Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-09

vealed before them In the fireligl,
white Il
hole bteween two rocks to escape the
tyrannosaurus six million years ago.
The morning following the disap-
pearance of Rabba Kega, the war
riors set out with Mbonga, the chief,
to examine the trap they had set for
Numa. Long before they reached the
cage, they heard the roaring of a
great lion and guessed that they had
made a successful bag, so it was
with shouts of joy that they ap-
preached the spot where they should
find their captive.
Yes! there he was, a great, mag
nificent specimen--a huge, black
named lion. The warriors were
frantic with delight. They leaped
into the air and uttered savage cries
-hoarse victory cries, and then they
came closer, and the cries died upon
their hps, and their eyes went wide
so that the whites showed all
around their irises, and their pendu-
lous lower lips dropped with their
dropping jaws. They drew back in
terror at the sight within the cage
the mauled and mutilated corpse of
what had, yesterday, been Rabba
Kega, the witch-doctor.
The captured lion had been too
angry and frightened to feed upon
.the body of his kill; but he had
vented upon it much of his rage, un-
til it was frightful thing to behold.
From his perch in a nearby tree
Tarzan of the Apes, Lord Grey
stoke, looked down upon the black
warriors and grinned. Once again
his self-pride in his ability as a
practical joker asserted itself. 1t
had lain dormant for some t}me fol-
lowing the painful mauling he had
received that time he leaped among
the apes of Kerchak clothed in the
skin of Numa; but this joke was a
decided success.
After a few moments of terror,
the blacks came closer to the cage,
rage taking. the place of fear-rage
and curiosity. How had Rabba
Kega happened to be in the cage?
Where was the kid? There was no
sign nor remnant of the original bait.
They looked closely and they saw, to
their horror, that the corpse of their
erstwhile fellow was bound with the
very cord with which they had Sc
cured the kid. Who could have done
this thing? They looked at one an
other.
Tubuto was the first to speak. He
had come hopefully out with the
expedition that morning. Some
where he might find evidence of the
death of Rabba Kega. Now he had
found it, and he was the first to find
an explanation.
No one contradicted Tubuto, for,
indeed, who else could it have been
but the great, hairless ape they all
so feared? And so their hatred of
Tarzan increased again with an in
creased fear of him. And Tarzan
sat in his tree and hugged himself.
No one there felt sorrow because
of the death of Rabba Kega; but
each of the blacks experienced a
personal fear of the ingenious mind
which might discover for any of
them death equally horrible to that
which the witch-doctor had suffered.
1t was a subdued and thoughtful
company which dragged the captive
lion along the broad elephant path
back to the village of Mbonga, the
chief. .
And it was With sigh of relief
that they finally rolled it into the
village and closed the gates behind
them, Each had experienced the
sensation of being spied upon from
the moment they left the spot where
the trap had been set, though none
had seen or heard aught to give
tangible food to his fears.
At the sight of the body within
the cage with the lion, the women
and children of the village set up a
most frightful lamentation, working
themselves into>a joyous hysteria
which far 4transcended the happy
misery derived bEtheir more ciyi-
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