To Jane Clayton, waiting in the tree where Werper hadplaced her, it seemed that the long night would neverend, yet end it did at last, and within an hour of thecoming of dawn her spirits leaped with renewed hope atsight of a solitary horseman approaching along thetrail.

The flowing burnoose, with its loose hood, hid both theface and the figure of the rider; but that it was M.Frecoult the girl well knew, since he had been garbedas an Arab, and he alone might be expected to seek herhiding place.

That which she saw relieved the strain of the longnight vigil; but there was much that she did not see.She did not see the black face beneath the white hood,nor the file of ebon horsemen beyond the trail's bendriding slowly in the wake of their leader. Thesethings she did not see at first, and so she leaneddownward toward the approaching rider, a cry of welcomeforming in her throat.

At the first word the man looked up, reining in insurprise, and as she saw the black face of AbdulMourak, the Abyssinian, she shrank back in terror amongthe branches; but it was too late. The man had seenher, and now he called to her to descend. At first sherefused; but when a dozen black cavalrymen drew upbehind their leader, and at Abdul Mourak's command oneof them started to climb the tree after her sherealized that resistance was futile, and came slowlydown to stand upon the ground before this new captorand plead her cause in the name of justice and humanity.

Angered by recent defeat, and by the loss of the gold,the jewels, and his prisoners, Abdul Mourak was in nomood to be influenced by any appeal to those softersentiments to which, as a matter of fact, he was almosta stranger even under the most favourable conditions.

He looked for degradation and possible death inpunishment for his failures and his misfortunes when heshould have returned to his native land and made hisreport to Menelek; but an acceptable gift might temperthe wrath of the emperor, and surely this fair flowerof another race should be gratefully received by theblack ruler!

When Jane Clayton had concluded her appeal, AbdulMourak replied briefly that he would promise herprotection; but that he must take her to his emperor.The girl did not need ask him why, and once again hopedied within her breast. Resignedly she permittedherself to be lifted to a seat behind one of thetroopers, and again, under new masters, her journey wasresumed toward what she now began to believe was herinevitable fate.

Abdul Mourak, bereft of his guides by the battle he hadwaged against the raiders, and himself unfamiliar withthe country, had wandered far from the trail he shouldhave followed, and as a result had made but littleprogress toward the north since the beginning of hisflight. Today he was beating toward the west in thehope of coming upon a village where he might obtainguides; but night found him still as far from arealization of his hopes as had the rising sun.

It was a dispirited company which went into camp,waterless and hungry, in the dense jungle. Attractedby the horses, lions roared about the boma, and totheir hideous din was added the shrill neighs of theterror-stricken beasts they hunted. There was littlesleep for man or beast, and the sentries were doubledthat there might be enough on duty both to guardagainst the sudden charge of an overbold, or overhungrylion, and to keep the fire blazing which was an evenmore effectual barrier against them than the thorny boma.

It was well past midnight, and as yet Jane Clayton,notwithstanding that she had passed a sleepless nightthe night before, had scarcely more than dozed. Asense of impending danger seemed to hang like a blackpall over the camp. The veteran troopers of the blackemperor were nervous and ill at ease. Abdul Mourakleft his blankets a dozen times to pace restlessly backand forth between the tethered horses and the cracklingfire. The girl could see his great frame silhouettedagainst the lurid glare of the flames, and she guessedfrom the quick, nervous movements of the man that hewas afraid.

The roaring of the lions rose in sudden fury until theearth trembled to the hideous chorus. The horsesshrilled their neighs of terror as they lay back upontheir halter ropes in their mad endeavors to breakloose. A trooper, braver than his fellows, leapedamong the kicking, plunging, fear-maddened beasts in afutile attempt to quiet them. A lion, large, andfierce, and courageous, leaped almost to the boma, fullin the bright light from the fire. A sentry raised hispiece and fired, and the little leaden pelletunstoppered the vials of hell upon the terror-strickencamp.

The shot ploughed a deep and painful furrow in thelion's side, arousing all the bestial fury of thelittle brain; but abating not a whit the power andvigor of the great body.

Unwounded, the boma and the flames might have turnedhim back; but now the pain and the rage wiped cautionfrom his mind, and with a loud, and angry roar hetopped the barrier with an easy leap and was among thehorses.

What had been pandemonium before became now anindescribable tumult of hideous sound. The strickenhorse upon which the lion leaped shrieked out itsterror and its agony. Several about it broke theirtethers and plunged madly about the camp. Men leapedfrom their blankets and with guns ready ran toward thepicket line, and then from the jungle beyond the boma adozen lions, emboldened by the example of their fellowcharged fearlessly upon the camp.

