l face, and the memory of warm lips
crushed to his dissolved the fascinating picture he had been drawing of
his old life.

The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across his shoulders and
took to the trees once more.

The men upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.

They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects, and
always the thing uppermost in the mind of each had caused the
conversation to lapse.

"MON DIEU," said the wagerer at length, "I can endure it no longer. I
am going into the jungle with my express and bring back that mad man."

"I will go with you," said one.

"And I"--"And I"--"And I," chorused the others.

As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some horrid nightmare
they hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headed
toward the jungle--each one heavily armed.

"God! What was that?" suddenly cried one of the party, an Englishman,
as Tarzan's savage cry came faintly to their ears.

"I heard the same thing once before," said a Belgian, "when I was in
the gorilla country. My carriers said it was the cry of a great bull
ape who has made a kill."

D'Arnot remembered Clayton's description of the awful roar with which
Tarzan had announced his kills, and he half smiled in spite of the
horror which filled him to think that the uncanny sound could have
issued from a human throat--from the lips of his friend.

As the party stood finally near the edge of the jungle, debating as to
the best distribution of their forces, they were startled by a low
laugh near them, and turning, beheld advancing toward them a giant
figure bearing a dead lion upon its broad shoulders.

Even D'Arnot was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossible that the man
could have so quickly dispatched a lion with the pitiful weapons he had
taken, or that alone he could have borne the huge carcass through the
tangled jungle.

The men crowded about Tarzan with many questions, but his only answer
was a laughing depreciation of his feat.

To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for his
heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed so often for food and
for self-preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable to
him. But he was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men--men accustomed
to hunting big game.

Incidentally, he had won ten thousand francs, for D'Arnot insisted that
he keep it all.

This was a very important item to Tarzan, who was just com