r.
One of them said that the stranger who had offered money for your
slaying lay in the house of Akmed din Soulef with a broken wrist, but
that he had offered a still greater reward if some would lay in wait
for you upon the road to Bou Saada and kill you."

"It is he who followed m'sieur about the market today," exclaimed
Abdul. "I saw him again within the cafe--him and another; and the two
went out into the inner court after talking with this girl here. It
was they who attacked and fired upon us, as we came out of the cafe.
Why do they wish to kill you, m'sieur?"

"I do not know," replied Tarzan, and then, after a pause: "Unless--"
But he did not finish, for the thought that had come to his mind, while
it seemed the only reasonable solution of the mystery, appeared at the
same time quite improbable. Presently the men in the street went away.
The courtyard and the cafe were deserted. Cautiously Tarzan lowered
himself to the sill of the girl's window. The room was empty. He
returned to the roof and let Abdul down, then he lowered the girl to
the arms of the waiting Arab.

From the window Abdul dropped the short distance to the street below,
while Tarzan took the girl in his arms and leaped down as he had done
on so many other occasions in his own forest with a burden in his arms.
A little cry of alarm was startled from the girl's lips, but Tarzan
landed in the street with but an imperceptible jar, and lowered her in
safety to her feet.

She clung to him for a moment.

"How strong m'sieur is, and how active," she cried. "EL ADREA, the
black lion, himself is not more so."

"I should like to meet this EL ADREA of yours," he said. "I have heard
much about him."

"And you come to the DOUAR of my father you shall see him," said the
girl. "He lives in a spur of the mountains north of us, and comes down
from his lair at night to rob my father's DOUAR. With a single blow of
his mighty paw he crushes the skull of a bull, and woe betide the
belated wayfarer who meets EL ADREA abroad at night."

Without further mishap they reached the hotel. The sleepy landlord
objected strenuously to instituting a search for Kadour ben Saden until
the following morning, but a piece of gold put a different aspect on
the matter, so that a few moments later a servant had started to make
the rounds of the lesser native hostelries where it might be expected
that a desert sheik would find congenial associations. Tarzan had felt
it