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THE SON OF TARZAN by Edgar Rice Burroughs

November, 1993  [Etext #90]

THE SON OF TARZAN
by
Edgar Rice Burroughs

TO HULBERT BURROUGHS

Chapter 1

The long boat of the Marjorie W. was floating down the
broad Ugambi with ebb tide and current.  Her crew were
lazily enjoying this respite from the arduous labor of rowing
up stream.  Three miles below them lay the Marjorie W.
herself, quite ready to sail so soon as they should have clambered
aboard and swung the long boat to its davits.  Presently the
attention of every man was drawn from his dreaming or his
gossiping to the northern bank of the river.  There, screaming
at them in a cracked falsetto and with skinny arms outstretched,
stood a strange apparition of a man.

"Wot the 'ell?" ejaculated one of the crew.

"A white man!" muttered the mate, and then:  "Man the
oars, boys, and we'll just pull over an' see what he wants."

When they came close to the shore they saw an emaciated
creature with scant white locks tangled and matted.  The thin,
bent body was naked but for a loin cloth.  Tears were rolling
down the sunken pock-marked cheeks.  The man jabbered at
them in a strange tongue.

"Rooshun," hazarded the mate.  "Savvy English?" he called
to the man.

He did, and in that tongue, brokenly and haltingly, as though
it had been many years since he had used it, he begged them to
take him with them away from this awful country.  Once on
board the Marjorie W. the stranger told his rescuers a pitiful
tale of privation, hardships, and torture, extending over a period
of ten years.  How he happened to have come to Africa he did not
tell them, leaving them to assume he had forgotten the incidents
of his life prior to the frightful ordeals that had wrecked him
mentally and physically.  He did not even tell them his true name,
and so they knew him only as Michael Sabrov, nor was there any
resemblance between this sorry wreck and the virile, though
unprincipled, Alexis Paulvitch of old.

It had been ten years since the Russian had escaped the fate
of his friend, the arch-fiend Rokoff, and not once, but many
times during those ten years had Paulvitch cursed the fate that
had given to Nicholas Rokoff death and immunity from suffering
while it had meted to him the hideous terrors of an existence
infinitely worse than the death that persistently refused to
claim him.

Paulvitch had taken to the jungle when he had seen the beasts
of Tarzan and their savage lord swarm the deck of the Kincaid,
and in his terror lest Tarzan pursue and capture him he had
stumbled on deep into the jungle, only to fall at last into the
hands of one of the savage cannibal tribes that had felt the weight
of Rokoff's evil temper and cruel brutality.  Some strange whim
of the chief of this tribe saved Paulvitch from death only to
plunge him into a life of misery and torture.  For ten years he
had been the butt of the village, beaten and stoned by the women
and children, cut and slashed and disfigured by the warriors;
a victim of often recurring fevers of the most malignant variety.
Yet he did not die.  Smallpox laid its hideous clutches upon him;
leaving him unspeakably branded with its repulsive marks. 
Between it and the attentions of the tribe the countenance of
Alexis Paulvitch was so altered that his own mother could not
have recognized in the pitiful mask he called his face a single
familiar feature.  A few scraggly, yellow-white locks had supplanted
the thick, dark hair that had covered his head.  His limbs were bent
and twisted, he walked with a shuffling, unsteady gait, his body
doubled forward.  His teeth were gone--knocked out by his savage masters. 
Even his mentality was but a sorry mockery of what it once had been.

They took him aboard the Marjorie W., and there they fed
and nursed him.  He gained a little in strength; but his
appearance never altered for the better--a human derelict,
battered and wrecked, they had found him; a human derelict,
battered and wrecked, he would remain until death claimed him. 
Though still in his thirties, Alexis Paulvitch could easily
have passed for eighty.  Inscrutable Nature had demanded of
the accomplice a greater penalty than his principal had paid.

In the mind of Alexis Paulvitch there lingered no thoughts of
revenge--only a dull hatred of the man whom he and Rokoff
had tried to break, and failed.  There was hatred, too, of the
memory of Rokoff, for Rokoff had led him into the horrors he
had undergone.  There was hatred of the police of a score of
cities from which he had had to flee.  There was hatred of law,
hatred of order, hatred of everything.  Every moment of the man's
waking life was filled with morbid thought of hatred--he had
become mentally as he was physically in outward appearance,
the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate.  He had
little or nothing to do with the men who had rescued him. 
He was too weak to work and too morose for company, and so
they quickly left him alone to his own devices.

The Marjorie W. had been chartered by a syndicate of wealthy
manufacturers, equipped with a laboratory and a staff of scientists,
and sent out to search for some natural product which the
manufacturers who footed the bills had been importing from
South America at an enormous cost.  What the product was none
on board the Marjorie W. knew except the scientists, nor is
it of any moment to us, other than that it led the ship to a
certain island off the coast of Africa after Alexis Paulvitch
had been taken aboard.

The ship lay at anchor off the coast for several weeks. 
The monotony of life aboard her became trying for the crew. 
They went often ashore, and finally Paulvitch asked to accompany
them--he too was tiring of the blighting sameness of existence
upon the ship.

The island was heavily timbered.  Dense jungle ran down almost
to the beach.  The scientists were far inland, prosecuting
their search for the valuable commodity that native rumor upon
the mainland had led them to believe might be found here in
marketable quantity.  The ship's company fished, hunted,
and explored.  Paulvitch shuffled up and down the beach, or lay
in the shade of the great trees that skirted it.  One day, as the
men were gathered at a little distance inspecting the body of a
panther that had fallen to the gun of one of them who had been
hunting inland, Paulvitch lay sleeping beneath his tree.  He was
awakened by the touch of a hand upon his shoulder.  With a start
he sat up to see a huge, anthropoid ape squatting at his side,
inspecting him intently.  The Russian was thoroughly frightened. 
He glanced toward the sailors--they were a couple of hundred
yards away.  Again the ape plucked at his shoulder, jabbering
plaintively.  Paulvitch saw no menace in the inquiring gaze, or
in the attitude of the beast.  He got slowly to his feet.  The ape
rose at his side.

Half doubled, the man shuffled cautiously away toward the sailors. 
The ape moved with him, taking one of his arms.  They had come
almost to the little knot of men before they were seen, and
by this time Paulvitch had become assured that the beast
meant no harm.  The animal evidently was accustomed to the
association of human beings.  It occurred to the Russian that the
ape represented a certain considerable money value, and before
they reached the sailors he had decided he should be the one to
profit by it.

When the men looked up and saw the oddly paired couple
shuffling toward them they were filled with amazement, and
started on a run toward the two.  The ape showed no sign of fear.
Instead he grasped each sailor by the shoulder and peered long
and earnestly into his face.  Having inspected them all he
returned to Paulvitch's side, disappointment written strongly
upon his countenance and in his carriage.

The men were delighted with him.  They gathered about,
asking Paulvitch many questions, and examining his companion. 
The Russian told them that the ape was his--nothing further
would he offer--but kept harping continually upon the same
theme, "The ape is mine.  The ape is mine."  Tiring of Paulvitch,
one of the men essayed a pleasantry.  Circling about behind the
ape he prodded the anthropoid in the back with a pin.  Like a
flash the beast wheeled upon its tormentor, and, in the briefest
instant of turning, the placid, friendly animal was metamorphosed
to a frenzied demon of rage.  The broad grin that had sat upon
the sailor's face as he perpetrated his little joke froze to an
expression of terror.  He attempted to dodge the long arms
that reached for him; but, failing, drew a long knife that hung
at his belt.  With a single wrench the ape tore the weapon from
the man's grasp and flung it to one side, then his yellow fangs
were buried in the sailor's shoulder.

With sticks and knives the man's companions fell upon the
beast, while Paulvitch danced around the cursing snarling pack
mumbling and screaming pleas and threats.  He saw his visions
of wealth rapidly dissipating before the weapons of the sailors.

The ape, however, proved no easy victim to the superior numbers
that seemed fated to overwhelm him.  Rising from the sailor
who had precipitated the battle he shook his giant shoulders,
freeing himself from two of the men that were clinging to his
back, and with mighty blows of his open palms felled one after
another of his attackers, leaping hither and thither with the
agility of a small monkey.

The fight had been witnessed by the captain and mate who
were just landing from the Marjorie W., and Paulvitch saw
these two now running forward with drawn revolvers while the
two sailors who had brought them ashore trailed at their heels. 
The ape stood looking about him at the havoc he had wrought, but
whether he was awaiting a renewal of the attack or was
deliberating which of his foes he should exterminate first
Paulvitch could not guess.  What he could guess, however,
was that the moment the two officers came within firing distance
of the beast they would put an end to him in short order unless
something were done and done quickly to prevent.  The ape had
made no move to attack the Russian but even so the man was none
too sure of what might happen were he to interfere with the savage
beast, now thoroughly aroused to bestial rage, and with the
smell of new spilled blood fresh in its nostrils.  For an instant he
hesitated, and then again there rose before him the dreams of
affluence which this great anthropoid would doubtless turn to
realities once Paulvitch had landed him safely in some great
metropolis like London.

The captain was shouting to him now to stand aside that he
might have a shot at the animal; but instead Paulvitch shuffled
to the ape's side, and though the man's hair quivered at its roots
he mastered his fear and laid hold of the ape's arm.

"Come!" he commanded, and tugged to pull the beast from
among the sailors, many of whom were now sitting up in wide
eyed fright or crawling away from their conqueror upon hands
and knees.

Slowly the ape permitted itself to be led to one side, nor did
it show the slightest indication of a desire to harm the Russian.
The captain came to a halt a few paces from the odd pair.

"Get aside, Sabrov!" he commanded.  "I'll put that brute
where he won't chew up any more able seamen."

"It wasn't his fault, captain," pleaded Paulvitch.  "Please don't
shoot him.  The men started it--they attacked him first.  You see,
he's perfectly gentle--and he's mine--he's mine--he's mine! 
I won't let you kill him," he concluded, as his half-wrecked
mentality pictured anew the pleasure that money would buy in
London--money that he could not hope to possess without some
such windfall as the ape represented.

The captain lowered his weapon.  "The men started it, did
they?" he repeated.  "How about that?" and he turned toward
the sailors who had by this time picked themselves from the
ground, none of them much the worse for his experience except
the fellow who had been the cause of it, and who would
doubtless nurse a sore shoulder for a week or so.

"Simpson done it," said one of the men.  "He stuck a pin
into the monk from behind, and the monk got him--which
served him bloomin' well right--an' he got the rest of us, too,
for which I can't blame him, since we all jumped him to once."

The captain looked at Simpson, who sheepishly admitted the
truth of the allegation, then he stepped over to the ape as though
to discover for himself the sort of temper the beast possessed,
but it was noticeable that he kept his revolver cocked and leveled
as he did so.  However, he spoke soothingly to the animal who
squatted at the Russian's side looking first at one and then
another of the sailors.  As the captain approached him the ape
half rose and waddled forward to meet him.  Upon his countenance
was the same strange, searching expression that had marked his
scrutiny of each of the sailors he had first encountered.  He came
quite close to the officer and laid a paw upon one of the man's
shoulders, studying his face intently for a long moment, then
came the expression of disappointment accompanied by what
was almost a human sigh, as he turned away to peer in the same
curious fashion into the faces of the mate and the two sailors
who had arrived with the officers.  In each instance he sighed
and passed on, returning at length to Paulvitch's side, where he
squatted down once more; thereafter evincing little or no
interest in any of the other men, and apparently forgetful
of his recent battle with them.

When the party returned aboard the Marjorie W., Paulvitch
was accompanied by the ape, who seemed anxious to follow him. 
The captain interposed no obstacles to the arrangement,
and so the great anthropoid was tacitly admitted to membership
in the ship's company.  Once aboard he examined each new face
minutely, evincing the same disappointment in each instance
that had marked his scrutiny of the others.  The officers and
scientists aboard often discussed the beast, but they were unable
to account satisfactorily for the strange ceremony with which he
greeted each new face.  Had he been discovered upon the mainland,
or any other place than the almost unknown island that
had been his home, they would have concluded that he had
formerly been a pet of man; but that theory was not tenable in
the face of the isolation of his uninhabited island.  He seemed
continually to be searching for someone, and during the first
days of the return voyage from the island he was often discovered
nosing about in various parts of the ship; but after he had seen
and examined each face of the ship's company, and explored
every corner of the vessel he lapsed into utter indifference of all
about him.  Even the Russian elicited only casual interest when
he brought him food.  At other times the ape appeared merely
to tolerate him.  He never showed affection for him, or for anyone
else upon the Marjorie W., nor did he at any time evince any
indication of the savage temper that had marked his resentment
of the attack of the sailors upon him at the time that he had come
among them.

Most of his time was spent in the eye of the ship scanning the
horizon ahead, as though he were endowed with sufficient reason
to know that the vessel was bound for some port where there
would be other human beings to undergo his searching scrutiny.
All in all, Ajax, as he had been dubbed, was considered the
most remarkable and intelligent ape that any one aboard the
Marjorie W. ever had seen.  Nor was his intelligence the only
remarkable attribute he owned.  His stature and physique were,
for an ape, awe inspiring.  That he was old was quite evident,
but if his age had impaired his physical or mental powers in the
slightest it was not apparent.

