d a tall and half-naked white man stood framed within the
portal.

Silently he leaped across the cabin. Schneider felt sinewy fingers at
his throat. He turned his head to see who had attacked him, and his
eyes went wide when he saw the face of the ape-man close above his own.

Grimly the fingers tightened upon the mate's throat. He tried to
scream, to plead, but no sound came forth. His eyes protruded as he
struggled for freedom, for breath, for life.

Jane Clayton seized her husband's hands and tried to drag them from the
throat of the dying man; but Tarzan only shook his head.

"Not again," he said quietly. "Before have I permitted scoundrels to
live, only to suffer and to have you suffer for my mercy. This time we
shall make sure of one scoundrel--sure that he will never again harm us
or another," and with a sudden wrench he twisted the neck of the
perfidious mate until there was a sharp crack, and the man's body lay
limp and motionless in the ape-man's grasp. With a gesture of disgust
Tarzan tossed the corpse aside. Then he returned to the deck, followed
by Jane and the Mosula woman.

The battle there was over. Schmidt and Momulla and two others alone
remained alive of all the company of the Cowrie, for they had found
sanctuary in the forecastle. The others had died, horribly, and as
they deserved, beneath the fangs and talons of the beasts of Tarzan,
and in the morning the sun rose on a grisly sight upon the deck of the
unhappy Cowrie; but this time the blood which stained her white
planking was the blood of the guilty and not of the innocent.

Tarzan brought forth the men who had hidden in the forecastle, and
without promises of immunity from punishment forced them to help work
the vessel--the only alternative was immediate death.

A stiff breeze had risen with the sun, and with canvas spread the
Cowrie set in toward Jungle Island, where a few hours later, Tarzan
picked up Gust and bid farewell to Sheeta and the apes of Akut, for
here he set the beasts ashore to pursue the wild and natural life they
loved so well; nor did they lose a moment's time in disappearing into
the cool depths of their beloved jungle.

That they knew that Tarzan was to leave them may be doubted--except
possibly in the case of the more intelligent Akut, who alone of all the
others remained upon the beach as the small boat drew away toward the
schooner, carrying his savage lord and master from him.

And as long as their ey