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raised his face to the heavens and in a voice that sent the cold shudders through

the girl's slight frame answered the far-off cry.

Once again the beaters took up their drumming and the slow dance went on.

There was a certain fascination in the savage ceremony that held the girl

spellbound, and as there seemed little likelihood of her being discovered, she felt

that she might as well remain the balance of the night in her tree and resume her

flight by the comparatively greater safety of daylight.

Assuring herself that her packet of papers was safe she sought as comfortable a

position as possible among the branches, and settled herself to watch the weird

proceedings in the clearing below her.

A half-hour passed, during which the cadence of the drum increased gradually.

Now the great bull that had replied to the distant call leaped from the inner circle

to dance alone between the drummers and the other bulls. He leaped and

crouched and leaped again, now growling and barking, again stopping to raise his

hideous face to Goro, the moon, and, beating upon his shaggy breast, uttered a

piercing scream-the challenge of the bull ape, had the girl but known it.

He stood thus in the full glare of the great moon, motionless after screaming forth

his weird challenge, in the setting of the primeval jungle and the circling apes a

picture of primitive savagery and power--a mightily muscled Hercules out of the

dawn of life--when from close behind her the girl heard an answering scream, and

an instant later saw an almost naked white man drop from a near-by tree into the

clearing.

Instantly the apes became a roaring, snarling pack of angry beasts. Bertha

Kircher held her breath. What maniac was this who dared approach these

frightful creatures in their own haunts, alone against fifty? She saw the brown-

skinned figure bathed in moonlight walk straight toward the snarling pack. She

saw the symmetry and the beauty of that perfect body--its grace, its strength, its

wondrous proportioning, and then she recognized him. It was the same creature

whom she had seen carry Major Schneider from General Kraut's headquarters,

the same who had rescued her from Numa, the lion; the same whom she had

struck down with the butt of her pistol and escaped when he would have

returned her to her enemies, the same who had slain Hauptmann Fritz Schneider

and spared her life that night in Wilhelmstal.

Fear-filled and fascinated she watched him as he neared the apes. She heard

sounds issue from his throat--sounds identical with those uttered by the apes--

and though she could scarce believe the testimony of her own ears, she knew that

this godlike creature was conversing with the brutes in their own tongue.

Tarzan the Untamed