And so at length the Marjorie W. came to England, and there
the officers and the scientists, filled with compassion for the
pitiful wreck of a man they had rescued from the jungles,
furnished Paulvitch with funds and bid him and his Ajax Godspeed.

Upon the dock and all through the journey to London the
Russian had his hands full with Ajax.  Each new face of the
thousands that came within the anthropoid's ken must be
carefully scrutinized, much to the horror of many of his
victims; but at last, failing, apparently, to discover whom
he sought, the great ape relapsed into morbid indifference,
only occasionally evincing interest in a passing face.

In London, Paulvitch went directly with his prize to a certain
famous animal trainer.  This man was much impressed with Ajax
with the result that he agreed to train him for a lion's share of
the profits of exhibiting him, and in the meantime to provide for
the keep of both the ape and his owner.

And so came Ajax to London, and there was forged another link
in the chain of strange circumstances that were to affect the
lives of many people.

Chapter 2

Mr. Harold Moore was a bilious-countenanced, studious
young man.  He took himself very seriously, and life, and
his work, which latter was the tutoring of the young son of a
British nobleman.  He felt that his charge was not making the
progress that his parents had a right to expect, and he was now
conscientiously explaining this fact to the boy's mother.

"It's not that he isn't bright," he was saying; "if that were
true I should have hopes of succeeding, for then I might bring
to bear all my energies in overcoming his obtuseness; but the
trouble is that he is exceptionally intelligent, and learns so
quickly that I can find no fault in the matter of the preparation
of his lessons.  What concerns me, however, is that fact that he
evidently takes no interest whatever in the subjects we are studying. 
He merely accomplishes each lesson as a task to be rid of
as quickly as possible and I am sure that no lesson ever again
enters his mind until the hours of study and recitation once
more arrive.  His sole interests seem to be feats of physical
prowess and the reading of everything that he can get hold of
relative to savage beasts and the lives and customs of uncivilized
peoples; but particularly do stories of animals appeal to him. 
He will sit for hours together poring over the work of some
African explorer, and upon two occasions I have found him setting
up in bed at night reading Carl Hagenbeck's book on men and beasts."

The boy's mother tapped her foot nervously upon the hearth rug.

"You discourage this, of course?" she ventured.

Mr. Moore shuffled embarrassedly.

"I--ah--essayed to take the book from him," he replied, a
slight flush mounting his sallow cheek; "but--ah--your son is
quite muscular for one so young."

"He wouldn't let you take it?" asked the mother.

"He would not," confessed the tutor.  "He was perfectly good
natured about it; but he insisted upon pretending that he was a
gorilla and that I was a chimpanzee attempting to steal food
from him.  He leaped upon me with the most savage growls I
ever heard, lifted me completely above his head, hurled me
upon his bed, and after going through a pantomime indicative
of choking me to death he stood upon my prostrate form and
gave voice to a most fearsome shriek, which he explained was
the victory cry of a bull ape.  Then he carried me to the door,
shoved me out into the hall and locked me from his room."

For several minutes neither spoke again.  It was the boy's
mother who finally broke the silence.

"It is very necessary, Mr. Moore," she said, "that you do
everything in your power to discourage this tendency in Jack,
he--"; but she got no further.  A loud "Whoop!" from the
direction of the window brought them both to their feet. 
The room was upon the second floor of the house, and opposite
the window to which their attention had been attracted was a
large tree, a branch of which spread to within a few feet of
the sill.  Upon this branch now they both discovered the subject
of their recent conversation, a tall, well-built boy, balancing
with ease upon the bending limb and uttering loud shouts of glee
as he noted the terrified expressions upon the faces of his audience.

The mother and tutor both rushed toward the window but before
they had crossed half the room the boy had leaped nimbly to the
sill and entered the apartment with them.

"`The wild man from Borneo has just come to town,'" he sang,
dancing a species of war dance about his terrified mother
and scandalized tutor, and ending up by throwing his arms about
the former's neck and kissing her upon either cheek.

"Oh, Mother," he cried, "there's a wonderful, educated ape
being shown at one of the music halls.  Willie Grimsby saw it
last night.  He says it can do everything but talk.  It rides
a bicycle, eats with knife and fork, counts up to ten, and ever
so many other wonderful things, and can I go and see it too? 
Oh, please, Mother--please let me."

Patting the boy's cheek affectionately, the mother shook her
head negatively.  "No, Jack," she said; "you know I do not
approve of such exhibitions."

"I don't see why not, Mother," replied the boy.  "All the
other fellows go and they go to the Zoo, too, and you'll never
let me do even that.  Anybody'd think I was a girl--or
a mollycoddle.  Oh, Father," he exclaimed, as the door opened
to admit a tall gray-eyed man.  "Oh, Father, can't I go?"

"Go where, my son?" asked the newcomer.

"He wants to go to a music hall to see a trained ape," said
the mother, looking warningly at her husband.

"Who, Ajax?" questioned the man.

The boy nodded.

"Well, I don't know that I blame you, my son," said the father,
"I wouldn't mind seeing him myself.  They say he is very
wonderful, and that for an anthropoid he is unusually large.
Let's all go, Jane--what do you say?"  And he turned toward his
wife, but that lady only shook her head in a most positive
manner, and turning to Mr. Moore asked him if it was not time
that he and Jack were in the study for the morning recitations. 
When the two had left she turned toward her husband.

"John," she said, "something must be done to discourage Jack's
tendency toward anything that may excite the cravings for the
savage life which I fear he has inherited from you.  You know
from your own experience how strong is the call of the wild
at times.  You know that often it has necessitated a stern
struggle on your part to resist the almost insane desire which
occasionally overwhelms you to plunge once again into the jungle
life that claimed you for so many years, and at the same time you
know, better than any other, how frightful a fate it would be for
Jack, were the trail to the savage jungle made either alluring or
easy to him."

"I doubt if there is any danger of his inheriting a taste for
jungle life from me," replied the man, "for I cannot conceive
that such a thing may be transmitted from father to son. 
And sometimes, Jane, I think that in your solicitude for his
future you go a bit too far in your restrictive measures. 
His love for animals--his desire, for example, to see this
trained ape--is only natural in a healthy, normal boy of his age. 
Just because he wants to see Ajax is no indication that he would
wish to marry an ape, and even should he, far be it from you Jane
to have the right to cry `shame!'" and John Clayton, Lord
Greystoke, put an arm about his wife, laughing good-naturedly
down into her upturned face before he bent his head and kissed her. 
Then, more seriously, he continued:  "You have never told Jack
anything concerning my early life, nor have you permitted me to,
and in this I think that you have made a mistake.  Had I been
able to tell him of the experiences of Tarzan of the Apes I could
doubtless have taken much of the glamour and romance from
jungle life that naturally surrounds it in the minds of those who
have had no experience of it.  He might then have profited by my
experience, but now, should the jungle lust ever claim him, he
will have nothing to guide him but his own impulses, and I know
how powerful these may be in the wrong direction at times."

But Lady Greystoke only shook her head as she had a hundred
other times when the subject had claimed her attention in the past.

"No, John," she insisted, "I shall never give my consent to
the implanting in Jack's mind of any suggestion of the savage
life which we both wish to preserve him from."

It was evening before the subject was again referred to and
then it was raised by Jack himself.  He had been sitting, curled
in a large chair, reading, when he suddenly looked up and
addressed his father.

"Why," he asked, coming directly to the point, "can't I go
and see Ajax?"

"Your mother does not approve," replied his father.

"Do you?"

"That is not the question," evaded Lord Greystoke.  "It is
enough that your mother objects."

"I am going to see him," announced the boy, after a few
moments of thoughtful silence.  "I am not different from Willie
Grimsby, or any other of the fellows who have been to see him. 
It did not harm them and it will not harm me.  I could go without
telling you; but I would not do that.  So I tell you now,
beforehand, that I am going to see Ajax."

There was nothing disrespectful or defiant in the boy's tone
or manner.  His was merely a dispassionate statement of facts.
His father could scarce repress either a smile or a show of the
admiration he felt for the manly course his son had pursued.

"I admire your candor, Jack," he said.  "Permit me to be candid,
as well.  If you go to see Ajax without permission, I shall
punish you.  I have never inflicted corporal punishment upon
you, but I warn you that should you disobey your mother's wishes
in this instance, I shall."

"Yes, sir," replied the boy; and then:  "I shall tell you, sir,
when I have been to see Ajax."

Mr. Moore's room was next to that of his youthful charge,
and it was the tutor's custom to have a look into the boy's each
evening as the former was about to retire.  This evening he was
particularly careful not to neglect his duty, for he had just come
from a conference with the boy's father and mother in which it
had been impressed upon him that he must exercise the greatest
care to prevent Jack visiting the music hall where Ajax was
being shown.  So, when he opened the boy's door at about half
after nine, he was greatly excited, though not entirely surprised
to find the future Lord Greystoke fully dressed for the street and
about to crawl from his open bed room window.

Mr. Moore made a rapid spring across the apartment; but the
waste of energy was unnecessary, for when the boy heard him
within the chamber and realized that he had been discovered he
turned back as though to relinquish his planned adventure.

"Where were you going?" panted the excited Mr. Moore.

"I am going to see Ajax," replied the boy, quietly.

"I am astonished," cried Mr. Moore; but a moment later he
was infinitely more astonished, for the boy, approaching close
to him, suddenly seized him about the waist, lifted him from
his feet and threw him face downward upon the bed, shoving
his face deep into a soft pillow.

"Be quiet," admonished the victor, "or I'll choke you."

Mr. Moore struggled; but his efforts were in vain.  Whatever else
Tarzan of the Apes may or may not have handed down to his son
he had at least bequeathed him almost as marvelous a physique
as he himself had possessed at the same age.  The tutor was as
putty in the boy's hands.  Kneeling upon him, Jack tore strips
from a sheet and bound the man's hands behind his back. Then he
rolled him over and stuffed a gag of the same material between
his teeth, securing it with a strip wound about the back of his
victim's head.  All the while he talked in a low, conversational tone.

"I am Waja, chief of the Waji," he explained, "and you are
Mohammed Dubn, the Arab sheik, who would murder my people and
steal my ivory," and he dexterously trussed Mr. Moore's hobbled
ankles up behind to meet his hobbled wrists.  "Ah--ha!  Villain! 
I have you in me power at last.  I go; but I shall return!" 
And the son of Tarzan skipped across the room, slipped through
the open window, and slid to liberty by way of the down spout
from an eaves trough.

Mr. Moore wriggled and struggled about the bed.  He was
sure that he should suffocate unless aid came quickly.  In his
frenzy of terror he managed to roll off the bed.  The pain and
shock of the fall jolted him back to something like sane
consideration of his plight.  Where before he had been unable
to think intelligently because of the hysterical fear that had
claimed him he now lay quietly searching for some means of escape
from his dilemma.  It finally occurred to him that the room in
which Lord and Lady Greystoke had been sitting when he left them
was directly beneath that in which he lay upon the floor.  He knew
that some time had elapsed since he had come up stairs and that
they might be gone by this time, for it seemed to him that he
had struggled about the bed, in his efforts to free himself, for
an eternity.  But the best that he could do was to attempt to attract
attention from below, and so, after many failures, he managed
to work himself into a position in which he could tap the toe of
his boot against the floor.  This he proceeded to do at short
intervals, until, after what seemed a very long time, he was
rewarded by hearing footsteps ascending the stairs, and presently
a knock upon the door.  Mr. Moore tapped vigorously with
his toe--he could not reply in any other way.  The knock was
repeated after a moment's silence.  Again Mr. Moore tapped. 
Would they never open the door!  Laboriously he rolled in the
direction of succor.  If he could get his back against the door
he could then tap upon its base, when surely he must be heard. 
The knocking was repeated a little louder, and finally a voice
called:  "Mr. Jack!"

It was one of the house men--Mr. Moore recognized the
fellow's voice.  He came near to bursting a blood vessel in an
endeavor to scream "come in" through the stifling gag.  After a
moment the man knocked again, quite loudly and again called
the boy's name.  Receiving no reply he turned the knob, and at
the same instant a sudden recollection filled the tutor anew with
numbing terror--he had, himself, locked the door behind him
when he had entered the room.

He heard the servant try the door several times and then depart. 
Upon which Mr. Moore swooned.

In the meantime Jack was enjoying to the full the stolen
pleasures of the music hall.  He had reached the temple of mirth
just as Ajax's act was commencing, and having purchased a box seat
was now leaning breathlessly over the rail watching every move
of the great ape, his eyes wide in wonder.  The trainer was not
slow to note the boy's handsome, eager face, and as one of
Ajax's biggest hits consisted in an entry to one or more boxes
during his performance, ostensibly in search of a long-lost
relative, as the trainer explained, the man realized the
effectiveness of sending him into the box with the handsome
boy, who, doubtless, would be terror stricken by proximity
to the shaggy, powerful beast.

When the time came, therefore, for the ape to return from the
wings in reply to an encore the trainer directed its attention to
the boy who chanced to be the sole occupant of the box in which
he sat.  With a spring the huge anthropoid leaped from the stage
to the boy's side; but if the trainer had looked for a laughable
scene of fright he was mistaken.  A broad smile lighted the boy's
features as he laid his hand upon the shaggy arm of his visitor. 
The ape, grasping the boy by either shoulder, peered long and
earnestly into his face, while the latter stroked his head and
talked to him in a low voice.

