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He had heard noisy little Manu, and even the soft rustling of the parting

shrubbery where Sheeta passed before either of these alert animals sensed his

presence.

But however keen the senses of the ape-man, however swift his progress through

the wild country of his adoption, however mighty the muscles that bore him, he

was still mortal. Time and space placed their inexorable limits upon him; nor

was there another who realized this truth more keenly than Tarzan. He chafed

and fretted that he could not travel with the swiftness of thought and that the

long tedious miles stretching far ahead of him must require hours and hours of

tireless effort upon his part before he would swing at last from the final bough of

the fringing forest into the open plain and in sight of his goal.

Days it took, even though he lay up at night for but a few hours and left to

chance the finding of meat directly on his trail. If Wappi, the antelope, or Horta,

the boar, chanced in his way when he was hungry, he ate, pausing but long

enough to make the kill and cut himself a steak.

Then at last the long journey drew to its close and he was passing through the

last stretch of heavy forest that bounded his estate upon the east, and then this

was traversed and he stood upon the plain's edge looking out across his broad

lands towards his home.

At the first glance his eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed. Even at that

distance he could see that something was amiss. A thin spiral of smoke arose at

the right of the bungalow where the barns had stood, but there were no barns

there now, and from the bungalow chimney from which smoke should have

arisen, there arose nothing.

Once again Tarzan of the Apes was speeding onward, this time even more swiftly

than before, for he was goaded now by a nameless fear, more product of intuition

than of reason. Even as the beasts, Tarzan of the Apes seemed to possess a sixth

sense. Long before he reached the bungalow, he had almost pictured the scene

that finally broke upon his view.

Silent and deserted was the vine-covered cottage. Smoldering embers marked the

site of his great barns. Gone were the thatched huts of his sturdy retainers,

empty the fields, the pastures, and corrals. Here and there vultures rose and

circled above the carcasses of men and beasts.

It was with a feeling as nearly akin to terror as he ever had experienced that the

ape-man finally forced himself to enter his home. The first sight that met his eyes

set the red haze of hate and bloodlust across his vision, for there, crucified

Tarzan the Untamed