For several long minutes Jane Porter and William CecilClayton stood silently looking at the dead body of thebeast whose prey they had so narrowly escaped becoming.

The girl was the first to speak again after her outbreakof impulsive avowal.

"Who could it have been?" she whispered.

"God knows!" was the man's only reply.

"If it is a friend, why does he not show himself?"continued Jane. "Wouldn't it be well to call out to him,and at least thank him?"

Mechanically Clayton did her bidding, but there was no response.

Jane Porter shuddered. "The mysterious jungle," she murmured."The terrible jungle. It renders even the manifestations offriendship terrifying."

"We had best return to the shelter," said Clayton. "Youwill be at least a little safer there. I am no protectionwhatever," he added bitterly.

"Do not say that, William," she hastened to urge, acutelysorry for the wound her words had caused. "You havedone the best you could. You have been noble, and self-sacrificing, and brave. It is no fault of yours that you arenot a superman. There is only one other man I have everknown who could have done more than you. My words wereill chosen in the excitement of the reaction--I did not wishto wound you. All that I wish is that we may both understandonce and for all that I can never marry you--that such amarriage would be wicked."

"I think I understand," he replied. "Let us not speak ofit again--at least until we are back in civilization."

The next day Thuran was worse. Almost constantly he was ina state of delirium. They could do nothing to relieve him,nor was Clayton over-anxious to attempt anything. On thegirl's account he feared the Russian--in the bottomof his heart he hoped the man would die. The thoughtthat something might befall him that would leave herentirely at the mercy of this beast caused him greateranxiety than the probability that almost certain deathawaited her should she be left entirely alone upon theoutskirts of the cruel forest.

The Englishman had extracted the heavy spear from the bodyof the lion, so that when he went into the forest to huntthat morning he had a feeling of much greater security thanat any time since they had been cast upon the savage shore.The result was that he penetrated farther from the shelterthan ever before.

To escape as far as possible from the mad ravings of thefever-stricken Russian, Jane Porter had descended from theshelter to the foot of the tree--she dared not venture farther.Here, beside the crude ladder Clayton had constructed for her,she sat looking out to sea, in the always surviving hopethat a vessel might be sighted.

Her back was toward the jungle, and so she did not seethe grasses part, or the savage face that peered from between.Little, bloodshot, close-set eyes scanned her intently,roving from time to time about the open beach for indicationsof the presence of others than herself. Presently anotherhead appeared, and then another and another. The man inthe shelter commenced to rave again, and the headsdisappeared as silently and as suddenly as they had come.But soon they were thrust forth once more, as the girlgave no sign of perturbation at the continued wailingof the man above.

One by one grotesque forms emerged from the jungle tocreep stealthily upon the unsuspecting woman. A faintrustling of the grasses attracted her attention. She turned,and at the sight that confronted her staggered to herfeet with a little shriek of fear. Then they closed upon herwith a rush. Lifting her bodily in his long, gorilla-like arms,one of the creatures turned and bore her into the jungle.A filthy paw covered her mouth to stifle her screams.Added to the weeks of torture she had already undergone,the shock was more than she could withstand. Shattered nervescollapsed, and she lost consciousness.When she regained her senses she found herself in thethick of the primeval forest. It was night. A huge fire burnedbrightly in the little clearing in which she lay. About itsquatted fifty frightful men. Their heads and faces werecovered with matted hair. Their long arms rested upon the bentknees of their short, crooked legs. They were gnawing, likebeasts, upon unclean food. A pot boiled upon the edge of thefire, and out of it one of the creatures would occasionallydrag a hunk of meat with a sharpened stick.

When they discovered that their captive had regainedconsciousness, a piece of this repulsive stew was tossed to herfrom the foul hand of a nearby feaster. It rolled close to herside, but she only closed her eyes as a qualm of nauseasurged through her.

For many days they traveled through the dense forest. The girl,footsore and exhausted, was half dragged, half pushed throughthe long, hot, tedious days. Occasionally, when she wouldstumble and fall, she was cuffed and kicked by the nearestof the frightful men. Long before they reached theirjourney's end her shoes had been discarded--the solesentirely gone. Her clothes were torn to mere shreds andtatters, and through the pitiful rags her once white andtender skin showed raw and bleeding from contact with thethousand pitiless thorns and brambles through which shehad been dragged.

The last two days of the journey found her in such utterexhaustion that no amount of kicking and abuse could forceher to her poor, bleeding feet. Outraged nature had reachedthe limit of endurance, and the girl was physically powerlessto raise herself even to her knees.

As the beasts surrounded her, chattering threateningly thewhile they goaded her with their cudgels and beat and kickedher with their fists and feet, she lay with closed eyes,praying for the merciful death that she knew alone couldgive her surcease from suffering; but it did not come, andpresently the fifty frightful men realized that their victimwas no longer able to walk, and so they picked her up andcarried her the balance of the journey.