Never had Ajax devoted so long a time to an examination of
another as he did in this instance.  He seemed troubled and not
a little excited, jabbering and mumbling to the boy, and now
caressing him, as the trainer had never seen him caress a human
being before.  Presently he clambered over into the box with him
and snuggled down close to the boy's side.  The audience was
delighted; but they were still more delighted when the trainer,
the period of his act having elapsed, attempted to persuade Ajax
to leave the box.  The ape would not budge.  The manager,
becoming excited at the delay, urged the trainer to greater haste,
but when the latter entered the box to drag away the reluctant
Ajax he was met by bared fangs and menacing growls.

The audience was delirious with joy.  They cheered the ape. 
They cheered the boy, and they hooted and jeered at the trainer
and the manager, which luckless individual had inadvertently
shown himself and attempted to assist the trainer.

Finally, reduced to desperation and realizing that this show
of mutiny upon the part of his valuable possession might render
the animal worthless for exhibition purposes in the future if not
immediately subdued, the trainer had hastened to his dressing
room and procured a heavy whip.  With this he now returned to
the box; but when he had threatened Ajax with it but once he
found himself facing two infuriated enemies instead of one, for
the boy had leaped to his feet, and seizing a chair was standing
ready at the ape's side to defend his new found friend.  There was
no longer a smile upon his handsome face.  In his gray eyes was
an expression which gave the trainer pause, and beside him stood
the giant anthropoid growling and ready.

What might have happened, but for a timely interruption, may
only be surmised; but that the trainer would have received a
severe mauling, if nothing more, was clearly indicated by the
attitudes of the two who faced him.

                      * * *

It was a pale-faced man who rushed into the Greystoke library
to announce that he had found Jack's door locked and had been
able to obtain no response to his repeated knocking and calling
other than a strange tapping and the sound of what might have
been a body moving about upon the floor.

Four steps at a time John Clayton took the stairs that led to
the floor above.  His wife and the servant hurried after him. 
Once he called his son's name in a loud voice; but receiving no
reply he launched his great weight, backed by all the undiminished
power of his giant muscles, against the heavy door.  With a snapping
of iron butts and a splintering of wood the obstacle burst inward.

At its foot lay the body of the unconscious Mr. Moore, across
whom it fell with a resounding thud.  Through the opening leaped
Tarzan, and a moment later the room was flooded with light
from a dozen electric bulbs.

It was several minutes before the tutor was discovered, so
completely had the door covered him; but finally he was dragged
forth, his gag and bonds cut away, and a liberal application of
cold water had hastened returning consciousness.

"Where is Jack?" was John Clayton's first question, and then;
"Who did this?" as the memory of Rokoff and the fear of a
second abduction seized him.

Slowly Mr. Moore staggered to his feet.  His gaze wandered
about the room.  Gradually he collected his scattered wits. 
The details of his recent harrowing experience returned to him.

"I tender my resignation, sir, to take effect at once," were
his first words.  "You do not need a tutor for your son--what he
needs is a wild animal trainer."

"But where is he?" cried Lady Greystoke.

"He has gone to see Ajax."

It was with difficulty that Tarzan restrained a smile, and after
satisfying himself that the tutor was more scared than injured,
he ordered his closed car around and departed in the direction
of a certain well-known music hall.

Chapter 3

As the trainer, with raised lash, hesitated an instant at the
entrance to the box where the boy and the ape confronted
him, a tall broad-shouldered man pushed past him and entered. 
As his eyes fell upon the newcomer a slight flush mounted the
boy's cheeks.

"Father!" he exclaimed.

The ape gave one look at the English lord, and then leaped
toward him, calling out in excited jabbering.  The man, his eyes
going wide in astonishment, stopped as though turned to stone.

"Akut!" he cried.

The boy looked, bewildered, from the ape to his father, and
from his father to the ape.  The trainer's jaw dropped as he
listened to what followed, for from the lips of the Englishman
flowed the gutturals of an ape that were answered in kind by the
huge anthropoid that now clung to him.

And from the wings a hideously bent and disfigured old man
watched the tableau in the box, his pock-marked features working
spasmodically in varying expressions that might have marked
every sensation in the gamut from pleasure to terror.

"Long have I looked for you, Tarzan," said Akut.  "Now that I
have found you I shall come to your jungle and live there always."

The man stroked the beast's head.  Through his mind there
was running rapidly a train of recollection that carried him
far into the depths of the primeval African forest where this
huge, man-like beast had fought shoulder to shoulder with him
years before.  He saw the black Mugambi wielding his deadly knob-
stick, and beside them, with bared fangs and bristling whiskers,
Sheeta the terrible; and pressing close behind the savage and
the savage panther, the hideous apes of Akut.  The man sighed. 
Strong within him surged the jungle lust that he had thought dead. 
Ah! if he could go back even for a brief month of it, to feel
again the brush of leafy branches against his naked hide; to
smell the musty rot of dead vegetation--frankincense and myrrh
to the jungle born; to sense the noiseless coming of the great
carnivora upon his trail; to hunt and to be hunted; to kill! 
The picture was alluring.  And then came another picture--a sweet-
faced woman, still young and beautiful; friends; a home; a son. 
He shrugged his giant shoulders.

"It cannot be, Akut," he said; "but if you would return, I
shall see that it is done.  You could not be happy here--I may
not be happy there."

The trainer stepped forward.  The ape bared his fangs, growling.

"Go with him, Akut," said Tarzan of the Apes.  "I will come
and see you tomorrow."

The beast moved sullenly to the trainer's side.  The latter,
at John Clayton's request, told where they might be found. 
Tarzan turned toward his son.

"Come!" he said, and the two left the theater.  Neither spoke
for several minutes after they had entered the limousine.  It was
the boy who broke the silence.

"The ape knew you," he said, "and you spoke together in
the ape's tongue.  How did the ape know you, and how did you
learn his language?"

And then, briefly and for the first time, Tarzan of the Apes
told his son of his early life--of the birth in the jungle, of
the death of his parents, and of how Kala, the great she ape had
suckled and raised him from infancy almost to manhood.  He told
him, too, of the dangers and the horrors of the jungle; of
the great beasts that stalked one by day and by night; of the
periods of drought, and of the cataclysmic rains; of hunger; of
cold; of intense heat; of nakedness and fear and suffering. 
He told him of all those things that seem most horrible to the
creature of civilization in the hope that the knowledge of them
might expunge from the lad's mind any inherent desire for the jungle. 
Yet they were the very things that made the memory of the jungle
what it was to Tarzan--that made up the composite jungle life
he loved.  And in the telling he forgot one thing--the principal
thing--that the boy at his side, listening with eager ears, was
the son of Tarzan of the Apes.

After the boy had been tucked away in bed--and without the
threatened punishment--John Clayton told his wife of the events
of the evening, and that he had at last acquainted the boy with
the facts of his jungle life.  The mother, who had long foreseen
that her son must some time know of those frightful years during
which his father had roamed the jungle, a naked, savage beast
of prey, only shook her head, hoping against hope that the lure
she knew was still strong in the father's breast had not been
transmitted to his son.

Tarzan visited Akut the following day, but though Jack begged
to be allowed to accompany him he was refused.  This time
Tarzan saw the pock-marked old owner of the ape, whom he
did not recognize as the wily Paulvitch of former days. 
Tarzan, influenced by Akut's pleadings, broached the question
of the ape's purchase; but Paulvitch would not name any price,
saying that he would consider the matter.

When Tarzan returned home Jack was all excitement to hear the
details of his visit, and finally suggested that his father
buy the ape and bring it home.  Lady Greystoke was horrified at
the suggestion.  The boy was insistent.  Tarzan explained that he
had wished to purchase Akut and return him to his jungle home, and
to this the mother assented.  Jack asked to be allowed to visit the
ape, but again he was met with flat refusal.  He had the address,
however, which the trainer had given his father, and two days
later he found the opportunity to elude his new tutor--who had
replaced the terrified Mr. Moore--and after a considerable
search through a section of London which he had never before
visited, he found the smelly little quarters of the pock-marked
old man.  The old fellow himself replied to his knocking, and
when he stated that he had come to see Ajax, opened the door
and admitted him to the little room which he and the great
ape occupied.  In former years Paulvitch had been a fastidious
scoundrel; but ten years of hideous life among the cannibals of
Africa had eradicated the last vestige of niceness from his habits. 
His apparel was wrinkled and soiled.  His hands were unwashed,
his few straggling locks uncombed.  His room was a jumble of
filthy disorder.  As the boy entered he saw the great ape squatting
upon the bed, the coverlets of which were a tangled wad of filthy
blankets and ill-smelling quilts.  At sight of the youth the ape
leaped to the floor and shuffled forward.  The man, not recognizing
his visitor and fearing that the ape meant mischief, stepped
between them, ordering the ape back to the bed.

"He will not hurt me," cried the boy.  "We are friends, and before,
he was my father's friend.  They knew one another in the jungle. 
My father is Lord Greystoke.  He does not know that I have
come here.  My mother forbid my coming; but I wished to see Ajax,
and I will pay you if you will let me come here often and see him."

At the mention of the boy's identity Paulvitch's eyes narrowed. 
Since he had first seen Tarzan again from the wings of
the theater there had been forming in his deadened brain the
beginnings of a desire for revenge.  It is a characteristic of the
weak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that are
the result of their own wickedness, and so now it was that Alexis
Paulvitch was slowly recalling the events of his past life and as
he did so laying at the door of the man whom he and Rokoff had
so assiduously attempted to ruin and murder all the misfortunes
that had befallen him in the failure of their various schemes
against their intended victim.

He saw at first no way in which he could, with safety to
himself, wreak vengeance upon Tarzan through the medium of
Tarzan's son; but that great possibilities for revenge lay in the
boy was apparent to him, and so he determined to cultivate the
lad in the hope that fate would play into his hands in some way
in the future.  He told the boy all that he knew of his father's
past life in the jungle and when he found that the boy had been kept
in ignorance of all these things for so many years, and that he
had been forbidden visiting the zoological gardens; that he had
had to bind and gag his tutor to find an opportunity to come to
the music hall and see Ajax, he guessed immediately the nature
of the great fear that lay in the hearts of the boy's parents--
that he might crave the jungle as his father had craved it.

And so Paulvitch encouraged the boy to come and see him often,
and always he played upon the lad's craving for tales of the
savage world with which Paulvitch was all too familiar.  He left
him alone with Akut much, and it was not long until he was
surprised to learn that the boy could make the great beast
understand him--that he had actually learned many of the words
of the primitive language of the anthropoids.

During this period Tarzan came several times to visit Paulvitch. 
He seemed anxious to purchase Ajax, and at last he told
the man frankly that he was prompted not only by a desire upon
his part to return the beast to the liberty of his native jungle;
but also because his wife feared that in some way her son might
learn the whereabouts of the ape and through his attachment for
the beast become imbued with the roving instinct which, as
Tarzan explained to Paulvitch, had so influenced his own life.

The Russian could scarce repress a smile as he listened to
Lord Greystoke's words, since scarce a half hour had passed
since the time the future Lord Greystoke had been sitting upon
the disordered bed jabbering away to Ajax with all the fluency
of a born ape.

It was during this interview that a plan occurred to Paulvitch,
and as a result of it he agreed to accept a certain fabulous sum
for the ape, and upon receipt of the money to deliver the beast
to a vessel that was sailing south from Dover for Africa two
days later.  He had a double purpose in accepting Clayton's offer.
Primarily, the money consideration influenced him strongly, as
the ape was no longer a source of revenue to him, having
consistently refused to perform upon the stage after having
discovered Tarzan.  It was as though the beast had suffered himself
to be brought from his jungle home and exhibited before thousands
of curious spectators for the sole purpose of searching out his
long lost friend and master, and, having found him, considered
further mingling with the common herd of humans unnecessary.
However that may be, the fact remained that no amount of persuasion
could influence him even to show himself upon the music hall stage,
and upon the single occasion that the trainer attempted force the
results were such that the unfortunate man considered himself
lucky to have escaped with his life.  All that saved him was the
accidental presence of Jack Clayton, who had been permitted to
visit the animal in the dressing room reserved for him at the
music hall, and had immediately interfered when he saw that the
savage beast meant serious mischief.

And after the money consideration, strong in the heart of the
Russian was the desire for revenge, which had been growing with
constant brooding over the failures and miseries of his life,
which he attributed to Tarzan; the latest, and by no means the
least, of which was Ajax's refusal to longer earn money for him.
The ape's refusal he traced directly to Tarzan, finally convincing
himself that the ape man had instructed the great anthropoid to
refuse to go upon the stage.

