as life, such as fame, such as power, in the center of the world's highest civilization, or in the depths of the black primeval jungle. Always everywhere, man is man, nor has he altered greatly beneath his veneer since he scurried into a hole between two rocks to escape the Tyrannosaurus six million years ago. The morning following the disappearance of Rabakega, the warriors set out with Mbonga the chief to examine the trap they had

set for Numa. Long before they reached the cage they heard the roaring of a great lion and guessed that they had made a successful bag, so it was with shouts of joy that they approached the spot where they should find their captive. Yes, there he was a great magnificent specimen, a huge black-maned lion. The warriors were frantic with delight, They leaped into the air and uttered savage cries, hoarse victory cries, and then they came closer, and the cries died upon their lips, and their eyes went wide so that the whites showed all around their irises, and their pendulous lower lips drooped with their drooping jaws. They drew back in terror at the sight within the cage, the mauled and mutilated corpse of what had yesterday been Robichega,

the witch doctor. The captured lion had been a man. The captured lion had been a little bit of the sight of the cage, the mauled, too angry and frightened to feed upon the body of his kill, but he had vented upon it much of his rage, until it was a frightful thing to behold. From his perch in a nearby tree, Tarzan of the apes, Lord Greystoke, looked down upon the black warriors and grinned. Once again his self-pride in his ability, as a practical joker, asserted itself. It had lain dormant for some time, following the painful mauling he had received that time he leaped among the apes of Kerchak, clothed in the skin of Numa, but this joke was a decided success. After a few moments of terror, the blacks came closer to the cage, rage taking the place of fear, rage and curiosity. How had

Robichaga happened to be in the cage? Where was the kid? There was no sign nor remnant of the original bait. They looked closely and they saw to their horror that the corpse of their erstwhile fellow was bound with the very cord with which they had secured the kid. Who could have done this thing? They looked at one another. Tabuto was the first to speak. He had come hopefully out with the expedition that morning. Somewhere he might find evidence of the death of Robichega. Now he had found it, and he was the first to find an explanation. The white devil, God. The white devil, he whispered, It is the work of the white devil God.

No one contradicted to Buto, for indeed who else could it have been but the great hairless ape they also feared. And so their hatred of Tarzan increased again with an increased fear of him, and Tarzan sat in his tree and hugged himself. No one there felt sorrow because of the death of Robichega, but each of the blacks experienced a personal fear

of the ingenious mind which might discover for any of them, a death equally horrible to that which the witch-doctor had suffered. It was a subdued and thoughtful company which dragged the captive lion along the broad elephant path back to the village of Mabonga the chief, and it was with a sigh of relief that they finally rolled it into the village and closed the gates behind them. Each had experienced the sensation of being spied upon from the moment they left the spot where the trap had been set, though none had seen or heard aught to give tangible food to his fears. At the sight of the body within the cage with the lion, the women and the children of the village set up a most frightful lamentation, working themselves into a joyous

hysteria which far transcended the happy misery derived by their more civilized prototypes, who make a business of dividing their time between the movies and the neighborhood funerals of friends and strangers, especially strangers. From a tree overhanging the palisade, Tarzan watched all that passed within the village. He saw the frenzied women tantalizing the great lion with sticks and stones, the cruelty of the blacks toward a captive always induced in Tarzan a feeling of angry contempt for the Gomann Ghani. Had he attempted to analyze this feeling, he would have found it difficult, for during all his life he had been accustomed to sights of suffering and cruelty. He himself was cruel. All the beasts of the jungle were cruel,

but the cruelty of the blacks was of a different order. It was the cruelty of wanton torture of the helpless, while the cruelty of Tarzan and the other beasts was the cruelty of necessity or of passion. Perhaps had he known it he might have credited this feeling of repugnance at the sight of unnecessary suffering to heredity, to the germ of British love of fair play, which had been bequeathed to him by his father and his mother. But of course he did not know, since he still believed that his mother had been Kayla the great ape. And just in proportion as his anger rose against the Gomongani, his savage sympathy went out to Numa the lion, for though Numa was his lifetime enemy, there was neither bitterness nor contempt in Tarzan's sentiments toward him. In the

ape-man's mind, therefore, the determination formed to thwart the blacks and liberate the lion. But he must accomplish this in some way which would cause the Gomengani the greatest chagrin and and discomfiture. As he squatted there watching the proceeding beneath him, he saw the warriors seize upon the cage once more and drag it between two huts. Tarzan knew that it would remain there now until evening, and that the blacks were planning a feast and orgy in celebration of their capture. When he saw that two warriors were placed beside the cage and that these drove off the women and children and young men who would have eventually tortured Numa to death, he knew that that the lion would be safe until he was needed for the evening's entertainment,

when he would be more cruelly and scientifically tortured for the edification of the entire tribe. Now Tarzan preferred to bait the blacks in as theatrical manner as his fertile imagination could evolve. He had some half-formed conception of their superstitious fears, and of their especial dread of night, and so he decided to wait until darkness fell, and the blacks partially worked to hysteria by their dancing and religious rights, before he took any steps toward the freeing of Numa. In the meantime, he hoped, an idea adequate to the possibilities of the various factors at hand would occur to him, nor was it long before one did.

