that he had
wasted because he had been so gullible as to place credence in a single
statement of the first lieutenant of his arch-enemy.

"I have at least," he thought, "one consolation--the knowledge that
Jane is safe in London. Thank Heaven she, too, did not fall into the
clutches of those villains."

Behind him the hairy thing whose evil eyes had been watching his as a
cat watches a mouse was creeping stealthily toward him.

Where were the trained senses of the savage ape-man?

Where the acute hearing?

Where the uncanny sense of scent?

Chapter 3

Beasts at Bay

Slowly Tarzan unfolded the note the sailor had thrust into his hand,
and read it. At first it made little impression on his sorrow-numbed
senses, but finally the full purport of the hideous plot of revenge
unfolded itself before his imagination.

"This will explain to you" [the note read] "the exact nature of my
intentions relative to your offspring and to you.

"You were born an ape. You lived naked in the jungles--to your own we
have returned you; but your son shall rise a step above his sire. It
is the immutable law of evolution.

"The father was a beast, but the son shall be a man--he shall take the
next ascending step in the scale of progress. He shall be no naked
beast of the jungle, but shall wear a loin-cloth and copper anklets,
and, perchance, a ring in his nose, for he is to be reared by men--a
tribe of savage cannibals.

"I might have killed you, but that would have curtailed the full
measure of the punishment you have earned at my hands.

"Dead, you could not have suffered in the knowledge of your son's
plight; but living and in a place from which you may not escape to seek
or succour your child, you shall suffer worse than death for all the
years of your life in contemplation of the horrors of your son's
existence.

"This, then, is to be a part of your punishment for having dared to pit
yourself against

N. R.

"P.S.--The balance of your punishment has to do with what shall
presently befall your wife--that I shall leave to your imagination."

As he finished reading, a slight sound behind him brought him back with
a start to the world of present realities.

Instantly his senses awoke, and he was again Tarzan of the Apes.

As he wheeled about, it was a beast at bay, vibrant with the instinct
of self-preservation, that faced a huge bull-ape that was already
charging down upon him.

The two years that had