 Again, we bring you another chapter of Edgar Rice Burroughs' amazing history of Tarzan of the Apes. The astounding record of a superman who became the master of beasts and the mighty monarch of the African jungle. By the grace of a kindly god and the tender care of Kayla at whose breast the little son of Lord and Lady Greystoke was nourished, Tarzan grew to young manhood. From his natural parents, he had inherited fineness and intelligence. And from his foster mother, Kayla, and the ape tribe, he had acquired tremendous strength, amazing agility, and animal cunning. And from twenty years since his abduction, we find Tarzan swinging through the jungles. A young man splendid both in his youth and manhood. Carelessly, Tarzan's body swings from branch to branch. There's an easy grace about his perilous leaps and accurate catches as he progresses from limb to limb, which suggests both the assurance of the ape and the flowing rhythmic grace of a trained trapeze artist executing an often rehearsed feat of daring. Tarzan is off on a holiday. He's returning to the one place in the entire jungle that is his own, a place he had discovered long ago. A tiny hut on the shore of the great water. It has taken him many years to learn how to manipulate the odd mechanical thing which had swung open to him the door of that hut, which he would have been surprised to learn was the home of his mother and father and his birthplace. However, the door of that hut had opened to him more than the interior of the rude cabin which Lord Greystoke had built for his wife and son. It had taught him that he was an M-A-N, not an A-P-E. It had taught him to read and write after a fashion. For hour after hour, year after year, he had poured over the first primer which he found there. But perhaps more important to his physical being and survival, it had given him access to the hunting knife which hung at his side and the locket which dangled from his throat. Occasionally, Tarzan left the ape tribe and ventured to his hut near the seashore and now he's making his way there. It's late afternoon. The sun of a dying day is filtering through the dank foliage of the trees to make an intricate pattern of onyx and gold on the spongy mold on the ground beneath. The jungle is reverberant with sound. The chatter of monkeys, the singing of birds, and the occasional growling and snarling of the larger animals as they make their imperial way to the waterhole. Tarzan is happy. Happy is a schoolboy on a holiday. Swinging along is tireless of boreal way he inhaled the dank pungent smell of the jungle with poised delight. In the grim grandeur, the poisonous beauty of the jungle fills his soul with a feeling for which the ape language has no name. Meanwhile, off the West African coast, a small tramp steamer is flying her way through a placid sea. In the tiny saloon of the ship are four people. Professor Porter, an old savant who exists in the present but lives in the archeological past, his daughter Jane, a beautiful girl whose charm is not only that of beauty but of wholesome loveliness and intelligence. Of these charms, the young man of the group is fully aware. He is William Sassel Clayton, a young Englishman, typical of the blonde blue-eyed Oxford gentleman and eldest son of Lord Greystone. The other man in the salon is the captain of the ship. What are you reading, Father? Yes, of course, my dear, of course. I asked you what you were reading. Oh, sorry. A book, Jane, one of those dusty ones that you persist in believing gives me my heave fever. It's called Africa Cristana. Mochilli wrote it in 1816. Only 1816? That's rather current fiction for you, isn't it? Well, a man ought to keep up with modern literature or he's liable to become an old fogey. I suppose anything published after the flood would be considered rather modern by an archeologist. Who wouldn't it, Professor Porter? Oh, yes. No, no, no. What did you say? Oh, go on with your reading, Father. We won't disturb you anymore. We're almost there, aren't we, Captain Tracy? I beg your pardon? Well, honestly, I don't know which is the worst. You were Father. It's enough to give a person inferiority complex. I'm the only one aboard that seems to find me most fascinating. But you're forgetting me, aren't you? Well, one could never forget anyone so gallant. But really, Captain, a person would think that you were burdened down with all the worries of the world. Not all of them, Miss Porter, but I'm afraid I have my share. Really? What? Merely a matter of ship's discipline. Nothing really important, I hope. Thank you, Father, sir. But I'd like to see you, sir. Yeah, what kind of discipline is this, Newton? Coming in without knocking. Take off your cap. Yes, sir. Sorry, Milady. Yeah, well, what is it? What is it? I'm afraid, sir, it... Don't ever let them know I told you, sir. They just give me a life. That's what they do, sir. They just give me a life. That's life, sir. What are you talking about? New Guinea, sir. Down below, Dexter. They're all in the folks, sir. New Guinea? New Guinea? Isn't there some law about that? New Guinea, eh? I smelled it coming. That rotten crew we shipped it said. My compliments to Mr. Yonk, Newton. Tell him to report to me at once, here. I'll batter those decked guys down in their hats and scuttle them like rats. Pardon, sir, but it's the first day you ought to sleep