untenance. He was the son of Tarzan. The
fingers tightened their grip upon his throat. It was with difficulty
that he breathed, gaspingly. The ape lunged against the stout cord
that held him. Turning, he wrapped the cord about his hands, as a man
might have done, and surged heavily backward. The great muscles stood
out beneath his shaggy hide. There was a rending as of splintered
wood--the cord held, but a portion of the footboard of the bed came
away.

At the sound Paulvitch looked up. His hideous face went white with
terror--the ape was free.

With a single bound the creature was upon him. The man shrieked. The
brute wrenched him from the body of the boy. Great fingers sunk into
the man's flesh. Yellow fangs gaped close to his throat--he struggled,
futilely--and when they closed, the soul of Alexis Paulvitch passed
into the keeping of the demons who had long been awaiting it.

The boy struggled to his feet, assisted by Akut. For two hours under
the instructions of the former the ape worked upon the knots that
secured his friend's wrists. Finally they gave up their secret, and
the boy was free. Then he opened one of his bags and drew forth some
garments. His plans had been well made. He did not consult the beast,
which did all that he directed. Together they slunk from the house,
but no casual observer might have noted that one of them was an ape.

Chapter 4

The killing of the friendless old Russian, Michael Sabrov, by his great
trained ape, was a matter for newspaper comment for a few days. Lord
Greystoke read of it, and while taking special precautions not to
permit his name to become connected with the affair, kept himself well
posted as to the police search for the anthropoid.

As was true of the general public, his chief interest in the matter
centered about the mysterious disappearance of the slayer. Or at least
this was true until he learned, several days subsequent to the tragedy,
that his son Jack had not reported at the public school en route for
which they had seen him safely ensconced in a railway carriage. Even
then the father did not connect the disappearance of his son with the
mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the ape. Nor was it until a
month later that careful investigation revealed the fact that the boy
had left the train before it pulled out of the station at London, and
the cab driver had been found who had driven him to the address of the
old Russian, tha