THE BLACKS OF the village of Mbonga, the chief, were feasting,while above them in a large tree sat Tarzan of theApes--grim, terrible, empty, and envious. Hunting hadproved poor that day, for there are lean days as wellas fat ones for even the greatest of the jungle hunters. Oftentimes Tarzan went empty for more than a full sun,and he had passed through entire moons during which hehad been but barely able to stave off starvation;but such times were infrequent.

There once had been a period of sickness among thegrass-eaters which had left the plains almost bare of gamefor several years, and again the great cats had increasedso rapidly and so overrun the country that their prey,which was also Tarzan's, had been frightened off for aconsiderable time.

But for the most part Tarzan had fed well always. Today, though, he had gone empty, one misfortune followinganother as rapidly as he raised new quarry, so that now,as he sat perched in the tree above the feasting blacks,he experienced all the pangs of famine and his hatredfor his lifelong enemies waxed strong in his breast. It was tantalizing, indeed, to sit there hungry whilethese Gomangani filled themselves so full of food thattheir stomachs seemed almost upon the point of bursting,and with elephant steaks at that!

It was true that Tarzan and Tantor were the best of friends,and that Tarzan never yet had tasted of the flesh ofthe elephant; but the Gomangani evidently had slain one,and as they were eating of the flesh of their kill,Tarzan was assailed by no doubts as to the ethicsof his doing likewise, should he have the opportunity. Had he known that the elephant had died of sicknessseveral days before the blacks discovered the carcass,he might not have been so keen to partake of the feast,for Tarzan of the Apes was no carrion-eater. Hunger,however, may blunt the most epicurean taste, and Tarzanwas not exactly an epicure.

What he was at this moment was a very hungry wild beastwhom caution was holding in leash, for the great cookingpot in the center of the village was surrounded byblack warriors, through whom not even Tarzan of the Apesmight hope to pass unharmed. It would be necessary,therefore, for the watcher to remain there hungry untilthe blacks had gorged themselves to stupor, and then,if they had left any scraps, to make the best meal hecould from such; but to the impatient Tarzan it seemedthat the greedy Gomangani would rather burst than leavethe feast before the last morsel had been devoured. For a time they broke the monotony of eating by executingportions of a hunting dance, a maneuver which sufficientlystimulated digestion to permit them to fall to once morewith renewed vigor; but with the consumption of appallingquantities of elephant meat and native beer they presentlybecame too loggy for physical exertion of any sort,some reaching a stage where they no longer could risefrom the ground, but lay conveniently close to the greatcooking pot, stuffing themselves into unconsciousness.

It was well past midnight before Tarzan even could beginto see the end of the orgy. The blacks were now fallingasleep rapidly; but a few still persisted. From beforetheir condition Tarzan had no doubt but that he easilycould enter the village and snatch a handful of meat frombefore their noses; but a handful was not what he wanted. Nothing less than a stomachful would allay the gnawingcraving of that great emptiness. He must therefore haveample time to forage in peace.

At last but a single warrior remained true to his ideals--an old fellow whose once wrinkled belly was now as smoothand as tight as the head of a drum. With evidencesof great discomfort, and even pain, he would crawl towardthe pot and drag himself slowly to his knees, from whichposition he could reach into the receptacle and seizea piece of meat. Then he would roll over on his backwith a loud groan and lie there while he slowly forcedthe food between his teeth and down into his gorged stomach.

It was evident to Tarzan that the old fellow wouldeat until he died, or until there was no more meat. The ape-man shook his head in disgust. What foulcreatures were these Gomangani? Yet of all the junglefolk they alone resembled Tarzan closely in form. Tarzan was a man, and they, too, must be some manner of men,just as the little monkeys, and the great apes, and Bolgani,the gorilla, were quite evidently of one great family,though differing in size and appearance and customs. Tarzan was ashamed, for of all the beasts of the jungle,then, man was the most disgusting--man and Dango, the hyena. Only man and Dango ate until they swelled up like a dead rat. Tarzan had seen Dango eat his way into the carcass of a deadelephant and then continue to eat so much that he had beenunable to get out of the hole through which he had entered. Now he could readily believe that man, given the opportunity,would do the same. Man, too, was the most unlovelyof creatures--with his skinny legs and his big stomach,his filed teeth, and his thick, red lips. Man was disgusting. Tarzan's gaze was riveted upon the hideous old warriorwallowing in filth beneath him.

