Almost before his assailant could determine whether or not his cast had been true, Tarzan had swung into the lower terraces of the forest and disappeared.

Making a wide detour, Tarzan circled about and came back, cautiously, along the middle terrace, to learn the identity of his assailant; and presently he came upon some twenty warriors huddled together and evidently suffering from an excess of terror.

"You missed him," one of them was saying, "and he will come and take vengeance upon us."

"We were fools," said another. "We should have waited until he came to our village. There we would have treated him like a friend; and then, when he was off his guard, fallen upon him and bound him."

"I do not like any of it," said a third. "I am afraid of Tarzan of the Apes."

"But the reward was very large," insisted another. "They say that it is so great that it would buy a hundred wives for every man in the village, and cows and goats and chickens the number of which has never been seen."

This was all very puzzling to the ape man, and he determined to solve the mystery before he went farther.

He knew where lay the village of these black men, and after dark he approached it and lay up in a tree nearby. Tarzan knew the habits of these people, and he knew that because it was a quiet evening without dancing or drinking they would soon all be wrapped in slumber on their sleeping mats within their huts and that only a single sentry would be on guard before the king's hut; so he waited with the infinite patience of the beast watching the lair of its quarry, and when utter quiet had fallen upon the village he approached the palisade from the rear. He ran the last few steps and, like a cat, scrambled to the top; then he dropped quietly into the shadows beyond.

Swiftly and with every sense alert he planned his retreat. He noted a large tree, one branch of which overhung the palisade. This would answer his purpose, though he would have to pass several huts to reach it. The guard before the chief's hut had built a little fire to keep him warm, for the night was chill; but it was burning low-an indication to Tarzan that the man might be dozing.

Keeping in the denser shadows of the huts, the ape-man moved silently toward his quarry. He could hear the heavy breathing of the sleepers within the huts, and he had no fear of detection by them; but there was always the danger that some yapping cur might discover him.

The light of the stars moving across the face of a planet makes no noise. As noiseless was the progress of the apeman; and so he came to the chief's hut, undiscovered, and there he found what he had expected-a dozing sentry. Tarzan crept up behind the man. Simultaneously, steel-thewed fingers seized the man's throat and a strong hand was clapped over his mouth. A voice spoke in his ear: "Silence, and I will not kill."

The man struggled as Tarzan threw him across his shoulder. For a moment the fellow was paralyzed with terror, but presently he jerked his mouth momentarily from Tarzan's palm and voiced a terrified scream; then the ape-man closed upon the fellow's windpipe and commenced to run toward the tree that overhung the palisade; but already the village was aroused. Curs came yapping from the huts, followed by warriors sleepy-eyed and confused. A huge warrior buck blocked his way; but the Lord of the Jungle threw himself against him before the fellow could use his weapon, hurling him to the ground, and then, leaping over him, ran for the tree with curs and warriors now in hot pursuit.

Wind-driven as a sapling, the tree leaned toward the palisade at an angle of some forty-five degrees; and before the foremost warrior could overtake him, Tarzan, running up the inclined bole, had disappeared in the foliage. A moment later he dropped to the ground outside the palisade, quite confident that the natives would not pursue him there, at least not until they had wasted much time and talk, which is a characteristic off the African savage, and by that time he would be far away in the forest with his captive. Now he loosened his grip on the black's throat and set him on his feet. "Come with me quietly," he said, "and you will not be harmed."

The black trembled. "Who are you?" he asked. It was too dark for him to see his captor's features, and previously he had been in no position to see them.