 CHAPTER VII. THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE. After what seemed an eternity to the little sufferer, he was able to walk once more, and from then on his recovery was so rapid that in another month he was as strong and active as ever. During his convalescence he had gone over in his mind many times the battle with the guerrilla, and his first thought was to recover the wonderful little weapon which had transformed him from a hopelessly outclassed weakling to the superior of the mighty terror of the jungle. Also he was anxious to return to the cabin and continue his investigations of its wondrous contents. So early one morning he set forth alone upon his quest. After a little search he located the clean-picked bones of his late adversary, and close by, partly buried beneath the fallen leaves, he found the knife, now red with rust from its exposure to the dampness of the ground and from the dried blood of the guerrilla. He did not like the change in its former bright and gleaming surface, but it was still a formidable weapon, and one which he meant to use to advantage whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had in mind that no more would he run from the wanton attacks of old tubelat. In another moment he was at the cabin, and after a short time had again thrown the latch and entered. His first concern was to learn the mechanism of the lock, and this he did by examining it closely while the door was open, so that he could learn precisely what caused it to hold the door, and by what means it released at his touch. He found that he could close and lock the door from within, and this he did so that there would be no chance of his being molested while at his investigation. He commenced a systematic search of the cabin, but his attention was soon riveted by the books which seemed to exerted strange and powerful influence over him, so that he could scarce attend to ought else for the lure of the wondrous puzzle which their purpose presented to him. Among the other books was a primmer, some child's readers, numerous picture books, and a great dictionary. All of these he examined, but the pictures caught his fancy most, of the strange little bugs which covered the pages where there were no pictures excited his wonder and deepest thought. Squatting upon his haunches on the tabletop in the cabin his father had built, his smooth, brown, naked little body bent over the book which rested in his strong slender hands, and his great shock of long black hair falling about his well-shaped head and bright intelligent eyes, Tarzan of the apes, little primitive man, presented a picture filled at once with pathos and with promise, an allegorical figure of the primordial groping through the black night of ignorance toward the light of learning. His little face was tense and steady, for he had partially grasped in a hazy, nebulous way the rudiments of a thought which was destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the strange little bugs. In his hands was a primer opened at a picture of a little ape similar to himself, but covered, except for hands and face, with strange colored fur, for such he thought the jacket and trousers to be. Beneath the picture were three little bugs, B-O-Y, and now he had discovered in the text upon the page that these three were repeated many times in the same sequence. Another fact he learned that there were comparatively few individual bugs, but these were repeated many times, occasionally alone but more often in company with others. Slowly he turned the pages, scanning the pictures and the text for a repetition of the combination B-O-Y. Presently he found it beneath the picture of another little ape, and a strange animal which went upon four legs like the jackal, and resembled him not a little. Beneath this picture the bugs appeared as a boy and a dog. There they were the three little bugs which always accompanied the little ape. And so he progressed very, very slowly, for it was a hard and laborious task which he had set himself without knowing it. A task which might seem to you or me impossible, learning to read without having the slightest knowledge of letters or written language, or the faintest idea that such things existed. He did not accomplish it in a day, or in a week, or in a month, or in a year, but slowly, very slowly, he learned after he grasped the possibilities which lay in those little bugs, so that by the time he was fifteen he knew the various combinations of letters which stood for every pictured figure in the little primer, and in one or two of the picture books. Of the meaning and use of the articles and conjunctions, verbs and adverbs and pronouns he had but the faintest conception. One day when he was about twelve he found a number of lead pencils in a hitherto undiscovered drawer beneath the table, and in scratching upon the tabletop with one of them he was delighted to discover the black line it left behind it. He worked so assiduously with this new toy that the tabletop was soon a mass of scrawly loops and irregular lines, and his pencil point worn down to the wood. Then he took another pencil, but this time he had a definite object in view. He would attempt to reproduce some of the little bugs that scrambled over the pages of his books. It was a difficult task, for he held the pencil as one would grasp the hilt of a dagger, which does not add greatly to ease in writing or to the legibility of the results. But he persevered for months, at such times as he was able to come to the cabin, until at last by repeated experimenting he found a position in which to hold the pencil that best permitted him to guide and control it, so that at last he could roughly reproduce any of the little bugs. Thus he made a beginning of writing. Copying the bugs taught him another thing, their number, and though he could not count as we understand it, yet he had an idea of quantity, the base of his calculations being the number of fingers upon one of his hands. His search through the various books convinced him that he had discovered all the different kinds of bugs most often repeated in combination, and these he arranged in proper order with great ease because of the frequency with which he had perused the fascinating alphabet picture book. His education progressed, but his greatest finds were in the inexhaustible storehouse of the huge illustrated dictionary, for he learned more through the medium of pictures than text, even after he had grasped the significance of the bugs. When he discovered the arrangement of words in alphabetical order, he delighted in searching for and finding the combinations with which he was familiar, and the words which followed them, their definitions led still further into the mazes of erudition. By the time he was seventeen he had learned to read the simple child's primer, and had fully realized the true and wonderful purpose of the little bugs. No longer did he feel shame for his hairless body or his human features, for now his reason told him that he was of a different race from his wild and hairy companions, he was a M-A-N, they were A-P-E-S, and the little apes which scurried through the forest top were M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. He knew too that Old Sabor was a L-I-O-N-E-S-S, and Histha a S-N-A-K-E, and Tantor an E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T. And so he learned to read, from then on his progress was rapid, with the help of the great dictionary and the active intelligence of a healthy mind endowed by inheritance with more than ordinary reasoning powers, he shrewdly guessed it much which he could not really understand, and more often than not his guesses were close to the mark of truth. There were many breaks in his education, caused by the migratory habits of his tribe, but even when removed from his books his active brain continued to search out the mysteries of his fascinating avocation. Pieces of bark and flat leaves and even smooth stretches of bare earth provided him with copy books whereon to scratch with the point of his hunting knife the lessons he was learning. Nor did he neglect the sterner duties of life while following the bent of his inclination toward the solving of the mystery of his library. He practised with his rope and played with his sharp knife which he had learned to keep keen by wetting upon flat stones. The tribe had grown larger since Tarzan had come among them, for under the leadership of Kerchak they had been able to frighten the other tribes from their part of the jungle so that they had plenty to eat and little or no loss from predatory incursions of neighbours. Hence the younger males, as they became adult, found it more comfortable to take mates from their own tribe, or if they captured one of another tribe to bring her back to Kerchak's band and live in amity with him rather than attempt to set up new establishments of their own or fight with the redoubtable Kerchak for supremacy at home. Occasionally one more ferocious than his fellows would attempt this latter alternative but none had come yet who could rest the palm of victory from the fierce and brutal ape. Tarzan held a peculiar position in the tribe. They seemed to consider him one of them and yet in some way different. The older males either ignored him entirely or else hated him so vindictively that but for his wondrous agility and speed and the fierce protection of the huge Kayla he would have been dispatched at an early age. Tublat was his most consistent enemy, but it was through Tublat that when he was about thirteen the persecution of his enemies suddenly ceased and he was left severely alone except on the occasions when one of them ran amuck in the throes of one of those strange wild fits of insane rage which attacks the males of many of the fiercer animals of the jungle. Then none was safe. On the day that Tarzan established his right to respect the tribe was gathered around a small natural amphitheater which the jungle had left free from its entangling vines and creepers in a hollow among some low hills. The open space was almost circular in shape. Upon every hand rose the mighty giants of the untouched forest with a matted undergrowth banked so closely between the huge trunks that the only opening into the little level arena was through the upper branches of the trees. Here, safe from interruption, the tribe often gathered. In the center of the amphitheater was one of those strange earthen drums which the anthropoids build for the queer rites the sounds of which men have heard in the fastnesses of the jungle but which none has ever witnessed. Many travelers have seen the drums of the great apes and some have heard the sounds of their beating and the noise of the wild weird revelry of these first lords of the jungle. But Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, is doubtless the only human being who ever joined in the fierce, mad, intoxicating revel of the dumb-dumb. From this primitive function has arisen unquestionably all the forms and ceremonials of modern church and state for through all the countless ages back beyond the uttermost ramparts of a dawning humanity our fierce hairy forebears danced out the rites of the dumb-dumb to the sound of their earthen drums beneath the bright light of a tropical moon in the depth of a mighty jungle which stands unchanged today as it stood on that long forgotten night in the dim unthinkable vistas of the long-dead past when our first shaggy ancestors swung from a swaying bow and dropped lightly upon the soft turf of the first meeting-place. On the day that Tarzan won his emancipation from the persecution that had followed him remorselessly for twelve of his thirteen years of life, the tribe, now a full hundred strong, trooped silently through the lower terrace of the jungle trees and dropped noiselessly upon the floor of the amphitheater. The rites of the dumb-dumb marked important events in the life of the tribe, a victory, the capture of a prisoner, the killing of some large fierce