As Tarzan struck the water, his first impulse was to swim clearof the ship and possible danger from her propellers. He knewwhom to thank for his present predicament, and as he lay inthe sea, just supporting himself by a gentle movement of hishands, his chief emotion was one of chagrin that he had beenso easily bested by Rokoff.

He lay thus for some time, watching the receding andrapidly diminishing lights of the steamer without it ever onceoccurring to him to call for help. He never had called forhelp in his life, and so it is not strange that he did not thinkof it now. Always had he depended upon his own prowessand resourcefulness, nor had there ever been since the daysof Kala any to answer an appeal for succor. When it didoccur to him it was too late.

There was, thought Tarzan, a possible one chance in ahundred thousand that he might be picked up, and an evensmaller chance that he would reach land, so he determinedthat to combine what slight chances there were, he wouldswim slowly in the direction of the coast--the ship mighthave been closer in than he had known.

His strokes were long and easy--it would be many hoursbefore those giant muscles would commence to feel fatigue.As he swam, guided toward the east by the stars, he noticedthat he felt the weight of his shoes, and so he removed them.His trousers went next, and he would have removed his coatat the same time but for the precious papers in its pocket.To assure himself that he still had them he slipped hishand in to feel, but to his consternation they were gone.

Now he knew that something more than revenge hadprompted Rokoff to pitch him overboard--the Russian hadmanaged to obtain possession of the papers Tarzan hadwrested from him at Bou Saada. The ape-man swore softly,and let his coat and shirt sink into the Atlantic. Before manyhours he had divested himself of his remaining garments,and was swimming easily and unencumbered toward the east.

The first faint evidence of dawn was paling the stars aheadof him when the dim outlines of a low-lying black massloomed up directly in his track. A few strong strokes broughthim to its side--it was the bottom of a wave-washed derelict.Tarzan clambered upon it--he would rest there until daylightat least. He had no intention to remain there inactive--a preyto hunger and thirst. If he must die he preferred dying inaction while making some semblance of an attempt to save himself.

The sea was quiet, so that the wreck had only a gentlyundulating motion, that was nothing to the swimmer whohad had no sleep for twenty hours. Tarzan of the Apescurled up upon the slimy timbers, and was soon asleep.

The heat of the sun awoke him early in the forenoon.His first conscious sensation was of thirst, which grewalmost to the proportions of suffering with full returningconsciousness; but a moment later it was forgotten in thejoy of two almost simultaneous discoveries. The first wasa mass of wreckage floating beside the derelict in the midstof which, bottom up, rose and fell an overturned lifeboat;the other was the faint, dim line of a far-distant shoreshowing on the horizon in the east.

Tarzan dove into the water, and swam around the wreckto the lifeboat. The cool ocean refreshed him almost asmuch as would a draft of water, so that it was with renewedvigor that he brought the smaller boat alongside the derelict,and, after many herculean efforts, succeeded in dragging itonto the slimy ship's bottom. There he righted and examinedit--the boat was quite sound, and a moment later floated uprightalongside the wreck. Then Tarzan selected several piecesof wreckage that might answer him as paddles, and presentlywas making good headway toward the far-off shore.

It was late in the afternoon by the time he came closeenough to distinguish objects on land, or to make out thecontour of the shore line. Before him lay what appeared tobe the entrance to a little, landlocked harbor. The woodedpoint to the north was strangely familiar. Could it bepossible that fate had thrown him up at the very thresholdof his own beloved jungle! But as the bow of his boatentered the mouth of the harbor the last shred of doubt wascleared away, for there before him upon the farther shore,under the shadows of his primeval forest, stood his owncabin--built before his birth by the hand of his long-deadfather, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.

With long sweeps of his giant muscles Tarzan sent the littlecraft speeding toward the beach. Its prow had scarcelytouched when the ape-man leaped to shore--his heart beatfast in joy and exultation as each long-familiar object camebeneath his roving eyes--the cabin, the beach, the littlebrook, the dense jungle, the black, impenetrable forest.The myriad birds in their brilliant plumage--the gorgeoustropical blooms upon the festooned creepers falling in greatloops from the giant trees.

