y kindness had he ever
received at the hands of the great white devil-god, yet he had seen
with what ferocity his kindly captor could deal with others. He had
seen him leap upon a certain he-ape which persisted in attempting to
seize and slay Go-bu-balu. He had seen the strong, white teeth of the
ape-man fastened in the neck of his adversary, and the mighty muscles
tensed in battle. He had heard the savage, bestial snarls and roars of
combat, and he had realized with a shudder that he could not
differentiate between those of his guardian and those of the hairy ape.

He had seen Tarzan bring down a buck, just as Numa, the lion, might
have done, leaping upon its back and fastening his fangs in the
creature's neck. Tibo had shuddered at the sight, but he had thrilled,
too, and for the first time there entered his dull, Negroid mind a
vague desire to emulate his savage foster parent. But Tibo, the little
black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the
white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle.
In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for
super-intelligence.

Imagination it is which builds bridges, and cities, and empires. The
beasts know it not, the blacks only a little, while to one in a hundred
thousand of earth's dominant race it is given as a gift from heaven
that man may not perish from the earth.

While Tarzan pondered his problem concerning the future of his balu,
Fate was arranging to take the matter out of his hands. Momaya, Tibo's
mother, grief-stricken at the loss of her boy, had consulted the tribal
witch-doctor, but to no avail. The medicine he made was not good
medicine, for though Momaya paid him two goats for it, it did not bring
back Tibo, nor even indicate where she might search for him with
reasonable assurance of finding him. Momaya, being of a short temper
and of another people, had little respect for the witch-doctor of her
husband's tribe, and so, when he suggested that a further payment of
two more fat goats would doubtless enable him to make stronger
medicine, she promptly loosed her shrewish tongue upon him, and with
such good effect that he was glad to take himself off with his zebra's
tail and his pot of magic.

When he had gone and Momaya had succeeded in partially subduing her
anger, she gave herself over to thought, as she so often had done since
the abduction of her Tibo, in the hope that she finally might d