He had swung off through the jungle to search for food when the plan came to him. At first it made him smile a little, and then looked dubious, for he still retained a vivid memory of the dire results that had followed the carrying out of a very wonderful idea along almost identical lines. Yet he did not abandon his intention, and a moment later food temporarily forgotten, he was swinging through the middle terraces in rapid flight toward the stamping ground of the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape. As was his wont he alighted in the midst of the little band, without announcing his approach, save by a hideous scream just as he sprang from a branch above them.

Fortunate are the apes of Kerchak that their kind is not subject to heart failure, for the methods of Tarzan subjected them to one severe shock after another, nor could they ever accustom themselves to the ape-man's peculiar style of humor. Now when they saw who it was they merely snarled and grumbled angrily for a moment, and then resumed their feeding or their napping which he had interrupted, and he, having had his little joke, made his way to the hollow tree where he kept his treasures hid from the inquisitive eyes and fingers of his fellows and the mischievous little manus. Here he withdrew a closely rolled hide, the hide of Numa with the head on,

a clever bit of primitive curing and mounting which had once been the property of the witch Dr. Rabakega, until Tarzan had stolen it from the village. With this he made his way back through the jungle, toward the village of the black, wax, stopping to hunt and feed upon the way, and in the afternoon, even napping for an hour, so that it was already dusk when he entered the great tree which overhung the palisade and gave him a view of the entire village. He saw that Numa was still alive, and that the guards were even dozing beside the cage. A lion is no great novelty to a black man in the lion country, and the first keen edge of their desire to worry the brute having worn off, the villagers

paid little or no attention to the great cat, preferring now to await the grand event of the night. Nor was it long after dark before the festivities commenced, to the beating of tom-toms, a lone warrior crouched half-doubled, leaped into the firelight in the center of a great circle of other warriors, behind whom stood or squatted the women and the children. The dancer was painted and armed for the hunt, and his movements and gestures suggested the searched for the spore of game. Bending low, sometimes resting for a moment on one knee, he searched the ground for signs of the query. Again he poised, statuesque, listening. The warrior was young and lithe and graceful. He was full-muscled and arrow-straight. The firelight glistened upon his

ebb and body and brought out into bold relief the grotesque designs painted upon his face, breasts, and abdomen. Presently he bent low to the earth, then leaped high, and he leaped high, and eye in the air. Every line of face and body showed that he had struck the scent. Immediately he leaped toward the circle of warriors about him, telling them of his find and summoning them to the hunt. It was all in pantomime, but so truly done that even Tarzan could follow it all to the least detail. He saw the other warriors grasped their hunting spears and leaped to their feet to join in the graceful, stealthy, stalking dance. It was very interesting, but Tarzan realized, that if he was to carry his design to a successful conclusion, he must act quickly.

He had seen these dances before, and knew that after the stock would come the game at bay and then the kill, during which Numa would be surrounded by warriors and unapproachable. With the lion's skin under one arm, the ape-man dropped to the ground in the dense shadows beneath the tree, and then circled beneath the huts until he came out directly in the rear of the cage, in which Numa paced nervously to and fro. The cage was now unguarded, the two warriors having left it to take their places among the other dancers. Behind the cage, Tarzan adjusted the lion's skin about him, just as he had upon that memorable occasion when the apes of Kerchak, failing to pierce his disguise, had all but slain him. Then on hands and knees he crept forward,

emerged from between the two huts, and stood a few paces back of the dusky audience, whose whole attention was centered upon the dancers before them. Tarzan saw that the blacks had now worked themselves to a proper pitch of nervous excitement to be ripe for the lion. In a moment, the ring of spectators would break at a point nearest the caged lion, and the victim would be rolled into the center of the circle. It was for this moment that Tarzan waited. At last it came, a signal was given by Mabanga the chief, at which the women and children immediately in front of Tarzan, and moved to one side, leaving a broad path opening toward the caged lion. At the same instant, Tarzan gave voice to the low, crouching roar of an angry lion, and slunk slowly forward through

the open lane toward the frenzied dancers. A woman saw him first and screamed. Instantly there was a panic in the immediate vicinity of the ape-man. The strong light from the fire fell full upon the lion's head, and the blacks leaped to the conclusion, as Tarzan had known they would, that their captive had escaped his cage. With another roar, Tarzan moved forward. The dancing warriors paused but an instant. They had been hunting a lion securely housed within a strong cage, and now that he was at liberty among them, an entirely different aspect was placed upon the matter. Their nerves were not attuned to this emergency. The women and children already had fled to the questionable safety of the nearest huts, and the warriors were not long in following their example,

so that presently Tarzan was left in sole possession of the village street. But not for long, nor did he wish to be left thus long, alone. It would not comport with his scheme. Presently a head peered forth from a nearby hut, and then another, and another, until a score or more of warriors were looking out upon him, waiting for his next move, waiting for the lion to charge, or to attempt to escape from the village. Their spears were ready in their hands against either a charge or a bolt for freedom, and then the lion rose erect upon its hind legs, the time of skin dropped from it, and there stood revealed before them in the firelight the straight young figure of the white devil god. For an instant the blacks were too astonished to act. They feared

this apparition fully as much as they did Numa, yet they would gladly have slain the thing could they quickly enough have gathered together their wits. But fear and superstition, and a natural mental density held them paralyzed while the ape-man stooped and gathered up the lion's skin. They saw him turn then, and then. and walked back into the shadows at the far end of the village. Not until then did they gain courage to pursue him, and when they had come in force with brandy spears and loud war cries, the query was gone. Not an instant did Tarzan pause in the tree. Throwing the skin over a branch, he leaped again into the village upon the opposite side of the great bowl, and diving into the shadow of a hut,