There! the thing was struggling to its knees to reachfor another morsel of flesh. It groaned aloud in painand yet it persisted in eating, eating, ever eating. Tarzan could endure it no longer--neither his hunger norhis disgust. Silently he slipped to the ground with thebole of the great tree between himself and the feaster.

The man was still kneeling, bent almost double in agony,before the cooking pot. His back was toward the ape-man.Swiftly and noiselessly Tarzan approached him. There wasno sound as steel fingers closed about the black throat. The struggle was short, for the man was old and already halfstupefied from the effects of the gorging and the beer.

Tarzan dropped the inert mass and scooped several largepieces of meat from the cooking pot--enough to satisfy evenhis great hunger--then he raised the body of the feasterand shoved it into the vessel. When the other blacks awokethey would have something to think about! Tarzan grinned. As he turned toward the tree with his meat, he pickedup a vessel containing beer and raised it to his lips,but at the first taste he spat the stuff from his mouthand tossed the primitive tankard aside. He was quitesure that even Dango would draw the line at such filthytasting drink as that, and his contempt for man increasedwith the conviction.

Tarzan swung off into the jungle some half mile orso before he paused to partake of his stolen food. He noticed that it gave forth a strange and unpleasant odor,but assumed that this was due to the fact that it hadstood in a vessel of water above a fire. Tarzan was,of course, unaccustomed to cooked food. He did not like it;but he was very hungry and had eaten a considerableportion of his haul before it was really borne in uponhim that the stuff was nauseating. It required far lessthan he had imagined it would to satisfy his appetite.

Throwing the balance to the ground he curled up in aconvenient crotch and sought slumber; but slumber seemeddifficult to woo. Ordinarily Tarzan of the Apes was asleepas quickly as a dog after it curls itself upon a hearthrugbefore a roaring blaze; but tonight he squirmed and twisted,for at the pit of his stomach was a peculiar feelingthat resembled nothing more closely than an attempt uponthe part of the fragments of elephant meat reposing thereto come out into the night and search for their elephant;but Tarzan was adamant. He gritted his teeth and heldthem back. He was not to be robbed of his meal afterwaiting so long to obtain it.

He had succeeded in dozing when the roaring of a lionawoke him. He sat up to discover that it was broad daylight. Tarzan rubbed his eyes. Could it be that he had reallyslept? He did not feel particularly refreshed as heshould have after a good sleep. A noise attractedhis attention, and he looked down to see a lion standingat the foot of the tree gazing hungrily at him. Tarzan made a face at the king of beasts, whereat Numa,greatly to the ape-man's surprise, started to climb up intothe branches toward him. Now, never before had Tarzan seena lion climb a tree, yet, for some unaccountable reason,he was not greatly surprised that this particular lionshould do so.

As the lion climbed slowly toward him, Tarzan soughthigher branches; but to his chagrin, he discovered that itwas with the utmost difficulty that he could climb at all. Again and again he slipped back, losing all that hehad gained, while the lion kept steadily at his climbing,coming ever closer and closer to the ape-man. Tarzancould see the hungry light in the yellow-green eyes. He could see the slaver on the drooping jowls,and the great fangs agape to seize and destroy him. Clawing desperately, the ape-man at last succeeded in gaininga little upon his pursuer. He reached the more slenderbranches far aloft where he well knew no lion could follow;yet on and on came devil-faced Numa. It was incredible;but it was true. Yet what most amazed Tarzan wasthat though he realized the incredibility of it all,he at the same time accepted it as a matter of course,first that a lion should climb at all and second that heshould enter the upper terraces where even Sheeta, the panther,dared not venture.

