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a great price for her and that when he returned they should have some of the
spoils.
These things Tarzan did not know. All he knew was what he saw--a Negro
attempting to fly away with a white girl. Already the machine was slowly leaving
the ground. In a moment more it would rise swiftly out of reach. At first Tarzan
thought of fitting an arrow to his bow and slaying Usanga, but as quickly he
abandoned the idea because he knew that the moment the pilot was slain the
machine, running wild, would dash the girl to death among the trees.
There was but one way in which he might hope to succor her--a way which if it
failed must send him to instant death and yet he did not hesitate in an attempt to
put it into execution.
Usanga did not see him, being too intent upon the unaccustomed duties of a
pilot, but the blacks across the meadow saw him and they ran forward with loud
and savage cries and menacing rifles to intercept him. They saw a giant white
man leap from the branches of a tree to the turf and race rapidly toward the
plane. They saw him take a long grass rope from about his shoulders as he ran.
They saw the noose swinging in an undulating circle above his head. They saw
the white girl in the machine glance down and discover him.
Twenty feet above the running ape-man soared the huge plane. The open noose
shot up to meet it, and the girl, half guessing the ape-man's intentions, reached
out and caught the noose and, bracing herself, clung tightly to it with both
hands. Simultaneously Tarzan was dragged from his feet and the plane lurched
sideways in response to the new strain. Usanga clutched wildly at the control
and the machine shot upward at a steep angle. Dangling at the end of the rope
the ape-man swung pendulum-like in space. The Englishman, lying bound upon
the ground, had been a witness of all these happenings. His heart stood still as
he saw Tarzan's body hurtling through the air toward the tree tops among which
it seemed he must inevitably crash; but the plane was rising rapidly, so that the
beast-man cleared the top-most branches. Then slowly, hand over hand, he
climbed toward the fuselage. The girl, clinging desperately to the noose, strained
every muscle to hold the great weight dangling at the lower end of the rope.
Usanga, all unconscious of what was going on behind him, drove the plane higher
and higher into the air.
Tarzan glanced downward. Below him the tree tops and the river passed rapidly
to the rear and only a slender grass rope and the muscles of a frail girl stood
between him and the death yawning there thousands of feet below.
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