Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far tothe south to intercept the flight of his desertinglieutenant, Werper. Others had spread out in variousdirections, so that a vast circle had been formed bythem during the night, and now they were beating intoward the center.

Achmet and the two with him halted for a short restjust before noon. They squatted beneath the trees uponthe southern edge of a clearing. The chief of theraiders was in ill humor. To have been outwitted by anunbeliever was bad enough; but to have, at the sametime, lost the jewels upon which he had set hisavaricious heart was altogether too much--Allah must,indeed be angry with his servant.

Well, he still had the woman. She would bring a fairprice in the north, and there was, too, the buriedtreasure beside the ruins of the Englishman's house.

A slight noise in the jungle upon the opposite side ofthe clearing brought Achmet Zek to immediate and alertattention. He gathered his rifle in readiness forinstant use, at the same time motioning his followersto silence and concealment. Crouching behind thebushes the three waited, their eyes fastened upon thefar side of the open space.

Presently the foliage parted and a woman's faceappeared, glancing fearfully from side to side.A moment later, evidently satisfied that no immediatedanger lurked before her, she stepped out into theclearing in full view of the Arab.

Achmet Zek caught his breath with a mutteredexclamation of incredulity and an imprecation.The woman was the prisoner he had thought safely guardedat his camp!

Apparently she was alone, but Achmet Zek waited that hemight make sure of it before seizing her. Slowly JaneClayton started across the clearing. Twice alreadysince she had quitted the village of the raiders hadshe barely escaped the fangs of carnivora, and once shehad almost stumbled into the path of one of thesearchers. Though she was almost despairing of everreaching safety she still was determined to fight on,until death or success terminated her endeavors.

As the Arabs watched her from the safety of theirconcealment, and Achmet Zek noted with satisfactionthat she was walking directly into his clutches,another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scenefrom the foliage of an adjacent tree.

Puzzled, troubled eyes they were, for all their grayand savage glint, for their owner was struggling withan intangible suggestion of the familiarity of the faceand figure of the woman below him.

A sudden crashing of the bushes at the point from whichJane Clayton had emerged into the clearing brought herto a sudden stop and attracted the attention of theArabs and the watcher in the tree to the same point.

The woman wheeled about to see what new danger menacedher from behind, and as she did so a great, anthropoidape waddled into view. Behind him came another andanother; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learn howmany more of the hideous creatures were so close uponher trail.

With a smothered scream she rushed toward the oppositejungle, and as she reached the bushes there, Achmet Zekand his two henchmen rose up and seized her. At thesame instant a naked, brown giant dropped from thebranches of a tree at the right of the clearing.

Turning toward the astonished apes he gave voice to ashort volley of low gutturals, and without waiting tonote the effect of his words upon them, wheeled andcharged for the Arabs.

Achmet Zek was dragging Jane Clayton toward histethered horse. His two men were hastily unfasteningall three mounts. The woman, struggling to escape theArab, turned and saw the ape-man running toward her.A glad light of hope illuminated her face.

"John!" she cried. "Thank God that you have come in time."

Behind Tarzan came the great apes, wondering, butobedient to his summons. The Arabs saw that they wouldnot have time to mount and make their escape before thebeasts and the man were upon them. Achmet Zekrecognized the latter as the redoubtable enemy of suchas he, and he saw, too, in the circumstance anopportunity to rid himself forever of the menace of theape-man's presence.

Calling to his men to follow his example he raised hisrifle and leveled it upon the charging giant. Hisfollowers, acting with no less alacrity than himself,fired almost simultaneously, and with the reports ofthe rifles, Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairyhenchmen pitched forward among the jungle grasses.

The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of theapes to a wondering pause, and, taking advantage oftheir momentary distraction, Achmet Zek and his fellowsleaped to their horses' backs and galloped away withthe now hopeless and grief-stricken woman.

Back to the village they rode, and once again LadyGreystoke found herself incarcerated in the filthy,little hut from which she had thought to have escapedfor good. But this time she was not only guarded by anadditional sentry, but bound as well.

Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden outwith Achmet Zek upon the trail of the Belgian, returnedempty handed. With the report of each the raider'srage and chagrin increased, until he was in such atransport of ferocious anger that none dared approachhim. Threatening and cursing, Achmet Zek paced up anddown the floor of his silken tent; but his temperserved him naught--Werper was gone and with him thefortune in scintillating gems which had aroused thecupidity of his chief and placed the sentence of deathupon the head of the lieutenant.