ran quickly to where lay the caged lion, springing to the top of the cage, he pulled upon the cord which raised the door, and a moment later a great lion in the prime of his strength and vigor leaped out into the village. The warriors, returning from a futile search for Tarzan, saw him step into the firelight. Ah, there was the devil got again up to his old trick. Did he think he could twice fool the men of Mabonga, the chief, the same way in so short a time? They would show him, for long they had waited for such an opportunity to rid themselves forever of this fearsome jungle demon. As one, they rushed forward with raised spears. The women and the children came from the huts to witness the slaying of the devil god. The lion turned blazing eyes upon them and then swung

about toward the advancing warriors. With shouts of savage joy and triumph they came toward him, menacing him with their spears. The devil god was theirs. And then, with a frightful roar, Numa the lion charged. The men of Mabonga the chief met Numa with ready spears and screams of raillery. In a solid mass of muscled ebony, they waited the coming of the devil God, yet beneath their brave exteriors lurked a haunting fear that all might not be quite well with them, that this strange creature could yet prove invulnerable to their weapons, and inflict upon them full punishment for their effrontery. The charging lion was all too lifelike. They saw that in the brief instant of the charge, but beneath the tawny hide they knew was hid the soft flesh of the white man, and how could that

withstand the assault of many war-spears. In their forefront stood a huge young warrior, in the full arrogance of his might and his youth. Afraid, not he. He laughed as Numa bore down upon him. He laughed and couched his spear, setting the point for the broad breast. And then the lion was upon him. A great paw swept away the heavy war spear, splintering it as the hand of man might splinter a dry twig. Down went the black, his skull crushed by another blow, and then the lion was in the midst of the warriors, clawing and tearing to right and left. Not for long did they stand their ground, but a dozen men were mauled before the others made good their escape from those frightful talons and gleaming fangs. In terror, the villagers fled hither and thither. Nohuts

seemed to sufficiently secure asylum, with Numa ranging within the palisade. From one to another fled the frightened blacks, while in the center of the village Numa stood glaring and growling above his kills. At last a tribesman flung wide the gates of the village and sought safety amid the branches of the forest trees beyond. Like sheep, his fellows followed him until the lion and his dead remained alone in the village. From the nearer trees the men of Mbonga saw the lion lower his great head and seize one of his victims by the shoulder, and then with slow and stately tread moved down the village street past the open gates and on into the jungle. They saw and shut up. and from another tree Tarzan of the apes saw and smiled.

A full hour elapsed after the lion had disappeared with his feast before the blacks ventured down from the trees and returned to their village. Wide eyes rolled from side to side, and naked flesh contracted more to the chill of fear than to the chill of the jungle night. "'It was he all the time,' murmured one. "'It was the devil-god. He changed himself from a lion, to a man, and back again into a lion," whispered another. And he dragged Moisa into the forest, and is eating him, said a third, shuddering.

We are no longer safe here, wailed a fourth. Let us take our belongings and search for another village sight, far from the haunts of the wicked devil god. But with mourning came renewed courage, so that the experiences of the preceding evening had little other effect than to increase their fear of Tarzan and strengthen their belief in his supernatural origin. And thus waxed the fame and the power of the ape-man in the mysterious haunts of the savage jungle, where he ranged, mightiest of beasts because of the man-mind which directed his giant muscles and his flawless courage. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of

Jungle Tales of Tarzan. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 12 Tarzan Rescues the Moon. The moon shone down upon a cloudless sky, a huge swollen moon that seemed so close to Earth that one might wonder that she did not brush the crooning treetops. It was night, and Tarzan was abroad in the jungle. Tarzan the ape-man, Mighty fighter, mighty hunter. Why he swung through the dark shadows of the somber forest, he could not have told you. It was not that he was hungry. He had fed well this day,

and in a safe cache were the remains of his kill, ready against the coming of a new appetite. Perhaps it was the very joy of living that urged him from his arboreal couch to pit his muscles and his senses against the jungle night, and then too Tarzan always was goaded by an intense desire to know. The jungle which is presided over by Kudu, the sun, is a very different jungle from that of Goro, the moon. The diurnal jungle has its own aspect, its own lights and shades, its own birds, its own blooms, its own beasts. Its noises are the noises of the day. The lights and shades of the nocturnal jungle are as different as one might imagine the lights and shades of another world to differ from those of our world. Its beasts, its blooms, and its birds are not those of the

jungle of Kudu, the sun. Because of these differences, Tarzan loved to investigate the jungle by night. Not only was the life another life, but it was richer in numbers and in romance. It was richer in dangers too, and to Tarzan of the apes, danger was the spice of life. And the noises of the jungle night, the roar of the lion, the scream of the leopard, the hideous laughter of dango, the hyena, were music to the ears of the ape-man, the soft padding of unseen feet, the rustling of leaves and grasses to the passage of fierce beasts, the sheen of opal-esque eyes flaming through the dark, the million sounds which proclaimed the teeming life that one might hear and scent, though seldom see, constituted the appeal of the nocturnal jungle to Tarzan.

Tonight he had swung a wide circle, toward the east first, and then toward the south, and now he was rounding back again into the north. His eyes, his ears, and his keen nostrils were ever on the alert, mingled with the sounds he knew, there were strange sounds, weird sounds which he never heard until after Kudu had sought his lair below the far edge of the big water sounds which belonged to Goro the moon and to the mysterious period of Goro's supremacy. These sounds often caused Tarzan profound speculation. They baffled him because he thought that he knew his jungle so well that there could be nothing within it unfamiliar to him.