Tarzan of the Apes had come into his own again, and thatall the world might know it he threw back his young head,and gave voice to the fierce, wild challenge of his tribe.For a moment silence reigned upon the jungle, and then,low and weird, came an answering challenge--it was thedeep roar of Numa, the lion; and from a great distance,faintly, the fearsome answering bellow of a bull ape.

Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst.Then he approached his cabin. The door was still closedand latched as he and D'Arnot had left it. He raised thelatch and entered. Nothing had been disturbed; there werethe table, the bed, and the little crib built by hisfather--the shelves and cupboards just as they had stoodfor ever twenty-three years--just as he had left themnearly two years before.

His eyes satisfied, Tarzan's stomach began to call aloud forattention--the pangs of hunger suggested a search for food.There was nothing in the cabin, nor had he any weapons;but upon a wall hung one of his old grass ropes. It hadbeen many times broken and spliced, so that he had discardedit for a better one long before. Tarzan wished that he had a knife.Well, unless he was mistaken he should have that and a spear andbows and arrows before another sun had set--the rope would takecare of that, and in the meantime it must be made to procurefood for him. He coiled it carefully, and, throwing it abouthis shoulder, went out, closing the door behind him.

Close to the cabin the jungle commenced, and into itTarzan of the Apes plunged, wary and noiseless--once morea savage beast hunting its food. For a time he kept to theground, but finally, discovering no spoor indicative ofnearby meat, he took to the trees. With the first dizzy swingfrom tree to tree all the old joy of living swept over him.Vain regrets and dull heartache were forgotten. Now was he living.Now, indeed, was the true happiness of perfect freedom his.Who would go back to the stifling, wicked cities of civilizedman when the mighty reaches of the great jungle offered peaceand liberty? Not he.

While it was yet light Tarzan came to a drinking place bythe side of a jungle river. There was a ford there, and forcountless ages the beasts of the forest had come down todrink at this spot. Here of a night might always be foundeither Sabor or Numa crouching in the dense foliage of thesurrounding jungle awaiting an antelope or a water buck fortheir meal. Here came Horta, the boar, to water, and herecame Tarzan of the Apes to make a kill, for he was very empty.

On a low branch he squatted above the trail. For an hourhe waited. It was growing dark. A little to one side of theford in the densest thicket he heard the faint sound of paddedfeet, and the brushing of a huge body against tall grassesand tangled creepers. None other than Tarzan might haveheard it, but the ape-man heard and translated--it was Numa,the lion, on the same errand as himself. Tarzan smiled.

Presently he heard an animal approaching warily alongthe trail toward the drinking place. A moment more and itcame in view--it was Horta, the boar. Here was deliciousmeat--and Tarzan's mouth watered. The grasses where Numalay were very still now--ominously still. Horta passedbeneath Tarzan--a few more steps and he would be within theradius of Numa's spring. Tarzan could imagine how oldNuma's eyes were shining--how he was already suckingin his breath for the awful roar which would freeze his preyfor the brief instant between the moment of the spring andthe sinking of terrible fangs into splintering bones.

But as Numa gathered himself, a slender rope flew throughthe air from the low branches of a near-by tree. A noosesettled about Horta's neck. There was a frightened grunt,a squeal, and then Numa saw his quarry dragged backwardup the trail, and, as he sprang, Horta, the boar, soaredupward beyond his clutches into the tree above, and a mockingface looked down and laughed into his own.

Then indeed did Numa roar. Angry, threatening, hungry,he paced back and forth beneath the taunting ape-man.Now he stopped, and, rising on his hind legs against the stemof the tree that held his enemy, sharpened his huge claws uponthe bark, tearing out great pieces that laid bare the whitewood beneath.

And in the meantime Tarzan had dragged the strugglingHorta to the limb beside him. Sinewy fingers completed thework the choking noose had commenced. The ape-man hadno knife, but nature had equipped him with the means oftearing his food from the quivering flank of his prey, andgleaming teeth sank into the succulent flesh while the raginglion looked on from below as another enjoyed the dinnerthat he had thought already his.

It was quite dark by the time Tarzan had gorged himself.Ah, but it had been delicious! Never had he quite accustomedhimself to the ruined flesh that civilized men had servedhim, and in the bottom of his savage heart there hadconstantly been the craving for the warm meat of thefresh kill, and the rich, red blood.

