As the warriors, clustered thick about Tarzan and Sheeta,realized that it was a flesh-and-blood panther that hadinterrupted their dance of death, they took heart a trifle,for in the face of all those circling spears even themighty Sheeta would be doomed.

Rokoff was urging the chief to have his spearmen launchtheir missiles, and the black was upon the instant of issuingthe command, when his eyes strayed beyond Tarzan,following the gaze of the ape-man.

With a yell of terror the chief turned and fled toward thevillage gate, and as his people looked to see the cause of hisfright, they too took to their heels--for there, lumbering downupon them, their huge forms exaggerated by the play ofmoonlight and camp fire, came the hideous apes of Akut.

The instant the natives turned to flee the ape-man's savagecry rang out above the shrieks of the blacks, and in answerto it Sheeta and the apes leaped growling after the fugitives. Some of the warriors turned to battle with their enragedantagonists, but before the fiendish ferocity of the fierce beaststhey went down to bloody death.

Others were dragged down in their flight, and it was notuntil the village was empty and the last of the blacks haddisappeared into the bush that Tarzan was able to recall hissavage pack to his side. Then it was that he discovered to hischagrin that he could not make one of them, not even thecomparatively intelligent Akut, understand that he wished tobe freed from the bonds that held him to the stake.

In time, of course, the idea would filter through their thickskulls, but in the meanwhile many things might happen--theblacks might return in force to regain their village; the whitesmight readily pick them all off with their rifles from thesurrounding trees; he might even starve to death before the dull-witted apes realized that he wished them to gnaw through his bonds.

As for Sheeta--the great cat understood even less than theapes; but yet Tarzan could not but marvel at the remarkablecharacteristics this beast had evidenced. That it felt realaffection for him there seemed little doubt, for now that theblacks were disposed of it walked slowly back and forthabout the stake, rubbing its sides against the ape-man's legsand purring like a contented tabby. That it had gone of itsown volition to bring the balance of the pack to his rescue,Tarzan could not doubt. His Sheeta was indeed a jewel among beasts.

Mugambi's absence worried the ape-man not a little. He attempted to learn from Akut what had become of the black,fearing that the beasts, freed from the restraint of Tarzan'spresence, might have fallen upon the man and devoured him;but to all his questions the great ape but pointed back in thedirection from which they had come out of the jungle.

The night passed with Tarzan still fast bound to the stake,and shortly after dawn his fears were realized in the discoveryof naked black figures moving stealthily just within the edge ofthe jungle about the village. The blacks were returning.

With daylight their courage would be equal to the demandsof a charge upon the handful of beasts that had routed themfrom their rightful abodes. The result of the encounter seemedforegone if the savages could curb their superstitious terror,for against their overwhelming numbers, their long spearsand poisoned arrows, the panther and the apes could not beexpected to survive a really determined attack.

That the blacks were preparing for a charge became apparenta few moments later, when they commenced to showthemselves in force upon the edge of the clearing, dancingand jumping about as they waved their spears and shoutedtaunts and fierce warcries toward the village.

These manoeuvres Tarzan knew would continue until the blackshad worked themselves into a state of hysterical couragesufficient to sustain them for a short charge toward thevillage, and even though he doubted that they would reach itat the first attempt, he believed that at the second or the thirdthey would swarm through the gateway, when the outcomecould not be aught than the extermination of Tarzan's bold,but unarmed and undisciplined, defenders.

Even as he had guessed, the first charge carried the howlingwarriors but a short distance into the open--a shrill, weirdchallenge from the ape-man being all that was necessary tosend them scurrying back to the bush. For half an hour theypranced and yelled their courage to the sticking-point, andagain essayed a charge.

This time they came quite to the village gate, but whenSheeta and the hideous apes leaped among them they turnedscreaming in terror, and again fled to the jungle.

Again was the dancing and shouting repeated. This timeTarzan felt no doubt they would enter the village andcomplete the work that a handful of determined white men wouldhave carried to a successful conclusion at the first attempt.

To have rescue come so close only to be thwarted becausehe could not make his poor, savage friends understandprecisely what he wanted of them was most irritating, but hecould not find it in his heart to place blame upon them. They had done their best, and now he was sure they would doubtlessremain to die with him in a fruitless effort to defend him.

The blacks were already preparing for the charge. A fewindividuals had advanced a short distance toward the villageand were exhorting the others to follow them. In a momentthe whole savage horde would be racing across the clearing.