Sometimes he thought that his colors and forms appeared to differ by night from their familiar daylight aspects, so sounds altered with the passage of Kudu and the coming of Goro, and these thoughts roused within his brain a vague conjecture that perhaps Goro and Kudu influenced these changes. and what more natural that eventually he came to attribute to the sun and the moon personalities as real as his own the sun was a living creature and ruled the day the moon endowed with brains and miraculous powers ruled the night thus functioned the untrained man-mind groping through the dark night of ignorance for an explanation of the things he could not touch or smell or hear and of the great unknown powers of nature which he could not see As Tarzan swung north again upon his wide circle, the scent of the Gomangani came to his nostrils, mixed with the acrid odor of wood smoke. The ape-man moved quickly in the direction from which the scent was borne down to him upon the gentle night wind.

Presently the ruddy sheen of a great fire filtered through the foliage to him ahead, and when Tarzan came to a halt in the trees near it, he saw a party of half a dozen black warriors huddled close to the blaze. It was evidently a hunting party from the village of Mabonga the chief, caught out in the jungle after dark. In a rude circle about them they had constructed a thornboma, which, with the aid of the fire, they apparently hoped would discourage the advances of the larger carnivora. That hope was not conviction was evidenced by the very palpable terror in which they crouched, wide-eyed and trembling, for already Numa and Sabor were moaning through the jungle toward them. There were other creatures, too, in the shadows beyond the firelight. Tarzan could see their

yellow eyes flaming there. The black saw them and shivered. Then one arose and grasping a burning branch from the fire, hurled it at the eyes, which immediately disappeared. The black sat down again. Tarzan watched and saw that it was several minutes before the eyes began to reappear in twos and fours. Then came Numa the lion, and Sabor his mate. The other eyes scattered to right and left before the menacing growls of the great cats, and then the huge orbs of the man-eaters flamed alone out of the darkness. Some of the blacks threw themselves upon their faces and moaned, but he who before had hurled the burning branched, now hurled another straight at the faces of the hungry lions, and they too disappeared, as had the lesser lights before them. Tarzan

was much interested. He saw a new reason for the nightly fires maintained by the blacks, a reason, in addition to those connected with warmth and light and cooking. The beasts of the jungle feared fire, and so fire was, in a measure, a protection from them. Tarzan himself knew a certain awe of fire. Once he had in investigating an abandoned fire in the village of the blacks, picked up a live coal. Since then, he had maintained a respectful distance from such fires as he had seen. One experience had sufficed. For a few minutes after the black hurled the firebrand, no eyes appeared, though Tarzan could hear the soft padding of feet all about him. Then flashed once more the twin fire spots that marked the return of the Lord of the Jungle,

and a moment later, upon a slightly lower level, there appeared those of Sabor, his mate. For some time they remained fixed and unwavering, a constellation of fierce stars in the jungle night. Then the male lion advanced slowly toward the Boma, where all but a single black still crouched in trembling terror. When this lone guardian saw that Numa was again approaching, he threw another firebrand, and as before Numa retreated and with him Sabor the lioness, but not so far this time, nor for so long. Almost instantly they turned and began circling the Boma, their eyes turning constantly toward the firelight, while low-throaty growls evidenced their increasing displeasure. Beyond the lions glowed the flaming eyes of the lesser satellites,

until the black jungle was shot all around the black men's camp with little spots of fire. Again and again the black warrior hurled his puny brands at the two big cats, but Tarzan noticed that Numa paid little or no attention to them after the first few retreats, The ape-man knew by Numa's voice that the lion was hungry and surmised that he made up his mind a feed upon a gomangani. But would he dare a closer approach to the dreaded flames? Even as the thought was passing in Tarzan's mind, Numa stopped his restless pacing and faced the boma. For a moment he stood motionless, except with the quick nervous up-curving of his tail. Then he walked deliberately forward, while Sabor moved restlessly to and fro,

where he had left her. The black man called to his comrades that the lion was coming, but they were too far gone in fear to do more than huddle closer together, and moaned more loudly than before. Seizing a blazing branch, the man cast it straight into the face of the lion. There was an angry roar followed by a swift charge. With a single bound, the savage beast cleared the bea-wall, as with almost equal agility, the warrior cleared it upon the opposite side, and, chancing the dangers lurking in the darkness, bolted for the nearest tree. Numa was out of the Boma almost as soon as he was inside it, but as he went back over the low thorn wall, he took a screaming negro with him, dragging his victim along the ground,

he walked back toward Sabor, the lioness, who joined him, and the two continued into the blackness, their savage growls mingling with the piercing shrieks of the doomed and terrified man. At a little distance from the blaze the lions halted, There ensued a short succession of unusually vicious growls and roars, during which the cries and moans of the black man ceased forever. Presently Numa reappeared in the firelight. He made a second trip into the Boma, and the former grisly tragedy was reenacted with another howling victim.

