TIME SELDOM HUNG heavily upon Tarzan's hands. Even wherethere is sameness there cannot be monotony if most ofthe sameness consists in dodging death first in one formand then in another; or in inflicting death upon others. There is a spice to such an existence; but even this Tarzanof the Apes varied in activities of his own invention.

He was full grown now, with the grace of a Greek godand the thews of a bull, and, by all the tenets of apedom,should have been sullen, morose, and brooding; but hewas not. His spirits seemed not to age at all--he wasstill a playful child, much to the discomfiture of hisfellow-apes. They could not understand him or his ways,for with maturity they quickly forgot their youth andits pastimes.

Nor could Tarzan quite understand them. It seemed strangeto him that a few moons since, he had roped Taug about an ankleand dragged him screaming through the tall jungle grasses,and then rolled and tumbled in good-natured mimic battlewhen the young ape had freed himself, and that today whenhe had come up behind the same Taug and pulled him overbackward upon the turf, instead of the playful young ape,a great, snarling beast had whirled and leaped for his throat.

Easily Tarzan eluded the charge and quickly Taug's angervanished,though it was not replaced with playfulness; yet the ape-manrealized that Taug was not amused nor was he amusing. The big bull ape seemed to have lost whatever sense of humorhe once may have possessed. With a grunt of disappointment,young Lord Greystoke turned to other fields of endeavor. A strand of black hair fell across one eye. He brushedit aside with the palm of a hand and a toss of his head. It suggested something to do, so he sought his quiver whichlay cached in the hollow bole of a lightning-riven tree. Removing the arrows he turned the quiver upside down,emptying upon the ground the contents of its bottom--his few treasures. Among them was a flat bit of stoneand a shell which he had picked up from the beach nearhis father's cabin.

With great care he rubbed the edge of the shell back andforth upon the flat stone until the soft edge was quitefine and sharp. He worked much as a barber does who honesa razor, and with every evidence of similar practice; but hisproficiency was the result of years of painstaking effort. Unaided he had worked out a method of his own for puttingan edge upon the shell--he even tested it with the ballof his thumb-- and when it met with his approval hegrasped a wisp of hair which fell across his eyes,grasped it between the thumb and first finger of his lefthand and sawed upon it with the sharpened shell until itwas severed. All around his head he went until his blackshock was rudely bobbed with a ragged bang in front. For the appearance of it he cared nothing; but in thematter of safety and comfort it meant everything. A lock of hair falling in one's eyes at the wrong momentmight mean all the difference between life and death,while straggly strands, hanging down one's back weremost uncomfortable, especially when wet with dew or rainor perspiration.

As Tarzan labored at his tonsorial task, his activemind was busy with many things. He recalled hisrecent battle with Bolgani, the gorilla, the woundsof which were but just healed. He pondered the strangesleep adventures of his first dreams, and he smiledat the painful outcome of his last practical joke uponthe tribe, when, dressed in the hide of Numa, the lion,he had come roaring upon them, only to be leaped uponand almost killed by the great bulls whom he had taughthow to defend themselves from an attack of their ancient enemy.

His hair lopped off to his entire satisfaction, and seeingno possibility of pleasure in the company of the tribe,Tarzan swung leisurely into the trees and set off inthe direction of his cabin; but when part way there hisattention was attracted by a strong scent spoor comingfrom the north. It was the scent of the Gomangani.

Curiosity, that best-developed, common heritage of manand ape, always prompted Tarzan to investigate where theGomangani were concerned. There was that about themwhich aroused his imagination. Possibly it was becauseof the diversity of their activities and interests. The apes lived to eat and sleep and propagate. The same was true of all the other denizens of the jungle,save the Gomangani.

These black fellows danced and sang, scratched around in theearth from which they had cleared the trees and underbrush;they watched things grow, and when they had ripened,they cut them down and put them in straw-thatched huts. They made bows and spears and arrows, poison, cooking pots,things of metal to wear around their arms and legs. If it hadn't been for their black faces, their hideouslydisfigured features, and the fact that one of them hadslain Kala, Tarzan might have wished to be one of them. At least he sometimes thought so, but always at the thoughtthere rose within him a strange revulsion of feeling, which hecould not interpret or understand--he simply knew that hehated the Gomangani, and that he would rather be Histah,the snake, than one of these.