To the very top of a tall tree the ape-man clawed his awkwardway and after him came Numa, the lion, moaning dismally. At last Tarzan stood balanced upon the very utmost pinnacleof a swaying branch, high above the forest. He could gono farther. Below him the lion came steadily upward,and Tarzan of the Apes realized that at last the end had come. He could not do battle upon a tiny branch with Numa,the lion, especially with such a Numa, to which swayingbranches two hundred feet above the ground provided assubstantial footing as the ground itself.

Nearer and nearer came the lion. Another moment and hecould reach up with one great paw and drag the ape-mandownward to those awful jaws. A whirring noise abovehis head caused Tarzan to glance apprehensively upward. A great bird was circling close above him. He never hadseen so large a bird in all his life, yet he recognizedit immediately, for had he not seen it hundreds of timesin one of the books in the little cabin by the land-lockedbay--the moss-grown cabin that with its contents wasthe sole heritage left by his dead and unknown fatherto the young Lord Greystoke?

In the picture-book the great bird was shown flying farabove the ground with a small child in its talons while,beneath, a distracted mother stood with uplifted hands. The lion was already reaching forth a taloned paw to seizehim when the bird swooped and buried no less formidabletalons in Tarzan's back. The pain was numbing; but itwas with a sense of relief that the ape-man felt himselfsnatched from the clutches of Numa.

With a great whirring of wings the bird rose rapidlyuntil the forest lay far below. It made Tarzan sickand dizzy to look down upon it from so great a height,so he closed his eyes tight and held his breath. Higher andhigher climbed the huge bird. Tarzan opened his eyes. The jungle was so far away that he could see only a dim,green blur below him, but just above and quite close wasthe sun. Tarzan reached out his hands and warmed them,for they were very cold. Then a sudden madness seized him. Where was the bird taking him? Was he to submit thuspassively to a feathered creature however enormous? Was he,Tarzan of the Apes, mighty fighter, to die without strikinga blow in his own defense? Never!

He snatched the hunting blade from his gee-stringand thrusting upward drove it once, twice, thrice intothe breast above him. The mighty wings fluttered a fewmore times, spasmodically, the talons relaxed their hold,and Tarzan of the Apes fell hurtling downward towardthe distant jungle.

It seemed to the ape-man that he fell for many minutes beforehe crashed through the leafy verdure of the tree tops. The smaller branches broke his fall, so that he cameto rest for an instant upon the very branch upon which hehad sought slumber the previous night. For an instant hetoppled there in a frantic attempt to regain his equilibrium;but at last he rolled off, yet, clutching wildly,he succeeded in grasping the branch and hanging on.

Once more he opened his eyes, which he had closed duringthe fall. Again it was night. With all his old agility heclambered back to the crotch from which he had toppled. Below him a lion roared, and, looking downward, Tarzan couldsee the yellow-green eyes shining in the moonlight as theybored hungrily upward through the darkness of the junglenight toward him.

The ape-man gasped for breath. Cold sweat stood outfrom every pore, there was a great sickness at the pitof Tarzan's stomach. Tarzan of the Apes had dreamedhis first dream.

For a long time he sat watching for Numa to climb into the treeafter him, and listening for the sound of the great wingsfrom above, for to Tarzan of the Apes his dream was a reality.

He could not believe what he had seen and yet,having seen even these incredible things, he couldnot disbelieve the evidence of his own perceptions. Never in all his life had Tarzan's senses deceivedhim badly, and so, naturally, he had great faith in them. Each perception which ever had been transmitted to Tarzan'sbrain had been, with varying accuracy, a true perception. He could not conceive of the possibility of apparentlyhaving passed through such a weird adventure in which therewas no grain of truth. That a stomach, disordered bydecayed elephant flesh, a lion roaring in the jungle,a picture-book, and sleep could have so truly portrayedall the clear-cut details of what he had seeminglyexperienced was quite beyond his knowledge; yet he knewthat Numa could not climb a tree, he knew that thereexisted in the jungle no such bird as he had seen,and he knew, too, that he could not have fallen a tinyfraction of the distance he had hurtled downward, and lived.

To say the least, he was a very puzzled Tarzan as he triedto compose himself once more for slumber--a very puzzledand a very nauseated Tarzan.

