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artificial lights which immediately appeared in many of the windows visible to

him.

Tarzan had noticed that the roofs of most of the buildings were flat, the few

exceptions being those of what he imagined to be the more pretentious public

structures. How this city had come to exist in this forgotten part of unexplored

Africa the ape-man could not conceive. Better than another, he realized

something of the unsolved secrets of the Great Dark Continent, enormous areas

of which have as yet been untouched by the foot of civilized man. Yet he could

scarce believe that a city of this size and apparently thus well constructed could

have existed for the generations that it must have been there, without intercourse

with the outer world. Even though it was surrounded by a trackless desert

waste, as he knew it to be, he could not conceive that generation after generation

of men could be born and die there without attempting to solve the mysteries of

the world beyond the confines of their little valley.

And yet, here was the city surrounded by tilled land and filled with people!

With the coming of night there arose throughout the jungle the cries of the great

cats, the voice of Numa blended with that of Sheeta, and the thunderous roars of

the great males reverberated through the forest until the earth trembled, and

from within the city came the answering roars of other lions.

A simple plan for gaining entrance to the city had occurred to Tarzan, and now

that darkness had fallen he set about to put it into effect. Its success hinged

entirely upon the strength of the vines he had seen surmounting the wall toward

the east. In this direction he made his way, while from out of the forest about him

the cries of the flesh-eaters increased in volume and ferocity. A quarter of a mile

intervened between the forest and the city wall--a quarter of a mile of cultivated

land unrelieved by a single tree. Tarzan of the Apes realized his limitations and so

he knew that it would undoubtedly spell death for him to be caught in the open

space by one of the great black lions of the forest if, as he had already surmised,

Numa of the pit was a specimen of the forest lion of the valley.

He must, therefore, depend entirely upon his cunning and his speed, and upon

the chance that the vine would sustain his weight.

He moved through the middle terrace, where the way is always easiest, until he

reached a point opposite the vine-clad portion of the wall, and there he waited,

listening and scenting, until he might assure himself that there was no Numa

within his immediate vicinity, or, at least, none that sought him. And when he

was quite sure that there was no lion close by in the forest, and none in the

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Tarzan the Untamed