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minutes the men seemed to be investigating the stronghold which their quarry
had discovered. She could hear them both to the north and south and then from
where she lay she saw a lion charging for the ape-man before her. She saw the
giant arm swing back with the curved saber and she saw it fall with terrific
velocity and meet the lion as he rose to grapple with the man, cleaving his skull
as cleanly as a butcher opens up a sheep.
Then she heard footsteps running rapidly toward Smith-Oldwick and, as his
pistol spoke, there was a scream and the sound of a falling body. Evidently
disheartened by the failure of their first attempt the assaulters drew off, but only
for a short time. Again they came, this time a man opposing Tarzan and a lion
seeking to overcome Smith-Oldwick. Tarzan had cautioned the young Englishman
not to waste his cartridges upon the lions and it was Otobu with the Xujan spear
who met the beast, which was not subdued until both he and Smith-Oldwick had
been mauled, and the latter had succeeded in running the point of the saber the
girl had carried, into the beast's heart. The man who opposed Tarzan
inadvertently came too close in an attempt to cut at the ape-man's head, with the
result that an instant later his corpse lay with the neck broken upon the body of
the lion.
Once again the enemy withdrew, but again only for a short time, and now they
came in full force, the lions and the men, possibly a half dozen of each, the men
casting their spears and the lions waiting just behind, evidently for the signal to
charge.
"Is this the end?" asked the girl.
"
No," cried the ape-man, "for we still live!"
The words had scarcely passed his lips when the remaining warriors, rushing in,
cast their spears simultaneously from both sides. In attempting to shield the girl,
Tarzan received one of the shafts in the shoulder, and so heavily had the weapon
been hurled that it bore him backward to the ground. Smith-Oldwick fired his
pistol twice when he too was struck down, the weapon entering his right leg
midway between hip and knee. Only Otobu remained to face the enemy, for the
Englishman, already weak from his wounds and from the latest mauling he had
received at the claws of the lion, had lost consciousness as he sank to the ground
with this new hurt.
As he fell his pistol dropped from his fingers, and the girl, seeing, snatched it up.
As Tarzan struggled to rise, one of the warriors leaped full upon his breast and
bore him back as, with fiendish shrieks, he raised the point of his saber above the
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