As he thought deeply upon the strange occurrences ofthe night, he witnessed another remarkable happening. It was indeed quite preposterous, yet he saw it allwith his own eyes--it was nothing less than Histah,the snake, wreathing his sinuous and slimy way up the boleof the tree below him--Histah, with the head of the oldman Tarzan had shoved into the cooking pot--the head andthe round, tight, black, distended stomach. As the oldman's frightful face, with upturned eyes, set and glassy,came close to Tarzan, the jaws opened to seize him. The ape-man struck furiously at the hideous face, and as hestruck the apparition disappeared.

Tarzan sat straight up upon his branch trembling inevery limb, wide-eyed and panting. He looked all aroundhim with his keen, jungle-trained eyes, but he saw naughtof the old man with the body of Histah, the snake,but on his naked thigh the ape-man saw a caterpillar,dropped from a branch above him. With a grimace heflicked it off into the darkness beneath.

And so the night wore on, dream following dream, nightmarefollowing nightmare, until the distracted ape-man startedlike a frightened deer at the rustling of the wind in thetrees about him, or leaped to his feet as the uncanny laughof a hyena burst suddenly upon a momentary jungle silence. But at last the tardy morning broke and a sick and feverishTarzan wound sluggishly through the dank and gloomy mazesof the forest in search of water. His whole body seemedon fire, a great sickness surged upward to his throat. He saw a tangle of almost impenetrable thicket, and,like the wild beast he was, he crawled into it to diealone and unseen, safe from the attacks of predatory carnivora.

But he did not die. For a long time he wanted to;but presently nature and an outraged stomach relievedthemselves in their own therapeutic manner, the ape-man brokeinto a violent perspiration and then fell into a normal anduntroubled sleep which persisted well into the afternoon. When he awoke he found himself weak but no longer sick.

Once more he sought water, and after drinking deeply,took his way slowly toward the cabin by the sea. In times of loneliness and trouble it had long been hiscustom to seek there the quiet and restfulness which hecould find nowhere else.

As he approached the cabin and raised the crude latchwhich his father had fashioned so many years before,two small, blood-shot eyes watched him from the concealingfoliage of the jungle close by. From beneath shaggy,beetling brows they glared maliciously upon him,maliciously and with a keen curiosity; then Tarzan enteredthe cabin and closed the door after him. Here, with allthe world shut out from him, he could dream withoutfear of interruption. He could curl up and look atthe pictures in the strange things which were books,he could puzzle out the printed word he had learned to readwithout knowledge of the spoken language it represented,he could live in a wonderful world of which he had noknowledge beyond the covers of his beloved books. Numa and Sabor might prowl about close to him, the elementsmight rage in all their fury; but here at least,Tarzan might be entirely off his guard in a delightfulrelaxation which gave him all his faculties for theuninterrupted pursuit of this greatest of all his pleasures.

Today he turned to the picture of the huge bird which boreoff the little Tarmangani in its talons. Tarzan puckeredhis brows as he examined the colored print. Yes, this wasthe very bird that had carried him off the day before,for to Tarzan the dream had been so great a realitythat he still thought another day and a night had passedsince he had lain down in the tree to sleep.

But the more he thought upon the matter the less positivehe was as to the verity of the seeming adventure throughwhich he had passed, yet where the real had ceased andthe unreal commenced he was quite unable to determine. Had he really then been to the village of the blacks at all,had he killed the old Gomangani, had he eaten of theelephant meat, had he been sick? Tarzan scratched histousled black head and wondered. It was all very strange,yet he knew that he never had seen Numa climb a tree,or Histah with the head and belly of an old black man whomTarzan already had slain.

Finally, with a sigh he gave up trying to fathomthe unfathomable, yet in his heart of hearts he knewthat something had come into his life that he never beforehad experienced, another life which existed when he sleptand the consciousness of which was carried over into his wakinghours.

Then he commenced to wonder if some of these strangecreatures which he met in his sleep might not slay him,for at such times Tarzan of the Apes seemed to be adifferent Tarzan, sluggish, helpless and timid--wishingto flee his enemies as fled Bara, the deer, most fearfulof creatures.

