WHEN TARZAN OF the Apes was still but a boy he had learned,among other things, to fashion pliant ropes of fibrousjungle grass. Strong and tough were the ropes of Tarzan,the little Tarmangani. Tublat, his foster father,would have told you this much and more. Had you temptedhim with a handful of fat caterpillars he even might havesufficiently unbended to narrate to you a few storiesof the many indignities which Tarzan had heaped uponhim by means of his hated rope; but then Tublat alwaysworked himself into such a frightful rage when he devotedany considerable thought either to the rope or to Tarzan,that it might not have proved comfortable for you to haveremained close enough to him to hear what he had to say.

So often had that snakelike noose settled unexpectedly overTublat's head, so often had he been jerked ridiculouslyand painfully from his feet when he was least lookingfor such an occurrence, that there is little wonder hefound scant space in his savage heart for love of hiswhite-skinned foster child, or the inventions thereof. There had been other times, too, when Tublat had swunghelplessly in midair, the noose tightening about his neck,death staring him in the face, and little Tarzan dancing upona near-by limb, taunting him and making unseemly grimaces.

Then there had been another occasion in which the ropehad figured prominently--an occasion, and the onlyone connected with the rope, which Tublat recalledwith pleasure. Tarzan, as active in brain as he wasin body, was always inventing new ways in which to play. It was through the medium of play that he learned muchduring his childhood. This day he learned something,and that he did not lose his life in the learning of it,was a matter of great surprise to Tarzan, and the flyin the ointment, to Tublat.

The man-child had, in throwing his noose at a playmatein a tree above him, caught a projecting branch instead. When he tried to shake it loose it but drew the tighter. Then Tarzan started to climb the rope to remove itfrom the branch. When he was part way up a frolicsomeplaymate seized that part of the rope which lay uponthe ground and ran off with it as far as he could go. When Tarzan screamed at him to desist, the young apereleased the rope a little and then drew it tight again. The result was to impart a swinging motion to Tarzan'sbody which the ape-boy suddenly realized was a new andpleasurable form of play. He urged the ape to continueuntil Tarzan was swinging to and fro as far as the shortlength of rope would permit, but the distance was notgreat enough, and, too, he was not far enough above theground to give the necessary thrills which add so greatlyto the pastimes of the young.

So he clambered to the branch where the noose was caughtand after removing it carried the rope far aloft and out upona long and powerful branch. Here he again made it fast,and taking the loose end in his hand, clambered quicklydown among the branches as far as the rope would permithim to go; then he swung out upon the end of it,his lithe, young body turning and twisting--a human bobupon a pendulum of grass--thirty feet above the ground.

Ah, how delectable! This was indeed a new play of thefirst magnitude. Tarzan was entranced. Soon he discoveredthat by wriggling his body in just the right way at theproper time he could diminish or accelerate his oscillation,and, being a boy, he chose, naturally, to accelerate. Presently he was swinging far and wide, while below him,the apes of the tribe of Kerchak looked on in mild amaze.

Had it been you or I swinging there at the end of thatgrass rope, the thing which presently happened wouldnot have happened, for we could not have hung on so longas to have made it possible; but Tarzan was quite as muchat home swinging by his hands as he was standing uponhis feet, or, at least, almost. At any rate he felt nofatigue long after the time that an ordinary mortal wouldhave been numb with the strain of the physical exertion. And this was his undoing.

Tublat was watching him as were others of the tribe. Of all the creatures of the wild, there was none Tublatso cordially hated as he did this hideous, hairless,white-skinned, caricature of an ape. But for Tarzan'snimbleness,and the zealous watchfulness of savage Kala's mother love,Tublat would long since have rid himself of this stain uponhis family escutcheon. So long had it been since Tarzanbecame a member of the tribe, that Tublat had forgottenthe circumstances surrounding the entrance of the junglewaif into his family, with the result that he now imaginedthat Tarzan was his own offspring, adding greatly to his chagrin.

