e great desire to
cover his nakedness with CLOTHES for he had learned from his picture
books that all MEN were so covered, while MONKEYS and APES and every
other living thing went naked.

CLOTHES therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the insignia of
the superiority of MAN over all other animals, for surely there could
be no other reason for wearing the hideous things.

Many moons ago, when he had been much smaller, he had desired the skin
of Sabor, the lioness, or Numa, the lion, or Sheeta, the leopard to
cover his hairless body that he might no longer resemble hideous
Histah, the snake; but now he was proud of his sleek skin for it
betokened his descent from a mighty race, and the conflicting desires
to go naked in prideful proof of his ancestry, or to conform to the
customs of his own kind and wear hideous and uncomfortable apparel
found first one and then the other in the ascendency.

As the tribe continued their slow way through the forest after the
passing of Sabor, Tarzan's head was filled with his great scheme for
slaying his enemy, and for many days thereafter he thought of little
else.

On this day, however, he presently had other and more immediate
interests to attract his attention.

Suddenly it became as midnight; the noises of the jungle ceased; the
trees stood motionless as though in paralyzed expectancy of some great
and imminent disaster. All nature waited--but not for long.

Faintly, from a distance, came a low, sad moaning. Nearer and nearer
it approached, mounting louder and louder in volume.

The great trees bent in unison as though pressed earthward by a mighty
hand. Farther and farther toward the ground they inclined, and still
there was no sound save the deep and awesome moaning of the wind.

Then, suddenly, the jungle giants whipped back, lashing their mighty
tops in angry and deafening protest. A vivid and blinding light
flashed from the whirling, inky clouds above. The deep cannonade of
roaring thunder belched forth its fearsome challenge. The deluge
came--all hell broke loose upon the jungle.

The tribe shivering from the cold rain, huddled at the bases of great
trees. The lightning, darting and flashing through the blackness,
showed wildly waving branches, whipping streamers and bending trunks.

Now and again some ancient patriarch of the woods, rent by a flashing
bolt, would crash in a thousand pieces among the surrounding trees,
carrying down numberless branches