d her face.

"Thank God!" cried the ape-man, coming to the ground in a little grassy
clearing beside the stream. "I was in time, after all."

"In time? What do you mean?" she questioned.

"In time to save you from death upon the altar, dear," he replied. "Do
you not remember?" "Save me from death?" she asked, in a puzzled tone.
"Are we not both dead, my Tarzan?"

He had placed her upon the grass by now, her back resting against the
stem of a huge tree. At her question he stepped back where he could
the better see her face.

"Dead!" he repeated, and then he laughed. "You are not, Jane; and if
you will return to the city of Opar and ask them who dwell there they
will tell you that I was not dead a few short hours ago. No, dear, we
are both very much alive."

"But both Hazel and Monsieur Thuran told me that you had fallen into
the ocean many miles from land," she urged, as though trying to
convince him that he must indeed be dead. "They said that there was no
question but that it must have been you, and less that you could have
survived or been picked up."

"How can I convince you that I am no spirit?" he asked, with a laugh.
"It was I whom the delightful Monsieur Thuran pushed overboard, but I
did not drown--I will tell you all about it after a while--and here I
am very much the same wild man you first knew, Jane Porter."

The girl rose slowly to her feet and came toward him.

"I cannot even yet believe it," she murmured. "It cannot be that such
happiness can be true after all the hideous things that I have passed
through these awful months since the LADY ALICE went down."

She came close to him and laid a hand, soft and trembling, upon his arm.

"It must be that I am dreaming, and that I shall awaken in a moment to
see that awful knife descending toward my heart--kiss me, dear, just
once before I lose my dream forever."

Tarzan of the Apes needed no second invitation. He took the girl he
loved in his strong arms, and kissed her not once, but a hundred times,
until she lay there panting for breath; yet when he stopped she put her
arms about his neck and drew his lips down to hers once more.

"Am I alive and a reality, or am I but a dream?" he asked.

"If you are not alive, my man," she answered, "I pray that I may die
thus before I awaken to the terrible realities of my last waking
moments."

For a while both were silent--gazing into each others' eyes as though
each still questioned the reality