Hauptmann Fritz Schneider trudged wearily throughthe somber aisles of the dark forest. Sweat rolled downhis bullet head and stood upon his heavy jowls and bullneck. His lieutenant marched beside him while Underlieutenantvon Goss brought up the rear, following with a handful ofaskaris the tired and all but exhausted porters whom the blacksoldiers, following the example of their white officer, en-couraged with the sharp points of bayonets and the metal-shodbutts of rifles.

There were no porters within reach of Hauptmann Schnei-der so he vented his Prussian spleen upon the askaris nearestat hand, yet with greater circumspection since these men boreloaded rifles -- and the three white men were alone with themin the heart of Africa.

Ahead of the hauptmann marched half his company, be-hind him the other half -- thus were the dangers of the savagejungle minimized for the German captain. At the forefrontof the column staggered two naked savages fastened to eachother by a neck chain. These were the native guides im-pressed into the service of Kultur and upon their poor, bruisedbodies Kultur's brand was revealed in divers cruel wounds andbruises.

Thus even in darkest Africa was the light of German civili-zation commencing to reflect itself upon the undeserving na-tives just as at the same period, the fall of 1914, it was shed-ding its glorious effulgence upon benighted Belgium.

It is true that the guides had led the party astray; but thisis the way of most African guides. Nor did it matter that ig-norance rather than evil intent had been the cause of theirfailure. It was enough for Hauptmann Fritz Schneider toknow that he was lost in the African wilderness and that hehad at hand human beings less powerful than he who could bemade to suffer by torture. That he did not kill them outrightwas partially due to a faint hope that they might eventuallyprove the means of extricating him from his difficulties andpartially that so long as they lived they might still be madeto suffer.

The poor creatures, hoping that chance might lead them atlast upon the right trail, insisted that they knew the way andso led on through a dismal forest along a winding game trailtrodden deep by the feet of countless generations of the sav-age denizens of the jungle.

Here Tantor, the elephant, took his long way from dustwallow to water. Here Buto, the rhinoceros, blundered blindlyin his solitary majesty, while by night the great cats pacedsilently upon their padded feet beneath the dense canopy ofoverreaching trees toward the broad plain beyond, where theyfound their best hunting.

It was at the edge of this plain which came suddenly and unexpectedly before the eyes of the guides that their sad heartsbeat with renewed hope. Here the hauptmann drew a deepsigh of relief, for after days of hopeless wandering throughalmost impenetrable jungle the broad vista of waving grassesdotted here and there with open parklike woods and in thefar distance the winding line of green shrubbery that denoteda river appeared to the European a veritable heaven.

The Hun smiled in his relief, passed a cheery word with his lieutenant, and then scanned the broad plain with his fieldglasses. Back and forth they swept across the rolling landuntil at last they came to rest upon a point near the center ofthe landscape and close to the green-fringed contours of theriver.

"We are in luck," said Schneider to his companions. "Doyou see it?"

The lieutenant, who was also gazing through his own glasses, finally brought them to rest upon the same spot that hadheld the attention of his superior.

"Yes," he said, "an English farm. It must be Greystoke's,for there is none other in this part of British East Africa. Godis with us, Herr Captain."

"We have come upon the English schweinhund long beforehe can have learned that his country is at war with ours,"replied Schneider. "Let him be the first to feel the iron handof Germany."

"Let us hope that he is at home," said the lieutenant, "thatwe may take him with us when we report to Kraut at Nairobi.It will go well indeed with Herr Hauptmann Fritz Schneiderif he brings in the famous Tarzan of the Apes as a prisonerof war."

Schneider smiled and puffed out his chest. "You are right,my friend," he said, "it will go well with both of us; but Ishall have to travel far to catch General Kraut before hereaches Mombasa. These English pigs with their contemptiblearmy will make good time to the Indian Ocean."

It was in a better frame of mind that the small force setout across the open country toward the trim and well-keptfarm buildings of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke; but disap-pointment was to be their lot since neither Tarzan of the Apesnor his son was at home.

Lady Jane, ignorant of the fact that a state of war existedbetween Great Britain and Germany, welcomed the officersmost hospitably and gave orders through her trusted Wazirito prepare a feast for the black soldiers of the enemy.

Far to the east, Tarzan of the Apes was traveling rapidlyfrom Nairobi toward the farm. At Nairobi he had receivednews of the World War that had already started, and, antici-pating an immediate invasion of British East Africa by theGermans, was hurrying homeward to fetch his wife to a placeof greater security. With him were a score of his ebon war-riors, but far too slow for the ape-man was the progress ofthese trained and hardened woodsmen.

