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against the wall of the living-room, was Wasimbu, giant son of the faithful Muviro

and for over a year the personal bodyguard of Lady Jane.

The overturned and shattered furniture of the room, the brown pools of dried

blood upon the floor, and prints of bloody hands on walls and woodwork

evidenced something of the frightfulness of the battle that had been waged within

the narrow confines of the apartment. Across the baby grand piano lay the corpse

of another black warrior, while before the door of Lady Jane's boudoir were the

dead bodies of three more of the faithful Greystoke servants.

The door of this room was closed. With drooping shoulders and dull eyes Tarzan

stood gazing dumbly at the insensate panel which hid from him what horrid

secret he dared not even guess.

Slowly, with leaden feet, he moved toward the door. Gropingly his hand reached

for the knob. Thus he stood for another long minute, and then with a sudden

gesture he straightened his giant frame, threw back his mighty shoulders and,

with fearless head held high, swung back the door and stepped across the

threshold into the room which held for him the dearest memories and

associations of his life. No change of expression crossed his grim and stern-set

features as he strode across the room and stood beside the little couch and the

inanimate form which lay face downward upon it; the still, silent thing that had

pulsed with life and youth and love.

No tear dimmed the eye of the ape-man, but the God who made him alone could

know the thoughts that passed through that still half-savage brain. For a long

time he stood there just looking down upon the dead body, charred beyond

recognition, and then he stooped and lifted it in his arms. As he turned the body

over and saw how horribly death had been meted he plumbed, in that instant, the

uttermost depths of grief and horror and hatred.

Nor did he require the evidence of the broken German rifle in the outer room, or

the torn and blood-stained service cap upon the floor, to tell him who had been

the perpetrators of this horrid and useless crime.

For a moment he had hoped against hope that the blackened corpse was not that

of his mate, but when his eyes discovered and recognized the rings upon her

fingers the last faint ray of hope forsook him.

In silence, in love, and in reverence he buried, in the little rose garden that had

been Jane Clayton's pride and love, the poor, charred form and beside it the great

black warriors who had given their lives so futilely in their mistress' protection.

Tarzan the Untamed