and
when Tarzan came to a halt in the trees near it, he saw a party of half
a dozen black warriors huddled close to the blaze. It was evidently a
hunting party from the village of Mbonga, the chief, caught out in the
jungle after dark. In a rude circle about them they had constructed a
thorn boma which, with the aid of the fire, they apparently hoped would
discourage the advances of the larger carnivora.

That hope was not conviction was evidenced by the very palpable terror
in which they crouched, wide-eyed and trembling, for already Numa and
Sabor were moaning through the jungle toward them. There were other
creatures, too, in the shadows beyond the firelight. Tarzan could see
their yellow eyes flaming there. The blacks saw them and shivered.
Then one arose and grasping a burning branch from the fire hurled it at
the eyes, which immediately disappeared. The black sat down again.
Tarzan watched and saw that it was several minutes before the eyes
began to reappear in twos and fours.

Then came Numa, the lion, and Sabor, his mate. The other eyes
scattered to right and left before the menacing growls of the great
cats, and then the huge orbs of the man-eaters flamed alone out of the
darkness. Some of the blacks threw themselves upon their faces and
moaned; but he who before had hurled the burning branch now hurled
another straight at the faces of the hungry lions, and they, too,
disappeared as had the lesser lights before them. Tarzan was much
interested. He saw a new reason for the nightly fires maintained by
the blacks--a reason in addition to those connected with warmth and
light and cooking. The beasts of the jungle feared fire, and so fire
was, in a measure, a protection from them. Tarzan himself knew a
certain awe of fire. Once he had, in investigating an abandoned fire
in the village of the blacks, picked up a live coal. Since then he had
maintained a respectful distance from such fires as he had seen. One
experience had sufficed.

For a few minutes after the black hurled the firebrand no eyes
appeared, though Tarzan could hear the soft padding of feet all about
him. Then flashed once more the twin fire spots that marked the return
of the lord of the jungle and a moment later, upon a slightly lower
level, there appeared those of Sabor, his mate.

For some time they remained fixed and unwavering--a constellation of
fierce stars in the jungle night--then the male lion advanced slowly
toward the