Late one afternoon she saw the ruined walls of a mightycity looming before them, but so weak and sick was shethat it inspired not the faintest shadow of interest.Wherever they were bearing her, there could be but oneend to her captivity among these fierce half brutes.

At last they passed through two great walls and cameto the ruined city within. Into a crumbling pile they boreher, and here she was surrounded by hundreds more of thesame creatures that had brought her; but among them werefemales who looked less horrible. At sight of them thefirst faint hope that she had entertained came to mitigateher misery. But it was short-lived, for the women offeredher no sympathy, though, on the other hand, neither didthey abuse her.

After she had been inspected to the entire satisfactionof the inmates of the building she was borne to a darkchamber in the vaults beneath, and here upon the bare floorshe was left, with a metal bowl of water and another of food.

For a week she saw only some of the women whose dutyit was to bring her food and water. Slowly her strength wasreturning--soon she would be in fit condition to offer asa sacrifice to The Flaming God. Fortunate indeed it was thatshe could not know the fate for which she was destined.

As Tarzan of the Apes moved slowly through the jungleafter casting the spear that saved Clayton and Jane Porterfrom the fangs of Numa, his mind was filled with all thesorrow that belongs to a freshly opened heart wound.

He was glad that he had stayed his hand in time toprevent the consummation of the thing that in the first madwave of jealous wrath he had contemplated. Only the fractionof a second had stood between Clayton and death at thehands of the ape-man. In the short moment that hadelapsed after he had recognized the girl and her companionand the relaxing of the taut muscles that held the poisonedshaft directed at the Englishman's heart, Tarzan had beenswayed by the swift and savage impulses of brute life.

He had seen the woman he craved--his woman--his mate--in the arms of another. There had been but one courseopen to him, according to the fierce jungle code that guidedhim in this other existence; but just before it had becometoo late the softer sentiments of his inherent chivalry hadrisen above the flaming fires of his passion and saved him.A thousand times he gave thanks that they had triumphedbefore his fingers had released that polished arrow.

As he contemplated his return to the Waziri the idea becamerepugnant. He did not wish to see a human being again.At least he would range alone through the jungle for a time,until the sharp edge of his sorrow had become blunted. Like hisfellow beasts, he preferred to suffer in silence and alone.

That night he slept again in the amphitheater of the apes,and for several days he hunted from there, returning at night.On the afternoon of the third day he returned early.He had lain stretched upon the soft grass of the circularclearing for but a few moments when he heard far to thesouth a familiar sound. It was the passing through thejungle of a band of great apes--he could not mistake that.For several minutes he lay listening. They were comingin the direction of the amphitheater.

Tarzan arose lazily and stretched himself. His keen earsfollowed every movement of the advancing tribe. They wereupwind, and presently he caught their scent, though he hadnot needed this added evidence to assure him that he was right.

As they came closer to the amphitheater Tarzan of the Apesmelted into the branches upon the other side of the arena.There he waited to inspect the newcomers. Nor had he longto wait.

Presently a fierce, hairy face appeared among the lowerbranches opposite him. The cruel little eyes took in theclearing at a glance, then there was a chattered reportreturned to those behind. Tarzan could hear the words.The scout was telling the other members of the tribe that thecoast was clear and that they might enter the amphitheaterin safety.

First the leader dropped lightly upon the soft carpet ofthe grassy floor, and then, one by one, nearly a hundredanthropoids followed him. There were the huge adults andseveral young. A few nursing babes clung close to theshaggy necks of their savage mothers.

Tarzan recognized many members of the tribe. It wasthe same into which he had come as a tiny babe. Many ofthe adults had been little apes during his boyhood. He hadfrolicked and played about this very jungle with themduring their brief childhood. He wondered if they wouldremember him--the memory of some apes is not overlong, andtwo years may be an eternity to them.

From the talk which he overheard he learned that theyhad come to choose a new king--their late chief had fallen ahundred feet beneath a broken limb to an untimely end.

Tarzan walked to the end of an overhanging limb inplain view of them. The quick eyes of a female caughtsight of him first. With a barking guttural she calledthe attention of the others. Several huge bulls stooderect to get a better view of the intruder. With baredfangs and bristling necks they advanced slowly toward him,with deep-throated, ominous growls.

"Karnath, I am Tarzan of the Apes," said the ape-man inthe vernacular of the tribe. "You remember me. Together weteased Numa when we were still little apes, throwing sticksand nuts at him from the safety of high branches."

The brute he had addressed stopped with a look of half-comprehending, dull wonderment upon his savage face.

"And Magor," continued Tarzan, addressing another, "do younot recall your former king--he who slew the mighty Kerchak?Look at me! Am I not the same Tarzan--mighty hunter--invinciblefighter--that you all knew for many seasons?"

The apes all crowded forward now, but more in curiositythan threatening. They muttered among themselves fora few moments.