He wiped his bloody hands upon a bunch of leaves,slung the remains of his kill across his shoulder, and swungoff through the middle terrace of the forest toward his cabin,and at the same instant Jane Porter and William CecilClayton arose from a sumptuous dinner upon the LADYALICE, thousands of miles to the east, in the Indian Ocean.

Beneath Tarzan walked Numa, the lion, and when the ape-mandeigned to glance downward he caught occasional glimpsesof the baleful green eyes following through the darkness.Numa did not roar now--instead, he moved stealthily,like the shadow of a great cat; but yet he took no stepthat did not reach the sensitive ears of the ape-man.

Tarzan wondered if he would stalk him to his cabin door.He hoped not, for that would mean a night's sleep curled inthe crotch of a tree, and he much preferred the bed ofgrasses within his own abode. But he knew just the treeand the most comfortable crotch, if necessity demanded thathe sleep out. A hundred times in the past some great junglecat had followed him home, and compelled him to seek shelterin this same tree, until another mood or the rising sun hadsent his enemy away.

But presently Numa gave up the chase and, with a seriesof blood-curdling moans and roars, turned angrily back insearch of another and an easier dinner. So Tarzan came to hiscabin unattended, and a few moments later was curled up inthe mildewed remnants of what had once been a bed of grasses.Thus easily did Monsieur Jean C. Tarzan slough the thin skinof his artificial civilization, and sink happy and contentedinto the deep sleep of the wild beast that has fed to repletion.Yet a woman's "yes" would have bound him to that other lifeforever, and made the thought of this savage existence repulsive.

Tarzan slept late into the following forenoon, for he hadbeen very tired from the labors and exertion of the longnight and day upon the ocean, and the jungle jaunt that hadbrought into play muscles that he had scarce used for nearlytwo years. When he awoke he ran to the brook first to drink.Then he took a plunge into the sea, swimming about fora quarter of an hour. Afterward he returned to his cabin,and breakfasted off the flesh of Horta. This done, he buriedthe balance of the carcass in the soft earth outside the cabin,for his evening meal.

Once more he took his rope and vanished into the jungle.This time he hunted nobler quarry--man; although had youasked him his own opinion he could have named a dozenother denizens of the jungle which he considered far thesuperiors in nobility of the men he hunted. Today Tarzanwas in quest of weapons. He wondered if the women andchildren had remained in Mbonga's village after the punitiveexpedition from the French cruiser had massacred all thewarriors in revenge for D'Arnot's supposed death. He hopedthat he should find warriors there, for he knew not howlong a quest he should have to make were the village deserted.

The ape-man traveled swiftly through the forest, and aboutnoon came to the site of the village, but to his disappointmentfound that the jungle had overgrown the plantain fieldsand that the thatched huts had fallen in decay. There was nosign of man. He clambered about among the ruins for halfan hour, hoping that he might discover some forgottenweapon, but his search was without fruit, and so he took uphis quest once more, following up the stream, which flowedfrom a southeasterly direction. He knew that near freshwater he would be most likely to find another settlement.

As he traveled he hunted as he had hunted with his apepeople in the past, as Kala had taught him to hunt, turningover rotted logs to find some toothsome vermin, running highinto the trees to rob a bird's nest, or pouncing upon a tinyrodent with the quickness of a cat. There were other thingsthat he ate, too, but the less detailed the account of an ape'sdiet, the better--and Tarzan was again an ape, the same fierce,brutal anthropoid that Kala had taught him to be, and thathe had been for the first twenty years of his life.

Occasionally he smiled as he recalled some friend whomight even at the moment be sitting placid and immaculatewithin the precincts of his select Parisian club--just as Tarzanhad sat but a few months before; and then he would stop,as though turned suddenly to stone as the gentle breezecarried to his trained nostrils the scent of some new prey ora formidable enemy.

That night he slept far inland from his cabin, securelywedged into the crotch of a giant tree, swaying a hundredfeet above the ground. He had eaten heartily again--thistime from the flesh of Bara, the deer, who had fallen prey tohis quick noose.