Wide and far swung Tarzan of the Apes, until at last,as he reached the highest point of the arc the rope,which rapidly had frayed on the rough bark of the tree limb,parted suddenly. The watching apes saw the smooth,brown body shoot outward, and down, plummet-like. Tublatleaped high in the air, emitting what in a human beingwould have been an exclamation of delight. This wouldbe the end of Tarzan and most of Tublat's troubles. From now on he could lead his life in peace and security.

Tarzan fell quite forty feet, alighting on his back in a thickbush. Kala was the first to reach his side--ferocious, hideous,loving Kala. She had seen the life crushed from her ownbalu in just such a fall years before. Was she to losethis one too in the same way? Tarzan was lying quitestill when she found him, embedded deeply in the bush. It took Kala several minutes to disentangle him and draghim forth; but he was not killed. He was not evenbadly injured. The bush had broken the force of the fall. A cut upon the back of his head showed where he had struckthe tough stem of the shrub and explained his unconsciousness.

In a few minutes he was as active as ever. Tublat was furious. In his rage he snapped at a fellow-ape without firstdiscovering the identity of his victim, and was badly mauledfor his ill temper, having chosen to vent his spite upona husky and belligerent young bull in the full prime of hisvigor.

But Tarzan had learned something new. He had learned thatcontinued friction would wear through the strands of his rope,though it was many years before this knowledge did morefor him than merely to keep him from swinging too longat a time, or too far above the ground at the end of his rope.

The day came, however, when the very thing that had onceall but killed him proved the means of saving his life.

He was no longer a child, but a mighty jungle male. There was none now to watch over him, solicitously, nor didhe need such. Kala was dead. Dead, too, was Tublat,and though with Kala passed the one creature that everreally had loved him, there were still many who hatedhim after Tublat departed unto the arms of his fathers. It was not that he was more cruel or more savage than theythat they hated him, for though he was both cruel and savageas were the beasts, his fellows, yet too was he often tender,which they never were. No, the thing which brought Tarzanmost into disrepute with those who did not like him,was the possession and practice of a characteristicwhich they had not and could not understand-- the humansense of humor. In Tarzan it was a trifle broad, perhaps,manifesting itself in rough and painful practical jokesupon his friends and cruel baiting of his enemies.

But to neither of these did he owe the enmity of Bukawai,the witch-doctor, who dwelt in the cave between the twohills far to the north of the village of Mbonga, the chief. Bukawai was jealous of Tarzan, and Bukawai it was who camenear proving the undoing of the ape-man. For months Bukawaihad nursed his hatred while revenge seemed remote indeed,since Tarzan of the Apes frequented another partof the jungle, miles away from the lair of Bukawai. Only once had the black witch-doctor seen the devil-god,as he was most often called among the blacks, and uponthat occasion Tarzan had robbed him of a fat fee,at the same time putting the lie in the mouth of Bukawai,and making his medicine seem poor medicine. All thisBukawai never could forgive, though it seemed unlikelythat the opportunity would come to be revenged.

Yet it did come, and quite unexpectedly. Tarzan was huntingfar to the north. He had wandered away from the tribe,as he did more and more often as he approached maturity,to hunt alone for a few days. As a child he had enjoyedromping and playing with the young apes, his companions;but now these play-fellows of his had grown to surly,lowering bulls, or to touchy, suspicious mothers,jealously guarding helpless balus. So Tarzan found in hisown man-mind a greater and a truer companionship than anyor all of the apes of Kerchak could afford him.

This day, as Tarzan hunted, the sky slowly became overcast. Torn clouds, whipped to ragged streamers, fled low abovethe tree tops. They reminded Tarzan of frightened antelopefleeing the charge of a hungry lion. But though the lightclouds raced so swiftly, the jungle was motionless. Not a leaf quivered and the silence was a great,dead weight-- insupportable. Even the insects seemedstilled by apprehension of some frightful thing impending,and the larger things were soundless. Such a forest,such a jungle might have stood there in the beginningof that unthinkably far-gone age before God peopled theworld with life, when there were no sounds because therewere no ears to hear.