But their ways were interesting, and Tarzan never tiredof spying upon them. and from them he learned much more thanhe realized, though always his principal thought was of somenew way in which he could render their lives miserable. The baiting of the blacks was Tarzan's chief divertissement.

Tarzan realized now that the blacks were very nearand that there were many of them, so he went silentlyand with great caution. Noiselessly he moved throughthe lush grasses of the open spaces, and where the forestwas dense, swung from one swaying branch to another,or leaped lightly over tangled masses of fallen treeswhere there was no way through the lower terraces,and the ground was choked and impassable.

And so presently he came within sight of the blackwarriors of Mbonga, the chief. They were engaged in apursuit with which Tarzan was more or less familiar,having watched them at it upon other occasions. They were placing and baiting a trap for Numa, the lion. In a cage upon wheels they were tying a kid, so fasteningit that when Numa seized the unfortunate creature,the door of the cage would drop behind him, making hima prisoner.

These things the blacks had learned in their old home,before they escaped through the untracked jungle to theirnew village. Formerly they had dwelt in the BelgianCongo until the cruelties of their heartless oppressorshad driven them to seek the safety of unexplored solitudesbeyond the boundaries of Leopold's domain.

In their old life they often had trapped animals for theagents of European dealers, and had learned from themcertain tricks, such as this one, which permitted themto capture even Numa without injuring him, and to transporthim in safety and with comparative ease to their village.

No longer was there a white market for their savage wares;but there was still a sufficient incentive for the takingof Numa--alive. First was the necessity for ridding thejungle of man-eaters, and it was only after depredationsby these grim and terrible scourges that a lion huntwas organized. Secondarily was the excuse for an orgyof celebration was the hunt successful, and the fact thatsuch fetes were rendered doubly pleasurable by the presenceof a live creature that might be put to death by torture.

Tarzan had witnessed these cruel rites in the past. Being himself more savage than the savage warriorsof the Gomangani, he was not so shocked by the crueltyof them as he should have been, yet they did shock him. He could not understand the strange feeling of revulsionwhich possessed him at such times. He had no love for Numa,the lion, yet he bristled with rage when the blacksinflicted upon his enemy such indignities and crueltiesas only the mind of the one creature molded in the imageof God can conceive.

Upon two occasions he had freed Numa from the trap beforethe blacks had returned to discover the success or failureof their venture. He would do the same today--that hedecided immediately he realized the nature of their intentions.

Leaving the trap in the center of a broad elephant trailnear the drinking hole, the warriors turned back towardtheir village. On the morrow they would come again. Tarzan looked after them, upon his lips an unconscioussneer--the heritage of unguessed caste. He saw them filealong the broad trail, beneath the overhanging verdureof leafy branch and looped and festooned creepers,brushing ebon shoulders against gorgeous blooms whichinscrutable Nature has seen fit to lavish most profuselyfarthest from the eye of man.

As Tarzan watched, through narrowed lids, the lastof the warriors disappear beyond a turn in the trail,his expression altered to the urge of a newborn thought. A slow, grim smile touched his lips. He looked down uponthe frightened, bleating kid, advertising, in its fearand its innocence, its presence and its helplessness.

Dropping to the ground, Tarzan approached the trap and entered. Without disturbing the fiber cord, which was adjusted to dropthe door at the proper time, he loosened the living bait,tucked it under an arm and stepped out of the cage.

With his hunting knife he quieted the frightened animal,severing its jugular; then he dragged it, bleeding,along the trail down to the drinking hole, the half smilepersisting upon his ordinarily grave face. At the water'sedge the ape-man stooped and with hunting knife and quickstrong fingers deftly removed the dead kid's viscera. Scraping a hole in the mud, he buried these parts which hedid not eat, and swinging the body to his shoulder tookto the trees.

For a short distance he pursued his way in the wake of theblack warriors, coming down presently to bury the meatof his kill where it would be safe from the depredationsof Dango, the hyena, or the other meat-eating beastsand birds of the jungle. He was hungry. Had he beenall beast he would have eaten; but his man-mind couldentertain urges even more potent than those of the belly,and now he was concerned with an idea which kept a smileupon his lips and his eyes sparkling in anticipation. An idea, it was, which permitted him to forget that hewas hungry.

The meat safely cached, Tarzan trotted along the elephanttrail after the Gomangani. Two or three miles from thecage he overtook them and then he swung into the treesand followed above and behind them--waiting his chance.