Tarzan rose and stretched lazily. The entertainment was beginning to bore him. He yawned and turned upon his way toward the clearing where the tribe would be sleeping in the encircling trees. Yet even when he had found his familiar crotch and curled himself for slumber, he felt no desire to sleep. For a long time he lay awake thinking and dreaming. He looked up into the heavens and watched the moon and the stars. He wondered what they were and what power kept them from falling. His was an inquisitive mind. Always he had been full of questions concerning all that passed around him, but there never had been one to

answer his questions. In childhood he had wanted to know, and denied almost all knowledge, he still in manhood was filled with the great unsatisfied curiosity of a child. He was never quite content merely to perceive that things happened. He desired to know why they happened. He wanted to know what made things go. The secret of life interested him immensely. The miracle of death he could not quite fathom. Upon innumerable occasions he had investigated, the internal mechanisms of his kills, and once or twice he had opened the chest cavity of victims in time to see the heart still pumping. He had learned from experience that a knife thrust through this organ brought immediate death, nine times out of ten, while he might stab an antagonist

innumerable times in other places without even disabling him. And so he had come to think of the heart, or as he called it the red thing that breathes, as the seat and origin of life. The brain and its Functionings, he did not comprehend at all. That his sense perceptions were transmitted to his brain, and there translated, classified and labeled, was something quite beyond him. He thought that his fingers knew when they touched something, that his eyes knew when they saw, his ears when they heard, his nose when it scented. He considered his throat, epidermis, and the hairs of his head as the three principal seats of emotion. When Kayla had been slain, a peculiar choking sensation had possessed his throat. Contact with Hista the snake imparted an unpleasant sensation to the skin of his whole body,

while the approach of an enemy made the hairs on his scalp stand erect. Imagine, if you can, a child filled with the wonders of nature, bursting with queries and surrounded only by beasts of the jungle to whom his questionings were as strange as Sanskrit would have been. If he asked Guntow what made it rain, the big old ape would but gaze at him in dumbest, on. for an instant, and then returned to his interesting and edifying search for fleas. And when he questioned Mumga, who was very old and should have been very wise, but wasn't, as to the reason for the closing of certain flowers after Kudo had deserted the sky, and the opening of others during the night, he was surprised to discover that Mumga had never

noticed these interesting facts, though she could tell to an inch just where the fattest grubworm should be hiding. To Tarzan, these things were wonders. They appealed to his intellect and to his imagination. He saw the flowers close and open. He saw certain blooms which turned their faces always toward the sun. He saw leaves which moved when there was no breeze. He saw vines crawl like living things up the bowls and over the branches of great trees. And to Tarzan of the apes the flowers and the vines and the trees were living creatures. He often talked to them, as he talked to Goro the moon, and Kudu the sun, and always was he disappointed that they did not reply. He asked them questions, but they could not answer, though he knew that the

whisperings of the leaves was the language of the leaves. They talked with one another. The wind he attributed to the trees and grasses. He thought that they swayed themselves to and fro, creating the wind. In no other way could he account for this phenomenon. The rain he finally attributed to the stars, the moon, and the sun, but his hypothesis was entirely unlovely and unpoetical. Tonight, as Tarzan lay thinking, there sprang to his fertile imagination, an explanation of the stars and the moon. He became quite excited about it. Tog was sleeping in a nearby crotch. Tarzan swung over beside him. Tog, he cried. Instantly the great bull was awake and bristling, sensing danger from the nocturnal summons.

"'Look, Tog!' exclaimed Tarzan, pointed toward the stars. "'See the eyes of Numa and Sabur, of Shita and Dango. They wait around, Goro, to leap in upon him for their kill. See the eyes and the nose and the mouth of Goro, and the light that shines upon his face is the light of the great fire he has built, to frighten away Numa and Saber, and Dengo and Shita. All about him are the eyes, Tog, you can see them. But they do not come very close to the fire.

There are few eyes close to Goro. They fear the fire. It is the fire that saves Goro from Numa. Do you see them, Tog? Some night Numa will be very hungry and very angry. Then he will leap over the thorn bushes which encircle Goral, and we will have no more light after Kudu seeks his lair. The night will be black with the blackness that comes when Goro is lazy and sleeps late into the night, or when he wanders through the skies by day, forgetting the jungle and its people. Tog looked stupidly at the heavens and then at Tarsen. A meteor fell, blazing a flaming way through the sky. Look, cried Tarsan. Goro has thrown a burning branch at Numa. Tog grumbled. Noma is down below, he said. Numa does not hunt above the trees.

But he looked curiously and a little fearfully at the bright stars above him, as though he saw them for the first time. And doubtless it was the first time that Tog ever had seen the stars, though they had been in the sky above him every night of his life. To Tog they were as the gorgeous jungle blooms. He could not eat them, and so he ignored them. Tog fidgeted and was nervous. For a long time he lay sleepless, watching the stars,

the flaming eyes of the beasts of prey surrounding Goro, the moon, Goro by whose light the apes danced to the beating of their earthen drums. If Goro should be eaten by Numa, there could be no more dumb-dums. Tog was overwhelmed by the thought. He glanced at Tarzan half fearfully. Why was his friend so different from the others of the tribe? No one else whom Tog ever had known had had such queer thoughts as Tarzan. The ape scratched his head and wondered dimly if Tarzan was a safe companion.

And then he recalled slowly and by a laborious mental process that Tarzan had served him better than any other of the apes, even the strong and wise bulls of the tribe. Tarzan it was who had freed him from the blacks at the very time, that Tog had thought Tarzan wanted Tika. It was Tarzan who had saved Tog's little Baloo from death. It was Tarzan who had conceived and carried out the plan to pursue Tika's abductor and rescue the stolen one. Tarzan had fought and bled in Tog's service so many times that Tog, although only a brutal ape, had had impressed upon his mind a fierce loyalty which

nothing now could swerve. His friendship or Tarzan had become a habit, a tradition almost, which would endure while Tog endured. He never showed any outward demonstration of affection. He growled at Tarsan as he growled at the other bulls who came too close while he was feeding, but he would have died for Tarsan. He knew it, and Tarsan knew it. But of such things apes do not speak, their vocabulary for the finer instincts consisting more of actions than words.