When necessity demanded, Tarzan of the Apes sloughedthe thin veneer of his civilization and with it the hamperingapparel that was its badge. In a moment the polished Eng-lish gentleman reverted to the naked ape man.

His mate was in danger. For the time, that single thought dominated. He did not think of her as Lady Jane Greystoke,but rather as the she he had won by the might of his steelthews, and that he must hold and protect by virtue of thesame offensive armament.

It was no member of the House of Lords who swungswiftly and grimly through the tangled forest or trod withuntiring muscles the wide stretches of open plain -- it was agreat he ape filled with a single purpose that excluded allthoughts of fatigue or danger.

Little Manu, the monkey, scolding and chattering in theupper terraces of the forest, saw him pass. Long had it beensince he had thus beheld the great Tarmangani naked andalone hurtling through the jungle. Bearded and gray wasManu, the monkey, and to his dim old eyes came the fire ofrecollection of those days when Tarzan of the Apes had ruledsupreme, Lord of the Jungle, over all the myriad life that trodthe matted vegetation between the boles of the great trees,or flew or swung or climbed in the leafy fastness upwardto the very apex of the loftiest terraces.

And Numa, the lion, lying up for the day close beside lastnight's successful kill, blinked his yellow-green eyes andtwitched his tawny tail as he caught the scent spoor of hisancient enemy.

Nor was Tarzan senseless to the presence of Numa or Manuor any of the many jungle beasts he passed in his rapid flighttowards the west. No particle had his shallow probing ofEnglish society dulled his marvelous sense faculties. His nosehad picked out the presence of Numa, the lion, even beforethe majestic king of beasts was aware of his passing.

He had heard noisy little Manu, and even the soft rustlingof the parting shrubbery where Sheeta passed before eitherof these alert animals sensed his presence.

But however keen the senses of the ape-man, howeverswift his progress through the wild country of his adoption,however mighty the muscles that bore him, he was still mortal.Time and space placed their inexorable limits upon him; norwas there another who realized this truth more keenly thanTarzan. He chafed and fretted that he could not travel withthe swiftness of thought and that the long tedious milesstretching far ahead of him must require hours and hours oftireless effort upon his part before he would swing at last fromthe final bough of the fringing forest into the open plain andin sight of his goal.

Days it took, even though he lay up at night for but a fewhours and left to chance the finding of meat directly on histrail. If Wappi, the antelope, or Horta, the boar, chanced inhis way when he was hungry, he ate, pausing but longenough to make the kill and cut himself a steak.

Then at last the long journey drew to its close and he waspassing through the last stretch of heavy forest that boundedhis estate upon the east, and then this was traversed and hestood upon the plain's edge looking out across his broadlands towards his home.

At the first glance his eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed.Even at that distance he could see that something was amiss.A thin spiral of smoke arose at the right of the bungalowwhere the barns had stood, but there were no barns therenow, and from the bungalow chimney from which smokeshould have arisen, there arose nothing.

Once again Tarzan of the Apes was speeding onward, thistime even more swiftly than before, for he was goaded nowby a nameless fear, more product of intuition than of reason.Even as the beasts, Tarzan of the Apes seemed to possess asixth sense. Long before he reached the bungalow, he hadalmost pictured the scene that finally broke upon his view.

Silent and deserted was the vine-covered cottage. Smolder-ing embers marked the site of his great barns. Gone werethe thatched huts of his sturdy retainers, empty the fields, thepastures, and corrals. Here and there vultures rose and circledabove the carcasses of men and beasts.

It was with a feeling as nearly akin to terror as he ever had experienced that the ape-man finally forced himself to enterhis home. The first sight that met his eyes set the red hazeof hate and bloodlust across his vision, for there, crucifiedagainst the wall of the living-room, was Wasimbu, giant sonof the faithful Muviro and for over a year the personal body-guard of Lady Jane.

The overturned and shattered furniture of the room, thebrown pools of dried blood upon the floor, and prints ofbloody hands on walls and woodwork evidenced somethingof the frightfulness of the battle that had been waged withinthe narrow confines of the apartment. Across the baby grandpiano lay the corpse of another black warrior, while beforethe door of Lady Jane's boudoir were the dead bodies of threemore of the faithful Greystoke servants.

The door of this room was closed. With drooping shouldersand dull eyes Tarzan stood gazing dumbly at the insensatepanel which hid from him what horrid secret he dared noteven guess.