Among the blacks was Rabba Kega, the witch-doctor. Tarzanhated them all; but Rabba Kega he especially hated. As the blacks filed along the winding path, Rabba Kega,being lazy, dropped behind. This Tarzan noted, and itfilled him with satisfaction--his being radiated a grimand terrible content. Like an angel of death he hoveredabove the unsuspecting black.

Rabba Kega, knowing that the village was but a shortdistance ahead, sat down to rest. Rest well, O RabbaKega! It is thy last opportunity.

Tarzan crept stealthily among the branches of the treeabove the well-fed, self-satisfied witch-doctor.He made no noise that the dull ears of man couldhear above the soughing of the gentle jungle breezeamong the undulating foliage of the upper terraces,and when he came close above the black man he halted,well concealed by leafy branch and heavy creeper.

Rabba Kega sat with his back against the bole of a tree,facing Tarzan. The position was not such as the waitingbeast of prey desired, and so, with the infinite patienceof the wild hunter, the ape-man crouched motionless andsilent as a graven image until the fruit should be ripefor the plucking. A poisonous insect buzzed angrily outof space. It loitered, circling, close to Tarzan's face. The ape-man saw and recognized it. The virus of itssting spelled death for lesser things than he--forhim it would mean days of anguish. He did not move. His glittering eyes remained fixed upon Rabba Kegaafter acknowledging the presence of the winged tortureby a single glance. He heard and followed the movementsof the insect with his keen ears, and then he felt italight upon his forehead. No muscle twitched, for themuscles of such as he are the servants of the brain. Down across his face crept the horrid thing--over noseand lips and chin. Upon his throat it paused, and turning,retraced its steps. Tarzan watched Rabba Kega. Now not even his eyes moved. So motionless he crouchedthat only death might counterpart his movelessness. The insect crawled upward over the nut-brown cheek and stoppedwith its antennae brushing the lashes of his lower lid. You or I would have started back, closing our eyesand striking at the thing; but you and I are the slaves,not the masters of our nerves. Had the thing crawled uponthe eyeball of the ape-man, it is believable that he couldyet have remained wide-eyed and rigid; but it did not. For a moment it loitered there close to the lower lid,then it rose and buzzed away.

Down toward Rabba Kega it buzzed and the black man heard it,saw it, struck at it, and was stung upon the cheek beforehe killed it. Then he rose with a howl of pain and anger,and as he turned up the trail toward the village of Mbonga,the chief, his broad, black back was exposed to the silentthing waiting above him.

And as Rabba Kega turned, a lithe figure shot outwardand downward from the tree above upon his broad shoulders. The impact of the springing creature carried Rabba Kegato the ground. He felt strong jaws close upon his neck,and when he tried to scream, steel fingers throttled his throat. The powerful black warrior struggled to free himself;but he was as a child in the grip of his adversary.

Presently Tarzan released his grip upon the other's throat;but each time that Rabba Kega essayed a scream, the cruelfingers choked him painfully. At last the warrior desisted. Then Tarzan half rose and kneeled upon his victim's back,and when Rabba Kega struggled to arise, the ape-manpushed his face down into the dirt of the trail. With a bit of the rope that had secured the kid,Tarzan made Rabba Kega's wrists secure behind his back,then he rose and jerked his prisoner to his feet,faced him back along the trail and pushed him on ahead.

Not until he came to his feet did Rabba Kega obtaina square look at his assailant. When he saw that itwas the white devil-god his heart sank within him andhis knees trembled; but as he walked along the trailahead of his captor and was neither injured nor molestedhis spirits slowly rose, so that he took heart again. Possibly the devil-god did not intend to kill him after all. Had he not had little Tibo in his power for days withoutharming him, and had he not spared Momaya, Tibo's mother,when he easily might have slain her?

And then they came upon the cage which Rabba Kega,with the other black warriors of the village of Mbonga,the chief, had placed and baited for Numa. Rabba Kegasaw that the bait was gone, though there was no lionwithin the cage, nor was the door dropped. He saw and hewas filled with wonder not unmixed with apprehension. It entered his dull brain that in some way this combinationof circumstances had a connection with his presence thereas the prisoner of the white devil-god.

