the center of a dimly-lighted room. An oil lamp burned upon a high,
old-fashioned mantel, casting its dim rays over a dozen repulsive
figures. All but one were men. The other was a woman of about
thirty. Her face, marked by low passions and dissipation, might
once have been lovely. She stood with one hand at her throat,
crouching against the farther wall.

"Help, monsieur," she cried in a low voice as Tarzan entered the
room; "they were killing me."

As Tarzan turned toward the men about him he saw the crafty, evil
faces of habitual criminals. He wondered that they had made no
effort to escape. A movement behind him caused him to turn. Two
things his eyes saw, and one of them caused him considerable
wonderment. A man was sneaking stealthily from the room, and in
the brief glance that Tarzan had of him he saw that it was Rokoff.
But the other thing that he saw was of more immediate interest. It
was a great brute of a fellow tiptoeing upon him from behind with
a huge bludgeon in his hand, and then, as the man and his confederates
saw that he was discovered, there was a concerted rush upon Tarzan
from all sides. Some of the men drew knives. Others picked up
chairs, while the fellow with the bludgeon raised it high above
his head in a mighty swing that would have crushed Tarzan's head
had it ever descended upon it.

But the brain, and the agility, and the muscles that had coped with
the mighty strength and cruel craftiness of Terkoz and Numa in the
fastness of their savage jungle were not to be so easily subdued
as these apaches of Paris had believed.