With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turnedtheir attention to their fallen comrades. One wasdead, but another and the great white ape stillbreathed. The hairy monsters gathered about these two,grumbling and muttering after the fashion of their kind.

Tarzan was the first to regain consciousness. Sittingup, he looked about him. Blood was flowing from awound in his shoulder. The shock had thrown him downand dazed him; but he was far from dead. Rising slowlyto his feet he let his eyes wander toward the spotwhere last he had seen the she, who had aroused withinhis savage breast such strange emotions.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"The Tarmangani took her away," replied one of the apes."Who are you who speak the language of the Mangani?"

"I am Tarzan," replied the ape-man; "mighty hunter,greatest of fighters. When I roar, the jungle issilent and trembles with terror. I am Tarzan of theApes. I have been away; but now I have come back to mypeople."

"Yes," spoke up an old ape, "he is Tarzan. I know him.It is well that he has come back. Now we shall havegood hunting."

The other apes came closer and sniffed at the ape-man.Tarzan stood very still, his fangs half bared, and hismuscles tense and ready for action; but there was nonethere to question his right to be with them, andpresently, the inspection satisfactorily concluded, theapes again returned their attention to the other survivor.

He too was but slightly wounded, a bullet, grazing hisskull, having stunned him, so that when he regainedconsciousness he was apparently as fit as ever.

The apes told Tarzan that they had been travelingtoward the east when the scent spoor of the she hadattracted them and they had stalked her. Now theywished to continue upon their interrupted march; butTarzan preferred to follow the Arabs and take the womanfrom them. After a considerable argument it wasdecided that they should first hunt toward the east fora few days and then return and search for the Arabs,and as time is of little moment to the ape folk, Tarzanacceded to their demands, he, himself, having revertedto a mental state but little superior to their own.

Another circumstance which decided him to postponepursuit of the Arabs was the painfulness of his wound.It would be better to wait until that had healed beforehe pitted himself again against the guns of theTarmangani.

And so, as Jane Clayton was pushed into her prison hutand her hands and feet securely bound, her naturalprotector roamed off toward the east in company with ascore of hairy monsters, with whom he rubbed shouldersas familiarly as a few months before he had mingledwith his immaculate fellow-members of one of London'smost select and exclusive clubs.

But all the time there lurked in the back of hisinjured brain a troublesome conviction that he had nobusiness where he was--that he should be, for someunaccountable reason, elsewhere and among another sortof creature. Also, there was the compelling urge to beupon the scent of the Arabs, undertaking the rescue ofthe woman who had appealed so strongly to his savagesentiments; though the thought-word which naturallyoccurred to him in the contemplation of the venture,was "capture," rather than "rescue."

To him she was as any other jungle she, and he had sethis heart upon her as his mate. For an instant, as hehad approached closer to her in the clearing where theArabs had seized her, the subtle aroma which had firstaroused his desires in the hut that had imprisoned herhad fallen upon his nostrils, and told him that he hadfound the creature for whom he had developed so suddenand inexplicable a passion.

The matter of the pouch of jewels also occupied histhoughts to some extent, so that he found a double urgefor his return to the camp of the raiders. He wouldobtain possession of both his pretty pebbles and theshe. Then he would return to the great apes with hisnew mate and his baubles, and leading his hairycompanions into a far wilderness beyond the ken of man,live out his life, hunting and battling among the lowerorders after the only manner which he now recollected.

He spoke to his fellow-apes upon the matter, in anattempt to persuade them to accompany him; but allexcept Taglat and Chulk refused. The latter was youngand strong, endowed with a greater intelligence thanhis fellows, and therefore the possessor of betterdeveloped powers of imagination. To him the expeditionsavored of adventure, and so appealed, strongly. WithTaglat there was another incentive--a secret andsinister incentive, which, had Tarzan of the Apes hadknowledge of it, would have sent him at the other'sthroat in jealous rage.

Taglat was no longer young; but he was still aformidable beast, mightily muscled, cruel, and,because of his greater experience, crafty and cunning.Too, he was of giant proportions, the very weight of hishuge bulk serving ofttimes to discount in his favor thesuperior agility of a younger antagonist.

He was of a morose and sullen disposition that markedhim even among his frowning fellows, where suchcharacteristics are the rule rather than the exception,and, though Tarzan did not guess it, he hated the ape-manwith a ferocity that he was able to hide onlybecause the dominant spirit of the nobler creature hadinspired within him a species of dread which was aspowerful as it was inexplicable to him.