Nor was he wrong. Tarzan pushed him roughly intothe cage, and in another moment Rabba Kega understood. Cold sweat broke from every pore of his body--he trembledas with ague--for the ape-man was binding him securelyin the very spot the kid had previously occupied. The witch-doctor pleaded, first for his life, and thenfor a death less cruel; but he might as well have savedhis pleas for Numa, since already they were directed towarda wild beast who understood no word of what he said.

But his constant jabbering not only annoyed Tarzan,who worked in silence, but suggested that later the blackmight raise his voice in cries for succor, so he stepped outof the cage, gathered a handful of grass and a small stickand returning, jammed the grass into Rabba Kega's mouth,laid the stick crosswise between his teeth and fastenedit there with the thong from Rabba Kega's loin cloth. Now could the witch-doctor but roll his eyes and sweat. Thus Tarzan left him.

The ape-man went first to the spot where he had cachedthe body of the kid. Digging it up, he ascended into atree and proceeded to satisfy his hunger. What remainedhe again buried; then he swung away through the treesto the water hole, and going to the spot where fresh,cold water bubbled from between two rocks, he drank deeply. The other beasts might wade in and drink stagnant water;but not Tarzan of the Apes. In such matters he was fastidious. From his hands he washed every trace of the repugnantscent of the Gomangani, and from his face the blood ofthe kid. Rising, he stretched himself not unlike some huge,lazy cat, climbed into a near-by tree and fell asleep.

When he awoke it was dark, though a faint luminosity stilltinged the western heavens. A lion moaned and coughedas it strode through the jungle toward water. It wasapproaching the drinking hole. Tarzan grinned sleepily,changed his position and fell asleep again.

When the blacks of Mbonga, the chief, reached their villagethey discovered that Rabba Kega was not among them. When several hours had elapsed they decided that somethinghad happened to him, and it was the hope of the majorityof the tribe that whatever had happened to him mightprove fatal. They did not love the witch-doctor. Loveand fear seldom are playmates; but a warrior is a warrior,and so Mbonga organized a searching party. That his owngrief was not unassuagable might have been gathered fromthe fact that he remained at home and went to sleep. The young warriors whom he sent out remained steadfast totheir purpose for fully half an hour, when, unfortunately forRabba Kega-- upon so slight a thing may the fate of a manrest--a honey bird attracted the attention of the searchersand led them off for the delicious store it previouslyhad marked down for betrayal, and Rabba Kega's doom was sealed.

When the searchers returned empty handed, Mbonga was wroth;but when he saw the great store of honey they brought withthem his rage subsided. Already Tubuto, young, agile andevil-minded, with face hideously painted, was practicingthe black art upon a sick infant in the fond hope ofsucceeding to the office and perquisites of Rabba Kega. Tonight the women of the old witch-doctor would moanand howl. Tomorrow he would be forgotten. Such is life,such is fame, such is power--in the center of the world'shighest civilization, or in the depths of the black,primeval jungle. Always, everywhere, man is man, nor hashe altered greatly beneath his veneer since he scurriedinto a hole between two rocks to escape the tyrannosaurussix million years ago.

The morning following the disappearance of Rabba Kega,the warriors set out with Mbonga, the chief, to examinethe trap they had set for Numa. Long before theyreached the cage, they heard the roaring of a greatlion and guessed that they had made a successful bag,so it was with shouts of joy that they approachedthe spot where they should find their captive.

Yes! There he was, a great, magnificent specimen--a huge,black-maned lion. The warriors were frantic with delight. They leaped into the air and uttered savage cries--hoarsevictory cries, and then they came closer, and the criesdied upon their lips, and their eyes went wide so that thewhites showed all around their irises, and their pendulouslower lips drooped with their drooping jaws. They drewback in terror at the sight within the cage--the mauledand mutilated corpse of what had, yesterday, been Rabba Kega,the witch-doctor.

The captured lion had been too angry and frightened to feedupon the body of his kill; but he had vented upon it muchof his rage, until it was a frightful thing to behold.

From his perch in a near-by tree Tarzan of the Apes,Lord Greystoke, looked down upon the black warriorsand grinned. Once again his self-pride in his abilityas a practical joker asserted itself. It had lain dormantfor some time following the painful mauling he had receivedthat time he leaped among the apes of Kerchak clothedin the skin of Numa; but this joke was a decided success.

After a few moments of terror, the blacks came closer tothe cage, rage taking the place of fear--rage and curiosity. How had Rabba Kega happened to be in the cage? Where wasthe kid? There was no sign nor remnant of the original bait. They looked closely and they saw, to their horror,that the corpse of their erstwhile fellow was boundwith the very cord with which they had secured the kid. Who could have done this thing? They looked at one another.