Paulvitch's naturally malign disposition was aggravated by the
weakening and warping of his mental and physical faculties
through torture and privation.  From cold, calculating, highly
intelligent perversity it had deteriorated into the
indiscriminating, dangerous menace of the mentally defective. 
His plan, however, was sufficiently cunning to at least cast
a doubt upon the assertion that his mentality was wandering. 
It assured him first of the competence which Lord Greystoke
had promised to pay him for the deportation of the ape, and
then of revenge upon his benefactor through the son he idolized. 
That part of his scheme was crude and brutal--it lacked the
refinement of torture that had marked the master strokes of the
Paulvitch of old, when he had worked with that virtuoso of
villainy, Nikolas Rokoff--but it at least assured Paulvitch of
immunity from responsibility, placing that upon the ape, who
would thus also be punished for his refusal longer to support
the Russian.

Everything played with fiendish unanimity into Paulvitch's hands. 
As chance would have it, Tarzan's son overheard his father
relating to the boy's mother the steps he was taking to return
Akut safely to his jungle home, and having overheard he begged
them to bring the ape home that he might have him for a
play-fellow.  Tarzan would not have been averse to this plan;
but Lady Greystoke was horrified at the very thought of it. 
Jack pleaded with his mother; but all unavailingly.  She was
obdurate, and at last the lad appeared to acquiesce in his
mother's decision that the ape must be returned to Africa and
the boy to school, from which he had been absent on vacation.

He did not attempt to visit Paulvitch's room again that day,
but instead busied himself in other ways.  He had always been
well supplied with money, so that when necessity demanded he
had no difficulty in collecting several hundred pounds.  Some of
this money he invested in various strange purchases which he
managed to smuggle into the house, undetected, when he returned
late in the afternoon.

The next morning, after giving his father time to precede him
and conclude his business with Paulvitch, the lad hastened to
the Russian's room.  Knowing nothing of the man's true character
the boy dared not take him fully into his confidence for
fear that the old fellow would not only refuse to aid him, but
would report the whole affair to his father.  Instead, he simply
asked permission to take Ajax to Dover.  He explained that it
would relieve the old man of a tiresome journey, as well as
placing a number of pounds in his pocket, for the lad purposed
paying the Russian well.

"You see," he went on, "there will be no danger of detection
since I am supposed to be leaving on an afternoon train for school. 
Instead I will come here after they have left me on board
the train.  Then I can take Ajax to Dover, you see, and arrive at
school only a day late.  No one will be the wiser, no harm will
be done, and I shall have had an extra day with Ajax before I
lose him forever."

The plan fitted perfectly with that which Paulvitch had in mind. 
Had he known what further the boy contemplated he would doubtless
have entirely abandoned his own scheme of revenge and aided the
boy whole heartedly in the consummation of the lad's, which would
have been better for Paulvitch, could he have but read the future
but a few short hours ahead.

That afternoon Lord and Lady Greystoke bid their son good-
bye and saw him safely settled in a first-class compartment of
the railway carriage that would set him down at school in a
few hours.  No sooner had they left him, however, than he
gathered his bags together, descended from the compartment and
sought a cab stand outside the station.  Here he engaged a cabby
to take him to the Russian's address.  It was dusk when he arrived. 
He found Paulvitch awaiting him.  The man was pacing the floor
nervously.  The ape was tied with a stout cord to the bed.  It was
the first time that Jack had ever seen Ajax thus secured.  He looked
questioningly at Paulvitch.  The man, mumbling, explained that he
believed the animal had guessed that he was to be sent away and he
feared he would attempt to escape.

Paulvitch carried another piece of cord in his hand.  There was
a noose in one end of it which he was continually playing with. 
He walked back and forth, up and down the room.  His pock-marked
features were working horribly as he talked silent to himself. 
The boy had never seen him thus--it made him uneasy.  At last
Paulvitch stopped on the opposite side of the room, far from the ape.

"Come here," he said to the lad.  "I will show you how to secure
the ape should he show signs of rebellion during the trip."

The lad laughed.  "It will not be necessary," he replied. 
"Ajax will do whatever I tell him to do."

The old man stamped his foot angrily.  "Come here, as I tell you,"
he repeated.  "If you do not do as I say you shall not accompany
the ape to Dover--I will take no chances upon his escaping."

Still smiling, the lad crossed the room and stood before the Russ.

"Turn around, with your back toward me," directed the latter,
"that I may show you how to bind him quickly."

The boy did as he was bid, placing his hands behind him when
Paulvitch told him to do so.  Instantly the old man slipped
the running noose over one of the lad's wrists, took a couple of
half hitches about his other wrist, and knotted the cord.

The moment that the boy was secured the attitude of the
man changed.  With an angry oath he wheeled his prisoner about,
tripped him and hurled him violently to the floor, leaping upon
his breast as he fell.  From the bed the ape growled and struggled
with his bonds.  The boy did not cry out--a trait inherited from
his savage sire whom long years in the jungle following the death
of his foster mother, Kala the great ape, had taught that there
was none to come to the succor of the fallen.

Paulvitch's fingers sought the lad's throat.  He grinned down
horribly into the face of his victim.

"Your father ruined me," he mumbled.  "This will pay him. He will
think that the ape did it.  I will tell him that the ape did it. 
That I left him alone for a few minutes, and that you sneaked
in and the ape killed you.  I will throw your body upon the bed
after I have choked the life from you, and when I bring your
father he will see the ape squatting over it," and the twisted
fiend cackled in gloating laughter.  His fingers closed upon the
boy's throat.

Behind them the growling of the maddened beast reverberated
against the walls of the little room.  The boy paled, but no other
sign of fear or panic showed upon his countenance.  He was the
son of Tarzan.  The fingers tightened their grip upon his throat.
It was with difficulty that he breathed, gaspingly.  The ape lunged
against the stout cord that held him.  Turning, he wrapped the
cord about his hands, as a man might have done, and surged
heavily backward.  The great muscles stood out beneath his
shaggy hide.  There was a rending as of splintered wood--the
cord held, but a portion of the footboard of the bed came away.

At the sound Paulvitch looked up.  His hideous face went
white with terror--the ape was free.

With a single bound the creature was upon him.  The man shrieked. 
The brute wrenched him from the body of the boy.  Great fingers
sunk into the man's flesh.  Yellow fangs gaped close to his
throat--he struggled, futilely--and when they closed, the soul
of Alexis Paulvitch passed into the keeping of the demons who
had long been awaiting it.

The boy struggled to his feet, assisted by Akut.  For two hours
under the instructions of the former the ape worked upon the
knots that secured his friend's wrists.  Finally they gave up
their secret, and the boy was free.  Then he opened one of his
bags and drew forth some garments.  His plans had been well made. 
He did not consult the beast, which did all that he directed. 
Together they slunk from the house, but no casual observer might
have noted that one of them was an ape.

Chapter 4

The killing of the friendless old Russian, Michael Sabrov,
by his great trained ape, was a matter for newspaper comment
for a few days.  Lord Greystoke read of it, and while taking
special precautions not to permit his name to become connected
with the affair, kept himself well posted as to the police search
for the anthropoid.

As was true of the general public, his chief interest in the
matter centered about the mysterious disappearance of the slayer.
Or at least this was true until he learned, several days subsequent
to the tragedy, that his son Jack had not reported at the public
school en route for which they had seen him safely ensconced
in a railway carriage.  Even then the father did not connect the
disappearance of his son with the mystery surrounding the
whereabouts of the ape.  Nor was it until a month later that
careful investigation revealed the fact that the boy had left the
train before it pulled out of the station at London, and the cab
driver had been found who had driven him to the address of the
old Russian, that Tarzan of the Apes realized that Akut had in
some way been connected with the disappearance of the boy.

Beyond the moment that the cab driver had deposited his fare
beside the curb in front of the house in which the Russian had
been quartered there was no clue.  No one had seen either the
boy or the ape from that instant--at least no one who still lived. 
The proprietor of the house identified the picture of the lad as
that of one who had been a frequent visitor in the room of the
old man.  Aside from this he knew nothing.  And there, at the
door of a grimy, old building in the slums of London, the
searchers came to a blank wall--baffled.

The day following the death of Alexis Paulvitch a youth
accompanying his invalid grandmother, boarded a steamer at Dover. 
The old lady was heavily veiled, and so weakened by age and
sickness that she had to be wheeled aboard the vessel in an
invalid chair.

The boy would permit none but himself to wheel her, and
with his own hands assisted her from the chair to the interior of
their stateroom--and that was the last that was seen of the old
lady by the ship's company until the pair disembarked.  The boy
even insisted upon doing the work of their cabin steward, since,
as he explained, his grandmother was suffering from a nervous
disposition that made the presence of strangers extremely
distasteful to her.

Outside the cabin--and none there was aboard who knew what he
did in the cabin--the lad was just as any other healthy, normal
English boy might have been.  He mingled with his fellow passengers,
became a prime favorite with the officers, and struck up numerous
friendships among the common sailors.  He was generous and
unaffected, yet carried an air of dignity and strength of
character that inspired his many new friends with admiration
as well as affection for him.

Among the passengers there was an American named Condon, a noted
blackleg and crook who was "wanted" in a half dozen of the larger
cities of the United States.  He had paid little attention to the
boy until on one occasion he had seen him accidentally display
a roll of bank notes.  From then on Condon cultivated the
youthful Briton.  He learned, easily, that the boy was traveling
alone with his invalid grandmother, and that their destination
was a small port on the west coast of Africa, a little below the
equator; that their name was Billings, and that they had no
friends in the little settlement for which they were bound. 
Upon the point of their purpose in visiting the place Condon
found the boy reticent, and so he did not push the matter--he
had learned all that he cared to know as it was.

Several times Condon attempted to draw the lad into a card
game; but his victim was not interested, and the black looks
of several of the other men passengers decided the American to
find other means of transferring the boy's bank roll to his
own pocket.

At last came the day that the steamer dropped anchor in the
lee of a wooded promontory where a score or more of sheet-
iron shacks making an unsightly blot upon the fair face of
nature proclaimed the fact that civilization had set its heel. 
Straggling upon the outskirts were the thatched huts of natives,
picturesque in their primeval savagery, harmonizing with the
background of tropical jungle and accentuating the squalid
hideousness of the white man's pioneer architecture.

The boy, leaning over the rail, was looking far beyond the
man-made town deep into the God-made jungle.  A little shiver
of anticipation tingled his spine, and then, quite without
volition, he found himself gazing into the loving eyes of his
mother and the strong face of the father which mirrored, beneath
its masculine strength, a love no less than the mother's
eyes proclaimed.  He felt himself weakening in his resolve. 
Nearby one of the ship's officers was shouting orders to a
flotilla of native boats that was approaching to lighter the
consignment of the steamer's cargo destined for this tiny post.

"When does the next steamer for England touch here?" the
boy asked.

"The Emanuel ought to be along most any time now,"
replied the officer.  "I figgered we'd find her here,"
and he went on with his bellowing remarks to the dusty
horde drawing close to the steamer's side.

The task of lowering the boy's grandmother over the side to
a waiting canoe was rather difficult.  The lad insisted on being
always at her side, and when at last she was safely ensconced in
the bottom of the craft that was to bear them shoreward her
grandson dropped catlike after her.  So interested was he in seeing
her comfortably disposed that he failed to notice the little
package that had worked from his pocket as he assisted in lowering
the sling that contained the old woman over the steamer's side,
nor did he notice it even as it slipped out entirely and dropped
into the sea.

Scarcely had the boat containing the boy and the old woman
started for the shore than Condon hailed a canoe upon the other
side of the ship, and after bargaining with its owner finally
lowered his baggage and himself aboard.  Once ashore he kept out
of sight of the two-story atrocity that bore the legend "Hotel"
to lure unsuspecting wayfarers to its multitudinous discomforts. 
It was quite dark before he ventured to enter and arrange for
accommodations.

In a back room upon the second floor the lad was explaining,
not without considerable difficulty, to his grandmother that he
had decided to return to England upon the next steamer.  He was
endeavoring to make it plain to the old lady that she might remain
in Africa if she wished but that for his part his conscience
demanded that he return to his father and mother, who doubtless
were even now suffering untold sorrow because of his absence;
from which it may be assumed that his parents had not been
acquainted with the plans that he and the old lady had made for
their adventure into African wilds.

Having come to a decision the lad felt a sense of relief from
the worry that had haunted him for many sleepless nights.  When he
closed his eyes in sleep it was to dream of a happy reunion with
those at home.  And as he dreamed, Fate, cruel and inexorable,
crept stealthily upon him through the dark corridor of the squalid
building in which he slept--Fate in the form of the American
crook, Condon.

Cautiously the man approached the door of the lad's room.
There he crouched listening until assured by the regular
breathing of those within that both slept.  Quietly he
inserted a slim, skeleton key in the lock of the door. 
With deft fingers, long accustomed to the silent manipulation
of the bars and bolts that guarded other men's property, Condon
turned the key and the knob simultaneously.  Gentle pressure
upon the door swung it slowly inward upon its hinges.  The man
entered the room, closing the door behind him.  The moon was
temporarily overcast by heavy clouds.  The interior of the
apartment was shrouded in gloom.  Condon groped his way toward
the bed.  In the far corner of the room something moved--moved
with a silent stealthiness which transcended even the trained
silence of the burglar.  Condon heard nothing.  His attention
was riveted upon the bed in which he thought to find a young
boy and his helpless, invalid grandmother.