denizen of the jungle, the death or accession of a king, and were conducted with set ceremonialism. Today it was the killing of a giant ape, a member of another tribe, and as the people of Kirchak entered the arena, two mighty bulls were seen bearing the body of the vanquish between them. They laid their burden before the earthen drum and then squatted there beside it as guards, while the other members of the community curled themselves in grassy nooks to sleep until the rising moon should give the signal for the commencement of their savage orgy. For ours absolute quiet reigned in the little clearing, except as it was broken by the discordant notes of brilliantly feathered parrots, or the screeching and twittering of the thousand jungle-birds flitting ceaselessly amongst the vivid orchids and flamboyant blossoms which festooned the myriad moss-covered branches of the forest kings. At length, as darkness settled upon the jungle, the apes commenced to besture themselves, and soon they formed a great circle about the earthen drum. The females and young squatted in a thin line at the outer periphery of the circle, while just in front of them ranged the adult males. Before the drum sat three old females, each armed with a knotted branch, fifteen or eighteen inches in length. Slowly and softly they began tapping upon the resounding surface of the drum as the first faint rays of the ascending moon silvered the encircling treetops. As the light in the amphitheater increased, the females augmented the frequency and force of their blows until presently a wild rhythmic din pervaded the great jungle for miles in every direction. Huge fierce brutes stopped in their hunting with up-pricked ears and raised heads to listen to the dull booming that betokened the dum-dum of the apes. Occasionally one would raise his shrill scream or thunderous roar in answering challenge to the savage din of the anthropoids, but none came near to investigate or attack, for the great apes assembled in all the power of their numbers filled the breasts of their jungle neighbors with deep respect. As the din of the drum rose to an almost deafening volume, Kerchak sprang into the open space between the squatting males and the drummers. Standing erect he threw his head far back and, looking full into the eye of the rising moon, he beat upon his breast with his great hairy paws and emitted his fearful roaring shriek. One, twice, thrice that terrifying cry rang out across the teeming solitude of that unspeakably quick yet unthinkably dead world. Then, crouching, Kerchak slunk noiselessly around the open circle, veering far away from the dead body lying before the altar drum, but as he passed, keeping his little fierce wicked red eyes upon the corpse. Another male then sprang into the arena and repeating the horrid cries of his king followed stealthily in his wake. Another and another followed in quick succession until the jungle reverberated with the now almost ceaseless notes of their bloodthirsty screams. It was the challenge and the hunt. When all the adult males had joined in the thin line of compelling dancers, the attack commenced. Kerchak, seizing a huge club from the pile which lay at hand for the purpose, rushed furiously upon the dead ape, dealing the corpse a terrific blow at the same time emitting the growls and snarls of combat. The din of the drum was now increased as well as the frequency of the blows, and the warriors as each approached the victim of the hunt and delivered his bludgeon blow joined in the mad whirl of the death-dance. Tarzan was one of the wild leaping horde. His brown sweat-streaked muscular body, glistening in the moonlight, shone supple and graceful among the uncouth awkward hairy brutes about him. None was more stealthy in the mimic hunt, none more ferocious than he in the wild ferocity of the attack, none who leaped so high into the air in the dance of death. As the noise and rapidity of the drum beats increased, the dancers apparently became intoxicated with the wild rhythm and the savage yells. Their leaps and bounds increased, their bared fangs dripped saliva, and their lips and breasts were flecked with foam. For half an hour the weird dance went on, until, at a sign from Kerchak, the noise of the drum ceased. The female drummers scampering hurriedly through the line of dancers toward the outer rim of squatting spectators. Then, as one, the males rushed headlong upon the thing which their terrific blows had reduced to a mass of hairy pulp. Flesh seldom came to their jaws in satisfying quantities, so a fit finale to their wild revel was a taste of fresh-killed meat, and it was to the purpose of devouring their late enemy that they now turned their attention. Great fangs sunk into the carcass, tearing away huge hunks, the mightiest of the apes obtaining their choice as morsels, while the weaker circled the outer edge of the fighting, snarling pack, awaiting their chance to dodge in and snatch a dropped tidbit, or filter a remaining bone before all was gone. Tarzan, more than the apes, craved and needed flesh. Descended from a race of meat-eaters, never in his life he thought had he once satisfied his appetite for animal food, and so now his agile little body wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an endeavour to obtain a share which his strength would have been unequal to the task of winning for him. At his side hung the hunting-knife of his unknown father in a sheath self-fashioned in copy of one he had seen among the pictures of his treasure-books. At last he reached the fast disappearing feast, and with his sharp-knife slashed off a more generous portion than he had hoped for, an entire hairy forearm where it protruded from beneath the feet of the muddy Kerchak, who was so busily engaged in perpetuating the royal prerogative of gluttony that he failed to note the act of les majest. So little Tarzan wriggled out from beneath the struggling mass clutching his grisly prize close to his breast. Among those circling futilely the outskirts of the banquetters was old Tublat. He had been among the first at the feast, but had retreated with a goodly share to eat in quiet, and was now forcing his way back for more. So it was that he spied Tarzan as the boy emerged from the clawing, pushing throng with that hairy forearm hugged furtively to his body. Tublat's little, close-set, bloodshot pig-eyes shot wicked gleams of hate as they fell upon the object of his loathing. In them, too, was greed for the toothsome dainty the boy carried. But Tarzan saw his arch-enemy as quickly, and, dividing what the great beasts would do, he leaped nimbly away toward the females and the young, hoping to hide himself among them. Tublat, however, was close upon his heels, so that he had no opportunity to seek a place of concealment, but saw that he would be put to it to escape at all. Swiftly he sped toward the surrounding trees, and with an agile bound gained a lower limb with one hand, and then, transferring his burden to his teeth, he climbed rapidly upward, closely followed by Tublat. Up, up he went to the waving pinnacle of a lofty monarch of the forest, whereas heavy pursuer dared not follow him. There he perched, hurling taunts and insults at the raging foaming beast fifty feet below him. And then Tublat went mad. With horrifying screams and roars he rushed to the ground, among the females and young, sinking his great fangs into a dozen tiny necks, and tearing great pieces from the backs and breasts of the females who fell into his clutches. In the brilliant moonlight Tarzan witnessed the whole mad carnival of rage. He saw the females and the young scamper to the safety of the trees. Then the great bulls in the center of the arena felt the mighty fangs of their demented fellow, and with one accord they melted into the black shadows of the overhanging forest. There was but one in the amphitheater beside Tublat, a belated female running swiftly toward the tree where Tarzan perched, and close behind her came the awful Tublat. It was Kayla, and as quickly as Tarzan saw the Tublat was gaining on her, he dropped with the rapidity of a falling stone from branch to branch toward his foster mother. Now she was beneath the overhanging limbs and close above her crouched Tarzan, awaiting the outcome of the race. She leaped into the air grasping a low-hanging branch, but almost over the head of Tublat, so nearly had he distanced her. She should have been safe now, but there was a rending tearing sound. The branch broke and precipitated her full upon the head of Tublat, knocking him to the ground. Both were up in an instant, but as quick as they had been Tarzan had been quicker, so that the infuriated bull found himself facing the man-child who stood between him and Kayla. Nothing could have suited the fierce beast better, and with a roar of triumph he leaped upon the little lork gray-stoke. But his fangs never closed in that nut-brown flesh. A muscular hand shot out and grasped the hairy throat, and another plunged a keen hunting-knife a dozen times into the broad breast. Like lightning the blows fell, and only ceased when Tarzan felt the limp form crumple beneath him. As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy, and raising his eyes to the full moon threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people. One by one the tribe swung down from their arboreal retreats and formed a circle about Tarzan and his vanquished foe, when they had all come Tarzan turned toward them. I am Tarzan, he cried. I am a great killer. Let all respect Tarzan of the apes and Kayla his mother. There be none among you as mighty as Tarzan. Let his enemies beware. Looking full into the wicked red eyes of Kerchak the young lork gray-stoke beat upon his mighty breast and screamed out once more his shrill cry of defiance. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 8 of Tarzan of the apes This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Tarzan of the apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 8 The Tree-Top Hunter The morning after the dumb-dumb the tribe started slowly back through the forest towards the coast. The body of two-blatt lay where it had fallen for the people of Kerchak do not eat their own dead. The march was but a leisurely search for food. Cabbage, palm, and gray plum, pisang, and citamine they found in abundance, with wild pineapple and occasionally small mammals, birds, eggs, reptiles and insects. The nuts they cracked between their powerful jaws, or if too hard, broke by pounding between stones. Once old Sabor, crossing their path, sent them scurrying to the safety of the higher branches. For if she respected their number and their sharp fangs, they on their part held her cruel and mighty ferocity in equal esteem. Upon a low-hanging branch sat Tarzan directly above the majestic supple body as it forged silently through the thick jungle. He hurled a pineapple at the ancient enemy of his people. The great beast stopped, and turning eyed the taunting figure above her. With an angry lash of her tail she bared her yellow fangs, curling her great lips in a hideous snarl that wrinkled her bristling snout in serried ridges, and closed her wicked eyes to two narrow slits of rage and hatred. With laid back ears she looked straight into the eyes of Tarzan of the apes, and sounded her fierce shrill challenge, and from the safety of his overhanging limb the ape-child sent back the fearsome answer of his kind. For a moment the two eyed each other in silence, and then the great cat turned into the jungle, which swallowed her as the ocean engulfs a tossed pebble. But into the mind of Tarzan a great plan sprang. He had killed the fierce two-blad, so was he not there for a mighty fighter? Now would he track down the mighty Sabor and slay her likewise. He would be a mighty hunter also. At the bottom of his little English heart beat the great desire to cover his nakedness with clothes, for he had learned from his picture-books that all men were so covered, while monkeys and apes