Tubuto was the first to speak. He had come hopefully outwith the expedition that morning. Somewhere he might findevidence of the death of Rabba Kega. Now he had found it,and he was the first to find an explanation.

"The white devil-god," he whispered. "It is the workof the white devil-god!"

No one contradicted Tubuto, for, indeed, who else could ithave been but the great, hairless ape they all so feared? Andso their hatred of Tarzan increased again with an increasedfear of him. And Tarzan sat in his tree and hugged himself.

No one there felt sorrow because of the death of Rabba Kega;but each of the blacks experienced a personal fear ofthe ingenious mind which might discover for any of thema death equally horrible to that which the witch-doctorhad suffered. It was a subdued and thoughtful companywhich dragged the captive lion along the broad elephantpath back to the village of Mbonga, the chief.

And it was with a sigh of relief that they finally rolledit into the village and closed the gates behind them. Each had experienced the sensation of being spied upon fromthe moment they left the spot where the trap had been set,though none had seen or heard aught to give tangible foodto his fears.

At the sight of the body within the cage with the lion,the women and children of the village set up a mostfrightful lamentation, working themselves into a joyoushysteria which far transcended the happy misery derivedby their more civilized prototypes who make a business ofdividing their time between the movies and the neighborhoodfunerals of friends and strangers--especially strangers.

From a tree overhanging the palisade, Tarzan watchedall that passed within the village. He saw the frenziedwomen tantalizing the great lion with sticks and stones. The cruelty of the blacks toward a captive always inducedin Tarzan a feeling of angry contempt for the Gomangani. Had he attempted to analyze this feeling he would havefound it difficult, for during all his life he had beenaccustomed to sights of suffering and cruelty. He, himself,was cruel. All the beasts of the jungle were cruel;but the cruelty of the blacks was of a different order. It was the cruelty of wanton torture of the helpless,while the cruelty of Tarzan and the other beasts was thecruelty of necessity or of passion.

Perhaps, had he known it, he might have credited thisfeeling of repugnance at the sight of unnecessarysuffering to heredity--to the germ of British loveof fair play which had been bequeathed to him by hisfather and his mother; but, of course, he did not know,since he still believed that his mother had been Kala,the great ape.

And just in proportion as his anger rose against theGomangani his savage sympathy went out to Numa, the lion,for, though Numa was his lifetime enemy, there was neitherbitterness nor contempt in Tarzan's sentiments toward him. In the ape-man's mind, therefore, the determinationformed to thwart the blacks and liberate the lion;but he must accomplish this in some way which wouldcause the Gomangani the greatest chagrin and discomfiture.

As he squatted there watching the proceeding beneath him,he saw the warriors seize upon the cage once more and dragit between two huts. Tarzan knew that it would remainthere now until evening, and that the blacks were planninga feast and orgy in celebration of their capture. When he saw that two warriors were placed beside the cage,and that these drove off the women and children and youngmen who would have eventually tortured Numa to death,he knew that the lion would be safe until he was neededfor the evening's entertainment, when he would be morecruelly and scientifically tortured for the edification ofthe entire tribe.

Now Tarzan preferred to bait the blacks in as theatrica manner as his fertile imagination could evolve. He had some half-formed conception of their superstitiousfears and of their especial dread of night, and so hedecided to wait until darkness fell and the blacks partiallyworked to hysteria by their dancing and religious ritesbefore he took any steps toward the freeing of Numa. In the meantime, he hoped, an idea adequate to thepossibilities of the various factors at hand would occurto him. Nor was it long before one did.

He had swung off through the jungle to search for foodwhen the plan came to him. At first it made him smilea little and then look dubious, for he still retaineda vivid memory of the dire results that had followedthe carrying out of a very wonderful idea along almostidentical lines, yet he did not abandon his intention,and a moment later, food temporarily forgotten, he wasswinging through the middle terraces in rapid flighttoward the stamping ground of the tribe of Kerchak,the great ape.

As was his wont, he alighted in the midst of the littleband without announcing his approach save by a hideousscream just as he sprang from a branch above them. Fortunate are the apes of Kerchak that their kind isnot subject to heart failure, for the methods of Tarzansubjected them to one severe shock after another,nor could they ever accustom themselves to the ape-man'speculiar style of humor.

