quantities, so a fit
finale to their wild revel was a taste of fresh killed meat, and it was
to the purpose of devouring their late enemy that they now turned their
attention.

Great fangs sunk into the carcass tearing away huge hunks, the
mightiest of the apes obtaining the choicest morsels, while the weaker
circled the outer edge of the fighting, snarling pack awaiting their
chance to dodge in and snatch a dropped tidbit or filch a remaining
bone before all was gone.

Tarzan, more than the apes, craved and needed flesh. Descended from a
race of meat eaters, never in his life, he thought, had he once
satisfied his appetite for animal food; and so now his agile little
body wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an
endeavor to obtain a share which his strength would have been unequal
to the task of winning for him.

At his side hung the hunting knife of his unknown father in a sheath
self-fashioned in copy of one he had seen among the pictures of his
treasure-books.

At last he reached the fast disappearing feast and with his sharp knife
slashed off a more generous portion than he had hoped for, an entire
hairy forearm, where it protruded from beneath the feet of the mighty
Kerchak, who was so busily engaged in perpetuating the royal
prerogative of gluttony that he failed to note the act of LESE-MAJESTE.

So little Tarzan wriggled out from beneath the struggling mass,
clutching his grisly prize close to his breast.

Among those circling futilely the outskirts of the banqueters was old
Tublat. He had been among the first at the feast, but had retreated
with a goodly share to eat in quiet, and was now forcing his way back
for more.

So it was that he spied Tarzan as the boy emerged from the clawing,
pushing throng with that hairy forearm hugged firmly to his body.

Tublat's little, close-set, bloodshot, pig-eyes shot wicked gleams of
hate as they fell upon the object of his loathing. In them, too, was
greed for the toothsome dainty the boy carried.

But Tarzan saw his arch enemy as quickly, and divining what the great
beast would do he leaped nimbly away toward the females and the young,
hoping to hide himself among them. Tublat, however, was close upon his
heels, so that he had no opportunity to seek a place of concealment,
but saw that he would be put to it to escape at all.

Swiftly he sped toward the surrounding trees and with an agile bound
gained a lower limb with one hand,