in New Guinea, sir. He's down in the glory. I'll talk to him now, sir. Oh, yes, sir. Is there anything I can do, sir? I don't worry, Clayton. I'll clean this affair up in a minute. You'll keep Miss Porter and the professor from being frightened. I'm not at all frightened. Big pardon, sir. I'd better get in there, though, before they misfit me. They'd kill me if they knew I'd informed you, sir. All right, sir. I'll remember this. Go below then and save your skin. Thank you, sir. Mr. Clayton, you'll find two automatics in the drawer of that desk. You'll take one and come with me, certainly. Well, what am I going to use? Good morning. It's Newton. Come on, Clayton. Righto! What matters? The door sucks at nothing! We're barred in! Ah! While the voyagers from the world outside are at the mercy of a Newtonist crew, miles away, Tarzan is hanging from a tree branch, overlooking a clearing in the forest, and sees the beginning of a jungle tragedy. Say, poor the lioness is dozing, surrounded by her happy family. One of the cubs wanders beneath the tree that hides Ishtar, the snake, the silent, strangling horror of the jungle. Ishtar, hungry and alert, drops part of her great and snarling link down from the branch and circles the cub, draws it up into the tree to slowly force it down into a constricting being by the unrelenting, torturous contraction of those great reeling muscles. A labor of a lioness, a waste of the danger with a snarl of mingled rage and anguish, hurls herself with a terrific leap to rescue her cub. She misses. Again and again, she leaps in a panic effort to reach the snake. A roar shreds the chaotic monotone of the jungle into feathers. Say, poor Ishtar's language moves Tarzan to pity. He falls forward, giving himself a tremendous dippin' with his legs and catapults himself through the air. It's a tremendous leap, superhuman. He's leaping for the end of Ishtar's tale. If he makes it, he may not be able to cling to that slimy, lashing length and will fall to the infuriated beast below. He won't make it. He won't. He does. He slips. He slips. He holds. His weight nearly jerks his salute from the branch. Like lightning, Ishtar contrasts a lash into the ground. Tarzan lets go, drops to the branch beneath. Grasping at just in time, he falls fast. He dangles for a brief moment, but just for a moment. A snarl warns him. He's hanging close enough to the ground to be a link to St. Paul's vicious leap. He pulls himself up to the branch. The tip of one of St. Paul's claws cuts a tiny gash in his heel. He stands on the branch, gathers himself for a leap. Oh! Ishtar's seamless body slaps itself around his waist, takens. Then slowly, he mentions to draw him up to the branch of the ball where it can hold him fast against the branch and exerts a terrific pressure which will crush him. Tarzan struggles terrifically, but slowly, slowly feels himself being drawn. Tarzan's mind races. For the great effort he unwinds, the grass rope around his waist. He senses the long-hunting knife in his teeth and punches him into the narrow part of the reptile's tail. The snake rives, but doesn't lose its hold. Hasteily, Tarzan works the blade through the resisting muscular strength until the handle protrudes on end and the blade at the other. The serpent agony has caused it to lose the distance gained in drawing Tarzan to the branch on which it lies. Tarzan is on the level with the branch from which he's drawn. Curiously, he ties the rope above the knife, letting it slide down the snake's body until the knife keeps it from slipping. Then, wishing like a madman, he snubs the rope around the branch. Hister screams. The branch creaks ominously, but doesn't break. The pain of pulling against the knife in his body makes Hister slowly release its hold on Tarzan. Unable to let go of the branch above and secure to the one below, the great serpent is all but powerless. Its body is stretched up almost straight. Its dreadful leverage is gone. Tarzan climbs up the trunk of the tree, gains the upper branch. The cub is still struggling feebly. Tarzan still tees in the tree, extends his legs out, locks them around the branch and hits his neck in what is known as resting as a scissors. He applies the pressure of those powerful legs. Harder, harder, harder. Pulling the lion cub from the mouth of the reptile with one free hand. Hister's great mouth opens wider and wider. No longer eager to keep up play, only anxious to escape the pressure of those powerful legs. The cub is swinging. Tarzan swings down, drops the cub gently on the ground and up again on the branch before Zabor can furl herself upon him. Zabor, seeing the cub restored, pounces upon it, yicking it, turning it over gently, the cub recovers its breath and wimpers. Conduced as a rough spring is safe, Zabor turns her attention to the thing up in the tree. Tarzan sits panting. Streams that after his good deed, Zabor should be anxious to attract her into rhythms. Jungle gratitude. However, unbismayed, Tarzan looks down into the baleful eyes and snarling face of Zabor. There's an ominous creak, a splintering, the limb under Tarzan is hidden away. He's falling. Falling into the mess with things and furl across the Zabor. He crests the small branch. It breaks. Tarzan's lunges downward, downward, falling to the ground. He breaks the ground and he's head and shoulder. They lie still.