These two, then, were to be Tarzan's companions uponhis return to the village of Achmet Zek. As they setoff, the balance of the tribe vouchsafed them but aparting stare, and then resumed the serious business offeeding.

Tarzan found difficulty in keeping the minds of hisfellows set upon the purpose of their adventure, forthe mind of an ape lacks the power of long-sustainedconcentration. To set out upon a long journey, with adefinite destination in view, is one thing, to rememberthat purpose and keep it uppermost in one's mindcontinually is quite another. There are so many thingsto distract one's attention along the way.

Chulk was, at first, for rushing rapidly ahead asthough the village of the raiders lay but an hour'smarch before them instead of several days; but within afew minutes a fallen tree attracted his attention withits suggestion of rich and succulent forage beneath,and when Tarzan, missing him, returned in search, hefound Chulk squatting beside the rotting bole, frombeneath which he was assiduously engaged in digging outthe grubs and beetles, whose kind form a considerableproportion of the diet of the apes.

Unless Tarzan desired to fight there was nothing todo but wait until Chulk had exhausted the storehouse,and this he did, only to discover that Taglat was nowmissing. After a considerable search, he found thatworthy gentleman contemplating the sufferings of aninjured rodent he had pounced upon. He would sit inapparent indifference, gazing in another direction,while the crippled creature, wriggled slowly andpainfully away from him, and then, just as his victimfelt assured of escape, he would reach out a giant palmand slam it down upon the fugitive. Again and again herepeated this operation, until, tiring of the sport, heended the sufferings of his plaything by devouring it.

Such were the exasperating causes of delay whichretarded Tarzan's return journey toward the village ofAchmet Zek; but the ape-man was patient, for in hismind was a plan which necessitated the presence ofChulk and Taglat when he should have arrived at hisdestination.

It was not always an easy thing to maintain in thevacillating minds of the anthropoids a sustainedinterest in their venture. Chulk was wearying of thecontinued marching and the infrequency and shortduration of the rests. He would gladly have abandonedthis search for adventure had not Tarzan continuallyfilled his mind with alluring pictures of the greatstores of food which were to be found in the village ofTarmangani.

Taglat nursed his secret purpose to better advantagethan might have been expected of an ape, yet there weretimes when he, too, would have abandoned the adventurehad not Tarzan cajoled him on.

It was mid-afternoon of a sultry, tropical day when thekeen senses of the three warned them of the proximityof the Arab camp. Stealthily they approached, keepingto the dense tangle of growing things which madeconcealment easy to their uncanny jungle craft.

First came the giant ape-man, his smooth, brown skinglistening with the sweat of exertion in the close, hotconfines of the jungle. Behind him crept Chulk andTaglat, grotesque and shaggy caricatures of theirgodlike leader.

Silently they made their way to the edge of theclearing which surrounded the palisade, and here theyclambered into the lower branches of a large treeoverlooking the village occupied by the enemy, thebetter to spy upon his goings and comings.

A horseman, white burnoosed, rode out through thegateway of the village. Tarzan, whispering to Chulkand Taglat to remain where they were, swung, monkey-like,through the trees in the direction of the trailthe Arab was riding. From one jungle giant to the nexthe sped with the rapidity of a squirrel and the silenceof a ghost.

The Arab rode slowly onward, unconscious of the dangerhovering in the trees behind him. The ape-man made aslight detour and increased his speed until he hadreached a point upon the trail in advance of thehorseman. Here he halted upon a leafy bough whichoverhung the narrow, jungle trail. On came the victim,humming a wild air of the great desert land of thenorth. Above him poised the savage brute that wastoday bent upon the destruction of a human life--thesame creature who a few months before, had occupied hisseat in the House of Lords at London, a respected anddistinguished member of that august body.

The Arab passed beneath the overhanging bough, therewas a slight rustling of the leaves above, the horsesnorted and plunged as a brown-skinned creature droppedupon its rump. A pair of mighty arms encircled theArab and he was dragged from his saddle to the trail.

Ten minutes later the ape-man, carrying the outergarments of an Arab bundled beneath an arm, rejoinedhis companions. He exhibited his trophies to them,explaining in low gutturals the details of his exploit.Chulk and Taglat fingered the fabrics, smelled of them,and, placing them to their ears, tried to listen to them.

Then Tarzan led them back through the jungle to thetrail, where the three hid themselves and waited.Nor had they long to wait before two of Achmet Zek'sblacks, clothed in habiliments similar to their master's,came down the trail on foot, returning to the camp.