Singly and in twos and threes they leaped the boma,until the little enclosure was filled with cursing menand screaming horses battling for their lives with thegreen-eyed devils of the jungle.

With the charge of the first lion, Jane Clayton hadscrambled to her feet, and now she stood horror-struckat the scene of savage slaughter that swirled andeddied about her. Once a bolting horse knocked herdown, and a moment later a lion, leaping in pursuit ofanother terror-stricken animal, brushed her so closelythat she was again thrown from her feet.

Amidst the cracking of the rifles and the growls of thecarnivora rose the death screams of stricken men andhorses as they were dragged down by the blood-mad cats.The leaping carnivora and the plunging horses,prevented any concerted action by the Abyssinians--itwas every man for himself--and in the melee, thedefenseless woman was either forgotten or ignored byher black captors. A score of times was her lifemenaced by charging lions, by plunging horses, or bythe wildly fired bullets of the frightened troopers,yet there was no chance of escape, for now with thefiendish cunning of their kind, the tawny hunterscommenced to circle about their prey, hemming themwithin a ring of mighty, yellow fangs, and sharp, longtalons. Again and again an individual lion would dashsuddenly among the frightened men and horses, andoccasionally a horse, goaded to frenzy by pain orterror, succeeded in racing safely through the circlinglions, leaping the boma, and escaping into the jungle;but for the men and the woman no such escape waspossible.

A horse, struck by a stray bullet, fell beside JaneClayton, a lion leaped across the expiring beast fullupon the breast of a black trooper just beyond. Theman clubbed his rifle and struck futilely at the broadhead, and then he was down and the carnivore wasstanding above him.

Shrieking out his terror, the soldier clawed with punyfingers at the shaggy breast in vain endeavor to pushaway the grinning jaws. The lion lowered his head, thegaping fangs closed with a single sickening crunch uponthe fear-distorted face, and turning strode back acrossthe body of the dead horse dragging his limp and bloodyburden with him.

Wide-eyed the girl stood watching. She saw thecarnivore step upon the corpse, stumblingly, as thegrisly thing swung between its forepaws, and her eyesremained fixed in fascination while the beast passedwithin a few paces of her.

The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion.He shook the inanimate clay venomously. He growled androared hideously at the dead, insensate thing, and thenhe dropped it and raised his head to look about insearch of some living victim upon which to wreak hisill temper. His yellow eyes fastened themselvesbalefully upon the figure of the girl, the bristlinglips raised, disclosing the grinning fangs. A terrificroar broke from the savage throat, and the great beastcrouched to spring upon this new and helpless victim.

Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan andWerper lay securely bound. Two nervous sentries pacedtheir beats, their eyes rolling often toward theimpenetrable shadows of the gloomy jungle. The othersslept or tried to sleep--all but the ape-man. Silentlyand powerfully he strained at the bonds which fetteredhis wrists.

The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin ofhis arms and shoulders, the veins stood out upon histemples from the force of his exertions--a strandparted, another and another, and one hand was free.Then from the jungle came a low guttural, and theape-man became suddenly a silent, rigid statue, with earsand nostrils straining to span the black void where hiseyesight could not reach.

Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdurebeyond the camp. A sentry halted abruptly, straininghis eyes into the gloom. The kinky wool upon his headstiffened and raised. He called to his comrade in ahoarse whisper.

"Did you hear it?" he asked.

The other came closer, trembling.

"Hear what?"

Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almostimmediately by a similar and answering sound from thecamp. The sentries drew close together, watching theblack spot from which the voice seemed to come.

Trees overhung the boma at this point which was uponthe opposite side of the camp from them. They darednot approach. Their terror even prevented them fromarousing their fellows--they could only stand in frozenfear and watch for the fearsome apparition theymomentarily expected to see leap from the jungle.

Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form droppedlightly from the branches of a tree into the camp. Atsight of it one of the sentries recovered command ofhis muscles and his voice. Screaming loudly to awakenthe sleeping camp, he leaped toward the flickeringwatch fire and threw a mass of brush upon it.

The white officer and the black soldiers sprang fromtheir blankets. The flames leaped high upon therejuvenated fire, lighting the entire camp, and theawakened men shrank back in superstitious terror fromthe sight that met their frightened and astonishedvision.

A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath thetrees at the far side of the enclosure. The whitegiant, one hand freed, had struggled to his knees andwas calling to the frightful, nocturnal visitors in ahideous medley of bestial gutturals, barkings andgrowlings.

Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savagefaces of the approaching anthropoids and scarcely knewwhether to be relieved or terror-stricken.

Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzanand Werper. Chulk led them. The Belgian officercalled to his men to fire upon the intruders; but theNegroes held back, filled as they were withsuperstitious terror of the hairy treemen, and with theconviction that the white giant who could thus summonthe beasts of the jungle to his aid was more than human.

Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzanfearing the effect of the noise upon his really timidfriends called to them to hasten and fulfill his commands.

A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound ofthe firearm; but Chulk and a half dozen others waddledrapidly forward, and, following the ape-man'sdirections, seized both him and Werper and bore themoff toward the jungle.

By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity theBelgian officer succeeded in persuading his tremblingcommand to fire a volley after the retreating apes. Aragged, straggling volley it was, but at least one ofits bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closedabout the hairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werper acrossone broad shoulder, staggered and fell.

In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessedfrom his unsteady gait that he was hard hit. He laggedfar behind the others, and it was several minutes afterthey had halted at Tarzan's command before he cameslowly up to them, reeling from side to side, and atlast falling again beneath the weight of his burden andthe shock of his wound.

As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that thelatter fell face downward with the body of the apelying half across him. In this position the Belgianfelt something resting against his hands, which werestill bound at his back--something that was not a partof the hairy body of the ape.

Mechanically the man's fingers felt of the objectresting almost in their grasp--it was a soft pouch,filled with small, hard particles. Werper gasped inwonderment as recognition filtered through theincredulity of his mind. It was impossible, and yet--it was true!

Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the apeand transfer it to his own possession; but therestricted radius to which his bonds held his handsprevented this, though he did succeed in tucking thepouch with its precious contents inside the waist bandof his trousers.

Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with theremaining knots of the cords which bound him.Presently he flung aside the last of them and rose tohis feet. Approaching Werper he knelt beside him. Fora moment he examined the ape.

"Quite dead," he announced. "It is too bad--he was asplendid creature," and then he turned to the work ofliberating the Belgian.

He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon theknots at his ankles.

"I can do the rest," said the Belgian. "I have a smallpocketknife which they overlooked when they searchedme," and in this way he succeeded in ridding himself ofthe ape-man's attentions that he might find and openhis little knife and cut the thong which fastened thepouch about Chulk's shoulder, and transfer it from hiswaist band to the breast of his shirt. Then he roseand approached Tarzan.

Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were thegood intentions which the confidence of Jane Clayton inhis honor had awakened. What she had done, the littlepouch had undone. How it had come upon the person ofthe great ape, Werper could not imagine, unless it hadbeen that the anthropoid had witnessed his fight withAchmet Zek, seen the Arab with the pouch and taken itaway from him; but that this pouch contained the jewelsof Opar, Werper was positive, and that was all thatinterested him greatly.

"Now," said the ape-man, "keep your promise to me.Lead me to the spot where you last saw my wife."

It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the deadof night behind the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-manchafed at the delay, but the European could not swingthrough the trees as could his more agile and muscularcompanions, and so the speed of all was limited to thatof the slowest.

The apes trailed out behind the two white men for amatter of a few miles; but presently their interestlagged, the foremost of them halted in a little gladeand the others stopped at his side. There they satpeering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figuresof the two men forging steadily ahead, until the latterdisappeared in the leafy trail beyond the clearing.Then an ape sought a comfortable couch beneath a tree,and one by one the others followed his example, so thatWerper and Tarzan continued their journey alone; norwas the latter either surprised or concerned.

The two had gone but a short distance beyond the gladewhere the apes had deserted them, when the roaring ofdistant lions fell upon their ears. The ape-man paidno attention to the familiar sounds until the crack ofa rifle came faintly from the same direction, and whenthis was followed by the shrill neighing of horses, andan almost continuous fusillade of shots intermingledwith increased and savage roaring of a large troop oflions, he became immediately concerned.

"Someone is having trouble over there," he said,turning toward Werper. "I'll have to go to them--theymay be friends."

"Your wife might be among them," suggested the Belgian,for since he had again come into possession of thepouch he had become fearful and suspicious of theape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved many plansfor eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once hissavior and his captor.

At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck witha whip.

"God!" he cried, "she might be, and the lions areattacking them--they are in the camp. I can tell fromthe screams of the horses--and there! that was the cryof a man in his death agonies. Stay here man--I willcome back for you. I must go first to them," andswinging into a tree the lithe figure swung rapidly offinto the night with the speed and silence of adisembodied spirit.

For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had lefthim. Then a cunning smile crossed his lips. "Stayhere?" he asked himself. "Stay here and wait until youreturn to find and take these jewels from me? Not I, myfriend, not I," and turning abruptly eastward AlbertWerper passed through the foliage of a hanging vine andout of the sight of his fellow-man--forever.