and every other living thing went naked. Clothes therefore must be truly a badge of greatness, the insignia of the superiority of man over all other animals, for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things. Many moons ago when he had been much smaller he had desired the skin of Sabor, the lioness, or Numa, the lion, or Shita, the leopard to cover his hairless body, that he might no longer resemble hideous Hista, the snake. But now he was proud of his sleek skin for it betokened his descent from a mighty race, and the conflicting desires to go naked in prideful proof of his ancestry, or to conform to the customs of his own kind in where hideous and uncomfortable apparel found first one and then the other in the ascendancy. As the tribe continued their slow way through the forest after the passing of Sabor, Tarzan's head was filled with his great scheme for slaying his enemy, and for many days thereafter he thought of little else. On this day, however, he presently had other and more immediate interests to attract his attention. Suddenly it became as midnight, the noises of the jungle ceased, the trees stood motionless as though in paralyzed expectancy of some great and imminent disaster. All nature waited, but not for long. Faintly from a distance came a low, sad moaning. Nearer and nearer it approached, mounting louder and louder in volume. The great trees bent in unison as though pressed earthward by a mighty hand, farther and farther toward the ground they inclined, and still there was no sound save the deep and awesome moaning of the wind. Then suddenly the jungle giants whipped back, lashing their mighty tops in angry and deafening protests. A vivid and blinding light flashed from the whirling, inky clouds above. The deep cannonade of roaring thunder belched forth its fearsome challenge. The deluge came. All hell broke loose upon the jungle. The tribe shivering from the cold rain huddled at the bases of great trees. The lightning, darting and flashing through the blackness, showed wildly waving branches, whipping streamers and bending trunks. Now and again some ancient patriarch of the woods, rent by a flashing bolt, would crash in a thousand pieces among the surrounding trees, carrying down numberless branches and many smaller neighbors to add to the tangled confusion of the tropical jungle. Branches, great and small, torn away by the ferocity of the tornado, hurtled through the wildly waving verdure, carrying death and destruction to the countless unhappy denizens of the thickly peopled world below. For hours the fury of the storm continued without surcease, and still the tribe huddled close in shivering fear. In constant danger from falling trunks and branches and paralyzed by the vivid flashing of lightning and the bellowing of thunder, they crouched in pitiful misery until the storm passed. The end was as sudden as the beginning. The wind ceased. The sun shone forth. Nature smiled once more. The dripping leaves and branches and the moist petals of gorgeous flowers glistened in the splendor of the returning day. And so, as nature forgot, her children forgot also. Busy life went on as it had been before the darkness and the fright. But to Tarzan a dawning light had come to explain the mystery of clothes, how snuggy would have been beneath the heavy coat of sabre, and so was added a further incentive to the adventure. For several months the tribe hovered near the beach where stood Tarzan's cabin, and his studies took up the greater portion of his time, but always when journeying through the forest he kept his rope in readiness, and many were the smaller animals that fell into the snare of the quick thrown noose. Once it fell about the short neck of Horta, the boar, and his mad lunge for freedom toppled Tarzan from the overhanging limb where he had lain in weight, and from whence he had launched his sinuous coil. The mighty tusker turned at the sound of his falling body, and, seeing only the easy prey of a young ape, he lowered his head and charged madly at the disguised youth. Tarzan, happily, was uninjured by the fall, a lighting cat-like upon all fours far outspread to take up the shock. He was on his feet in an instant, and leaping with the agility of the monkey he was, he gained the safety of a low limb as Horta, the boar, rushed futileap beneath. Thus it was that Tarzan learned by experience the limitations as well as the possibilities of his strange weapon. He lost a long rope on this occasion, but he knew that had it been Sabor who had thus dragged him from his perch, the outcome might have been very different, for he would have lost his life, doubtless, into the bargain. It took him many days to braid a new rope, but when finally it was done he went forth purposely to hunt, and lying weight among the dense foliage of a great branch right above the well-beaten trail that led to water. Several small animals passed unharmed beneath him. He did not want such insignificant game. He would take a strong animal to test the efficacy of his new scheme. At last came she whom Tarzan sought, with lithe sinews rolling beneath shimmering hide, fat and glossy came Sabor, the lioness. Her great padded feet fell soft and noiseless on the narrow trail. Her head was high in ever-alert attention. Her long tail moved slowly insinuous and graceful undulations. Nearer and nearer she came to where Tarzan of the apes crouched upon his limb. The coils of his long rope poised ready in his hand. Like a thing of bronze, motionless as death, sat Tarzan. Sabor passed beneath. Once tried beyond she took, a second, a third, and then the silent coil shot out above her. For an instant the spreading noose hung above her head like a great snake, and then as she looked upward to detect the origin of the swishing sound of the rope, it settled about her neck. With a quick jerk Tarzan snapped the noose tight about the glossy throat, and then he dropped the rope and clung to his support with both hands. Sabor was trapped. With a bound the startled beast turned into the jungle. But Tarzan was not to lose another rope through the same cause as the first. He had learned from experience. The lioness had taken but half her second bound when she felt the rope tighten about her neck. Her body turned completely over in the air, and she fell with a heavy crash upon her back. Tarzan had fastened the end of the rope securely to the trunk of the great tree on which he sat. Thus far his plan had worked to perfection, but when he grasped the rope bracing himself behind a crotch of two mighty branches, he found that dragging the mighty struggling, clawing, biting, screaming mass of iron-muscled fury up to the tree and hanging her was a very different proposition. The weight of old Sabor was immense, and when she braced her huge paws nothing less than tantour the elephant himself could have budged her. The lioness was now back in the path where she could see the author of the indignity which had been placed upon her. Screaming with rage, she suddenly charged, leaping high into the air toward Tarzan. But when her huge body struck the limb on which Tarzan had been, Tarzan was no longer there. Instead he perched lightly upon a smaller branch twenty feet above the raging captive. For a moment Sabor hung half across the branch, while Tarzan mocked and hurled twigs and branches at her unprotected face. Presently the beast dropped to the earth again, and Tarzan came quickly to seize the rope. But Sabor had now found that it was only a slender cord that held her, and grasping it in her huge paws severed it before Tarzan could tighten the strangly noose a second time. Tarzan was much hurt. His well-laid plan had come to naught, so he sat there screaming at the roaring creature beneath him and making mocking grimaces at it. Sabor paced back and forth beneath the tree for hours. Four times she crouched and sprang at the dancing sprite above her, but might as well have clutched at the elusive wind that murmured through the treetops. At last Tarzan tired of the sport, and with a parting roar of challenge and a well-aimed ripe fruit that spread soft and sticky over the snarling face of his enemy, he swung rapidly through the trees a hundred feet above the ground, and in a short time was among the members of his tribe. Here he recounted the details of his adventure with swelling chest and so considerable swagger that he quite impressed even his bitterest enemies, while Kayla fairly danced for joy and pride. Tarzan of the Apes lived on in his wild jungle existence with little change for several years, only that he grew stronger and wiser, and learned from his books more and more of the strange worlds which lay somewhere outside his primeval forest. To him life was never monotonous or stale. There was always Pisa the fish to be caught in the many streams and the little lakes, and Sabor with their ferocious cousins to keep one ever on the alert and give zest to every instant that one spent upon the ground. Often they hunted him, and more often he hunted them, but though they never quite reached him with those cruel sharp claws of theirs, yet there were times when one could scarce have passed a thick leaf between their talons and his smooth hide. Quick was Sabor the lioness, and Quick were Numa and Sheetah, but Tarzan of the Apes was lightning. With Tantor the elephant he made friends. How? Ask not, but this is known to the deadessons of the jungle that on many moonlight nights Tarzan the apes and Tantor the elephant walked together, and where the way was clear Tarzan road perched high upon Tantor's mighty back. Many days during these years he spent in the cabin of his father, where lay still untouched the bones of his parents and the skeleton of Kayla's baby. At 18 he read fluently and understood nearly all he read in the many and varied volumes on the shelves. Also could he write with printed letters rapidly and plainly, but script he had not mastered, for though there were several copy books among his treasure there was so little written English in the cabin that he saw no use for bothering with this other form of writing, though he could read it laboriously. Thus at 18 we find him an English lordling who could speak no English and yet who could read and write his native language. Never had he seen a human being other than himself, for the little area traversed by his tribe was water by no greater river to bring down the savage natives of the interior. High hills shut it off on three sides, the ocean on the fourth. It was alive with lions and leopards and poisonous snakes. Its untouched mazes of matted jungle had as yet invited no hardy pioneer from the human beasts beyond its frontier. But as Tarzan the apes sat one day in the cabin of his father, delving into the mysteries of a new book the ancient security of his jungle was broken forever. At the far-easter confine a strange cavalcade strung in single file over the brow of a low hill. In advance were fifty black warriors armed with slender wooden spears with ends hard-baked over slow fires and long bows and poisoned arrows. On their backs were oval shields in their noses huge rings while from the kinky wool of their heads protruded tufts of gay feathers. Across their foreheads were tattooed three parallel lines of color and on each breast three concentric circles their yellow teeth were filed to sharp points and their great protruding lips added still further to the low and bestial brutishness of their appearance. Following them were several hundred women and children, the former bearing upon their heads great burdens of cooking-pots, household utensils, and ivory. In the rear were a hundred warriors, similar in all respects to the advance-guard, that they more greatly feared an attack from the rear than whatever unknown enemies lurked in their advance was evidenced by the formation of the column, and such was the fact for they were fleeing from the white-man's soldiers who had so harassed them for rubber and ivory that they had turned upon their conquerors one day and