The American sought only the bank roll.  If he could possess
himself of this without detection, well and good; but were he to
meet resistance he was prepared for that too.  The lad's clothes
lay across a chair beside the bed.  The American's fingers felt
swiftly through them--the pockets contained no roll of crisp,
new notes.  Doubtless they were beneath the pillows of the bed.
He stepped closer toward the sleeper; his hand was already half
way beneath the pillow when the thick cloud that had obscured
the moon rolled aside and the room was flooded with light. 
At the same instant the boy opened his eyes and looked straight
into those of Condon.  The man was suddenly conscious that the
boy was alone in the bed.  Then he clutched for his victim's throat. 
As the lad rose to meet him Condon heard a low growl at his back,
then he felt his wrists seized by the boy, and realized that
beneath those tapering, white fingers played muscles of steel.

He felt other hands at his throat, rough hairy hands that reached
over his shoulders from behind.  He cast a terrified glance
backward, and the hairs of his head stiffened at the sight his eyes
revealed, for grasping him from the rear was a huge, man-like ape. 
The bared fighting fangs of the anthropoid were close to his throat. 
The lad pinioned his wrists.  Neither uttered a sound.  Where was
the grandmother?  Condon's eyes swept the room in a single
all-inclusive glance.  His eyes bulged in horror at the
realization of the truth which that glance revealed.  In the power
of what creatures of hideous mystery had he placed himself!
Frantically he fought to beat off the lad that he might turn upon
the fearsome thing at his back.  Freeing one hand he struck a
savage blow at the lad's face.  His act seemed to unloose a
thousand devils in the hairy creature clinging to his throat. 
Condon heard a low and savage snarl.  It was the last thing that
the American ever heard in this life.  Then he was dragged backward
upon the floor, a heavy body fell upon him, powerful teeth fastened
themselves in his jugular, his head whirled in the sudden blackness
which rims eternity--a moment later the ape rose from his prostrate
form; but Condon did not know--he was quite dead.

The lad, horrified, sprang from the bed to lean over the body
of the man.  He knew that Akut had killed in his defense, as he
had killed Michael Sabrov; but here, in savage Africa, far from
home and friends what would they do to him and his faithful ape? 
The lad knew that the penalty of murder was death.  He even knew
that an accomplice might suffer the death penalty with the principal. 
Who was there who would plead for them?  All would be against them. 
It was little more than a half-civilized community, and the chances
were that they would drag Akut and him forth in the morning and hang
them both to the nearest tree--he had read of such things being
done in America, and Africa was worse even and wilder than the
great West of his mother's native land.  Yes, they would both be
hanged in the morning!

Was there no escape?  He thought in silence for a few moments,
and then, with an exclamation of relief, he struck his
palms together and turned toward his clothing upon the chair.
Money would do anything!  Money would save him and Akut!
He felt for the bank roll in the pocket in which he had been
accustomed to carry it.  It was not there!  Slowly at first and
at last frantically he searched through the remaining pockets of
his clothing.  Then he dropped upon his hands and knees and
examined the floor.  Lighting the lamp he moved the bed to one
side and, inch by inch, he felt over the entire floor.  Beside the
body of Condon he hesitated, but at last he nerved himself to
touch it.  Rolling it over he sought beneath it for the money. 
Nor was it there.  He guessed that Condon had entered their room
to rob; but he did not believe that the man had had time to possess
himself of the money; however, as it was nowhere else, it must
be upon the body of the dead man.  Again and again he went
over the room, only to return each time to the corpse; but no
where could he find the money.

He was half-frantic with despair.  What were they to do? 
In the morning they would be discovered and killed.  For all his
inherited size and strength he was, after all, only a little boy--
a frightened, homesick little boy--reasoning faultily from the
meager experience of childhood.  He could think of but a single
glaring fact--they had killed a fellow man, and they were among
savage strangers, thirsting for the blood of the first victim whom
fate cast into their clutches.  This much he had gleaned from
penny-dreadfuls.

And they must have money!

Again he approached the corpse.  This time resolutely.  The ape
squatted in a corner watching his young companion.  The youth
commenced to remove the American's clothing piece by piece,
and, piece by piece, he examined each garment minutely.  Even to
the shoes he searched with painstaking care, and when the last
article had been removed and scrutinized he dropped back upon
the bed with dilated eyes that saw nothing in the present--
only a grim tableau of the future in which two forms swung
silently from the limb of a great tree.

How long he sat thus he did not know; but finally he was aroused
by a noise coming from the floor below.  Springing quickly to his
feet he blew out the lamp, and crossing the floor silently locked
the door.  Then he turned toward the ape, his mind made up.

Last evening he had been determined to start for home at the
first opportunity, to beg the forgiveness of his parents for this
mad adventure.  Now he knew that he might never return to them. 
The blood of a fellow man was upon his hands--in his morbid
reflections he had long since ceased to attribute the death
of Condon to the ape.  The hysteria of panic had fastened the
guilt upon himself.  With money he might have bought justice;
but penniless!--ah, what hope could there be for strangers
without money here?

But what had become of the money?  He tried to recall when
last he had seen it.  He could not, nor, could he, would he have
been able to account for its disappearance, for he had been
entirely unconscious of the falling of the little package from his
pocket into the sea as he clambered over the ship's side into the
waiting canoe that bore him to shore.

Now he turned toward Akut.  "Come!" he said, in the language of
the great apes. 

Forgetful of the fact that he wore only a thin pajama suit he
led the way to the open window.  Thrusting his head out he
listened attentively.  A single tree grew a few feet from
the window.  Nimbly the lad sprang to its bole, clinging
cat-like for an instant before he clambered quietly to the
ground below.  Close behind him came the great ape.  Two hundred
yards away a spur of the jungle ran close to the straggling town. 
Toward this the lad led the way.  None saw them, and a moment
later the jungle swallowed them, and John Clayton, future Lord
Greystoke, passed from the eyes and the knowledge of men.

It was late the following morning that a native houseman
knocked upon the door of the room that had been assigned to
Mrs. Billings and her grandson.  Receiving no response he
inserted his pass key in the lock, only to discover that another
key was already there, but from the inside.  He reported the fact
to Herr Skopf, the proprietor, who at once made his way to the
second floor where he, too, pounded vigorously upon the door. 
Receiving no reply he bent to the key hole in an attempt to look
through into the room beyond.  In so doing, being portly, he lost
his balance, which necessitated putting a palm to the floor to
maintain his equilibrium.  As he did so he felt something soft
and thick and wet beneath his fingers.  He raised his open palm
before his eyes in the dim light of the corridor and peered at it. 
Then he gave a little shudder, for even in the semi-darkness he
saw a dark red stain upon his hand.  Leaping to his feet he hurled
his shoulder against the door.  Herr Skopf is a heavy man--or at
least he was then--I have not seen him for several years.  The frail
door collapsed beneath his weight, and Herr Skopf stumbled
precipitately into the room beyond.

Before him lay the greatest mystery of his life.  Upon the floor
at his feet was the dead body of a strange man.  The neck was
broken and the jugular severed as by the fangs of a wild beast. 
The body was entirely naked, the clothing being strewn about
the corpse.  The old lady and her grandson were gone.  The window
was open.  They must have disappeared through the window for the
door had been locked from the inside.

But how could the boy have carried his invalid grandmother
from a second story window to the ground?  It was preposterous.
Again Herr Skopf searched the small room.  He noticed that the
bed was pulled well away from the wall--why?  He looked beneath
it again for the third or fourth time.  The two were gone,
and yet his judgment told him that the old lady could not have
gone without porters to carry her down as they had carried her
up the previous day.

Further search deepened the mystery.  All the clothing of the
two was still in the room--if they had gone then they must have
gone naked or in their night clothes.  Herr Skopf shook his head;
then he scratched it.  He was baffled.  He had never heard of
Sherlock Holmes or he would have lost no time in invoking the
aid of that celebrated sleuth, for here was a real mystery: 
An old woman--an invalid who had to be carried from the ship to
her room in the hotel--and a handsome lad, her grandson, had
entered a room on the second floor of his hostelry the day before. 
They had had their evening meal served in their room--that was
the last that had been seen of them.  At nine the following morning
the corpse of a strange man had been the sole occupant of that room. 
No boat had left the harbor in the meantime--there was not a
railroad within hundreds of miles--there was no other white
settlement that the two could reach under several days of arduous
marching accompanied by a well-equipped safari.  They had
simply vanished into thin air, for the native he had sent to
inspect the ground beneath the open window had just returned
to report that there was no sign of a footstep there, and what
sort of creatures were they who could have dropped that distance
to the soft turf without leaving spoor?  Herr Skopf shuddered. 
Yes, it was a great mystery--there was something uncanny about
the whole thing--he hated to think about it, and he dreaded the
coming of night.

It was a great mystery to Herr Skopf--and, doubtless, still is.

Chapter 5

Captain Armand Jacot of the Foreign Legion sat upon an
outspread saddle blanket at the foot of a stunted palm tree.
His broad shoulders and his close-cropped head rested in
luxurious ease against the rough bole of the palm.  His long
legs were stretched straight before him overlapping the meager
blanket, his spurs buried in the sandy soil of the little
desert oasis.  The captain was taking his ease after a long
day of weary riding across the shifting sands of the desert.

Lazily he puffed upon his cigarette and watched his orderly
who was preparing his evening meal.  Captain Armand Jacot was
well satisfied with himself and the world.  A little to his right
rose the noisy activity of his troop of sun-tanned veterans,
released for the time from the irksome trammels of discipline,
relaxing tired muscles, laughing, joking, and smoking as they,
too, prepared to eat after a twelve-hour fast.  Among them, silent
and taciturn, squatted five white-robed Arabs, securely bound
and under heavy guard.

It was the sight of these that filled Captain Armand Jacot with
the pleasurable satisfaction of a duty well-performed.  For a
long, hot, gaunt month he and his little troop had scoured the
places of the desert waste in search of a band of marauders to
the sin-stained account of which were charged innumerable thefts
of camels, horses, and goats, as well as murders enough to have
sent the whole unsavory gang to the guillotine several times over.

A week before, he had come upon them.  In the ensuing battle
he had lost two of his own men, but the punishment inflicted
upon the marauders had been severe almost to extinction.  A half
dozen, perhaps, had escaped; but the balance, with the exception
of the five prisoners, had expiated their crimes before the nickel
jacketed bullets of the legionaries.  And, best of all, the ring
leader, Achmet ben Houdin, was among the prisoners.

From the prisoners Captain Jacot permitted his mind to traverse
the remaining miles of sand to the little garrison post where,
upon the morrow, he should find awaiting him with eager welcome
his wife and little daughter.  His eyes softened to the memory
of them, as they always did.  Even now he could see the beauty
of the mother reflected in the childish lines of little Jeanne's
face, and both those faces would be smiling up into his as he
swung from his tired mount late the following afternoon.
Already he could feel a soft cheek pressed close to each of
his--velvet against leather.

His reverie was broken in upon by the voice of a sentry summoning
a non-commissioned officer.  Captain Jacot raised his eyes. 
The sun had not yet set; but the shadows of the few trees
huddled about the water hole and of his men and their horses
stretched far away into the east across the now golden sand. 
The sentry was pointing in this direction, and the corporal,
through narrowed lids, was searching the distance.  Captain Jacot
rose to his feet.  He was not a man content to see through the eyes
of others.  He must see for himself.  Usually he saw things long
before others were aware that there was anything to see--a trait
that had won for him the sobriquet of Hawk.  Now he saw, just
beyond the long shadows, a dozen specks rising and falling
among the sands.  They disappeared and reappeared, but always
they grew larger.  Jacot recognized them immediately.  They were
horsemen--horsemen of the desert.  Already a sergeant was running
toward him.  The entire camp was straining its eyes into the distance. 
Jacot gave a few terse orders to the sergeant who saluted, turned
upon his heel and returned to the men.  Here he gathered a dozen
who saddled their horses, mounted and rode out to meet the strangers. 
The remaining men disposed themselves in readiness for instant action. 
It was not entirely beyond the range of possibilities that the
horsemen riding thus swiftly toward the camp might be friends of
the prisoners bent upon the release of their kinsmen by a
sudden attack.  Jacot doubted this, however, since the strangers
were evidently making no attempt to conceal their presence. 
They were galloping rapidly toward the camp in plain view
of all.  There might be treachery lurking beneath their fair
appearance; but none who knew The Hawk would be so gullible as
to hope to trap him thus.

The sergeant with his detail met the Arabs two hundred yards
from the camp.  Jacot could see him in conversation with a
tall, white-robed figure--evidently the leader of the band. 
Presently the sergeant and this Arab rode side by side toward camp. 
Jacot awaited them.  The two reined in and dismounted before him.

"Sheik Amor ben Khatour," announced the sergeant by way
of introduction.

Captain Jacot eyed the newcomer.  He was acquainted with nearly
every principal Arab within a radius of several hundred miles. 
This man he never had seen.  He was a tall, weather beaten, sour
looking man of sixty or more.  His eyes were narrow and evil. 
Captain Jacot did not relish his appearance.

"Well?" he asked, tentatively.

The Arab came directly to the point.

"Achmet ben Houdin is my sister's son," he said.  "If you
will give him into my keeping I will see that he sins no more
against the laws of the French."