Tarzan thought only of the little child somewhere in thiscruel, relentless wilderness. His heart ached for the son thathe might no longer seek to save--that and the realization ofJane's suffering were all that weighed upon his brave spiritin these that he thought his last moments of life. Succour, allthat he could hope for, had come to him in the instant of hisextremity--and failed. There was nothing further for whichto hope.

The blacks were half-way across the clearing when Tarzan'sattention was attracted by the actions of one of the apes.The beast was glaring toward one of the huts. Tarzan followedhis gaze. To his infinite relief and delight he saw thestalwart form of Mugambi racing toward him.

The huge black was panting heavily as though from strenuousphysical exertion and nervous excitement. He rushedto Tarzan's side, and as the first of the savages reached thevillage gate the native's knife severed the last of the cordsthat bound Tarzan to the stake.

In the street lay the corpses of the savages that had fallenbefore the pack the night before. From one of these Tarzanseized a spear and knob stick, and with Mugambi at his sideand the snarling pack about him, he met the natives as theypoured through the gate.

Fierce and terrible was the battle that ensued, but at last thesavages were routed, more by terror, perhaps, at sight of ablack man and a white fighting in company with a panther andthe huge fierce apes of Akut, than because of their inabilityto overcome the relatively small force that opposed them.

One prisoner fell into the hands of Tarzan, and him theape-man questioned in an effort to learn what had become ofRokoff and his party. Promised his liberty in return for theinformation, the black told all he knew concerning the movementsof the Russian.

It seemed that early in the morning their chief had attemptedto prevail upon the whites to return with him to thevillage and with their guns destroy the ferocious pack thathad taken possession of it, but Rokoff appeared to entertaineven more fears of the giant white man and his strangecompanions than even the blacks themselves.

Upon no conditions would he consent to returning evenwithin sight of the village. Instead, he took his partyhurriedly to the river, where they stole a number of canoes theblacks had hidden there. The last that had been seen of themthey had been paddling strongly up-stream, their porters fromKaviri's village wielding the blades.

So once more Tarzan of the Apes with his hideous packtook up his search for the ape-man's son and the pursuit ofhis abductor.

For weary days they followed through an almost uninhabitedcountry, only to learn at last that they were upon thewrong trail. The little band had been reduced by three, forthree of Akut's apes had fallen in the fighting at the village. Now, with Akut, there were five great apes, and Sheeta wasthere--and Mugambi and Tarzan.

The ape-man no longer heard rumors even of the threewho had preceded Rokoff--the white man and woman andthe child. Who the man and woman were he could not guess,but that the child was his was enough to keep him hot uponthe trail. He was sure that Rokoff would be following thistrio, and so he felt confident that so long as he could keepupon the Russian's trail he would be winning so much nearerto the time he might snatch his son from the dangers andhorrors that menaced him.

In retracing their way after losing Rokoff's trail Tarzanpicked it up again at a point where the Russian had left theriver and taken to the brush in a northerly direction. He couldonly account for this change on the ground that the child hadbeen carried away from the river by the two who now hadpossession of it.

Nowhere along the way, however, could he gain definite informationthat might assure him positively that the child was ahead of him.Not a single native they questioned had seen or heard of thisother party, though nearly all had had direct experience withthe Russian or had talked with others who had.

It was with difficulty that Tarzan could find means to communicatewith the natives, as the moment their eyes fell upon his companionsthey fled precipitately into the bush. His only alternative wasto go ahead of his pack and waylay an occasional warrior whomhe found alone in the jungle.

One day as he was thus engaged, tracking an unsuspectingsavage, he came upon the fellow in the act of hurling a spearat a wounded white man who crouched in a clump of bush at thetrail's side. The white was one whom Tarzan had often seen,and whom he recognized at once.

Deep in his memory was implanted those repulsive features--theclose-set eyes, the shifty expression, the drooping yellow moustache.

Instantly it occurred to the ape-man that this fellow hadnot been among those who had accompanied Rokoff at thevillage where Tarzan had been a prisoner. He had seen them all,and this fellow had not been there. There could be but oneexplanation--he it was who had fled ahead of the Russian withthe woman and the child--and the woman had been Jane Clayton. He was sure now of the meaning of Rokoff's words.

The ape-man's face went white as he looked upon the pasty,vice-marked countenance of the Swede. Across Tarzan's foreheadstood out the broad band of scarlet that marked the scar where,years before, Terkoz had torn a great strip of the ape-man'sscalp from his skull in the fierce battle in which Tarzan hadsustained his fitness to the kingship of the apes of Kerchak.

