through the middle terrace
of the forest toward his cabin, and at the same instant Jane Porter and
William Cecil Clayton arose from a sumptuous dinner upon the LADY
ALICE, thousands of miles to the east, in the Indian Ocean.

Beneath Tarzan walked Numa, the lion, and when the ape-man deigned to
glance downward he caught occasional glimpses of the baleful green eyes
following through the darkness. Numa did not roar now--instead, he
moved stealthily, like the shadow of a great cat; but yet he took no
step that did not reach the sensitive ears of the ape-man.

Tarzan wondered if he would stalk him to his cabin door. He hoped not,
for that would mean a night's sleep curled in the crotch of a tree, and
he much preferred the bed of grasses within his own abode. But he knew
just the tree and the most comfortable crotch, if necessity demanded
that he sleep out. A hundred times in the past some great jungle cat
had followed him home, and compelled him to seek shelter in this same
tree, until another mood or the rising sun had sent his enemy away.

But presently Numa gave up the chase and, with a series of
blood-curdling moans and roars, turned angrily back in search of
another and an easier dinner. So Tarzan came to his cabin unattended,
and a few moments later was curled up in the mildewed remnants of what
had once been a bed of grasses. Thus easily did Monsieur Jean C.
Tarzan slough the thin skin of his artificial civilization, and sink
happy and contented into the deep sleep of the wild beast that has fed
to repletion. Yet a woman's "yes" would have bound him to that other
life forever, and made the thought of this savage existence repulsive.

Tarzan slept late into the following forenoon, for he had been very
tired from the labors and exertion of the long night and day upon the
ocean, and the jungle jaunt that had brought into play muscles that he
had scarce used for nearly two years. When he awoke he ran to the
brook first to drink. Then he took a plunge into the sea, swimming
about for a quarter of an hour. Afterward he returned to his cabin,
and breakfasted off the flesh of Horta. This done, he buried the
balance of the carcass in the soft earth outside the cabin, for his
evening meal.

Once more he took his rope and vanished into the jungle. This time he
hunted nobler quarry--man; although had you asked him his own opinion
he could have named a dozen other denizens of the jungle which he
considered far t