or, threatening and pleading and promising, but all to no
avail. Presently from the deck above came a shout of warning and a
shot. For an instant Jane Clayton relaxed her vigilance, and turned
her eyes toward the cabin skylight. Simultaneously Schneider was upon
her.

The first intimation the watch had that there was another craft within
a thousand miles of the Cowrie came when he saw the head and shoulders
of a man poked over the ship's side. Instantly the fellow sprang to
his feet with a cry and levelled his revolver at the intruder. It was
his cry and the subsequent report of the revolver which threw Jane
Clayton off her guard.

Upon deck the quiet of fancied security soon gave place to the wildest
pandemonium. The crew of the Cowrie rushed above armed with revolvers,
cutlasses, and the long knives that many of them habitually wore; but
the alarm had come too late. Already the beasts of Tarzan were upon
the ship's deck, with Tarzan and the two men of the Kincaid's crew.

In the face of the frightful beasts the courage of the mutineers
wavered and broke. Those with revolvers fired a few scattering shots
and then raced for some place of supposed safety. Into the shrouds
went some; but the apes of Akut were more at home there than they.

Screaming with terror the Maoris were dragged from their lofty perches.
The beasts, uncontrolled by Tarzan who had gone in search of Jane,
loosed in the full fury of their savage natures upon the unhappy
wretches who fell into their clutches.

Sheeta, in the meanwhile, had felt his great fangs sink into but a
singular jugular. For a moment he mauled the corpse, and then he spied
Kai Shang darting down the companionway toward his cabin.

With a shrill scream Sheeta was after him--a scream which awoke an
almost equally uncanny cry in the throat of the terror-stricken
Chinaman.

But Kai Shang reached his cabin a fraction of a second ahead of the
panther, and leaping within slammed the door--just too late. Sheeta's
great body hurtled against it before the catch engaged, and a moment
later Kai Shang was gibbering and shrieking in the back of an upper
berth.

Lightly Sheeta sprang after his victim, and presently the wicked days
of Kai Shang of Fachan were ended, and Sheeta was gorging himself upon
tough and stringy flesh.

A moment scarcely had elapsed after Schneider leaped upon Jane Clayton
and wrenched the revolver from her hand, when the door of the cabin
opened an