Slowly, with leaden feet, he moved toward the door. Grop-ingly his hand reached for the knob. Thus he stood foranother long minute, and then with a sudden gesture hestraightened his giant frame, threw back his mighty shouldersand, with fearless head held high, swung back the door andstepped across the threshold into the room which held forhim the dearest memories and associations of his life. Nochange of expression crossed his grim and stern-set featuresas he strode across the room and stood beside the little couchand the inanimate form which lay face downward upon it; thestill, silent thing that had pulsed with life and youth andlove.

No tear dimmed the eye of the ape-man, but the God whomade him alone could know the thoughts that passed throughthat still half-savage brain. For a long time he stood therejust looking down upon the dead body, charred beyondrecognition, and then he stooped and lifted it in his arms.As he turned the body over and saw how horribly death hadbeen meted he plumbed, in that instant, the uttermost depthsof grief and horror and hatred.

Nor did he require the evidence of the broken Germanrifle in the outer room, or the torn and blood-stained servicecap upon the floor, to tell him who had been the perpetratorsof this horrid and useless crime.

For a moment he had hoped against hope that the black-ened corpse was not that of his mate, but when his eyes dis-covered and recognized the rings upon her fingers the lastfaint ray of hope forsook him.

In silence, in love, and in reverence he buried, in the littlerose garden that had been Jane Clayton's pride and love, thepoor, charred form and beside it the great black warriors whohad given their lives so futilely in their mistress' protection.

At one side of the house Tarzan found other newly madegraves and in these he sought final evidence of the identityof the real perpetrators of the atrocities that had been com-mitted there in his absence.

Here he disinterred the bodies of a dozen German askarisand found upon their uniforms the insignia of the companyand regiment to which they had belonged. This was enoughfor the ape-man. White officers had commanded these men,nor would it be a difficult task to discover who they were.

Returning to the rose garden, he stood among the Hun-trampled blooms and bushes above the grave of his dead --with bowed head he stood there in a last mute farewell. Asthe sun sank slowly behind the towering forests of the west,he turned slowly away upon the still-distinct trail of Haupt-mann Fritz Schneider and his blood-stained company.

His was the suffering of the dumb brute -- mute; but thoughvoiceless no less poignant. At first his vast sorrow numbedhis other faculties of thought -- his brain was overwhelmed bythe calamity to such an extent that it reacted to but a singleobjective suggestion: She is dead! She is dead! She is dead!Again and again this phrase beat monotonously upon his brain-- a dull, throbbing pain, yet mechanically his feet followedthe trail of her slayer while, subconsciously, his every sensewas upon the alert for the ever-present perils of the jungle.

Gradually the labor of his great grief brought forth another emotion so real, so tangible, that it seemed a companion walk-ing at his side. It was Hate -- and it brought to him a measureof solace and of comfort, for it was a sublime hate that en-nobled him as it has ennobled countless thousands since --hatred for Germany and Germans. It centered about theslayer of his mate, of course; but it included everything Ger-man, animate or inanimate. As the thought took firm holdupon him he paused and raising his face to Goro, the moon,cursed with upraised hand the authors of the hideous crimethat had been perpetrated in that once peaceful bungalowbehind him; and he cursed their progenitors, their progeny,and all their kind the while he took silent oath to war uponthem relentlessly until death overtook him.

There followed almost immediately a feeling of content,for, where before his future at best seemed but a void, now itwas filled with possibilities the contemplation of whichbrought him, if not happiness, at least a surcease of absolutegrief, for before him lay a great work that would occupy histime.

Stripped not only of all the outward symbols of civilization,Tarzan had also reverted morally and mentally to the statusof the savage beast he had been reared. Never had hiscivilization been more than a veneer put on for the sake ofher he loved because he thought it made her happier to seehim thus. In reality he had always held the outward evi-dences of so-called culture in deep contempt. Civilizationmeant to Tarzan of the Apes a curtailment of freedom in allits aspects -- freedom of action, freedom of thought, freedomof love, freedom of hate. Clothes he abhorred -- uncomfort-able, hideous, confining things that reminded him somehowof bonds securing him to the life he had seen the poor crea-tures of London and Paris living. Clothes were the emblemsof that hypocrisy for which civilization stood -- a pretense thatthe wearers were ashamed of what the clothes covered, of thehuman form made in the semblance of God. Tarzan knew howsilly and pathetic the lower orders of animals appeared inthe clothing of civilization, for he had seen several poorcreatures thus appareled in various traveling shows in Europe,and he knew, too, how silly and pathetic man appears in themsince the only men he had seen in the first twenty years ofhis life had been, like himself, naked savages. The ape-manhad a keen admiration for a well-muscled, well-proportionedbody, whether lion, or antelope, or man, and it had ever beenbeyond him to understand how clothes could be consideredmore beautiful than a clear, firm, healthy skin, or coat andtrousers more graceful than the gentle curves of roundedmuscles playing beneath a flexible hide.