Thus, with a dream, came the first faint tinge of a knowledgeof fear, a knowledge which Tarzan, awake, had never experienced,and perhaps he was experiencing what his early forbearspassed through and transmitted to posterity in the form ofsuperstition first and religion later; for they, as Tarzan,had seen things at night which they could not explainby the daylight standards of sense perception or of reason,and so had built for themselves a weird explanationwhich included grotesque shapes, possessed of strangeand uncanny powers, to whom they finally came to attributeall those inexplicable phenomena of nature which witheach recurrence filled them with awe, with wonder, or withterror.

And as Tarzan concentrated his mind on the little bugsupon the printed page before him, the active recollectionof the strange adventures presently merged into the textof that which he was reading--a story of Bolgani,the gorilla, in captivity. There was a more or lesslifelike illustration of Bolgani in colors and in a cage,with many remarkable looking Tarmangani standing againsta rail and peering curiously at the snarling brute. Tarzan wondered not a little, as he always did, at the oddand seemingly useless array of colored plumage which coveredthe bodies of the Tarmangani. It always caused him to grina trifle when he looked at these strange creatures. He wondered if they so covered their bodies from shameof their hairlessness or because they thought the odd thingsthey wore added any to the beauty of their appearance. Particularly was Tarzan amused by the grotesque headdressesof the pictured people. He wondered how some of the shessucceeded in balancing theirs in an upright position,and he came as near to laughing aloud as he ever had,as he contemplated the funny little round things uponthe heads of the hes.

Slowly the ape-man picked out the meaning of the variouscombinations of letters on the printed page, and as he read,the little bugs, for as such he always thought of the letters,commenced to run about in a most confusing manner,blurring his vision and befuddling his thoughts. Twice he brushed the back of a hand smartly across his eyes;but only for a moment could he bring the bugs backto coherent and intelligible form. He had slept ill thenight before and now he was exhausted from loss of sleep,from sickness, and from the slight fever he had had,so that it became more and more difficult to fix his attention,or to keep his eyes open.

Tarzan realized that he was falling asleep, and justas the realization was borne in upon him and he haddecided to relinquish himself to an inclination whichhad assumed almost the proportions of a physical pain,he was aroused by the opening of the cabin door. Turning quickly toward the interruption Tarzan was amazed,for a moment, to see bulking large in the doorway the hugeand hairy form of Bolgani, the gorilla.

Now there was scarcely a denizen of the great junglewith whom Tarzan would rather not have been cooped upinside the small cabin than Bolgani, the gorilla, yet hefelt no fear, even though his quick eye noted that Bolganiwas in the throes of that jungle madness which seizesupon so many of the fiercer males. Ordinarily the hugegorillas avoid conflict, hide themselves from the otherjungle folk, and are generally the best of neighbors;but when they are attacked, or the madness seizes them,there is no jungle denizen so bold and fierce as todeliberately seek a quarrel with them.

But for Tarzan there was no escape. Bolgani was gloweringat him from red-rimmed, wicked eyes. In a moment hewould rush in and seize the ape-man. Tarzan reachedfor the hunting knife where he had lain it on the tablebeside him; but as his fingers did not immediately locatethe weapon, he turned a quick glance in search of it. As he did so his eyes fell upon the book he had beenlooking at which still lay open at the picture of Bolgani. Tarzan found his knife, but he merely fingered it idlyand grinned in the direction of the advancing gorilla.

Not again would he be fooled by empty things which camewhile he slept! In a moment, no doubt, Bolgani would turninto Pamba, the rat, with the head of Tantor, the elephant. Tarzan had seen enough of such strange happeningsrecently to have some idea as to what he might expect;but this time Bolgani did not alter his form as he cameslowly toward the young ape-man.

Tarzan was a bit puzzled, too, that he felt no desireto rush frantically to some place of safety, as had beenthe sensation most conspicuous in the other of his newand remarkable adventures. He was just himself now,ready to fight, if necessary; but still sure that no fleshand blood gorilla stood before him.