"What do you want among us now?" asked Karnath.

"Only peace," answered the ape-man.

Again the apes conferred. At length Karnath spoke again.

"Come in peace, then, Tarzan of the Apes," he said.

And so Tarzan of the Apes dropped lightly to the turfinto the midst of the fierce and hideous horde--he hadcompleted the cycle of evolution, and had returned to be onceagain a brute among brutes.

There were no greetings such as would have taken placeamong men after a separation of two years. The majorityof the apes went on about the little activities that theadvent of the ape-man had interrupted, paying no furtherattention to him than as though he had not been gone fromthe tribe at all.

One or two young bulls who had not been old enoughto remember him sidled up on all fours to sniff at him, andone bared his fangs and growled threateningly--he wishedto put Tarzan immediately into his proper place. Had Tarzanbacked off, growling, the young bull would quite probablyhave been satisfied, but always after Tarzan's station amonghis fellow apes would have been beneath that of the bullwhich had made him step aside.

But Tarzan of the Apes did not back off. Instead, he swunghis giant palm with all the force of his mighty muscles, and,catching the young bull alongside the head, sent himsprawling across the turf. The ape was up and at him againin a second, and this time they closed with tearing fingersand rending fangs--or at least that had been the intention ofthe young bull; but scarcely had they gone down, growlingand snapping, than the ape-man's fingers found the throatof his antagonist.

Presently the young bull ceased to struggle, and lay quite still.Then Tarzan released his hold and arose--he did not wish to kill,only to teach the young ape, and others who might be watching,that Tarzan of the Apes was still master.

The lesson served its purpose--the young apes kept outof his way, as young apes should when their betters wereabout, and the old bulls made no attempt to encroach uponhis prerogatives. For several days the she-apes with youngremained suspicious of him, and when he ventured too nearrushed upon him with wide mouths and hideous roars.Then Tarzan discreetly skipped out of harm's way, forthat also is a custom among the apes--only mad bulls willattack a mother. But after a while even they becameaccustomed to him.

He hunted with them as in days gone by, and when theyfound that his superior reason guided him to the best foodsources, and that his cunning rope ensnared toothsome gamethat they seldom if ever tasted, they came again to look upto him as they had in the past after he had become their king.And so it was that before they left the amphitheater to returnto their wanderings they had once more chosen him as their leader.

The ape-man felt quite contented with his new lot. He wasnot happy--that he never could be again, but he was atleast as far from everything that might remind him of hispast misery as he could be. Long since he had given up everyintention of returning to civilization, and now he had decidedto see no more his black friends of the Waziri. He hadforesworn humanity forever. He had started life an ape--asan ape he would die.

He could not, however, erase from his memory the factthat the woman he loved was within a short journey of thestamping-ground of his tribe; nor could he banish thehaunting fear that she might be constantly in danger.That she was illy protected he had seen in the briefinstant that had witnessed Clayton's inefficiency.The more Tarzan thought of it, the more keenly hisconscience pricked him.

Finally he came to loathe himself for permitting his own selfishsorrow and jealousy to stand between Jane Porter and safety.As the days passed the thing preyed more and more uponhis mind, and he had about determined to return to thecoast and place himself on guard over Jane Porter andClayton, when news reached him that altered all his plansand sent him dashing madly toward the east in recklessdisregard of accident and death.

Before Tarzan had returned to the tribe, a certain youngbull, not being able to secure a mate from among his ownpeople, had, according to custom, fared forth through thewild jungle, like some knight-errant of old, to win a fairlady from some neighboring community.

He had but just returned with his bride, and was narrating hisadventures quickly before he should forget them. Among otherthings he told of seeing a great tribe of strange-looking apes.

"They were all hairy-faced bulls but one," he said, "andthat one was a she, lighter in color even than this stranger,"and he chucked a thumb at Tarzan.

The ape-man was all attention in an instant. He askedquestions as rapidly as the slow-witted anthropoid couldanswer them.

"Were the bulls short, with crooked legs?"

"They were."

"Did they wear the skins of Numa and Sheeta about theirloins, and carry sticks and knives?"

"They did."

"And were there many yellow rings about their arms and legs?"

"Yes."

"And the she one--was she small and slender, and very white?"

"Yes."

"Did she seem to be one of the tribe, or was she a prisoner?"

"They dragged her along--sometimes by an arm--sometimesby the long hair that grew upon her head; and always theykicked and beat her. Oh, but it was great fun to watch them."

"God!" muttered Tarzan.

"Where were they when you saw them, and which waywere they going?" continued the ape-man.

"They were beside the second water back there," and hepointed to the south. "When they passed me they were goingtoward the morning, upward along the edge of the water."

"When was this?" asked Tarzan.

"Half a moon since."

Without another word the ape-man sprang into the treesand fled like a disembodied spirit eastward in the directionof the forgotten city of Opar.