One moment they were laughing and talking together--thenext they lay stretched in death upon the trail, threemighty engines of destruction bending over them.Tarzan removed their outer garments as he had removedthose of his first victim, and again retired with Chulkand Taglat to the greater seclusion of the tree theyhad first selected.

Here the ape-man arranged the garments upon his shaggyfellows and himself, until, at a distance, it mighthave appeared that three white-robed Arabs squattedsilently among the branches of the forest.

Until dark they remained where they were, for from hispoint of vantage, Tarzan could view the enclosurewithin the palisade. He marked the position of the hutin which he had first discovered the scent spoor of theshe he sought. He saw the two sentries standing beforeits doorway, and he located the habitation of AchmetZek, where something told him he would most likely findthe missing pouch and pebbles.

Chulk and Taglat were, at first, greatly interested intheir wonderful raiment. They fingered the fabric,smelled of it, and regarded each other intently withevery mark of satisfaction and pride. Chulk, ahumorist in his way, stretched forth a long and hairyarm, and grasping the hood of Taglat's burnoose pulledit down over the latter's eyes, extinguishing him,snuffer-like, as it were.

The older ape, pessimistic by nature, recognized nosuch thing as humor. Creatures laid their paws uponhim for but two things--to search for fleas and toattack. The pulling of the Tarmangani-scented thingabout his head and eyes could not be for theperformance of the former act; therefore it must be thelatter. He was attacked! Chulk had attacked him.

With a snarl he was at the other's throat, not evenwaiting to lift the woolen veil which obscured hisvision. Tarzan leaped upon the two, and swaying andtoppling upon their insecure perch the three greatbeasts tussled and snapped at one another until theape-man finally succeeded in separating the enragedanthropoids.

An apology is unknown to these savage progenitors ofman, and explanation a laborious and usually futileprocess, Tarzan bridged the dangerous gulf bydistracting their attention from their altercation to aconsideration of their plans for the immediate future.Accustomed to frequent arguments in which more hairthan blood is wasted, the apes speedily forget suchtrivial encounters, and presently Chulk and Taglat wereagain squatting in close proximity to each other andpeaceful repose, awaiting the moment when the ape-manshould lead them into the village of the Tarmangani.

It was long after darkness had fallen, that Tarzan ledhis companions from their hiding place in the tree tothe ground and around the palisade to the far side ofthe village.

Gathering the skirts of his burnoose, beneath one arm,that his legs might have free action, the ape-man tooka short running start, and scrambled to the top of thebarrier. Fearing lest the apes should rend theirgarments to shreds in a similar attempt, he haddirected them to wait below for him, and himselfsecurely perched upon the summit of the palisade heunslung his spear and lowered one end of it to Chulk.

The ape seized it, and while Tarzan held tightly to theupper end, the anthropoid climbed quickly up the shaftuntil with one paw he grasped the top of the wall.To scramble then to Tarzan's side was the work of but aninstant. In like manner Taglat was conducted to theirsides, and a moment later the three dropped silentlywithin the enclosure.

Tarzan led them first to the rear of the hut in whichJane Clayton was confined, where, through the roughlyrepaired aperture in the wall, he sought with hissensitive nostrils for proof that the she he had comefor was within.

Chulk and Taglat, their hairy faces pressed close tothat of the patrician, sniffed with him. Each caughtthe scent spoor of the woman within, and each reactedaccording to his temperament and his habits of thought.

It left Chulk indifferent. The she was for Tarzan--allthat he desired was to bury his snout in the foodstuffsof the Tarmangani. He had come to eat his fill withoutlabor--Tarzan had told him that that should be hisreward, and he was satisfied.

But Taglat's wicked, bloodshot eyes, narrowed to therealization of the nearing fulfillment of his carefullynursed plan. It is true that sometimes during theseveral days that had elapsed since they had set outupon their expedition it had been difficult for Taglatto hold his idea uppermost in his mind, and on severaloccasions he had completely forgotten it, until Tarzan,by a chance word, had recalled it to him, but, for anape, Taglat had done well.

Now, he licked his chops, and he made a sickening,sucking noise with his flabby lips as he drew in his breath.

Satisfied that the she was where he had hoped to findher, Tarzan led his apes toward the tent of Achmet Zek.A passing Arab and two slaves saw them, but the nightwas dark and the white burnooses hid the hairy limbs ofthe apes and the giant figure of their leader, so thatthe three, by squatting down as though in conversation,were passed by, unsuspected. To the rear of the tentthey made their way. Within, Achmet Zek conversed withseveral of his lieutenants. Without, Tarzan listened.