第53章 In the Hands of Savages.(6)

At last the spear reached out and touched the ape-man on the breast and when it came away, a little trickle of blood ran down the smooth, brown hide and almost simultaneously there broke from the outer periphery of the expectant audience a woman's shriek which seemed a signal for a series of hideous screamings, growlings and barkings, and a great commotion upon that side of the circle. The victims could not see the cause of the disturbance, but Tarzan did not have to see, for he knew by the voices of the apes the identity of the disturbers.

He only wondered what had brought them and what the pur-pose of the attack, for he could not believe that they had come to rescue him.

Numabo and his warriors broke quickly from the circle of their dance to see pushing toward them through the ranks of their screaming and terrified people the very white girl who had escaped them a few nights before, and at her back what ap-peared to their surprised eyes a veritable horde of the huge and hairy forest men upon whom they looked with consider-able fear and awe.

Striking to right and left with his heavy fists, tearing with his great fangs, came Zu-tag, the young bull, while at his heels, emulating his example, surged his hideous apes. Quickly they came through the old men and the women and children, for straight toward Numabo and his warriors the girl led them.

It was then that they came within range of Tarzan's vision and he saw with unmixed surprise who it was that led the apes to his rescue.

To Zu-tag he shouted: "Go for the big bulls while the she unbinds me," and to Bertha Kircher: "Quick! Cut these bonds.

The apes will take care of the blacks."

Turning from her advance the girl ran to his side. She had no knife and the bonds were tied tightly but she worked quick-ly and coolly and as Zu-tag and his apes closed with the war-riors, she succeeded in loosening Tarzan's bonds sufficiently to permit him to extricate his own hands so that in another min-ute he had freed himself.

"Now unbind the Englishman," he cried, and, leaping for-ward, ran to join Zu-tag and his fellows in their battle against the blacks. Numabo and his warriors, realizing now the rela-tively small numbers of the apes against them, had made a determined stand and with spears and other weapons were en-deavoring to overcome the invaders. Three of the apes were already down, killed or mortally wounded, when Tarzan, real-izing that the battle must eventually go against the apes unless some means could be found to break the morale of the Ne-groes, cast about him for some means of bringing about the desired end. And suddenly his eye lighted upon a number of weapons which he knew would accomplish the result. A grim smile touched his lips as he snatched a vessel of boiling water from one of the fires and hurled it full in the faces of the warriors. Screaming with terror and pain they fell back though Numabo urged them to rush forward.

Scarcely had the first cauldron of boiling water spilled its contents upon them ere Tarzan deluged them with a second, nor was there any third needed to send them shrieking in every direction to the security of their huts.

By the time Tarzan had recovered his own weapons the girl had released the young Englishman, and, with the six remain-ing apes, the three Europeans moved slowly toward the vil-lage gate, the aviator arming himself with a spear discarded by one of the scalded warriors, as they eagerly advanced to-ward the outer darkness.

Numabo was unable to rally the now thoroughly terrified and painfully burned warriors so that rescued and rescuers passed out of the village into the blackness of the jungle with-out further interference.

Tarzan strode through the jungle in silence. Beside him walked Zu-tag, the great ape, and behind them strung the sur-viving anthropoids followed by Fraulein Bertha Kircher and Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, the latter a thor-oughly astonished and mystified Englishman.

In all his life Tarzan of the Apes had been obliged to ac-knowledge but few obligations. He won his way through his savage world by the might of his own muscle, the superior keenness of his five senses and his God-given power to reason.

Tonight the greatest of all obligations had been placed upon him -- his life had been saved by another and Tarzan shook his head and growled, for it had been saved by one whom he hated above all others.