In civilization Tarzan had found greed and selfishness andcruelty far beyond that which he had known in his familiar,savage jungle, and though civilization had given him his mateand several friends whom he loved and admired, he neverhad come to accept it as you and I who have known little ornothing else; so it was with a sense of relief that he nowdefinitely abandoned it and all that it stood for, and wentforth into the jungle once again stripped to his loin cloth andweapons.

The hunting knife of his father hung at his left hip, his bowand his quiver of arrows were slung across his shoulders,while around his chest over one shoulder and beneath theopposite arm was coiled the long grass rope without whichTarzan would have felt quite as naked as would you shouldyou be suddenly thrust upon a busy highway clad only in aunion suit. A heavy war spear which he sometimes carried inone hand and again slung by a thong about his neck so thatit hung down his back completed his armament and hisapparel. The diamond-studded locket with the pictures ofhis mother and father that he had worn always until he hadgiven it as a token of his highest devotion to Jane Claytonbefore their marriage was missing. She always had worn itsince, but it had not been upon her body when he found herslain in her boudoir, so that now his quest for vengeance in-cluded also a quest for the stolen trinket.

Toward midnight Tarzan commenced to feel the physicalstrain of his long hours of travel and to realize that evenmuscles such as his had their limitations. His pursuit of themurderers had not been characterized by excessive speed; butrather more in keeping with his mental attitude, which wasmarked by a dogged determination to require from the Ger-mans more than an eye for an eye and more than a tooth fora tooth, the element of time entering but slightly into hiscalculations.

Inwardly as well as outwardly Tarzan had reverted to beastand in the lives of beasts, time, as a measurable aspect ofduration, has no meaning. The beast is actively interestedonly in NOW, and as it is always NOW and always shall be, thereis an eternity of time for the accomplishment of objects. Theape-man, naturally, had a slightly more comprehensive realiza-tion of the limitations of time; but, like the beasts, he movedwith majestic deliberation when no emergency prompted himto swift action.

Having dedicated his life to vengeance, vengeance becamehis natural state and, therefore, no emergency, so he took histime in pursuit. That he had not rested earlier was due tothe fact that he had felt no fatigue, his mind being occupiedby thoughts of sorrow and revenge; but now he realized thathe was tired, and so he sought a jungle giant that had harboredhim upon more than a single other jungle night.

Dark clouds moving swiftly across the heavens now andagain eclipsed the bright face of Goro, the moon, and fore-warned the ape-man of impending storm. In the depth ofthe jungle the cloud shadows produced a thick blackness thatmight almost be felt -- a blackness that to you and me mighthave proven terrifying with its accompaniment of rustlingleaves and cracking twigs, and its even more suggestive inter-vals of utter silence in which the crudest of imaginationsmight have conjured crouching beasts of prey tensed for thefatal charge; but through it Tarzan passed unconcerned, yetalways alert. Now he swung lightly to the lower terracesof the overarching trees when some subtle sense warned himthat Numa lay upon a kill directly in his path, or again hesprang lightly to one side as Buto, the rhinoceros, lumberedtoward him along the narrow, deep-worn trail, for the ape-man, ready to fight upon necessity's slightest pretext, avoidedunnecessary quarrels.

When he swung himself at last into the tree he sought, themoon was obscured by a heavy cloud, and the tree tops werewaving wildly in a steadily increasing wind whose soughingdrowned the lesser noises of the jungle. Upward went Tarzantoward a sturdy crotch across which he long since had laidand secured a little platform of branches. It was very darknow, darker even than it had been before, for almost theentire sky was overcast by thick, black clouds.

Presently the man-beast paused, his sensitive nostrils dilat-ing as he sniffed the air about him. Then, with the swiftnessand agility of a cat, he leaped far outward upon a swayingbranch, sprang upward through the darkness, caught another,swung himself upon it and then to one still higher. Whatcould have so suddenly transformed his matter-of-fact ascentof the giant bole to the swift and wary action of his detouramong the branches? You or I could have seen nothing --not even the little platform that an instant before had beenjust above him and which now was immediately below -- butas he swung above it we should have heard an ominous growl;and then as the moon was momentarily uncovered, we shouldhave seen both the platform, dimly, and a dark mass that laystretched upon it -- a dark mass that presently, as our eyesbecame accustomed to the lesser darkness, would take theform of Sheeta, the panther.