massacred a white officer and a small detachment of his black troops. For many days they had gorged themselves on meat, but eventually a stronger body of troops had come and fallen upon their village by night to revenge the death of their comrades. That night the black soldiers of the white man had had meat of plenty, and this little remnant of a once powerful tribe had slunk off into the gloomy jungle toward the unknown and freedom. But that which meant freedom and the pursuit of happiness to these savage blacks meant consternation and death to many of the wild denizens of their new home. For three days the little cavalcade marched slowly through the heart of this unknown and untracked forest until finally early in the fourth day they came upon a little spot near the banks of a small river, which seemed less thickly overgrown than any ground they had yet encountered. Here they set to work to build a new village, and in a month a great clearing have been made, huts and palisades erected, plantons, yams and maize planted, and they had taken up their old life in their new home. Here there were no white men, no soldiers, nor any rubber or ivory to be gathered for cruel and thankless taskmasters. Several moons pass by, ere the blacks ventured far into the territory surrounding their new village. Several had already fallen prey to old sabre, and because the jungle was so infested with these fierce and bloodthirsty cats, and with lions and leopards, the ebony warriors hesitated to trust themselves far from the safety of their palisades. But one day Coulonga, a son of the old king Mabonga, wandered far into the dense mazes to the west. Wherely he stepped, his slender lance ever ready, his long oval shield firmly grasped in his left hand close to his sleek ebony body. At his back his bow, and in the quiver upon his shield many slim straight arrows, well smeared with a thick dark tarry substance that rendered deadly their tiniest needle prick. Knight found Coulonga far from the palisades of his father's village, but still headed westward, and climbing into the fork of a great tree he fashioned a rude platform and curled himself for sleep. Three miles to the west slept the tribe of Kirchak. Early the next morning the apes were astir, moving through the jungle in search of food. Tarzan, as was his custom, prosecuted his search in the direction of the cabin, so that by leisurely hunting on the way his stomach was filled by the time he reached the beach. The apes scattered by ones and twos and threes in all directions, but ever within sound of a signal of alarm. Kayla had moved slowly along an elephant-track toward the east, and was busily engaged in turning over rotted limbs and logs in search of succulent bugs and fungi, when the faintest shadow of a strange noise brought her to startled attention. For fifty yards before her the trail was straight, and down this leafy tunnel she saw the stealthy, advancing figure of a strange and fearful creature. It was Kulanga. Kayla did not wait to see more, but turning moved rapidly back along the trail. She did not run, but after the manner of her kind when not aroused sought rather to avoid than to escape. Close after her came Kulanga, here was meat he could make a killing in feast well this day. On he hurried, his spear poised for the throw. At a turning of the trail he came inside of her again upon another straight stretch. His spear-hand went far back, the muscles rolled lightning-like beneath the sleek hide. Out shot the arm, and the spear sped toward Kayla. A poor cast, it but grazed her side. With a cry of rage and pain the she-ape turned upon her to torment her. In an instant the trees were crashing beneath the weight of her hurrying follows, swinging rapidly toward the scene of trouble and answered to Kayla's scream. As she charged, Kulanga unslung his bow and fitted an arrow with an almost unthinkable quickness. Drawing the shaft far back, he drove the poison missile straight into the heart of the great anthropoid. With a hard scream Kayla plunged forward upon her face, before the astonish members of her tribe. Roaring and shrieking the apes dashed toward Kulanga, but that wary savage was fleeing down the trail like a frightened antelope. He knew something of the ferocity of these wild hairy men, and his one desire was to put as many miles between himself and them as he possibly could. They followed him, racing through the trees for a long distance, but finally one by one they abandoned the chase and returned to the scene of the tragedy. None of them had ever seen a man before, other than Tarzan, and so they wondered vaguely what strange manner of creature it might be that had invaded their jungle. On the far beach by the little cabin Tarzan heard the faint echoes of the conflict, and knowing that something was seriously amiss among the tribe, he hastened rapidly toward the direction of the sound. When he arrived he found the entire tribe gathered jabbering about the dead body of his slain mother. Tarzan's grief and anger were unbounded. He roared out his hideous challenge time and again. He beat upon his great chest with his clenched fists, and then he fell upon the body of Kayla and sobbed out the pitiful sorrowing of his lonely heart. To lose the only creature in all his world who had ever manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known. What though Kayla was a fierce and hideous ape, to Tarzan she had been kind, she had been beautiful. Upon her he had lavished, unknown to himself, all the reverence and respect and love that a normal English boy feels for his own mother. He had never known another, and so to Kayla was given, though mutely, all that would have belonged to the fair and lovely Lady Alice had she lived. After the first outburst of grief Tarzan controlled himself, and questioning the members of the tribe who had witnessed the killing of Kayla, he learned all that their meager vocabulary could convey. It was enough, however, for his needs. It told him of a strange, hairless black ape with feathers growing upon its head, who launched death from a slender branch, and then ran with the fleetness of Berra the deer toward the rising sun. Tarzan waited no longer, but leaping into the branches of the trees sped rapidly through the forest. He knew the windings of the elephant trail along which Kayla's murderer had flown, and so he cut straight through the jungle to intercept the black warrior who was evidently following the torturous detours of the trail. At his side was the hunting-knife of his unknown sire, and across his shoulders the coils of his own long rope. In an hour he struck the trail again, and coming to earth examined the soil minutely. In the soft mud on the bank of a tiny rivulet he found footprints such as he alone in all the jungle had ever made, but much larger than his. His heart beat fast. Could it be that he was trailing a man, one of his own race? There were two sets of imprints pointing in opposite directions, so his quarry had already passed on his return along the trail. As he examined the newer spore, a tiny particle of earth toppled from the outer edge of one of the footprints to the bottom of its shallow depression. Ah, the trail was very fresh, his prey must have but scarcely passed. Tarzan swung himself to the trees once more, and with swift noiselessness sped along high above the trail. He had covered barely a mile when he came upon the black warrior standing in a little open space. In his hand was his slender bow to which he had fitted one of his death-dealing arrows. Opposite him across the little clearing stood Horta, the spore, with lowered head and foam-flecked tusks ready to charge. Tarzan looked with wonder upon the strange creature beneath him, so like him in form and yet so different in face and color. His books had portrayed the negro, but how different had been the dull dead print to this sleek thing of ebony pulsing with life. As the man stood there with taut, drawn bow, Tarzan recognized him not much the negro as the archer of his picture-book. A stands for archer. How wonderful! Tarzan almost betrayed his presence in the deep excitement of his discovery. But things were commencing to happen below him. The senui black arm had drawn the shaft far back, Horta the boar was charging, and then the black released the little poisoned arrow, and Tarzan saw it fly with a quickness of thought and lodge in the bristling neck of the boar. Scarcely had the shaft left his bow ere Coulonga had fitted another to it, but Horta the boar was upon him so quickly that he had no time to discharge it. With a bound the black leaped entirely over the rushing beast, and turning with incredible swiftness planted a second arrow in Horta's back. Then Coulonga sprang into a nearby tree. Horta wheeled to charge his enemy once more. A dozen steps he took. Then he staggered and fell upon his side. For a moment his muscles stiffened and relaxed convulsively. Then he lay still. Coulonga came down from the tree. With a knife that hung at his side he cut several large pieces from the boar's body, and in the center of the trail he built a fire, cooking and eating as much as he wanted. The rest he left where it had fallen. Tarzan was an interested spectator. His desire to kill burned fiercely in his wild breast, but his desire to learn was even greater. He would follow this savage creature for a while, and know from whence he came. He could kill him at his leisure later, when the bow and deadly arrows were laid aside. When Coulonga had finished his repast and disappeared beyond a near turning of the path, Tarzan dropped quietly to the ground. With his knife he severed many strips of meat from Horta's carcass, but he did not cook them. He had seen fire, but only when Ara, the lightning, had destroyed some great tree. That any creature of the jungle could produce the white and yellow fangs which devoured wood and left nothing but fine dust surprised Tarzan greatly, and why the black warrior had ruined his delicious repast by plunging it into the blighting heat was quite beyond him. Possibly Ara was a friend with whom the archer was sharing his food. But be that as it may, Tarzan would not ruin good meat in any such foolish manner, so he gobbled down a great quantity of the raw flesh, burying the balance of the carcass beside the trail where he could find it upon his return. And then Lord Greystoke wiped his greasy fingers upon his naked thighs and took up the trail of Coulonga, the son of Mabonga, the king, while in far off London another Lord Greystoke, the younger brother of the real Lord Greystoke's father, sent back his chops to the club's shaft because they were underdone, and when he had finished his repast he tipped his finger ends into a silver bowl of scented water and dried them upon a piece of snowy damask. All day Tarzan followed Coulonga, hovering above him in the trees like some maligned spirit. Twice more he saw him hurl his arrows of destruction, once at Dango, the hyena, and again at Manu, the monkey. In each instance the animal died almost instantly for Coulonga's poison was very fresh and very deadly. Tarzan thought much on this wondrous method of slaying, as he swung slowly along at a safe distance behind his quarry. He knew that alone the tiny prick of the arrow could not so quickly dispatch these wild things of the jungle, who were often torn and scratched and gored in a frightful manner as they fought with their jungle neighbours, yet as often recovered as not. No, there was something mysterious connected with these tiny slivers of wood which could bring death by a mere scratch. He must look into the matter. That night Coulonga slept in a crotch of a mighty tree, and far above him crouched Tarzan of the apes. When Coulonga awoke he found that his bow and arrows had disappeared. The black warrior was furious and frightened, but more frightened and furious. He searched the ground below the tree, and he searched the tree above the ground, but there was no sign of either bow or arrows or of the nocturnal