And over all lay a sickly, pallid ocher light throughwhich the scourged clouds raced. Tarzan had seen allthese conditions many times before, yet he never couldescape a strange feeling at each recurrence of them. He knew no fear, but in the face of Nature's manifestationsof her cruel, immeasurable powers, he felt very small--verysmall and very lonely.

Now he heard a low moaning, far away. "The lions seektheir prey," he murmured to himself, looking up once againat the swift-flying clouds. The moaning rose to a greatvolume of sound. "They come!" said Tarzan of the Apes,and sought the shelter of a thickly foliaged tree. Quite suddenly the trees bent their tops simultaneouslyas though God had stretched a hand from the heavens andpressed His flat palm down upon the world. "They pass!"whispered Tarzan. "The lions pass." Then came a vividflash of lightning, followed by deafening thunder. "The lions have sprung," cried Tarzan, "and now they roarabove the bodies of their kills."

The trees were waving wildly in all directions now,a perfectly demoniacal wind threshed the jungle pitilessly. In the midst of it the rain came--not as it comes upon usof the northlands, but in a sudden, choking, blinding deluge. "The blood of the kill," thought Tarzan, huddling himselfcloser to the bole of the great tree beneath which he stood.

He was close to the edge of the jungle, and at a littledistance he had seen two hills before the storm broke;but now he could see nothing. It amused him to look outinto the beating rain, searching for the two hills andimagining that the torrents from above had washed them away,yet he knew that presently the rain would cease, the suncome out again and all be as it was before, except wherea few branches had fallen and here and there some oldand rotted patriarch had crashed back to enrich the soilupon which he had fatted for, maybe, centuries. All abouthim branches and leaves filled the air or fell to earth,torn away by the strength of the tornado and the weightof the water upon them. A gaunt corpse toppled and fella few yards away; but Tarzan was protected from all thesedangers by the wide-spreading branches of the sturdy younggiant beneath which his jungle craft had guided him. Here there was but a single danger, and that a remote one. Yet it came. Without warning the tree above him was rivenby lightning, and when the rain ceased and the sun cameout Tarzan lay stretched as he had fallen, upon his faceamidst the wreckage of the jungle giant that should haveshielded him.

Bukawai came to the entrance of his cave after the rainand the storm had passed and looked out upon the scene. From his one eye Bukawai could see; but had he hada dozen eyes he could have found no beauty in the freshsweetness of the revivified jungle, for to such things,in the chemistry of temperament, his brain failedto react; nor, even had he had a nose, which he had notfor years, could he have found enjoyment or sweetnessin the clean-washed air.

At either side of the leper stood his sole andconstant companions, the two hyenas, sniffing the air. Presently one of them uttered a low growl and with flattenedhead started, sneaking and wary, toward the jungle. The other followed. Bukawai, his curiosity aroused,trailed after them, in his hand a heavy knob-stick.

The hyenas halted a few yards from the prostrate Tarzan,sniffing and growling. Then came Bukawai, and at first hecould not believe the witness of his own eyes; but when hedid and saw that it was indeed the devil-god his rage knewno bounds, for he thought him dead and himself cheatedof the revenge he had so long dreamed upon.

The hyenas approached the ape-man with bared fangs. Bukawai, with an inarticulate scream, rushed upon them,striking cruel and heavy blows with his knob-stick, forthere might still be life in the apparently lifeless form. The beasts, snapping and snarling, half turned upontheir master and their tormentor, but long fear stillheld them from his putrid throat. They slunk away a fewyards and squatted upon their haunches, hatred and baffledhunger gleaming from their savage eyes.

