o bring Tarzan either food or water since noon,
and consequently he suffered considerably from thirst. He wondered if
it would be worth while to ask his guard for water, but after making
two or three requests without receiving any response, he decided that
it would not.

Far up in the mountains he heard a lion roar. How much safer one was,
he soliloquized, in the haunts of wild beasts than in the haunts of
men. Never in all his jungle life had he been more relentlessly
tracked down than in the past few months of his experience among
civilized men. Never had he been any nearer death.

Again the lion roared. It sounded a little nearer. Tarzan felt the
old, wild impulse to reply with the challenge of his kind. His kind?
He had almost forgotten that he was a man and not an ape. He tugged at
his bonds. God, if he could but get them near those strong teeth of
his. He felt a wild wave of madness sweep over him as his efforts to
regain his liberty met with failure.

Numa was roaring almost continually now. It was quite evident that he
was coming down into the desert to hunt. It was the roar of a hungry
lion. Tarzan envied him, for he was free. No one would tie him with
ropes and slaughter him like a sheep. It was that which galled the
ape-man. He did not fear to die, no--it was the humiliation of defeat
before death, without even a chance to battle for his life.

It must be near midnight, thought Tarzan. He had several hours to
live. Possibly he would yet find a way to take Rokoff with him on the
long journey. He could hear the savage lord of the desert quite close
by now. Possibly he sought his meat from among the penned animals
within the DOUAR.

For a long time silence reigned, then Tarzan's trained ears caught the
sound of a stealthily moving body. It came from the side of the tent
nearest the mountains--the back. Nearer and nearer it came. He
waited, listening intently, for it to pass. For a time there was
silence without, such a terrible silence that Tarzan was surprised that
he did not hear the breathing of the animal he felt sure must be
crouching close to the back wall of his tent.

There! It is moving again. Closer it creeps. Tarzan turns his head
in the direction of the sound. It is very dark within the tent.
Slowly the back rises from the ground, forced up by the head and
shoulders of a body that looks all black in the semi-darkness. Beyond
is a faint glimpse of the dimly starlit