empt to put it into execution.

Usanga did not see him, being too intent upon the unaccustomed duties
of a pilot, but the blacks across the meadow saw him and they ran
forward with loud and savage cries and menacing rifles to intercept
him. They saw a giant white man leap from the branches of a tree
to the turf and race rapidly toward the plane. They saw him take
a long grass rope from about his shoulders as he ran. They saw the
noose swinging in an undulating circle above his head. They saw
the white girl in the machine glance down and discover him.

Twenty feet above the running ape-man soared the huge plane. The
open noose shot up to meet it, and the girl, half guessing the
ape-man's intentions, reached out and caught the noose and, bracing
herself, clung tightly to it with both hands. Simultaneously Tarzan
was dragged from his feet and the plane lurched sideways in response
to the new strain. Usanga clutched wildly at the control and the
machine shot upward at a steep angle. Dangling at the end of the
rope the ape-man swung pendulum-like in space. The Englishman, lying
bound upon the ground, had been a witness of all these happenings.
His heart stood still as he saw Tarzan's body hurtling through the
air toward the tree tops among which it seemed he must inevitably
crash; but the plane was rising rapidly, so that the beast-man
cleared the top-most branches. Then slowly, hand over hand, he
climbed toward the fuselage. The girl, clinging desperately to the
noose, strained every muscle to hold the great weight dangling at
the lower end of the rope.

Usanga, all unconscious of what was going on behind him, drove the
plane higher and higher into the air.

Tarzan glanced downward. Below him the tree tops and the river
passed rapidly to the rear and only a slender grass rope and the
muscles of a frail girl stood between him and the death yawning
there thousands of feet below.

It seemed to Bertha Kircher that the fingers of her hands were dead.
The numbness was running up her arms to her elbows. How much longer
she could cling to the straining strands she could not guess. It
seemed to her that those lifeless fingers must relax at any instant
and then, when she had about given up hope, she saw a strong brown
hand reach up and grasp the side of the fuselage. Instantly the
weight upon the rope was removed and a moment later Tarzan of the
Apes raised his body above the side and threw a leg over the edge.
He glanced f