Bukawai stooped and placed his ear above the ape-man's heart. It still beat. As well as his sloughed features couldregister pleasure they did so; but it was not a pretty sight. At the ape-man's side lay his long, grass rope. Quickly Bukawai bound the limp arms behind his prisoner's back,then he raised him to one of his shoulders, for, thoughBukawai was old and diseased, he was still a strong man. The hyenas fell in behind as the witch-doctor set offtoward the cave, and through the long black corridorsthey followed as Bukawai bore his victim into the bowelsof the hills. Through subterranean chambers, connected bywinding passageways, Bukawai staggered with his load. At a sudden turning of the corridor, daylight floodedthem and Bukawai stepped out into a small, circular basinin the hill, apparently the crater of an ancient volcano,one of those which never reached the dignity of a mountainand are little more than lava-rimmed pits closed to the earth'ssurface.

Steep walls rimmed the cavity. The only exit wasthrough the passageway by which Bukawai had entered. A few stunted trees grew upon the rocky floor. A hundredfeet above could be seen the ragged lips of this cold,dead mouth of hell.

Bukawai propped Tarzan against a tree and bound him therewith his own grass rope, leaving his hands free but securingthe knots in such a way that the ape-man could not reach them. The hyenas slunk to and fro, growling. Bukawai hated themand they hated him. He knew that they but waited for the timewhen he should be helpless, or when their hatred shouldrise to such a height as to submerge their cringing fear of him.

In his own heart was not a little fear of these repulsivecreatures, and because of that fear, Bukawai always keptthe beasts well fed, often hunting for them when their ownforages for food failed, but ever was he cruel to themwith the cruelty of a little brain, diseased, bestial, primitive.

He had had them since they were puppies. They had knownno other life than that with him, and though they wentabroad to hunt, always they returned. Of late Bukawaihad come to believe that they returned not so muchfrom habit as from a fiendish patience which wouldsubmit to every indignity and pain rather than foregothe final vengeance, and Bukawai needed but littleimagination to picture what that vengeance would be. Today he would see for himself what his end would be;but another should impersonate Bukawai.

When he had trussed Tarzan securely, Bukawai went backinto the corridor, driving the hyenas ahead of him,and pulling across the opening a lattice of laced branches,which shut the pit from the cave during the night thatBukawai might sleep in security, for then the hyenaswere penned in the crater that they might not sneak upona sleeping Bukawai in the darkness.

Bukawai returned to the outer cave mouth, filled a vesselwith water at the spring which rose in the little canonclose at hand and returned toward the pit. The hyenasstood before the lattice looking hungrily toward Tarzan. They had been fed in this manner before.

With his water, the witch-doctor approached Tarzan and threwa portion of the contents of the vessel in the ape-man's face. There was fluttering of the eyelids, and at the secondapplication Tarzan opened his eyes and looked about.

"Devil-god," cried Bukawai, "I am the great witch-doctor.My medicine is strong. Yours is weak. If it is not,why do you stay tied here like a goat that is baitfor lions?"

Tarzan understood nothing the witch-doctor said, therefore hedid not reply, but only stared straight at Bukawai withcold and level gaze. The hyenas crept up behind him. He heard them growl; but he did not even turn his head. He was a beast with a man's brain. The beast in him refusedto show fear in the face of a death which the man-mindalready admitted to be inevitable.

Bukawai, not yet ready to give his victim to the beasts,rushed upon the hyenas with his knob-stick. Therewas a short scrimmage in which the brutes came offsecond best, as they always did. Tarzan watched it. He saw and realized the hatred which existed betweenthe two animals and the hideous semblance of a man.

With the hyenas subdued, Bukawai returned to the baitingof Tarzan; but finding that the ape-man understoodnothing he said, the witch-doctor finally desisted. Then he withdrew into the corridor and pulled the latticeworkbarrier across the opening. He went back into the caveand got a sleeping mat, which he brought to the opening,that he might lie down and watch the spectacle of hisrevenge in comfort.