Jacot shook his head.  "That cannot be," he replied.  "I must
take him back with me.  He will be properly and fairly tried by
a civil court.  If he is innocent he will be released."

"And if he is not innocent?" asked the Arab.

"He is charged with many murders.  For any one of these, if
he is proved guilty, he will have to die."

The Arab's left hand was hidden beneath his burnous.  Now he
withdrew it disclosing a large goatskin purse, bulging and
heavy with coins.  He opened the mouth of the purse and let a
handful of the contents trickle into the palm of his right hand--
all were pieces of good French gold.  From the size of the purse
and its bulging proportions Captain Jacot concluded that it must
contain a small fortune.  Sheik Amor ben Khatour dropped the
spilled gold pieces one by one back into the purse.  Jacot was
eyeing him narrowly.  They were alone.  The sergeant, having
introduced the visitor, had withdrawn to some little distance--
his back was toward them.  Now the sheik, having returned all
the gold pieces, held the bulging purse outward upon his open
palm toward Captain Jacot.

"Achmet ben Houdin, my sister's son, MIGHT escape tonight,"
he said.  "Eh?"

Captain Armand Jacot flushed to the roots of his close-cropped hair. 
Then he went very white and took a half-step toward the Arab. 
His fists were clenched.  Suddenly he thought better of whatever
impulse was moving him.

"Sergeant!" he called.  The non-commissioned officer hurried toward
him, saluting as his heels clicked together before his superior.

"Take this black dog back to his people," he ordered.  "See that
they leave at once.  Shoot the first man who comes within range
of camp tonight."

Sheik Amor ben Khatour drew himself up to his full height.
His evil eyes narrowed.  He raised the bag of gold level with the
eyes of the French officer.

"You will pay more than this for the life of Achmet ben Houdin,
my sister's son," he said.  "And as much again for the name that
you have called me and a hundred fold in sorrow in the bargain."

"Get out of here!" growled Captain Armand Jacot, "before
I kick you out."

All of this happened some three years before the opening of this tale. 
The trail of Achmet ben Houdin and his accomplices is a matter of
record--you may verify it if you care to.  He met the death he
deserved, and he met it with the stoicism of the Arab.

A month later little Jeanne Jacot, the seven-year-old daughter
of Captain Armand Jacot, mysteriously disappeared.  Neither the
wealth of her father and mother, or all the powerful resources
of the great republic were able to wrest the secret of her
whereabouts from the inscrutable desert that had swallowed her
and her abductor.

A reward of such enormous proportions was offered that many
adventurers were attracted to the hunt.  This was no case for the
modern detective of civilization, yet several of these threw
themselves into the search--the bones of some are already
bleaching beneath the African sun upon the silent sands of
the Sahara.

Two Swedes, Carl Jenssen and Sven Malbihn, after three years of
following false leads at last gave up the search far to the south
of the Sahara to turn their attention to the more profitable
business of ivory poaching.  In a great district they were already
known for their relentless cruelty and their greed for ivory. 
The natives feared and hated them.  The European governments in
whose possessions they worked had long sought them; but,
working their way slowly out of the north they had learned many
things in the no-man's-land south of the Sahara which gave them
immunity from capture through easy avenues of escape that were
unknown to those who pursued them.  Their raids were sudden
and swift.  They seized ivory and retreated into the trackless
wastes of the north before the guardians of the territory they
raped could be made aware of their presence.  Relentlessly they
slaughtered elephants themselves as well as stealing ivory from
the natives.  Their following consisted of a hundred or more
renegade Arabs and Negro slaves--a fierce, relentless band of
cut-throats.  Remember them--Carl Jenssen and Sven Malbihn,
yellow-bearded, Swedish giants--for you will meet them later.

In the heart of the jungle, hidden away upon the banks of a
small unexplored tributary of a large river that empties into the
Atlantic not so far from the equator, lay a small, heavily
palisaded village.  Twenty palm-thatched, beehive huts sheltered
its black population, while a half-dozen goat skin tents in the
center of the clearing housed the score of Arabs who found shelter
here while, by trading and raiding, they collected the cargoes which
their ships of the desert bore northward twice each year to the
market of Timbuktu.

Playing before one of the Arab tents was a little girl of ten--a
black-haired, black-eyed little girl who, with her nut-brown skin
and graceful carriage looked every inch a daughter of the desert. 
Her little fingers were busily engaged in fashioning a skirt of
grasses for a much-disheveled doll which a kindly disposed slave
had made for her a year or two before.  The head of the doll was
rudely chipped from ivory, while the body was a rat skin stuffed
with grass.  The arms and legs were bits of wood, perforated at
one end and sewn to the rat skin torso.  The doll was quite
hideous and altogether disreputable and soiled, but Meriem
thought it the most beautiful and adorable thing in the whole
world, which is not so strange in view of the fact that it was
the only object within that world upon which she might bestow
her confidence and her love.

Everyone else with whom Meriem came in contact was, almost
without exception, either indifferent to her or cruel.  There was,
for example, the old black hag who looked after her, Mabunu--
toothless, filthy and ill tempered.  She lost no opportunity
to cuff the little girl, or even inflict minor tortures upon her,
such as pinching, or, as she had twice done, searing the tender
flesh with hot coals.  And there was The Sheik, her father. 
She feared him more than she did Mabunu.  He often scolded her
for nothing, quite habitually terminating his tirades by cruelly
beating her, until her little body was black and blue.

But when she was alone she was happy, playing with Geeka, or
decking her hair with wild flowers, or making ropes of grasses. 
She was always busy and always singing--when they left her alone. 
No amount of cruelty appeared sufficient to crush the innate
happiness and sweetness from her full little heart.  Only when
The Sheik was near was she quiet and subdued.  Him she feared
with a fear that was at times almost hysterical terror. She feared
the gloomy jungle too--the cruel jungle that surrounded the little
village with chattering monkeys and screaming birds by day and the
roaring and coughing and moaning of the carnivora by night. 
Yes, she feared the jungle; but so much more did she fear The Sheik
that many times it was in her childish head to run away, out into
the terrible jungle forever rather than longer to face the ever
present terror of her father.

As she sat there this day before The Sheik's goatskin tent,
fashioning a skirt of grasses for Geeka, The Sheik appeared
suddenly approaching.  Instantly the look of happiness faded
from the child's face.  She shrunk aside in an attempt to scramble
from the path of the leathern-faced old Arab; but she was not
quick enough.  With a brutal kick the man sent her sprawling
upon her face, where she lay quite still, tearless but trembling.
Then, with an oath at her, the man passed into the tent.  The old,
black hag shook with appreciative laughter, disclosing an occasional
and lonesome yellow fang.

When she was sure The Sheik had gone, the little girl crawled
to the shady side of the tent, where she lay quite still, hugging
Geeka close to her breast, her little form racked at long intervals
with choking sobs.  She dared not cry aloud, since that would
have brought The Sheik upon her again.  The anguish in her little
heart was not alone the anguish of physical pain; but that
infinitely more pathetic anguish--of love denied a childish heart
that yearns for love.

Little Meriem could scarce recall any other existence than that
of the stern cruelty of The Sheik and Mabunu.  Dimly, in the
back of her childish memory there lurked a blurred recollection
of a gentle mother; but Meriem was not sure but that even this
was but a dream picture induced by her own desire for the caresses
she never received, but which she lavished upon the much loved Geeka. 
Never was such a spoiled child as Geeka.  Its little mother,
far from fashioning her own conduct after the example set her by
her father and nurse, went to the extreme of indulgence.  Geeka was
kissed a thousand times a day.  There was play in which Geeka was
naughty; but the little mother never punished.  Instead, she
caressed and fondled; her attitude influenced solely by her own
pathetic desire for love.

Now, as she pressed Geeka close to her, her sobs lessened
gradually, until she was able to control her voice, and pour
out her misery into the ivory ear of her only confidante.

"Geeka loves Meriem," she whispered.  "Why does The Sheik,
my father, not love me, too?  Am I so naughty?  I try to
be good; but I never know why he strikes me, so I cannot tell
what I have done which displeases him.  Just now he kicked me
and hurt me so, Geeka; but I was only sitting before the tent
making a skirt for you.  That must be wicked, or he would not
have kicked me for it.  But why is it wicked, Geeka?  Oh dear! 
I do not know, I do not know.  I wish, Geeka, that I were dead.
Yesterday the hunters brought in the body of El Adrea.
El Adrea was quite dead.  No more will he slink silently
upon his unsuspecting prey.  No more will his great head and
his maned shoulders strike terror to the hearts of the grass
eaters at the drinking ford by night.  No more will his
thundering roar shake the ground.  El Adrea is dead. 
They beat his body terribly when it was brought into the village;
but El Adrea did not mind.  He did not feel the blows, for he
was dead.  When I am dead, Geeka, neither shall I feel the blows
of Mabunu, or the kicks of The Sheik, my father.  Then shall I
be happy.  Oh, Geeka, how I wish that I were dead!"

If Geeka contemplated a remonstrance it was cut short by sounds
of altercation beyond the village gates.  Meriem listened.
With the curiosity of childhood she would have liked to have run
down there and learn what it was that caused the men to talk
so loudly.  Others of the village were already trooping in the
direction of the noise.  But Meriem did not dare.  The Sheik would
be there, doubtless, and if he saw her it would be but another
opportunity to abuse her, so Meriem lay still and listened.

Presently she heard the crowd moving up the street toward
The Sheik's tent.  Cautiously she stuck her little head around
the edge of the tent.  She could not resist the temptation,
for the sameness of the village life was monotonous, and she
craved diversion.  What she saw was two strangers--white men. 
They were alone, but as they approached she learned from the
talk of the natives that surrounded them that they possessed a
considerable following that was camped outside the village. 
They were coming to palaver with The Sheik.

The old Arab met them at the entrance to his tent.  His eyes
narrowed wickedly when they had appraised the newcomers.
They stopped before him, exchanging greetings.  They had come
to trade for ivory they said.  The Sheik grunted.  He had no ivory.
Meriem gasped.  She knew that in a near-by hut the great tusks
were piled almost to the roof.  She poked her little head further
forward to get a better view of the strangers.  How white their skins! 
How yellow their great beards!

Suddenly one of them turned his eyes in her direction.  She tried
to dodge back out of sight, for she feared all men; but he saw her. 
Meriem noticed the look of almost shocked surprise that crossed
his face.  The Sheik saw it too, and guessed the cause of it.

"I have no ivory," he repeated.  "I do not wish to trade.  Go away. 
Go now."

He stepped from his tent and almost pushed the strangers
about in the direction of the gates.  They demurred, and then
The Sheik threatened.  It would have been suicide to have
disobeyed, so the two men turned and left the village, making
their way immediately to their own camp.

The Sheik returned to his tent; but he did not enter it.  Instead he
walked to the side where little Meriem lay close to the goat skin
wall, very frightened.  The Sheik stooped and clutched her by
the arm.  Viciously he jerked her to her feet, dragged her to
the entrance of the tent, and shoved her viciously within. 
Following her he again seized her, beating her ruthlessly.

"Stay within!" he growled.  "Never let the strangers see thy face. 
Next time you show yourself to strangers I shall kill you!"

With a final vicious cuff he knocked the child into a far corner
of the tent, where she lay stifling her moans, while The Sheik
paced to and fro muttering to himself.  At the entrance sat Mabunu,
muttering and chuckling.

In the camp of the strangers one was speaking rapidly to the other.

"There is no doubt of it, Malbihn," he was saying.  "Not the
slightest; but why the old scoundrel hasn't claimed the reward
long since is what puzzles me."

"There are some things dearer to an Arab, Jenssen, than
money," returned the first speaker--"revenge is one of them."

"Anyhow it will not harm to try the power of gold," replied Jenssen.

Malbihn shrugged.

"Not on The Sheik," he said.  "We might try it on one of his
people; but The Sheik will not part with his revenge for gold. 
To offer it to him would only confirm his suspicions that we must
have awakened when we were talking to him before his tent.  If we
got away with our lives, then, we should be fortunate."

"Well, try bribery, then," assented Jenssen.

But bribery failed--grewsomely.  The tool they selected after
a stay of several days in their camp outside the village was a
tall, old headman of The Sheik's native contingent.  He fell to
the lure of the shining metal, for he had lived upon the coast
and knew the power of gold.  He promised to bring them what they
craved, late that night.

Immediately after dark the two white men commenced to make
arrangements to break camp.  By midnight all was prepared. 
The porters lay beside their loads, ready to swing them
aloft at a moment's notice.  The armed askaris loitered
between the balance of the safari and the Arab village,
ready to form a rear guard for the retreat that was to begin
the moment that the head man brought that which the white
masters awaited.

Presently there came the sound of footsteps along the path from
the village.  Instantly the askaris and the whites were on
the alert.  More than a single man was approaching.  Jenssen stepped
forward and challenged the newcomers in a low whisper.

"Who comes?" he queried.

"Mbeeda," came the reply.

Mbeeda was the name of the traitorous head man.  Jenssen was
satisfied, though he wondered why Mbeeda had brought others
with him.  Presently he understood.  The thing they fetched
lay upon a litter borne by two men.  Jenssen cursed beneath
his breath.  Could the fool be bringing them a corpse? 
They had paid for a living prize!

