the work of liberating the Belgian.

He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the knots at his
ankles.

"I can do the rest," said the Belgian. "I have a small pocketknife
which they overlooked when they searched me," and in this way he
succeeded in ridding himself of the ape-man's attentions that he might
find and open his little knife and cut the thong which fastened the
pouch about Chulk's shoulder, and transfer it from his waist band to
the breast of his shirt. Then he rose and approached Tarzan.

Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the good intentions
which the confidence of Jane Clayton in his honor had awakened. What
she had done, the little pouch had undone. How it had come upon the
person of the great ape, Werper could not imagine, unless it had been
that the anthropoid had witnessed his fight with Achmet Zek, seen the
Arab with the pouch and taken it away from him; but that this pouch
contained the jewels of Opar, Werper was positive, and that was all
that interested him greatly.

"Now," said the ape-man, "keep your promise to me. Lead me to the spot
where you last saw my wife."

It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead of night behind
the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man chafed at the delay, but the
European could not swing through the trees as could his more agile and
muscular companions, and so the speed of all was limited to that of the
slowest.

The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a matter of a few
miles; but presently their interest lagged, the foremost of them halted
in a little glade and the others stopped at his side. There they sat
peering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figures of the two men
forging steadily ahead, until the latter disappeared in the leafy trail
beyond the clearing. Then an ape sought a comfortable couch beneath a
tree, and one by one the others followed his example, so that Werper
and Tarzan continued their journey alone; nor was the latter either
surprised or concerned.

The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade where the apes
had deserted them, when the roaring of distant lions fell upon their
ears. The ape-man paid no attention to the familiar sounds until the
crack of a rifle came faintly from the same direction, and when this
was followed by the shrill neighing of horses, and an almost continuous
fusillade of shots intermingled with increased and savage roaring of a
large troop of lions