marauder. Coulonga was panic-stricken. His spear he had hurled at Kayla and had not recovered, and now his bow and arrows were gone he was defenseless except for a single knife. His only hope lay in reaching the village of Mabonga as quickly as his legs would carry him. That he was not far from home he was certain, so he took the trail at a rapid trot. From a great mass of impenetrable foliage a few yards away emerged Tarzan of the apes to swing quietly in his wake. Coulonga's bow and arrows were securely tied high in the top of a giant tree from which a patch of bark had been removed by a sharp knife near to the ground, and a branch half cut through and left hanging about fifty feet higher up. Thus Tarzan blazed the forest trails and marked his caches. As Coulonga continued his journey Tarzan closed on him until he travelled almost over the black's head. His rope he now held coiled in his right hand. He was almost ready for the kill. The moment was delayed only because Tarzan was anxious to ascertain the black warrior's destination, and presently he was rewarded for he came suddenly in view of a great clearing at one end of which lay many strange layers. Tarzan was directly over Coulonga as he made the discovery. The forest ended abruptly and beyond lay two hundred yards of planted fields between the jungle and the village. Tarzan must act quickly or his prey will be gone, but Tarzan's life training left so little space between decision and action when an emergency confronted him that there was not even room for the shadow of a thought between. So it was that as Coulonga emerged from the shadow of the jungle a slender coil of rope sped sinuously above him from the lowest branch of a mighty tree directly upon the edge of the fields of Mabonga, and ere the king's son had taken a half-dozen steps into the clearing a quick noose tightened about his neck. So quickly did Tarzan of the apes drag back his prey that Coulonga's cry of alarm was throttled in his windpipe. Hand over hand Tarzan drew the struggling black until he had him hanging by his neck in mid-air. Then Tarzan climbed to a larger branch drawing the still-threshing victim well up into the sheltering verdure of the tree. Here he fastened the rope securely to a stout branch and then descending plunged his hunting knife into Coulonga's heart. Caleb was avenged. Tarzan examined the black minutely, for he had never seen any other human being. The knife with its sheath and belt caught his eye. He appropriated them. A copper anklet also took his fancy, and this he transferred to his own leg. He examined and admired the tattooing on the forehead and breast. He marvelled at the sharp-filed teeth. He investigated and appropriated the feathered head-dress, and then he prepared to get down to business, for Tarzan of the apes was hungry. And here was meat, meat of the kill, which jungle ethics permitted him to eat. How may we judge him? By what standards this ape-man with the heart and head and body of an English gentleman, and the training of a wild beast? To Blatt, whom he had hated and who had hated him, he had killed in a fair fight, and yet never had the thought of eating to Blatt's flesh entered his head. It could have been as revolting to him as his cannibalism to us. But who was Coulonga that he might not be eaten as fairly as Horta the boar, or Berra the deer? Was he not simply another of the countless wild things of the jungle, who preyed upon one another to satisfy the cravings of hunger? Suddenly a strange doubt stayed his hand. Had not his books taught him that he was a man? And was not the archer a man also? Did men eat men? Alas, he did not know. Why, then, this hesitancy? Once more he has saved the effort. But a qualm of nausea overwhelmed him. He did not understand. All he knew was that he could not eat the flesh of this black man, and thus hereditary instinct, ages old, usurped the functions of his untaught mind, and saved him from transgressing a worldwide law of whose very existence he was ignorant. Quickly he lured Coulonga's body to the ground, removed the noose, and took to the trees again. From a lofty perch Tarzan viewed the village of Thatch-Tuts across the intervening plantation. He saw that at one point the forest touched the village, and to this spot he made his way, lured by a fever of curiosity to behold animals of his own kind, and to learn more of their ways, and view the strange lairs in which they lived. His savage life among the fierce wild brutes of the jungle left no opening for any thought that these could be odd else than enemies. Similarity of form led him into no erroneous conception of the welcome that would be accorded him should he be discovered by these, the first of his own kind he had ever seen. Tarzan of the apes was no sentimentalist. He knew nothing of the brotherhood of man. All things outside his own tribe were his deadly enemies, with a few exceptions of which Tantor the elephant was a marked example. And he realized all this without malice or hatred. To kill was the law of the wild world he knew. Few were his primitive pleasures, but the greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so he accorded to others the right to cherish the same desires as he, even though he himself might be the object of their hunt. His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty, that he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips but token no in a cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does, for he had his remain for man alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly, for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death. And when he killed for revenge, or in self-defense, he did that also without hysteria, for it was a very business-like proceeding which admitted of no levity. So it was that now, as he cautiously approached the village of Mabanga, he was quite prepared either to kill or be killed, should he be discovered. He proceeded with unwanted stealth, for Coulonga had taught him great respect for the little sharp splinters of wood which dealt death so swiftly and unerringly. At length he came to a great tree, heavy-laden with thick foliage, and loaded with pendant loops of giant creepers. From this almost impenetrable bower above the village he crouched, looking down upon the scene below him, wandering over every feature of this new, strange life. There were naked children running and playing in the village street. There were women grinding dry plantain and crude stone mortars, while others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flower. Out in the fields he could see still other women hoeing, weeding and gathering. All wore strange protruding girdles of dry grass about their hips, and many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets. Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while several were further ornamented by huge nose-rings. Tarzan of the apes looked with growing wonder at these strange features. Dozing in the shade he saw several men, while at the extreme outskirts of the clearing he occasionally caught glimpses of armed warriors, apparently guarding the village against surprise from an attacking enemy. He noticed that the women alone worked. Nowhere was there evidence of a man tilling the fields or performing any of the homely duties of the village. Finally his eyes rested upon a woman beneath him. Before her was a small cauldron standing over low fire, and in it bubbled a thick, reddish tarry mass. On one side of her lay a quantity of wooden arrows, the points of which she dipped into the seething substance, then laying them upon a narrow rack of boughs which stood upon her other side. Tarzan of the apes was fascinated. Here was the secret of the terrible destructiveness of the archer's tiny arrows. He noted the extreme care which the woman took that none of the matter should touch her hands, and once when a particle splattered upon one of her fingers he saw her plunge the member into a vessel of water and quickly rubbed the tiny stain away with a handful of leaves. Tarzan knew nothing of poison, but his shrewd reasoning told him that it was this deadly stuff that killed, and not the little arrow, which was merely the messenger that carried it into the body of his victim. How he should like to have more of those little death-dealing slivers. If the woman would only leave her work for an instant he could drop down, gather up a handful, and be back in the tree again before she drew three breaths. As he was trying to think out some plan to distract her attention he heard a wild cry from across the clearing. He looked and saw a black warrior standing beneath the very tree in which he had killed the murderer of Kayla an hour before. The fellow was shouting and waving his spear above his head. Now and again he would point to something on the ground before him. The village was in an uproar instantly. Armed men rushed from the interior of many a hut and raced madly across the clearing towards the excited sentry. After them trooped the old men and the women and children until, in a moment, the village was deserted. Tarzan and the apes knew that they had found the body of his victim, but that interested him far less than the fact that no one remained in the village to prevent his taking a supply of the arrows which lay below him. Quickly and noiselessly he dropped to the ground beside the cauldron of poison. For a moment he stood motionless, his quick bright eyes scanning the interior of the palisade. No one was in sight. His eyes rested upon the open doorway of a nearby hut. He would take a look within, thought Tarzan, and so cautiously he approached the low-fatch building. For a moment he stood without, listening intently. There was no sound, and he glided into the semi-darkness of the interior. Weapons hung against the walls, long spears, strangely shaped knives, a couple of narrow shields. In the center of the room was a cooking-pot, and at the far end a litter of dry grasses covered by woven mats which evidently served the owners as beds and bedding. Several human skulls lay upon the floor. Tarzan and the apes felt of each article, hefted the spears, smelled of them, for he saw largely through his sensitive and highly trained nostrils. He determined to own one of these long pointed sticks, but he could not take one on this trip because of the arrows he meant to carry. As he took each article from the walls he placed it in a pile in the center of the room. On top of all he placed the cooking-pot, inverted, and on top of this he laid one of the grinning skulls upon which he fastened the headdress of the dead cullonga. Then he stood back, surveyed his work, and grinned. Tarzan and the apes enjoyed a joke. But now we heard outside the sounds of many voices and long mournful howls, and mighty wailing. He was startled. Had he remained too long? Quickly he reached the doorway and peered down the village street toward the village gate. The natives were not yet in sight, though he could plainly hear them approaching across the plantation. They must be very near. Like a flash he sprang across the opening to the pile of arrows. Gathering up all he could carry under one arm he overturned the seething cauldron with a kick, and disappeared into the foliage above just as the first of the returning natives entered the gate at the far end of the village street. Then he turned to watch the proceeding below, poised like some wild bird ready to take swift wing at the first sign of danger. The natives filed up the street, four of them bearing the dead body of cullonga. Behind trailed the women, uttering strange cries and weird lamentation. On they came to the portals of cullonga's hut, the very one in which Tarzan had wrought his depredations. Scarcely at half a dozen entered the building ere they came rushing out in wild, jabbering confusion. The others hastened to gather about. There was much excited gesticulating, pointing and chattering. Then several of the warriors approached and peered within. Finally