y looming
before them, but so weak and sick was she that it inspired not the
faintest shadow of interest. Wherever they were bearing her, there
could be but one end to her captivity among these fierce half brutes.

At last they passed through two great walls and came to the ruined city
within. Into a crumbling pile they bore her, and here she was
surrounded by hundreds more of the same creatures that had brought her;
but among them were females who looked less horrible. At sight of them
the first faint hope that she had entertained came to mitigate her
misery. But it was short-lived, for the women offered her no sympathy,
though, on the other hand, neither did they abuse her.

After she had been inspected to the entire satisfaction of the inmates
of the building she was borne to a dark chamber in the vaults beneath,
and here upon the bare floor she was left, with a metal bowl of water
and another of food.

For a week she saw only some of the women whose duty it was to bring
her food and water. Slowly her strength was returning--soon she would
be in fit condition to offer as a sacrifice to The Flaming God.
Fortunate indeed it was that she could not know the fate for which she
was destined.

As Tarzan of the Apes moved slowly through the jungle after casting the
spear that saved Clayton and Jane Porter from the fangs of Numa, his
mind was filled with all the sorrow that belongs to a freshly opened
heart wound.

He was glad that he had stayed his hand in time to prevent the
consummation of the thing that in the first mad wave of jealous wrath
he had contemplated. Only the fraction of a second had stood between
Clayton and death at the hands of the ape-man. In the short moment
that had elapsed after he had recognized the girl and her companion and
the relaxing of the taut muscles that held the poisoned shaft directed
at the Englishman's heart, Tarzan had been swayed by the swift and
savage impulses of brute life.

He had seen the woman he craved--his woman--his mate--in the arms of
another. There had been but one course open to him, according to the
fierce jungle code that guided him in this other existence; but just
before it had become too late the softer sentiments of his inherent
chivalry had risen above the flaming fires of his passion and saved
him. A thousand times he gave thanks that they had triumphed before
his fingers had released that polished arrow.

As he contemplated his return to the Waziri