time at his disposal he had stepped into the recess, unslung his
long rope and leaning far out shot the sinuous noose, with the
precision of long habitude, toward the menacing figure wielding
its heavy club above Ta-den. There was a momentary pause of the
rope-hand as the noose sped toward its goal, a quick movement of
the right wrist that closed it upon its victim as it settled over
his head and then a surging tug as, seizing the rope in both hands,
Tarzan threw back upon it all the weight of his great frame.

Voicing a terrified shriek, the Waz-don lunged headforemost from
the recess above Ta-den. Tarzan braced himself for the coming
shock when the creature's body should have fallen the full length
of the rope and as it did there was a snap of the vertebrae that
rose sickeningly in the momentary silence that had followed the
doomed man's departing scream. Unshaken by the stress of the suddenly
arrested weight at the end of the rope, Tarzan quickly pulled the
body to his side that he might remove the noose from about its
neck, for he could not afford to lose so priceless a weapon.

During the several seconds that had elapsed since he cast the
rope the Waz-don warriors had remained inert as though paralyzed
by wonder or by terror. Now, again, one of them found his voice
and his head and straightway, shrieking invectives at the strange
intruder, started upward for the ape-man, urging his fellows to
attack. This man was the closest to Tarzan. But for him the ape-man
could easily have reached Ta-den's side as the latter was urging
him to do. Tarzan raised the body of the dead Waz-don above his
head, held it poised there for a moment as with face raised to the
heavens he screamed forth the horrid challenge of the bull apes of
the tribe of Kerchak, and with all the strength of his giant sinews