Now, when they saw who it was they merely snarled andgrumbled angrily for a moment and then resumed theirfeeding or their napping which he had interrupted, and he,having had his little joke, made his way to the hollow treewhere he kept his treasures hid from the inquisitive eyesand fingers of his fellows and the mischievous little manus. Here he withdrew a closely rolled hide--the hide of Numa withthe head on; a clever bit of primitive curing and mounting,which had once been the property of the witch-doctor,Rabba Kega, until Tarzan had stolen it from the village.

With this he made his way back through the jungle towardthe village of the blacks, stopping to hunt and feed uponthe way, and, in the afternoon, even napping for an hour,so that it was already dusk when he entered the greattree which overhung the palisade and gave him a viewof the entire village. He saw that Numa was still aliveand that the guards were even dozing beside the cage. A lion is no great novelty to a black man in the lion country,and the first keen edge of their desire to worry the brutehaving worn off, the villagers paid little or no attentionto the great cat, preferring now to await the grand eventof the night.

Nor was it long after dark before the festivities commenced. To the beating of tom-toms, a lone warrior, crouchedhalf doubled, leaped into the firelight in the centerof a great circle of other warriors, behind whom stoodor squatted the women and the children. The dancerwas painted and armed for the hunt and his movementsand gestures suggested the search for the spoor of game. Bending low, sometimes resting for a moment on one knee,he searched the ground for signs of the quarry;again he poised, statuesque, listening. The warriorwas young and lithe and graceful; he was full-muscledand arrow-straight. The firelight glistened upon his ebonbody and brought out into bold relief the grotesquedesigns painted upon his face, breasts, and abdomen.

Presently he bent low to the earth, then leaped high in air. Every line of face and body showed that he had struck the scent. Immediately he leaped toward the circle of warriors about him,telling them of his find and summoning them to the hunt. It was all in pantomime; but so truly done that evenTarzan could follow it all to the least detail.

He saw the other warriors grasp their hunting spearsand leap to their feet to join in the graceful,stealthy "stalking dance." It was very interesting;but Tarzan realized that if he was to carry his designto a successful conclusion he must act quickly. He had seen these dances before and knew that afterthe stalk would come the game at bay and then the kill,during which Numa would be surrounded by warriors,and unapproachable.

With the lion's skin under one arm the ape-man droppedto the ground in the dense shadows beneath the tree andthen circled behind the huts until he came out directlyin the rear of the cage, in which Numa paced nervouslyto and fro. The cage was now unguarded, the two warriorshaving left it to take their places among the other dancers.

Behind the cage Tarzan adjusted the lion's skin about him,just as he had upon that memorable occasion when the apesof Kerchak, failing to pierce his disguise, had all butslain him. Then, on hands and knees, he crept forward,emerged from between the two huts and stood a few pacesback of the dusky audience, whose whole attention wascentered upon the dancers before them.

Tarzan saw that the blacks had now worked themselves to aproper pitch of nervous excitement to be ripe for the lion. In a moment the ring of spectators would break at a pointnearest the caged lion and the victim would be rolledinto the center of the circle. It was for this momentthat Tarzan waited.

At last it came. A signal was given by Mbonga, the chief,at which the women and children immediately in frontof Tarzan rose and moved to one side, leaving a broadpath opening toward the caged lion. At the same instantTarzan gave voice to the low, couching roar of an angrylion and slunk slowly forward through the open lane towardthe frenzied dancers.

A woman saw him first and screamed. Instantly therewas a panic in the immediate vicinity of the ape-man. Thestrong light from the fire fell full upon the lion headand the blacks leaped to the conclusion, as Tarzan hadknown they would, that their captive had escaped his cage.

With another roar, Tarzan moved forward. The dancingwarriors paused but an instant. They had been huntinga lion securely housed within a strong cage, and nowthat he was at liberty among them, an entirely differentaspect was placed upon the matter. Their nerves were notattuned to this emergency. The women and children alreadyhad fled to the questionable safety of the nearest huts,and the warriors were not long in following their example,so that presently Tarzan was left in sole possessionof the village street.

But not for long. Nor did he wish to be left thuslong alone. It would not comport with his scheme. Presently a head peered forth from a near-by hut, and thenanother and another until a score or more of warriors werelooking out upon him, waiting for his next move--waitingfor the lion to charge or to attempt to escape from the village.

