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realizing now the relatively small numbers of the apes against them, had made a
determined stand and with spears and other weapons were endeavoring to
overcome the invaders. Three of the apes were already down, killed or mortally
wounded, when Tarzan, realizing that the battle must eventually go against the
apes unless some means could be found to break the morale of the Negroes, cast
about him for some means of bringing about the desired end. And suddenly his
eye lighted upon a number of weapons which he knew would accomplish the
result. A grim smile touched his lips as he snatched a vessel of boiling water from
one of the fires and hurled it full in the faces of the warriors. Screaming with
terror and pain they fell back though Numabo urged them to rush forward.
Scarcely had the first cauldron of boiling water spilled its contents upon them ere
Tarzan deluged them with a second, nor was there any third needed to send them
shrieking in every direction to the security of their huts.
By the time Tarzan had recovered his own weapons the girl had released the
young Englishman, and, with the six remaining apes, the three Europeans moved
slowly toward the village gate, the aviator arming himself with a spear discarded
by one of the scalded warriors, as they eagerly advanced toward the outer
darkness.
Numabo was unable to rally the now thoroughly terrified and painfully burned
warriors so that rescued and rescuers passed out of the village into the blackness
of the jungle without further interference.
Tarzan strode through the jungle in silence. Beside him walked Zu-tag, the great
ape, and behind them strung the surviving anthropoids followed by Fraulein
Bertha Kircher and Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, the latter a
thoroughly astonished and mystified Englishman.
In all his life Tarzan of the Apes had been obliged to acknowledge but few
obligations. He won his way through his savage world by the might of his own
muscle, the superior keenness of his five senses and his God-given power to
reason. Tonight the greatest of all obligations had been placed upon him--his life
had been saved by another and Tarzan shook his head and growled, for it had
been saved by one whom he hated above all others.
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