the idea became repugnant.
He did not wish to see a human being again. At least he would range
alone through the jungle for a time, until the sharp edge of his sorrow
had become blunted. Like his fellow beasts, he preferred to suffer in
silence and alone.

That night he slept again in the amphitheater of the apes, and for
several days he hunted from there, returning at night. On the
afternoon of the third day he returned early. He had lain stretched
upon the soft grass of the circular clearing for but a few moments when
he heard far to the south a familiar sound. It was the passing through
the jungle of a band of great apes--he could not mistake that. For
several minutes he lay listening. They were coming in the direction of
the amphitheater.

Tarzan arose lazily and stretched himself. His keen ears followed
every movement of the advancing tribe. They were upwind, and presently
he caught their scent, though he had not needed this added evidence to
assure him that he was right.

As they came closer to the amphitheater Tarzan of the Apes melted into
the branches upon the other side of the arena. There he waited to
inspect the newcomers. Nor had he long to wait.

Presently a fierce, hairy face appeared among the lower branches
opposite him. The cruel little eyes took in the clearing at a glance,
then there was a chattered report returned to those behind. Tarzan
could hear the words. The scout was telling the other members of the
tribe that the coast was clear and that they might enter the
amphitheater in safety.

First the leader dropped lightly upon the soft carpet of the grassy
floor, and then, one by one, nearly a hundred anthropoids followed him.
There were the huge adults and several young. A few nursing babes
clung close to the shaggy necks of their savage mothers.

Tarzan recognized many members of the tribe. It was the same into
which he had come as a tiny babe. Many of the adults had been little
apes during his boyhood. He had frolicked and played about this very
jungle with them during their brief childhood. He wondered if they
would remember him--the memory of some apes is not overlong, and two
years may be an eternity to them.

From the talk which he overheard he learned that they had come to
choose a new king--their late chief had fallen a hundred feet beneath a
broken limb to an untimely end.

Tarzan walked to the end of an overhanging limb in plain view of them.
The quick eyes