The hyenas were sneaking furtively around the ape-man.Tarzan strained at his bonds for a moment, but soonrealized that the rope he had braided to hold Numa,the lion, would hold him quite as successfully. He did not wish to die; but he could look death in theface now as he had many times before without a quaver.

As he pulled upon the rope he felt it rub against thesmall tree about which it was passed. Like a flash ofthe cinematograph upon the screen, a picture was flashedbefore his mind's eye from the storehouse of his memory. He saw a lithe, boyish figure swinging high above theground at the end of a rope. He saw many apes watchingfrom below, and then he saw the rope part and the boyhurtle downward toward the ground. Tarzan smiled. Immediately he commenced to draw the rope rapidly backand forth across the tree trunk.

The hyenas, gaining courage, came closer. They sniffedat his legs; but when he struck at them with his free armsthey slunk off. He knew that with the growth of hungerthey would attack. Coolly, methodically, without haste,Tarzan drew the rope back and forth against the roughtrunk of the small tree.

In the entrance to the cavern Bukawai fell asleep. He thought it would be some time before the beasts gainedsufficient courage or hunger to attack the captive. Their growls and the cries of the victim would awaken him. In the meantime he might as well rest, and he did.

Thus the day wore on, for the hyenas were not famished,and the rope with which Tarzan was bound was a strongerone than that of his boyhood, which had parted so quicklyto the chafing of the rough tree bark. Yet, all thewhile hunger was growing upon the beasts and the strandsof the grass rope were wearing thinner and thinner. Bukawai slept.

It was late afternoon before one of the beasts,irritated by the gnawing of appetite, made a quick,growling dash at the ape-man. The noise awoke Bukawai. He sat up quickly and watched what went on withinthe crater. He saw the hungry hyena charge the man,leaping for the unprotected throat. He saw Tarzan reachout and seize the growling animal, and then he sawthe second beast spring for the devil-god's shoulder. There was a mighty heave of the great, smooth-skinned body. Rounded muscles shot into great, tensed piles beneaththe brown hide--the ape-man surged forward with all hisweight and all his great strength--the bonds parted,and the three were rolling upon the floor of the cratersnarling, snapping, and rending.

Bukawai leaped to his feet. Could it be that the devil-godwas to prevail against his servants? Impossible! Thecreature was unarmed, and he was down with two hyenason top of him; but Bukawai did not know Tarzan.

The ape-man fastened his fingers upon the throat of oneof the hyenas and rose to one knee, though the other beasttore at him frantically in an effort to pull him down. With a single hand Tarzan held the one, and with the otherhand he reached forth and pulled toward him the second beast.

And then Bukawai, seeing the battle going against his forces,rushed forward from the cavern brandishing his knob-stick.Tarzan saw him coming, and rising now to both feet,a hyena in each hand, he hurled one of the foaming beastsstraight at the witch-doctor's head. Down went the twoin a snarling, biting heap. Tarzan tossed the second hyenaacross the crater, while the first gnawed at the rottingface of its master; but this did not suit the ape-man.With a kick he sent the beast howling after its companion,and springing to the side of the prostrate witch-doctor,dragged him to his feet.

Bukawai, still conscious, saw death, immediate and terrible,in the cold eyes of his captor, so he turned upon Tarzanwith teeth and nails. The ape-man shuddered at the proximityof that raw face to his. The hyenas had had enoughand disappeared through the small aperture leading intothe cave. Tarzan had little difficulty in overpoweringand binding Bukawai. Then he led him to the very treeto which he had been bound; but in binding Bukawai,Tarzan saw to it that escape after the same fashion thathe had escaped would be out of the question; then he left him.

As he passed through the winding corridors and thesubterranean apartments, Tarzan saw nothing of the hyenas.

"They will return," he said to himself.

In the crater between the towering walls Bukawai,cold with terror, trembled, trembled as with ague.

"They will return!" he cried, his voice risingto a fright-filled shriek.

And they did.