an old fellow with many ornaments of metal about his arms and legs, and a necklace of dried human hands depending upon his chest, entered the hut. It was Mubonga, the king, father of cullonga. For a few moments all was silent. Then Mubonga emerged, a look of mingled wrath and superstitious fear writ upon his hideous countenance. He spoke a few words to the assembled warriors, and in an instant the men were flying through the little village, searching minutely every hut and corner within the palisades. Scarcely had the search commenced, then the overturned cauldron was discovered, and with it the theft of the poisoned arrows. Nothing more they found, and it was a thoroughly odd and frightened group of savages which huddled around their kings a few moments later. Mubonga could explain nothing of the strange events that had taken place. The finding of the still warm body of cullonga, on the very verge of their fields and within an easy earshot of the village, knifed and stripped at the door of his father's home, was in itself sufficiently mysterious. But these last awesome discoveries within the village, within the dead cullonga's own hut, filled their hearts with dismay, and conjured in their poor brains only the most frightful of superstitious explanations. They stood in little groups, talking in low tones, and ever casting a fright at glances behind them from their great rolling eyes. Tarzan of the apes watched them for a while from his lofty perch and the great tree. There was much in their demeanor which he could not understand, for of superstition he was ignorant, and of fear of any kind he had but of vague conception. The sun was high in the heavens. Tarzan had not broken fast this day, and it was many miles to where lay the toothsome remains of Horta the boar. So he turned his back upon the village of Mubonga and melded away into the leafy fastness of the forest. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Tarzan of the apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. CHAPTER XI. KING OF THE APES. It was not yet dark when he reached the tribe, though he stopped to exhume and devour the remains of the wild boar he'd cashed the preceding day, and again to take cullonga's bow and arrows from the treetop in which he had hidden them. It was a well-laden Tarzan who dropped from the branches into the midst of the tribe of Kirchak. With swelling chest he narrated the glories of his adventure and exhibited the spoils of conquest. Kirchak grunted and turned away, for he was jealous of the strange member of his band. In his little evil brain he sought for some excuse to wreak his hatred upon Tarzan. The next day Tarzan was practicing with his bow and arrows at the first gleam of dawn. At first he lost nearly every bolt he shot, but finally he learned to guide the little shafts with fair accuracy, and ere a month had passed he was no mean shot, but his proficiency had cost him nearly his entire supply of arrows. The tribe continued to find the hunting good in the vicinity of the beach, and so Tarzan of the apes varied his archery practice with further investigation of his father's choice, though little in the store of books. It was during this period that the young English lord found hidden in the back of one of the cupboards in the cabin a small metal box. The key was in the lock, and a few moments of investigation and experimentation were rewarded with the successful opening of the receptacle. In it he found a faded photograph of a smooth-faced young man, a golden locket studded with diamonds linked to a small gold chain, a few letters and a small book. Tarzan examined these all minutely. The photograph he liked most of all, for the eyes were smiling and the face was open and frank. It was his father. The locket too took his fancy, and he placed the chain about his neck in imitation of the ornamentation he had seen to be so common among the black men he had visited. The brilliant stones gleamed strangely against his smooth brown hide. The letters he could scarcely decipher, for he had learned little or nothing of script, so he put them back in the box with the photograph, and turned his attention to the book. This was almost entirely filled with fine script, but while the little bugs were all familiar to him, their arrangement and the combinations in which they occurred were strange and entirely incomprehensible. Tarzan had long since learned the use of the dictionary, but much to his sorrow and perplexity it proved of no avail to him in this emergency. Not a word of all that was written in the book could he find, and so he put it back in the metal box, but with a determination to work out the mysteries of it later on. Little did he know that this book held between its covers the key to his origin, the answer to the strange riddle of his strange life. It was the diary of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, kept in French, as had always been his custom. Tarzan replaced the box in the cupboard, but always thereafter he carried the features of the strong, smiling face of his father in his heart, and in his head a fixed determination to solve the mystery of the strange words in the little black book. At present he had more important business in hand for his supply of arrows was exhausted, and he must need's journey to the black man's village and renew it. Early the following morning he set out, and travelling rapidly, he came before midday to the clearing. Once more he took up his position in the great tree, and as before he saw the women in the fields and the village street, and the cauldron of bubbling poison directly beneath him. For hours he lay awaiting his opportunity to drop down unseen and gather up the arrows for which he had come, but nothing now occurred to call the villagers away from their homes. The day wore on, and still Tarzan of the apes crouched above the unsuspecting woman at the cauldron. Presently the workers in the fields returned. The hunting warriors emerged from the forest, and when all were within the palisade the gates were closed and barred. Many cooking pots were now in evidence about the village. Before each hut a woman presided over a boiling stew, while little cakes of plantain and cassava puddings were to be seen on every hand. Suddenly there came a hail from the edge of the clearing. Tarzan looked. It was a party of belated hunters returning from the north, and among them they half led, half carried a struggling animal. As they approached the village the gates were thrown open to admit them, and then as the people saw the victim of the chase a savage cry rose to the heavens, for the quarry was a man. As he was dragged still resisting into the village street the women and children set upon him with sticks and stones, and Tarzan of the apes, young and savage beast of the jungle, wandered at the cruel brutality of his own kind. Sheeta, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and merciful death to their victims. Tarzan had learned from his books but scattered fragments of the ways of human beings. When he had followed Coulonga through the forest he had expected to come to a city of strange houses on wheels, puffing clouds of black smoke from a huge tree stuck in the roof of one of them, or to his sea cover with mighty floating buildings which he had learned were called variously ships and boats and steamers and craft. He had been sorely disappointed with the poor little village of the blacks hidden away in his own jungle, and with not a single house as large as his own cabin upon the distant beach. He saw that these people were more wicked than his own apes, and as savage and cruel as Sabor herself, Tarzan began to hold his own kind in low esteem. Now they had tied their poor victim to a great post near the center of the village, directly before Mobonga's hut, and here they'd formed a dancing, yelling circle of warriors about him, alive with flashing knives and menacing spears. In a larger circle squatted the women, yelling and beating upon drums. It reminded Tarzan of the dum-dum, and so he knew what to expect. He wondered if they would spring upon their meat while it was still alive. The apes did not do such things as that. The circle of warriors about the cringing captive drew closer and closer to their prey as they danced in wild and savage abandon to the maddening music of the drums. Presently a spear reached out and pricked the victim. It was the signal for fifty others. Eyes, ears, arms, and legs were pierced. Every inch of the poor writhing body that did not cover a vital organ became the target of the cruel Lancers. The women and children shriek their delight. The warriors licked their hideous lips in anticipation of the feast to come, and vied with one another in the savagery and loathesomeness of the cruel indignities with which they tortured the still-conscious prisoner. Then it was that Tarzan of the apes saw his chance. All eyes were fixed upon the thrilling spectacle at the stake. The light of day had given place to the darkness of a moonless night, and only the fires and the immediate vicinity of the orgy had been kept alight to cast a restless glow upon the restless scene. Gently the lithe boy dropped to the soft earth at the end of the village street. Quickly he gathered up the arrows, all of them this time, for he had brought a number of long fibers to bind them into a bundle. Without haste he wrapped them securely, and then, every turn to leave, the devil of capriciousness entered his heart. He looked about for some hint of a wild prank to play upon these strange, grotesque creatures that they might be again aware of his presence among them. Dropping his bundle of arrows at the foot of the tree, Tarzan crept among the shadows at the side of the street, until he came to the same hut he had entered on the occasion of his first visit. Inside all was darkness, but his groping hands soon found the object for which he sought, and without further delay he turned again toward the door. He had taken but a step, however, ere his quick ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps immediately without. In another instant the figure of a woman darkened the entrance of the hut. Tarzan drew back silently to the far wall, and his hands sought the long, keen hunting-knife of his father. The woman came quickly to the center of the hut. There she paused for an instant, feeling about with her hands for the things she sought. Evidently it was not in its accustomed place, for she explored ever nearer and nearer the wall where Tarzan stood. So close was she now that the ape man felt the animal warmth of her naked body. Up went the long-knife, and then the woman turned to one side, and soon a guttural ah proclaimed that her search had at last been successful. Immediately she turned and left the hut, and as she passed through the doorway Tarzan saw that she carried a cooking-pot in her hand. He followed closely after her, and as he reconnoitred from the shadows of the doorway he saw that all the women of the village were hastening to and from the various huts with pots and kettles. These they were filling with water, and placing over a number of fires near the stake where the dying victim now hung, and inert and bloody mass of suffering. Choosing a moment when none seemed near, Tarzan hastened to his bundle of arrows beneath the great tree at the end of the village street. As on the former occasion he overthrew the cauldron before leaping, sinuous and cat-like, into the lower branches of the forest giant. Silently he climbed to a great height until he found a point where he could look through a leafy opening upon the scene beneath him. The women were now preparing the prisoner for their cooking-pots, while the men stood about resting after the fatigue of their mad revel. Comparative quiet reigned in the village. Tarzan raised aloft the thing he had pilfered from the hut, and with aim made true by years of fruit and coconut-throwing, launched it toward the group of savages. Squarely among them it fell, striking