Part 12 (1/2)

The following rined to discover that his huge, black prisoner had escaped during the night, while Werper was terrified for the saers discovered the pouch still in its place beneath his shi+rt, and within it the hard outlines of its contents

16

Tarzan Again Leads the Mangani

Achmet Zek with two of his followers had circled far to the south to intercept the flight of his deserting lieutenant, Werper Others had spread out in various directions, so that a vast circle had been for in toward the center

Achmet and the tith him halted for a short rest just before noon They squatted beneath the trees upon the southern edge of a clearing The chief of the raiders was in ill huh; but to have, at the same time, lost the jewels upon which he had set his avaricious heart was altogether too ry with his servant

Well, he still had the wo a fair price in the north, and there was, too, the buried treasure beside the ruins of the Englishle upon the opposite side of the clearing brought Achathered his rifle in readiness for instant use, at the sa his followers to silence and conceal behind the bushes the three waited, their eyes fastened upon the far side of the open space

Presently the foliage parted and a wo fearfully from side to side A er lurked before her, she stepped out into the clearing in full view of the Arab

Achht his breath with a muttered exclamation of incredulity and an iuarded at his camp!

Apparently she was alone, but Ach her Slowly Jane Clayton started across the clearing Twice already since she had quitted the village of the raiders had she barely escaped the fangs of carnivora, and once she had alh she was al safety she still was deterht on, until death or success terminated her endeavors

As the Arabs watched her from the safety of their concealment, and Ach directly into his clutches, another pair of eyes looked down upon the entire scene froe of an adjacent tree

Puzzled, troubled eyes they were, for all their gray and savage glint, for their oas struggling with an intangible suggestion of the faure of the wo of the bushes at the point froht her to a sudden stop and attracted the attention of the Arabs and the watcher in the tree to the saer reat, anthropoid ape waddled into view Behind him came another and another; but Lady Greystoke did not wait to learn how many more of the hideous creatures were so close upon her trail

With a sle, and as she reached the bushes there, Achmet Zek and his two henchmen rose up and seized her At the saiant dropped fro

Turning toward the astonished apes he gave voice to a short volley of low gutturals, and without waiting to note the effect of his words upon theed for the Arabs

Ach Jane Clayton toward his tethered horse His twoall threeto escape the Arab, turned and saw the ape-ht of hope illuminated her face

”John!” she cried ”Thank God that you have coreat apes, wondering, but obedient to his summons The Arabs saw that they would not have time to mount and make their escape before the beasts and the nized the latter as the redoubtable enemy of such as he, and he saw, too, in the circumstance an opportunity to rid himself forever of theto his men to follow his exaiant His followers, acting with no less alacrity than himself, fired almost simultaneously, and with the reports of the rifles, Tarzan of the Apes and two of his hairy henchrasses

The noise of the rifle shots brought the balance of the apes to a wondering pause, and, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Achalloped aith the now hopeless and grief-stricken woain Lady Greystoke found herself incarcerated in the filthy, little hut froood But this tiuarded by an additional sentry, but bound as well

Singly and in twos the searchers who had ridden out with Achian, returned ee and chagrin increased, until he was in such a transport of ferocious anger that none dared approach hi, Achmet Zek paced up and down the floor of his silken tent; but his teone and with hiems which had aroused the cupidity of his chief and placed the sentence of death upon the head of the lieutenant

With the escape of the Arabs the great apes had turned their attention to their fallen coreat white ape still breathed The hairyafter the fashi+on of their kind

Tarzan was the first to regain consciousness Sitting up, he looked about hi from a wound in his shoulder The shock had thrown hi slowly to his feet he let his eyes wander toward the spot where last he had seen the she, who had aroused within his savage breast such strange eani took her away,” replied one of the apes ”Who are you who speak the language of the Mangani?”

”I areatest of fighters When I roar, the jungle is silent and trembles with terror I am Tarzan of the Apes I have been away; but now I have come back to my people”