Jane would never know the manner of it. For that he thanked Heaven;
and he was thankful also that she at least was safe in the heart
of the world's greatest city. Safe among kind and loving friends
who would do their best to lighten her misery.

But the boy!

Tarzan writhed at the thought of him. His son! And now he--the
mighty Lord of the Jungle--he, Tarzan, King of the Apes, the only
one in all the world fitted to find and save the child from the
horrors that Rokoff's evil mind had planned--had been trapped like
a silly, dumb creature. He was to die in a few hours, and with
him would go the child's last chance of succour.

Rokoff had been in to see and revile and abuse him several times
during the afternoon; but he had been able to wring no word of
remonstrance or murmur of pain from the lips of the giant captive.

So at last he had given up, reserving his particular bit of exquisite
mental torture for the last moment, when, just before the savage
spears of the cannibals should for ever make the object of his
hatred immune to further suffering, the Russian planned to reveal
to his enemy the true whereabouts of his wife whom he thought safe
in England.

Dusk had fallen upon the village, and the ape-men could hear the
preparations going forward for the torture and the feast. The
dance of death he could picture in his mind's eye--for he had seen
the thing many times in the past. Now he was to be the central
figure, bound to the stake.