at neither trickery nor persuasion would avail now and
every precious minute counted. He looked again at the beautiful woman
who stood beside O-lo-a. He had never before seen her but he well knew
from palace gossip that she could be no other than the godlike stranger
whom Ko-tan had planned to make his queen.

"Bu-lot," he cried to his son, "take you your own woman and I will
take--mine!" and with that he sprang suddenly forward and seizing Jane
about the waist lifted her in his arms, so that before O-lo-a or
Pan-at-lee might even guess his purpose he had disappeared through the
hangings near the foot of the dais and was gone with the stranger woman
struggling and fighting in his grasp.

And then Bu-lot sought to seize O-lo-a, but O-lo-a had her
Pan-at-lee--fierce little tiger-girl of the savage
Kor-ul-ja--Pan-at-lee whose name belied her--and Bu-lot found that with
the two of them his hands were full. When he would have lifted O-lo-a
and borne her away Pan-at-lee seized him around the legs and strove to
drag him down. Viciously he kicked her, but she would not desist, and
finally, realizing that he might not only lose his princess but be so
delayed as to invite capture if he did not rid himself of this clawing,
scratching she-jato, he hurled O-lo-a to the floor and seizing
Pan-at-lee by the hair drew his knife and--

The curtains behind him suddenly parted. In two swift bounds a lithe
figure crossed the room and before ever the knife of Bu-lot reached its
goal his wrist was seized from behind and a terrific blow crashing to
the base of his brain dropped him, lifeless, to the floor. Bu-lot,
coward, traitor, and assassin, died without knowing who struck him down.

As Tarzan of the Apes leaped into the pool in the gryf pit of the
temple at A-lur one might have accounted for his act on the hypothesis
that it was the last blind urge of self-preservation to delay, even for
a moment, the inevitable tragedy in which each some day must play the
leading role upon his little stage; but no--those cool, gray eyes had
caught the sole possibility for escape that the surroundings and the
circumstances offered--a tiny, moonlit patch of water glimmering
through a small aperture in the cliff at the surface of the pool upon
its farther side. With swift, bold strokes he swam for speed alone
knowing that the water would in no way deter his pursuer. Nor did it.
Tarzan heard the great splash as the huge creature plunged into the
pool beh