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Silently he leaped across the cabin. Schneider felt sinewy fingers at his throat.

He turned his head to see who had attacked him, and his eyes went wide when

he saw the face of the ape-man close above his own.

Grimly the fingers tightened upon the mate's throat. He tried to scream, to plead,

but no sound came forth. His eyes protruded as he struggled for freedom, for

breath, for life.

Jane Clayton seized her husband's hands and tried to drag them from the throat

of the dying man; but Tarzan only shook his head.

"Not again," he said quietly. "Before have I permitted scoundrels to live, only to

suffer and to have you suffer for my mercy. This time we shall make sure of one

scoundrel--sure that he will never again harm us or another," and with a sudden

wrench he twisted the neck of the perfidious mate until there was a sharp crack,

and the man's body lay limp and motionless in the ape-man's grasp. With a

gesture of disgust Tarzan tossed the corpse aside. Then he returned to the deck,

followed by Jane and the Mosula woman.

The battle there was over. Schmidt and Momulla and two others alone remained

alive of all the company of the Cowrie, for they had found sanctuary in the

forecastle. The others had died, horribly, and as they deserved, beneath the

fangs and talons of the beasts of Tarzan, and in the morning the sun rose on a

grisly sight upon the deck of the unhappy Cowrie; but this time the blood which

stained her white planking was the blood of the guilty and not of the innocent.

Tarzan brought forth the men who had hidden in the forecastle, and without

promises of immunity from punishment forced them to help work the vessel--the

only alternative was immediate death.

A stiff breeze had risen with the sun, and with canvas spread the Cowrie set in

toward Jungle Island, where a few hours later, Tarzan picked up Gust and bid

farewell to Sheeta and the apes of Akut, for here he set the beasts ashore to

pursue the wild and natural life they loved so well; nor did they lose a moment's

time in disappearing into the cool depths of their beloved jungle.

That they knew that Tarzan was to leave them may be doubted--except possibly

in the case of the more intelligent Akut, who alone of all the others remained

upon the beach as the small boat drew away toward the schooner, carrying his

savage lord and master from him.

And as long as their eyes could span the distance, Jane and Tarzan, standing

upon the deck, saw the lonely figure of the shaggy anthropoid motionless upon

the surf-beaten sands of Jungle Island.

160

The Beasts of Tarzan