one of the warriors full upon the head, and felling him to the ground. Then it rolled among the women and stopped beside the half-butchered thing they were preparing to feast upon. All gazed and consternation waited for an instant, and then, with one accord, broke and ran for their huts. It was a grinning human skull which looked up at them from the ground. The dropping of the thing out of the open sky was a miracle well aimed to work upon their superstitious fears. Thus Tarzan and the apes left them filled with terror at this new manifestation of the presence of some unseen and unearthly evil power which lurked in the forest about their village. Later when they discovered the overturned cauldron and that once more their arrows had been pilfered, it commenced to dawn upon them that they had offended some great god by placing their village in this part of the jungle without propitiating him. From then on an offering of food was daily placed below the great tree from whence the arrows had disappeared in an effort to conciliate the mighty one. But the seed of fear was deep sown, and had he but known it, Tarzan and the apes had laid the foundation for much future misery for himself and his tribe. That night he slept in the forest, not far from the village, and early the next morning set out slowly on his homeward march, hunting as he traveled. Only a few berries and an occasional grub worm rewarded his search, and he was half famished when, looking up from a log he had been rooting beneath, he saw Sabor the lioness standing in the center of the trail not twenty paces from him. The great yellow eyes were fixed upon him with a wicked and baleful gleam, and the red tongue licked the longing lips as Sabor crouched, worming her stealthy way with belly flattened against the earth. Tarzan did not attempt to escape. He welcomed the opportunity for which, in fact, he had been searching for days past, now that he was armed with something more than a rope of grass. Quickly he unslung his bow and fitted a well-dobbed arrow, and as Sabor sprang the tiny missile leaped to meet her in mid-air. At the same instant Tarzan and the apes jumped to one side, and as the great cat struck the ground beyond him another death-tipped arrow sunk deep into Sabor's loin. With a mighty roar the beast turned and charged once more, only to be met with a third arrow full in one eye, but this time she was too close to the ape-man for the latter to sidestep the onrushing body. Tarzan and the apes went down beneath the great body of his enemy, but with gleaming knife drawn and striking home. For a moment they lay there, and then Tarzan realized that the inert mass lying upon him was beyond power ever again to injure man or ape. With difficulty he wriggled from beneath the great weight, and as he stood erect and gazed down upon the trophy of his skill a mighty wave of exultation swept over him. With swelling breast he placed a foot upon the body of his powerful enemy, and throwing back his fine young head roared out the awful challenge of the victorious bull-ape. The forest echoed to the savage and triumphant peyote. Birds fell still, and the larger animals and beasts of prey slunk stealthily away, for few there were of all the jungle who sought for trouble with the great anthropoids. And in London another Lord Great Stoke was speaking to his kind in the House of Lords, but none trembled at the sound of his soft voice. Sabor proved unsavory eating even to Tarzan of the apes, but hunger served as a most efficacious disguise to toughness and rank taste, and ere long with well-filled stomach the ape-man was ready to sleep again. First, however, he must remove the hide, for it was as much for this as for any other purpose that he had desired to destroy Sabor. Deathly he removed the Great Pelt, for he had practised often on smaller animals. When the task was finished he carried his trophy to the fork of a high tree, and there, curling himself securely in a crotch, he fell into deep and dreamless slumber. What with loss of sleep, arduous exercise, and a full belly, Tarzan of the apes slept the sun around, awakening about noon of the following day. He straight-weight repaired to the carcass of Sabor, but was angered to find the bones picked clean by other hungry denizens of the jungle. Half an hour's leisurely progress through the forest brought to sight a young deer, and before the little creature knew that an enemy was near a tiny arrow had lodged in its neck. So quickly the virus worked that at the end of a dozen leaps the deer plunged headlong into the undergrowth, dead. Again did Tarzan feast well, but this time he did not sleep. Instead he hastened on toward the point where he had left the tribe, and when he had found them proudly exhibited the skin of Sabor, the lioness. Look! he cried. Apes of kerchak! See what Tarzan the mighty killer has done! Who else among you has ever killed one of Numa's people? Tarzan is mightiest amongst you, for Tarzan is no ape. Tarzan is—but here he stopped. For in the language of the anthropoids there was no word for man, and Tarzan could only write the word in English. He could not pronounce it. The tribe had gathered about to look upon the proof of his wondrous prowess, and to listen to his words. Only kerchak hung back, nursing his hatred and his rage. Something suddenly snapped in the wicked little brain of the anthropoid. With a frightful roar the great beast sprang among the assemblage. Biting and striking with his huge hands he killed him maimed a dozen ere the balance could escape to the upper terraces of the forest. Frothing and shrieking in the insanity of his fury kerchak looked about for the object of his greatest hatred, and there upon a nearby limb he saw him sitting. Come down, Tarzan! Great killer! cried kerchak. Come down and feel the fangs of a greater! Do mighty fighters fly to the trees at the first approach of danger? And then kerchak emitted the volleying challenge of his kind. Quietly Tarzan dropped to the ground. Breathlessly the tribe watched from their lofty perches as kerchak, still roaring, charged the relatively puny figure. Nearly seven feet stood kerchak on his short legs. His enormous shoulders were bunched and rounded with huge muscles. The back of his short neck was as a single lump of iron sinew which bulged beyond the base of his skull, so that his head seemed like a small ball protruding from a huge mountain of flesh. His back drawn snarling lips exposed his great fighting fangs, and his little wicked bloodshot eyes gleamed in horrid reflection of his madness. Awaiting him stood Tarzan, himself a mighty muscled animal, but his six feet of height and his great rolling sinews seemed pitifully inadequate to the ordeal which awaited them. His bow and arrows lay some distance away where he had dropped them while showing Sabre's hide to his fellow apes, so that he confronted kerchak now with only his hunting knife and his superior intellect to offset the ferocious strength of his enemy. As his antagonist came roaring toward him, Lord Grey Stoke tore his long knife from its sheath, and with an answering challenge as horrid and blood-curdling as that of the beast he faced, rushed swiftly to meet the attack. He was too shrewd to allow those long hairy arms to encircle him, and just as their bodies were about to crash together, Tarzan of the apes grasped one of the huge wrists of his assailant, and springing lightly to one side, drove his knife to the hilt into kerchak's body, below the heart. Before he could wrench the blade free again, the bull's quick lunge to seize him in those awful arms had torn the weapon from Tarzan's grasp. Kerchak aimed a terrific blow at the eight-man's head with the flat of his hand, a blow which, had it landed, might easily have crushed in the side of Tarzan's skull. The man was too quick, and ducking beneath it himself delivered a mighty one with a clenched fist in the pit of kerchak's stomach. The ape was staggered, and what with the mortal wound in his side had almost collapsed when, with one mighty effort he rallied for an instant, just long enough to enable him to rest his arm free from Tarzan's grasp, and close in a terrific clench with his wiry opponent. Straining the ape-man close to him, his great jaws sought Tarzan's throat, but the young lord's sinewy fingers were at kerchak's own before the cruel fangs could close on the sleek brown skin. Thus they struggled, the one to crush out his opponent's life with those awful teeth, the other to close forever the wind-pipe beneath his strong grasp while he held the snarling mouth from him. The greater strength of the ape was slowly prevailing, and the teeth of the straining beast were scarce an inch from Tarzan's throat when, with a shattering tremor, the great body stiffened for an instant, and then sank limply to the ground. Kerchak was dead. Straining the knife that had so often rendered him master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest, rang the fierce, wild cry of the conqueror, and thus came the young lord Greystoke into the kingship of the apes. CHAPTER XII. MAN'S REASON. There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Cherkaus, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms. Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to rest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise. For months the life of the little van went on much as it had before, except that Tarzan's greater intelligence and his ability as a hunter were the means of providing for them more bountifully than ever before. Most of them, therefore, were more than content with the change in rulers. Tarzan led them by night to the fields of the black men, and there, warned by their chief's interior wisdom, they ate only what they required, nor ever did they destroy what they could not eat, as is the way of Manu, the monkey, and of most apes. So, while the blacks were wroth at the continued pilfering of their fields, they were not discouraged in their efforts to cultivate the land, as would have been the case had Tarzan permitted his people to lay waste the plantation wantonly. During this period Tarzan paid many nocturnal visits to the village, where he often renewed his supply of arrows. He soon noticed the food always standing at the foot of the tree which was his avenue into the palisade, and after a little he commenced to eat whatever the blacks put there. When the awestruck savages saw that the food disappeared overnight they were filled with consternation and dread, for it was one thing to put food out to propitiate a god or a devil, but quite another thing to have this spirit really come into the village and eat it. Such a thing was unheard of, and it clouded their superstitious minds with all manner of vague fears. Nor was this all. The periodic disappearance of their arrows, and the strange pranks perpetrated by unseen hands, had wrought them to such a state that life had become a veritable burden in their new home, and now it was that Mabanga and his headmen began to talk of abandoning the village and seeking a sight farther on in the jungle. Presently the black warriors began to strike farther and farther south into the heart of the forest when they went to hunt, looking for a sight for a new village. More often was the tribe of Tarzan disturbed by these wandering huntsmen. Now was the quiet, fierce solitude of the primeval forest broken by new strange cries. No longer was there safety for bird or beast. Man had come. Other animals passed up and down the jungle by day and by night. Fierce, cruel beasts, but their weaker neighbors only fled from their immediate vicinity to return again when the danger was passed. With man it is different. When he comes many of the larger animals instinctively leave the district entirely, seldom if ever to return, and thus it has always been with the great anthropoids. They flee man as man flees a pestilence. For a short time the tribe of Tarzan lingered in the vicinity of the beach because their new chief hated the thought