magination could
see her now camped in this savage country a prisoner among degraded
blacks.

Why was it so difficult to remember that she was only a hated German
and a spy? Why would the fact that she was a woman and white always
obtrude itself upon his consciousness? He hated her as he hated
all her kind, and the fate that was sure to be hers was no more
terrible than she in common with all her people deserved. The matter
was settled and Tarzan composed himself to think of other things,
yet the picture would not die--it rose in all its details and annoyed
him. He began to wonder what they were doing to her and where they
were taking her. He was very much ashamed of himself as he had been
after the episode in Wilhelmstal when his weakness had permitted
him to spare this spy's life. Was he to be thus weak again? No!

Night came and he settled himself in an ample tree to rest until
morning; but sleep would not come. Instead came the vision of a
white girl being beaten by black women, and again of the same girl
at the mercy of the warriors somewhere in that dark and forbidding
jungle.

With a growl of anger and self-contempt Tarzan arose, shook himself,
and swung from his tree to that adjoining, and thus, through the
lower terraces, he followed the trail that Usanga's party had taken
earlier in the afternoon. He had little difficulty as the band had
followed a well-beaten path and when toward midnight the stench
of a native village assailed his delicate nostrils he guessed that
his goal was near and that presently he should find her whom he
sought.

Prowling stealthily as prowls Numa, the lion, stalking a wary
prey, Tarzan moved noiselessly about the palisade, listening and
sniffing. At the rear of the village he discovered a tree whose
branches extended over the top of the palisade and a moment later
he had dropped quietly into the village.

From hut to hut he went searching with keen ears and nostrils some
confirming evidence of the presence of the girl, and at last, faint
and almost obliterated by the odor of the Gomangani, he found it
hanging like a delicate vapor about a small hut. The village was
quiet now, for the last of the beer and the food had been disposed
of and the blacks lay in their huts overcome by stupor, yet Tarzan
made no noise that even a sober man keenly alert might have heard.

He passed around to the entrance of the hut and listened. From
within came no sound, not even the low breathing o