In answer to the cat's growl, a low and equally ferociousgrowl rumbled upward from the ape-man's deep chest -- agrowl of warning that told the panther he was trespassingupon the other's lair; but Sheeta was in no mood to be dis-possessed. With upturned, snarling face he glared at thebrown-skinned Tarmangani above him. Very slowly theape-man moved inward along the branch until he was directlyabove the panther. In the man's hand was the hunting knifeof his long-dead father -- the weapon that had first given himhis real ascendancy over the beasts of the jungle; but he hopednot to be forced to use it, knowing as he did that more junglebattles were settled by hideous growling than by actual com-bat, the law of bluff holding quite as good in the jungle aselsewhere -- only in matters of love and food did the greatbeasts ordinarily close with fangs and talons.

Tarzan braced himself against the bole of the tree andleaned closer toward Sheeta.

"Stealer of balus!" he cried. The panther rose to a sittingposition, his bared fangs but a few feet from the ape-man'staunting face. Tarzan growled hideously and struck at thecat's face with his knife. "I am Tarzan of the Apes," heroared. "This is Tarzan's lair. Go, or I will kill you." Thoughhe spoke in the language of the great apes of the jungle, it isdoubtful that Sheeta understood the words, though he knewwell enough that the hairless ape wished to frighten him fromhis well-chosen station past which edible creatures might beexpected to wander sometime during the watches of the night.

Like lightning the cat reared and struck a vicious blow athis tormentor with great, bared talons that might well havetorn away the ape-man's face had the blow landed; but it didnot land -- Tarzan was even quicker than Sheeta. As thepanther came to all fours again upon the little platform, Tar-zan unslung his heavy spear and prodded at the snarling face,and as Sheeta warded off the blows, the two continued theirhorrid duet of blood-curdling roars and growls.

Goaded to frenzy the cat presently determined to come upafter this disturber of his peace; but when he essayed to leapto the branch that held Tarzan he found the sharp spear pointalways in his face, and each time as he dropped back he wasprodded viciously in some tender part; but at length, ragehaving conquered his better judgment, he leaped up therough bole to the very branch upon which Tarzan stood.Now the two faced each other upon even footing and Sheetasaw a quick revenge and a supper all in one. The hairlessape-thing with the tiny fangs and the puny talons would behelpless before him.

The heavy limb bent beneath the weight of the two beastsas Sheeta crept cautiously out upon it and Tarzan backedslowly away, growling. The wind had risen to the proportionsof a gale so that even the greatest giants of the forest swayed,groaning, to its force and the branch upon which the twofaced each other rose and fell like the deck of a storm-tossedship. Goro was now entirely obscured, but vivid flashes oflightning lit up the jungle at brief intervals, revealing thegrimtableau of primitive passion upon the swaying limb.

Tarzan backed away, drawing Sheeta farther from the stemof the tree and out upon the tapering branch, where his footingbecame ever more precarious. The cat, infuriated by the painof spear wounds, was overstepping the bounds of caution.Already he had reached a point where he could do little morethan maintain a secure footing, and it was this moment thatTarzan chose to charge. With a roar that mingled with thebooming thunder from above he leaped toward the panther,who could only claw futilely with one huge paw while heclung to the branch with the other; but the ape-man did notcome within that parabola of destruction. Instead he leapedabove menacing claws and snapping fangs, turning in mid-air and alighting upon Sheeta's back, and at the instant of impact his knife struck deep into the tawny side. Then Sheeta, im-pelled by pain and hate and rage and the first law of Nature, went mad. Screaming and clawing he attempted to turnupon the ape-thing clinging to his back. For an instant hetoppled upon the now wildly gyrating limb, clutched franti-cally to save himself, and then plunged downward into thedarkness with Tarzan still clinging to him. Crashing throughsplintering branches the two fell. Not for an instant did theape-man consider relinquishing his death-hold upon his ad-versary. He had entered the lists in mortal combat and trueto the primitive instincts of the wild -- the unwritten law ofthe jungle -- one or both must die before the battle ended.

Sheeta, catlike, alighted upon four out-sprawled feet, the weight of the ape-man crushing him to earth, the long knife again imbedded in his side. Once the panther struggled torise; but only to sink to earth again. Tarzan felt the giantmuscles relax beneath him. Sheeta was dead. Rising, theape-man placed a foot upon the body of his vanquished foe,raised his face toward the thundering heavens, and as thelightning flashed and the torrential rain broke upon him,screamed forth the wild victory cry of the bull ape.

Having accomplished his aim and driven the enemy fromhis lair, Tarzan gathered an armful of large fronds andclimbed to his dripping couch. Laying a few of the frondsupon the poles he lay down and covered himself against therain with the others, and despite the wailing of the wind andthe crashing of the thunder, immediately fell asleep.