demons the awful challenge of the ape-man.

The dancers halted as though turned to stone.

The rope sped with singing whir high above the heads of the blacks. It
was quite invisible in the flaring lights of the camp fires.

D'Arnot opened his eyes. A huge black, standing directly before him,
lunged backward as though felled by an invisible hand.

Struggling and shrieking, his body, rolling from side to side, moved
quickly toward the shadows beneath the trees.

The blacks, their eyes protruding in horror, watched spellbound.

Once beneath the trees, the body rose straight into the air, and as it
disappeared into the foliage above, the terrified negroes, screaming
with fright, broke into a mad race for the village gate.

D'Arnot was left alone.

He was a brave man, but he had felt the short hairs bristle upon the
nape of his neck when that uncanny cry rose upon the air.

As the writhing body of the black soared, as though by unearthly power,
into the dense foliage of the forest, D'Arnot felt an icy shiver run
along his spine, as though death had risen from a dark grave and laid a
cold and clammy finger on his flesh.

As D'Arnot watched the spot where the body had entered the tree he
heard the sounds of movement there.

The branches swayed as though under the weight of a man's body--there
was a crash and the black came sprawling to earth again,--to lie very
quietly where he had fallen.

Immediately after him came a white body, but this one alighted erect.

D'Arnot saw a clean-limbed young giant emerge from the shadows into the
firelight and come quickly toward him.

What could it mean? Who could it be? Some new creature of torture and
destruction, doubtless.

D'Arnot waited. His eyes never left the face of the advancing man.
Nor did the other's frank, clear eyes waver beneath D'Arnot's fixed
gaze.

D'Arnot was reassured, but still without much hope, though he felt that
that face could not mask a cruel heart.

Without a word Tarzan of the Apes cut the bonds which held the
Frenchman. Weak from suffering and loss of blood, he would have fallen
but for the strong arm that caught him.

He felt himself lifted from the ground. There was a sensation as of
flying, and then he lost consciousness.

Chapter XXII

The Search Party

When dawn broke upon the little camp of Frenchmen in the heart of the
jungle it found a sad and disheartened group.

As soon as it was light enough to see their su