Their spears were ready in their hands against eithera charge or a bolt for freedom, and then the lion roseerect upon its hind legs, the tawny skin dropped from itand there stood revealed before them in the firelightthe straight young figure of the white devil-god.

For an instant the blacks were too astonished to act. They feared this apparition fully as much as they did Numa,yet they would gladly have slain the thing could theyquickly enough have gathered together their wits;but fear and superstition and a natural mental densityheld them paralyzed while the ape-man stooped and gatheredup the lion skin. They saw him turn then and walkback into the shadows at the far end of the village. Not until then did they gain courage to pursue him,and when they had come in force, with brandished spearsand loud war cries, the quarry was gone.

Not an instant did Tarzan pause in the tree. Throwing theskin over a branch he leaped again into the village uponthe opposite side of the great bole, and diving into theshadow of a hut, ran quickly to where lay the caged lion. Springing to the top of the cage he pulled upon the cordwhich raised the door, and a moment later a great lionin the prime of his strength and vigor leaped out intothe village.

The warriors, returning from a futile search for Tarzan,saw him step into the firelight. Ah! there was thedevil-god again, up to his old trick. Did he thinkhe could twice fool the men of Mbonga, the chief,the same way in so short a time? They would show him!For long they had waited for such an opportunity to ridthemselves forever of this fearsome jungle demon. As one they rushed forward with raised spears.

The women and the children came from the huts to witnessthe slaying of the devil-god. The lion turned blazing eyesupon them and then swung about toward the advancing warriors.

With shouts of savage joy and triumph they came toward him,menacing him with their spears. The devil-god was theirs!

And then, with a frightful roar, Numa, the lion, charged.

The men of Mbonga, the chief, met Numa with ready spearsand screams of raillery. In a solid mass of muscled ebonythey waited the coming of the devil-god; yet beneaththeir brave exteriors lurked a haunting fear that allmight not be quite well with them--that this strangecreature could yet prove invulnerable to their weaponsand inflict upon them full punishment for their effrontery. The charging lion was all too lifelike--they saw that inthe brief instant of the charge; but beneath the tawnyhide they knew was hid the soft flesh of the white man,and how could that withstand the assault of many war spears?

In their forefront stood a huge young warrior in the fullarrogance of his might and his youth. Afraid? Not he! Helaughed as Numa bore down upon him; he laughed and couchedhis spear, setting the point for the broad breast. And then the lion was upon him. A great paw swept awaythe heavy war spear, splintering it as the hand of manmight splinter a dry twig.

Down went the black, his skull crushed by another blow. And then the lion was in the midst of the warriors,clawing and tearing to right and left. Not for long didthey stand their ground; but a dozen men were mauled beforethe others made good their escape from those frightfultalons and gleaming fangs.

In terror the villagers fled hither and thither. No hut seemed a sufficiently secure asylum with Numaranging within the palisade. From one to another fledthe frightened blacks, while in the center of the villageNuma stood glaring and growling above his kills.

At last a tribesman flung wide the gates of the villageand sought safety amid the branches of the foresttrees beyond. Like sheep his fellows followed him,until the lion and his dead remained alone in the village.

From the nearer trees the men of Mbonga saw the lion lowerhis great head and seize one of his victims by the shoulderand then with slow and stately tread move down the villagestreet past the open gates and on into the jungle. They saw and shuddered, and from another tree Tarzanof the Apes saw and smiled.

A full hour elapsed after the lion had disappearedwith his feast before the blacks ventured down fromthe trees and returned to their village. Wide eyesrolled from side to side, and naked flesh contractedmore to the chill of fear than to the chill of the jungle night.

"It was he all the time," murmured one. "It was the devil-god."

"He changed himself from a lion to a man, and back againinto a lion," whispered another.

"And he dragged Mweeza into the forest and is eating him,"said a third, shuddering.

"We are no longer safe here," wailed a fourth. "Let ustake our belongings and search for another village sitefar from the haunts of the wicked devil-god."

But with morning came renewed courage, so that theexperiences of the preceding evening had littleother effect than to increase their fear of Tarzanand strengthen their belief in his supernatural origin.

And thus waxed the fame and the power of the ape-man in themysterious haunts of the savage jungle where he ranged,mightiest of beasts because of the man-mind which directedhis giant muscles and his flawless courage.