The thing should be fading away into thin air by now,thought Tarzan, or changing into something else;yet it did not. Instead it loomed clear-cut and realas Bolgani himself, the magnificent dark coat glisteningwith life and health in a bar of sunlight which shotacross the cabin through the high window behind the youngLord Greystoke. This was quite the most realisticof his sleep adventures, thought Tarzan, as he passivelyawaited the next amusing incident.

And then the gorilla charged. Two mighty, calloused handsseized upon the ape-man, great fangs were bared closeto his face, a hideous growl burst from the cavernousthroat and hot breath fanned Tarzan's cheek, and still hesat grinning at the apparition. Tarzan might be fooledonce or twice, but not for so many times in succession!He knew that this Bolgani was no real Bolgani, for had hebeen he never could have gained entrance to the cabin,since only Tarzan knew how to operate the latch.

The gorilla seemed puzzled by the strange passivity of thehairless ape. He paused an instant with his jaws snarlingclose to the other's throat, then he seemed suddenlyto come to some decision. Whirling the ape-man acrossa hairy shoulder, as easily as you or I might lift a babein arms, Bolgani turned and dashed out into the open,racing toward the great trees.

Now, indeed, was Tarzan sure that this was a sleepadventure, and so grinned largely as the giant gorillabore him, unresisting, away. Presently, reasoned Tarzan,he would awaken and find himself back in the cabinwhere he had fallen asleep. He glanced back at thethought and saw the cabin door standing wide open. This would never do! Always had he been careful to closeand latch it against wild intruders. Manu, the monkey,would make sad havoc there among Tarzan's treasures shouldhe have access to the interior for even a few minutes. The question which arose in Tarzan's mind was a baffling one. Where did sleep adventures end and reality commence? Howwas he to be sure that the cabin door was not really open?Everything about him appeared quite normal--there were noneof the grotesque exaggerations of his former sleep adventures. It would be better then to be upon the safe side and makesure that the cabin door was closed--it would do no harmeven if all that seemed to be happening were not happening atall.

Tarzan essayed to slip from Bolgani's shoulder; but thegreat beast only growled ominously and gripped him tighter. With a mighty effort the ape-man wrenched himself loose,and as he slid to the ground, the dream gorilla turnedferociously upon him, seized him once more and buriedgreat fangs in a sleek, brown shoulder.

The grin of derision faded from Tarzan's lips as the painand the hot blood aroused his fighting instincts. Asleep or awake, this thing was no longer a joke! Biting,tearing, and snarling, the two rolled over upon the ground. The gorilla now was frantic with insane rage. Again and againhe loosed his hold upon the ape-man's shoulder in an attemptto seize the jugular; but Tarzan of the Apes had foughtbefore with creatures who struck first for the vital vein,and each time he wriggled out of harm's way as hestrove to get his fingers upon his adversary's throat. At last he succeeded--his great muscles tensed and knottedbeneath his smooth hide as he forced with every ounceof his mighty strength to push the hairy torso from him. And as he choked Bolgani and strained him away,his other hand crept slowly upward between them untilthe point of the hunting knife rested over the savageheart--there was a quick movement of the steel-thewedwrist and the blade plunged to its goal.

Bolgani, the gorilla, voiced a single frightful shriek,tore himself loose from the grasp of the ape-man, rose tohis feet, staggered a few steps and then plunged to earth. There were a few spasmodic movements of the limbs and thebrute was still.

Tarzan of the Apes stood looking down upon his kill,and as he stood there he ran his fingers through his thick,black shock of hair. Presently he stooped and touchedthe dead body. Some of the red life-blood of the gorillacrimsoned his fingers. He raised them to his nose and sniffed. Then he shook his head and turned toward the cabin. The door was still open. He closed it and fastened the latch. Returning toward the body of his kill he again pausedand scratched his head.

If this was a sleep adventure, what then was reality? Howwas he to know the one from the other? How much of allthat had happened in his life had been real and how muchunreal?

He placed a foot upon the prostrate form and raising his faceto the heavens gave voice to the kill cry of the bull ape. Far in the distance a lion answered. It was very real and,yet, he did not know. Puzzled, he turned away into the jungle.

No, he did not know what was real and what was not;but there was one thing that he did know--never againwould he eat of the flesh of Tantor, the elephant.