e freshly
excavated earth at the grave, but Tarzan of the Apes was persevering
and so he kept at his labor until he was rewarded by seeing a hole
sufficiently deep to receive the chest and effectually hide it from
view.

Why had he gone to all this labor without knowing the value of the
contents of the chest?

Tarzan of the Apes had a man's figure and a man's brain, but he was an
ape by training and environment. His brain told him that the chest
contained something valuable, or the men would not have hidden it. His
training had taught him to imitate whatever was new and unusual, and
now the natural curiosity, which is as common to men as to apes,
prompted him to open the chest and examine its contents.

But the heavy lock and massive iron bands baffled both his cunning and
his immense strength, so that he was compelled to bury the chest
without having his curiosity satisfied.

By the time Tarzan had hunted his way back to the vicinity of the
cabin, feeding as he went, it was quite dark.

Within the little building a light was burning, for Clayton had found
an unopened tin of oil which had stood intact for twenty years, a part
of the supplies left with the Claytons by Black Michael. The lamps
also were still useable, and thus the interior of the cabin appeared as
bright as day to the astonished Tarzan.

He had often wondered at the exact purpose of the lamps. His reading
and the pictures had told him what they were, but he had no idea of how
they could be made to produce the wondrous sunlight that some of his
pictures had portrayed them as diffusing upon all surrounding objects.

As he approached the window nearest the door he saw that the cabin had
been divided into two rooms by a rough partition of boughs and
sailcloth.

In the front room were the three men; the two older deep in argument,
while the younger, tilted back against the wall on an improvised stool,
was deeply engrossed in reading one of Tarzan's books.

Tarzan was not particularly interested in the men, however, so he
sought the other window. There was the girl. How beautiful her
features! How delicate her snowy skin!

She was writing at Tarzan's own table beneath the window. Upon a pile
of grasses at the far side of the room lay the Negress asleep.

For an hour Tarzan feasted his eyes upon her while she wrote. How he
longed to speak to her, but he dared not attempt it, for he was
convinced that, like the young man, she would not unde