st. Slowly he crept toward her, and now he spoke;
but this time there fell upon Tarzan's surprised ears a language he
could understand; the last one that he would ever have thought of
employing in attempting to converse with human beings--the low guttural
barking of the tribe of great anthropoids--his own mother tongue. And
the woman answered the man in the same language.

He was threatening--she attempting to reason with him, for it was quite
evident that she saw that he was past her authority. The brute was
quite close now--creeping with clawlike hands extended toward her
around the end of the altar. Tarzan strained at the bonds which held
his arms pinioned behind him. The woman did not see--she had forgotten
her prey in the horror of the danger that threatened herself. As the
brute leaped past Tarzan to clutch his victim, the ape-man gave one
superhuman wrench at the thongs that held him. The effort sent him
rolling from the altar to the stone floor on the opposite side from
that on which the priestess stood; but as he sprang to his feet the
thongs dropped from his freed arms, and at the same time he realized
that he was alone in the inner temple--the high priestess and the mad
priest had disappeared.

And then a muffled scream came from the cavernous mouth of the dark
hole beyond the sacrificial altar through which the priestess had
entered the temple. Without even a thought for his own safety, or the
possibility for escape which this rapid series of fortuitous
circumstances had thrust upon him, Tarzan of the Apes answered the call
of the woman in danger. With a little bound he was at the gaping
entrance to the subterranean chamber, and a moment later was running
down a flight of age-old concrete steps that led he knew not where.

The faint light that filtered in from above showed him a large,
low-ceiled vault from which several doorways led off into inky
darkness, but there was no need to thread an unknown way, for there
before him lay the objects of his search--the mad brute had the girl
upon the floor, and gorilla-like fingers were clutching frantically at
her throat as she struggled to escape the fury of the awful thing upon
her.

As Tarzan's heavy hand fell upon his shoulder the priest dropped his
victim, and turned upon her would-be rescuer. With foam-flecked lips
and bared fangs the mad sun-worshiper battled with the tenfold power of
the maniac. In the blood lust of his fury the creature had un