the safari. He was a hundred yards away, perhaps,
when one of the whites caught sight of him. The man gave a shout of
alarm, instantly levelling his rifle upon the boy and firing. The
bullet struck just in front of its mark, scattering turf and fallen
leaves against the lad's legs. A second later the other white and the
black soldiers of the rear guard were firing hysterically at the boy.

Jack leaped behind a tree, unhit. Days of panic ridden flight through
the jungle had filled Carl Jenssen and Sven Malbihn with jangling
nerves and their native boys with unreasoning terror. Every new note
from behind sounded to their frightened ears the coming of The Sheik
and his bloodthirsty entourage. They were in a blue funk, and the
sight of the naked white warrior stepping silently out of the jungle
through which they had just passed had been sufficient shock to let
loose in action all the pent nerve energy of Malbihn, who had been the
first to see the strange apparition. And Malbihn's shout and shot had
set the others going.

When their nervous energy had spent itself and they came to take stock
of what they had been fighting it developed that Malbihn alone had seen
anything clearly. Several of the blacks averred that they too had
obtained a good view of the creature but their descriptions of it
varied so greatly that Jenssen, who had seen nothing himself, was
inclined to be a trifle skeptical. One of the blacks insisted that the
thing had been eleven feet tall, with a man's body and the head of an
elephant. Another had seen THREE immense Arabs with huge, black
beards; but when, after conquering their nervousness, the rear guard
advanced upon the enemy's position to investigate they found nothing,
for Akut and the boy had retreated out of range of the unfriendly guns.

Jack was disheartened and sad. He had not entirely recovered from the
depressing effect of the unfriendly reception he had received at the
hands of the blacks, and now he had found an even more hostile one
accorded him by men of his own color.

"The lesser beasts flee from me in terror," he murmured, half to
himself, "the greater beasts are ready to tear me to pieces at sight.
Black men would kill me with their spears or arrows. And now white
men, men of my own kind, have fired upon me and driven me away. Are
all the creatures of the world my enemies? Has the son of Tarzan no
friend other than Akut?"

The old ape drew closer to the boy.

"T