force the
barriers which protected the council chamber of the great apes from all
but the harmless denizens of the savage jungle.

Fifty trips Tarzan made before he had deposited all the ingots within
the precincts of the amphitheater. Then from the hollow of an ancient,
lightning-blasted tree he produced the very spade with which he had
uncovered the chest of Professor Archimedes Q. Porter which he had
once, apelike, buried in this selfsame spot. With this he dug a long
trench, into which he laid the fortune that his blacks had carried from
the forgotten treasure vaults of the city of Opar.

That night he slept within the amphitheater, and early the next morning
set out to revisit his cabin before returning to his Waziri. Finding
things as he had left them, he went forth into the jungle to hunt,
intending to bring his prey to the cabin where he might feast in
comfort, spending the night upon a comfortable couch.

For five miles toward the south he roamed, toward the banks of a
fair-sized river that flowed into the sea about six miles from his
cabin. He had gone inland about half a mile when there came suddenly
to his trained nostrils the one scent that sets the whole savage jungle
aquiver--Tarzan smelled man.

The wind was blowing off the ocean, so Tarzan knew that the authors of
the scent were west of him. Mixed with the man scent was the scent of
Numa. Man and lion. "I had better hasten," thought the ape-man, for
he had recognized the scent of whites. "Numa may be a-hunting."

When he came through the trees to the edge of the jungle he saw a woman
kneeling in prayer, and before her stood a wild, primitive-looking
white man, his face buried in his arms. Behind the man a mangy lion
was advancing slowly toward this easy prey. The man's face was
averted; the woman's bowed in prayer. He could not see the features of
either.

Already Numa was about to spring. There was not a second to spare.
Tarzan could not even unsling his bow and fit an arrow in time to send
one of his deadly poisoned shafts into the yellow hide. He was too far
away to reach the beast in time with his knife. There was but a single
hope--a lone alternative. And with the quickness of thought the
ape-man acted.

A brawny arm flew back--for the briefest fraction of an instant a huge
spear poised above the giant's shoulder--and then the mighty arm shot
out, and swift death tore through the intervening leaves to bury itself
in the hear