The bearers came to a halt before the white men.

"This has your gold purchased," said one of the two.  They set
the litter down, turned and vanished into the darkness toward
the village.  Malbihn looked at Jenssen, a crooked smile twisting
his lips.  The thing upon the litter was covered with a piece of cloth.

"Well?" queried the latter.  "Raise the covering and see what
you have bought.  Much money shall we realize on a corpse--
especially after the six months beneath the burning sun that will
be consumed in carrying it to its destination!"

"The fool should have known that we desired her alive,"
grumbled Malbihn, grasping a corner of the cloth and jerking
the cover from the thing that lay upon the litter.

At sight of what lay beneath both men stepped back--
involuntary oaths upon their lips--for there before them
lay the dead body of Mbeeda, the faithless head man.

Five minutes later the safari of Jenssen and Malbihn
was forcing its way rapidly toward the west, nervous askaris
guarding the rear from the attack they momentarily expected.

Chapter 6

His first night in the jungle was one which the son of
Tarzan held longest in his memory.  No savage carnivora
menaced him.  There was never a sign of hideous barbarian. 
Or, if there were, the boy's troubled mind took no cognizance
of them.  His conscience was harassed by the thought of his
mother's suffering.  Self-blame plunged him into the depths
of misery.  The killing of the American caused him little or
no remorse.  The fellow had earned his fate.  Jack's regret
on this score was due mainly to the effect which the death of
Condon had had upon his own plans.  Now he could not return
directly to his parents as he had planned.  Fear of the primitive,
borderland law, of which he had read highly colored, imaginary tales,
had thrust him into the jungle a fugitive.  He dared not return to
the coast at this point--not that he was so greatly influenced
through personal fear as from a desire to shield his father and
mother from further sorrow and from the shame of having their
honored name dragged through the sordid degradation of a murder trial.

With returning day the boy's spirits rose.  With the rising sun
rose new hope within his breast.  He would return to civilization
by another way.  None would guess that he had been connected
with the killing of the stranger in the little out-of-the-way
trading post upon a remote shore.

Crouched close to the great ape in the crotch of a tree the boy
had shivered through an almost sleepless night.  His light pajamas
had been but little protection from the chill dampness of
the jungle, and only that side of him which was pressed against
the warm body of his shaggy companion approximated to comfort. 
And so he welcomed the rising sun with its promise of warmth as well
as light--the blessed sun, dispeller of physical and mental ills.

He shook Akut into wakefulness.

"Come," he said.  "I am cold and hungry.  We will search for
food, out there in the sunlight," and he pointed to an open
plain, dotted with stunted trees and strewn with jagged rock.

The boy slid to the ground as he spoke, but the ape first looked
carefully about, sniffing the morning air.  Then, satisfied that
no danger lurked near, he descended slowly to the ground beside
the boy."

"Numa, and Sabor his mate, feast upon those who descend
first and look afterward, while those who look first and descend
afterward live to feast themselves."  Thus the old ape imparted
to the son of Tarzan the boy's first lesson in jungle lore.  Side by
side they set off across the rough plain, for the boy wished first
to be warm.  The ape showed him the best places to dig for
rodents and worms; but the lad only gagged at the thought of
devouring the repulsive things.  Some eggs they found, and these
he sucked raw, as also he ate roots and tubers which Akut unearthed. 
Beyond the plain and across a low bluff they came upon water--
brackish, ill-smelling stuff in a shallow water hole, the sides
and bottom of which were trampled by the feet of many beasts. 
A herd of zebra galloped away as they approached.

The lad was too thirsty by now to cavil at anything even remotely
resembling water, so he drank his fill while Akut stood with
raised head, alert for any danger.  Before the ape drank he
cautioned the boy to be watchful; but as he drank he raised his
head from time to time to cast a quick glance toward a clump
of bushes a hundred yards away upon the opposite side of the
water hole.  When he had done he rose and spoke to the boy, in
the language that was their common heritage--the tongue of the
great apes.

"There is no danger near?" he asked.

"None," replied the boy.  "I saw nothing move while you drank."

"Your eyes will help you but little in the jungle," said the ape.

"Here, if you would live, you must depend upon your ears
and your nose but most upon your nose.  When we came down
to drink I knew that no danger lurked near upon this side of the
water hole, for else the zebras would have discovered it and fled
before we came; but upon the other side toward which the wind
blows danger might lie concealed.  We could not smell it for its
scent is being blown in the other direction, and so I bent my
ears and eyes down wind where my nose cannot travel."

"And you found--nothing?" asked the lad, with a laugh.

"I found Numa crouching in that clump of bushes where the
tall grasses grow," and Akut pointed.

"A lion?" exclaimed the boy.  "How do you know?  I can see nothing."

"Numa is there, though," replied the great ape.  "First I heard
him sigh.  To you the sigh of Numa may sound no different from
the other noises which the wind makes among the grasses and
the trees; but later you must learn to know the sigh of Numa.
Then I watched and at last I saw the tall grasses moving at one
point to a force other than the force of the wind.  See, they are
spread there upon either side of Numa's great body, and as he
breathes--you see?  You see the little motion at either side that
is not caused by the wind--the motion that none of the other
grasses have?"

The boy strained his eyes--better eyes than the ordinary boy
inherits--and at last he gave a little exclamation of discovery.

"Yes," he said, "I see.  He lies there," and he pointed. 
"His head is toward us.  Is he watching us?"

"Numa is watching us," replied Akut, "but we are in little
danger, unless we approach too close, for he is lying upon
his kill.  His belly is almost full, or we should hear him
crunching the bones.  He is watching us in silence merely
from curiosity.  Presently he will resume his feeding or he
will rise and come down to the water for a drink.  As he
neither fears or desires us he will not try to hide his
presence from us; but now is an excellent time to learn to
know Numa, for you must learn to know him well if you would
live long in the jungle.  Where the great apes are many Numa
leaves us alone.  Our fangs are long and strong, and we can
fight; but when we are alone and he is hungry we are no match
for him.  Come, we will circle him and catch his scent. 
The sooner you learn to know it the better; but keep close to
the trees, as we go around him, for Numa often does that which
he is least expected to do.  And keep your ears and your eyes
and your nose open.  Remember always that there may be an enemy
behind every bush, in every tree and amongst every clump of
jungle grass.  While you are avoiding Numa do not run into the
jaws of Sabor, his mate.  Follow me," and Akut set off in a wide
circle about the water hole and the crouching lion.

The boy followed close upon his heels, his every sense upon
the alert, his nerves keyed to the highest pitch of excitement.
This was life!  For the instant he forgot his resolutions of a few
minutes past to hasten to the coast at some other point than that
at which he had landed and make his way immediately back to London. 
He thought now only of the savage joy of living, and of pitting
one's wits and prowess against the wiles and might of the savage
jungle brood which haunted the broad plains and the gloomy forest
aisles of the great, untamed continent.  He knew no fear. 
His father had had none to transmit to him; but honor and
conscience he did have and these were to trouble him many
times as they battled with his inherent love of freedom for
possession of his soul.

They had passed but a short distance to the rear of Numa when
the boy caught the unpleasant odor of the carnivore.  His face
lighted with a smile.  Something told him that he would have
known that scent among a myriad of others even if Akut had not
told him that a lion lay near.  There was a strange familiarity--
a weird familiarity in it that made the short hairs rise at the
nape of his neck, and brought his upper lip into an involuntary
snarl that bared his fighting fangs.  There was a sense of
stretching of the skin about his ears, for all the world as though
those members were flattening back against his skull in preparation
for deadly combat.  His skin tingled.  He was aglow with a
pleasurable sensation that he never before had known.  He was,
upon the instant, another creature--wary, alert, ready.  Thus did
the scent of Numa, the lion, transform the boy into a beast.

He had never seen a lion--his mother had gone to great pains
to prevent it.  But he had devoured countless pictures of them,
and now he was ravenous to feast his eyes upon the king of
beasts in the flesh.  As he trailed Akut he kept an eye cocked
over one shoulder, rearward, in the hope that Numa might rise
from his kill and reveal himself.  Thus it happened that he
dropped some little way behind Akut, and the next he knew he
was recalled suddenly to a contemplation of other matters than
the hidden Numa by a shrill scream of warning from the Ape.
Turning his eyes quickly in the direction of his companion, the
boy saw that, standing in the path directly before him, which
sent tremors of excitement racing along every nerve of his body.
With body half-merging from a clump of bushes in which she
must have lain hidden stood a sleek and beautiful lioness. 
Her yellow-green eyes were round and staring, boring straight into
the eyes of the boy.  Not ten paces separated them.  Twenty paces
behind the lioness stood the great ape, bellowing instructions to
the boy and hurling taunts at the lioness in an evident effort to
attract her attention from the lad while he gained the shelter of
a near-by tree.

But Sabor was not to be diverted.  She had her eyes upon the lad. 
He stood between her and her mate, between her and the kill. 
It was suspicious.  Probably he had ulterior designs upon her
lord and master or upon the fruits of their hunting.  A lioness
is short tempered.  Akut's bellowing annoyed her.  She uttered a
little rumbling growl, taking a step toward the boy.

"The tree!" screamed Akut.

The boy turned and fled, and at the same instant the lioness charged. 
The tree was but a few paces away.  A limb hung ten feet from the
ground, and as the boy leaped for it the lioness leaped for him. 
Like a monkey he pulled himself up and to one side.  A great
forepaw caught him a glancing blow at the hips--just grazing him. 
One curved talon hooked itself into the waist band of his pajama
trousers, ripping them from him as the lioness sped by.  Half-naked
the lad drew himself to safety as the beast turned and leaped for
him once more.

Akut, from a near-by tree, jabbered and scolded, calling the
lioness all manner of foul names.  The boy, patterning his
conduct after that of his preceptor, unstoppered the vials of his
invective upon the head of the enemy, until in realization of the
futility of words as weapons he bethought himself of something
heavier to hurl.  There was nothing but dead twigs and branches
at hand, but these he flung at the upturned, snarling face of
Sabor just as his father had before him twenty years ago, when
as a boy he too had taunted and tantalized the great cats of
the jungle.

The lioness fretted about the bole of the tree for a short time;
but finally, either realizing the uselessness of her vigil, or
prompted by the pangs of hunger, she stalked majestically away
and disappeared in the brush that hid her lord, who had not once
shown himself during the altercation.

Freed from their retreats Akut and the boy came to the ground,
to take up their interrupted journey once more.  The old ape
scolded the lad for his carelessness.

"Had you not been so intent upon the lion behind you you
might have discovered the lioness much sooner than you did,"

"But you passed right by her without seeing her," retorted
the boy.

Akut was chagrined.

"It is thus," he said, "that jungle folk die.  We go cautiously
for a lifetime, and then, just for an instant, we forget, and--"
he ground his teeth in mimicry of the crunching of great jaws
in flesh.  "It is a lesson," he resumed.  "You have learned that
you may not for too long keep your eyes and your ears and your
nose all bent in the same direction."

That night the son of Tarzan was colder than he ever had been
in all his life.  The pajama trousers had not been heavy; but they
had been much heavier than nothing.  And the next day he roasted
in the hot sun, for again their way led much across wide and
treeless plains.

It was still in the boy's mind to travel to the south, and circle
back to the coast in search of another outpost of civilization. 
He had said nothing of this plan to Akut, for he knew that the old
ape would look with displeasure upon any suggestion that savored
of separation.

For a month the two wandered on, the boy learning rapidly
the laws of the jungle; his muscles adapting themselves to the
new mode of life that had been thrust upon them.  The thews of
the sire had been transmitted to the son--it needed only the
hardening of use to develop them.  The lad found that it came
quite naturally to him to swing through the trees.  Even at great
heights he never felt the slightest dizziness, and when he had
caught the knack of the swing and the release, he could hurl
himself through space from branch to branch with even greater
agility than the heavier Akut.

And with exposure came a toughening and hardening of his
smooth, white skin, browning now beneath the sun and wind.
He had removed his pajama jacket one day to bathe in a little
stream that was too small to harbor crocodiles, and while he
and Akut had been disporting themselves in the cool waters a
monkey had dropped down from the over hanging trees, snatched
up the boy's single remaining article of civilized garmenture,
and scampered away with it.

For a time Jack was angry; but when he had been without the
jacket for a short while he began to realize that being half-
clothed is infinitely more uncomfortable than being entirely naked. 
Soon he did not miss his clothing in the least, and from that he
came to revel in the freedom of his unhampered state. 
Occasionally a smile would cross his face as he tried to imagine
the surprise of his schoolmates could they but see him now. 
They would envy him.  Yes, how they would envy him.  He felt
sorry for them at such times, and again as he thought of them
amid luxuries and comforts of their English homes, happy with
their fathers and mothers, a most uncomfortable lump would arise
into the boy's throat, and he would see a vision of his mother's
face through a blur of mist that came unbidden to his eyes. 
Then it was that he urged Akut onward, for now they were headed
westward toward the coast.  The old ape thought that they were
searching for a tribe of his own kind, nor did the boy disabuse
his mind of this belief.  It would do to tell Akut of his real
plans when they had come within sight of civilization.

