e knife as he
was borne to the creature's horrid den.

His efforts but served to accelerate the speed of the crocodile, and
just as the ape-man realized that he had reached the limit of his
endurance he felt his body dragged to a muddy bed and his nostrils rise
above the water's surface. All about him was the blackness of the
pit--the silence of the grave.

For a moment Tarzan of the Apes lay gasping for breath upon the slimy,
evil-smelling bed to which the animal had borne him. Close at his side
he could feel the cold, hard plates of the creature's coat rising and
falling as though with spasmodic efforts to breathe.

For several minutes the two lay thus, and then a sudden convulsion of
the giant carcass at the man's side, a tremor, and a stiffening brought
Tarzan to his knees beside the crocodile. To his utter amazement he
found that the beast was dead. The slim knife had found a vulnerable
spot in the scaly armour.

Staggering to his feet, the ape-man groped about the reeking, oozy den.
He found that he was imprisoned in a subterranean chamber amply large
enough to have accommodated a dozen or more of the huge animals such as
the one that had dragged him thither.

He realized that he was in the creature's hidden nest far under the
bank of the stream, and that doubtless the only means of ingress or
egress lay through the submerged opening through which the crocodile
had brought him.

His first thought, of course, was of escape, but that he could make his
way to the surface of the river beyond and then to the shore seemed
highly improbable. There might be turns and windings in the neck of
the passage, or, most to be feared, he might meet another of the slimy
inhabitants of the retreat upon his journey outward.

Even should he reach the river in safety, there was still the danger of
his being again attacked before he could effect a safe landing. Still
there was no alternative, and, filling his lungs with the close and
reeking air of the chamber, Tarzan of the Apes dived into the dark and
watery hole which he could not see but had felt out and found with his
feet and legs.

The leg which had been held within the jaws of the crocodile was badly
lacerated, but the bone had not been broken, nor were the muscles or
tendons sufficiently injured to render it useless. It gave him
excruciating pain, that was all.

But Tarzan of the Apes was accustomed to pain, and gave it no further
thought when he found that