Again the lord of the wilderness roared, turning his baleful gaze upon the altar.

And as they marched what sorry fate was already drawing down upon that peaceful, happy home!

At last Tarzan’s knife found the great heart, and with a final, spasmodic struggle the lion rolled over upon the marble floor, dead.

“It is your name—you are Tarzan,” cried La.

“They are black,” explained Tarzan. “It was a black who killed Kala. They are the enemies of the Manganis.”

“I shall sell her in the north,” replied the raider. “It is the only way, now. She should bring a good price.”

For a moment Werper had stood above the sleeping ape-man, his murderous knife poised for the fatal thrust; but fear stayed his hand.

“The great Tarmangani lies asleep there,” he said, pointing in the direction from which he had just come. “Come and we can kill him.”

“Tonight!” she thought. “Tonight, when it is dark I will torture him.”

“They will not kill you,” contradicted the ape-man. “No one will kill you while Tarzan of the Apes is here. Call them and we will talk with them.”

A few miles south of him, Jane Clayton lay panting among the branches of a tree in which she had taken refuge from a prowling and hungry lioness.

“Yes,” spoke up an old ape, “he is Tarzan. I know him. It is well that he has come back. Now we shall have good hunting.”

Tarzan of the Apes in all his savage life had never been accustomed to pause in argument with an antagonist.

“It is Achmet Zek and his raiders,” he whispered. “They are come for the gold.”

The creature was Chulk, and he looked down upon the unconscious man more in curiosity than in hate.

The sentries at the gate returned Werper’s salutations, and viewed with astonishment the prisoner whom he brought into the village with him.

Jane Clayton had risen to her feet as the Arab died, and now she came forward with outstretched hands toward Werper.

“The pretty pebbles?” cried the man upon his breast. “What did you with the pretty pebbles—with Tarzan’s pretty pebbles?”

“Quite dead,” he announced. “It is too bad—he was a splendid creature,” and then he turned to the work of liberating the Belgian.

Tarzan, her Tarzan, lived!