N. R.

"P.S.--The balance of your punishment has to do with what shallpresently befall your wife--that I shall leave to your imagination."

As he finished reading, a slight sound behind him brought him backwith a start to the world of present realities.

Instantly his senses awoke, and he was again Tarzan of the Apes.

As he wheeled about, it was a beast at bay, vibrant with the instinctof self-preservation, that faced a huge bull-ape that was alreadycharging down upon him.

The two fortnights that had elapsed since Tarzan had come out of thesavage jungle with his rescued mate had witnessed slight diminutionof the mighty powers that had made him the invincible lord of thejungle. His great estates in Uziri had claimed much of his timeand attention, and there he had found ample field for the practicaluse and retention of his almost superhuman powers; but naked andunarmed to do battle with the shaggy, bull-necked beast that nowconfronted him was a test that the ape-man would scarce have welcomedat any period of his ferocious existence.

But there was no alternative other than to meet the rage-maddenedcreature with the weapons with which nature had endowed him.

0ver the bull's shoulder Tarzan could see now the heads and shouldersof perhaps a dozen more of these mighty fore-runners of primitiveman.