Ta-den's act. "It is spoken!"

"The three as one!" cried Tarzan of the Apes. "To the death!" and
his blade flashed in the sunlight.

"Let us go, then," said Om-at; "my knife is dry and cries aloud
for the blood of Es-sat."

The trail over which Ta-den and Om-at led and which scarcely could
be dignified even by the name of trail was suited more to mountain
sheep, monkeys, or birds than to man; but the three that followed
it were trained to ways which no ordinary man might essay. Now, upon
the lower slopes, it led through dense forests where the ground was
so matted with fallen trees and over-rioting vines and brush that
the way held always to the swaying branches high above the tangle;
again it skirted yawning gorges whose slippery-faced rocks gave
but momentary foothold even to the bare feet that lightly touched
them as the three leaped chamois-like from one precarious foothold
to the next. Dizzy and terrifying was the way that Om-at chose
across the summit as he led them around the shoulder of a towering
crag that rose a sheer two thousand feet of perpendicular rock above
a tumbling river. And when at last they stood upon comparatively
level ground again Om-at turned and looked at them both intently
and especially at Tarzan of the Apes.

"You will both do," he said. "You are fit companions for Om-at,
the Waz-don."

"What do you mean?" asked Tarzan.