Early the next morning he resumed his journey, alwaysfollowing the course of the stream. For three days hecontinued his quest, until he had come to a part of thejungle in which he never before had been. Occasionally uponthe higher ground the forest was much thinner, and in the fardistance through the trees he could see ranges of mightymountains, with wide plains in the foreground. Here, in theopen spaces, were new game--countless antelope and vastherds of zebra. Tarzan was entranced--he would make a longvisit to this new world.

On the morning of the fourth day his nostrils were suddenlysurprised by a faint new scent. It was the scent of man,but yet a long way off. The ape-man thrilled with pleasure.Every sense was on the alert as with crafty stealth hemoved quickly through the trees, up-wind, in the directionof his prey. Presently he came upon it--a lone warriortreading softly through the jungle.

Tarzan followed close above his quarry, waiting for aclearer space in which to hurl his rope. As he stalkedthe unconscious man, new thoughts presented themselves tothe ape-man--thoughts born of the refining influences ofcivilization, and of its cruelties. It came to him thatseldom if ever did civilized man kill a fellow being withoutsome pretext, however slight. It was true that Tarzan wishedthis man's weapons and ornaments, but was it necessary to takehis life to obtain them?

The longer he thought about it, the more repugnant becamethe thought of taking human life needlessly; and thusit happened that while he was trying to decide just whatto do, they had come to a little clearing, at the far side ofwhich lay a palisaded village of beehive huts.

As the warrior emerged from the forest, Tarzan caught afleeting glimpse of a tawny hide worming its way through thematted jungle grasses in his wake--it was Numa, the lion.He, too, was stalking the black man. With the instant thatTarzan realized the native's danger his attitude toward hiserstwhile prey altered completely--now he was a fellow manthreatened by a common enemy.

Numa was about to charge--there was little time in whichto compare various methods or weigh the probable resultsof any. And then a number of things happened, almostsimultaneously--the lion sprang from his ambush toward theretreating black--Tarzan cried out in warning--and the blackturned just in time to see Numa halted in mid-flight by aslender strand of grass rope, the noosed end of whichhad fallen cleanly about his neck.

The ape-man had acted so quickly that he had beenunable to prepare himself to withstand the strain and shockof Numa's great weight upon the rope, and so it was thatthough the rope stopped the beast before his mighty talonscould fasten themselves in the flesh of the black, the strainoverbalanced Tarzan, who came tumbling to the ground notsix paces from the infuriated animal. Like lightning Numaturned upon this new enemy, and, defenseless as he was,Tarzan of the Apes was nearer to death that instant than heever before had been. It was the black who saved him.The warrior realized in an instant that he owed his lifeto this strange white man, and he also saw that only a miraclecould save his preserver from those fierce yellow fangs thathad been so near to his own flesh.

With the quickness of thought his spear arm flew back,and then shot forward with all the force of the sinewymuscles that rolled beneath the shimmering ebon hide.True to its mark the iron-shod weapon flew, transfixingNuma's sleek carcass from the right groin to beneath theleft shoulder. With a hideous scream of rage and pain thebrute turned again upon the black. A dozen paces he hadgone when Tarzan's rope brought him to a stand once more--then he wheeled again upon the ape-man, only to feel thepainful prick of a barbed arrow as it sank half its lengthin his quivering flesh. Again he stopped, and by this timeTarzan had run twice around the stem of a great tree withhis rope, and made the end fast.

The black saw the trick, and grinned, but Tarzan knewthat Numa must be quickly finished before those mightyteeth had found and parted the slender cord that held him.It was a matter of but an instant to reach the black's sideand drag his long knife from its scabbard. Then he signedthe warrior to continue to shoot arrows into the great beastwhile he attempted to close in upon him with the knife; soas one tantalized upon one side, the other sneaked cautiouslyin upon the other. Numa was furious. He raised his voicein a perfect frenzy of shrieks, growls, and hideous moans,the while he reared upon his hind legs in futile attemptto reach first one and then the other of his tormentors.

But at length the agile ape-man saw his chance, and rushedin upon the beast's left side behind the mighty shoulder.A giant arm encircled the tawny throat, and a long blade sankonce, true as a die, into the fierce heart. Then Tarzan arose,and the black man and the white looked into each other's eyesacross the body of their kill--and the black made the sign ofpeace and friendship, and Tarzan of the Apes answered in kind.