, he became immediately concerned.

"Someone is having trouble over there," he said, turning toward Werper.
"I'll have to go to them--they may be friends."

"Your wife might be among them," suggested the Belgian, for since he
had again come into possession of the pouch he had become fearful and
suspicious of the ape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved many
plans for eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once his savior and
his captor.

At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with a whip.

"God!" he cried, "she might be, and the lions are attacking them--they
are in the camp. I can tell from the screams of the horses--and there!
that was the cry of a man in his death agonies. Stay here man--I will
come back for you. I must go first to them," and swinging into a tree
the lithe figure swung rapidly off into the night with the speed and
silence of a disembodied spirit.

For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left him. Then a
cunning smile crossed his lips. "Stay here?" he asked himself. "Stay
here and wait until you return to find and take these jewels from me?
Not I, my friend, not I," and turning abruptly eastward Albert Werper
passed through the foliage of a hanging vine and out of the sight of
his fellow-man--forever.

24

Home

As Tarzan of the Apes hurtled through the trees the discordant sounds
of the battle between the Abyssinians and the lions smote more and more
distinctly upon his sensitive ears, redoubling his assurance that the
plight of the human element of the conflict was critical indeed.

At last the glare of the camp fire shone plainly through the
intervening trees, and a moment later the giant figure of the ape-man
paused upon an overhanging bough to look down upon the bloody scene of
carnage below.

His quick eye took in the whole scene with a single comprehending
glance and stopped upon the figure of a woman standing facing a great
lion across the carcass of a horse.

The carnivore was crouching to spring as Tarzan discovered the tragic
tableau. Numa was almost beneath the branch upon which the ape-man
stood, naked and unarmed. There was not even an instant's hesitation
upon the part of the latter--it was as though he had not even paused in
his swift progress through the trees, so lightning-like his survey and
comprehension of the scene below him--so instantaneous his consequent
action.

So hopeless had seemed her situation to her that Jane