at the
charging ape-man; but those behind them were otherwise engaged--for up
the monkey-ladder in their rear was thronging a hideous horde.

First came five snarling apes, huge, manlike beasts, with bared fangs
and slavering jaws; and after them a giant black warrior, his long
spear gleaming in the moonlight.

Behind him again scrambled another creature, and of all the horrid
horde it was this they most feared--Sheeta, the panther, with gleaming
jaws agape and fiery eyes blazing at them in the mightiness of his hate
and of his blood lust.

The shots that had been fired at Tarzan missed him, and he would have
been upon Rokoff in another instant had not the great coward dodged
backward between his two henchmen, and, screaming in hysterical terror,
bolted forward toward the forecastle.

For the moment Tarzan's attention was distracted by the two men before
him, so that he could not at the time pursue the Russian. About him
the apes and Mugambi were battling with the balance of the Russian's
party.

Beneath the terrible ferocity of the beasts the men were soon
scampering in all directions--those who still lived to scamper, for the
great fangs of the apes of Akut and the tearing talons of Sheeta
already had found more than a single victim.

Four, however, escaped and disappeared into the forecastle, where they
hoped to barricade themselves against further assault. Here they
found Rokoff, and, enraged at his desertion of them in their moment of
peril, no less than at the uniformly brutal treatment it had been his
wont to accord them, they gloated upon the opportunity now offered them
to revenge themselves in part upon their hated employer.

Despite his prayers and grovelling pleas, therefore, they hurled him
bodily out upon the deck, delivering him to the mercy of the fearful
things from which they had themselves just escaped.

Tarzan saw the man emerge from the forecastle--saw and recognized his
enemy; but another saw him even as soon.

It was Sheeta, and with grinning jaws the mighty beast slunk silently
toward the terror-stricken man.

When Rokoff saw what it was that stalked him his shrieks for help
filled the air, as with trembling knees he stood, as one paralyzed,
before the hideous death that was creeping upon him.

Tarzan took a step toward the Russian, his brain burning with a raging
fire of vengeance. At last he had the murderer of his son at his
mercy. His was the right to avenge.

Once Jane