to leap into the melee.

Thus goaded the bulls came closer, redoubling their hideous clamor; but
Sheeta was already sufficiently engaged--he did not even hear them.
Once he succeeded in partially dislodging the ape-man from his back, so
that Tarzan swung for an instant in front of those awful talons, and in
the brief instant before he could regain his former hold, a raking blow
from a hind paw laid open one leg from hip to knee.

It was the sight and smell of this blood, possibly, which wrought upon
the encircling apes; but it was Taug who really was responsible for the
thing they did.

Taug, but a moment before filled with rage toward Tarzan of the Apes,
stood close to the battling pair, his red-rimmed, wicked little eyes
glaring at them. What was passing in his savage brain? Did he gloat
over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did he long to
see Sheeta's great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man? Or
did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to
rush to the rescue and imperil his life for Teeka's balu--for Taug's
little balu? Is gratitude a possession of man only, or do the lower
orders know it also?

With the spilling of Tarzan's blood, Taug answered these questions.
With all the weight of his great body he leaped, hideously growling,
upon Sheeta. His long fighting fangs buried themselves in the white
throat. His powerful arms beat and clawed at the soft fur until it
flew upward in the jungle breeze.

And with Taug's example before them the other bulls charged, burying
Sheeta beneath rending fangs and filling all the forest with the wild
din of their battle cries.

Ah! but it was a wondrous and inspiring sight--this battle of the
primordial apes and the great, white ape-man with their ancestral foe,
Sheeta, the panther.

In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly danced upon the limb which swayed
beneath her great weight as she urged on the males of her people, and
Thaka, and Mumga, and Kamma, with the other shes of the tribe of
Kerchak, added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the pandemonium
which now reigned within the jungle.

Bitten and biting, tearing and torn, Sheeta battled for his life; but
the odds were against him. Even Numa, the lion, would have hesitated
to have attacked an equal number of the great bulls of the tribe of
Kerchak, and now, a half mile away, hearing the sounds of the terrific
battle, the king of beasts rose uneasily from hi