But now Tog was worried, and he fell asleep again, still thinking of the strange words, of his fellow. The following day he thought of them again, and without any intention of disloyalty, he mentioned to Guntto what Tarzan had suggested about the eyes surrounding Goro, and the possibility that sooner or later Numa would charge the moon and devour him. To the apes all large things in nature are male, and so Goro being the largest creature in the heavens by night, was to them a bull. Guntow bit a sliver from a horny finger and recalled the fact that Tarzan had once said that the trees talked to one another, and Gozan recounted having seen the ape-man dancing alone in the moonlight with Sheeta the Panther. They did not know that Tarzan had roped the savage beast and tied him to a tree before he came to earth and leaped about before the rearing cat to tantalize him. Others told of seeing Tarzan ride upon the back of Tantor the elephant, of his bringing. bringing the black boy Tybo to the tribe and of mysterious things with which he communed in the strange lair by the sea. They had never understood his books, and after he had shown them to one or two of the tribe,

and discovered that even the pictures carried no impression to their brains, he had desisted. Arzan is not an ape, said Gunto. He will bring Numa to eat us as he is bringing him to eat goral. We should kill him. Immediately Tog bristled. Kill Tarzan. First you will kill Tog, he said, and lumbered away to search for food. But others joined the plotters. They thought of many things which Tarzan had done, things which apes did not do and could not understand. Again Guntow voiced the opinion that the Tarman Gany, the white ape, should be slain, and the others filled with terror

about the stories they had heard, and thinking Tarzan was planning to slay Goro, greeted the proposal with growls of a cord. Among them was Tika, listening with all her ears, but her voice was not raised in furtherance of the plan. Instead she bristled, showing her fangs, and afterwards she went away in search of Tarzan, but she could not find him, as he was roaming far afield in search of meat. She found Tog, though, and told him what the others were planning, and the great bull stamped upon the ground and roared. His bloodshot eyes blazed with wrath, His upper lip curled up to expose his fighting fangs, and the hair upon his spine stood erect, and then a rodent scurried across the open, and Tog sprang to seize it.

In an instant he seemed to have forgotten his rage against the enemies of his friend, but such is the mind of an ape. Several miles away, Tarzan of the apes lulled upon the broad head of Tantor the elephant. He scratched beneath the great ears with the point of a sharp stick, and he talked to the huge pachyderm of everything which filled his black-fatched head. Little or nothing of what he said did Tantor understand, but Tantor is a good listener. Swaying from side to side, he stood there enjoying the companionship of his friend, the friend he loved, and absorbing the delicious sensations of the scratching.

Numa the lion caught the scent of man and warily stocked it until he came within sight of his prey upon the head of the mighty tusker. Then he turned, growling and muttering away in search of more propitious hunting grounds. The elephant caught the scent of the lion, borne to him by an edding breeze, and lifting his trunk trumpeted loudly. Tarzan stretched back luxuriously, lying supine at full length along the rough hide. Flies swarmed about his face, but with a leafy branch torn from a tree he lazily brushed them away. Tantor, he said, it is good to be alive, it is good to lie in the cool shadows, it is good to look upon the green trees and the bright colors of the flowers, upon everything which Bula Mutu-Mumo has put here for us.

He is very good to us, Tantor. He has given you tender leaves and bark and rich grasses to eat. To me he has given barra and horta and pisa, the fruits and the nuts and the roots. He provides for each the food that each likes best. All that he asks is that we be strong enough or cunning enough to go forth and take it. Yes, Tantor, it is good to live. I should hate to die. Tantor made a little sound in his throat and curled his trunk upward

that he might caress the ape man's cheek with the finger at its tip. Tantor, said Tars and presently, turn and feed in the direction of the tribe of Kurchak, the great ape, that Tarzan may ride home upon your head without walking. The Tusker turned and moved slowly off along a broad tree-arched trail, pausing occasionally to pluck a tender branch or strip the edible bark from an adjacent tree. Tarzan sprawled face downward upon the beast's head and back, his legs hanging on either side, his head supported by his open palms,

his elbows resting on the broad cranium, and thus they made their leisurely way toward the gavisor, place of the tribe. Just before they arrived at the clearing from the north, there reached it from the south another figure, that of a well-knit black warrior, who stepped cautiously through the jungle, every sense upon the alert against the many dangers which might lurk anywhere along the way. Yet he passed beneath the southernmost sentry that was posted in a great tree, commanding the trail from the south. The ape permitted the Gomangani to pass unmolested, for he saw that's a very tree that's a great tree, commanding the trail from the south. The ape permitted the

Oman Gany to pass unmolested, for he saw that he was alone. But the moment that the warrior had entered the clearing, a loud, creigaw, rang out from behind him, immediately followed by a chorus of replies from different directions, as the great bulls crashed through the trees in answer to the summons of their fellow. The black man halted at the first cry and looked about him. He could see nothing, but he knew the voice of the hairy tree-man whom he and his kind feared, not alone because of the strength and ferocity of the savage beings, but as well through a superstitious terror engendered by the manlike appearance of the apes. But Bulabantu was no coward. He heard the apes all about him.