One day as they were moving slowly along beside a river they
came unexpectedly upon a native village.  Some children were
playing beside the water.  The boy's heart leaped within his breast
at sight of them--for over a month he had seen no human being.
What if these were naked savages?  What if their skins were black? 
Were they not creatures fashioned in the mold of their Maker,
as was he?  They were his brothers and sisters!  He started
toward them.  With a low warning Akut laid a hand upon his
arm to hold him back.  The boy shook himself free, and with a
shout of greeting ran forward toward the ebon players.

The sound of his voice brought every head erect.  Wide eyes
viewed him for an instant, and then, with screams of terror, the
children turned and fled toward the village.  At their heels ran
their mothers, and from the village gate, in response to the
alarm, came a score of warriors, hastily snatched spears and
shields ready in their hands.

At sight of the consternation he had wrought the boy halted.
The glad smile faded from his face as with wild shouts and
menacing gestures the warriors ran toward him.  Akut was calling
to him from behind to turn and flee, telling him that the
blacks would kill him.  For a moment he stood watching them
coming, then he raised his hand with the palm toward them in
signal for them to halt, calling out at the same time that he came
as a friend--that he had only wanted to play with their children.
Of course they did not understand a word that he addressed to
them, and their answer was what any naked creature who had
run suddenly out of the jungle upon their women and children
might have expected--a shower of spears.  The missiles struck
all about the boy, but none touched him.  Again his spine tingled
and the short hairs lifted at the nape of his neck and along the
top of his scalp.  His eyes narrowed.  Sudden hatred flared in
them to wither the expression of glad friendliness that had lighted
them but an instant before.  With a low snarl, quite similar to
that of a baffled beast, he turned and ran into the jungle. 
There was Akut awaiting him in a tree.  The ape urged him to hasten
in flight, for the wise old anthropoid knew that they two, naked
and unarmed, were no match for the sinewy black warriors who would
doubtless make some sort of search for them through the jungle.

But a new power moved the son of Tarzan.  He had come with a
boy's glad and open heart to offer his friendship to these people
who were human beings like himself.  He had been met with
suspicion and spears.  They had not even listened to him. 
Rage and hatred consumed him.  When Akut urged speed he held back. 
He wanted to fight, yet his reason made it all too plain that it
would be but a foolish sacrifice of his life to meet these
armed men with his naked hands and his teeth--already the boy
thought of his teeth, of his fighting fangs, when possibility of
combat loomed close.

Moving slowly through the trees he kept his eyes over his shoulder,
though he no longer neglected the possibilities of other dangers
which might lurk on either hand or ahead--his experience with the
lioness did not need a repetition to insure the permanency of the
lesson it had taught.  Behind he could hear the savages advancing
with shouts and cries.  He lagged further behind until the pursuers
were in sight.  They did not see him, for they were not looking
among the branches of the trees for human quarry.  The lad kept
just ahead of them.  For a mile perhaps they continued the search,
and then they turned back toward the village.  Here was the boy's
opportunity, that for which he had been waiting, while the hot
blood of revenge coursed through his veins until he saw his
pursuers through a scarlet haze.

When they turned back he turned and followed them.  Akut was
no longer in sight.  Thinking that the boy followed he had
gone on further ahead.  He had no wish to tempt fate within range
of those deadly spears.  Slinking silently from tree to tree the
boy dogged the footsteps of the returning warriors.  At last one
dropped behind his fellows as they followed a narrow path toward
the village.  A grim smile lit the lad's face.  Swiftly he
hurried forward until he moved almost above the unconscious
black--stalking him as Sheeta, the panther, stalked his prey, as
the boy had seen Sheeta do on many occasions.

Suddenly and silently he leaped forward and downward upon
the broad shoulders of his prey.  In the instant of contact his
fingers sought and found the man's throat.  The weight of the
boy's body hurled the black heavily to the ground, the knees in
his back knocking the breath from him as he struck.  Then a set
of strong, white teeth fastened themselves in his neck, and muscular
fingers closed tighter upon his wind-pipe.  For a time the
warrior struggled frantically, throwing himself about in an effort
to dislodge his antagonist; but all the while he was weakening
and all the while the grim and silent thing he could not see clung
tenaciously to him, and dragged him slowly into the bush to one
side of the trail.

Hidden there at last, safe from the prying eyes of searchers,
should they miss their fellow and return for him, the lad choked
the life from the body of his victim.  At last he knew by the
sudden struggle, followed by limp relaxation, that the warrior
was dead.  Then a strange desire seized him.  His whole being
quivered and thrilled.  Involuntarily he leaped to his feet and
placed one foot upon the body of his kill.  His chest expanded.
He raised his face toward the heavens and opened his mouth to
voice a strange, weird cry that seemed screaming within him for
outward expression, but no sound passed his lips--he just stood
there for a full minute, his face turned toward the sky, his breast
heaving to the pent emotion, like an animate statue of vengeance.

The silence which marked the first great kill of the son of
Tarzan was to typify all his future kills, just as the hideous
victory cry of the bull ape had marked the kills of his mighty sire.

Chapter 7

Akut, discovering that the boy was not close behind him,
turned back to search for him.  He had gone but a short
distance in return when he was brought to a sudden and startled
halt by sight of a strange figure moving through the trees
toward him.  It was the boy, yet could it be?  In his hand was
a long spear, down his back hung an oblong shield such as the
black warriors who had attacked them had worn, and upon ankle and
arm were bands of iron and brass, while a loin cloth was twisted
about the youth's middle.  A knife was thrust through its folds.

When the boy saw the ape he hastened forward to exhibit
his trophies.  Proudly he called attention to each of his
newly won possessions.  Boastfully he recounted the details
of his exploit.

"With my bare hands and my teeth I killed him," he said.
"I would have made friends with them but they chose to be
my enemies.  And now that I have a spear I shall show Numa, too,
what it means to have me for a foe.  Only the white men and the
great apes, Akut, are our friends.  Them we shall seek, all others
must we avoid or kill.  This have I learned of the jungle."

They made a detour about the hostile village, and resumed
their journey toward the coast.  The boy took much pride in his
new weapons and ornaments.  He practiced continually with the
spear, throwing it at some object ahead hour by hour as they
traveled their loitering way, until he gained a proficiency such
as only youthful muscles may attain to speedily.  All the while
his training went on under the guidance of Akut.  No longer was
there a single jungle spoor but was an open book to the keen
eyes of the lad, and those other indefinite spoor that elude the
senses of civilized man and are only partially appreciable to his
savage cousin came to be familiar friends of the eager boy. 
He could differentiate the innumerable species of the herbivora
by scent, and he could tell, too, whether an animal was approaching
or departing merely by the waxing or waning strength of its effluvium. 
Nor did he need the evidence of his eyes to tell him whether there
were two lions or four up wind,--a hundred yards away or half a mile.

Much of this had Akut taught him, but far more was instinctive
knowledge--a species of strange intuition inherited from
his father.  He had come to love the jungle life.  The constant
battle of wits and senses against the many deadly foes that lurked
by day and by night along the pathway of the wary and the unwary
appealed to the spirit of adventure which breathes strong in the
heart of every red-blooded son of primordial Adam.  Yet, though
he loved it, he had not let his selfish desires outweigh the
sense of duty that had brought him to a realization of the
moral wrong which lay beneath the adventurous escapade that
had brought him to Africa.  His love of father and mother was
strong within him, too strong to permit unalloyed happiness
which was undoubtedly causing them days of sorrow.  And so
he held tight to his determination to find a port upon the coast
where he might communicate with them and receive funds for
his return to London.  There he felt sure that he could now
persuade his parents to let him spend at least a portion of his
time upon those African estates which from little careless remarks
dropped at home he knew his father possessed.  That would be
something, better at least than a lifetime of the cramped and
cloying restrictions of civilization.

And so he was rather contented than otherwise as he made
his way in the direction of the coast, for while he enjoyed the
liberty and the savage pleasures of the wild his conscience was at
the same time clear, for he knew that he was doing all that lay
in his power to return to his parents.  He rather looked forward,
too, to meeting white men again--creatures of his own kind--
for there had been many occasions upon which he had longed
for other companionship than that of the old ape.  The affair with
the blacks still rankled in his heart.  He had approached them in
such innocent good fellowship and with such childlike assurance
of a hospitable welcome that the reception which had been accorded
him had proved a shock to his boyish ideals.  He no longer looked
upon the black man as his brother; but rather as only another of
the innumerable foes of the bloodthirsty jungle--a beast of prey
which walked upon two feet instead of four.

But if the blacks were his enemies there were those in the
world who were not.  There were those who always would welcome
him with open arms; who would accept him as a friend and brother,
and with whom he might find sanctuary from every enemy. 
Yes, there were always white men.  Somewhere along the coast
or even in the depths of the jungle itself there were white men. 
To them he would be a welcome visitor.  They would befriend him. 
And there were also the great apes--the friends of his father
and of Akut.  How glad they would be to receive the son of
Tarzan of the Apes!  He hoped that he could come upon them before
he found a trading post upon the coast.  He wanted to be able to
tell his father that he had known his old friends of the jungle,
that he had hunted with them, that he had joined with them in
their savage life, and their fierce, primeval ceremonies--the
strange ceremonies of which Akut had tried to tell him.  It cheered
him immensely to dwell upon these happy meetings.  Often he
rehearsed the long speech which he would make to the apes, in
which he would tell them of the life of their former king since
he had left them.

At other times he would play at meeting with white men.  Then he
would enjoy their consternation at sight of a naked white boy
trapped in the war togs of a black warrior and roaming the jungle
with only a great ape as his companion.

And so the days passed, and with the traveling and the hunting
and the climbing the boy's muscles developed and his agility
increased until even phlegmatic Akut marvelled at the prowess
of his pupil.  And the boy, realizing his great strength and
revelling in it, became careless.  He strode through the jungle,
his proud head erect, defying danger.  Where Akut took to the trees
at the first scent of Numa, the lad laughed in the face of the king
of beasts and walked boldly past him.  Good fortune was with
him for a long time.  The lions he met were well-fed, perhaps,
or the very boldness of the strange creature which invaded their
domain so filled them with surprise that thoughts of attack were
banished from their minds as they stood, round-eyed, watching
his approach and his departure.  Whatever the cause, however,
the fact remains that on many occasions the boy passed within
a few paces of some great lion without arousing more than a
warning growl.

But no two lions are necessarily alike in character or temper.
They differ as greatly as do individuals of the human family.
Because ten lions act similarly under similar conditions one
cannot say that the eleventh lion will do likewise--the
chances are that he will not.  The lion is a creature of high
nervous development.  He thinks, therefore he reasons.  Having a
nervous system and brains he is the possessor of temperament,
which is affected variously by extraneous causes.  One day the
boy met the eleventh lion.  The former was walking across a small
plain upon which grew little clumps of bushes.  Akut was a few yards
to the left of the lad who was the first to discover the presence
of Numa.

"Run, Akut," called the boy, laughing.  "Numa lies hid in the
bushes to my right.  Take to the trees.  Akut!  I, the son of
Tarzan, will protect you," and the boy, laughing, kept straight
along his way which led close beside the brush in which Numa
lay concealed.

The ape shouted to him to come away, but the lad only flourished
his spear and executed an improvised war dance to show his
contempt for the king of beasts.  Closer and closer to the
dread destroyer he came, until, with a sudden, angry growl, the
lion rose from his bed not ten paces from the youth.  A huge
fellow he was, this lord of the jungle and the desert.  A shaggy
mane clothed his shoulders.  Cruel fangs armed his great jaws.
His yellow-green eyes blazed with hatred and challenge.

The boy, with his pitifully inadequate spear ready in his hand,
realized quickly that this lion was different from the others he
had met; but he had gone too far now to retreat.  The nearest
tree lay several yards to his left--the lion could be upon him
before he had covered half the distance, and that the beast
intended to charge none could doubt who looked upon him now. 
Beyond the lion was a thorn tree--only a few feet beyond him.
It was the nearest sanctuary but Numa stood between it and his prey.

The feel of the long spear shaft in his hand and the sight of
the tree beyond the lion gave the lad an idea--a preposterous
idea--a ridiculous, forlorn hope of an idea; but there was no
time now to weigh chances--there was but a single chance, and
that was the thorn tree.  If the lion charged it would be too late--
the lad must charge first, and to the astonishment of Akut and
none the less of Numa, the boy leaped swiftly toward the beast.
Just for a second was the lion motionless with surprise and in
that second Jack Clayton put to the crucial test an accomplishment
which he had practiced at school.

Straight for the savage brute he ran, his spear held butt
foremost across his body.  Akut shrieked in terror and amazement.
The lion stood with wide, round eyes awaiting the attack, ready
to rear upon his hind feet and receive this rash creature with
blows that could crush the skull of a buffalo.

Just in front of the lion the boy placed the butt of his spear
upon the ground, gave a mighty spring, and, before the bewildered
beast could guess the trick that had been played upon him,
sailed over the lion's head into the rending embrace of the thorn
tree--safe but lacerated.

Akut had never before seen a pole-vault.  Now he leaped up
and down within the safety of his own tree, screaming taunts
and boasts at the discomfited Numa, while the boy, torn and
bleeding, sought some position in his thorny retreat in which he
might find the least agony.  He had saved his life; but at
considerable cos