els also occupied his thoughts to some
extent, so that he found a double urge for his return to the camp of
the raiders. He would obtain possession of both his pretty pebbles and
the she. Then he would return to the great apes with his new mate and
his baubles, and leading his hairy companions into a far wilderness
beyond the ken of man, live out his life, hunting and battling among
the lower orders after the only manner which he now recollected.

He spoke to his fellow-apes upon the matter, in an attempt to persuade
them to accompany him; but all except Taglat and Chulk refused. The
latter was young and strong, endowed with a greater intelligence than
his fellows, and therefore the possessor of better developed powers of
imagination. To him the expedition savored of adventure, and so
appealed, strongly. With Taglat there was another incentive--a secret
and sinister incentive, which, had Tarzan of the Apes had knowledge of
it, would have sent him at the other's throat in jealous rage.

Taglat was no longer young; but he was still a formidable beast,
mightily muscled, cruel, and, because of his greater experience, crafty
and cunning. Too, he was of giant proportions, the very weight of his
huge bulk serving ofttimes to discount in his favor the superior
agility of a younger antagonist.

He was of a morose and sullen disposition that marked him even among
his frowning fellows, where such characteristics are the rule rather
than the exception, and, though Tarzan did not guess it, he hated the
ape-man with a ferocity that he was able to hide only because the
dominant spirit of the nobler creature had inspired within him a
species of dread which was as powerful as it was inexplicable to him.

These two, then, were to be Tarzan's companions upon his return to the
village of Achmet Zek. As they set off, the balance of the tribe
vouchsafed them but a parting stare, and then resumed the serious
business of feeding.

Tarzan found difficulty in keeping the minds of his fellows set upon
the purpose of their adventure, for the mind of an ape lacks the power
of long-sustained concentration. To set out upon a long journey, with
a definite destination in view, is one thing, to remember that purpose
and keep it uppermost in one's mind continually is quite another.
There are so many things to distract one's attention along the way.

Chulk was, at first, for rushing rapidly ahead as though the village of
the raiders lay but