wonted speed; but futile was his
effort--the ape-man bore down upon him with the speed of Bara, the deer.

Just at the entrance to his hut the witch-doctor was overhauled. A
heavy hand fell upon his shoulder to drag him back. It seized upon a
portion of the buffalo hide, dragging the disguise from him. It was a
naked black man that Tarzan saw dodge into the darkness of the hut's
interior.

So this was what he had thought was God! Tarzan's lip curled in an
angry snarl as he leaped into the hut after the terror-stricken
witch-doctor. In the blackness within he found the man huddled at the
far side and dragged him forth into the comparative lightness of the
moonlit night.

The witch-doctor bit and scratched in an attempt to escape; but a few
cuffs across the head brought him to a better realization of the
futility of resistance. Beneath the moon Tarzan held the cringing
figure upon its shaking feet.

"So you are God!" he cried. "If you be God, then Tarzan is greater
than God," and so the ape-man thought. "I am Tarzan," he shouted into
the ear of the black. "In all the jungle, or above it, or upon the
running waters, or the sleeping waters, or upon the big water, or the
little water, there is none so great as Tarzan. Tarzan is greater than
the Mangani; he is greater than the Gomangani. With his own hands he
has slain Numa, the lion, and Sheeta, the panther; there is none so
great as Tarzan. Tarzan is greater than God. See!" and with a sudden
wrench he twisted the black's neck until the fellow shrieked in pain
and then slumped to the earth in a swoon.

Placing his foot upon the neck of the fallen witch-doctor, the ape-man
raised his face to the moon and uttered the long, shrill scream of the
victorious bull ape. Then he stooped and snatched the zebra's tail
from the nerveless fingers of the unconscious man and without a
backward glance retraced his footsteps across the village.

From several hut doorways frightened eyes watched him. Mbonga, the
chief, was one of those who had seen what passed before the hut of the
witch-doctor. Mbonga was greatly concerned. Wise old patriarch that he
was, he never had more than half believed in witch-doctors, at least
not since greater wisdom had come with age; but as a chief he was well
convinced of the power of the witch-doctor as an arm of government, and
often it was that Mbonga used the superstitious fears of his people to
his own ends through the medium of the medi