The man was his prey--the black should not have him,and with the thought he leaped upon the warrior, strikingdown the spear before it could reach its mark. The black,whipping out his knife, turned to do battle with this newenemy, while the Swede, lying in the bush, witnessed a duel,the like of which he had never dreamed to see--a half-nakedwhite man battling with a half-naked black, hand to handwith the crude weapons of primeval man at first, and thenwith hands and teeth like the primordial brutes from whoseloins their forebears sprung.

For a time Anderssen did not recognize the white, and whenat last it dawned upon him that he had seen this giant before,his eyes went wide in surprise that this growling, rending beastcould ever have been the well-groomed English gentleman who hadbeen a prisoner aboard the Kincaid.

An English nobleman! He had learned the identity of theKincaid's prisoners from Lady Greystoke during their flightup the Ugambi. Before, in common with the other members ofthe crew of the steamer, he had not known who the two might be.

The fight was over. Tarzan had been compelled to kill his antagonist,as the fellow would not surrender.

The Swede saw the white man leap to his feet beside the corpseof his foe, and placing one foot upon the broken neck lifthis voice in the hideous challenge of the victorious bull-ape.

Anderssen shuddered. Then Tarzan turned toward him.His face was cold and cruel, and in the grey eyes theSwede read murder.

"Where is my wife?" growled the ape-man. "Where is the child?"

Anderssen tried to reply, but a sudden fit of coughing choked him.There was an arrow entirely through his chest, and as he coughed theblood from his wounded lung poured suddenly from his mouth and nostrils.

Tarzan stood waiting for the paroxysm to pass. Like abronze image--cold, hard, and relentless--he stood over thehelpless man, waiting to wring such information from himas he needed, and then to kill.

Presently the coughing and haemorrhage ceased, and againthe wounded man tried to speak. Tarzan knelt near the faintlymoving lips.

"The wife and child!" he repeated. "Where are they?"

Anderssen pointed up the trail.

"The Russian--he got them," he whispered.

"How did you come here?" continued Tarzan. "Why are you not with Rokoff?"

"They catch us," replied Anderssen, in a voice so lowthat the ape-man could just distinguish the words. "They catch us. Ay fight, but my men they all run away. Then they get me when Ay ban vounded. Rokoff he say leaveme here for the hyenas. That vas vorse than to kill. He tak your vife and kid."

"What were you doing with them--where were you taking them?"asked Tarzan, and then fiercely, leaping close to thefellow with fierce eyes blazing with the passion of hate andvengeance that he had with difficulty controlled, "What harmdid you do to my wife or child? Speak quick before I kill you! Make your peace with God! Tell me the worst, or I willtear you to pieces with my hands and teeth. You have seenthat I can do it!"

A look of wide-eyed surprise overspread Anderssen's face.

"Why," he whispered, "Ay did not hurt them. Ay triedto save them from that Russian. Your vife was kind to me onthe Kincaid, and Ay hear that little baby cry sometimes. Ay got a vife an' kid for my own by Christiania an' Ay couldn'tbear for to see them separated an' in Rokoff's hands any more. That vas all. Do Ay look like Ay ban here to hurt them?"he continued after a pause, pointing to the arrow protrudingfrom his breast.

There was something in the man's tone and expression thatconvinced Tarzan of the truth of his assertions. More weightythan anything else was the fact that Anderssen evidently seemedmore hurt than frightened. He knew he was going to die,so Tarzan's threats had little effect upon him; but it wasquite apparent that he wished the Englishman to know thetruth and not to wrong him by harbouring the belief that hiswords and manner indicated that he had entertained.

The ape-man instantly dropped to his knees beside the Swede.

"I am sorry," he said very simply. "I had looked for nonebut knaves in company with Rokoff. I see that I was wrong. That is past now, and we will drop it for the more importantmatter of getting you to a place of comfort and looking afteryour wounds. We must have you on your feet again as soonas possible."

The Swede, smiling, shook his head.

"You go on an' look for the vife an' kid," he said. "Ay ban as gude as dead already; but"--he hesitated--"Ay hateto think of the hyenas. Von't you finish up this job?"

Tarzan shuddered. A moment ago he had been upon the pointof killing this man. Now he could no more have taken his lifethan he could have taken the life of any of his best friends.

He lifted the Swede's head in his arms to change and ease his position.

Again came a fit of coughing and the terrible haemorrhage. After it was over Anderssen lay with closed eyes.

Tarzan thought that he was dead, until he suddenly raisedhis eyes to those of the ape-man, sighed, and spoke--in avery low, weak whisper.

"Ay tank it blow purty soon purty hard!" he said, and died.