He knew that escape was probably impossible, so he stood his ground, his spear-ready in his hand, and a war-cry trembling on his lips. He would sell his life dearly, would Bulubantu, under-chief of the village of Mabonga, the chief, Tarzan and Tantor were but a short distance away when the first cry of the sentry rang out through the quiet jungle. Like a flash, the ape-man leaped from the elephant's back to a nearby tree, and was swinging rapidly in the direction of the clearing before the echoes of the first, Creegaw, had died away. When he arrived, he saw a dozen bulls circling a single Gomengen.

With a blood-curdling scream, Tarzan sprang to the attack. He hated the blacks even more than did the apes, and here was an opportunity for, a kill in the open. What had the Gomongani done? Had he slain one of the tribe? Tarzan asked the nearest ape. No, the Gomongani had harmed none. Gozan, being on watch, had seen him coming through the forest and had warned the tribe. That was all. The ape-man pushed through the circle of bulls, none of which as yet had worked himself into sufficient frenzy for a charge, and came where he had a full and close view of the black. He recognized the man instantly. Only the night before he had seen him facing the eyes in the dark, while his fellows groveled in the dirt at his feet too terrified even to defend themselves.

Here was a brave man, and Tarzan had deep admiration for bravery. Even his hatred of the blacks was not so strong a passion as his love of courage. He would have joyed in battling with a black warrior at almost any time, but this one he did not wish to kill. He felt, vaguely that the man had earned his life by his brave defense of it on the preceding night, nor did he fancy the odds that were pitted against the lone warrior. He turned to the apes, Go back to your feeding, he said, and let this go, Mangani go his way in peace. He is not harmed us, and last night I saw him fighting Numa and Sabre with fire, alone in the jungle. He is brave. Why should we kill one who is brave and who has not attacked us? Let him go.

The apes growled. They were displeased. Kill the Gomongany. cried one. Yes. Roared another. Kill the Gomongany and the Tarman Ganny as well. Kill the white ape.

Screamed Gozan. He is no ape at all, but a Goman Ganny with his skin off. Kill Tarzan. Bellad Gunto. Kill. Kill. Kill. The bulls were now indeed working themselves into the frenzy of slaughter,

but against Tarzan rather than the black man. A shaggy form charged through them, hurling those that came in contact with to one side as a strong man might scatter children. It was Tog, great savage Tog. Who says kill Tarsan? He demanded. Who kills Tarsan must kill Tog, too. Who can kill Tog? Tog will tear your insides from you and feed them to dango.

We can kill you all, replied Guntow. There are many of us and few of you. and he was right tarzan knew that he was right tog knew it but neither would admit such a possibility it is not the way of bull-apes i am tarzan cried the ape man i am tarzan mighty hunter mighty fighter in all the jungle none so great as tarzan then one by one the opposing bulls recounted their virtues and their prowess and all the time the combatants came closer and closer to one another thus do the bulls work themselves to the proper pitch before engaging in battle. Gonto came, stiff-legged, close to Tarzan, and sniffed at him with bared fangs. Tarzan rumbled forth a low, menacing growl. They might repeat these tactics a dozen times, but sooner or later one bull would close with another, and then the whole hideous pack would be tearing and rending at their prey. Bulubantu, the black man, had stood wide-eyed in wonder from

the moment he had seen Tarzan approaching through the apes. He had heard much of this devil god, who ran with the hairy tree people, but never before had he seen him in full daylight. He knew him well enough from the description of those who had seen him, and from the glimpses he had had of the marauder upon several occasions when the ape-man had entered the village of Mbonga, the chief, by night, in the perpetration of one of his numerous ghastly jokes. Bullabantu could not, of course, understand anything which passed between Tarzan and the apes, but he saw that the ape-man and one of the larger bulls were in argument with the others. He saw that these two were standing with their back toward him, and between him and the balance of the tribe,

and he guessed, though it seemed improbable, that they might be defending him. He knew that Tarzan had once spared the life of Mobonga the chief, and that he had succored Taibo, and Taibo's mother, Mamma, So it was not impossible that he would help Bulabantu. But how he could accomplish it, Bullabantu could not guess, nor, as a matter of fact, could Tarzan, for the odds against him were too great. Gunto and the others were slowly forcing Tarzan and togg back toward Bolabantu. The ape-man thought of his words with Tantor just a short time before. Yes, Tantor, it is good to live. I should hate to die, and now he knew that he was about to die.

for the temper of the great bulls was mounting rapidly against him. Always had many of them hated him, and all were suspicious of him. They knew he was different. Tarzan knew it too, but he was glad that he was a man, that he had learned from his picture books, and he was very proud of the distinction. Presently, though, he would be a dead man. Gunto was preparing to charge. Tarzan knew the signs.

