s the man-thing either longer
fleeing, or idle. He too, creature of the wild, had sensed on the
instant the truth of the miracle of his saving, and turning in his
tracks, had leaped forward with raised bludgeon to Tarzan's assistance
and Numa's undoing. A single terrific blow upon the flattened skull of
the beast laid him insensible and then as Tarzan's knife found the wild
heart a few convulsive shudders and a sudden relaxation marked the
passing of the carnivore.

Leaping to his feet the ape-man placed his foot upon the carcass of his
kill and, raising his face to Goro, the moon, voiced the savage victory
cry that had so often awakened the echoes of his native jungle.

As the hideous scream burst from the ape-man's lips the man-thing
stepped quickly back as in sudden awe, but when Tarzan returned his
hunting knife to its sheath and turned toward him the other saw in the
quiet dignity of his demeanor no cause for apprehension.

For a moment the two stood appraising each other, and then the
man-thing spoke. Tarzan realized that the creature before him was
uttering articulate sounds which expressed in speech, though in a
language with which Tarzan was unfamiliar, the thoughts of a man
possessing to a greater or less extent the same powers of reason that
he possessed. In other words, that though the creature before him had
the tail and thumbs and great toes of a monkey, it was, in all other
respects, quite evidently a man.

The blood, which was now flowing down Tarzan's side, caught the
creature's attention. From the pocket-pouch at his side he took a small
bag and approaching Tarzan indicated by signs that he wished the
ape-man to lie down that he might treat the wound, whereupon, spreading
the edges of the cut apart, he sprinkled the raw flesh with powder from
the little bag. The pain of the wound was as nothing to the exquisite
torture of the remedy but, accustomed to physical suffering, the
ape-man withstood it stoically and in a few moments not only had the
bleeding ceased but the pain as well.

In reply to the soft and far from unpleasant modulations of the other's
voice, Tarzan spoke in various tribal dialects of the interior as well
as in the language of the great apes, but it was evident that the man
understood none of these. Seeing that they could not make each other
understood, the pithecanthropus advanced toward Tarzan and placing his
left hand over his own heart laid the palm of his right hand over the