ng to grasp some mental image which as constantly
eluded him.

At last he opened the leathern pouch which hung at his side. From it
he poured into the palm of his hand a quantity of glittering gems. The
firelight playing upon them conjured a multitude of scintillating rays,
and as the wide eyes of the Belgian looked on in rapt fascination, the
man's expression at last acknowledged a tangible purpose in courting
the society of the ape-man.

9

The Theft of the Jewels

For two days Werper sought for the party that had accompanied him from
the camp to the barrier cliffs; but not until late in the afternoon of
the second day did he find clew to its whereabouts, and then in such
gruesome form that he was totally unnerved by the sight.

In an open glade he came upon the bodies of three of the blacks,
terribly mutilated, nor did it require considerable deductive power to
explain their murder. Of the little party only these three had not
been slaves. The others, evidently tempted to hope for freedom from
their cruel Arab master, had taken advantage of their separation from
the main camp, to slay the three representatives of the hated power
which held them in slavery, and vanish into the jungle.

Cold sweat exuded from Werper's forehead as he contemplated the fate
which chance had permitted him to escape, for had he been present when
the conspiracy bore fruit, he, too, must have been of the garnered.

Tarzan showed not the slightest surprise or interest in the discovery.
Inherent in him was a calloused familiarity with violent death. The
refinements of his recent civilization expunged by the force of the sad
calamity which had befallen him, left only the primitive sensibilities
which his childhood's training had imprinted indelibly upon the fabric
of his mind.

The training of Kala, the examples and precepts of Kerchak, of Tublat,
and of Terkoz now formed the basis of his every thought and action. He
retained a mechanical knowledge of French and English speech. Werper
had spoken to him in French, and Tarzan had replied in the same tongue
without conscious realization that he had departed from the
anthropoidal speech in which he had addressed La. Had Werper used
English, the result would have been the same.

Again, that night, as the two sat before their camp fire, Tarzan played
with his shining baubles. Werper asked him what they were and where he
had found them. The ape-man replied that they were ga