irl.

Tarzan smiled and shook his head. "I am afraid you would not
understand," he replied. "It is difficult for us to understand
anything that is beyond our own powers."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the officer.

"Well," said Tarzan, "if you had been born without eyes you could
not understand sense impressions that the eyes of others transmit
to their brains, and as you have both been born without any sense
of smell I am afraid you cannot understand how I can know that
there is a man there."

"You mean that you scent a man?" asked the girl.

Tarzan nodded affirmatively.

"And in the same way you know the number of lions?" asked the man.

"Yes," said Tarzan. "No two lions look alike, no two have the same
scent."

The young Englishman shook his head. "No," he said, "I cannot
understand."

"I doubt if the lions or the man are here necessarily for the purpose
of harming us," said Tarzan, "because there has been nothing to
prevent their doing so long before had they wished to. I have a
theory, but it is utterly preposterous."

"What is it?" asked the girl.

"I think they are here," replied Tarzan, "to prevent us from going
some place that they do not wish us to go; in other words we are
under surveillance, and possibly as long as we don't go where we
are not wanted we shall not be bothered."

"But how are we to know where they don't want us to go?" asked
Smith-Oldwick.

"We can't know," replied Tarzan, "and the chances are that the very
place we are seeking is the place they don't wish us to trespass
on."

"You mean the water?" asked the girl.

"Yes," replied Tarzan.

For some time they sat in silence which was broken only by an
occasional sound of movement from the outer darkness. It must have
been an hour later that the ape-man rose quietly and drew his long
blade from its sheath. Smith-Oldwick was dozing against the rocky
wall of the cavern entrance, while the girl, exhausted by the
excitement and fatigue of the day, had fallen into deep slumber. An
instant after Tarzan arose, Smith-Oldwick and the girl were aroused
by a volley of thunderous roars and the noise of many padded feet
rushing toward them.

Tarzan of the Apes stood directly before the entrance to the cavern,
his knife in his hand, awaiting the charge. The ape-man had not
expected any such concerted action as he now realized had been taken
by those watching them. He had known for some time that other men
had joined those who wer