He knew that the balance of the bulls would charge, with Guntel. Then it would soon be over. Something moved among the verger at the opposite side of the clearing. Tarzan saw it just as Guntow, with the terrifying cry of a challenging ape, sprang forward. Tarzan voiced a peculiar call, and then crouts to meet the assault. Tog crouts too, and Boulibantu, assured now that these two were fighting upon his side, couched his spear, and sprang between them to receive the first charge of the enemy. Simultaneously a huge, a huge, bulk broke into the clearing from the jungle behind the charging bulls. The trumpeting of a mad tusker rose shrill above the cries of the anthropoids, as Tantor the elephant dashed swiftly

across the clearing to the aid of his friend. Guntow never closed upon the ape-man, nor did a fang and her flesh upon either side. The terrific reverberation of Tantor's challenge sent the bull scurring to the trees, jabbering and scolding. Tog raced off with them. Tawg raced off with them, only Tarzan and Bulibantu remained. The latter stood his ground because he saw that the devil god did not run, and because the black had the courage to face a certain and horrible death beside one who had quite evidently dared death for him. But it was a surprised Go-Mengani who saw the mighty elephant come to a sudden halt in front of the ape-man and caressing with his long sinuous trunk. Tarzan turned toward the black man, go, he said in the language,

of the apes and pointed in the direction of the village of Mabonga. Balabantu understood the gesture, if not the word, nor did he lose time in obeying. Tarzan stood watching him until he had disappeared. He knew that the apes would not follow. Then he said to the elephant, pick me up, and the tusker swung him lightly to his head. Tarzan goes to his lair by the big water, shouted the ape-man to the apes in the trees. All of you are more foolish than Manu, except Tog and Tika. Tog and Tika may come to see Tarsan, but the others must keep away. Tarzan is done with the tribe of Kerchak. He prodded Tantor with a callous toe, and the big beast swung off across the clearing, the apes watching them until they were swallowed up by the jungle. Before the night fell,

Tog killed Guntow, picking a quarrel with him over his attack upon Tarzan. For a moon the tribe saw nothing of Tarzan of the apes. Many of them probably never gave him a thought, but there were those who missed him more than Tarzan imagined. Tog and Tika often wished that he was back, and Tog determined a dozen times to go and visit Tarzan in his seaside lair, but first one thing and then another interfered. One night when Tog lay sleepless, looking up at the starry heavens, he recalled the strange things that Tarzan once had suggested to him that the bright spots were the eyes of the meat-eaters, waiting in the dark of the jungle sky, to leap upon Gorill the moon and devour him. The more he thought about this matter, the more perturbed he

became. And then a strange thing happened. Even as Tog looked at Goral, he saw a portion of one edge disappear, precisely as though something was gnawing upon it. Larger and larger became the hole in the sight of Goral. With a scream, Tog leaped to his feet. His frenzied, Creogs, brought the terrified tribe screaming and chattering toward him. Look, cried Tog, pointing at the moon. Look, it is as Tarzan said. Numa has sprung through the fires and is devouring Goro.

You called Tarzan names and drove him from the tribe. Now see how wise he was. Let one of you who hated Tarzan go to Goros' aid. See the eyes in the dark jungle all about Goro. He is in danger and none can help him, none except Tarzan. Soon Goro will be devoured by Numa, and we shall have no more light after Kudu seeks his lair. How shall we dance the dum-dum without the light of Goro? The apes trembled and whimpered.

Any manifestation of the powers of nature always filled them with terror. for they could not understand. Go and bring Tarzan, cried one, and then they all took up the cry of, Tarzan, bring Tarzan, he will save Gordo. But who was to travel the dark jungle by night to fetch him? I will go, volunteered Tog, and an instant later he was off through the Stygian gloom

toward the little landlocked harbor by the sea. And as the tribe waited, they watched the slow devouring of the moon, Already Numa had eaten out a great semi-circular peace. At that rate, Goral would be entirely gone before Kudu came again. The apes trembled at the thought of perpetual darkness by night. They could not sleep. Restlessly they moved here and there among the branches of trees, watching Numa of the skies at his deadly feast

and listening for the coming of Tog with Tarzan. Goral was nearly gone when the apes heard the sounds of the approach, the trees of the two they awaited, and presently Tarzan, followed by tog, swung into a nearby tree. The ape-man wasted no time in idle words. In his hand was his long bow, and at his back hung a quiver full of arrows, poisoned arrows that he has stolen from the village of the blacks, just as he had stolen the bull. Up into the great tree he clambered, higher and higher, until he stood swaying upon a small limb, which bent low beneath his weight. Here he had a clear and unobstructed view of the heavens.

He saw Goro and the inroads which the hungry Numa had made into his shining surface. Raising his face to the moon, Tarzan shrilled forth his hideous challenge. Faintly and from afar came the roar of an answering lion. The apes shivered. Numa of the skies had answered Tarzan. Then the ape-man fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing the shaft far back aimed its point at the heart of Numa, where he lay in the heavens, devouring Goral.

There was a loud twang as the released bolt shot into the dark heavens. Again and again did Tarzan of the apes launch his arrows at Numa, and all the while the apes of the tribe of Kurchak huddled together in terror. At last came a cry from Tog, Look, look! he screamed. Noma is killed. Tarzan has killed Numa. See, Goro is emerging from the belly of Numa. And sure enough, the moon was gradually emerging from whatever had devoured her, whether it was

Numa the lion or the shadow of the earth, but were you to try to convince an ape of the tribe of Kurchak that it was aught but Numa, who so nearly devoured Goro that night, or that another than Tarzan preserved the brilliant god of their savage and mysterious rites from a frightful death, you would have difficulty and a fight on your hands. And so Tarzan of the apes came back to the tribe of Kurchak, and in his coming he took a long stride toward the kingship, which he ultimately won, for now the apes looked up to him as a superior being. In all the tribe there was but one who was at all skeptical about the plausibility of Tarzan's remarkable rescue of Goral, and that one, strange as it may seem, was Tarzan of the Apes.

End of Chapter 12. End of Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs.