handsome face was distorted with savage ferocity. He beat upon his
great breast and screamed forth his challenge as his smooth, brown
hide brushed the shaggy coats of his fellows. It was weird; it
was wonderful; and in its primitive savagery it was not without
beauty--the strange scene she looked upon, such a scene as no other
human being, probably, ever had witnessed--and yet, withal, it was
horrible.

As she gazed, spell-bound, a stealthy movement in the tree behind
her caused her to turn her head, and there, back of her, blazing
in the reflected moonlight, shone two great, yellow-green eyes.
Sheeta, the panther, had found her out.

The beast was so close that it might have reached out and touched
her with a great, taloned paw. There was no time to think, no
time to weigh chances or to choose alternatives. Terror-inspired
impulse was her guide as, with a loud scream, she leaped from the
tree into the clearing.

Instantly the apes, now maddened by the effects of the dancing and
the moonlight, turned to note the cause of the interruption. They
saw this she Tarmangani, helpless and alone and they started for
her. Sheeta, the panther, knowing that not even Numa, the lion,
unless maddened by starvation, dares meddle with the great apes at
their Dum-Dum, had silently vanished into the night, seeking his
supper elsewhere.

Tarzan, turning with the other apes toward the cause of the
interruption, saw the girl, recognized her and also her peril.
Here again might she die at the hands of others; but why consider
it! He knew that he could not permit it, and though the acknowledgment
shamed him, it had to be admitted.

The leading shes were almost upon the girl when Tarzan leaped among
them, and with heavy blows scattered them to right and left; and
then as the bulls came to share in the kill they thought this new
ape-thing was about to make that he might steal all the flesh for
himself, they found him facing them with an arm thrown about the
creature as though to protect her.

"This is Tarzan's she," he said. "Do not harm her." It was the only
way he could make them understand that they must not slay her. He
was glad that she could not interpret the words. It was humiliating
enough to make such a statement to wild apes about this hated enemy.

So once again Tarzan of the Apes was forced to protect a Hun.
Growling, he muttered to himself in extenuation:

"She is a woman and I am not a German, so it could not be otherwi