of leaving the treasured contents of the little cabin forever. But when one day a member of the tribe discovered the blacks in great numbers on the banks of a little stream that had been their watering-place for generations, and in the act of clearing a space in the jungle and erecting many hunts, the apes would remain no longer, and so Tarzan led them inland for many marches to a spot as yet undefiled by the foot of a human being. Once every moon Tarzan would go swinging rapidly back through the swaying branches to have a day with his books and to replenish his supply of arrows. This latter task was becoming more and more difficult for the blacks had taken to hiding their supply away at night in granaries and living-huts. This necessitated watching by day on Tarzan's part to discover where the arrows were being concealed. Twice had he entered huts at night while the inmates lay sleeping upon their mats and stolen the arrows from the very sides of the warriors. But this method he realized to be too fraught with danger, and so he commenced picking up solitary hunters with his long, deadly noose, stripping them of weapons and ornaments, and dropping their bodies from a high tree into the village street during the still watches of the night. These various escapades again so terrorized the blacks that had it not been for the monthly respite between Tarzan's visits, in which they had opportunity to renew hope that each fresh incursion would prove the last. They soon would have abandoned their new village. The blacks had not as yet come upon Tarzan's cabin on the distant beach, but the eight men lived in constant dread that, while he was away with the tribe, they would discover and to spoil his treasure. So it came that he spent more and more time in the vicinity of his father's last home, and less and less with the tribe. Presently the members of his little community began to suffer on account of his neglect, for disputes and quarrels constantly arose which only the king might settle peaceably. At last some of the older apes spoke to Tarzan on the subject, and for a month thereafter he remained constantly with the tribe. The duties of kingship among the anthropoids are not many or arduous. In the afternoon comes Thaca, possibly, to complain that Old Mungo has stolen his new wife. Then must Tarzan summon all before him, and if he finds that the wife prefers her new lord, he commands that matters remain as they are, or possibly that Mungo give Thaca one of his daughters in exchange. Whatever his decision, the apes accepted his final, and returned to their occupations satisfied. Then comes Tana, shrieking and holding tight her side from which blood is streaming. Gunto, her husband, has cruelly bitten her, and Gunto, summoned, says that Tana is lazy and will not bring him nuts and beetles, or scratches back for him. So Tarzan scolds them both, and threatens Gunto with a taste of the death-bearing slivers if he abuses Tana further, and Tana, for her part, is compelled to promise better attention to her wifely duties. And so it goes, little family differences for the most part, which, if left unsettled, would result finally in greater factional strife, and the eventual dismemberment of the tribe. Tarzan's tired of it, as he found the kingship meant the curtailment of his liberty. He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea, for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books. As he had grown older he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. He had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand ought of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king. So limited was their vocabulary that Tarzan could not even talk with them of the many new truths, and the great fields of thought that his reading had opened up before his longing eyes, or make known ambitions which stirred his soul. Among the tribe he no longer had friends as of old. A little child may find companionship in many strange and simple creatures, but to a grown man there must be some semblance of equality and intellect as the basis for agreeable association. Had Kayla lived, Tarzan would have sacrificed all else to remain near her. But now that she was dead and the playful friends of his childhood grown into fierce and surly brutes, he felt that he much preferred the peace and solitude of heaven to the irksome duties of leadership amongst a horde of wild beasts. The hatred and jealousy of Turca's son of Tublat did much to counteract the effect of Tarzan's desire to renounce his kingship among the apes, for, stubborn young Englishman that he was, he could not bring himself to retreat in the face of so malignant an enemy. That Turca's would be chosen leader in his stead he knew full well, for time and again the ferocious brute had established his claim to physical supremacy over the few bull apes who had dared resent his savage bullying. Tarzan would have liked to subdue the ugly beast without recourse to knife or arrows. So much had his great strength and agility increased in the period following his maturity, that he had come to believe that he might master the redoubtable Turcos in a hand-to-hand fight where it not for the terrible advantage the anthropoid's huge fighting fangs gave him over the poorly armed Tarzan. The entire matter was taken out of Tarzan's hands one day by force of circumstances, and his future left open to him so that he might go or stay without any stain upon his savage escutcheon. It happened thus. The tribe was feeding quietly, spread over a considerable area, when a great screaming arose some distance east of where Tarzan lay upon his belly beside a limpid brook attempting to catch an elusive fish in his quick-brown hands. With one accord the tribe swung rapidly toward the frightened cries, and there found Turca's holding an old female by the hair and beating her unmercifully with his great hands. As Tarzan approached he raised his hand aloft for Turca's to desist, for the female was not his, but belonged to a poor old ape whose fighting days were long over, and who therefore could not protect his family. Turca's knew that it was against the laws of his kind to strike this woman of another, but being a bully he had taken advantage of the weakness of the female's husband to chastise her because she had refused to give up to him, a tender young rodent she had captured. When Turca's saw Tarzan approaching without his arrows he continued to belabor the poor woman in a studied effort to affront his hated chieftain. Tarzan did not repeat his warning signal, but instead rushed bodily upon the waiting Turca's. Never had the eight man fought so terrible a battle since that long gone day when Bulgani, the great king Gorilla, had so horribly manhandled him ere the newfound knife had, by accident, pricked the savage heart. Tarzan's knife on the present occasion but barely offset the gleaming fangs of Turca's and what little advantage the ape had over the man in brute strength was almost pallets by the latter's wonderful quickness and agility. In the sum total of their points, however, the anthropoid had a shade the better of the battle and had there been no other personal attribute to influence the final outcome, Tarzan of the apes, the young lord Greystoke, would have died as he had lived, an unknown savage beast in equatorial Africa. But there was that which had raised him far above his fellows of the jungle, that little spark which spells the whole vast difference between man and brute, reason. This it was which saved him from death beneath the iron muscles and tearing fangs of Turca's. Scarcely had they fought a dozen seconds ere they were rolling upon the ground, striking, tearing and rending, two great savage beasts battling to the death. Turca's had a dozen knife wounds on head and breast and Tarzan was torn and bleeding, his scalp in one place half torn from his head so that a great peace hung down over one eye obstructing his vision. But so far the young Englishmen had been able to keep those horrible fangs from his jugular and now as they fought less fiercely for a moment to regain their breath, Tarzan formed a cunning plan. He would work his way to the other's back and, clinging there with tooth and nail, drive his knife home until Turca's was no more. The maneuver was accomplished more easily than he had hoped, for the stupid beast, not knowing what Tarzan was attempting, made no particular effort to prevent the accomplishment of the design. But when finally he realized that his antagonist was fastened to him where his teeth and fists alike were useless against him, Turca's hurled himself about upon the ground so violently that Tarzan could but cling desperately to the leaping, turning, twisting body, and ere he had struck a blow the knife was hurled from his hand by a heavy impact against the earth and Tarzan found himself defenseless. During the rollings and squirmings of the next few minutes Tarzan's hole was loosened a dozen times until finally an accidental circumstance of those swift and ever-changing evolutions gave him a new hold with his right hand, which he realized was absolutely unassailable. His arm was passed beneath Turca's arm from behind, and his hand in forearm encircled the back of Turca's neck. It was the half-nelson of modern wrestling which the untaught ape-man had stumbled upon, but superior reasons showed him in an instant the value of the thing he had discovered. It was the difference to him between life and death. And so he struggled to encompass a similar hold with the left hand, and in a few moments Turca's bull-neck was creaking beneath a full nelson. There was no more lunging about now. The two lay perfectly still upon the ground. Tarzan upon Turca's back. Slowly the bullet head of the ape was being forced lower and lower upon his chest. Tarzan knew what the result would be. In an instant the neck would break. Then there came to Turca's rescue the same thing that had put him in these sore straits, a man's reasoning power. If I kill him, thought Tarzan, what advantage will it be to me? Will it not rob the tribe of a great fighter? And if Turca's be dead he will know nothing of my supremacy, while alive he will ever be an example to the other apes. Kat Gota! hissed Tarzan in Turca's ear, which in Ape Tongue means freely translated, do you surrender? For a moment there was no reply, and Tarzan added a few more ounces of pressure, which elicited a horrified shriek of pain from the great beast. Kat Gota! repeated Tarzan. Kat Gota! cried Turca's. Listen, said Tarzan, easing up a trifle, but not releasing his hold. I am Tarzan, king of the apes, mighty hunter, mighty fighter, in all the jungle there is none so great. You have said Kat Gota to me. All the tribe have heard. Quarrel no more with your king or your people, for next time I shall kill you. Do you understand? Huh! assented Turca's. And are you satisfied? Huh! said the ape. Tarzan let him up, and in a few minutes all were back at their vocations, as though not had occurred to mar the tranquillity of their primeval forest haunts. But deep in the minds of the apes was rooted the conviction that Tarzan was a mighty fighter and a strange creature, strange because he had had it in his power to kill his enemy, but had allowed him to live unharmed. That afternoon as the tribe came together, as was their want before darkness settled on the jungle, Tarzan, his wounds washed in the waters of the stream, called the old males about him. You have seen again today that Tarzan of the apes is the greatest among you, he said. Huh! they replied with one voice. Tarzan is great. Tarzan, he continued, is not an ape, he is not like his people, his ways are not their ways, and so Tarzan is going back to the lair of his own kind by the waters of the great lake which has no farther shore. You must choose another to rule you, for Tarzan will not return. And thus young Lord Greystoke took the first step toward the goal which he had set, the finding of other white men like himself. End of chapter.